Posted on 07/24/2017 4:10:40 PM PDT by Twotone
As I've said before, I've said it before. One of the occupational hazards of the commentative biz is that what's new - the daily news item - simply illustrates the same old thesis you've been hammering for years, so that life's rich pageant comes to seem like a Broadway catalogue song, a great torrent of accumulation all making the ever wearier point - that "You're the Top", "The Lady is a Tramp", "These Foolish Things remind me of you". Or in our case: We're the Pits, The Lady is a Transitioning Gentleman, and These Foolish Things remind me that our civilization's on the express chute to oblivion.
Here, by way of example, are a couple of stories readers asked for my thoughts on in the last 24 hours: Richard Dawkins has become the latest speaker to be prevented from speaking at Berkeley. Professor Dawkins is a world-famous scientist, whose book The Selfish Gene has just been voted "the most inspiring science book of all time" in a poll commissioned by the Royal Society.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Landed at “the home of the free speech movement” in ‘69. Berkeley was an amazing place to be 21. Had a room mate who was a night time dj at kpfa. One night, tongue in cheek, she said “kpfa, the politically correct radio station” First time i had ever heard the term and it was meant as sarcastic humor. How far they have fallen. Same things that drew me to Cali in ‘69 repelled me 25 yrs later. Never to return. Funny, same core values that put me in the streets then drive my strong conservatism today What a long strange trip. Good to know the final score,, otherwise one could be dis heartened. : )
I guess we can hope that there will be a new rebellion against the authoritarian left in the next generation, just as there was the rebellion of the 60’s. It’s painful to watch the goings on, however.
A very sobering read from Mark Steyn....
I guess we can hope that there will be a new rebellion against the authoritarian left in the next generation, just as there was the rebellion of the 60’s. It’s painful to watch the goings on, however.
Young conservatives are the new radical revolutionaries. They will be speaking truth to power, fighting the man, and raging against the machine n the future.
I could scarcely believe what I was reading.
BTW, Dawkins coined the word MEME in his book, The Selfish Gene, with extensive explanation. The current usage with regard to popular internet items is somewhat watered down.
ISLAM, OTOH is an excellent example.
It certainly is that way in American politics at the moment. People absolutely certain to their souls (if you can call them that) that Trump is the apotheosis of evil but who can't tell you why except that some tribal authority on the tube has said so are a perfect example. People who can't articulate what they're for but can tell you in excruciating detail what they're against are another. This sort of divorce is not to be addressed within the realm of reason.
Most people are not invested in abstractions: "Country" or "tribe" is real, which is why Pushtun goatherds prove so implacable to transnationalist do-gooders.
For better or worse, yes, but "tribe" as a subset of "country" is a particularly corrosive manifestation of this particular identity crisis. That Pashtun goatherd loathes his Uzbek counterpart. His country is the loser, and so, mutatis mutandis, is ours.
Which is why, at Berkeley, no one will fight for freedom of speech. Values are no match for identity.
Sadly, this is the case, nor is it restricted to Bezerkeley. Once the ACLU defended the Nazis in Skokie out of principle. Could anyone possibly imagine that happening today? Politics has indeed devolved. And yet...
And yet Steyn, and others, rally to the defense of Dawkins, who, incidentally, was expected to speak in a Berkeley church until rudely interrupted. It is possible that our defense of country and of free speech as an abstraction aren't all that widely divorced after all, and if that is the case, there is hope for America yet.
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