Fenced Minds
eventually make ruined countries
Nellie Bowles and Bari Weiss are extremely conventional liberals, a lesbian couple, Jewish, graduates of Columbia University, professional journalists, and residents of a very blue big city. But Bari Weiss left the New York Times because of her support for free speech and her concerns about cancel culture, so she’s LiTEraLLy tHe mOSt hOrRiBLesT nAzI eVEr!!!!!!!!
See also. Jewish lesbians, the very heart of the Nazi movement.
There’s been a theme on this page. Maybe you’ve noticed.
The president of the American Association of University Professors looks at masked people in armbands behind barricades, shutting down areas on college campuses to “Zionists” and people who seem a little Zionist-adjacent, wink wink…
…and the AAUP president warns that shutting down those closed encampments of armband-wearing mobs is an assault on academia’s culture of open debate and free inquiry. She’s insane. She doesn’t see the most obvious reality, in the most basic way. She has broken with the world of the real.
Journalists warn that the dangerous American far-right is maneuvering to prevent the passage of a bill to punish antisemitism, and they also note that opposition to the antisemitism bill opposed by the far-right is being led by Jerrold Nadler — a liberal Jewish congressman from New York City. Why does this make sense? It doesn’t. It doesn’t begin to. They’re insane. They doesn’t see the most obvious reality, in the most basic way. They have broken with the world of the real.
The highly respectable establishment journalist Anne Applebaum warns that evil autocrats always blame dissent on outsiders and always claim that dissidents are being steered by foreign powers, and then she warns — in the same essay — that MAGA Republicans are tools of Vladimir Putin. She doesn’t notice what she’s done. She’s insane. She doesn’t see the most obvious reality, in the most basic way. She has broken with the world of the real.
The journalist and professor Tom Nichols writes that we must fight to protect democracy, which is extremely important, because it’s being threatened by the stupidity and worthlessness of the human garbage who make up the great mass of humanity, all the braindead ignorant common trash who are tragically permitted to vote and express their opinions instead of just shutting up and obeying their credentialed superiors. He doesn’t notice what he’s done. He’s insane. He doesn’t see the most obvious reality, in the most basic way. He has broken with the world of the real.
And so on. If you want a thousand more examples, consume almost any “news” product. If you’re listening to an explanation from a prominent journalist, a governor, a mayor, a member of Congress, a professor, a CEO, and so on, you have a remarkably good chance of listening to psychotic unreality.
The epistemic closure of the American cultural mainstream has become…words fail me. I tried to finish this sentence for ten minutes. They’re killing us, sowing ruin that we’ll all reap, and reap, and reap. I’m increasingly confident that our institutions are hollow: a military unable to win wars, a press unable to describe reality in basic ways, government that exists to pay cronies, schools that don’t teach, doctors who don’t heal, judges who don’t uphold the law. The most powerful military in the history of the world announced near the end of 2023 that it would join a coalition of other powerful nations to crush the Houthis, a rebel group in the poorest country on earth, who were attacking shipping in the Red Sea. Update:
Some of you, reading this, are doctors who heal and teachers who teach, and so on. Yes, there are exceptions to the trend. But the trend remains, and the nonconforming outliers are under attack. Remember that Los Angeles Times legal analyst Harry Litman, a former federal prosecutor, is disgusted with Judge Aileen Cannon for repeatedly considering arguments from Donald Trump’s lawyers. Just throw his ass in prison, moron! That’s what courts are for!
We live in the time of the Great Inversion, the constant imposition of false meaning on events and patterns. Every single day I read a piece of news that describes something and then explains the meaning of the described thing — General Mark Milley stood up for our Constitution by telling other high-ranking military officers to regard lawful direct orders from their constitutionally designated commander-in-chief as presumptively illegitimate and unworthy of execution without Milley’s say-so, which is very heroic and patriotic — and I tilt my head like a confused dog.
Mimetic credentialing and the development of status through performative language barriers are a cultural dead end. A bunch of prominent people have crawled so far up their own asses that they think their rectal lining is the world.
Culturally, socially, politically, economically, legally, and professionally, these people need to be hurt, badly and repeatedly. We need to hurt them. They need to be healed by pain. People should pay a hard price for this level of stupidity and moral emptiness. We need to fix this.
"She has broken with the world of the real." That's postmodernism: the separation of words from reality. Heck, it even admits that -- proudly. And the laptop class is almost uniformly postmodernist.
"prominent people have crawled so far up their own asses that they think their rectal lining is the world." I almost blew chai tea out my nose on that one, Chris.
"these people need to be hurt"
This is a big deal. It's not funny. I really struggle with this: how to balance forgiveness and grace with accountability. I struggled with it after COVID too when mask lunatics suddenly memory holed everything they'd done and expected the rest of us (who they'd been calling murderers for 2 years) to write it off with a, "well, we did the best we could with limited information." But I tried to let it go.
When the activists who demanded that we get rid of police officers later complain about how violent their cities are and expect the rest of us to pretend they didn't have a hand in creating that violence... I try to let it go. Focus on the good. Focus on the fact that urban cities are becoming safer again.
When journalists suddenly rediscover that objective reality exists outside of their words and that their descriptions are completely unrepresentative of it (as Phillip K Dick says: "reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, is still there")... I will try to let it go.
When the doctors and social workers and teachers all suddenly memory hole how they've sliced off and withered the private parts of thousands of vulnerable teenagers... I will not be able to let it go.
My faith teaches forgiveness, and so I do try to forgive all of these. I try to forgive regardless of your repentance. I forgive not for you but for me, because being perpetually angry with you is poisonous to my own soul. But my faith also teaches justice. And the idea that Christianity teaches only Heavenly justice is simply wrong. Christianity is where the concept of "social justice" originates, specifically the Catholic Worker movement of the early 20th century. Justice is something to be sought here "on Earth, as it is in Heaven". Man's justice will always be a pale shadow of God's. Man's justice must always be tempered by the knowledge that man is sinful. But we're not off the hook. "Just don't make waves and let God deal with the injustices" is as wrong as "kill them all and God will know his own" (supposedly spoken by Fr Arnaud Amalric during the crusades.)
So I really struggle with how to handle accountability for these sorts of behaviors. Assuming our tribe manages to attain power to actually hold people accountable, how should we do it? What is the appropriate penalty for doctors who sliced the private parts of vulnerable teenagers? For blue-haired teachers who taught fellatio techniques to 11 year olds? For open race hustlers who profited by egging on mobs that were burning down poor black neighborhoods? On my bad days I can think of a variety of Medieval tortures that would be appropriate. But man's justice must always be be performed in the knowledge of man's sinfulness: "there but for the grace of God go I". So how do we do it? I'm not sure. I would love to hear other serious ideas on this subject.
These clowns need to feel the pain of everyone laughing at them. Where reason fails, ridicule prevails. It’s our duty, comrades.