Good post. Insane is the only word for it. Unfortunately, I surmise the only thing that could bring about any change in motivations is deep and sustained collective suffering.
The only question in my mind is who the source of that suffering will be - the outright leftists or the smug, deluded conservative leftist/libertarians?
@Francis - What I don't know is whether suffering is nowadays capable of producing a positive change in the European population as they are now. It has almost never done so among individuals that I know of personally.
Suffering leads perhaps to fighting against it (eg by trying to cram as much action into remaining life as possible), trying to reduce it (eg by technology, or aletrnative therapy), or falling into despair.
But suffering doesn't often seem to lead to a Christian (or to any other religious) awakening - as perhaps it might have done in the past.
You're so right in what you say here. Reform doesn't make a bad thing better, though it may have done at one time.I But now it's just a means of preserving a bad thing and giving it fresh life.
Wrt suffering, I suppose it will only work on a basically honest soul who has just gone astray. But the rot today seems to be deeper than that.
Right, Bruce and Francis. Suffering is not enough. It will take the total collapse of the West, which is inevitable, although it could take a few decades or centuries.
And the change will not be caused by the suffering of the collapse but by the fact that,after the collapse only a traditional lifestyle will be possible.
In the Middle Ages, there was no money for the army of civil servants, clerks, teachers and journalists needed to make the current system possible
1 April 2019 at 01:25
Almost all of our political and social discourse is based around the idea of 'reform' - which is based on the assumption that things can be improved by small, specific changes.
But reform has mutated and evolved into strategic destruction. It turns-out out that this strategy of multiple incremental self-styled improvements actually leads to destruction not betterment.
Socio-political things cannot be improved by policy, a bit at a time. This whole model - The model of our age - is a fraud.
Reformers (whether they see themselves as on the Left or on the Right) are the new radicals - because they will destroy the basic set-up, destroy all system - a bit at a time, inexorably. Progress just is destruction.
Yet the present system is so thoroughly corrupted that it cannot be sustained. If we try Not to reform, if we do Nothing; it will make no difference to our fate.
So Conservatives are also destroyers.
The only viable change is simple and wholesale and fundamental - we must operate from different motivations; and anything less is just continuing down the steepening slope to destruction.
Do I regard this as likely, in Real Life? No. But I don't see any point in quibbling over minutiae, or pretending that we can reform, legislate (or vote) our way out of trouble. It is counterproductive to pretend that a different set of warm-bodies standing in the same-old places will alter our fate.
Not least because if we could really make 'sensible' reforms, we would not be in this trouble in the first place. Sensible people don't behave the way The West behaves - our policies are, we are, literally insane.
If you used-to doubt this, the current (again literally-) psychotic Transgender Agenda would convince any sane person of our social insanity.
If you are not 'yet' convinced, then you too are insane.
The first task is to keep the mind clear of false and induced confusions. Things are very simple; and what we need to do is very simple; our first and vital job is to reach this clarity.
And that is probably enough.
We cannot realistically hope to persuade the world, or even our family or best friends, of the simple truth - but we might be able to know it for our-selves, in all its clarity and simplicity.
And then... who knows?
Note added: The above explains why it is that in the mainstream media everybody is always wrong about everything; even when they are apparently doing no more than point-out an inconsistency, egregious inefficiency or injustice. This is the conviction I get (many times a day) when reading conservative/ libertarian, republican commentators - especially those whose self-image/ pose is being sensible, decent, honest, fair-minded, impartial etc - these are among the most deluded of all people. The evil destructive and morally-inverting leftists at least know what they are doing and why; but these 'thoughtful', oh-so-reasonable, 'neutral', non-confrontational are wholly deluded - Wrong: lock-stock-and-barrel. As individuals, I prefer them to outright leftists - despite their indestructible gently-smiling smugness; but as a source of confusion and clouding and moral-sedation... well, I find them despicable and - potentially - lethal.
"*Now* - there are no reformers - there is no such thing as reform..."
7 Comments -
@Anonymous - I don't post anon comments - Please could you identify yourself, or use a pseudonym?
31 March 2019 at 16:01
Good post. Insane is the only word for it. Unfortunately, I surmise the only thing that could bring about any change in motivations is deep and sustained collective suffering.
The only question in my mind is who the source of that suffering will be - the outright leftists or the smug, deluded conservative leftist/libertarians?
31 March 2019 at 18:16
@Francis - What I don't know is whether suffering is nowadays capable of producing a positive change in the European population as they are now. It has almost never done so among individuals that I know of personally.
Suffering leads perhaps to fighting against it (eg by trying to cram as much action into remaining life as possible), trying to reduce it (eg by technology, or aletrnative therapy), or falling into despair.
But suffering doesn't often seem to lead to a Christian (or to any other religious) awakening - as perhaps it might have done in the past.
31 March 2019 at 18:42
@BC - I certainly would not wish for suffering, and you are right. It worked in the past. No guarantee it would prove effective today.
31 March 2019 at 18:56
You're so right in what you say here. Reform doesn't make a bad thing better, though it may have done at one time.I But now it's just a means of preserving a bad thing and giving it fresh life.
Wrt suffering, I suppose it will only work on a basically honest soul who has just gone astray. But the rot today seems to be deeper than that.
31 March 2019 at 20:04
@William "Reform... is just a means of preserving a bad thing and giving it fresh life."
That's it, in a nutshell.
31 March 2019 at 20:14
Right, Bruce and Francis. Suffering is not enough. It will take the total collapse of the West, which is inevitable, although it could take a few decades or centuries.
And the change will not be caused by the suffering of the collapse but by the fact that,after the collapse only a traditional lifestyle will be possible.
In the Middle Ages, there was no money for the army of civil servants, clerks, teachers and journalists needed to make the current system possible
1 April 2019 at 01:25