"Why do part-time workers in remote municipal libraries erect posters to remind us about climate emergencies, or book drag queens to read to children?"
As a librarian unfortunate enough to have encountered these creatures, I can tell you that the mostly-female cohort of them is desperate for social validation and inclusion in a cause they can wrap themselves self-righteously in. The profession hasn't really shaken the image of crotchety old spinsters telling people to shush, and to overcompensate it's been captured by far-left neo-Marxists who honestly believe nonsense like "de-colonizing cataloguing" will give their lives (and ours) meaning. And so they've gone to absurd lengths to distance themselves from the older, politically-neutral and staid profession it was (and should be). The result is going all in with intersectional and climate bat-shittery at the same time as most of these public libraries are degenerating into flop houses of junkies, crazies and winos masturbating to porn on the library computers.
Over the last few years I have come to recognize psychology as the most critically least understood aspect of civilization. Understanding personality types and their motives reveal the truer nature of reality. I sense the tide is starting to turn and those with eyes to see are beginning to understand who we are dealing with. Atrocities from the past become easier to grasp through this new lens of understanding and this will hopefully make us aware enough to prevent future tyrannies.
That's pretty much it. Traditional taxonomies and cataloguing are something something white supremacist cisnormative blah blah blah and must be "disrupted" because reasons. So basically cataloguing and indexing systems that have helped maintain collections for, in some cases, centuries, have to be overturned because some nonbinary twit with a PhD in Information Studies that specializes in Queer Anime Current Thing can attend a conference and give a shitty paper that no one reads in order to get tenure says so. Meanwhile many library grads now are completely useless behind a reference desk and are needing flak vests to ward off the horde of meth-addled zombies sprawled out in front of the drag queen posters and "banned" book lists.
There is, I shit you not, a journal called the Journal of Radical Librarianship. I can assure you it's *not* satire and Monty Python could only dream of writing such hilariously obtuse dreck.
First time I saw the word, I thought it referred to a surgical procedure. Possibly, this meaning can be used to understand those who use it and believe in it:
They have indeed decolonised themselves, so now any shit they ingest will stay in them, since there's no colon for it to leave through after processing.
Rule of thumb is that there is an inverse relationship between intelligence and the number of times someone uses terms like "decolonize". It's essentially an announcement that the person speaking or writing is an imbecile attempting to obscure that fact by deploying vacuous and specious terminology.
Incidentally, no competent library manager would *ever* hire someone with a PhD in Information Studies.
A large reason any of this happens is due to giving women the right to vote. Well, to be honest, I don't thing that's the root cause, (i think it has to do with technology and a painter). I'm not much of a writer, so it'll take me a while to explain my views in a written formant. I wonder if you'll ever do an essay on that.
Jul 19·edited Jul 19Liked by John Carter, Spaceman Spiff
In one sense, I have a view it was inevitable, in another sense I'm still miffed about the fact that men have become so weak we've gotten to this point. In some sense, this is just another sticking point history, in another sense, I still have the right to be pissed off that I have to suffer through women giving me their opinion. *sigh*. It is what it is.
I don’t think it was “captured”. They were always like this. The scribe caste has always had a spiteful resentment of most of society and believe that they ought to impose their worldview on the barbarians who flip the pages of their books too loudly. They’ve always simply adopted the language of the most odious philosophy or ideology of their times to wield like a scourge against sane people.
Great article, I'll share it around. For a long time, I've been consoling myself with the fact that the lunatics pushing this nonsense will also suffer the consequences, but it's not really much of a comfort. It's always been rather boggling to me why they can't seem to use rational thought and imagine the consequences of these societal transformations.
It's like a large portion of the populace has some form of aphantasia.
Comparing the elites to cargo cultists was both interesting and deliciously mocking. At the personal level, social approval and material rewards are effective incentives that seduce smart and educated people into the elite class. But I can think of some others: A blind will to achieve regardless of the circumstances, techno-Utopian dreams (e.g. to achieve a Star Trek like future), or the wish to do some kind of meaningful work (e.g. work in a ‘green’ field to save the world). The strength of the present leftist configuration would seem to be a resonance of various but harmonious motives.
What large institutions require in exchange for those incentives, is an almost military like conformity and loyalty. Any finer scruples one once had must generally be left behind in the hustle-and-bustle of daily business. A person can go a long time in this fashion without noticing that they are, at best, achieving nothing but shuffling paper.
I get the notion of quiet conformity. We have all done this to some extent. But how do we explain the enthusiasm? That's what bothers me. If we ignore the psychopaths, what about the HR Karens and the otherwise normal people salting the fields for their own kids? Utter madness.
Maybe because they're just trying to climb the social mobility ladder. Their kids are just ornaments in their crafted identities to be presented to the world. My anecdotal experience is that if parents, especially mother's early on (child age 0-7) and then later fathers (age 7-9+) don't do what their roles necessitate, once the kids are "adults" (18+) they will only exist as caricatures of themselves in the eyes of the parents who only see the markers they want to see (ie it's like when parents talk and compare whose kid went to what uni or works for which brand/sector). These parents often don't know their kids, because their version of parenting is different from what I'm guessing most of us reading this feel the roles of both parents should be (and why you need a healthy pair of both). Unless the kids meet a tragic fate, they grow up and from the parents pov it's mission accomplished. So even those engaged in let's suppose "bad parenting" will have a "good parenting" idea of themselves. Rarely do parents actually want to harm their kids, but unfortunately very few are good about it and we only ever hear about the failures, not the success stories.
Excellent essay, I really enjoyed it! (And thanks to John Carter for bringing it into my awareness!)
"People with nice houses and good jobs and normal lives, with just enough leisure time to realize they have accomplished little. Enough to recognize they are no different from the working class they despise."
This is priceless.
But I fear (again speaking from experience) they don't recognize it. To recognize it would necessitate a certain self awareness, and I think the natural consequence is a hardcore midlife or endlife crisis.
I've known a few people who have reached the top c-suite in their fields and they all have stars in their eyes. They're mesmerized.
Mesmerized is a beautiful word, it should be used more often.
You're asking too much of an individual who has dedicated 12hr days 6-7 days a week to work to "reach the top" to suddenly have an epiphany and "realize" they're no different from the wage laborers working 12hrs a day 6-7 days a week in two jobs. Yes, they have more money, but at what cost?
And after they retire or exit, after a week or two barely anyone remembers them (Iger at Disney is an exception). But they wouldn't know because they're not there anymore.
When I was younger we'd say that we'd change things when you reach the top. The truth is every process we "walk" changes us, so the "lucky duck" who reaches the top is not who they started (ie go along to get along enough times and either you have a breakdown crisis and exit or you become the thing you thought you would change when you were younger).
Few are the top level people with a career or salary to justify the sacrifice. Most are much lower down the totem pole remember. They are confronted by the futility of their lives because they don't have the salaries or the toys.
True, but after ten or fifteen years of grinding away, you're no longer the same person anyway. 100 or 1k start the journey, only a few make it. My personal view is if you're lucky you get of the treadmill early and look for something more meaningful. I remember being lectured at by "older wiser" mentors about how the world is divided between winners and losers. And only losers quit or decide human relations are worth more than a career. An exception is people who own their own businesses, etc. It takes a lot of effort to create something.
Impressive writing and analysis, Spaceman Spiff. Even though the situation of which you write is dire, it is a pleasure to read such succinctness, depth understanding and elegant prose.
It's clear that the professional class has sharply degenerated over the past few decades.
While a degree of white collar conformity amongst social strivers has no doubt always been with us, the state-enforced feminization of many professions, the offshoring of many former alternative opportunities in manufacturing and other more "grounded" skilled work, softness from former prosperity, and the huge downgrade in education quality have all played their part in the nosedive seen in the professional class.
The recent aggressive expansion of DIE mandates in these fields, and the resultant further intellectual erosion, are the cherry on top.
They are conformists, and what they are now conforming to will accelerate their extinction. Alas the only way for them to avoid this is to summon up some courage, which is in short supply.
One could also add dysgenics is beginning to take its toll. Some likely casues:
- Two world wars killing off large amounts of the best males of many european/british colony countries
- The welfare state allowing the lower cohorts to breed beyond what they otherwise would in past times
- Mass immigration from the third world into first world countries
- Financialisation of society meaning former middle classes increasingly squeezed as real manufacturing jobs and industry go overseas, leaving a vacuum of b.s jobs increasingly dominated by females and the "diverse". Many smart young people then leave for greener pastures.
All of the above leads to decline in IQs and quality genetic stock from which the populace comes from. I'm sure there is plenty I've missed.
>The world wars killing off people doesn't explain why this phenomenon is so prevalent in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Finland f.e. lost more men than the USA did (including the war in the Pacific theatre), but held out far longer against the encroachment of american political correctness and multiracialist wokeism.
>The welfare state did the opposite: looking at Scandinavia again, births dropped across the line from the early 1900s until today, with a bump in briths during the 1940s, and the Nordic nations is the ones with the most comprehensive and generous welfare systems.
Just wanted to complicate your hypothesis a bit, in good faith.
I am glad that you used the word "treason". It certainly applies. As we awaken - we realize that the elite are evil. Within their inner circle, they cloak it all in a Malthusian moral obligation to rid the world of excess "eaters" who are only in the way. When you fully realize what they are up to - it is so powerful it knocks you to your knees for a minute. That's okay - it is a chance to pray for God's healing hand. We need moral courage. We need truth, and eventually, we will need justice. They are more than wrong, they are more than deluded, they are dangerously, psychotically evil. They wish death on all of us and our loved ones - our beloved children and grandchildren. We must be courageous now because, they must go the way of all evil beings. Hopefully, the shot heard round the world pierced people's delusion that this is a battle between Democrats and Republicans. This is a battle between ordinary human beings (God's children) and those who would do us harm.
Great article! It explains a lot of the "why" behind the virtue signaling. This was brilliant:
"To top it all when they see how normals react, those unmoved by inept calls to be more understanding about sexual abuse, when they see parents reach for the shotgun at the very idea of sexually mutilating children, they get to invoke the conjoined twin of their cultivated tolerance, namely artificial superiority."
That's what fuels it, not just the feeling of superiority but the NEED to feel superior in the first place. Only inadequates seek to elevate themselves by looking down on others. There but for the grace of God go I.
It seems to be equal parts "The Egypt Game" and a desperate, wannabe priest class. Children acting out adult behaviors they don't really understand and people who see themselves as intermediaries and interpreters between higher powers and the lower orders.
Besides the misapprehension of the world beyond personal experience, cargo cults are an example of the human proclivity to over-imitation. We tend to repeat unnecessary actions to solve puzzles. Sit a young chimp and a young human down in front of a puzzle box containing a treat. Demonstrate the solution: pull the lever, push the button, slide the latch, open the lid, eat the treat. If the demonstrator performs a superfluous action - pull the lever, push the button, sniffle, slide the latch, open the lid, eat the treat - the human will often pull the lever, push the button, sniffle, slide the latch, open the lid, eat the treat. The chimp will not.
It’s an adaptation that served our ancestors’ evolutionary fitness. We are an incredibly imitative species, and you never know which of a complex series of behaviors produces salutary results. So if Jimmy ties a bone in his hair before he goes out for mammoth, and he’s spectacularly successful, you’d be wise to tie a bone in your hair next time you go out, just in case.
You can see this in action in front yards: in the old days, when everybody flew the flag, things were going well for me, so I’ll put ten flags in the front yard.
Imitating the superfluous actions of the elites, adopting their luxury beliefs is likely, in part, an evolved response. The elites have all these novel ideas, maybe if I adopt those ideas, I’ll be elite too.
You could say the analysis breaks down on the fact that the sniffle causes no harm, but elite luxury beliefs do. I’d posit that the harm is perhaps greater, or displaced enough that not imitating becomes a harm in itself. Perhaps this negates the hypothesis, or perhaps two things can be happening at once.
Over-imitation is not all of it, certainly, but it sure seems like a plausible part of it to me.
I have met a few true believers myself. People who have the intelligence to understand some of what they endorse will harm them or their children, yet on they plod. Something is going on. So I just wonder how much is a kind of cargo cult.
Could be as simple as "It doesn't happen to me/It doesn't happen here".
I see it every day in Sweden, people being up in arms about the horros of the would-be-rude-to-call-it-race-war going on (over 110 shootings so far this year) and in the same breath lambasting it as racism when the governement suggest it be made legal to withdraw citizenship/residency from migrant criminals.
Because they don't live in the ghetto, their kids don't go to school there, and the sandpeople rarely come to their neighbourhoods.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that interference with revoking the citizenship of criminal migrants should itself be grounds for revocation of citizenship. Let these bonnehommes live amongst the savages they adore.
I'm in favour of this too. Make your fucking multicultural paradise in Islamabad, Karen. Remember, only face and hands exposed when popping out for groceries. Let us know how harmonious your new utopia is. Don't come back.
Exile is the ancient European method to rid ourselves of the troublesome without killing them. Time to resurrect it perhaps.
During the initial influx of afghans after the american invasion, I opined - publicly - that people ought to be able to volunteer to give up their citizenship and residency. I suggested to my woke friends and colleagues an exchange rate of 1 swedish citizenship for 5 afghan men, or 10 women, or 20 children under age 5.
I then asked how many of them were willing to make the sacrifice.
I remember that one! Can't remember the title though, but it led to the usual "debate" about right-wing extremists abusing media and journalism for the purposes of racist propaganda and blah blah bloody blah.
Was a whole "thing" when it happened, and it wasn't the only such stunt - free journalists called celebrities and asked then, since they got mansions and extra houses and rooms in their apartments, how many refugees are they going to take in.
It's kind if fun too, it echoes an identical "debate" in the mid-1980s when a comic magazine (called 'EPIX') listed how much celebrities that bragged about donating to charities actually donated, as a percentage of their annual income.
The one who gave the most, Per G Gyllenhammar (CEO of Volvo at the time), gave 0.005% of his yearly total income.
Outrage! How dare they! The ungrateful plebs! And so on you almost thought it was Victorian times.
But: introduce an element of pain into the routine, and an animal will repeat the pointless maneuver if it avoids the pain by doing so.
Further, if you randomly induce pain in animals when they go through the learned ritual of getting food, the animals will themselves invent ritualistic behviour-patterns in an attempt to avoid pain. As the pain induction is random in frequency and intensity, this is futile but the animals will still do it.
In the experiments I once read about, they used electrified floors in the cages.
Such scientists should have electrified floors themselves.
If only they could see themselves as they truly are, but alas, the blind, they will not see. They occupy a strata in which I am blessed and grateful not to belong.
Thank you for this piece, it did a great job clarifying and connecting dots for me.
It made me think of an interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk who talks about Organic Portals and their need for an ‘Exo-Skeleton’ in the form of laws, rules, regs because they have no individuated souls.
I find it curious the NPC meme took off, I wonder if it’s a recognition of a truth.
I was not familiar with OPs. And I tend not to assess the existence of a mind or an individual self in terms of heaven versus eternal damnation. I am not sure it is an analysis that would resonate today.
But I am becoming uncomfortably aware of how many people are quite happy not thinking about anything. Anti-thinking might be closer. This includes the so-called educated classes. I think mass conformity to some established set of norms seems to be the rule in many cases. With the 95-110 IQ range I suspect it is the majority.
"The midwit professionals cannot help looking down at those unimpressive normals unable to escape the grubbiness of the real world, especially those who make their living from it like plumbers and electricians."
This! Right here is the truth of it, and I see it even in those that aren't ideologically brainwashed. The entire West is chasing a feminine ideal of the pristine world and wants no part in reality. I'll add, that opinions vary: the elite chasers view the gross reality as something that taints everyone who works with it, but aside from them many others view the professions and labor that make their easy lives liveable with gratitude and even admiration. They still want nothing to do with it though, we're an extremely out-of-touch get-somebody-else-to-do-it society which is why it will only continue to spiral out of control. It'll take people actually doing something they don't want to do, especially for others, to change anything.
Wonderful piece!
"Why do part-time workers in remote municipal libraries erect posters to remind us about climate emergencies, or book drag queens to read to children?"
As a librarian unfortunate enough to have encountered these creatures, I can tell you that the mostly-female cohort of them is desperate for social validation and inclusion in a cause they can wrap themselves self-righteously in. The profession hasn't really shaken the image of crotchety old spinsters telling people to shush, and to overcompensate it's been captured by far-left neo-Marxists who honestly believe nonsense like "de-colonizing cataloguing" will give their lives (and ours) meaning. And so they've gone to absurd lengths to distance themselves from the older, politically-neutral and staid profession it was (and should be). The result is going all in with intersectional and climate bat-shittery at the same time as most of these public libraries are degenerating into flop houses of junkies, crazies and winos masturbating to porn on the library computers.
Social validation is exactly it. If the Current Thing was rounding up Jews and Gypsies they'd be putting up posters for that too.
Over the last few years I have come to recognize psychology as the most critically least understood aspect of civilization. Understanding personality types and their motives reveal the truer nature of reality. I sense the tide is starting to turn and those with eyes to see are beginning to understand who we are dealing with. Atrocities from the past become easier to grasp through this new lens of understanding and this will hopefully make us aware enough to prevent future tyrannies.
~Know thyself and thine enemy~
What the heck does decolonizing cataloging even mean? Abandoning the Dewey Decimal System in favor of haphazardly piling books on shelves?
Whoops “books” imply literacy, which is probably whiteness. DVDs, perhaps. Or maybe just mix tapes. Oh wait we invented DVDs and cassettes too, hmm…
That's pretty much it. Traditional taxonomies and cataloguing are something something white supremacist cisnormative blah blah blah and must be "disrupted" because reasons. So basically cataloguing and indexing systems that have helped maintain collections for, in some cases, centuries, have to be overturned because some nonbinary twit with a PhD in Information Studies that specializes in Queer Anime Current Thing can attend a conference and give a shitty paper that no one reads in order to get tenure says so. Meanwhile many library grads now are completely useless behind a reference desk and are needing flak vests to ward off the horde of meth-addled zombies sprawled out in front of the drag queen posters and "banned" book lists.
There is, I shit you not, a journal called the Journal of Radical Librarianship. I can assure you it's *not* satire and Monty Python could only dream of writing such hilariously obtuse dreck.
These people all need to be put in sanitariums for their own safety.
And ours.
"Sell your crazy somewhere else. We're all stocked up here!"
Dirty Harry: Sudden Impact 1983
Can *never* go wrong with a Dirty Harry quote!
Sounds like somebody has a lot to learn about “Indigenous Ways of Sorting”..
They didn't even their own alphabet.
Or the wheel
I think you mean “Indigenous Ways of Not Writing”. Educate yourself.
Do you mean Mayan glyphs?
lol!
First time I saw the word, I thought it referred to a surgical procedure. Possibly, this meaning can be used to understand those who use it and believe in it:
They have indeed decolonised themselves, so now any shit they ingest will stay in them, since there's no colon for it to leave through after processing.
LMAO
It's probably just a pathetic excuse to reorganize. The problem is that these creatures are much dumber than Mr. Dewey.
Actually, that's it. They're too dumb to understand their own profession, therefore, “decolonize”.
Rule of thumb is that there is an inverse relationship between intelligence and the number of times someone uses terms like "decolonize". It's essentially an announcement that the person speaking or writing is an imbecile attempting to obscure that fact by deploying vacuous and specious terminology.
Incidentally, no competent library manager would *ever* hire someone with a PhD in Information Studies.
Or, the lure of decolonization and other fads act as cognitive disruptors, lowering available IQ, lol.
https://abysspostcard.substack.com/p/total-iq-versus-available-iq
Real. I feel dumber every time I have to say that word.
A large reason any of this happens is due to giving women the right to vote. Well, to be honest, I don't thing that's the root cause, (i think it has to do with technology and a painter). I'm not much of a writer, so it'll take me a while to explain my views in a written formant. I wonder if you'll ever do an essay on that.
If I'll do an essay on your views? Might be hard. On the painter? Delicate. On women's suffrage? A catastrophe.
And if we want one on women painters, see Schopenhauer 😜
In one sense, I have a view it was inevitable, in another sense I'm still miffed about the fact that men have become so weak we've gotten to this point. In some sense, this is just another sticking point history, in another sense, I still have the right to be pissed off that I have to suffer through women giving me their opinion. *sigh*. It is what it is.
Lots of sense.
I don’t think it was “captured”. They were always like this. The scribe caste has always had a spiteful resentment of most of society and believe that they ought to impose their worldview on the barbarians who flip the pages of their books too loudly. They’ve always simply adopted the language of the most odious philosophy or ideology of their times to wield like a scourge against sane people.
It appears that librarians are still vehemently hissing 'shhhhh,' except the modern version prefixes it with 'Fa' and ends it with 'ist.'
Great article, I'll share it around. For a long time, I've been consoling myself with the fact that the lunatics pushing this nonsense will also suffer the consequences, but it's not really much of a comfort. It's always been rather boggling to me why they can't seem to use rational thought and imagine the consequences of these societal transformations.
It's like a large portion of the populace has some form of aphantasia.
A lot of my angst comes from this. Can't they see the consequences they will face? What will become of their children etc.
A large portion does. We call them NPCs.
Comparing the elites to cargo cultists was both interesting and deliciously mocking. At the personal level, social approval and material rewards are effective incentives that seduce smart and educated people into the elite class. But I can think of some others: A blind will to achieve regardless of the circumstances, techno-Utopian dreams (e.g. to achieve a Star Trek like future), or the wish to do some kind of meaningful work (e.g. work in a ‘green’ field to save the world). The strength of the present leftist configuration would seem to be a resonance of various but harmonious motives.
What large institutions require in exchange for those incentives, is an almost military like conformity and loyalty. Any finer scruples one once had must generally be left behind in the hustle-and-bustle of daily business. A person can go a long time in this fashion without noticing that they are, at best, achieving nothing but shuffling paper.
I get the notion of quiet conformity. We have all done this to some extent. But how do we explain the enthusiasm? That's what bothers me. If we ignore the psychopaths, what about the HR Karens and the otherwise normal people salting the fields for their own kids? Utter madness.
Maybe because they're just trying to climb the social mobility ladder. Their kids are just ornaments in their crafted identities to be presented to the world. My anecdotal experience is that if parents, especially mother's early on (child age 0-7) and then later fathers (age 7-9+) don't do what their roles necessitate, once the kids are "adults" (18+) they will only exist as caricatures of themselves in the eyes of the parents who only see the markers they want to see (ie it's like when parents talk and compare whose kid went to what uni or works for which brand/sector). These parents often don't know their kids, because their version of parenting is different from what I'm guessing most of us reading this feel the roles of both parents should be (and why you need a healthy pair of both). Unless the kids meet a tragic fate, they grow up and from the parents pov it's mission accomplished. So even those engaged in let's suppose "bad parenting" will have a "good parenting" idea of themselves. Rarely do parents actually want to harm their kids, but unfortunately very few are good about it and we only ever hear about the failures, not the success stories.
No, No, HR will become hereditary, and of course matrilineal. No salting needed.
Does anyone in the professional-managerial class achieve anything but shuffling paper?
What happened to the paperless office?
Excellent essay, I really enjoyed it! (And thanks to John Carter for bringing it into my awareness!)
"People with nice houses and good jobs and normal lives, with just enough leisure time to realize they have accomplished little. Enough to recognize they are no different from the working class they despise."
This is priceless.
But I fear (again speaking from experience) they don't recognize it. To recognize it would necessitate a certain self awareness, and I think the natural consequence is a hardcore midlife or endlife crisis.
I've known a few people who have reached the top c-suite in their fields and they all have stars in their eyes. They're mesmerized.
Mesmerized is a beautiful word, it should be used more often.
You're asking too much of an individual who has dedicated 12hr days 6-7 days a week to work to "reach the top" to suddenly have an epiphany and "realize" they're no different from the wage laborers working 12hrs a day 6-7 days a week in two jobs. Yes, they have more money, but at what cost?
And after they retire or exit, after a week or two barely anyone remembers them (Iger at Disney is an exception). But they wouldn't know because they're not there anymore.
When I was younger we'd say that we'd change things when you reach the top. The truth is every process we "walk" changes us, so the "lucky duck" who reaches the top is not who they started (ie go along to get along enough times and either you have a breakdown crisis and exit or you become the thing you thought you would change when you were younger).
Few are the top level people with a career or salary to justify the sacrifice. Most are much lower down the totem pole remember. They are confronted by the futility of their lives because they don't have the salaries or the toys.
True, but after ten or fifteen years of grinding away, you're no longer the same person anyway. 100 or 1k start the journey, only a few make it. My personal view is if you're lucky you get of the treadmill early and look for something more meaningful. I remember being lectured at by "older wiser" mentors about how the world is divided between winners and losers. And only losers quit or decide human relations are worth more than a career. An exception is people who own their own businesses, etc. It takes a lot of effort to create something.
If we derive our identity from our work, then as you say, if you don't "make it" in someone else's game, then inside you're a broken person.
Impressive writing and analysis, Spaceman Spiff. Even though the situation of which you write is dire, it is a pleasure to read such succinctness, depth understanding and elegant prose.
It's clear that the professional class has sharply degenerated over the past few decades.
While a degree of white collar conformity amongst social strivers has no doubt always been with us, the state-enforced feminization of many professions, the offshoring of many former alternative opportunities in manufacturing and other more "grounded" skilled work, softness from former prosperity, and the huge downgrade in education quality have all played their part in the nosedive seen in the professional class.
The recent aggressive expansion of DIE mandates in these fields, and the resultant further intellectual erosion, are the cherry on top.
The silver lining is that they're ripe for replacement. Which they probably know, deep down, which is why they're so hysterical.
They are conformists, and what they are now conforming to will accelerate their extinction. Alas the only way for them to avoid this is to summon up some courage, which is in short supply.
One could also add dysgenics is beginning to take its toll. Some likely casues:
- Two world wars killing off large amounts of the best males of many european/british colony countries
- The welfare state allowing the lower cohorts to breed beyond what they otherwise would in past times
- Mass immigration from the third world into first world countries
- Financialisation of society meaning former middle classes increasingly squeezed as real manufacturing jobs and industry go overseas, leaving a vacuum of b.s jobs increasingly dominated by females and the "diverse". Many smart young people then leave for greener pastures.
All of the above leads to decline in IQs and quality genetic stock from which the populace comes from. I'm sure there is plenty I've missed.
A couple of counter-points:
>The world wars killing off people doesn't explain why this phenomenon is so prevalent in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Finland f.e. lost more men than the USA did (including the war in the Pacific theatre), but held out far longer against the encroachment of american political correctness and multiracialist wokeism.
>The welfare state did the opposite: looking at Scandinavia again, births dropped across the line from the early 1900s until today, with a bump in briths during the 1940s, and the Nordic nations is the ones with the most comprehensive and generous welfare systems.
Just wanted to complicate your hypothesis a bit, in good faith.
Definitely all factors we must consider.
I am glad that you used the word "treason". It certainly applies. As we awaken - we realize that the elite are evil. Within their inner circle, they cloak it all in a Malthusian moral obligation to rid the world of excess "eaters" who are only in the way. When you fully realize what they are up to - it is so powerful it knocks you to your knees for a minute. That's okay - it is a chance to pray for God's healing hand. We need moral courage. We need truth, and eventually, we will need justice. They are more than wrong, they are more than deluded, they are dangerously, psychotically evil. They wish death on all of us and our loved ones - our beloved children and grandchildren. We must be courageous now because, they must go the way of all evil beings. Hopefully, the shot heard round the world pierced people's delusion that this is a battle between Democrats and Republicans. This is a battle between ordinary human beings (God's children) and those who would do us harm.
“Artificial superiority” is so apt I’ll have to steal it.
Help yourself.
Great article! It explains a lot of the "why" behind the virtue signaling. This was brilliant:
"To top it all when they see how normals react, those unmoved by inept calls to be more understanding about sexual abuse, when they see parents reach for the shotgun at the very idea of sexually mutilating children, they get to invoke the conjoined twin of their cultivated tolerance, namely artificial superiority."
That's what fuels it, not just the feeling of superiority but the NEED to feel superior in the first place. Only inadequates seek to elevate themselves by looking down on others. There but for the grace of God go I.
It seems to be equal parts "The Egypt Game" and a desperate, wannabe priest class. Children acting out adult behaviors they don't really understand and people who see themselves as intermediaries and interpreters between higher powers and the lower orders.
Great piece, very insightful. At points I was reminded of Rob Henderson’s “luxury beliefs” concept — though I’ve yet to read his book.
Yes. Nothing a bracing bout of hunger wouldn't fix. No one agonizes over pronouns when they are being robbed at gunpoint either.
Besides the misapprehension of the world beyond personal experience, cargo cults are an example of the human proclivity to over-imitation. We tend to repeat unnecessary actions to solve puzzles. Sit a young chimp and a young human down in front of a puzzle box containing a treat. Demonstrate the solution: pull the lever, push the button, slide the latch, open the lid, eat the treat. If the demonstrator performs a superfluous action - pull the lever, push the button, sniffle, slide the latch, open the lid, eat the treat - the human will often pull the lever, push the button, sniffle, slide the latch, open the lid, eat the treat. The chimp will not.
It’s an adaptation that served our ancestors’ evolutionary fitness. We are an incredibly imitative species, and you never know which of a complex series of behaviors produces salutary results. So if Jimmy ties a bone in his hair before he goes out for mammoth, and he’s spectacularly successful, you’d be wise to tie a bone in your hair next time you go out, just in case.
You can see this in action in front yards: in the old days, when everybody flew the flag, things were going well for me, so I’ll put ten flags in the front yard.
Imitating the superfluous actions of the elites, adopting their luxury beliefs is likely, in part, an evolved response. The elites have all these novel ideas, maybe if I adopt those ideas, I’ll be elite too.
You could say the analysis breaks down on the fact that the sniffle causes no harm, but elite luxury beliefs do. I’d posit that the harm is perhaps greater, or displaced enough that not imitating becomes a harm in itself. Perhaps this negates the hypothesis, or perhaps two things can be happening at once.
Over-imitation is not all of it, certainly, but it sure seems like a plausible part of it to me.
I have met a few true believers myself. People who have the intelligence to understand some of what they endorse will harm them or their children, yet on they plod. Something is going on. So I just wonder how much is a kind of cargo cult.
Could be as simple as "It doesn't happen to me/It doesn't happen here".
I see it every day in Sweden, people being up in arms about the horros of the would-be-rude-to-call-it-race-war going on (over 110 shootings so far this year) and in the same breath lambasting it as racism when the governement suggest it be made legal to withdraw citizenship/residency from migrant criminals.
Because they don't live in the ghetto, their kids don't go to school there, and the sandpeople rarely come to their neighbourhoods.
Call it Dodo-mentality.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that interference with revoking the citizenship of criminal migrants should itself be grounds for revocation of citizenship. Let these bonnehommes live amongst the savages they adore.
I'm in favour of this too. Make your fucking multicultural paradise in Islamabad, Karen. Remember, only face and hands exposed when popping out for groceries. Let us know how harmonious your new utopia is. Don't come back.
Exile is the ancient European method to rid ourselves of the troublesome without killing them. Time to resurrect it perhaps.
During the initial influx of afghans after the american invasion, I opined - publicly - that people ought to be able to volunteer to give up their citizenship and residency. I suggested to my woke friends and colleagues an exchange rate of 1 swedish citizenship for 5 afghan men, or 10 women, or 20 children under age 5.
I then asked how many of them were willing to make the sacrifice.
You can guess the response.
Virtue signaling only works if it is low cost.
This reminds of the video where a journalist went around asking Swedes in the streets of Stockholm if they supported asylum.
"Well of course it is our humanitarian duty."
Would you put up an asylum seeker in your home?
"Yes, of course."
I have Ahmed here with me, he needs a place to stay, can he stay with you?
"Well, ah, you see, my peace is actually full right now..."
I remember that one! Can't remember the title though, but it led to the usual "debate" about right-wing extremists abusing media and journalism for the purposes of racist propaganda and blah blah bloody blah.
Was a whole "thing" when it happened, and it wasn't the only such stunt - free journalists called celebrities and asked then, since they got mansions and extra houses and rooms in their apartments, how many refugees are they going to take in.
It's kind if fun too, it echoes an identical "debate" in the mid-1980s when a comic magazine (called 'EPIX') listed how much celebrities that bragged about donating to charities actually donated, as a percentage of their annual income.
The one who gave the most, Per G Gyllenhammar (CEO of Volvo at the time), gave 0.005% of his yearly total income.
Outrage! How dare they! The ungrateful plebs! And so on you almost thought it was Victorian times.
Oh yes, and, congratulations on another great piece!
But: introduce an element of pain into the routine, and an animal will repeat the pointless maneuver if it avoids the pain by doing so.
Further, if you randomly induce pain in animals when they go through the learned ritual of getting food, the animals will themselves invent ritualistic behviour-patterns in an attempt to avoid pain. As the pain induction is random in frequency and intensity, this is futile but the animals will still do it.
In the experiments I once read about, they used electrified floors in the cages.
Such scientists should have electrified floors themselves.
If only they could see themselves as they truly are, but alas, the blind, they will not see. They occupy a strata in which I am blessed and grateful not to belong.
Glad to see appreciation for Spiff, one of the best writers on Substack!
Couldn't agree more. Ive followed him for ages myself 😜
Thank you for this piece, it did a great job clarifying and connecting dots for me.
It made me think of an interview with Laura Knight-Jadczyk who talks about Organic Portals and their need for an ‘Exo-Skeleton’ in the form of laws, rules, regs because they have no individuated souls.
I find it curious the NPC meme took off, I wonder if it’s a recognition of a truth.
I think the NPC concept rings true with many. During COVID we watched educated adults talk in slogans.
The parallels between NPCs and OPs are quite striking.
John / Spiff, what do you think of what Laura said about OP’s?
- “It's so counter to what we're taught to believe in a Christian background.
Everybody basically has a chance.
Apparently, that's not necessarily the case.
Think about all these bad people, well, they're gonna go to hell.
People can be really evil and wicked and they're not going to get their punishment.
If you don't really have an individuated soul that survives your passing you're not going to go to hell.
People are sitting around here on earth saying “God's going to take care of it”.
Well, guess what?
That's probably not going to happen.”
I was not familiar with OPs. And I tend not to assess the existence of a mind or an individual self in terms of heaven versus eternal damnation. I am not sure it is an analysis that would resonate today.
But I am becoming uncomfortably aware of how many people are quite happy not thinking about anything. Anti-thinking might be closer. This includes the so-called educated classes. I think mass conformity to some established set of norms seems to be the rule in many cases. With the 95-110 IQ range I suspect it is the majority.
It isn't only IQ. Aphantasia is terrifyingly widespread.
Yes, the differently able are everywhere. I think we are all now realizing exactly why democracies fail.
It certainly resonates, and implies a fundamentally different moral relationship between those with and without souls.
"The midwit professionals cannot help looking down at those unimpressive normals unable to escape the grubbiness of the real world, especially those who make their living from it like plumbers and electricians."
This! Right here is the truth of it, and I see it even in those that aren't ideologically brainwashed. The entire West is chasing a feminine ideal of the pristine world and wants no part in reality. I'll add, that opinions vary: the elite chasers view the gross reality as something that taints everyone who works with it, but aside from them many others view the professions and labor that make their easy lives liveable with gratitude and even admiration. They still want nothing to do with it though, we're an extremely out-of-touch get-somebody-else-to-do-it society which is why it will only continue to spiral out of control. It'll take people actually doing something they don't want to do, especially for others, to change anything.
Great piece