Writes my son John (at his blog).
That reminds me of something I wrote back in 2011: "When did the left turn against free speech?"
Remember when lefties were all about free speech? When did that change? Why did that change? Perhaps the answer is: Free speech was only ever a means to an end. When they got their free speech, made their arguments, and failed to win over the American people, and when in fact the speech from their opponents seemed too successful, they switched to the repression of speech, because the end was never freedom.It's convenient when artistic people can be perceived as left wing — which works when the left is big on free speech — but as I said in 2005:
To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.So what were John's artistic and seemingly left-wing friends (here in our "far-left college town")? And what would they have been if they'd had to choose (if the politics that felt comfortable constrained their artistic expression)? Would they have given up politics? Would they (like, say, David Mamet) skew right? Or would they never have developed their artistic ways in the first place?
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129 comments:
"To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that."
This is not inherently a right-wing position.
Is this what it means when parties switch sides?
"This is not inherently a right-wing position."
It's not a position. It's a way of being, apart from political positions.
"This is not inherently a right-wing position." I also thought that was interesting. The left-wing position is apparently that people have no responsibility.
I've spent virtually my entire adult life surrounded by people very far to the left of me (places where socialist is the moderate position). Virtually all of my interactions are with lefties, all of my friends are lefties. And in matters unrelated to political and social issues, they are fun, interesting, decent, thoughtful people.
But on those two issues, they don't just turn stupid, they turn vicious, selfish, uncharitable. I have nothing good to say about them. Why? I don't know. But of all the lefties I have interacted with, I can count on 1 hand the number I couldn't easily picture shoving Jews into ovens.
Because lefty is the default position, it makes default people lefty. Being on the right feels pretty punk rock right now. Just yesterday I told my fourth grader not to listen to his teacher when she talked about immigration.
I appreciate signs of a conscience in Jaltcoh and Andrew Sullivan, but this is another entry in the I can't believe/it's terribly sad category.
"... who were determined to be themselves no matter what anyone else said"
But many of whom were inclined to impose their nonconformity on anyone else, as soon as tasted power.
"Today, I see so many people on the left sternly admonishing a 16-year-old for having the wrong smile"
I can't believe leftists would "admonish" someone for doubleplusungood smiles! No one ever told me the left would do anything bad to anyone!
"That's a prissy attitude which seems like the antithesis of so many lefties I've known."
I guess he didn't know Robespierre and Lenin and Che and Bill Ayres, nor George Orwell for that matter.
"How can you be a young person who identifies as left/liberal and take that attitude?"
"How can you?" Learned from his mother : "I can't believe!"
"the self-appointed arbiters of propriety we've been seeing on social media"
I can't believe that the self-appointed arbiters of whole economies and whole states and whole cultures would appoint themselves arbiters of propriety! It's terribly sad.
"I want to say to some of these people joining virtual lynch mobs based on the latest viral video: Is that really who you are?"
Well, yeah. So?
"When did the left turn against free speech?"
When it stopped being useful. The left has tools, nothing more. Next question.
This post brought to mind the movie, "Il Postino: The Postman." Pablo Neruda and his political inclinations, beautiful movie. I think to be a great artist requires being open; that is, the art will flow through an open person. It can be a scary place, because once you will yourself to be pried open, it means you accept literally everything. I practiced my craft for forty years, and it wasn't until I started attending Catholic Mass that my art began to pour out.
I am around the same age as Ann's son and similarly came of age in the 1990s. I did not grow up in a far-left college town. Hillsborough County is about 50/50 politically speaking and has often been a bellwether for presidential elections. Though my family is culturally Christian, I essentially grew up in a non-religious household. In my early teens, I got wrapped up in the New Age movement and was involved in it for several years, well into high school. New Age types love to sit around and pat each other on the back for their open-mindedness and non-dogmatism, and within the movement there is a huge anti-Christian current. After getting a hold of the British historian Ronald Hutton's work and reading the scathing critiques of Marija Gimbutas, When I brought these criticisms up to other New Agey types, the response was usually anger, scorn, or dismissal (so much for non-dogmatism). My disillusionment at the time (16-17 years old) set me on the path, ironically, to atheism and political conservatism.
The culture war has always been about hating on and destroying the straight white Christian male. In the 90s, I think the "Christian" part was paramount and now that it has seemingly been resoundingly defeated, they've moved on to the straight white male writ large.
there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that.
Like Hitler or Musolini or Marx or Lenin or Maduro or Occasional Cortex.
It's not a position. It's a way of being, apart from political positions.
Then it's not "right wing", which is political position. It's just a silly idea.
"To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that."
This is not inherently a right-wing position.
Yes it is. The Left doesn't believe in strong individuals, it believes in groups. It also doesn't believe in taking responsibility for anything, ever.
It is no mystery. The Marxist's political method has no interest in Free Speakers. Instead it affirmatively REQUIRES a display of violence done to create the fear of the State.
That methodic violence is not limited to cells of MS13 killers and roving Antifa mobs funded by Soros. It also focuses on firing any people whose livlihood is dependent on a job that can be ended because of their propaganda slander over speaking "bad words." That creates a wide fear of the State.
Fortunately we still get to see some fearless people such as Donald Trump and Jordan Peterson encouraging us fight the evil State.
Oh my this is a broad brush that maybe could have a finer point had one of the Althouse’s visited and talked with the grads of the sixties who came back for a reunion least summer, From what I could gather, most were very successful professional, business owners who still had humanistic left views, And remember Picasso fled fascist Spain to live in Paris, and later painted his famous ant-war mural Guernica which was cconsidered a left wing act. From my experience students today are less rebellious and not activist, but both sides seem willing to troll professors to control ideas in the classroom.
"In the 90s, I think the "Christian" part was paramount and now that it has seemingly been resoundingly defeated ...."
Our church supports missionaries around the globe. Some of these countries are the most dangerous in the world. I am guessing the number of families we support is 30 (+/-). They personally report back every 2 years. Christianity may not be flourishing in the US, but it is growing where you would least expect it overseas.
I read David Mamet's book on his political conversion. Very good. I'm sure Ann has read or listened to it.
The CEO of Twilio annoyed the crap out of me when he said his products should never be used for "hate speech," and made it a violation of his terms of use. Twilio, if you don't know, sells API software that developers can use in building software applications. Specifically, they sell communications API. So, for instance, when Uber built out its business, they used Twilio's API so they didn't have to build out the communications part of their business.
To have a communications guy be opposed to free speech is insane. I think he's just virtue signaling, and he doesn't actually mean to sue any company that uses his software and somebody says the wrong thing. But that's something we're seeing a lot of in tech world. People who are creating applications--like Google, Facebook, etc.--and they don't fucking believe in free speech. And they want to censor the people who use their products.
Smart but evil. And they have no idea how fascist they are. At some point Congress might have to pass legislation, and I hope they do, to protect free speech from these assholes. Or just break up their monopolies, that would work too.
Humperdink:
I only meant Christianity as a political force, not a social phenomenon or religious belief.
Two things:
1. I read John's linked blog post and I really appreciate that he points out the 'what about kids who have some kind of disability' etc question. My 17 year old daughter is borderline autistic, has been diagnosed with social communication disorder, and is very slowly learning about what she can and can't say, when and to whom. It's an uphill battle. I live in fear of her going off to college this fall and running afoul of the PC tribunals with a misguided but innocently meant remark, and now I have to worry about her facial expressions too? She does the best she can with a brain that did not receive the same programming as others and it terrifies me to consider that her life and career could be ruined if she's in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person listening. Or just looking at her face.
2. It's super adorable and naive to think all those super cool artistic free thinking hippie fun people111!!1!111! that John grew up around are any more tolerant than anyone else. My mom is one of those people (she's so zany! she rescues toilets from people taking them to the dump and plants herbs in them in her yard! So fun! So unconventional! @@) but she's the most sanctimonious, morally preening, boring intolerant scold you'll ever meet. EVERYONE is a tribethought person first, and has to unlearn that, and few people successfully do so. Just because you're a libertine about, say, sexual expression or transgressive art doesn't mean you're actually tolerant of/interested in people with different worldviews and lifestyles. Most people really dislike, are suspicious of, and misunderstand people who are different. It's a human thing.
There's so much demagoguery and near-slander tossed about with respect to 'right' and 'left' these days that it's not difficult to nitpick the original offhand comment ("right wing" does imply politics, to me, not "way of being"). We recently ran across "The Fountainhead" (Gary Cooper and Patricia O'Neal) on TV and if you think of Howard Roark I think the point comes across more clearly - thus the point above about libertarian(ism) as the more closely aligned political position to Ann's 'way of being' makes good sense.
The individualism of the great artist isn't just his pure vision; as others are saying, Robespierre et al. were individuals with visions, too. True greatness in art doesn't require manipulating other people into participating or even admiring the creation - that's one reason we recognize emotional manipulation in art as schlock, trite, banal. The great artist is compelled to realize his art when the mob hates it, and is indifferent to their admiration of it, and rejects their attempts to appropriate it.
In our world, unfortunately, that kind of individualism is vanishingly rare.
Because lefty is the default position, it makes default people lefty. Being on the right feels pretty punk rock right now. Just yesterday I told my fourth grader not to listen to his teacher when she talked about immigration.
Agree. I tell my kids all the time to treat their teachers with respect but to always remember that they are, by nature and calling, conformists and groupthinkers.
@Tim McGuire
I firmly believe, and have stated so on these comment boards, that the most pernicious tenet of the leftist's creed is that "The personal is political".
It may lead to armed conflict in this country.
Many young people today grew up in institutions: day care, kindergarten, etc. Those were *nice* institutions. You had to obey the rules but the teachers/administrators/counselors enforcing the rules weren't mean. They largely listened. They didn't yell. They genuinely seemed to care--because most actually did. Even when it rankled, you pretty much thought that doing what they wanted was good. And doing other things was bad. You got used to not thinking for yourself--or more correctly, only thinking within the "appropriate" (big education word) box. The institutions were safe, comfortable, even comforting.
Not surprisingly, many still want to be safe and comfortable, led by teacher/administrator/counselor equivalents.
"To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that."
___________________________________________________
He didn't build that.
How can you be a young person who identifies as left/liberal and take that attitude?
Because you'll be tabled a racist, sexist, homophobic deplorable and everyone will shun you if you don't?
While we were 'anti-establishment', no one was more conformist than the hippies of the late 60's, early 70's. There were acceptable words, acceptable clothing, acceptable hair styles and acceptable behavior. Anyone not conforming was suspect.
Kevin said...
How can you be a young person who identifies as left/liberal and take that attitude?
Because you'll be tabled a racist, sexist, homophobic deplorable and everyone will shun you if you don't?
1/29/19, 8:13 AM
Exactly.
And I need not add: Acceptable thinking.
set me on the path, ironically, to atheism
You mean you're not Spiritual? Gadzooks!
It will be fun when an established artiste turns truly transgressive.
Universities are the font of opposition to free speech. From the universities, this opposition is spreading throughout our society.
Universities feel compelled to oppose free speech because universities have enrolled too many students who cannot and will not read at the university level. Such students fail academically, and so the university administrations blame the failures on racism.
Supposedly, those students cannot study effectively because they are distracted by racism that permeates the campus. Buildings are named after racists. There are portraits and statues of racists. Professors make micro-aggressive racist remarks. Students wear racist costumes on Halloween. Fraternity boys wear sombreros at parties.
With all this racism on campuses, it's no wonder that so many students cannot concentrate on their studies and thus cannot succeed academically.
The universities are to blame because they are not inclusive enough for the students who cannot and will not read at the university level. In order to include such students, the universities must eliminate all racism from the campuses.
In particular, the universities must ban all speech that fails to adequately coddle marginalized students. Objective discussion of many subjects is denounced as "hate speech".
The universities are developing such policies to suppress free speech and are spreading such policies throughout our society.
It's inevitable that no matter how idealistic a movement or political wing may be, those with the will to control, even though a small percentage, will eventually dominate the whole. Socialism and utopias may be intellectually and perhaps even morally appealing, but will always ultimately fail.
Universities are big corporations. The vast majority of their customers are female. The universities and their customers are dependent on the federal government.
@CWJ:
It's inevitable that no matter how idealistic a movement or political wing may be, those with the will to control, even though a small percentage, will eventually dominate the whole. Socialism and utopias may be intellectually and perhaps even morally appealing, but will always ultimately fail.
That is true of any democratic system. See Robert Michels' "iron law of oligarchy."
""This is not inherently a right-wing position." I also thought that was interesting. The left-wing position is apparently that people have no responsibility."
You're leaving out a key word. Are you trying to puzzle yourself?
The left-wing position is to see the individual as part of the whole and to want to readjust the system so that people in general will fare batter. Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege or in spite of disadvantage.
This is not inherently a right-wing position.
But it has never been a left-wing one.
@mockturtle:
While we were 'anti-establishment', no one was more conformist than the hippies of the late 60's, early 70's. There were acceptable words, acceptable clothing, acceptable hair styles and acceptable behavior. Anyone not conforming was suspect.
Good point. My high school had a pretty large clique of people into the goth movement. They all defined themselves by their individuality and non-conformity. Just like everyone else in their group.
For many people, throughout their lives, they grasp onto positions, people, opinions, "ways of being", and lifestyles they believe will make them happy. Many do this without knowing themselves and therefore fundamentally not knowing - truly knowing - what actually makes them happy. As Goethe said, "They live theirs lives through the opinion of others and therefore have lives belong to others".
Then, once they've invested considerable time into "being someone else" they find out this did not make them happy. People on both the right and the left - and everywhere - experience this. The "happy pill" does not materialize. Being liberal did not make you happy. Being gay did not make you happy. Being a Democrat did not make you happy. Being powerful did not make you happy.
When these things fail to make you happy - for many people - it makes them angry. They've been sold a false bill of goods, but the investment means they can't dump the baggage.
A smiling boy. A fundamentally non-threatening boy. Calm and composed while several people are quite literally losing their minds looking at him. He's happy. They're not. They hate him.
Wilber @ 8:13
Exactly!
Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege or in spite of disadvantage.
Yes, if only the wrong kind of people would stop achieving the right kind of people would achieve more.
@Ralph L:
You mean you're not Spiritual? Gadzooks!
Ha. Afraid not. I'm about as materialist as you can get. Though I do not believe materialism as a belief is capable of sustaining a human society.
It will be fun when an established artiste turns truly transgressive.
My vote at the moment would be Johnny Rotten, formerly of the Sex Pistols. You can watch him defending Trump in Good Morning Britain here.
If only Howard Schultz hadn't used his white privilege to build a worldwide chain of coffee houses, that opportunity would still be available for a young person of the right gender, orientation, ethnicity, and family background today!
Now what are those people supposed to do? All the good ideas have already been taken by white men.
Nothing left to do but redistribute the ill-gotten gains.
At the end-1973 meeting of the American Economic Association, Ronald Coase gave a little talk called, The Market for Goods and the Market for Ideas. In it, he pointed out how what was politically correct at the time called for strict government regulation of the market for goods and no regulation of the market for ideas. He suggested that this was contradictory.
All the people I was around at the time honestly believed these two contradictory things. Though many couldn't work up much indignation when it came to lefty governments "regulating" expression, they hated Richard Nixon, supported the American Liberties Union, and were free speech absolutists when it came to the United States.
I think what has happened today is that the contradiction is dissolving. If "speech hurts" and if "words have consequences", it makes sense to regulate them just like anything else that causes hurt and has bad consequences.
Answer: The modern left have fascist hearts.
They are intolerant, and demand hivemind loyalty or else.
Conformist speech. You MUST twitter-twat-leftist-lie-slime some teens on the national mall - because leftwing twitter twat brownshirts have 8 minutes of inconclusive tape.
Everyone must be Kavanaughed. Free speech and freedom of any kind of expression is dead now. Thanks to the Maddow brownshirts.
Bro, not cool, not cool.
"I want to say to some of these people joining virtual lynch mobs based on the latest viral video: Is that really who you are?"
That's who they are. Really.
Speaking of Bob Dylan ; he very famously quit writing specifically political songs in 1964 as he realized it was an artistic dead-end to do so. Protest songs were merely I'm-right-and you're-wrong "finger-pointing". His classic song My Back Pages addresses this eloquently.
Show us your 80's year books. NOW!
Ann: Please create a “New Prudery” tag. (It won’t apply exclusively to the left.)
When the owner of Twitter admits he and his minions of leftwing-only twitter speech stompers are actual Nazis - no one will argue.
While we were 'anti-establishment', no one was more conformist than the hippies of the late 60's, early 70's. There were acceptable words, acceptable clothing, acceptable hair styles and acceptable behavior. Anyone not conforming was suspect.
LOL! That was certainly my experience.
There were different tribes of fashion-conscious hippies. In Chicago, we shopped at Army surplus stores for clothes. In the suburbs, it was more conventional retail. We thought the suburban kids were dipshits.
When I was a college freshman, the fashion trend was jeans, flannel shirts and secondhand suit vests. I had an acquaintance who had perfect shoulder length hair and ironed his clothes. We thought he was a narc.
It's funny how Frightened the left are of any speech that goes against the orthodoxy of the cult of prog.
They are scared shitless. Why Milo can no longer speak. A gay flame-thrower must be silenced. Too scary.
"The left-wing position is to see the individual as part of the whole and to want to readjust the system so that people in general will fare batter. Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege or in spite of disadvantage."
No, the left-wing position is to adjust the system so that there is a greater level of equality, which (in theory) will then lead to people in general faring better.
Of course, the reality never works out quite that well.
Robert Cook said...
"To be a great artist is inherently right wing. A great artist like Dylan or Picasso may have some superficial, naive, lefty things to say, but underneath, where it counts, there is a strong individual, taking responsibility for his place in the world and focusing on that."
This is not inherently a right-wing position."
Sez me: I agree it's not solely right-wing, but it's not at all like left-wing thought, ad I will expound.
MikeR said...
"I also thought that was interesting. The left-wing position is apparently that people have no responsibility."
Blogger Gahrie said...
"...The Left doesn't believe in strong individuals, it believes in groups. It also doesn't believe in taking responsibility for anything, ever."
Sez me: It's not that the Left doesn't believe people have no responsibility; it's that they shouldn't have any responsibility. That's why I have come to the conclusion that the "progressive" left is not the New Puritan movement, rather it is the New Pharisees who must have absolute control. All for our own good, of course.
There's so much demagoguery and near-slander tossed about with respect to 'right' and 'left' these days that it's not difficult to nitpick the original offhand comment ("right wing" does imply politics, to me, not "way of being").
This seems to be an out for people to have their cake and eat it to.
I go back the constitution and founding when I try to sort all of this. This particular thread today is attempting to separate 'way of being' from 'politics'.
Did the Pilgrims make their dangerous journey to the New World because of politics? I contend it was politics (governance) that drove them out of their ancestral homes. The Pilgrams set up in the new world, and created governance (Politics) to protect their way of being.
The founders set about to create a system of governance in the Constitution, to protect their 'way of being' from government,(political) power.
Today, laws are passed to stop, or protect, 'ways of being',by using politics
So my 'way of being is to live in the federalism that is the constitution. A constitution that delegates the people's power to the federal govt, ONLY in concise severely limited enumerated powers. That leads me to conservitve values of independence and personal responsibilty.
This is on the Federal level. Regional, state, and local governance are to be free of, no protected from, the massive power of the federal govt.
Progressives still want diversity in things that might be superficial (like some of what used to be called manners) or literally skin deep (tattoos--I would think more elaborate surgeries are different). Insofar as they are winning, they won't accept diversity in political views as defined by themselves. Red-hat Catholics can be expected to be socially conservative, distrustful of "other" people; progressives want to prove they're the opposite; therefore prissy censoriousness over little or nothing.
If there was a time when the squares were in charge (the 50s? may not hold up to much scrutiny), they liked and tried to insist on conformity in both manners and views. Much of this broke down in the 60s; bad manners could be a political statement that you were rebelling. As women discovered, this might mean even more groping and rape than in the bad old days. There was no guarantee that racism was going to be eliminated, except in a kind of easy-going live and let live way. Now the progressives want to enforce a new conformity.
Althouse: The left-wing position is to see the individual as part of the whole and to want to readjust the system so that people in general will fare batter. Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege or in spite of disadvantage.
I think it might go deeper than that. Individual achievement threatens others because it creates an imbalance. What the left seems to detest is unfairness and imbalance in all things. If you are wealthy, we must take your wealth, if you have privilege, we must take that away by denying you opportunity and giving it to the under-privileged. Rights and freedoms do not exist as a universal except in the right not to be disadvantaged. Anything that confers one person an advantage over another is not permitted except as a means to undo past or perceived under-privilege. Conformity is an absolute must for the arbiters of fairness to be able to insure true equality.
Epater le bourgeoise. That's the artistic thing to do. Those kids represent bourgoise privilege, so screw them. The black Israelites and Nathan Philips represent the poor and oppressed so the duty of an artist is to minimize their failings and glamorize their struggles.
There weren't all that many great artists in the 20th century who thought Marxism was a crock. Maybe the great artists will do better in the coming century. Judging by their previous record with Napoleon and Lenin, I'm not hopeful.
"What if he had some kind of a mental or physical disability that caused him to have facial expressions or body movements that people took the wrong way?"
This happens all the time to people with Tourette syndrome.
This is not inherently a right-wing position
Well those with the bullhorns who claim to speak for the left certainly seem to believe it.
What the left seems to detest is unfairness and imbalance in all things
The Levelers now seem interested only in taking down the top, but to be fair, no one has successfully answered Charles Murray's question about how to uplift the dim mass without disaster.
The hivemind left can LIE about YOU. Make shit up about you out of whole cloth.
Ruin you for the wrong kind of smile.
Even if you're just a kid.
Lefties no longer believes in due process, or that defendants are innocent until proven guilty, if they're white, or Zimmerman-white. They also see no problem with severely punishing non-crimes like wrongsmile.
I'm not sure they ever ever really had principles.
@Ralph L:
The Levelers now seem interested only in taking down the top, but to be fair, no one has successfully answered Charles Murray's question about how to uplift the dim mass without disaster.
Not forcing them to compete with imported cheap labor or shipping their jobs to low-income countries is a good first start. Automation is going to be a real challenge, as well. We're probably screwed and heading for a world that looks like something out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
I had a tremendous online row about "finding a Nazi to punch" when it was going around. I just couldn't believe the young people I was talking to were so quick to "punch a Nazi" when "Nazi" is used indiscriminately by the left to squelch debate. They just could not see any downside. Young and stupid.
Hopefully they will get "mugged" by the SJW's so they can obtain some wisdom, because right now they are dumb as rocks.
Tim McGuire, how the heck can you maintain friendships with that vicious rabble? They would gladly have you murdered if it advanced "the cause." After Uncle Donnie defeated the dark pantsuit, I cut ties - permanently - with dozens of childhood and college friends, whose sputtering, lunatic fury made it impossible to discuss ANYTHING with them. All dialogue roads led directly back to the bad orange man, and the Nazis who support him. My twin brother was among the crazies I jettisoned. Haven't talked to him in more than two years.
I read an interesting biography of Hemingway. He was a commie, but he kept his eyes open and wrote about their atrocities in Spain. There are letters of people warning him that if he kept it up, he would stop getting such good reviews. Mostly he was an anti-fascist, unlike the black shirts who call themselves “antifa."
“Hippie punching” was all about projection and justification for what the left wanted to do. I never heard of it, and I have hung out with more than a few right wingers in my day.
@Basil Duke:
If what you're saying is true, it's very sad. Smashing a fraternal bond over a difference in political opinions seems to me the epitome of silliness.
The Covington high school costs about $7000 per year. The guess here is that some of the parents covered the tuition by working an extra shift. Those kids were privileged but not in an economic sense. In today's America , if you grow up in a stable family that is supportive and protective of their children, then you've got a leg up on the other kids. I wouldn't want to be part of a family where Nathan Phillips or one of those black Israelites is the patriarch. I might also find the Farrow/Allen family environment challenging.
Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege
Yes, some people are privileged to work hard, some people are privileged to be smart, and some people are privileged to be lucky enough to blunder into something and recognize its value to society, and some people are born rich (these people are almost always lefties)
The genius of capitalism is to take advantage of these “privileges” to benefit society as a whole. The fatal flaw of socialism is that these “privileges” IQ, energy, drive, etc are wasted on simple pursuit of power. I would rather have people competing over money than power any day, whoever they are.
The acid test for any system of beliefs is does it benefit the culture that holds it. None are “right” or “wrong” of themselves. Do they feed people, protect people, house people, allow them to enjoy the freedom humans need?
They also stopped sporting those "Question Authority" bumper stickers, too.
I could probably make a fortune re-producing those things, but adding a "How DARE you" to the beginning.
The intellectuals on the right are not allowed to speak freely on leftwing campuses. or - campuses.
Why?
Free speech is simply too scary for the delicate and protected leftist group-think. Which is funny because when you do not allow any other ideas to penetrate your delicate little bubble, you actually become less. Small. You become what you claim to fear.
Gotta pull that fire alarm.
J. Farmer, it is most certainly true. I have absolutely zero interest in maintaining a relationship with someone who repeatedly refers to me as a Nazi. If that's silly, so be it. My brother has gone batshit crazy. I chose to remove myself from his toxic world.
if only the wrong kind of people would stop achieving the right kind of people would achieve more.
Preach it, brother. Envy must have fallen off the deadly sin list.
As a humanist/ lefty I don't resent individual achievement through talent, hard work and a bit of luck, not by inheritance, but I also recognize that the playing field is structurally unbalanced from the school system to red-lining, and people who suffer from these disadvantages need a bit of help whether in a strong mentor or educational scaffolding provided by universities and others to help them achieve career goals. I don't think the claim that " Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege or in spite of disadvantage" quite describes the way I have seen individual achievement viewed at least at UW-Madison.
As a humanist/ lefty I don't resent individual achievement through talent, hard work and a bit of luck, not by inheritance, but I also recognize that the playing field is structurally unbalanced from the school system to red-lining, and people who suffer from these disadvantages need a bit of help whether in a strong mentor or educational scaffolding provided by universities and others to help them achieve career goals. I don't think the claim that " Individual achievement, then, is something that arises out of privilege or in spite of disadvantage" quite describes the way I have seen individual achievement viewed at least at UW-Madison.
Most artists always were courtiers at best, or just hirelings, playing the tune called by those who paid.
The artist as an internally driven free spirit is a Romantic fantasy.
And I mean that literally, it is a conceit born in the Romantic movement.
These days it is mostly (unless the artist is truly independently wealthy, a Lord Byron of his kind), a shtick, a pose, part of the image- package for sale.
The Levelers now seem interested only in taking down the top, but to be fair, no one has successfully answered Charles Murray's question about how to uplift the dim mass without disaster.
What's scary is the proposition that an awful lot of people simply can't be uplifted.
Epater les bourgeois was also a Romantic thing. Very 19th century. Remarkably popular and persistent in the social-signaling package whereby the haut-bourgeois punched down at the petit-bourgeois.
One of my many liberal/leftist friends and I had a conversation back in the 80's about this. Her POV was that the good of the whole is always more important than individual freedom. I argued that individual freedom/rights should always be held in higher esteem because the 'whole' can always be exclusionary and because socialism breeds mediocrity, suppressing creativity and innovation.
BTW, though American, she lived many years in Sweden and became quite disillusioned with socialism, lack of motivation, total conformity. But she remains a leftist. We are still friends, however. A few of my leftist friends are capable of enough objectivity to agree to disagree about politics.
Incidentally, and probably predictably, most of my hippie crowd came from fairly privileged suburban homes.
Smashing a fraternal bond over a difference in political opinions seems to me the epitome of silliness.
I'm not the person you are addressing here, but I broke up with my childhood best friend (I was the matron of honor in both her weddings) over HER outrageous abuse, name calling, and in general deranged behavior based on "a difference in political opinions."
The differences in views were fine by me. They were not fine by her. I didn't even talk politics with her. She just turned into a raving, hateful, vengeful, paranoid, abusive lunatic when Trump was elected and attacked anyone who didn't jump on her crazy train.
people who suffer from these disadvantages need a bit of help whether in a strong mentor or educational scaffolding provided by universities and others to help them achieve career goals.
You mean like this ?
That meme on Instapundit is deadly accurate. We have seen that awkward smile, I mean smirk, before! If Biden runs, are those young women going to be accused of “smirking” at a revered elder?
@Basil Duke:
Just out of curiosity, is this a mutual feeling on your brother's part? That is, does he not desire to speak to and have a relationship with you? Also, it doesn't create ripples within the family that you two do not speak? Can you occupy the same space peacefully? Didn't you call each other names when you were kids and find ways to get over it?
(Sorry, my family therapy training is kicking in)
@buwaya:
And I mean that literally, it is a conceit born in the Romantic movement.
Absolutely true. The notion of the starving, transgressive artist is a recent phenomenon. Artists for most of human history have relied on the patronage of the powerful and wealthy and have produced works that are celebratory of power and status.
buwaya said...
Epater les bourgeois was also a Romantic thing.
It's common these days, as well. But one must not Épater les Bien Pensants.
@Althouse, why on earth would you put the phrase “far-left college town” in scare quotes? The Madison I see through your posts is a place run by extreme leftists for the benefit of extreme leftists.
J. Farmer, The present dynamic goes a bit deeper than he hates Trump and I don't. My brother is FAR left, gay and an attorney who lives and works in Washington, D.C. Used to work for Lisa Madigan in Chicago, too. Once he got to Chicago, his adherence to the leftist line became more rigid by the year. If you disagreed with him on anything, you weren't just wrong, you were a Nazi. And if you voted for Trump, you were a double Nazi. Maybe even a triple Nazi. I haven't seen him since '14. (I live in the Midwest.) He visits our home town about every two years to see our elderly mother, but he won't go inside her home, because our sister lives there with her. (He hates her.) He sits on the front porch for his visit, and will pop inside to use the bathroom but then return immediately to the porch. He has no use for me, and, while sad, that's on him. Ironically, growing up, I was in a number of pretty serious fistfights on his behalf. (I had to cash the check he wrote with his smart mouth.) Gratitude!
People seem to have a seriously defective notion of what free speech means. It is a commons set up with a system of restraints based on reciprocity. It is not using the commons for grazing your own sheep, but preserving it for the use of others.
@roesch, you could probably write down the formal definition of the word “humanist” on an exam, but the person whom you expose through your comments is in no way a humanist.
When? When it disagreed with the Left's speech.
@Basil Duke:
J. Farmer, The present dynamic goes a bit deeper than he hates Trump and I don't.
A lot deeper, it appears, as I suspected. But I suppose this really isn't the forum for diving into your personal family dynamics. My apologies for going down that path. I've spent most of my professional life trying to keep families together and running smoothly, so I was bit disheartened to hear about the rift with your brother. Here's hoping for reconciliation in the future.
I originally said I was going to use what remained of my Gillette products, then stop buying them. Well, I just can’t make myself shave with them. I am done with that brand, thoroughly done. Especially after people used the Covington thing to justify the Gillette ad.
How does one help poor people? Not through the government — there is nothing the government does that it does not massively screw up (I suspect that we only won World War II because we screwed up marginally less than the Axis countries). One has only to live in Washington for a couple years to see the truth of this assertion. The answer is all around us if we only look! In what other country are poor fat? In what other country can a person own a car and TVs (multiple) and an air conditioner and still be officially “poor.” The much-hated capitalism did that; not the US government.
The brain-dead lefties who comment here can spare me their bullshit excuses for why poor people both fat and, allrgedly, starving. They have never been in a fast food restaurant and seen the tiny portions of food that the fat mothers give their skinny kids while scarfing down burger after burger. They’ve never had a skinny child’s hungry eyes following them as they go to toss uneaten fries in the trash. That’s the reality. All you have to do is put aside the bullshit and go look.
Being a controlling bitch is a basic human style that many people take up. It gives them power over others without having to earn it through merit. Once adopted, the style is addictive. The program runs on a loop, like a Roomba stuck in the corner.
J. Farmer, no problem! And thanks!
"(I suspect that we only won World War II because we screwed up marginally less than the Axis countries)"
Perhaps, but seems to me that even with a broken nut like Hitler in charge, Germany could have beat the whole world if they didn't have to fight it all at one time. The other Axis nations didn't really help her much.
"How does one help poor people?"
Teach and support ladders and bootstraps, and get the hell out of the way.
Preference may be given to applicants who are members of one or more of the following groups: women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and members of a visible minority group.
Hmmm. which group "need not apply?"
@Big Mike:
How does one help poor people
As for what the government can do:
1) Don't import low-skilled laborers from Latin America to suppress their wages
2) Don't use the myth of "free" trade to send their jobs to low-wages countries
3) Support a higher federal minimum wage.
People with limited cognitive skills cannot control that and cannot increase their cognitive ability. Around 15% of the US white population has an IQ under 85; 50% of blacks have such IQs. The challenge is to build a society in which these people are able to sustain themselves and their families economically.
As for what society can do:
1) Shame and cajole people into not having kids outside of marriage.
Single-parenthood is a massive driver of poverty in this country.
To focus on the expression is taking the bait/distraction.
Same expression by a bearded hipster in tie dyed shirt and a Fuck Trump hat would just be him celebrating difference of a dude that marches to the beat of his own drum.
Sure, they were non-conformists in the past. Sheesh!
@Farmer, your #3 is totally mistaken. Federal minimum wage laws have always caused entry level jobs to dry up. When the mandated wages exceed the value of the work performed then businesses would be insane to hire someone. Do the job with robots, or spread the work among other employees at a slight increase in salary, there are lots of ways to get rid of low skill jobs in the face of mandated minimum wages.
"I grew up in a far-left college town, and I've known so many young people who were free spirits, who were nonconformists"
Did you notice how they were all "free spirited" and "nonconformist" in exactly the same ways? That they were all alike?
Lefties are the biggest conformists of all.
@Birches - I WAS a punk rocker in the 1970s. Most of the people from that scene fell under the spell of the Whole Foods hippies they formerly despised and are now garden variety leftists.
Just try nonconforming with leftists.
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, your #3 is totally mistaken.
I am well aware of the criticisms of the minimum wage and have made them myself over the years, but the literature is very unclear and does not support a firm conclusion on either side.
@Farmer, f**k the literature and apply elementary common sense. What would you if forced to pay a person more than the value of the work they do?
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, f**k the literature and apply elementary common sense. What would you if forced to pay a person more than the value of the work they do?
There isn't really a way to determine the "value of the work they do" beyond losing money. Employers have other ways to offset costs: raise prices, take less profit, etc. We already have a federal minimum wage and we have virtually full employment. So either the minimum wage is the exact right number or is too low. Which do you think?
@Farmer, raising prices is a good way to go out of business. Perhaps you don’t drive right past a gas station or three to save two cents per gallon, but I know plenty of people who do. And for many small businesses “take less profits” may mean no college for their kids, or worse. Really, it would be useful for you to try to run a small business and see how hard it can be. “Prairie Populist” George McGovern got a hard lesson when he tried to open a small business (a bed & breakfast IIRC). You would too.
@Big Mike:
Really, it would be useful for you to try to run a small business and see how hard it can be.
I've done it for almost 20 years. How about you?
What!?! You're not a Non-Conformist?!? C'mon-- get with the program !!!!
@Farmer, you claim to have run a small business for twenty years and yet you have no sympathy for small business owners? Suuuurrrre.
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, you claim to have run a small business for twenty years and yet you have no sympathy for small business owners? Suuuurrrre.
Do you want my EIN? I employ 27 people. How about you? And of course I never said that I "have no sympathy for small business owners." Those are your words. You are the one who claimed it would be useful if I had "run a small business." In fact, I have. Does that make you more convinced of my argument?
Psst...whether either of us has ever run a small business is actually not logically connected to the argument. As your attempt at a rhetorical smear against me demonstrates.
Does that make you more convinced of my argument?
Nope
Psst...whether either of us has ever run a small business is actually not logically connected to the argument.
Yep
"We're probably screwed and heading for a world that looks like something out of Fritz Lang's Metropolis."
"Probably"??!
"If what you're saying is true, it's very sad. Smashing a fraternal bond over a difference in political opinions seems to me the epitome of silliness."
I agree.
"@Birches - I WAS a punk rocker in the 1970s. Most of the people from that scene fell under the spell of the Whole Foods hippies they formerly despised and are now garden variety leftists."
They were just disaffected hippies to begin with. I was a fan of what came to be called "punk rock" when it was just "New York Underground Rock," and I was reading about it from afar via CREEM, ROCK SCENE,VILLAGE VOICE, etc. I enjoyed it for the artistic pushback against the tedious mass-pop of the time, and for its variety. ("Punk" originally held within its tent Suicide, the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Richard Hell, the Cramps, Pere Ubu, and many other disparate bands of original bent. It was conceptual art music by and for smart kids who loved rock and roll. It never had any political aspects to it...though Joey Ramone was left-wing and Johnny Ramone right-wing, their personal rift was not over politics, but over a girl. When the masses rushed to punk rock and the Brits imposed their style on it, the end could be foretold. The masses are always going to be populated mostly by mediocrities or worse. "New Wave" was met by NYC's "No Wave," dissonant, squalling art music made mostly by artists who were non-musicians. These people were all doggedly individualistic, and none overtly political. None, as far as I know, ever turned into latter day hippies.
It is cults. Jim Jones killing his followers. Islam who would kill anyone who tries to leave. That is the best identifier of a cult, how do they treat someone who wants to leave.
A list of dangerous cults:
Islam
the left
Scientology
environmentalists
Social Justice "christians"
PETA
Mormons (wonderful people, theology is nuts)
Tribes - the problem in Africa, former Yugoslavia,Iraq, Rwanda: what tribe you are tells "me" if i should help you or kill you.
This is the source of much of our trouble. Cults do not play well with others. You shall have no other god but the cult. This is the danger of the fruit salad america that democrats favor. A nation of tribes will fail. I believe Lincoln had some things to say that are relevant.
Semi quoting what Erdogan said about democracy, to the left "Free speech is a bus you ride until you get to your stop."
A nation of tribes will fail. I believe Lincoln had some things to say that are relevant.
Lincoln was quoting Matthew 3:25: And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
Althouse,
"Exactly"
Approximately. (FIFY)
Where Wilbur goes wrong is saying 'may' instead of 'will'.
I don't mean this fatalistically; it is still possible, though unlikely, that we get off this path that we are on. But that path unquestionably does lead, is leading to, violence... in fact ANTIFA is already at that destination.
R/V,
"... the playing field is structurally unbalanced from the school system... "
I challenge you to go visit some rural schools in Kenya before you try to promulgate this bullshit on us. You would be amazed at what these folks accomplish with a tiny micro fraction of the resources spent in a failing school system like Washington DC's. In fact, I would even say that they place too much hope in the results of education, but my goodness you cannot fault them for trying. The schools are disciplined and orderly, those who are disruptive are booted out, and hard work and scholastic success are rewarded and held up as examples.
J.Farmer,
I don't understand your Metropolis reference -- automation doesn't tie people to mindless industrial tasks, it takes them totally out of the picture.
As I've said often, Lefties start off with love-beads, incense, and "Kumbaya," and end up with the bayonet, the bludgeon, and Two Minutes' Hate.
"This post brought to mind the movie, 'Il Postino: The Postman.' Pablo Neruda and his political inclinations, beautiful movie. I think to be a great artist requires being open; that is, the art will flow through an open person. It can be a scary place, because once you will yourself to be pried open, it means you accept literally everything."
(SPOILER ALERT) I found the tragedy in "Il Postino" to be the protagonist dying before his personal evolution would progress that he could see Neruda and that ilk to be would-be dictators.
The goal of free speech was dismantling existing cultural institutions: family, church, art world authorities, certain aesthetic and moral ideals, etc..
People are opportunistic and, when seeing certain taboo expressions go unpunished, they subconsciously modify their appraisal of the strength of the institutions upholding the taboos, which causes them to fall.
People subconsciously or consciously look for these clues about what is worthy of respect and what isn't.
This is not to say that the old institutions were ideal (or is this my subconscious orientation showing?), but what has replaced them is in many ways far worse.
Other institutions that were taken down using free speech: patriotism of course (the taboo on flag burning), modesty (the taboo on nudity).
Now free speech has pretty much achieved its purpose, which was to take down all these other institutions. So it is its own turn to be taken down, as a relic from that bygone era.
We are about to see what institutions our new masters see fit for us. Or more likely they just don't want to be constrained by permanent institutions. Their thinking is more fluid than that. Anarcho-tyranny, here we come.
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