But she got silence. She still pretended she'd received the desired response, and declared the conclusion to be derived from the demonstration that hadn't happened: "It's about all of us."This might be the most awkward moment ever, the second-hand embarassment is real pic.twitter.com/ObaMKPR9c3
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) October 29, 2024
Apparently, individualism is not in vogue... or not something her people feel good about expressing loud and proud.
If I followed the method of the elite media and the Democratic Party, I would call it fascistic. The crowd showed that it only wanted to be unified behind the identity of the adored leader.
ADDED: I feel the strong need to republish a post I wrote in September 2018:
"[The sociologist Emile] Durkheim saw groups and communities as being in some ways like organisms—social entities that have a chronic need to enhance their internal cohesion and their shared sense of moral order. Durkheim described human beings as 'homo duplex,' or 'two-level man.' We are very good at being individuals pursuing our everyday goals (which Durkheim called the level of the 'profane,' or ordinary). But we also have the capacity to transition, temporarily, to a higher collective plane, which Durkheim called the level of the 'sacred.' He said that we have access to a set of emotions that we experience only when we are part of a collective—feelings like 'collective effervescence,' which Durkheim described as social 'electricity' generated when a group gathers and achieves a state of union. (You’ve probably felt this while doing things like playing a team sport or singing in a choir, or during religious worship.) People can move back and forth between these two levels throughout a single day, and it is the function of religious rituals to pull people up to the higher collective level, bind them to the group, and then return them to daily life with their group identity and loyalty strengthened. Rituals in which people sing or dance together or chant in unison are particularly powerful. A Durkheimian approach is particularly helpful when applied to sudden outbreaks of moralistic violence that are mystifying to outsiders...."
From "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure" by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt — which I started reading a couple days ago and am in the middle of reading.
I wanted to blog this passage because of the prompt, "You’ve probably felt this while doing things like playing a team sport or singing in a choir, or during religious worship." Tell me how you relate to that. I'll tell you how I do.
I've been in some situations where I have seen it happening to other people, and my own reaction was markedly to separate from the group and become especially aware of my individuality. I never feel pulled into the collective. It has the opposite effect on me. I don't know why I'm immune, but I may have been inoculated by Frank Zappa.
It was Friday, February 2, 1969, at the Fillmore East, and in the middle of the show Zappa — I believe he was wearing red velvet/satin pants — divided up the audience into parts — maybe 4 sections — each assigned to sing out when pointed at. I didn't sing when pointed at, but I was interested in the sound he got flowing through the big audience as he escalated to more and more elaborate pointing patterns. He kept going until the crowd — struggling to respond to his showy conducting — could not keep up and it became cacophony. At that point, as I remember it, Zappa gave the crowd a gesture — perhaps a contemptuous 2-handed get-outta-here — and said something to the effect of, You people were idiots to have followed me in the first place. But I had not followed him, and so my resistance to the ecstasy of crowd merger — which I'd worried was stand-offish and putting me at risk of a joyless future — was vindicated.
That was a rather innocuous occasion. (And — I had to look this up — the words "innocuous" and "inoculate" do not have a shared etymology. The "oc" in "inoculate" goes back to the Latin word for eye — "oculus" — which also came to mean bud. The idea of grafting a bud into a plant got transferred into the medical context we think of today, which I was using metaphorically, above. The extra "n" in "innocuous" should get you to see — with your oculus — that it's not "oc" but "noc." That word comes from "nocere," the Latin meaning to hurt, which is also the source of "noxious.")
So... that Frank Zappa routine was a rather innocuous display, but it worked — as he intended? — to inoculate at least some of us... at least me... from susceptibility to collective effervescence.
When else have I seen that kind of crowd merger and felt stronger in my sense of individuation? First, I remember another concert — Pantera, in 1996. I attended this concert here in Madison only because in those days I had the privilege of driving 15-year-old boys to concerts. I enjoyed it, but in a distanced way, and there were times when the lead singer was exhorting a crowd and the crowd was responding en masse in a way that made me contemplate what it would be like to be in the midst of a 1930s Nazi rally. And, most notably, I remember the Wisconsin protests of 2011, as they gained momentum day by day, with endless hours of drumming and chanting. The protesters would stay for long hours in the state capitol building — many of them overnight — and I would observe for a while then go home but come back another day. So the changes in the atmosphere were very striking to me. Whatever serious ideas and beliefs individual protesters may have had, their collective mind was courting madness.
71 comments:
Bravo hostess. This post wins the internet today. Gracias.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
I'd bet you'd lead with the Bezos letter. I lose.
Most disturbing is how the name of the adored leader doesn’t matter either. Joe, Kamala. Same difference…
wonder what the singalong on their bus-rides is?
Hey, that’s MY name too!
On my way home from church, I ran into a street corner march of Harris supporters, just about all young women. Leading the march was a big paper mache puppet of a cat. They’re proud to be “cat ladies!”
#notacult
Regarding silence: The left spent 3 full generations purging religion and personal conduct standards (aka morals) from public life. Without Harvey Weinstein's morality they'd have no morality at all. Without the campaign support of Megan Thee Stallion, Bruce Springsteen, and Marshall Mathers they'd have no idea what to think or do. Fame = truth, power, and righteousness. What an easy, quasi-religious way to get comforting answers!
Quoting Megan The Stallion's uplifting lyrics:
Who in the fuck do you bitches think y'all talkin' to? (Who?)
Slap a wrong bitch, she ask me what the fuck I do? (Fuck I do?)
I'm runnin' down on any bitch that look like you (Look like you)
So when you see me, bitch, you know I'm finna act a fool
I do and I do, and I do for you motherfuckers (Motherfuckers)
But I still ain't heard a, "Thank you," in this motherfucker (Motherfucker)
You did me dirty, now your life ain't shit (Ah-ha)
I ain't wishin' you the best, bitch, that's what you get (Hahahaha)
https://genius.com/Megan-thee-stallion-tyg-lyrics
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2024/08/02/megan-thee-stallion-kamala-harris-rally-backlash/74650656007/
Karl Marx is rolling in his grave, as leftism rather than religion proved to be a shallow and self-destructive opiate of the masses.
The purveyors of "labels uber alles."
She still pretended she'd received the desired response, and declared the conclusion to be derived from the demonstration that hadn't happened: "
i don't think she "pretended"; i think..
The Teleprompter ASSUMED that it'd happened..
She CAN NOT improvise without the Teleprompter.
Can Someone Tell Me WHY the Democrat Party got rid of Biden?
Can Someone Tell Me WHY the Democrat Party got rid of Biden for HER?
It's probably not a good idea for Kamala Harris to remind her audience that they are just a bunch of NPCs.
Autocorrect...Thee not The...
"The Democrat Party" didn't get rid of Biden. Joe Biden was overthrown in a coup led by Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House. A co-conspirator in this illegal coup was Barack Obama, former President and the person behind Joe Biden making all the decisions (Joe is just the front-man they built a fake White House Oval Office for).
Donald Trump should arrest Nancy Pelosi for treason on Day One and place her into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba until she can be tried and hung by her neck until she is dead.
Some time ago I grabbed this comment from a blog post -- might have been this blog but can't remember.
“You can have feelings or you can have structure, one breaks the other. Women run on feelings, a balance of everything in the air. Guys run on structure, looking at stability and e.g. perverse consequences.
It's not misogyny, it's just how it is. Feelings work better for neighborhood sized things, which aren't all-including enough to go unstable. The too-strict father is the stereotype of the structuralist in the home.
For large systems like nations, women produce nothing but perverse consequences. The founding fathers were not feelings guys, they were structure guys.”
This is where we are with Harris -- and where we'll be headed.
Trump sure generates enthusiasm, and lots of it, but it's different, far more genuine, and far more diverse. "Adoration" or even "adulation" don't seem to describe the situation, hardly at all, and what elicits seems more like "appreciation" and "admiration".
He's a regularly obnoxious cad of sorts, but we New Englanders of two generations ago felt *most* New Yorkers were that way. To this day, most of us in Kansas feel that way, and even more heartily, yet except for a couple of little Donk enclaves ... it is rock-solid Trump country.
Why? a) We know, and admire, that he set aside a comfortable and easy life, at no small cost to himself to serve and set right a country he obviously loves as much as we do. b) He shares most of our ideas about what's gone wrong in America over the last half century, and how to fix them. c) Despite his age, and perhaps *because* of it, he has changed the Republicans from a bunch of Uniparty RINOs in utter futility longing to be accepted by the "cool kids" ... changed it into a young, dynamic, creative, incredibly diverse party of individuals who truly LOVE America, its founding principles, its heritage, its freedom and liberty, its melting-pot diversity, its dreams and opportunities, its future, and its ongoing potential for profound good in the world. d) The contrast is with a psycho-sclerotic Brezhnev-Andropov clerisy of aged and moribund autocrats with nearly no dynamic potential successors or vision for the future. And e) Trump gets shit DONE.
4th Turning. The supply of individualism is high but society demands cohesion to deal with the (perceived) crisis. The great debate is over what the crisis is and what form cohesion will take.
Also reminded of this ...
"Thank you Mr. President. You made it possible for ordinary people like us to meet you," he says shaking hands with Trump. "You are not ordinary," Trump replied.
"Apparently, individualism is not in vogue... or not something her people feel good about expressing loud and proud." And the only individual doing his own thing is DJT. At the MSG rally, our convicted criminal candidate put z-list roast-master edgelord Tony Hinchcliffe on the speaker list. When his speech draft was submitted for loading onto the teleprompter, only a joke callying Kamala "a cunt" was stricken. The sexual habits of Latinos, the "floating garbage island " of Puerto Rico and the Black person carving a watermelon remained.
Suddenly the sky opened and the most popular Puerto Rican entertainers in the nation — hell, in the world — took to social media to endorse Kamala Harris to their hundreds of millions of followers. Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny announced his endorsement of Harris by posting a video showing Kamala pledging help to Puerto Rico that was sent to his 45 million followers on Instagram. Singer-songwriter Ricky Martin did the same to his 15 million Instagram followers and Jennifer Lopez piled on. J Lo only has 250 million followers. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - AOC herself is a Boricua - also posted a critical video.
Seemed to be mostly 20s and 30s.
Oh you got that comment here all right... The writing is unmistakable!
I never feel pulled into the collective. It has the opposite effect on me. I don't know why I'm immune[.]
For me it likely started when I finally made friends with somebody, probably bonding over the realization we were both social misfits. That was in kindergarten.
Of course, it's entirely possible we were merely doing something that might eventually lead to the formation of a recognizable collective.
I try to be scientific about these sorts of things.
Thanx ST.. Wasn't sure how young was young... 20s and 30s are Young
I went to a Beatles performance in Atlantic City in 1964. I was annoyed that everyone was jumping up, screaming, and even standing on their seats. I felt resistant to the contagion of such out of control enthusiasm for the far away dots on the stage.
Well, then, that's the end of Trump, then! Shouldn't you be dusting off your pussy hat instead of wasting time here?
Trump should try this. The comparison would be interesting (unfortunately it's likely a lot of people will hear about the Kamala fail and know what to do).
If "it's about all of us" doesn't that mean it is about the group, and not the individuals that comprise the group? You don't become a group unless you are working towards some common goal or have some other reason to be bound together. It's not just *being* in a group in a passive sense but the effect of being included makes you act in a different way than if you were outside the group.
That was perfect. She silenced the crowd then she said this is about all of us and then the next word out of her mouth was "I".
I don't know about you but I can already hear the fat lady singing from the penthouse of Trump Tower
Frank had me at Duke of Prunes.
Original Duke Of Prunes
Slight disagreement. It's not "they are" but "they are *expected to be*".
Somebody, whether it was Harris herself or some speechwriting flack, came up with this idea, probably focus-grouped among the staff, *and then just expected that a crowd of Harris supporters would do exactly what Dear Leader told them to do when instructed*. No thought was given to the fact that this doesn't happen spontaneously (though I can see a speaker building up to getting a crowd to do it) and would be such a gear-switch from chanting "Kamala" that silence should have been fairly predictable.
Maybe this broke the spell for a few people.
Gosh! Frank Zappa, eh? I remember seeing him live in London in late 1970. Could hardly see, I was so high up and far from the stage. You must have a good memory to recall that. I was a fan (obviously) but can't remember a thing about him apart from the moustache.
Heels-Up, "It's about all of us."
"And definitively NOT about that clump of cells!!!"
Self identify at a Harris event? The essence of leftism is collectivism. I think she must be really confused about what exactly she is doing, and who she is doing it with, and to.
I'm betting I commented on that 2018 post in this same vein: I have experienced that elevation to something larger and more important than oneself, specifically while singing in ensemble, and it's an ineffable moment that I can't recommend enough. It also, I think, has its time and place (which can include a great concert - I'm always fascinated by that crowd energy when everyone is, if you'll forgive the Peterson-ism, oriented toward the same thing).
Individualism is great and all, and foundational for us Americans, but I wouldn't reject all opportunities to experience that feeling (ahem) of unity simply because they're not individualistic enough. And, I'd also argue that Judeo-Christianity celebrates both the value (to God! Which is kind of the point) of each individual and the sense of unity to be found in love of God, in a way that religious traditions involving something like an Oversoul or whatever do not.
Respectfully, your non-participation received an enormous amount of validation from the way Zappa handled the situation. As I noted above, a decent speaker could likely build the crowd up to all shouting their own name, and Zappa could have managed the outcome to validate the people following his directions and shame the non-conformists rather than the conformists. If he did that, he wouldn't be Frank Zappa, though.
True solidarity serves both the common good and the individual good. It promotes the positive development of the individuals.
I suspect they couldn't shout their names because they didn't have any. I think a group dependent upon hate cannot support individual development, just a replacement of the individual good by the group purpose. Hate does not build community.
I never feel pulled into the collective. It has the opposite effect on me. I don't know why I'm immune,
I heard the phrase "What do you care what other people think?" so often from my Mom when I was growing up. I can still hear it. It's made me very wary of a collective group think now.
That was so weird how they all fell silent, quickly and in unison, as if Kamala had suddenly spoken in some strange tongue.
Collective effervescence = mass formation?
See Desmet via Althouse portal:
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Totalitarianism-Mattias-Desmet/dp/1645021726
“my own reaction was markedly to separate from the group and become especially aware of my individuality.”
Wondering if, with this mindset, you got vaccinated (you may have said but I don’t remember). I was surprised by the number of people I knew who usually did their own thinking but were frightened into going along with the MRNA edict.
“my own reaction was markedly to separate from the group and become especially aware of my individuality.”
Wondering if, with this mindset, you got vaccinated (you may have said but I don’t remember). I was surprised by the number of people I knew who usually did their own thinking but were frightened into going along with the MRNA edict.
The difference between the two candidates in a nutshell:
Harris "It is all about us!"
Trump "I don't care about you, I just want your vote."
Rhhardin almost certainly.
Rehearsing and performing rock and roll in a group. It literally hurts to practice alone because the older I get the more arthritis sets in and makes my hands stuff and sore. But playing in a group, especially performing for people, produces a "runners high" type effect that completely takes the pain away and my hands loosen up to the point I can play guitar riffs that are practically impossible when playing alone at home.
To a lesser extent, a similar state can be achieved when I do woodwork and lose myself in the process, but never to the exhilarating state achieved in a group performance.
I want to hear your take on the "effervescence" effect Althouse solicited comments on. You've been playing a long time and are aging, like me (I share my story below), but I wonder if you feed off the church crowds when you sit down at the keyboard and to what result.
Obama wrote that for her.
I think Kammie Sue has the student council election wrapped up.
Yay someone else also took on the challenge.
Or was that just for reference that she included it?
Pat Boone is still around at 90 and still making albums. Maybe a rap album would do well -- with all the "motherfuckers" turned into "Fuddruckers" or something equally innocuous.
That's my name, too!
Harris has trouble going off script. She should recognize that audiences may have similar problems improvising. They can enjoy the show but turn tongue-tied when the camera and microphone are turned around and facing themselves.
Beat me by five hours. Clearly it is a song that transcends generations...
Graduation Fay at Infantry Basic Officer Lader Course starting now at Ft Moore/ Benning
They train them to communicate well and give orders. Which is what Commander in Chief Trump will do. And no they are NOT FASCISTS.
do,
Kamala sincerely thought they'd all shout Karen together with one voice.
I might have posted this before, but it fits here:
"Progressivism, in its 19th and 20th century versions (and most assuredly in its looming 21st century version as well) is a violent creed that demands the bending the individual human will for the convenience of and to the purpose of the collective. The individual only has value insofar as he or she is part of and participates in the great march of Progress. It may not be as overtly brutal or murderous as fascism or communism, but Progressivism is just as totalitarian, just as reliant on force, just as enamored of the state, and just as focused on the creation of a new kind of human being and a new kind of humanity (and the necessary destruction of the old).
What, after all, is the value of a single human individual life or soul when it’s the promised land *we’re* marching to?" - Charles H. Featherstone
The thought came to me while walking the dog ... the way to make this work is to focus on your speech on 'you', not 'I' or 'them' or even 'us', kinda like ...
"Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you."
Althouse writes, "Apparently, individualism is not in vogue..."
Or the median IQ of Kamala's rent-a-mob is too low to comprehend her request. (The concept of a comprehensible Kamala Harris utterance is itself metafictional.)
Or the typical Kamala voter is more influenced by pheromones than language.
Kindergarten school teacher type stunt.
not as good as her "wheels on the bus go round and round" bit
About the only thing Harris has going for her as a retail politician is that her name is very chantable, "Ka-ma-LA!" so her cultists can express their hivemind adoration for her.
She is just plain terrible at this. I remain, however, confident that she will be frauded into office.
When Harris says “us”, she means “me”. And whoever said that about Trump has never met him. We are back at the Trump hotel right now in LAS, and all of the longer serving employees have their Trump stories. He has talked to all of the longer serving employees. He remembers enough that the next time he talks to them, he remembers something about them. He has some of the charisma that Bill Clinton was famous for, and some of GW Bush’s ability to remember details in the lives of those around, but not as much as either one, but more than most people. But none of the cold distain that Crooked Hillary was famous for, and Harris seems to share. They also seem to share an attitude of elitism, shared by FJB, his family, Pelosi, and a lot of top Dem politicians. None of the Trump family are that way.
Best thing Zappa ever did was kicking Lowell George out of the Mothers. George then went on to form Little Feat, one of the great bands of the 70s.
"Apparently, individualism is not in vogue... or not something her people feel good about expressing loud and proud."
The modern Democrat party is all about collectivism over individuality.
Remember that scene in Life of Brian where he is talking to the crowd and they keep all talking in unison?
Brian: You are all individuals.
Crowd: Yes, we are all individuals.
Brian: You're all different.
Crowd: Yes, we're all different.
One guy in the crowd: I'm not.
Crowd: Shhhh!
Brian: You've all got to work it out for your selves.
Crowd: Yes, we all have to work it out for ourselves.
Brian: Exactly!
Crowd: Tell us more!
Brian: No! That's the point! Don't let anyone tell you what to do. Otherwise..ow! (Brian's mom drags him inside.)
It looks like comments are disappearing again.
My congregations love me. They even sing my original hymns. I don’t have any physical disabilities, even though I’m 75. I look on every service in the same way that I look on a popular music performance, that is I bring my best game and full emotional weight every time.
I don’t have any age related disabilities. So, I enjoy even my private practices. But, it’s always better to play and sing with other musicians, and I do that a lot.
If I followed the method of the elite media and the Democratic Party, I would call it fascistic
And you'd be correct
Boone actually made an album of hard rock/heavy metal songs (in a jazz/big band style) in 1997, and it was a hit!
My God, they'll put a picture of KH in the dictionary opposite "Imposter Syndrome".
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