Posted on 05/07/2010 2:13:19 PM PDT by Noumenon
Yes, the recent machinations and excesses of the TSA prove the poitn of this essay. The will to power is governed neither by conscience nor by any sort of moral sanctions. It's the road to, and the prerequisite for, atrocity and slaughter.
you did yourself proud. A great undertaking that is quite succinct.
BTTT
One big bump.
That was funny!
And so to my initial point...
We now live in a nation where policies and politics of the 'progressive', Gramscian Left have been formulated expressly to promulgate class and gender warfare, ignorance, passivity, racial division, poverty, envy, and hatred of the good for being good. It is the prerequisite for the acquisition and exercise of unlimited authority and power. It is, in fact, precisely the outcome desired by Gramscian Marxists who now comprise our cultural elite.
I couldn't agree more and I would suggest that you give a short description similar to that which you used previously for Freud, Marx, etc. explaining Gramsci at that point. There are still people who have no idea who you're talking about.
Then resume with...TheyGramscian Marxists are the heirs of those who had had...
Vital resistance and resentment are the two main responses to the events of 1989. Vital resistance: the mind realizes its mistake - it admits, for example, that nationalization of the means of production does not produce a happy society, but rather laziness and constant shortages; it refuses, however, to let go of the idea because of its passionate attachment to it. Existence - adventures, friendships, successes - is nourished and permeated by this belief to such an extent that the belief becomes an identity; the individual cannot renounce it without committing a kind of symbolic suicide. No one can admit... that his existence reflects the echo of a failure.
In other words, no one wants to admit that the premises upon which one has constructed their entire raison d’être is an empty, shrieking fraud. This goes a long way towards explaining why we still see excuses made for the monstrous crimes of the monsters on the Left.
Getting back to Killers Without Conscisnce, the path I've taken with the book so far is that there are two streams of thought, two memes, really that converged with disastrous results in the last two hundred years (a period of time that Delsol also happen sto agree with).
First of all, we have what I characterize as the dehumanization of humanity: Marx. Freud, B.F. Skinner and Nietzsche. We find examples of their contemporaries in the likes of Emanuel Ezekiel, John Holdren and Cass Sunstein. The main recurrent theme in their works is that humans are nothing more than things, animals or machines. We can all understand the downside of that particular view.
Then we have the uniquely destructive meme associated with the undermining of culture in order to weaken it, destroy it, and replace it with a totalitarian system. All as proposed by Antonio Gramsci in his call for the 'long march through the institutions.' This idea has been echoed, amplified and modified over the decades by Herbert Marcuse (repressive tolerance), Saul Alinsky, and the Cloward-Piven duo. the aims of this particular set of monsters is best eexemplified by a banner I saw at an leftist-anarchist demonstration - Burn the old world to reveal the new. Eerily echoed in a line from The Dark Knight: "Some men just want to watch the world burn..."
Crossing those streams, as Dr. Spengler said to Dr. Venkman, would be very bad. And so it has been. Trouble is, what's coming as a result of that convergence has the potential to make the worst excesses of the last century look like a Girl Scout picnic by comparison. That's the thrust of my book. No one has to like it. But odds are we will have to live it.
As the old saying goes, the truth shall make you free. But not always comfortable. In the end our best defense against the dark siders is the truth.
Also, Delsol is worth every minute you spend on her works. Just remember, it’s written from a European perspective, and hence not quite so vigorous and independent of mind as ours might be. Also consider: France has been ruled (not governed) by a succession of kings, tyrants, terrorists, murderous revolutionaries and socialists. They took a page from our revolution and made of theirs a slaughterhouse. Makes Delsol’s work all the more remarkable for that.
Thanks Noumenon I have been trying to put this into words myself, this is powerful.
Wouldn’t you also say that on a smaller scale Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist recently arrested in Philadelphia was a by product of these toxic philosophies?
Bumping it UP.
Yes. I am more than ever convinced that the behavior of monsters such as Gosnell can only make sense in that context. For darksiders like Gosnell, extinguishing a life resresents the ultimate exercise of power within the narrow confiens of his own life. Given sufficient power, men like Gosnell would cheerfully extinguish whole societies. It's an appetite for control that can never be satiated or appeased.
For those who think that this notion is extreme or tin foil hattery, I submit the the history of the last two hundred years as my witness: it's been done. Repeatedly.
Amen Noumenon , thanks for the excellent writing, do you have anything else I would be interested in along the same lines?
Avast, me hearty - what say you about Ms. Delsol? Arrrrrr?
Sorry about that - went briefly into pirate mode. I’m OK now.
I think.
I must have missed this last year - one of my 2010 hospital visits, I guess.
Stay well and safe ........................... FRegards
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