So, how does such vicious claptrap manage to find buy-in with supposedly rational human beings? It would seem this sort of ideological palaver, ostensibly designed to shape behavior, supports the “thinking” of a zombie, not of a self-conscious, rational human being. It’s as if a huge swath of the American public has voluntarily submitted itself to pre-frontal-cortex lobotomy, under the auspices and funding of the regnant State and all its reinforcing mechanisms. The lobotomized are then fully enabled to admire, and thrill over, the bright shiny object of their delight — “the Venus eye,” the “magic of the extreme,” as Hegel put it, [that] is “the charm that works for us … that fascinates even our foes and blinds them”….
This president is all shine, and no spine. If he says “A,” then by now you should realize that what he really means/intends is to actually do “B.” And he usually manages to get to “B” by doing as little himself as possible. That is to say, he not only lies, but uses lies as shields to protect him against the consequences of his acts, or non-acts as the case may be, in advance.
So, why does he have so many friends, fans, supporters, donors?
There’s a loaded question! I constantly ask myself that question, and have spent a lot of time thinking through possible answers. FWIW, just a couple of stray thoughts.
In navigating such troubled waters, I find an indispensable guide in Friedrich Nietzsche, who most American conservative and libertarian thinkers regard as one of the most nefarious “philosophers” of all time: He is widely deplored as the announcer of the effective “Death of God” as an historical fact.
As a conservative down to my bones, I do not regard Nietzsche as my “enemy.” I do not regard him so much as a philosopher, rather as a world-class literary artist and astute observer of the intellectual and moral trends of his age. I see him as a suffering soul, all his life. He was brilliant — but died in an insane asylum of complications of syphyllis. I think of him as “the canary in the coal mine” of his age, there to warn us of the future of men and societies, should his vision prove correct. [Which boils down to: If there is no God, there is only unfettered human Will to Power….]
What Nietzsche detracters always seem to leave out, in quoting him, is immediately after his statement that “God is dead,” he adds, “for we have killed him.”
Nobody bothers to ask whether Nietzsche himself thought or believed that human beings could actually “kill” God. I strongly doubt that. He may have been “crazy,” but he wasn’t that crazy. I think his point was, the act of “killing God” is a personal act that does not in the least affect the Being of God, but only the order of one’s own personal humanity, ultimately, the order of one’s own soul. It represents an adamant closure of the soul to all spiritual or divine influences. I take this to mean that the loss of God implicates the loss of our own personal humanity, by cutting it off from its Source and Ground in Truth.
I very much admire Thomas S. Hibbs’ reflections on this question:
…Friederich Nietzsche wrote that autonomy and morality are incompatible with each other. What he had in mind was that, while morality is about being bound by and to some standard other than one’s own will, autonomy as self-rule could easily slide into self-expression and authenticity, aspirations governed by aesthetic rather than moral criteria.I imagine such distinctions are lost on the folks who find in “our” president a “bright and shiny object” worthy of their delectation and ultimately slavish worship. Indeed, he is a fine example of “the Venus eye that fascinates.”
Here liberalism faces a quandary. If choice itself is the highest value, a self-justifying one, then there is nothing in light of which — no independent standard on the basis of which — we can distinguish between good and evil, noble and base, or better and worse choices. And that, as Nietzsche saw, is an apt and succinct statement of nihilism. — Thomas S. Hibbs, “Happy-Go-Lucky Nihilism,” National Review, July 21, 2014.
But the fact remains, there is NOTHING about this guy that any other human being could possibly reliably depend on. He’s all shine and no spine.
Only a fool could love him. But evidently, there are fools aplenty out there in American society. They are the lobotomized ones, already alluded to above.
Never forget the “classic” definition of “fool”: The fool is any man who says in his heart, “There is no God.”
There’s nothing “funny” about a fool. Bottom-line, a fool is a nihilist. But he has free-speech rights as much as you do….
And that is why We the People find ourselves in such a quandary nowadays. Our culture is divided, riven in two. The cultural divide, it seems to me, is driven by disputes as to whether the foundation of personal, cultural, and sociopolitical order is to be found in (1) a moral code; or (2) an aesthetic code. The first is ever “objective” to one; the second gives one a license to elevate personal, subjective experiences/preferences of one’s self above any and all other extra-subjective, that is to say, “objective” standards.
Must put a wrap on it for now. Thank you ever so much, servo1969, for posting this outstanding article by Danusha V. Goska.
P.S.: I don’t know why it is, but it seems to me that it is the immigrants to the U.S. over the past century or so who are the most passionate defenders of the idea of American exceptionalism, of America’s foundational ideals.
Three of my grandparents were foreign born, but all became naturalized American citizens, and raised American children. Between the two sets of grandparents, four of their eight children served in World War II, including my own mother — a natural-born American citizen of Polish descent — who recently passed away (June 1). She was buried with full military honors as a United States Navy Nurse Lieutenant having served four years in the South Pacific during WWII, where she tended not only our own “boys” fallen on the battlefield, but Japanese POWs as well. She was an amazing woman. R.I.P.
The current stream of [illegal] immigrants is “a horse of a different color.” Or so it seems to me.
What she said...............
great post!
& Bookmark for later
And I do love that phrase: "All shine and no spine" ...