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I’ve been marveling at the current social phenomenon of “Replacement Theory” and all of the fear and loathing these words can generate. Anything that could plausibly rile up white folks is being scooped up and slung at the wall to see what sticks. The Republican fear machine needs and thrives on this kind of stuff. Fox News “Speaker to Animals” Tucker Carlson has been slopping it around the swill bucket lately as is customary for him to do. It’s become a meme with news coverage like a new Disney on Ice show.
Peering out from under my rock along the riverbank, it appears to me that there are a great many citizens in the U.S. of A. who enjoy nothing more than to get lathered up and vent their rage at the bogyman of the month. Some folks seem happiest and most alive when they are really hacked off.
I wonder how these folks will react when someone reminds them that social replacement is not new. After all, what happened in the forced removal of the Native Americans over the last 400 years? How many countries have we attempted to reconfigure to something more politically subservient by force or subterfuge? History is one long, highly blemished series of one people replacing another. Notice the irony? Historically, most change has been quite violent. Many nations have been complicit in the forced swapping of ethnic groups in the social and economic order in someone else’s land. It seems to be a natural turn of events.
If it is happening to the US right now, it seems to be relatively peaceful and quiet, except for the angry white nationalists out shooting people. More than a little change going on is merit-based selection in job placement and by the hard work of immigrants. If you are angry about being replaced by non-whites, first try not to murder people. Murder is the answer to a whole slew of poorly formed questions.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Colloquium at The Center for Contemporary Idiocy, Rand Paul Auditorium
Poltroon University, Guapo AZ
The Center for Contemporary Idiocy is pleased to announce a lecture and panel discussion on “The Demise of Roe v Wade: Will Anti-Abortion Single Issue Voters Continue to Vote Republican?”
The Idjota Award for Graduate Studies in Western Idiocracy will be given after the speaker.
Guest Speaker: Dr. Horst Statek van Klingenn, Distinguished Fellow, The Institute for Poststructuralism and Malign Idiocy, Pan Handle College, OK.
6:30 PM Refreshments
7:00 PM Speaker
8:06 PM Panel Discussion
Linked here is an earlier essay on the evolution of political correctness (PC) as I have witnessed it. Before the epithet of “woke-ness” came along there was PC. In the early 2000’s rancid and cynical criticism of PC was trotted out and displayed as some kind of analysis by ultraconservative broadcasters and Christian evangelicals. PC as an epithet was useful for casting fuzzy accusations and to infer a kind of pathetic naivety to the mindset of progressive people. The accusation was difficult to counter and it gained wide spread use.
To counter the accusation of PC as a negative, one had to convince the accuser that fair treatment for all was a good thing and that the use of racial and ethnic slurs was a bad thing, not an unconstitutional imposition on free speech or an implied slur on white people. Defending PC in practice meant holding the accuser’s attention long enough to step through the morals and logic of PC- a tough exercise in listening for some people. It is another example of how it is easier to destroy than to build.
I’m recirculating a few posts from long ago because I think they raise interesting points. This link relates to a problem with local zoning ordinances. The issue came to me after a trip to Bangkok, Thailand, some years ago where I got hopelessly lost on foot. I hope that reposting certain essays isn’t too tedious to the gentle reader.
With the birth of every child, civilization must start anew. Parents and other adults are the major actors in rebuilding civilization and their first duties are to teach the child how care and fend for themselves in an often hostile world. Wariness is critical to surviving potential threats out in the open or those that lurk in the shadows. Adults must encourage wariness but not to the point of freezing solid in fear. Nuance is required in order to balance the threat/benefit relationship with the main goal of living as long as possible. In more precise terms, children must be educated and given examples of how to use that gained knowledge to not only live longer, but better as well. Seems obvious.
Today we see a movement in US civilization towards the disassembly of K-12 public education in favor of throwing those resources to conservative private and parochial education. Here in Colorado there is a silent group with out-of-state funding methodically getting far right, like-minded school board members elected. And it’s working. These groups wrap themselves in the flag playing Yankee Doodle, while often carrying a cross, and blow popular rightwing dog whistles as loud and often as they can. Currently, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is the most popular generator of dread fear among a great many in the population.
The fear that the CRT “threat” seems to be aimed at is the American liberal arts education taught in the public schools and in universities. First, some clarity. A liberal arts education is not about indoctrinating kids to be a democrat. The word “liberal” has come to be an epithet in common usage by many. A liberal education is actually meant to learn about a variety of topics and ways of thinking- to be less dogmatic and narrow. It encourages open minds. It tries to be neutral on the religiosity scale as well. And it has been quite successful for generations. Look around and you’ll see an endless assortment of objects and systems whose invention was by people educated under the liberal arts education.
Definition from Wikipedia: “Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education curriculum which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area.”
It seems that encouraging open mindedness or broad knowledge is exactly what they don’t want. What they want is actually indoctrination into “their” knowledge and thinking using their narrow definitions. It is about a narrow form of mind control, not objective facts and analysis. There is a fear that an accurate study of actual US and world history or science leads kids astray, away from God and country, to a world of anti-Americanism and to eventual eternal damnation. But, an accurate accounting of US history must eventually come to grips with the moral issues of slavery and the origins of the Civil War or the long, unfinished story of racism. To paint it over with heroic tales of settlers on the Oregon Trail while ignoring details of the slaughter and confinement of Native American to the reservation is an affront to reality and in all likelihood will eventually be made known to students anyway. Hiding the truth is a fools errand.
In my estimation, the American liberal arts education in the public schools, while flawed, has been a success. It has helped to provide a vast store of knowledge and skill that has lead to inventions and systems that have extended and improved our lives. Yes, the story is not perfect, but it is not over yet. To place the education of our young in the hands of politically partisan actors peddling extreme conservative views and possibly into corporate control is to steer our civilization into a less democratic, darker future.
See the comments section for more elaboration on this topic.
Yet another mournful lamentation on Putin and Trump.
Yesterday, 2/22/22, Trump had words of praise for Putin’s move into Ukraine with “peace keeping” forces. He used the word “savvy” in his praise of the tactic. This is in addition to his spoken admiration of Putin in past years. But he also said that if he were in office this wouldn’t have happened. Trump’s acolyte, Tucker Carlson, seems to be issuing forth the same kind of spew. So, what is Trump really saying?
During Trump’s term he proved to be cool on NATO and America’s place in it. So much so that he spooked EU countries. By most accounts, he had little if any recognizable foreign policy and left a great many important posts unfilled in the State Department. Foreign affairs just didn’t capture his interest. Yet, he says he could have prevented Putin’s invasion if he hadn’t been cheated out of the presidency. I guess the invasion is maybe the fault of Biden supporters.
I have come think of Trump as a wannabe despot who admires Putin the despot (and others) as one professional may admire the work of another. Putin as leader is accustomed to having considerable control of Russia. Trump was in control of numerous private companies and thus not accountable to public shareholders. Both characters are used to the exercise of unquestioned power. Maybe it’s not surprising that there is mutual admiration.
Will Trump followers be disappointed by his open admiration of Putin? It seems doubtful. His supporters have an evangelical zeal for the man. A great many of his followers are conservative evangelical Christians who believe that Trump’s appearance on the scene meshes with their end-times theology. His appearance is related to the beginning of the apocalypse of prophesy. These supporters believe that the man is here due to supernatural forces that must play out and cannot be dissuaded.
If this is your belief, then it must be comforting for you. For the rest of us, it is an incoherent and destructive kind of nonsense. How can it be that the same religion that preaches love and gave us the Beatitudes would also give us a leader the likes of the ethically disabled Trump. Somehow the creator of the universe, the one who set the galaxies spinning and knows the movements of every flea in the tail feathers of every sparrow, gave us a malignant narcissist like Trump. It is not a question shrouded in religious mystery. It is what it appears to be- absurd. Ambitious and destructive characters like Putin and Trump have appeared regularly throughout history. And through the lens of history we can make some good guesses as to what they can do. Both are threats to democratic civilization in their own way and must be contained.
As to the original question, what did Trump mean by his comments, I don’t know. He makes things up as he goes and lies profusely. I don’t think that even he knows what he means.
The weighty voices of the GOP evangelical propaganda wing have activated following the awful soaking that Houston received. The wagging fingers of TV evangelists were not far behind to remind us of the looming existential threat.
We’ve witnessed a burlesque of righteous-sounding preachers leaning in from the video pulpit and warning, solemnly and in no uncertain terms, that hurricane Harvey is only the latest in a series of calamities to befall our nation. Our corrupt society is wallowing in a fetid pit of sin and depravity. The storms were heaven sent they intone, to show Who is actually in charge.
It’s all so very clear to these folks. The root cause of the mass murder at Sandy Hook and hurricanes Katrina, and now Harvey is the grievous sin of omission. For what? For failing to put an end to abortion and gay marriage. They’ve been connecting the dots and these dots lead to perdition. An existential threat is on the move. It’s Old Nick up to no good.
The conservative fear machine has kicked into full ruckus configuration. They deploy their weapons of incitement via their heavy presence on AM radio and cable TV. For elections and in the face of national debate, these evangelical conservatives know that they can dependably frighten just enough people to swerve the Republican hive mind. Who are these pliable voters? I think more than a few of them are people who for one reason or another did not take advantage of the education opportunities decades ago and now find themselves near the terminus of a life of toil.
Conveniently for those right of center, the Democratic Party is comatose and strapped into an iron lung, wheezing away the years in an undisclosed location.
9/10/17, Addendum. In case I was not clear, it’s my observation that conservative protestant evangelical organizations have become a menace to American civilization. It seems to me that the election of Trump and the support bestowed upon him by conservative Christian groups, many of whom can be found out in the open on his evangelical advisory board, has opened the door to opaque theocratic influence on the large scale conduct of American government.
It’s axiomatic that people have an inherent right to worship as they please. So imagine the nightmare of trying to control what people believe when religion is folded into the curriculum of the public schools. What a tragic misunderstanding of human nature it would be to attempt to impose religious doctrine upon students. Parents would have none of it. But, a private school may have much more flexibility to teach a particular sect of religious belief. Is it a coincidence that privatizing schools is favored by many religious organizations?
Finally, there is the matter of magisteria. Steven J. Gould wrote about religion and science as being non-overlapping magisteria. A magisterium is defined as a “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution”. A magisterium may or may not recognize an external system of laws, facts, or values. Gould maintained that science and religion were non-overlapping magisteria in the sense that the tools of science were of no use in solving religious questions.
The secular world can be thought of that which describes what is human made and of human concern. It can also be thought of as that which is independent of religion. It is not atheistic or better or worse in any way. In chemistry we might say that the secular is orthogonal or perpendicular the religious. A bolt, an integrated circuit, or a tractor would be in the domain of the secular. So would the National Electrical Code, city ordinances, and state and federal law. All of these items are contrivances made by people for purposes living a better or safer life. Added to these items would be mathematics, the sciences and engineering. That which is measureable like the Volt or the kilogram have no defining attribute which traces back to religious definition.
It has been said that the purpose of government is to protect ourselves from each other. I would extend that to include the general domain of the secular. Having secular government means that subjective interpretations of religious matters must be secondary. This is owing to the reality that there are many religious beliefs in the world and the question of whose religion will prevail in an action involving the public will rapidly become intractable due to disparate beliefs. The secular world has elements of logic, measurement and guidelines for evidence or objective observation. All of these examples could be contained within a secular magisterium.
Public schools have long been the institutions where secular matters were introduced and learned. Government at all levels has been steadfastly kept within the secular domain. There was and remains to be a need for government to manage the secular details of a thriving civilization. The religious magisterium has a heavy reliance on beliefs which is a subjective matter subject to interpretation. A democracy requires a goodly amount of objectivity and evidence.
The notion of non-overlapping magisteria raises an interesting question. What if elements in one magisterium want control of elements in another magisterium? To have elements of a subjective domain in control of elements in the objective domain is to introduce chaos in both. Since neither side has the tools to operate in the other we have to conclude that this circumstance makes no sense for either domains.
Dear Samsung,
I have owned a Samsung S6 smartphone for several years. Permit me to offer an appraisal of this device.
Satisfactory Attributes
- Satisfactory reliability
- Appearance, size, and weight.
- Fits in most shirt pockets for maximum personal utility.
- Several useful functions and features.
- A QWERTY keyboard for faster texting.
- Takes video and stills.
- Sends video and jpeg files.
Unsatisfactory Attributes
- Bad, bad ergonomics overall.
- Silicone protective cases prevent easy insertion into shirt pockets.
- No inactive margin on screen side by which to hold the phone without activating some feature.
- In general the worst ergonomics possible for a camera. It would be difficult to worsen the design.
- Subject to mandatory creeping featurism. This is a type of cancer.
- Screen difficult or impossible to see in outdoor daylight.
- Too many features. In this regard it resembles a universal kitchen tool. Eventually you realize that all you really wanted was to dice the potatoes.
- I frequently lose photographic opportunities because the f*cking camera was inadvertently toggled into some other mode, preventing activation of the “shutter”. See #3, this section. !%#@*&@#*&!
What do I really want?
- A flip phone that has a QWERTY keyboard, or
- A good purpose-built camera that offers basic telephony.
Why do I continue to use it?
- Expectation of accessibility by family, friends, and employer.
- Connection with friends and distant family via facebook.
Summation
Samsung, I pity you because you are stuck on the endless treadmill of ever increasing novelty. Because of this users are forced to adapt to updates of the Système du jour. I only wish that S6 purchase transactions would change in like manner. Listening to Samsung bitch about having to alter their enterprise system annually to accommodate the hidden needs of unknown organizations would bring a bit of cheer in a sadistic kind of way.
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