At the risk of being a "recycler", one of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes follows.
"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made."
I have been thinking about the "sexist/xenophobe/racist" spell-words that the left are now quickly running out of time and attention on, thanks to President Trump's tidal wave reset which is only just gathering power and making its way across the depths of the Atlantic before crashing on the shores of Europe- but sadly maybe not for a good few months or even longer. I wish one public figure on the right would just finally stand up and say: "Yes, I favour my race of indigenous Europeans above others, and as my ancestors did for the last few thousand years. That is why we are still here: by trusting the good intentions our own kindred above alien cultures. And that is how we managed to create the modern world. Diversity was not our strength. Cohesion and commonality of goal was our strength. Starting with family, then neighbour, then settlement, then region, then Kingdom. If you call that racist, then so be it. I don't fear your words".
I don't see it happening in that way of course, but at least people are starting to enter that general area of debate, it seems. Maybe I am wrong, I don't know anything for sure these days !
It will be one of the last taboos. But I do sense it is coming. Western Liberalism itself is dying. The world has rejected it. And we must remember the Liberals don't create harmonious utopias as they promise. They create San Francisco.
Their entire worldview is fiction, and its enemy is not racism or sexism or any ism, its enemy is reality. National borders emerged for a reason, and the reason was violence. History is littered with examples of similar but not identical peoples attacking each other. That is all ignored so they can attend to fantasies in their heads.
Holy shit Spaceman- I knew you understood the great malaise of our times, and adept at putting it into words, but this - all of this is like a printout of the run of thoughts that have quite dominated my mind for the last decade!
I hope one day I hear words like these being delivered as a powerful speech to thousands of supporters, each nodding grimly in agreement...
The way the world has suddenly begun changing, we may very well do so; that nothing happens for decades, then decades happen at once seems to have some truth to it. Don't get me wrong I'm both completely aware that 'democracy' is our enemies' system, and who that enemy hiding in the 'permanent government' - the part that lurks in the background that cannot be removed or rotated out by elections - is, but something monumental needs to change this trajectory permanently before Trump's term is over and a new President can undo everything Trump has done and return to the same nonsense as before.
Although I really don't believe there IS any going back now; the late 00s and 2010s and the degeneration that came with them are gone forever, even if some thought it was desirable because the alternative will probably be horrific. What is in motion now cannot be undone, like a cancer that's advanced to it's terminal stage and cannot be be shrunk and kept at bay to stave off death for a bit longer...
I think change is coming. Everything is a test. Who will make it? People confused about their gender or immigrants flying in to go on the dole won't. As for democracy, it always collapses in the end.
"Validate, ego sum" then, is the new normal? I'm validated, therefore I exist. Perverse, to my primitive, atavistic and archaic mind. An ultimate extreme of love thy neighbour, or turning the other cheek, of walking a mile in another's moccasins; live for others, live to be like others, all are one and all are equal.
Lovecraftian, is the word I'd use. All is one in Yog-Sothoth. Or Moorcock-inspired: the eternal mad multitude of Chaos against the Eternal Warrior of Order.
The counter-philosophers to this is Howard's Conan, Nietzsches Zarathustra, all the Heros of myth. legend and saga, and Popeye: "I yam who I yam".
It is a direct tell of the cosmic conflict of spirit, that stories and facts about the single hero, the lone man or woman standing fast, are buried, unpersoned and put on the present day's version of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
Instead the conformer, the knee-bender, the pliant, the spineless is lifted up as the ideal. Be of the herd, or you will not be heard. Look at fiction, the sounding-rope and lode-stone of culture: collectives, groups, teams, units, and compliance and interchangeability are the cherished virtues.
Where is Wilfred of Ivanhoe? Where is Red Adder? Where is Ishmael or the Man in the Iron Mask or Slaine Mac Roth? And not just in fiction. Where is Boudicca, Joan of Arc and Agrippina?
Gone. Replaced with "Marvel's Avengers" or casts in novels such as Wheel of Time or Martin's sleep-inducing puerile attempts at entertaining schlock clad in gore, or Amazon's endless butchering of good stories - where the collective is always the focus, not the hero, and where anyone can die is used as an excuse for poor narration, poor story structure and where playing with conventions and subverting expectations serve as the rationalising lies for shoddy craftsmanship and laziness.
Is there a storycrafter alive to reach the ankles of Eric Linklater or Graham Greene or any of the thousands of tellers of phantastical and phantasmagorical tales from the 20th century?
I fear not. I fear we have arrived at the islands of Laputa from Gulliver's Travels, where letters are shook about at random until they form words, sentences and whole texts out of sheer computing power.
But the spirit, it has fled, seeking a new time and new vessels - but never vassals.
Oh I think it is still there. And more importantly the audience is there and craves it. I suspect anyone who produces heroic material of the type your reference will clean up. I am working on a piece myself 😎
And this - Be of the herd, or you will not be heard. - is very good. You shame us all with your command of English.
Hey, thank you! I owe it to my paternal grandmother who detested the idea of "children's novels", and as a translator at a publishing house could get her hands on scores of books. If I wanted to read an English novel, she let me, and let me borrow an almighty brick of a dictionary.
As a teacher, I do not wonder that IQ-scores have been dropping all over the West since the early 1990s, given the difference in how the brain is affected by passive consumption vs active study.
Yes I think we are seeing the damaging effects of deep consumption as a way of life. Many are lost on their phones, a permanent toy to distract them. It must be rewiring their brains.
We have invented nothing as good as reading to keep the mind sharp. This is especially true for challenging ideas and concepts.
There are times when I wonder if modern life is just a cosmic test by the gods to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Thanks for writing and sharing it. After reading it, I think I have a better and deeper understanding of his actions; which I am wildly in favor of. His EOs and nominations seem to be as you indicate; what and who he wants regardless of opposition or supporters. Now, after reading your essay, it seems to me he is leading and challenging Americans to follow him into the opportunity and the fight.
Perhaps. I believe Trump is imperfect. He is not a saviour. But from the point of view of Liberals he is all they fear, someone with conviction who does not require permission to act. That's why they hate things like the second amendment; it endorses autonomy and individual action.
At the risk of being a "recycler", one of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes follows.
"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made."
Trump doesn't obey.
Excellent stuff.
Glad you liked.
I wish I had read your essay before ever having tried to be genuine on social media!
Your comment reminds me of Kafka's quote:
“I was ashamed of myself when I realized life was a costume party and I attended with my real face”
― Franz Kafka
Great article, Spaceman. Thanks!
Thank you. Glad you liked.
I have been thinking about the "sexist/xenophobe/racist" spell-words that the left are now quickly running out of time and attention on, thanks to President Trump's tidal wave reset which is only just gathering power and making its way across the depths of the Atlantic before crashing on the shores of Europe- but sadly maybe not for a good few months or even longer. I wish one public figure on the right would just finally stand up and say: "Yes, I favour my race of indigenous Europeans above others, and as my ancestors did for the last few thousand years. That is why we are still here: by trusting the good intentions our own kindred above alien cultures. And that is how we managed to create the modern world. Diversity was not our strength. Cohesion and commonality of goal was our strength. Starting with family, then neighbour, then settlement, then region, then Kingdom. If you call that racist, then so be it. I don't fear your words".
I don't see it happening in that way of course, but at least people are starting to enter that general area of debate, it seems. Maybe I am wrong, I don't know anything for sure these days !
It will be one of the last taboos. But I do sense it is coming. Western Liberalism itself is dying. The world has rejected it. And we must remember the Liberals don't create harmonious utopias as they promise. They create San Francisco.
Their entire worldview is fiction, and its enemy is not racism or sexism or any ism, its enemy is reality. National borders emerged for a reason, and the reason was violence. History is littered with examples of similar but not identical peoples attacking each other. That is all ignored so they can attend to fantasies in their heads.
Holy shit Spaceman- I knew you understood the great malaise of our times, and adept at putting it into words, but this - all of this is like a printout of the run of thoughts that have quite dominated my mind for the last decade!
I hope one day I hear words like these being delivered as a powerful speech to thousands of supporters, each nodding grimly in agreement...
The way the world has suddenly begun changing, we may very well do so; that nothing happens for decades, then decades happen at once seems to have some truth to it. Don't get me wrong I'm both completely aware that 'democracy' is our enemies' system, and who that enemy hiding in the 'permanent government' - the part that lurks in the background that cannot be removed or rotated out by elections - is, but something monumental needs to change this trajectory permanently before Trump's term is over and a new President can undo everything Trump has done and return to the same nonsense as before.
Although I really don't believe there IS any going back now; the late 00s and 2010s and the degeneration that came with them are gone forever, even if some thought it was desirable because the alternative will probably be horrific. What is in motion now cannot be undone, like a cancer that's advanced to it's terminal stage and cannot be be shrunk and kept at bay to stave off death for a bit longer...
I think change is coming. Everything is a test. Who will make it? People confused about their gender or immigrants flying in to go on the dole won't. As for democracy, it always collapses in the end.
"Validate, ego sum" then, is the new normal? I'm validated, therefore I exist. Perverse, to my primitive, atavistic and archaic mind. An ultimate extreme of love thy neighbour, or turning the other cheek, of walking a mile in another's moccasins; live for others, live to be like others, all are one and all are equal.
Lovecraftian, is the word I'd use. All is one in Yog-Sothoth. Or Moorcock-inspired: the eternal mad multitude of Chaos against the Eternal Warrior of Order.
The counter-philosophers to this is Howard's Conan, Nietzsches Zarathustra, all the Heros of myth. legend and saga, and Popeye: "I yam who I yam".
It is a direct tell of the cosmic conflict of spirit, that stories and facts about the single hero, the lone man or woman standing fast, are buried, unpersoned and put on the present day's version of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
Instead the conformer, the knee-bender, the pliant, the spineless is lifted up as the ideal. Be of the herd, or you will not be heard. Look at fiction, the sounding-rope and lode-stone of culture: collectives, groups, teams, units, and compliance and interchangeability are the cherished virtues.
Where is Wilfred of Ivanhoe? Where is Red Adder? Where is Ishmael or the Man in the Iron Mask or Slaine Mac Roth? And not just in fiction. Where is Boudicca, Joan of Arc and Agrippina?
Gone. Replaced with "Marvel's Avengers" or casts in novels such as Wheel of Time or Martin's sleep-inducing puerile attempts at entertaining schlock clad in gore, or Amazon's endless butchering of good stories - where the collective is always the focus, not the hero, and where anyone can die is used as an excuse for poor narration, poor story structure and where playing with conventions and subverting expectations serve as the rationalising lies for shoddy craftsmanship and laziness.
Is there a storycrafter alive to reach the ankles of Eric Linklater or Graham Greene or any of the thousands of tellers of phantastical and phantasmagorical tales from the 20th century?
I fear not. I fear we have arrived at the islands of Laputa from Gulliver's Travels, where letters are shook about at random until they form words, sentences and whole texts out of sheer computing power.
But the spirit, it has fled, seeking a new time and new vessels - but never vassals.
Oh I think it is still there. And more importantly the audience is there and craves it. I suspect anyone who produces heroic material of the type your reference will clean up. I am working on a piece myself 😎
And this - Be of the herd, or you will not be heard. - is very good. You shame us all with your command of English.
Hey, thank you! I owe it to my paternal grandmother who detested the idea of "children's novels", and as a translator at a publishing house could get her hands on scores of books. If I wanted to read an English novel, she let me, and let me borrow an almighty brick of a dictionary.
As a teacher, I do not wonder that IQ-scores have been dropping all over the West since the early 1990s, given the difference in how the brain is affected by passive consumption vs active study.
Yes I think we are seeing the damaging effects of deep consumption as a way of life. Many are lost on their phones, a permanent toy to distract them. It must be rewiring their brains.
We have invented nothing as good as reading to keep the mind sharp. This is especially true for challenging ideas and concepts.
There are times when I wonder if modern life is just a cosmic test by the gods to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Very insightful and compelling arguments! Thank-you.
Glad you liked. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for writing and sharing it. After reading it, I think I have a better and deeper understanding of his actions; which I am wildly in favor of. His EOs and nominations seem to be as you indicate; what and who he wants regardless of opposition or supporters. Now, after reading your essay, it seems to me he is leading and challenging Americans to follow him into the opportunity and the fight.
Perhaps. I believe Trump is imperfect. He is not a saviour. But from the point of view of Liberals he is all they fear, someone with conviction who does not require permission to act. That's why they hate things like the second amendment; it endorses autonomy and individual action.
I agree he’s (far) from perfect and even further from being a savior. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.
If Trump became a tranny tomorrow they'd love him.
I asked my old friend the Black Adder who is an astute observer of the human condition to read and comment on this essay.
His response was Utter Crap!