"It’s like the newspaper is a book of Sylvia Plath poems."
Plath might be one of the most, if not *the* most, overrated writers of the past sixty years. I found The Bell Jar to have been a prototype Tumblr in print, just godawful head-up-ass bullshittery and no question the rancid birth lizard of so much of the bilge that passes for "literature" since she took a look inside for that pilot light.
Thank you for saying this. I'm not interested in women's emotional life. Why women think everyone should be interested in their mental illness is beyond me.
"Why women think everyone should be interested in their mental illness is beyond me.”
It’s because pop culture has been telling women for years that mental illness is a desirable trait that will be rewarded with extra attention and a victim bonus.
The first time I encountered the expression ‘believe all women’ I laughed out loud and I am one.
This will get me banned somewhere, and I’m ok with that. Women’s unique, irreplaceable, invaluable skills—and dare I say—virtues are compassion, empathy, intuition, commitment, and emotional range. Extraordinary and highly useful in creating and sustaining a family, the foundation of any successful community. In order to break that solidity, women have been told there is more to life than family and home. With predictable results. When I saw a story (NYT?) that “regretting children”—not choosing not to have any, but regretting the ones one has— is now a thing, I swooned. This is how it ends.
But strong families also need strong men. Feminism, in all of its iterations has degraded men and vilified all the traits that make them essential. Sixty years ago the pill and abortion on demand created a self indulgent environment that invited women to degrade themselves and today the cute girl next door thinks OnlyFans is a respectable way to make money. But that’s only one downstream symptom of the diseased worldview that fuels too much of our cultural feedback loop.
Can we back out of this mess? In the end nature will win because nature sides with reality. The epidemic of self involvement that invites women to believe themselves superior to reality is not sustainable.
Gotta bring up Alex Jones to this discussion. I am not a AJ aficionado, though he often has said many important but unpopular things long before others did. And of late he's gone off the deep end with self-destructive Trump hatred. Not that Trump isn't deserving of animus for abandoning the very voters who stood with him through two impeachments and four years in the wilderness, traded his most loyal supporters in for the totalitarians and oligarchs who opposed him those long years.
That disclaimer aside, I bring Alex Jones into this because of the lawsuit he was subjected to and award he was ordered to pay. For hurting the feelings of Sandy Hook parents. Not for shooting their children dead. Not even for manufacturing the gun used to kill their children. But for saying something that hurt their feelings. That's it.
Largest civil damages award for any lawsuit ever awarded in history. Not for manufacturing an "unsafe at any speed" Corvair. Not for manufacturing deadly Big pHARMa drugs. Not for any actual physical/monetary harms or losses. Just hurt feelings.
A corrupt court and corrupt judge and corrupt prosecutor conspired to deprive him of his right to a fair trial, introduce exculpatory evidence, no ability to raise any defense. Even SCOTUS upheld this atrocity that should've never made the insides of any courtroom. Other than in a Banana Republic. Which we now live in. Because in a Banana Republic all that's needed to destroy an unfavored citizen is the hurt feelz of someone who is favored.
The US today is filled with leaders who suffer from Banana Envy.
The Corvair was not actually unsafe. From Wikipedia:
This review panel then issued its own 24-page report (PB 211-014, available from NTIS), which concluded that "the 1960–63 Corvair compares favorably with contemporary vehicles used in the tests ... the handling and stability performance of the 1960–63 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover, and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic."
Misunderstood. It takes two, absolutely. Feminine and masculine traits are complementary and make possible the bond that builds, sustains and lasts. That’s why in my humble, non feminist, and defender of private property (just threw that in to see who’s still awake) opinion, traditional marriage between man and woman for better or worse, richer or poorer, as long as we both shall live should move back to the top of the chart. Oh yeah one more thing, Gentle parenting? Steerike!
Those aren’t women’s skills. They are human skills and women have no monopoly on them. Altho I did read ‘emotional range’ as ‘emotional rage’ and I did grant you that one.
I don't know a single woman who exhibits any of those virtues. What I see is narcissism and a desire to insert themselves into every situation for the attention it gets them. In my world, the men have to have all of those virtues *and* be the serious, thoughtful ones while women go around bemoaning their fate at having to *work* for a living as if nothing could be more horrible.
"compassion, empathy, intuition, commitment, and emotional range"
I am a man and I have all of those things, so they are hardly unique to women. I guess the difference is I don't let them run out of control and make me crazy.
For the record, my use of “unique” did not imply monopoly or exclusivity. Of course men can share the virtues I described above. Just as women can share strength, leadership, directness and aggression. Family building is a team sport. The complementariness (geez Val is that even a word?) of the skills and virtues is what creates love and stability needed for growth. Ok. I’m done now.
Upper class women think that middle class women should think that everyone should be interested in their mental illness because it suppresses middle class women’s fertility, leaving less competition for the offspring of upper class women; who marry, stay married, have more than replacement level numbers of kids and generally live actual lives diametrically different than the lives they say women should aspire to. It’s reproductive suppression, just like the alpha female wolf suppresses the fertility of the other females in the pack.
Say this about wolves and no one bats an eye. But because people took sociology 101, they think we are not animals with instinctual subconscious behaviors.
It would be nice if women would start paying attention to how destructive other women are, instead of constantly blaming men for stuff that is mostly been brought about by radical feminism. But I can only conclude that women aren't as smart as they think they are.....because they so seldom see it, and even less often call it out for what it is.
There are really good evolutionary reasons that women express their aggression and dominance the way they do, socially rather than physically; with babes in arms, physical confrontation between women is going to be disastrous for the community.
Women blame it on men because they need to stick together for emergency times, like when that really terrible, dominant man emerges in the community and they need to convince a coalition of sub-dominant men to kill him.
This runs so far under the surface, just like its corollaries in men, it’s very unlikely it becomes accounted for in the incentive structures of our society.
Schools need to ditch SEL ( social emotional learning). Mostly taught in expensive private schools. Instead of kids learning that feelings don’t necessarily reflect reality, they teach that feelings are everything, & we end up with weak, emotionally fragile adults. Correction : SEL social emotional learning.
Not familiar with ESL. Will say I was surprised upon encountering therapeutic protocols for adults to help them to understand that other people have minds. This was dressed up as adult education regarding 'theory of mind,' which should announce itself in toddlerhood. Remarking on this did not make me popular.
There's an interesting YouTube channel, Teacher Therapy, which is hosted by a former teacher who ran for her sanity. She interviews teachers or formers who have many interesting anecdotes. You're right about most of them. It's tragic that there is an exodus of the good ones.
I knew a woman who taught for awhile but felt very isolated in the teacher's lounge. No one was interested in the things she was interested in (her subject matter - literature). No one read like she did. No one was intellectually curious from what she could tell.
So she started listening to them talk and started reading what they were reading and bought a tv so she could watch the shows they watched and maybe fit in.
Then she realized that they were all ignorant - deeply, deeply ignorant and foolish. And not even remotely interested in changing that. She quit and got herself a desk job somewhere, I think.
Good teachers have a lot of trouble when they have to work with and around morons. It's so soul crushing.
A major component of SEL (besides GRIT!!!) is the dual notions of emotional regulation and trauma identification. While I agree that emotional regulation is important, the way it ended up playing out in the schools I taught in was absolutely stupid. Mind you, SEL in California was foisted on teachers by administrators, and they were given absolutely no support or tools.
So I’m not surprised by the result. Morning check ins, “support” circles where we “share” our feelings, “cooling” corners where you can go vent and scream—I observed it all. 20 minutes of every day wasted. And the admins loved it because they could check off a column on the yearly school plan. Which made the auditors happy (assuming auditors can be happy people).
After three years of it, I left teaching. I won’t be returning.
And it was sold to unsuspecting parents as “helping children deal with their emotions so they can learn better and to reduce bullying.” Who wouldn’t want that? In reality, as you pointed out, they are learning to leave logic behind and base decisions on their feelings.
It's called "validating feelings", dude. You're supposed to STFU and listen.
...And if what you hear is idiotic and proposes throwing your civil liberties under the bus 'cause feelings, just remember - her thoughts are just as valuable as yours.
Say what you will about islamists. They don't put up with this shit.
And yet somehow feminists make that a compelling alternative. I like to think of that particular accomplishment as the first step towards more female astronauts.
Read Plath when I was young and impressionable. Admired Plath's great depth of emotion and breadth of intellect.
Months passed. Re-read Plath. Wondered how it was that she survived herself long enough to inflict her pain, her deep, desperate, literary pain on others. Felt sad. Sad for readers everywhere.
There is a neuropsychiatrist, Graeme Yorston, who has a YouTube channel. You might find his recent two parter about Plath interesting. She just strikes me as a complete pain in the ass.
As a Canadian I have no idea why she's venerated as she is. And as a kinda-sorta neighbour of hers she is apparently a wretched human being, far more enamoured of herself than she has any right to be.
It's worth noting that what feminist supporters of Sylvia Plath did to poet laureate Ted Hughes was shocking. For years they blamed him for her death and labelled him a misogynistic abuser. It was only upon his death that her letters absolving him of any blame were published posthumously. He wore their unfounded accusations bearing it like a calvary for much of his life.
Sure, Hughes had an affair. That's not nothing. But one has to wonder how much her clearly deranged and distressing behaviour pushed him into the arms of another woman for simple human sympathy.
Schools need to ditch SEL ( emotional social learning). Mostly taught in expensive private schools. Instead of kids learning that feelings don’t necessarily reflect reality, they teach that feelings are everything, & we end up with weak, emotionally fragile adults. Correction : SEL social emotional learning.
I think we’re in the Fourth Turning, and a lot of the tension and panic comes from the left realizing that progressive globalism has failed and populist nationalism is rising. (Not “fascism,” even though their leftist perspective sees it that way, or pretends to.) The left is out of ideas and is just recycling tired and obsolete solutions like demonstrations and a “general strike.” As if average working people are going to Rise Up Against Bad Orange Man and support illegal immigrants, transing kids, anti-white DEI rules, and the rest of the wacky DNC agenda.
This divide is often blamed on Trump, which is partly true. His political Sun Tzu moves include taking majority, common sense positions (two sexes, no transing kids, deport illegals, crime is bad) and let Democrats take the opposite side. This is “polarizing” compared to milquetoast GOP establishment moderation, but it’s a winning political strategy that unites MAGA and moderates. I don’t see how Democrats can successfully counter it.
Though I mostly enjoy reading Bray’s substack, I find the comment section increasingly insufferable. But perhaps I’m not part of his intended audience.
Jew hate is the next cool thing. All the cool kids hate Jews. Even though the cool kids are young Jews,non practicing,self hating, just like their parents and grandparents. The American Jew paradox.
The only “counter” they have left is still in place. The corrupted cheat machines, and fraudulent mail in ballots. Until they’re both removed our country is in mortal danger. PERIOD.
We are definitely in a Fourth Turning. In my view, it won't just mean the collapse of the current leftist paradigm, the current rightist paradigm will go down alongside it. The left will fall further, naturally, because it had been dominant for so long. This era's basic left-right alignment was formed after WWII as we emerged from the last Fourth Turning.
It was interesting to watch the Never-Trump Republicans frothing at the mouth in 2015 - they knew in their gut that big change was coming to their comfortable grift, even if they didn't understand why. The end of an order inevitably comes with instability and chaos. Those who like, or dislike, Trump can nevertheless recognize him as a chaos agent. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else. After we reach the nadir, new leaders will emerge to bring order out of chaos, to solidify the new paradigm.
What part of the rightist paradigm do you see collapsing? I see the decline of Bush-era neocon internationalism, and the GOP establishment as the Washington Generals for progressivism, but neither of those are particularly right-wing.
That is correct. I was using 'right'/'left' in the abstract to describe the wings of the failing alignment. But actual leftists don't consider the DNC as leftists, actual conservatives know the GOP aren't rightists generally, with a few exceptions.
Whatever the wings are, they will both crumble during the crisis phase, and a new alignment will be forged.
They don’t have to effectively counter it if the republican establishment continues its do nothing course while the podcast people continue tearing MAGA into factions. Trump is time limited. Then what?
It’s true that Trump is still fighting the GOP establishment. However, I believe he’s got lots of political ammunition to win the midterms and keep pushing the party in a MAGA direction.
Another mismatch, not exactly what you’re talking about, but an interesting one.
Ten years of Trump is doing whatever to their nervous system.
My hometown is Flint, Mi.
Why is it that our national discussions always have room for some worthless desk-sitters’ fantasies and feelings, but never about the forty years of hollowing out Flint, a thousand towns just like it, and ten million working class families?
Do they think it is not traumatic to lose 75,000 working middle class jobs for the 75,000 working middle class workers who lost those jobs? Just so the stock portfolios of the desk-sitters could grow a couple percent?
Every day I am infuriated by this garbage. It’s infantile. It’s junior high popular girls having a breakdown over who Chad likes most vs. real people, real communities, real families being torn apart for four decades. My nearest relative lives an hour and forty minutes away, the rest thrown to the four winds looking for work. My circle of friends all left home after high school (including me) and now a few of us are drifting back home after 35 years because we’re starting to retire. I’m sorry, but our national policy of “Mexico and China need these good jobs more than our own people” has been vastly more traumatic than Trump being president.
You can turn off the tv and social media and Trump will stop traumatizing you. The entire middle of the country can’t turn off what been done to us by the popular kids for forty years.
I’m sick to death of this crap. The “empathetic”, “compassionate”, and “intelligent” people are the stupidest , weakest, fakest people since the beginning of time.
"Why is it that our national discussions always have room for some worthless desk-sitters’ fantasies and feelings, but never about the forty years of hollowing out Flint, a thousand towns just like it, and ten million working class families?"
Because, dear fellow, the referenced working class families are too busy adjusting to the reality of economic stressors, to publicly ruminate on the stress of being a thwarted narcissist.
"The “empathetic”, “compassionate”, and “intelligent” people are the stupidest , weakest, fakest people since the beginning of time."
Intuitively, I agree, but long years of experience have led me to conclude that The former of the above descriptions, contains concepts that do not (necessarily) belong together.
That conclusion affects the latter part of the description, which may have similar incompatibilities. "Fakest" is well supported by all evidence. The other two, may simply be a matter of the outward presentation of people who employ deceit in their pursuit of self-interest.
They deceive themselves, often enough, because the old axiom "sincerity sells" is a fundamental truism.
"Just so the stock portfolios of the desk-sitters could grow a couple percent?"
.....And here you have concisely struck at the very heart of the matter. As the nation has been looted over the decades, I heard countless "liberals" proclaim loudly that they wouldn't buy American "junk."
They are the very people you refer to, and most have become quite prosperous over that time. They inherited the systems built by American workers and businesses that were aligned in a national interest, then proceeded to destroy them by one atomized betrayal after another.
That very prosperity, formed a feedback loop, and we now see them beginning to face the consequences of their perfidy.
To deploy their own academic jargon; they "othered" American workers whose sphere of operations lies in the physical economy. One can be forgiven for responding to the angst of those who lost their USAID sinecures with "learn to code." Now we can add "but do it quick, because AI is now sending coders to the food pantries and homelessness services."
I live near Kalamazoo, across the state from Flint. My best friends are from Flint. I did the math just now and my head exploded. If there are really 20 million illegal immigrants in the USA, THAT'S 285 Kalamazoos (population 70,000). It is simply staggering. Ship good jobs away, then import people to drive our wages further down and housing costs further up.
I live near Pennsylvania coal country. The NYT did a piece about its decline. It included a few perfunctory paragraphs about failing local businesses. The rest of the piece, you won't be surprised, was centered around the feelings of the liberal editor at the shrinking local paper. Her opinions about her neighbors, how shockingly right-wing they were, hate, Trump, voting against their own interests, blah, blah, blah. And her nostalgia for it once being a solidly Democratic working class town, now 'tricked' into becoming hateful conservatives.
Of course the interviewer only talked to one of their own, not any of the struggling families the story was nominally about.
The left wing elites just don’t get it when it comes to why blue collar workers, who got royally screwed by decades of globalization that benefited said elites bottom line, would finally turn to a guy like Trump. It reminds me of the old joke about the narcissist saying, “But enough about me. What do you think about ME?”
Yes, the 'tricked' statement was a dead giveaway that they think electorates are entirely stupid and shouldn't be able to vote. Trump wasn't a perfect choice but at least he offered an alternative that appeared to hear what the working class was saying.
Almost all of the reasons why I could never vote for the Left are embodied in a single person: Jessica Tarlov.
I sometimes watch "The Five" because I just can't stay up late enough to see Greg Gutfeld at ten o'clock. Sometimes, though, I have to mute the TV when Tarlov is on one of her rants, because otherwise I'd have to reach through the screen to slap her.
Yes, Tarlov is effective as a foil for Gutfeld and the others, but my God, she is insufferable. Most of the time when she starts to make noises with her mouth, I just walk out of the room.
She's the doormat that Gutfeld wipes he's shoes on. She's not remotely in the same league which makes his takedowns of her poopy toddlerism all the more enjoyable.
Even funnier is that this dweeb wrote his manifesto as if he would a) have succeeded in killing someone, b) have been killed himself, at both of which he FAILED
I worked at the gym at CalTech a few summers ago. If ever there is a place that blurs the line between genius and madness, CalTech is it! I’ve never encountered so many crazy bright people. And, I mean really crazy!
“Clock Boy” was admitted to MIT for taking grief over for being Muslim and submitting a box full of broken alarm clock parts for a class project that his teacher thought was a bomb.
So much for the exclusivity of being an elite liberally run technical school…
A lot of people go through life living with an oppressor and oppressed mindset, that is, seeing most of the world as being divided up between those two or more groups, and it often gives people a feeling of purpose. It would be better to give one’s life purpose by doing something purposeful, but it is what it is.
Convince a group that they are being mistreated and that you will fight for them if they elect you to office, or maybe that you will happily lead them in an armed revolution. (Of course, after fighting in the armed revolution, instead of being given important jobs they will be lined up against the wall and shot, since they are too dangerous to keep around. Obviously not always true, the American Revolution being an exception. Nothing is perfect.)
Yeah, I know that feeling having suffering through it from 2020-2024. Problem is, the guy I voted for won but didn’t become President due to some late night shenanigans.
Key authors—Arendt, Scott, Łobaczewski, Orlov, Scheidel, Le Bon, Toynbee, Graeber, and Jung—converge on a clear-eyed diagnosis of the current Canadian situation. Arendt sees in it the banality of bureaucratic evil: civil servants applying procedures without genuine moral judgment, as in the handling of complaints at the Bar or the expansion of MAiD. Scott recognizes in it the logic of high modernity: the state reduces human complexity (attachment to one's home, deep convictions, freedom of conscience) to simple administrative categories, producing an uncorrectable visibility. Łobaczewski speaks of a soft pathocracy, where the system naturally selects those who adapt to the coldness of procedure. Orlov sees in it the first signs of political and social closure, while Scheidel sees a rigidification of the elites that blocks mobility and accumulates tensions. Toynbee would diagnose a petrification of the creative elites who have become dominant: instead of responding creatively to challenges, they protect themselves with administrative and ideological routines, accelerating the internal decline of a civilization. Graeber would emphasize the absurd and violent bureaucratic dimension: the system imposes useless and restrictive rules that stifle human imagination and creativity, transforming citizens into mere subjects. Jung, with his concept of enantiodromia (the swing of the pendulum), would add that any tendency pushed to extremes eventually generates its opposite: the more technocratic and administrative closure intensifies, the more it generates existential fatigue and resistance that, at some point, will tip in the other direction. Le Bon would finally remind us that people tolerate this closure for a long time as long as the discourse remains coherent, but that a saturation point can be suddenly crossed, leading to a brutal and emotional reversal. In Canada, we are not experiencing violent persecution, but rather a profound and insidious transformation: a legal, administrative, and cultural closure that wears us down slowly rather than striking us directly, while simultaneously creating the conditions for its own future rejection. We are not returning to the world as it was before; we are moving toward a new configuration where the tension between technocratic control and human resistance will remain permanent.
In Quebec and Canada, we are not (yet) in a situation of “civil war” in the classical sense of the term, like the one some European analysts fear for the United Kingdom or France. Rather, we are in an advanced stage of societal fracture and institutional closure, which already exhibits several precursors of a gradual balkanization. The most visible division is regional and cultural: Alberta and parts of the Prairies feel increasingly alienated from Ottawa, perceived as a centralizing elite that imposes policies (carbon tax, energy restrictions, mass immigration) contrary to their economic interests and their identity. In Quebec, the tension is twofold: on one side, a historical resistance to federal centralisation (Legault and Quebec nationalism), on the other, a growing divide between rural/traditional regions and large urban centres (Montreal especially), where the demographics are changing rapidly and where debates on identity, secularism, and reasonable accommodation remain lively. This divide is not yet violent, but it is deep and is being expressed.
You, too? The recent demise of the paragraph must be lamented, if not fully mourned. First they came for the punctuation. Next they came for the pronouns. And now...the paragraph! That marvel of civilization that permits both structure and time to inhale and exhale between thoughts.
"a kind of emergency rally point for a whole dickless culture of panicked man-boys and wine aunts." An instant classic right there. Made me laugh out loud.
My solution. Bring back the draft. Not everyone serves in the military--only the most fit and capable, but we could mobilize 400,000 co-eds to pick up kindling in the Sierra Nevada's for about 10-15 years, the Rockies...clean up homeless encampments, parks.
We need a "common American experience of suffering/service" to re-unite our people. Collective Suffering (this is the name of my outlined book-Collective Suffering: the Skeleton Key to building trust, compassion, and community) strips us all of our ego, our pretensions, our wealth, our political orientation, our clothes--all that is left is the "Will" (I'm speaking of the Will that Rudyard Kipling identified in his brilliant poem "If"), and the Divine Spark.
When we witness this in one another, our hearts are opened. That fist-bump, high-five, one-armed man hug is actually saying, "Oh, there you are bro. Now I see you. I've been looking for you this entire time, and I didn't even know it. Now I trust you. Now I will go to war with you and for you."
The same thing happens during wind sprints at the end of try outs, stepping out side the wire in Indian Country, polar bear plunges done with others.
When we courageously confront the world shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm--that activity is both magnetic and adhesive to the human spirit. It is the fertile soil and seeds for agape.
While we will still disagree, we can disagree appropriately- adding something to the other's ideas to make a better solution.
I'm exhausted by the hate, and I am saddened and sickened by my own immediate reactions/responses to our current political atmosphere.
Brian, a subset of our cultural dysfunction is also explored in a recent Brad Carr interview with an MD named Hannah Spier (Swiss ?) who explains her views on the chaos engendered by Borderline Personality Disorder women and how they get away with it.
Spier also advocates for community involvement as an antidote to the insanity that seems to be prevailing in society.
Thanks Linda. Hanna is on SubStack as well, I read her posts occasionally. I am surprised that I haven't heard of Brad Carr until you posted this. I just found him on my podcast player, gonna catch up. Thanks again.
I just discovered Brad Carr a couple of days ago. I’ve gone through three other interviews of his besides Hannah. He finds truly fascinating people who seem to bring some serious insights into the minefield of the mental health (or lack of it) conversation.
Why would you torture yourself. You can bet anything that comes out of Tarlov mouth is pure bullshit. Wait BS actually serves a purpose as fertilizer. Nothing out of Jessica’s mouth serves a purpose.
I had a woman at the gym talking about how she understood the wannabe assassin naturally couldn’t take it anymore and was continuing with some sort of muddled complaints about Trump, obviously assuming I agreed with her, because of course I would—we live in Brooklyn and are well off enough to belong to a fancy gym. I cut her off and told her I would not listen to her TDS, that I had voted for him twice and if she wanted to discuss policy decisions she disagreed with, I’d be happy to engage, but I wasn’t going to be a dumping ground for her emotional problems over losing an election. She was struck speechless. One of the things that really annoy me is the comfortable assumption that everyone agrees with their idiotic emoting just because we live in a benighted blue city and a sapphire blue neighborhood.
"OH GOD STOP SLAUGHTERING US TO DEATH WITH YOUR UNSPEAKABLE NAZI REIGN OF TERROR DON’T YOU SEE THAT WE’RE WRITHING IN AGONY AND HORROR AND WE’RE SPIRALING DOWN AND OH WE COULD ALL JUST DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE WHY ARE YOU TORTURING US INSIDE OUR NERVOUS SYSTEMS"
"It’s like the newspaper is a book of Sylvia Plath poems."
Plath might be one of the most, if not *the* most, overrated writers of the past sixty years. I found The Bell Jar to have been a prototype Tumblr in print, just godawful head-up-ass bullshittery and no question the rancid birth lizard of so much of the bilge that passes for "literature" since she took a look inside for that pilot light.
Thank you for saying this. I'm not interested in women's emotional life. Why women think everyone should be interested in their mental illness is beyond me.
"Why women think everyone should be interested in their mental illness is beyond me.”
It’s because pop culture has been telling women for years that mental illness is a desirable trait that will be rewarded with extra attention and a victim bonus.
The first time I encountered the expression ‘believe all women’ I laughed out loud and I am one.
This will get me banned somewhere, and I’m ok with that. Women’s unique, irreplaceable, invaluable skills—and dare I say—virtues are compassion, empathy, intuition, commitment, and emotional range. Extraordinary and highly useful in creating and sustaining a family, the foundation of any successful community. In order to break that solidity, women have been told there is more to life than family and home. With predictable results. When I saw a story (NYT?) that “regretting children”—not choosing not to have any, but regretting the ones one has— is now a thing, I swooned. This is how it ends.
True, Val.
But strong families also need strong men. Feminism, in all of its iterations has degraded men and vilified all the traits that make them essential. Sixty years ago the pill and abortion on demand created a self indulgent environment that invited women to degrade themselves and today the cute girl next door thinks OnlyFans is a respectable way to make money. But that’s only one downstream symptom of the diseased worldview that fuels too much of our cultural feedback loop.
Can we back out of this mess? In the end nature will win because nature sides with reality. The epidemic of self involvement that invites women to believe themselves superior to reality is not sustainable.
Gotta bring up Alex Jones to this discussion. I am not a AJ aficionado, though he often has said many important but unpopular things long before others did. And of late he's gone off the deep end with self-destructive Trump hatred. Not that Trump isn't deserving of animus for abandoning the very voters who stood with him through two impeachments and four years in the wilderness, traded his most loyal supporters in for the totalitarians and oligarchs who opposed him those long years.
That disclaimer aside, I bring Alex Jones into this because of the lawsuit he was subjected to and award he was ordered to pay. For hurting the feelings of Sandy Hook parents. Not for shooting their children dead. Not even for manufacturing the gun used to kill their children. But for saying something that hurt their feelings. That's it.
Largest civil damages award for any lawsuit ever awarded in history. Not for manufacturing an "unsafe at any speed" Corvair. Not for manufacturing deadly Big pHARMa drugs. Not for any actual physical/monetary harms or losses. Just hurt feelings.
A corrupt court and corrupt judge and corrupt prosecutor conspired to deprive him of his right to a fair trial, introduce exculpatory evidence, no ability to raise any defense. Even SCOTUS upheld this atrocity that should've never made the insides of any courtroom. Other than in a Banana Republic. Which we now live in. Because in a Banana Republic all that's needed to destroy an unfavored citizen is the hurt feelz of someone who is favored.
The US today is filled with leaders who suffer from Banana Envy.
nailed it !!!
The Corvair was not actually unsafe. From Wikipedia:
This review panel then issued its own 24-page report (PB 211-014, available from NTIS), which concluded that "the 1960–63 Corvair compares favorably with contemporary vehicles used in the tests ... the handling and stability performance of the 1960–63 Corvair does not result in an abnormal potential for loss of control or rollover, and it is at least as good as the performance of some contemporary vehicles both foreign and domestic."
Conservative economist and
Misunderstood. It takes two, absolutely. Feminine and masculine traits are complementary and make possible the bond that builds, sustains and lasts. That’s why in my humble, non feminist, and defender of private property (just threw that in to see who’s still awake) opinion, traditional marriage between man and woman for better or worse, richer or poorer, as long as we both shall live should move back to the top of the chart. Oh yeah one more thing, Gentle parenting? Steerike!
Those aren’t women’s skills. They are human skills and women have no monopoly on them. Altho I did read ‘emotional range’ as ‘emotional rage’ and I did grant you that one.
I don't know a single woman who exhibits any of those virtues. What I see is narcissism and a desire to insert themselves into every situation for the attention it gets them. In my world, the men have to have all of those virtues *and* be the serious, thoughtful ones while women go around bemoaning their fate at having to *work* for a living as if nothing could be more horrible.
I know far more men with those qualities than i know women with them.
So sorry
"compassion, empathy, intuition, commitment, and emotional range"
I am a man and I have all of those things, so they are hardly unique to women. I guess the difference is I don't let them run out of control and make me crazy.
I don't know, I sometimes regret these silly women having children too.
Lol. There is that. But I ache for the kids.
🎩
For the record, my use of “unique” did not imply monopoly or exclusivity. Of course men can share the virtues I described above. Just as women can share strength, leadership, directness and aggression. Family building is a team sport. The complementariness (geez Val is that even a word?) of the skills and virtues is what creates love and stability needed for growth. Ok. I’m done now.
Upper class women think that middle class women should think that everyone should be interested in their mental illness because it suppresses middle class women’s fertility, leaving less competition for the offspring of upper class women; who marry, stay married, have more than replacement level numbers of kids and generally live actual lives diametrically different than the lives they say women should aspire to. It’s reproductive suppression, just like the alpha female wolf suppresses the fertility of the other females in the pack.
Say this about wolves and no one bats an eye. But because people took sociology 101, they think we are not animals with instinctual subconscious behaviors.
It would be nice if women would start paying attention to how destructive other women are, instead of constantly blaming men for stuff that is mostly been brought about by radical feminism. But I can only conclude that women aren't as smart as they think they are.....because they so seldom see it, and even less often call it out for what it is.
Jealousy and discontent are poison.
There are really good evolutionary reasons that women express their aggression and dominance the way they do, socially rather than physically; with babes in arms, physical confrontation between women is going to be disastrous for the community.
Women blame it on men because they need to stick together for emergency times, like when that really terrible, dominant man emerges in the community and they need to convince a coalition of sub-dominant men to kill him.
This runs so far under the surface, just like its corollaries in men, it’s very unlikely it becomes accounted for in the incentive structures of our society.
Good point.
Trust all Turmips!
'Believe all women' Eva Braun?
Carolyn Bryant Donham?
Good historical call.
Schools need to ditch SEL ( social emotional learning). Mostly taught in expensive private schools. Instead of kids learning that feelings don’t necessarily reflect reality, they teach that feelings are everything, & we end up with weak, emotionally fragile adults. Correction : SEL social emotional learning.
I would agree with you, but I'm not thinking much these days about what schools need to do or not do, I'm thinking: FOR CRYING' OUT LOUD, HOME SCHOOL.
Not familiar with ESL. Will say I was surprised upon encountering therapeutic protocols for adults to help them to understand that other people have minds. This was dressed up as adult education regarding 'theory of mind,' which should announce itself in toddlerhood. Remarking on this did not make me popular.
Well, I liked it!
That's largely because their teachers are emotionally immature, fragile adults. You can only teach what you know.
There's an interesting YouTube channel, Teacher Therapy, which is hosted by a former teacher who ran for her sanity. She interviews teachers or formers who have many interesting anecdotes. You're right about most of them. It's tragic that there is an exodus of the good ones.
I knew a woman who taught for awhile but felt very isolated in the teacher's lounge. No one was interested in the things she was interested in (her subject matter - literature). No one read like she did. No one was intellectually curious from what she could tell.
So she started listening to them talk and started reading what they were reading and bought a tv so she could watch the shows they watched and maybe fit in.
Then she realized that they were all ignorant - deeply, deeply ignorant and foolish. And not even remotely interested in changing that. She quit and got herself a desk job somewhere, I think.
Good teachers have a lot of trouble when they have to work with and around morons. It's so soul crushing.
This is an articulate comment about our ongoing national tragedy ( one of several, anyway ).
A major component of SEL (besides GRIT!!!) is the dual notions of emotional regulation and trauma identification. While I agree that emotional regulation is important, the way it ended up playing out in the schools I taught in was absolutely stupid. Mind you, SEL in California was foisted on teachers by administrators, and they were given absolutely no support or tools.
So I’m not surprised by the result. Morning check ins, “support” circles where we “share” our feelings, “cooling” corners where you can go vent and scream—I observed it all. 20 minutes of every day wasted. And the admins loved it because they could check off a column on the yearly school plan. Which made the auditors happy (assuming auditors can be happy people).
After three years of it, I left teaching. I won’t be returning.
ESL, more commonly known as SEL is mandated in every single blue state public school.
You’re right! Social, emotional learning. Thanks
Interesting acronym....most of the times I see ESL being listed in educational settings it typically means English as a Second Language.
My dyslexia mistake - it’s social emotional learning - SEL. 😊
No worries at all, it happens. I'm just glad that I no longer need to try and differentiate between the two now LOL
True, that’s the good esl. Lots out there on the manipulative type some schools use.
And it was sold to unsuspecting parents as “helping children deal with their emotions so they can learn better and to reduce bullying.” Who wouldn’t want that? In reality, as you pointed out, they are learning to leave logic behind and base decisions on their feelings.
Yes, when I first read about it I thought it made sense.
It's called "validating feelings", dude. You're supposed to STFU and listen.
...And if what you hear is idiotic and proposes throwing your civil liberties under the bus 'cause feelings, just remember - her thoughts are just as valuable as yours.
Say what you will about islamists. They don't put up with this shit.
True, No name!
It’s all the barbaric sh-t Islamists DO put up with that's worrisome.
And yet somehow feminists make that a compelling alternative. I like to think of that particular accomplishment as the first step towards more female astronauts.
Send them to “a galaxy far, far away."
Yes - broken clocks and all that.
You post has scored! 52+ likes
You should get a Pulitzer for your last sentence. I don't feel any guilt for laughing at the pilot light reference, either.
Read Plath when I was young and impressionable. Admired Plath's great depth of emotion and breadth of intellect.
Months passed. Re-read Plath. Wondered how it was that she survived herself long enough to inflict her pain, her deep, desperate, literary pain on others. Felt sad. Sad for readers everywhere.
There is a neuropsychiatrist, Graeme Yorston, who has a YouTube channel. You might find his recent two parter about Plath interesting. She just strikes me as a complete pain in the ass.
Thanks for the information. I think that a lot of people share that view!
Agree 100%!
Margaret Atwood. Another over-rated hack.
As a Canadian I have no idea why she's venerated as she is. And as a kinda-sorta neighbour of hers she is apparently a wretched human being, far more enamoured of herself than she has any right to be.
Hack.
It's worth noting that what feminist supporters of Sylvia Plath did to poet laureate Ted Hughes was shocking. For years they blamed him for her death and labelled him a misogynistic abuser. It was only upon his death that her letters absolving him of any blame were published posthumously. He wore their unfounded accusations bearing it like a calvary for much of his life.
Sure, Hughes had an affair. That's not nothing. But one has to wonder how much her clearly deranged and distressing behaviour pushed him into the arms of another woman for simple human sympathy.
Plath is up there in the pantheon of overrated writers with the truly AWFL Virginia Woolf.
Schools need to ditch SEL ( emotional social learning). Mostly taught in expensive private schools. Instead of kids learning that feelings don’t necessarily reflect reality, they teach that feelings are everything, & we end up with weak, emotionally fragile adults. Correction : SEL social emotional learning.
She's only famous because she killed herself. If she hadn't, you'd have never heard of her.
I KNEW there was a reason I never read that book!
“The New York Times is just a fat girl’s diary now.” - Kurt Metzger
I concur.
Actually I disagree. I think her work that
- isn't chosen by the troubled, or
- to show her as troubled,
is her best and shows great talent.
But you don't seem the type for self-reassessment, so not much of a conversation to be had with you. I'll figure out how to block you.
I think we’re in the Fourth Turning, and a lot of the tension and panic comes from the left realizing that progressive globalism has failed and populist nationalism is rising. (Not “fascism,” even though their leftist perspective sees it that way, or pretends to.) The left is out of ideas and is just recycling tired and obsolete solutions like demonstrations and a “general strike.” As if average working people are going to Rise Up Against Bad Orange Man and support illegal immigrants, transing kids, anti-white DEI rules, and the rest of the wacky DNC agenda.
This divide is often blamed on Trump, which is partly true. His political Sun Tzu moves include taking majority, common sense positions (two sexes, no transing kids, deport illegals, crime is bad) and let Democrats take the opposite side. This is “polarizing” compared to milquetoast GOP establishment moderation, but it’s a winning political strategy that unites MAGA and moderates. I don’t see how Democrats can successfully counter it.
Their only counter is actual fascism. Whilst claiming that the people who don't want that are the real fascists.
It's a painful truism that everyone is a fascist 'for people like me'.
The problem is that they cannot - in fact - create a fascist state composed of nothing but people like themselves.
They need slaves.
And that's who they way the rest of us to be.
A true fascist state has total communal unity around the basic infrastructure of life.
It's nothing that deep. They just feel entitled to power is all.
I think that they are all fruitcakes. As in nuttier than that…
We aren't seeing anything we didn't see on election night 2016. It's just kept going for 10 years.
I think trump is the result of leftist idiocy, he only exists as a reaction to insanity.
Same reason Netanyahu has been there so long
Many will be institutionalized when they find out Trump is really a democrat.
Trump is a puppet of the jews who've figure out that browns don't much care about Holocaustianity or the 'special victim status' of the jews.
⬆️ A pestilence is loose in the comments section.
Though I mostly enjoy reading Bray’s substack, I find the comment section increasingly insufferable. But perhaps I’m not part of his intended audience.
This dork is the only anti Semite I have seen around here. There may have been others, but I have missed them.
Are you a jew?
Well, for starters, we know what you are.
How coy. Are you an acolyte of Q?
No, but The Lord Jesus Christ, who created you, died for you, and was raised from the dead for you, is. It pays to watch your manners.
‘Jesus’ never existed.
Jew hate is the next cool thing. All the cool kids hate Jews. Even though the cool kids are young Jews,non practicing,self hating, just like their parents and grandparents. The American Jew paradox.
The 'self-hating jew' is myth.
I think it's all Selma envy.
That’s a big part of it.
The only “counter” they have left is still in place. The corrupted cheat machines, and fraudulent mail in ballots. Until they’re both removed our country is in mortal danger. PERIOD.
I think Trump is working to counter that. There are many ways he can secure elections, not just the SAVE Act.
Thanks Papaya. I have zero confidence in the Supreme Court to uphold anything involving the voting process. I remember 2020 too well!
So far Trump has been very good at crafting solutions that withstand SCOTUS. The tariff thing is a pretty rare loss.
We are definitely in a Fourth Turning. In my view, it won't just mean the collapse of the current leftist paradigm, the current rightist paradigm will go down alongside it. The left will fall further, naturally, because it had been dominant for so long. This era's basic left-right alignment was formed after WWII as we emerged from the last Fourth Turning.
It was interesting to watch the Never-Trump Republicans frothing at the mouth in 2015 - they knew in their gut that big change was coming to their comfortable grift, even if they didn't understand why. The end of an order inevitably comes with instability and chaos. Those who like, or dislike, Trump can nevertheless recognize him as a chaos agent. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else. After we reach the nadir, new leaders will emerge to bring order out of chaos, to solidify the new paradigm.
What part of the rightist paradigm do you see collapsing? I see the decline of Bush-era neocon internationalism, and the GOP establishment as the Washington Generals for progressivism, but neither of those are particularly right-wing.
That is correct. I was using 'right'/'left' in the abstract to describe the wings of the failing alignment. But actual leftists don't consider the DNC as leftists, actual conservatives know the GOP aren't rightists generally, with a few exceptions.
Whatever the wings are, they will both crumble during the crisis phase, and a new alignment will be forged.
They don’t have to effectively counter it if the republican establishment continues its do nothing course while the podcast people continue tearing MAGA into factions. Trump is time limited. Then what?
It’s true that Trump is still fighting the GOP establishment. However, I believe he’s got lots of political ammunition to win the midterms and keep pushing the party in a MAGA direction.
I hope so.
💯
Well said!
Genesis 12: 1-3.
True.
Pure warriors have no real place in rational society, and thus Trump comes to the fore in the current era:
https://substack.com/@johngeis212067/note/c-250728513?r=q47pk&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Another mismatch, not exactly what you’re talking about, but an interesting one.
Ten years of Trump is doing whatever to their nervous system.
My hometown is Flint, Mi.
Why is it that our national discussions always have room for some worthless desk-sitters’ fantasies and feelings, but never about the forty years of hollowing out Flint, a thousand towns just like it, and ten million working class families?
Do they think it is not traumatic to lose 75,000 working middle class jobs for the 75,000 working middle class workers who lost those jobs? Just so the stock portfolios of the desk-sitters could grow a couple percent?
Every day I am infuriated by this garbage. It’s infantile. It’s junior high popular girls having a breakdown over who Chad likes most vs. real people, real communities, real families being torn apart for four decades. My nearest relative lives an hour and forty minutes away, the rest thrown to the four winds looking for work. My circle of friends all left home after high school (including me) and now a few of us are drifting back home after 35 years because we’re starting to retire. I’m sorry, but our national policy of “Mexico and China need these good jobs more than our own people” has been vastly more traumatic than Trump being president.
You can turn off the tv and social media and Trump will stop traumatizing you. The entire middle of the country can’t turn off what been done to us by the popular kids for forty years.
I’m sick to death of this crap. The “empathetic”, “compassionate”, and “intelligent” people are the stupidest , weakest, fakest people since the beginning of time.
"Why is it that our national discussions always have room for some worthless desk-sitters’ fantasies and feelings, but never about the forty years of hollowing out Flint, a thousand towns just like it, and ten million working class families?"
Because, dear fellow, the referenced working class families are too busy adjusting to the reality of economic stressors, to publicly ruminate on the stress of being a thwarted narcissist.
"The “empathetic”, “compassionate”, and “intelligent” people are the stupidest , weakest, fakest people since the beginning of time."
Intuitively, I agree, but long years of experience have led me to conclude that The former of the above descriptions, contains concepts that do not (necessarily) belong together.
That conclusion affects the latter part of the description, which may have similar incompatibilities. "Fakest" is well supported by all evidence. The other two, may simply be a matter of the outward presentation of people who employ deceit in their pursuit of self-interest.
They deceive themselves, often enough, because the old axiom "sincerity sells" is a fundamental truism.
"Just so the stock portfolios of the desk-sitters could grow a couple percent?"
.....And here you have concisely struck at the very heart of the matter. As the nation has been looted over the decades, I heard countless "liberals" proclaim loudly that they wouldn't buy American "junk."
They are the very people you refer to, and most have become quite prosperous over that time. They inherited the systems built by American workers and businesses that were aligned in a national interest, then proceeded to destroy them by one atomized betrayal after another.
That very prosperity, formed a feedback loop, and we now see them beginning to face the consequences of their perfidy.
To deploy their own academic jargon; they "othered" American workers whose sphere of operations lies in the physical economy. One can be forgiven for responding to the angst of those who lost their USAID sinecures with "learn to code." Now we can add "but do it quick, because AI is now sending coders to the food pantries and homelessness services."
I live near Kalamazoo, across the state from Flint. My best friends are from Flint. I did the math just now and my head exploded. If there are really 20 million illegal immigrants in the USA, THAT'S 285 Kalamazoos (population 70,000). It is simply staggering. Ship good jobs away, then import people to drive our wages further down and housing costs further up.
I live near Pennsylvania coal country. The NYT did a piece about its decline. It included a few perfunctory paragraphs about failing local businesses. The rest of the piece, you won't be surprised, was centered around the feelings of the liberal editor at the shrinking local paper. Her opinions about her neighbors, how shockingly right-wing they were, hate, Trump, voting against their own interests, blah, blah, blah. And her nostalgia for it once being a solidly Democratic working class town, now 'tricked' into becoming hateful conservatives.
Of course the interviewer only talked to one of their own, not any of the struggling families the story was nominally about.
The left wing elites just don’t get it when it comes to why blue collar workers, who got royally screwed by decades of globalization that benefited said elites bottom line, would finally turn to a guy like Trump. It reminds me of the old joke about the narcissist saying, “But enough about me. What do you think about ME?”
Yes, the 'tricked' statement was a dead giveaway that they think electorates are entirely stupid and shouldn't be able to vote. Trump wasn't a perfect choice but at least he offered an alternative that appeared to hear what the working class was saying.
Almost all of the reasons why I could never vote for the Left are embodied in a single person: Jessica Tarlov.
I sometimes watch "The Five" because I just can't stay up late enough to see Greg Gutfeld at ten o'clock. Sometimes, though, I have to mute the TV when Tarlov is on one of her rants, because otherwise I'd have to reach through the screen to slap her.
Yes, Tarlov is effective as a foil for Gutfeld and the others, but my God, she is insufferable. Most of the time when she starts to make noises with her mouth, I just walk out of the room.
But you gotta give her credit for never deviating from the party line. EVER.
Her commitment to stupidity is impressive.
🤢🤮
She's the doormat that Gutfeld wipes he's shoes on. She's not remotely in the same league which makes his takedowns of her poopy toddlerism all the more enjoyable.
Gack! Tarlov is the poster girl for AWFLs.
It is nice having Gutfeld on at 7 on the west coast. It’s the only tv I can laugh at anymore!
I’m really embarrassed on Cole Allen’s behalf for his terrible writing and reddit-tier opinions. He is cringe personified.
Caltech should be embarrassed too—this guy is sub-midwit
Even funnier is that this dweeb wrote his manifesto as if he would a) have succeeded in killing someone, b) have been killed himself, at both of which he FAILED
Leftists are mostly failures and losers, so I'm not surprised.
I have to admit I lost interest after his opening "Hello Everybody!" Really? Wow.
Isn't that how Marx started The Communist Manifesto?
Someone should get Grok or ChatGPT to rewrite it in Redditor voice
Ha HA!
Caltech must have gone the DEI route too
I worked at the gym at CalTech a few summers ago. If ever there is a place that blurs the line between genius and madness, CalTech is it! I’ve never encountered so many crazy bright people. And, I mean really crazy!
Pretty obvious from this loser
“Clock Boy” was admitted to MIT for taking grief over for being Muslim and submitting a box full of broken alarm clock parts for a class project that his teacher thought was a bomb.
So much for the exclusivity of being an elite liberally run technical school…
Apparently, it is much harder to get into Caltech than to stay in Caltech.
"Those people are crazy." - DJT, 2026
A lot of people go through life living with an oppressor and oppressed mindset, that is, seeing most of the world as being divided up between those two or more groups, and it often gives people a feeling of purpose. It would be better to give one’s life purpose by doing something purposeful, but it is what it is.
Convince a group that they are being mistreated and that you will fight for them if they elect you to office, or maybe that you will happily lead them in an armed revolution. (Of course, after fighting in the armed revolution, instead of being given important jobs they will be lined up against the wall and shot, since they are too dangerous to keep around. Obviously not always true, the American Revolution being an exception. Nothing is perfect.)
https://drp314.substack.com/p/copy-hooray-for-our-side
I look forward to them being lined up and shot. I am so sick of these people I have almost completely stopped reading any substacks. 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢
The trauma of having someone you didn't vote for win an election. You could try to be a little more understanding.
Yeah, I know that feeling having suffering through it from 2020-2024. Problem is, the guy I voted for won but didn’t become President due to some late night shenanigans.
Key authors—Arendt, Scott, Łobaczewski, Orlov, Scheidel, Le Bon, Toynbee, Graeber, and Jung—converge on a clear-eyed diagnosis of the current Canadian situation. Arendt sees in it the banality of bureaucratic evil: civil servants applying procedures without genuine moral judgment, as in the handling of complaints at the Bar or the expansion of MAiD. Scott recognizes in it the logic of high modernity: the state reduces human complexity (attachment to one's home, deep convictions, freedom of conscience) to simple administrative categories, producing an uncorrectable visibility. Łobaczewski speaks of a soft pathocracy, where the system naturally selects those who adapt to the coldness of procedure. Orlov sees in it the first signs of political and social closure, while Scheidel sees a rigidification of the elites that blocks mobility and accumulates tensions. Toynbee would diagnose a petrification of the creative elites who have become dominant: instead of responding creatively to challenges, they protect themselves with administrative and ideological routines, accelerating the internal decline of a civilization. Graeber would emphasize the absurd and violent bureaucratic dimension: the system imposes useless and restrictive rules that stifle human imagination and creativity, transforming citizens into mere subjects. Jung, with his concept of enantiodromia (the swing of the pendulum), would add that any tendency pushed to extremes eventually generates its opposite: the more technocratic and administrative closure intensifies, the more it generates existential fatigue and resistance that, at some point, will tip in the other direction. Le Bon would finally remind us that people tolerate this closure for a long time as long as the discourse remains coherent, but that a saturation point can be suddenly crossed, leading to a brutal and emotional reversal. In Canada, we are not experiencing violent persecution, but rather a profound and insidious transformation: a legal, administrative, and cultural closure that wears us down slowly rather than striking us directly, while simultaneously creating the conditions for its own future rejection. We are not returning to the world as it was before; we are moving toward a new configuration where the tension between technocratic control and human resistance will remain permanent.
In Quebec and Canada, we are not (yet) in a situation of “civil war” in the classical sense of the term, like the one some European analysts fear for the United Kingdom or France. Rather, we are in an advanced stage of societal fracture and institutional closure, which already exhibits several precursors of a gradual balkanization. The most visible division is regional and cultural: Alberta and parts of the Prairies feel increasingly alienated from Ottawa, perceived as a centralizing elite that imposes policies (carbon tax, energy restrictions, mass immigration) contrary to their economic interests and their identity. In Quebec, the tension is twofold: on one side, a historical resistance to federal centralisation (Legault and Quebec nationalism), on the other, a growing divide between rural/traditional regions and large urban centres (Montreal especially), where the demographics are changing rapidly and where debates on identity, secularism, and reasonable accommodation remain lively. This divide is not yet violent, but it is deep and is being expressed.
TLDR. It would help if you divided your comment into much smaller paragraphs.
You, too? The recent demise of the paragraph must be lamented, if not fully mourned. First they came for the punctuation. Next they came for the pronouns. And now...the paragraph! That marvel of civilization that permits both structure and time to inhale and exhale between thoughts.
I’m developing my next academic essay based on this comment, building it chapter by chapter.
Nonsense! That was a beautiful pair of paras.
"a kind of emergency rally point for a whole dickless culture of panicked man-boys and wine aunts." An instant classic right there. Made me laugh out loud.
Cole Thomas Allen...BlueSky's valedictorian.
My solution. Bring back the draft. Not everyone serves in the military--only the most fit and capable, but we could mobilize 400,000 co-eds to pick up kindling in the Sierra Nevada's for about 10-15 years, the Rockies...clean up homeless encampments, parks.
We need a "common American experience of suffering/service" to re-unite our people. Collective Suffering (this is the name of my outlined book-Collective Suffering: the Skeleton Key to building trust, compassion, and community) strips us all of our ego, our pretensions, our wealth, our political orientation, our clothes--all that is left is the "Will" (I'm speaking of the Will that Rudyard Kipling identified in his brilliant poem "If"), and the Divine Spark.
When we witness this in one another, our hearts are opened. That fist-bump, high-five, one-armed man hug is actually saying, "Oh, there you are bro. Now I see you. I've been looking for you this entire time, and I didn't even know it. Now I trust you. Now I will go to war with you and for you."
The same thing happens during wind sprints at the end of try outs, stepping out side the wire in Indian Country, polar bear plunges done with others.
When we courageously confront the world shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm--that activity is both magnetic and adhesive to the human spirit. It is the fertile soil and seeds for agape.
While we will still disagree, we can disagree appropriately- adding something to the other's ideas to make a better solution.
I'm exhausted by the hate, and I am saddened and sickened by my own immediate reactions/responses to our current political atmosphere.
bsn
Brian, a subset of our cultural dysfunction is also explored in a recent Brad Carr interview with an MD named Hannah Spier (Swiss ?) who explains her views on the chaos engendered by Borderline Personality Disorder women and how they get away with it.
Spier also advocates for community involvement as an antidote to the insanity that seems to be prevailing in society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYmasy8vjUM
Thanks Linda. Hanna is on SubStack as well, I read her posts occasionally. I am surprised that I haven't heard of Brad Carr until you posted this. I just found him on my podcast player, gonna catch up. Thanks again.
bsn
I just discovered Brad Carr a couple of days ago. I’ve gone through three other interviews of his besides Hannah. He finds truly fascinating people who seem to bring some serious insights into the minefield of the mental health (or lack of it) conversation.
Hope it’s helpful.
Best description of Sarah Longwell I've ever read...
No, I didn't watch the video...
Individual choices.
Why would you torture yourself. You can bet anything that comes out of Tarlov mouth is pure bullshit. Wait BS actually serves a purpose as fertilizer. Nothing out of Jessica’s mouth serves a purpose.
"Rebuild a shared sense of country".
These are the people who thought the Obama and Biden years were the definition of normal.
Yeah Barry and Big Mike were “normal”.
I had a woman at the gym talking about how she understood the wannabe assassin naturally couldn’t take it anymore and was continuing with some sort of muddled complaints about Trump, obviously assuming I agreed with her, because of course I would—we live in Brooklyn and are well off enough to belong to a fancy gym. I cut her off and told her I would not listen to her TDS, that I had voted for him twice and if she wanted to discuss policy decisions she disagreed with, I’d be happy to engage, but I wasn’t going to be a dumping ground for her emotional problems over losing an election. She was struck speechless. One of the things that really annoy me is the comfortable assumption that everyone agrees with their idiotic emoting just because we live in a benighted blue city and a sapphire blue neighborhood.
You go, Grandma!!
The gynocracy invites barbarian conquerors. *See Camille Paglia's historical research. When the Longhouse ascends, civilization crumbles.
This is what I voted for! 🫡😏🤣
"OH GOD STOP SLAUGHTERING US TO DEATH WITH YOUR UNSPEAKABLE NAZI REIGN OF TERROR DON’T YOU SEE THAT WE’RE WRITHING IN AGONY AND HORROR AND WE’RE SPIRALING DOWN AND OH WE COULD ALL JUST DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE WHY ARE YOU TORTURING US INSIDE OUR NERVOUS SYSTEMS"
Tell us what you REALLY think, Chris. :-D
Stunningly good article.
Also, someone on here was shocked to find CNN was pushing gun control as a result.
Pointing and laughing was enough for me.
CNN Rule: Always call for gun control unless it's a tranny or POC. Then it's 'unfortunate'.