Lessons of History

When we have to resort to Orwell, it is a sad sign of how far the rot has gone. LF&P 48, no 146: >>it seems language itself (so, dictionaries and other reference resources by extension . . .) is under the gun of the elephant game. Orwell wrote about Newspeak replacing Oldspeak in the interests of IngSoc . . . English Socialism (the National Socialist English Worker’s Party we suppose), and how part of the dumbing down was to make it impossible to conceptualise heresy against the partyline. There was also Doublethink: To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to Read More ›

In the course of speaking to disappearance/restoration of moral knowledge, I realised that there was need to stop the rot on core right reason also. Accordingly, I commented at 153 in LF&P 48a, and as it is obviously logically prior, I now headline out of rough chronological order: The issue of self-referential incoherence, regrettably, does not seem to move objectors anymore. That is strongly suggesting to me that we are seeing a SECOND “loss” of knowledge: logic in the historic sense, of first principles and practices of right reason. In short, relativism spreads. First, it attacks morality thus justice: [ NB: Plato, The Laws, Bk X, c 360 BC, in the voice of Athenian Stranger: “[Thus, the Sophists and other Read More ›

Let us watch: Food for thought. END PS: As it seems necessary here is the historically anchored political spectrum with Overton Window: And, here is what we need to know on culture/colour revolution pushes

Barna’s current report, “New Insights into the Generation of Growing Influence: Millennials In America,” is a portrait of a generation adrift, dancing on the edge of a cliff, and reflective of generations of civilisational betrayal by intellectual, policy/political, media and educational leadership leading to a destabilised culture. And so, this cannot wait, triple bereavement life crisis or no, this needs to be highlighted and preliminarily assessed here at UD: The report’s snapshot summary tells the grim story in outline: And: Also, we may add on Religious identification, affinity and affiliation: We can start with the obvious, as within living memory of those of us who were of age to notice, between 1989 and 1991, Marxism’s credibility as a principle of Read More ›

Vivid recently reminded us of the painful, bloody lesson of history taught by Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. I responded, noting: [I]sn’t it interesting that the Reichstag Fire crisis isn’t a standard part of our general education package. It almost makes one wonder why it is that the story of how the most universally acknowledged unmitigatedly evil dictator seized absolute power through agit prop and lawfare is somehow pushed to the margins of our common fund of knowledge. Not quite a conspiracy of silencing but at least a common evasion of plain duty by those who inform and educate us. Ironically, on a topic where learning this is vital to defending our civilisation, the common thought association fed by Read More ›

Food for sobering thought, on the myth of progress: It looks like we have some serious re-thinking to do. END

1984 is a classic satirical novel on the nature of tyranny in the mass media driven, information age, totalitarian surveillance state. Accordingly, it is vital to appreciate the force of the Winston Smith on the Rack scene — yes, taken from the related movie — where the issue of the self-evident truth 2 + 2 = 4 comes up: First truths, in short, are inextricably intertwined with first duties, and both are equally self-evident. As one clear manifestation, gross injustice is always rooted in false, unreasonable, unwarranted, dishonest thinking. In case one is tempted to imagine that this is a dismissible satirical exaggeration, kindly ponder the sickening judicial torture-murder of Czech national hero and martyr, Milada Horakova and others on Read More ›

The invasion: Live radio feeds: We must not forget the price paid to recover liberty under law. END

Barna has issued new survey results that paint a stunning picture of the bellwether United States, as an utterly confused, conflicted nation, with 88 percent defaulting to incongruous worldview components, with the single largest bloc being 39% inclined to “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Of course, actual full adherence is at the 1% level. Biblical theism comes first on full adherence, at 6% but that is itself a radical shift of worldviews, probably reflecting the impact of generations of cultural elites hostile to the Gospel and Gospel ethics (most often articulated in terms of its being anti-Science, outdated and intellectually indefensible . . . the standard media and “education” narratives). Such elites have long since sought to overthrow the influence of the Read More ›

We live in a civilisation haunted by doubt and by hyperskepticism. One, where skepticism is deemed a virtue, inviting hyper forms in as champions of intellect. The result has gradually led to selective hyperskepticism that often uncritically takes the word of champions or publicists for Big-S Science, while doubting well founded but unfashionable analyses or even self-evident truths. H’mm, just in case someone is unclear about or doubts that Self-Evident Truths exist, here is one . . . with an extra one for good measure: (Of course, I also have argued that there are self-evident truths regarding duty; particularly, inescapable first duties of reason that actually govern responsible reason, argument and discussion, starting with duties to truth, right reason, warrant Read More ›

Laws of Nature are a key part of the foundation of modern science. This reflects not only natural, law-like regularities such as the Law of Gravitation that promotes the Earth to the heavens (from being the sump of the cosmos) but also the perspective of many founders that they were thinking God’s creative, ordering providential and world-sustaining thoughts after him. The focal topic asks us whether our civil law is effectively an accident of power balances, or else, could it be accountable to a built in law that pivots on first duties coeval with our humanity. The issue becomes pivotal, once we ponder the premise that the typical, “natural” tendency of government is to open or veiled lawless oligarchy: So, Read More ›

One of the almost amusing features of UD is to observe threads largely dodged by inveterate objectors (given the known, intense hostile scrutiny we face). One of those threads, recently, has been the discussion of Judge Amy Barrett and the hearings she faces. However, in the course of some discussion some themes were sounded that are worth further focus, so, let us headline some of these. A good start point is with a Washington Post Op Ed by Brian Leiter, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School: Let’s start telling the truth about what the Supreme Court does Opinion by Brian LeiterMarch 19, 2017 Ordinary Americans may be understandably perplexed by the controversy over nominating a judge to Read More ›

Yes, it’s real: And if this is being “mainstreamed” at Sandia National Labs, it’s going to be all but pervasive in Government and in the sort of corporations that typically get government contracts. Across today, DV, I intend to put up screen shots from his presentation, as points to ponder. As a start, clip 1: Clip 2: Clip 3: Petersen’s caveats: Let me add, on HR etc vs surveys of actual black Americans: Similarly, though there is a general violence problem in the US and such is echoed in policing, US DoJ figures as cited give a picture different from the narrative (especially if we recognise that, sadly African American youth are heavily over-represented in violent crimes, as perpetrators and Read More ›

Scott Adams, American cartoonist and commenter on events with a particular view to persuasion and narrative dominance seems to agree. Transcript of key comments: I think I’ve been telling you for some time the obvious way that these protests/riots/looting episodes were going to go. There was only one way that these would go under the assumption that the police would not get more aggressive and that the local government would not let the federal government come in and take care of the violent stuff. There was going to be no adult supervision and that was intentional. The local leadership decided to not have any adult leadership during the protests/riots/looting. So it was obvious that the locals would end up arming Read More ›

Longtime UD commenter Vividbleau: Eugene“Cancel culture (along with BLM, LGBTQ and other similar activism) is ultimately a creation of some think-tank, payrolled by Davos crowd. “ [Vivid:] Actually it’s Critical Theory and it’s sub theories ( Critical Race Theory, Critical Social Justice Theory, Critical Whiteness Theory, etc) that is responsible for “cancel culture” [–> we can add a long list from law to watermelon environmentalism, and more] My response: Vivid, include post modernist deconstruction, targetting our civilisation. Critical theories are culture form marxism, and so called community organisers of the Alinsky Chicago school are literally trained small-c communist agitators playing with the fire of low kinetic 4th generation insurgency war. Those who play with such hell-spawned fire are responsible for Read More ›