Items Posted by Jim Kalb
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 10 21:51:14 EST 1994
Article: 1088 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: reading
Date: 10 Jan 1994 21:44:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 55
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References: <1994Jan9.010627.15107@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2gpap5$9kt@panix.com> <1994Jan10.212943.25028@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>Sounds perfectly sensible to me. Read it, Mr. Deane, and learn!
>
>But I HAVE read the book! Have you?
I should have said "Read it well and often, Mr. Deane . . ." Can I do
so_nunc pro tunc_? (I haven't read the book, but your description made
it sound rather compelling.)
>The weakness of the writer's argument is that he assumes that systems
>of thought based on "immanence" are at fault; he completely neglects
>all the wars of religion, genocides, etc., carried out in the name of
>"transcendent" ideals.
One can say "theories based on 'immanence' characteristically lead to to
certain problems and in this century have resulted in catastrophe"
without saying "every theory based on 'transcendence' guarantees that
all problems will be avoided".
>So how can one insist that a particular philosophical point of view
>MUST result in a particular political outcome?
I agree that all one can assert is tendencies. The analysis of
tendencies is what political thought is all about.
>Has it occured to you that one might reject transcendent moral laws,
>but not immanent moral laws?
You can safely assume that I haven't thought of any point you might want
to make. Nonetheless, it does seem to me that the status and derivation
of a principle is likely to affect its content and the manner in which
it is held. In particular, I think it's likely to matter whether you
believe that morality can be based entirely on some feature of the world
of our sense and social experience, or that morality can't be reduced to
any feature of that world. In a particular case it may not matter, of
course. For example, my fundamental moral principle might be "the will
of the Fuehrer is the supreme law", while my substantive morality might
be identical to that usually attributed to Mother Theresa because that's
the way I interpret the Fuehrer's will no matter what words he uses to
express it.
>Or are we to accept the belief that morality began with the ten
>commandments? And that all of the peoples of history who did not
>partake of these "revealed truths" were evil?
Lots of people who never heard of the ten commandments have thought that
morals can't be reduced to our desires or goals or any feature of our
experience, and that they draw their binding force from some source that
is ontologically prior to human life.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 10 21:51:18 EST 1994
Article: 1089 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 10 Jan 1994 21:49:08 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
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References: <1994Jan9.015722.15873@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2gpb0i$a6a@panix.com> <1994Jan10.215834.25788@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>I really don't think there is much spine in the man. Without the
>Republican conservative and neo-conservative establishment to support
>him, he'd be a nothing. He is often on target, but he's only as good as
>the writers who back him up.
He's not an original thinker. He's a very talented mimic. Reagan, of
course, was a professional actor. Why is it that in America the most
successful spokesmen for conservatism are people skilled at speaking in
a person other than their own?
>Ethnic and social balkanization would seem to be the wave of the
>future. And our political/cultural establishment seems to be doing
>everything possible to make matters worse.
_Divide et impera_. The only unity is through the machinery of
government and of the formulation and dissemination of opinion and
information, and therefore through the class that runs that machinery.
>Michael Walker seems to think that tax protesting, and other efforts
>aimed at limiting the scope of the state, will be the wave of the
>future, since most people are too passive to accept nationalistic or
>revolutionary ideals. Since all they care about is money and the
>quality of life, the failure of the state to provide these things will
>be seen as a major breach of the crumbling social contract.
If there are tax protestors then the machinery for collecting taxes will
be made more comprehensive and more brutal. Self-centered passive
resistence simply leads to inefficient despotism.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jan 11 16:37:15 EST 1994
Article: 1094 of alt.revolution.counter
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From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 11 Jan 1994 13:10:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 32
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References: <2gbj82$qfc@panix.com> <1994Jan11.153519.23719@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
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wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>| >> The problem with Mr. Limbaugh, despite the fact that I find him
>| >>entertaining now and then (although I don't listen much), is that he
>| >>uses the debate tactics of the left to advance ostensibly conservative
>| >>positions. He attempts to make conservatism "fun," as if this isn't
>| >>the problem itself: we must have "fun," and constantly be presented
>| >>with novelties that shock and amuse us.
>
>Vis-a-vis Mr. Kalb's note here [ . . . ]
Mr. Aiken's note. I may be softer on the lots-o-laffs approach to
political discussion than some others. G.K. Chesterton used it, and St.
Paul said he was willing to be all things to all men, so who am I to
differ? Not that I have anything against grouches, mind you, staunch
fan of Tom Fleming's _Chronicles_ that I am.
>The problem is, of course, that serious issues are being "dumbed down"
>and made silly or entertaining so that "the people" can develop an
>(uninformed) opinion about them. We seem to be moving in the direction
>of having an "emocratic" ratification of membership
Only jesters and madmen can say what they think, at least in societies
that are sadly short of republican virtue. I agree that fora in which
straightforward discussion is possible are good things to have, and a
good right-wing newspaper should be such a forum, but like everyone else
we have to do outreach.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jan 11 16:37:16 EST 1994
Article: 1095 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 11 Jan 1994 13:12:25 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <2gih06$hu6@panix.com> <94011.104234U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
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Terry Rephann writes:
>How about, for instance, the anti-federalists and their successors, the
>Calhounites. After two-hundred and ten odd years of creeping
>centralization, we can see that they were not very much wide of the mark
>in their criticisms of the very inappropriately named "federalists."
The anti-federalists said "there are going to be major problems". They
were smart guys, and now we can see that major problems have indeed
developed. Sitting here in Brooklyn, it's not clear what can be done
about it and "get thee to a nunnery" sometimes seems like as good advice
as any. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, though:
>The neo-anti-federalists have forwarded a program of sorts appropriate
>for the 1990s in Frank Bryan and John McClaughry's _The Vermont Papers_
>(Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company 1989).
It's in the New York Public Library's on-line catalog. I'll take a look
at it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jan 11 21:18:41 EST 1994
Article: 1103 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 11 Jan 1994 18:27:24 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 35
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aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
> Would someone care to elighten me a bit regarding distributism? From
> what I've read of it, there seems to be no parallel in the American
> political culture.
Did it ever have much support in any political culture, or is it just
something people have heard of because G.K. Chesterton invented it?
> Is not the idea of a "grand theory" the mark of the revolutionary
> rather than the CR? An elaborate blueprint for political action
> presupposes, at least to some degree, that human behavior is
> predictable within a dynamic environment.
A CR *is* a revolutionary, because the alternative is to go along with
the existing institutionalized revolution. At a minimum, the CR has to
show that continuing the revolutionary transformation of society in the
direction of equality and the liberation of impulse is bad, and that
something else would be better. He has to describe that something else
definitely enough to guide action, and he has to assess what is
possible given existing conditions and tendencies realistically enough
for that action to have a reasonable chance of improving things. All
that takes a lot of theorizing, although maybe not an elaborate
blueprint.
For someone who believes there are quite fundamental problems with a
state of affairs in which the most authoritative political institutions
are based on radical egalitarianism and hedonism, the promptings of the
untutored heart and inarticulate loyalty to ancestral ways are not
enough.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jan 11 21:22:31 EST 1994
Article: 1104 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: reading
Date: 11 Jan 1994 21:20:55 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 42
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References: <1994Jan10.212943.25028@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2gt3qu$6de@panix.com> <1994Jan11.210650.18398@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>I found your comment a little irritating [ . . . ]
Things would no doubt go better if we could just order another round of
beers when there is a difference of opinion. Life is hard.
>For instance, if one reads the Old Testament (and I mean, really read
>it, not the kind of reading I did in Sunday school...), one will see
>exhortations to massacre and genocide not unlike what happened under
>the nazis (and for similar reasons - i.e., creating "lebensraum" for
>the chosen race), all on the basis of a transcendent authority. So such
>tendencies are not limited to "immanence".
Why not write the author of the book a letter and after stroking him a
little ask him what he thinks of Moses and Joshua? You could certainly
come up with quite a list of point-by-point analogies to Nazism. It
would be interesting to see what someone intelligent who has thought
about the issues would say.
I don't have any good theory on the subject. God told Moses that his
name was "I AM THAT I AM", which certainly sounds like the name of a
transcendent deity. On the other hand, YHWH was specifically the God of
Israel and Israel his people, which sounds less transcendent. Simone
Weil thought that the religion of both Israel and Rome was worship of
themselves collectively, and thought Nazism an example of the same
thing. There must be other views, but I don't know what they are.
>Yes, but that's not the same thing as transcendence in the religious
>sense that the writer is using. Eastern religions, for instance, are
>religions of immancence, not transcendence, and yet they would agree
>that there are various sources ontologically prior to human life.
I've rather lost track of what the distinction between transcendence and
immanence is that we've talked about from time to time, and its relation
to the writer's views, Nazism, Bolshevism, the Consumer Society, and
everything else. Maybe some day we can start again.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Jan 11 21:22:57 EST 1994
Article: 1105 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 11 Jan 1994 21:22:15 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
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References: <1994Jan10.215834.25788@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2gt434$76m@panix.com> <1994Jan11.211853.18654@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>>If there are tax protestors then the machinery for collecting taxes will
>>be made more comprehensive and more brutal. Self-centered passive
>>resistence simply leads to inefficient despotism.
>
>If that happens, then the welfare state could no longer pretend to be
>the warm n' fuzzy democracy that it claims to be. Mass disillusionment
>are what revolutions - or rather counter-revolutions - are made of.
Mass disillusionment mostly results in mass cruddiness and tolerance of
corruption unless some positive vision catches on.
>No state can function long without support from at least a segment of
>the population
The support of at least a segment of the population can always be
bought. Once that's been done another large segment will think it's
next in line for payoffs.
>and frankly I don't believe that our political class has the stomach
>for tyranny. It's propaganda is not only meant for our ears, but also
>to reassure itself.
Very likely. But like they say, growth and evolution are the law of
nature. Maybe our political class or some part of it will rise to the
occasion. Maybe the habit of believing their own propaganda and
averting their eyes from what they're actually doing will grow on them,
especially if the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
Part of the issue, I suppose, is whether the politics of New York are
the politics of the future. Since I live in New York it's easy for me
to think they are, and that makes me pessimistic.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jan 12 09:54:05 EST 1994
Article: 1107 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Counter-revolutionary art
Date: 12 Jan 1994 08:44:44 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
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References: <1994Jan9.003818.14674@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Jan11.194255.8522@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
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aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
> I wonder, however, if the sorting of artists
> according to whether they were or were not self-conciously CR is
> itself the sort of act that the Left might engage in, since the
> political success of the Left depends upon the awakening of the
> political "conciousness."
The Left objects to the notion that there are things people can't do
anything about and goods that don't reduce to what people actually want.
Therefore, for the Left there can be nothing greater than the master-art
of getting what people desire. That master-art is politics, as the Left
conceives politics, and everything including art must be understood by
reference to it. In contrast, a CR is likely to believe that the
greatest goods rather exceed our grasp, and therefore he is likely to be
most deeply concerned with something other than political action. That
difference in perspective will show up in the CR's attitude toward art.
> To digress: why does the Left reject the great works of the past as
> being unacceptable subjects for study? Is is because of the
> counter-revolutionary implications in these works, or because they
> remind our sans culottist friends of the impracticability of Utopia?
You can study them as long as you treat them as evil spirits that must
be exorcized. Leftists don't like them because they suggest that there
are things we can't do anything about, that there is a difference
between what we desire and what is good, that life is too real to be
reduced to a system, and that the moral life of individuals matters.
The great works are invariably sexist and generally racist as well,
since they don't categorically reject parochial loyalties. They are
typically intolerant because they assume and even proclaim there is a
real difference between good and bad that does not reduce to the
difference between maximizing the equal satisfaction of impulse and
failure to do so. (I'm using "racist" and "intolerant" quite broadly,
but I think consistently with Leftist usage.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jan 12 09:54:16 EST 1994
Article: 11395 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: The need for God
Date: 12 Jan 1994 06:54:09 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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feld@cc.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld) writes:
>Morals-without-God is indeed possible, though arguments to the
>contrary might at first look plausible [ . . . ] Either moral truths
>exist independently of God's will, or God can change them at will.
Do the alternatives cover all the ground? It might be the case that
there would be no moral obligation at all if there were no God, but if
God exists then the particular things that are morally obligatory are
necessarily morally obligatory. Or is that possibility incoherent for
some reason?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jan 13 05:52:58 EST 1994
Article: 1109 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: snowbound
Date: 12 Jan 1994 20:34:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 57
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References: <1994Jan12.173401.9438@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>As to Michael Walker's suggestion: he was not only talking about tax
>resistance - which tends to land people in jail - but tax protest, not
>unlike what happened in Cal. with Prop.13. That is, when the working
>tax payer sees where his money is going, and demands a reduction in
>taxation to stifle the welfare state and immigration/refugee swindle, a
>revolution of sorts will have occurred.
Sounds like the Reagan Revolution that wasn't. But maybe it was the
1981 tax cut rather than successor legislation that shows what the
future will be like. (I should mention that while you were away Will
Bralick proposed tax reduction as the number one practical issue for
CRs.)
Plato is interesting in this connection. (Read book viii of the
_Republic_.) He thought the democratic consumer society comes to an end
when the struggle over economic redistribution leads the opposing
parties to adopt violent and revolutionary methods to get the better of
each other. He thought that the redistributive party would have the
advantage because numbers are on its side and because the singleminded
pursuit of wealth by the rich leads them to promote licentiousness in
order to make people easier to fleece. (Look at advertisements and
commercial entertainment some time.) What the rich forget is that some
licentious people (the Clintons of the world) are capable and
enterprising. Such people become the leaders of the redistributive
party and as leaders show far more boldness and imagination than their
cautious and moneygrubbing opponents.
>Of course, as Mr. Kalb has suggested, such tax protestors could be
>bought off. But, judging from our political class, such buying off of
>the middle classes is passe: it is the parasite and the most
>destructive elements of society that attract the gratuitous largess of
>entrenched liberalism. It is this line of reasoning which has caused
>Walker and other nationalists to advocate a tactical alliance with
>libertarians against the welfare state.
The tactical alliance with libertarians strikes me as the only possible
move. Nonetheless, it's worth pointing out that most largess (social
security, well-paid government jobs) goes to the middle classes. If you
look at government budgets in the _World Almanac_ or the like you'll see
that means-tested entitlements like AFDC and Food Stamps are
comparatively not that big a number.
>As to Distributism [ . . . ]
Thanks for the info.
>Nils: I too am interested in ITP, but I have not gotten around to reading
>any of their stuff yet. Do you have their address?
What is ITP, anyway? Inquiring minds, and all that.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 14 09:19:41 EST 1994
Article: 1120 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 14 Jan 1994 06:43:21 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>Because government collects taxes through "withholding" then there can
>be no effective form of tax protest via refusal to pay one's taxes. It
>is that refusal to pay which would cause the comprehensive and brutal
>tax collection.
It's worth some thought. Once people have decided to evade taxes they
become very ingenious in doing so because the rewards are so high. Some
of the maneuvers are simple, like insisting on payment in cash. It's
said that in France it's common for a small businessman to keep several
sets of books, including a special one for the tax man, and in Italy
there have been startlingly high estimates of the portion of the economy
that doesn't show up in anyone's statistics. Such tendencies may
explain the tendency in Europe to rely less on income tax and more on
VAT (basically, a sales tax) than in America. Your point would be that
their taxes are adequately productive in spite of attempts at evasion.
>The producing class merely has to relax and not work. Would the
>government raid everybody's house and force them to go to work? To do
>what? Sit at one's lathe or desk? Will they shoot me if I refuse to
>write code? No, if the producing class relaxes then government will
>have to do whatever it takes to please the producing class --
>otherwise, nobody gets paid.
This is like the argument behind the Laffer curve -- at some point,
higher taxes mean less work and lower revenues. I suppose one thing the
government could do is impose a wealth tax, so that if people want to
sit at home and live off their savings the government will support
itself by taxing their homes and savings.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 14 09:27:37 EST 1994
Article: 1121 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: snowbound
Date: 14 Jan 1994 09:25:22 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>We must also remember that the middle class pays the vast majority of
>the taxes. So, while the middle class might benefit more from tax
>breaks for homeowership adn and publicly funded higher education, art,
>and highways (facilitating private transport), etc., etc., we must not
>forget that these are things that are paid for mostly by taxes taken
>from the middle class. The very notion of an underclass carries with it
>the assumption that these are people who are taking far more out of the
>system then they put back into it, and that they are in this situation
>permanently, or nearly so, and that they are not people temporarily
>down on their luck. Thus, money spend on them is a burden on society in
>general and on the middle class in particular. Money spend to subsidize
>an underclass is not only wasted, but it undermines society itself (as
>Jared Taylor's "Paved With Good Intentions" has documented), wheras
>though money spent on the middle class might sometimes be wasteful, it
>does at least provide some return on the investment.
Is the question whether there will be a middle-class tax rebellion that
will substantially reduce the size of government? If so, the argument
seems to be that government programs benefit the middle class at the
expense of the middle class, so there would be a wash except that a lot
of money gets deducted and given to the underclass, so it's worse than
a wash, especially since the payments to the underclass have
destructive social consequences. Comments:
1. People like comfort and security. If the government takes care of
education, health care, retirement income, unemployment and so on then
people don't have to worry about them and they can relax.
2. People like unearned benefits and free gifts. Even a chance of
getting something of the sort adds excitement to life. That's why
people buy lottery tickets.
3. Each benefit is concrete and a lot of people specifically depend on
it and will fight very hard for it. A benefit imposes no immediate
cost on anyone, since its cost simply gets added to the deficit.
Eventually taxes get raised to reduce the deficit, but reducing the
deficit is seen as a patriotic duty to avoid financial catastrophe
rather than a measure undertaken to maintain the current level of
government spending.
4. All respectable opinion opposes tax rebellion. The schools
indoctrinate children in respectable opinion. Most people spend most of
their leisure time watching TV, which consists largely of dramatizations
of respectable opinion. Concerned citizens pay attention to the news,
and news organizations portray the world as respectable opinion
understands it. If they are very concerned they see what experts have
to say, and accredited experts are (of course) respectable.
5. A lot of middle-class people do receive a net benefit from
government spending. Teachers and retired people, and the families of
teachers and retired people, are obvious examples.
>[O]ur legal system and penal system have become virtual extensions of
>the welfare state, vis a vis "the underclass". And that has become a
>very big portion of public spending indeed.
Is it that big a piece? In any case, the legal and penal systems are
legitimate government responsibilities even from most libertarian
perspectives. Maybe social welfare spending in the end causes crime,
but people don't think so.
One point to consider with regard to tax rebellions is that successful
and enduring political movements need ideals as well as interests. "No
taxation without representation" was a great cause because it tied the
two together. Ditto for "ship money". Has any modern movement of tax
protest had a similar idealistic component that the bulk of its
adherents have taken as seriously as the material component?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 14 09:27:38 EST 1994
Article: 1122 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 14 Jan 1994 09:27:15 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <2h6a43$77m@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan11.211853.18654@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2gvmsn$j7b@panix.com> <1994Jan14.033716.19186@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>The counter-revolution is necessarily hierarchical and ordered. The
>notion of a grass-roots counter-revolution is, I think, an oxymoron.
The problem is that the notion of a counterrevolution imposed from above
is also somewhat of an oxymoron. The left wing starts with the view
that politics can be made up wholly of explicit decisions and adds the
egalitarian requirement that everyone must participate in them. Maybe
some fascists start with the same view and leave out the egalitarian
requirement. I take it that the CR view is that politics is necessarily
largely implicit and unself-conscious, more so for the people at large
than the political class, but also for the political class. So the CR
problem is how to promote conditions in which a good political order is
likely to arise when it is impossible consciously to design and create
such a thing. The appeal of cutting taxes as a program is that it would
reduce the power and activity of the administrative state, which we
recognize as opposed to good political order, and permit the
revitalization of other forms of association without determining _a
priori_ which ones will be revitalized or how. The revitalization would
no doubt in many respects depend on leadership and acceptance of
hierarchy and order, just as you say.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 14 21:00:40 EST 1994
Article: 1127 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Strategy and tactics ...
Date: 14 Jan 1994 20:11:39 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <2h7fsb$i4j@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan14.033716.19186@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Jan14.171034.6891@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Jan14.173508.8346@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>They major problem now existing is the centralization of popular
>culture in the electronic media, and the hegemony of the left in high
>culture and in academia.
Difficult problems.
Advances in electronics have made it possible to put together slick and
flashy presentations and distribute them to enormous audiences, if the
demand is big enough to recover the investment. Electronics has also
greatly reduced the number of performers the market can support and
enormously increased the importance of promotion and marketing. It's
not clear what can be done about it. I would add that the importance
of promotion and marketing, the decline in quality, and the emphasis on
a few international superstars has spread to elite culture. Try
reading Hilton Kramer's and Samuel Lipman's gloomy accounts of the art
and classical music scenes in _The New Criterion_.
The leftist hegemony seems if anything to be strengthening.
Bureaucratization is the order of the day in cultural matters, if only
because that's where the money is, and the left is the ideology of
absolute and unlimited bureaucracy because it wants to create a
universal rationalistic order that would exclude every alternative to
bureaucracy.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 14 21:03:30 EST 1994
Article: 1128 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: taxes
Date: 14 Jan 1994 21:03:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <2h7it5$s2l@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan14.202549.11363@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>[T]his is probably a test case to see if big brother can get away with
>this kind of intrusion and social regulation.
Is a wealth tax that much more intrusive and regulatory than an income
tax? Anyway, you might view estate and inheritance taxes as wealth
taxes that are imposed when someone dies.
>If one wants to be paranoid about this, there has even been talk of
>creating currency with magnetic strips which could carry coded
>information - thus allowing the government to track the underground
>cash economy! An interesting possibility.
People might use barter. Less convenient, but it's been done. Three-
cornered matches could be arranged by computer. Or an unofficial
monetary unit might arise. Any commodity would do -- gold and silver
have been customary for thousands of years, for good reasons, but any
number of other things could serve. You could use Mexican pesos or
certificates entitling you to 10 gallons of gasoline at a particular
gas station as a substitute for dollars. For that matter, you could
have transactions based on personal IOUs rather than cash. It's true
that David Matthew Deane IOUs might not at present be acceptable
worldwide, but if the burdens on the taxed and regulated economy were
heavy enough they might nonetheless be acceptable in certain circles in
Waltham.
Part of the question is who has the advantage in the information age,
people who want to set up control systems or people who want to outwit
such systems. The outwitters have the advantage with respect to
motivation and most likely intelligence, and I suspect they will be the
ones who win.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jan 15 18:50:29 EST 1994
Article: 1134 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: taxes
Date: 15 Jan 1994 18:48:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2h9vbj$76g@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan14.202549.11363@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2h7it5$s2l@panix.com> <1994Jan15.181707.29805@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>An income tax can only work when income is documentable. The IRS can
>look at your documentation, but they don't have carte blanche to poke
>around in your closet or garage to see what you have stored there.
If the IRS thinks you might have unreported income, they have carte
blanche to look into whatever might be relevant to the amount of the
income, including how much money you've been spending and your net
worth. Whatever estimate they come up with is presumed to be correct,
by the way, unless you show they're wrong or unless they don't have even
a scintilla of evidence for the estimate.
>[I]nheritance taxes are only assessed once, when someone dies, and not
>every year. Also, I don't think it covers personal possessions - just
>financial assets and real estate, and other property covered in the
>will - the important point being, the govt. does not snoop around the
>dead person's house to see what he owns.
As a general thing, inheritance taxes cover all property of whatever
sort, whether it passes under the will or not.
>What really sets off the alarm bells for many right-wingers, though, is
>that this tax would allow a de facto registration of all owners of guns
>and of gold and silver coins.
An interesting point. Is there any indication the Oklahoma revenooers
are going to make everyone list every item of property worth $10 or
more, and then audit all the lists, or is the fear that at some point
they'll use the law for purposes other than raising money and
concentrate on property and people they don't like?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jan 15 18:50:30 EST 1994
Article: 1135 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: snowbound
Date: 15 Jan 1994 18:50:19 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 68
Message-ID: <2h9vfr$7dg@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan14.030222.17362@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2h6a0i$71m@panix.com> <1994Jan15.192348.612@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Samuel Francis seems to be arguing that the middle class should not so
>much reduce the size of government, as hijack it from the political
>class that created it, and use it instead to further middle class - or
>rather, to use Mr. Francis' more accurate terminology - to further
>_Middle_American_ interests (that is to say, Middle America being seen
>as a cultural and ethnic group, not simply as a class group - ie,
>middle class). Mr. Francis seems pessimistic that a people that has
>lived under our welfare state could simply do away with it all at once
>and not suffer the consequences.
So we'd end up something like Sweden, with a welfare state but no
serious multiculturalism and a certain streak of nationalism and
populism? (If my impression of what Sweden is like is wrong, I'm sure
someone will tell me.)
>And in any case, the minimalist state beloved of libertarians and old-
>style Republicans never existed. The Federal governments has always
>been an activist government.
Almost anything looks activist compared to the libertarian ideal. If
you read Toqueville or Bryce, or look at the growth of the Federal
budget, you'll see that government used to be a lot more minimal than it
is now.
>Three cheers for the unrespectable! I suspect that there is a lot more
>disdain for "respectable" opinion out there then most people realize -
>esp. on the part of young people.
People are cynical, of course, but when they want to get serious they
don't see coherent choices other than respectability.
>I am one myself, after all.
You young whippersnapper, you! I suggest you show more respect for your
elders, who were grousing about liberals before you were even born, and
never raise the slightest question about *anything* they say.
>The military has become a place to advance one's career, learn skills,
>"be all you can be", or simply a place to practice one's lifestyle,
>"gay" or otherwise.
The tendency is to approach all public issues from the standpoint of
their effect on the private lives of particular people, especially
people with problems. In part that's due to television, which lends
itself to dramatizing the situations that particular people find
themselves in. In part it's due to the abandonment of the viewpoint of
the citizen, which is the viewpoint of someone who feels responsible for
running things overall.
>> Maybe social welfare spending in the end causes crime,
>>but people don't think so.
>
>Most people don't think (although I question whether what you say is
>true: many ordinary people do connect welfare with crime).
Public opinion certainly doesn't think so, and many people feel that
they ought to defer to public opinion. It's difficult for people who
don't have some kind of bee in their bonnet to articulate a position at
variance with public opinion, especially when most of the relevant
information comes from sources that are controlled by the people who
define what public opinion is.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jan 15 18:51:37 EST 1994
Article: 1136 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: taxes
Date: 15 Jan 1994 18:51:19 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <2h9vhn$7od@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan14.202549.11363@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2h7it5$s2l@panix.com> <94015.171627U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Terry Rephann writes:
>The electronic bartering scheme that Mr. Kalb describes played
>a part in the 1980s right-wing tax resistance movement. For
>instance, the editors of the midwestern newspaper _Cattleman
>and Primrose Gazette_ put one in place. It wasn't just a
>clearinghouse, however. Members of the cooperative were
>charged a monthly fee and issued a bartering charge card.
I seem to recall IRS pronouncements regarding requirements that certain
barter exchanges report transactions. I'm not sure just how sweeping
they are, but doubt they would apply to a service that just gave you
names and telephone numbers of people who might be interested in what
you had to offer. The people you mention sound like they were
shockingly incautious.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 17 15:35:23 EST 1994
Article: 1140 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: snowbound
Date: 16 Jan 1994 21:03:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 80
Message-ID: <2hcrlf$qfs@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan15.192348.612@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2h9vfr$7dg@panix.com> <2hc8aj$aiv@news.acns.nwu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rcarrier@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ronald Carrier) writes:
>[T]he Federal government, being in its essence a _centralized_
>government, has always been activist [ . . . ] Libertarians may want a
>minimalist state, but it's not clear to me that they know what sort of
>state they want. IMHO they ought to plug for a decentralized minimal
>state -- any centralized state is sure not to remain minimal! Perhaps
>we ought to take another look at the Confederation -- perhaps it wasn't
>as bad as all that.
If you look at the Constitution, what changes would you propose?
Presumably you would want to make structural changes in how the
machinery of government works. The powers granted by the Constitution
to Congress don't appear to set up or even permit anything like what we
have today:
The Congress shall have power
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the
debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of
the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States.
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several
states, and with the Indian tribes;
[minor stuff, together with the power to establish an army and a
navy] -And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested
by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in
any department or officer thereof.
The following is also worth noting:
10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people.
Federal control over state and local governments is mostly based on:
14th Amendment
Sect. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law, nor deny any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws.
The problem seems to be that a government with powers broad enough and
unified enough to deal effectively with the issues the Federal
government was intended to deal with (foreign relations, national
defense and an internal common market, and later also prevention of
gross oppression such as slavery) will end up being able to do anything
it feels like doing no matter what specific language is used in the
constitution. I suppose you could do things like specify that the
"spending power" doesn't include the power to spend money on something
the government is not otherwise authorized to do, but would that sort of
thing work in the long run? People can do a lot with interpretation if
they're convinced they're getting to a result that is appropriate.
Maybe that's what you mean when you say that a centralized government
won't remain minimal. But how could powers be arranged to create a
government that will work but will not slide into centralization? What
would a decentralized government look like?
>[B]y and large, people don't feel responsible for running things
>overall because they in fact have such little say in running things.
Quite true. That's the problem with centralization.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 17 18:16:06 EST 1994
Article: 1150 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: barter
Date: 17 Jan 1994 18:14:48 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 17
Message-ID: <2hf658$b06@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan17.174522.10362@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>As for avoiding taxes, the [Barter Bucks] system is no better or worse
>then cash, in that it is up to each individual to report their
>earnings.
If Barter Bucks prices ran lower than dollar prices, or were reported
that way, people would pay less tax than if they used cash even if they
didn't leave anything off their tax returns. It would be interesting if
a smart economist would explain to us why people do this. There must be
something in the literature on barter arrangements -- they're used in
international trade from time to time.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 17 18:16:08 EST 1994
Article: 1151 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: snowbound
Date: 17 Jan 1994 18:15:44 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 55
Message-ID: <2hf670$b6r@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan15.192348.612@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2h9vfr$7dg@panix.com> <1994Jan17.182646.11103@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>[people are cynical, but when they get serious they have nothing to
>turn to but respectable opinion]
>You mean, when they want to be taken seriously by respectable opinion
>that is.
I suppose what I had in mind was well-meaning ordinary people with no
particular ax to grind, rather than (say) careerists who advance
themselves by aligning with whatever forces happen to be dominant. It's
very hard to invent one's own theory of the world. People like to
adhere to some body of thought that people who are generally respected
treat as legitimate. Our governing class manipulates that tendency, of
course, but I don't see how it can be avoided.
>It's perfectly possible to be _serious_ (whether cynical or not), while
>at the same time defying respectable opinion.
It's a lot of work to go against the flow. Usually, people who want to
buck the trend in some radical way make things easier for themselves by
adopting arbitrary dogmas of their own and becoming cranks. Political
thought consists in an attempt to bring a variety of attitudes,
perceptions and beliefs into coherent and useable form, and we can't
possibly make explicit let alone analyze critically most of the things
our political views are based on. The difficulty of grasping and
evaluating the bases of our political views makes it terribly difficult
to be radical and also to show good sense, and in politics (I am tempted
to say) good sense is everything.
I'm not sure where if anywhere I'm taking this discussion. I suppose
I'm mulling over the difficulties of the counterrevolutionary position.
A counterrevolutionary in 1994 is someone who engages in political
action intended fundamentally to change current political society in
opposition to trends that have been going on for centuries, and part of
his objection to current political society is that it grossly
overestimates the possibility of reforming man and society by conscious
political means. I agree, of course, that serious thought is difficult
and a minority activity, and that the thought of a minority can change
things over time.
>But seriously, tis true: my generation is, on the whole, both more
>cynical and less trusting of authority, in particular the authority of
>the State. Trust tends to be placed within one's own small group, or
>within whatever subculture or "lifestyle" or ideology one adopts.
This is part of the appeal of libertarianism. There is no conception of
the common good sufficient to support much loyalty to the state, so one
solution is to minimalize the state and let people deal with their
concerns within communities they do have loyalty to.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 17 19:40:25 EST 1994
Article: 1152 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: taxes
Date: 17 Jan 1994 19:38:58 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 36
Message-ID: <2hfb32$n84@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan15.181707.29805@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2h9vbj$76g@panix.com> <1994Jan17.191237.12316@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>[the IRS can look at all of one's possessions to determine one's
>income]
>
>I stand corrected. I presume, though, that this is only done in special
>circumstances, and is not standard procedure for the typical audit?
>Otherwise, they are not interested in what one owns, but only in one's
>income.
It's quite unlikely to happen. Maybe if they wanted to nail some
mobster for tax evasion they would count his Cadillacs and so on to help
estimate what his income is. My legitimate point (apart from being
argumentative) was simply that the IRS's investigative power is very
broad.
>[inheritance tax covers all property, whether in will or not]
>
>But how do they know if the property exists, if it is not in the will?
>If it's not in the will, of course, one cannot inherit whatever it is.
>But if, say, one's grandfather gives one his collection of rare coins
>shortly before he dies, and the coins are not listed in the will, then
>it cannot be covered in the inheritance tax, can it?
There's also a federal gift tax that's integrated with the federal
inheritance tax (which is referred to as the federal estate tax, by the
way), and the gift of the coins would be covered by that. If he didn't
report the transfer on his gift tax return he would have committed a
felony unless some exception like the $10,000 annual exclusion applied.
Of course, he might not get caught. I think that if he didn't pay the
tax you would have transferee liability for the tax.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 17 19:40:26 EST 1994
Article: 1153 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: taxes
Date: 17 Jan 1994 19:39:56 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 15
Message-ID: <2hfb4s$nfr@panix.com>
References: <94015.171627U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <2h9vhn$7od@panix.com> <1994Jan17.192555.12538@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>If what one hears about the IRS going after people for political purposes
>is true, then we are being shockingly incautious when we talk about
>this in a public forum.
There was the guy who responded to rumors that the NSA monitors usenet
by having a 4-line .sig something like the following:
drug terrorist Palestine assassinate [and so on]
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 21 10:08:57 EST 1994
Article: 11491 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Moral_Realism_vs_Relativism
Date: 20 Jan 1994 17:30:32 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <2hn0m8$5rt@panix.com>
References: <2hj11l$g86@lorne.stir.ac.uk> <2hkj45$3v8@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
feld@cc.umanitoba.ca (Michael Feld) writes:
>If you answer, as we expect you to , "God knows which goals are
>appropritate, and you do not", then there must be some goal that is
>correct, and which God recognizes to be correct.
>
>But note: that goal's being correct is logically and metaphysically
>independent of God's seeing it as such.
>
>It follows that even if God did not exist, the goal (that God would
>recognize as correct if God, pace our hypothesis, did exist) still
>would exist.
>
>So: questions of good and evil are independent of God.
How do you rule out the possibility that there would be no distinction
between good and evil if there were no God, but given that there is a
God the distinction necessarily follows? Someone might hold the view,
for example, that if there were no God the universe would not exist, or
would be utterly chaotic, or wouldn't contain any qualia, but the
universe does exist, and it's rationally ordered, and it contains qualia
of pain and pleasure, so torturing children for the sheer fun of it is
necessarily bad. That view might be wrong, but it don't strike me as
necessarily wrong, which what you say seems to require since the
independence you mention is logical independence.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Jan 21 16:15:28 EST 1994
Article: 66411 of soc.culture.jewish
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Prognostications wanted
Date: 21 Jan 1994 16:15:16 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <2hpgl4$dhv@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I need references to discussions of:
1. The current status of the kibbutz movement and current trends
affecting it.
2. The future of Judaism and the Jewish people.
I need the references for an article I am writing about the outlook for
separatist religious or utopian movements in the modern world. The
kibbutz movement seems a good example of a movement to establish an
alternative and utopian form of society that has had a lot of success.
On the other hand, some fairly recent things I've read suggest that
careerism and the consumer society may be catching up to the kibbutzim,
at least to some extent. I was also thinking of including some more
general references to the Jewish experience, because of the remarkable
success of the Jewish people in maintaining their identity for so long
and the variety of their responses to the modern world. I've seen a
lot of historical material; what I would like is references to
thoughtful discussions of the current situation and the outlook for the
future.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jan 23 19:57:18 EST 1994
Article: 66452 of soc.culture.jewish
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Repeat request for prognostications
Date: 22 Jan 1994 11:23:20 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 33
Message-ID: <2hrjto$890@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I thought I should let the many people who surely answered the
following know that no doubt due to a glitch on the net I haven't
received a single one of your very helpful responses. Please resend so
that your help won't go to waste. (If somehow you haven't yet
responded, here's another occasion to do so!)
I need references to discussions of:
1. The current status of the kibbutz movement and current trends
affecting it.
2. The future of Judaism and the Jewish people.
I've seen a lot of historical material; what I would like is references
to thoughtful discussions of the current situation and the outlook for
the future.
I need the references for an article I am writing about the outlook for
separatist movements in the modern world. The kibbutz movement seems a
good example of a movement to establish an alternative and utopian form
of society that has had a lot of success. On the other hand, some
fairly recent things I've read suggest that careerism and the consumer
society may be catching up to the kibbutzim, at least to some extent. I
was also thinking of including some more general references to the
Jewish experience, because of the remarkable success of the Jewish
people in maintaining their identity for so long and the variety of
their responses to the modern world.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 24 05:23:00 EST 1994
Article: 11502 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: Moral_Realism_vs_Relativism
Date: 23 Jan 1994 20:55:58 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <2hv9re$50h@panix.com>
References: <2hkj45$3v8@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca> <2hn0m8$5rt@panix.com> <2hv27h$cud@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
gbyshenk@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (gregory m. byshenk) writes:
>One might say that God created the universe, and thus, without God
>there would be no _application_ of the concepts of good and evil, but
>good and evil would still be what they are, even without the
>possibility of application. If, for example, "torturing children for
>the sheer fun of it is necessarily bad," then doing so is bad/evil
>regardless of whether or not anyone actually does so, and even
>regardless of whether or not children exist to be tortured.
"Good" and "evil" not only classify but also obligate. Someone might
claim that those concepts are independent of God insofar as they
classify (ignoring the possibility that in the absence of God they might
not apply to anything) but not insofar as they obligate.
I think the original point was that God is necessarily irrelevant to
morality because the classification of things as good or bad does not
depend on his existence, and to say that moral obligation depends on the
existence of God if classification as good or evil is already given is
necessarily to reduce obligation to the threat of divine punishment or
the promise of divine reward.
I don't see why that's so, though. For example, someone might think
that moral obligation depends on an objective moral order that is
entirely independent of the existence and purposes of human beings, and
that such an order can best be understood by viewing it as the will of
a perfect being that (being perfect) necessarily wills the good. Or
someone might think that it makes no sense to claim that moral
obligations exist that might never be suspected to exist, so the only
way to achieve objectivity is to postulate a perfect knower. Again, a
person who thought such things might be wrong, but I think the original
claim was that the existence of God could not possibly be necessary for
morality, so all I need is for such views to be coherent.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 24 07:18:58 EST 1994
Article: 1167 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 24 Jan 1994 07:09:12 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 39
Message-ID: <2i0dp8$rhl@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan24.032654.21911@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>Thus, the second strategy then is large families among the counter-
>revolutionaries. Why? Well, first, because stable and large families
>are life-affirming and positive expressions of marital fidelity and
>love. They provide aid and comfort to old age (no need to rely on the
>vagaries of governmental "social security" handouts) and wisdom to
>youth. Strong (and often multi-generational) families are what built
>America, not "rugged individualism" as Mr. Limbaugh asserts. Stable and
>large families are intrinsically counter-revolutionary.
The notion has something to be said for it. A CR society would rely
more on family arrangements than the present one, and large families
would be more common. If that's what we're looking for, someone might
ask, why not start living that way now?
>From a strictly pragmatic point of view, the large family provides a
>larger base for its exponential growth.
I speculate that the future may belong to those who combine large
families with a stable and satisfying way of life. For example, the
Hutterites (Anabaptist communal farmers) in the American Great Plains
have multiplied from 400 when they arrived from Russia in 1874 to more
than 30,000 in 1983. If the same rate of increase applies until 2092,
there will be 2,250,000 of them. Maybe they'll still have the same
eight family names they brought over from the Old Country. The median
completed Hutterite family has 10.4 children.
You can see the same trends among the Amish and Hasidic Jews. Must be
something about guys who wear beards, dress in strange black clothing
and speak archaic dialects of German. I suppose the Mormons are
another example. I don't think their families are quite as large and
they don't look as exotic, but they're starting from a much larger
base.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Jan 26 16:36:21 EST 1994
Article: 1175 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 26 Jan 1994 16:36:15 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <2i6nof$gps@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan24.032654.21911@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Jan26.055718.2107@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>More to the point, have you noticed the complete lack of females on
>this newsgroup?
I always assumed there were mobs of them who were all struck dumb with
admiration. Do you suppose I might be wrong?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Jan 27 08:45:25 EST 1994
Article: 1176 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 26 Jan 1994 16:37:46 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2i6nra$h7b@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan24.032654.21911@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <2i0dp8$rhl@panix.com> <1994Jan26.061321.2374@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>> I suppose the Mormons are
>>another example.
>
>Now if they'd only revive polygyny and some of their more pagan
>elements (i.e., people becoming gods, ancestor worship, that sort of
>thing), they'd have a lot of appeal for me!
I think those elements are still there, but they're just not emphasizing
them at the moment. Maybe they make more more of them behind the
scenes. Why don't you join and find out? You'd have to give up beer,
though.
>I can see it now: we need to advertise. "A.R.C. needs women!"
Maybe we could find some equivalent for the "oriental ladies want
correspondents" classified ads you see in American right-wing mags.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Jan 29 17:52:24 EST 1994
Article: 1187 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 29 Jan 1994 17:50:12 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <2iep74$n3m@panix.com>
References: <2i6nof$gps@panix.com> <1994Jan29.150240.72312@ucl.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
monaghan@zanskar.avc.ucl.ac.uk (Monaghan) writes:
>>>More to the point, have you noticed the complete lack of females on
>>>this newsgroup?
>
>>I always assumed there were mobs of them who were all struck dumb with
>>admiration. Do you suppose I might be wrong?
>
>Are they not making the sandwiches?
Not very quickly, it seems. I've been posting more than a year now, and
so far not even a p.b. & j.
All this brings up the issue of what to do with the Woman Question, an
issue that even Irving Babbitt, in _Democracy and Leadership_,
ostentatiously tiptoed around. (He should have hardened himself by
posting in alt.feminism or soc.feminism.)
I suppose my view is that radical sex equality would make a tolerable
society impossible, but it's hard to prescribe anything very definite in
the abstract because a society has to evolve sex role standards that
people generally find appropriate. That kind of evolution has to be
informal and half-conscious, and it leads to different results in
different times and places. So all one can do on the theoretical side,
really, is to criticize radical egalitarianism and point out problems it
leads to that would tend to go away if people accepted that different
roles for the sexes are a good thing. If sex roles are natural and
functional then presumably they'll evolve to where they ought to be if
things that interfere with the evolution (the modern activist state, for
example) are removed.
Not as snappy as your .sig quote, but the best I can do at the moment.
Comments?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Jan 30 07:12:01 EST 1994
Article: 1188 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Back to the Future
Date: 29 Jan 1994 18:41:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 69
Message-ID: <2ies6t$73@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
sgrossman@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:
>Pro-reason Western civilization has been corrupted by Judao-Christian
>sacrifice.
What uncorrupted Western civilization do you mean? How far back do you
want to go? And have we done so badly since the conversion of
Constantine? In comparison with whom? Would we have done better if
Christianity hadn't won out?
>After Kant split reason from reality and morality from values, the
>effects of this tradition of sacrifice were Marxism, Nazism, fascism,
>liberalism, and conservatism.
Conservatism is not Kantian and does not split reason from reality or
morality from the good. That is part of the point of the conservative
emphasis on rootedness and particularity. Such a split is also
inconsistent with the Christian doctrine that the _logos_ became flesh,
I should think.
>We should return to Aristotle for a second Renaissance. A scientific-
>industrial civilization cannot be guided by the otherwordly fears of
>those fleeing Roman decadence or the traditions of desert nomads.
If uncorrupted Western civilization was so great, where did the Roman
decadence come from? And why would the response to decadence people
chose then be such a bad response to our own decadence? And why are
desert nomads worse than tutors of half-barbarous world conqerors?
>********************************************************************************
>"The existential atmosphere of [the pre-WW1 West] (which was then being
>destroyed by Europe's philosophical trends and political systems) still held a
>benevolence that would be incredible to the men of today, i.e., a smiling
>confident good will of man to man, and of man to life." Ayn Rand
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>STEPHEN GROSSMAN SGROSSMAN@UMASSD.EDU
>********************************************************************************
I prefer Yeats:
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That all the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
[ . . . ]
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
Why not bring back your old .sig? ("Lock and load, motherfuckers, we're
going metaphysically in-country.") The language may not have been quite
genteel enough for a.r.c., but I admired the spirit.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Jan 31 16:01:36 EST 1994
Article: 1196 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 31 Jan 1994 16:01:28 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <2ijrj8$1pv@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan24.032654.21911@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Jan26.055718.2107@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Jan31.142637.16824@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>BTW, whatever happened to the idea of having a counter-revolutionary
>conference? Anybody interested in such a thing should email me and
>tell me where you are located (geographically) and I'll look for a
>central location that is relatively cheap to get to.
Is the time ripe? Things have picked up a bit, but for quite some time
we'd have days and days go by without a post.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Feb 1 06:32:20 EST 1994
Article: 1197 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 31 Jan 1994 16:02:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 27
Message-ID: <2ijrl3$2qd@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan29.150240.72312@ucl.ac.uk> <2iep74$n3m@panix.com> <1994Jan31.151750.19044@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>| I suppose my view is that radical sex equality would make a tolerable
>| society impossible,
>
>Rather, I should say that it could not even be maintained except by
>the exercise of force. This is what we are slouching toward ourselves,
>you know.
Revision: a serious, comprehensive and enduring effort to establish
radical sex equality would fail and would make a tolerable society
impossible.
>Men and women are different. There. I said it. I have dared to state
>the obvious. Moreover, save for notably androgynous exceptions, men today
>are more like men from any time, place, and culture than they are like any
>comtemporary women. Men and women are _that_ different.
I once had a theory that men and women actually belong to different
biological kingdoms, or whatever the next level up from that is, so that
a male human being has more in common with a male gingko tree than with
a human female. Maybe that was going too far, though . . .
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 5 05:40:34 EST 1994
Article: 1206 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Assorted Stuff
Date: 3 Feb 1994 21:57:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 56
Message-ID: <2isdhu$9ic@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>This reminds me of my UC Berkeley senior history research paper/seminar
>on Nietzsche. One male professor, half a dozen-plus male undergrads,
>no females. I wonder why?
They were probably off reading Thucydides or Machiavelli. Or maybe they
were all strong silent types who thought Nietzsche was an hysterical
chatterbox. Who knows?
>Speaking only for myself, I believe that "tribal society =
>Multiculturalism" is not only _not_ an axiom, but it is not a
>defensible theorem.
In fairness, you shouldn't underestimate the confusion and stupidity of
many of the proponents of multiculturalism. The rhetoric is that
tribalism is OK, and in fact it's so OK that our social arrangements
ought to be equally favorable to the peculiarities of every tribe (as
well as those of every individual). If you take someone who's not too
smart and then miseducate him you may very well get someone who honestly
believes the rhetoric makes sense. So a critic who says "tribal society
= multiculturalism" may simply be passing on what the people he is
criticizing are saying.
>Ironically enough, the "objectivists" who despise Bloom and neo-
>conservatives are in substantial agreement with both the Straussians
>and the neo-conservatives in general: rootedness and ethnicity are bad,
>and the only good thing about the American Constitution (as now
>interpreted) is that it does not recognize either rootedness or any
>kind of intrinsic American national identity.
I don't know much about the Straussians, except they seem to cultivate
quirkiness. I could never form a clear idea of what the Bloomster
really thought about things. I think Leo Strauss had some kind of
theory that true philosophers always write between the lines so _hoi
polloi_ and the local bigwigs won't figure out what's going on, and
maybe Bloom was simply trying to live out his master's theory.
L.S. himself always seemed an OK guy to me, by the way, not at all a
likely posthumous neoconsymp. He thought it was a good idea for Carl
Schmitt to bring back the political, and wrote somewhere that if
Fukuyama/Kojeve's End of History ever did arrive he'd prefer bloody
chaos. I suppose he didn't think the Philosopher was rooted and ethnic,
but then he didn't think philosophy was for the masses. For that
matter, as I recall he wasn't inclined to assert the superiority of the
Philosopher and Reason over the Prophet and Revelation (he didn't think
they could be reconciled either).
Maybe the problem with the Straussians is that Americans shouldn't try
to imitate the mannerisms of eccentric middle European Jews who read the
classics. We're not going to be able to do it properly.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 5 15:16:46 EST 1994
Article: 1208 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 5 Feb 1994 07:27:41 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 64
Message-ID: <2j03bt$dsn@panix.com>
References: <16F4ACFA0.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <1994Feb1.202116.1@clstac> <16F52EC0C.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
>>Another interesting book is entitled "The Radical Right," (author unknown)
> Does this include such groups as the KKK, Skinheads and Neo-Nazis?
>
> Aren't those consider extremists, but certainly right-wing?
>
> Is this something to be proud of if we are to survive as a people?
The book is entitled "The Radical Right", not "People whose Political
Views are Admirable and Correct". It's possible to find a particular
thing of interest even if you reject it. For a long time the historical
tendency has been to the left. If you think that's the wrong way to go,
then people who are trying to go in the opposite direction are going to
be of interest to you even if you reject the specifics of what they're
doing.
>>French Front National, opposes non-white
>>immigration and calls for strong law-and-order policies.
>
> What is the LONG TERM agenda of opposing non-white ANYTHING, much less
>immigration in this era of trans-global necessity, where "white" activities
>have been responsible for some of the worst examples of human behavior, where
>you are eliminating virtually 2/3 of the entire human population???
One reason for the Front National to oppose non-white immigration is
that there has been a lot of it and if there get to be too many non-
whites in France it will make it more difficult to maintain the myth
that the French are a single people with a common past. That sort of
myth is very useful in maintaining national unity and cooperation. Here
in America we are trying to get along without it by establishing a
national ideology that everyone is expected to adhere to, but that move
creates its own problems.
Also: by living together over time the French have developed a specific
culture that they are proud of and the loss of which would be a loss to
the world. That culture exists as it does because it is accepted as the
basis of the common political and social life of France. It can serve
that function only if people living in France can be expected to
identify with it. People identify with it in part by learning it, and
in part by feeling that it is part of them because it is fundamental to
the way they and their family and friends have always lived. It's hard
for immigrants to feel that way, and if there are too many immigrants
whose way of life is too much at odds with that of the French and who
will always be able to identify each other at sight and visibly remind
everyone that they or their ancestors came from someplace very
different, the task becomes very hard. Why multiply difficulties? Why
would it be a good thing for France to become a multicultural society?
I don't think your comments about the number of non-whites in the world
and the bad things whites have done are relevant. Suppose the French
were only 1% of the world's population and included a disproportionately
high share of the world's criminals and a disproportionately low share
of the world's saints. It could still be true that they and the world
would be better off if they maintained their distinct identity by
strictly limiting immigration, even though that would involve keeping
out 99% of the world's population, including many people who are far
more admirable than the average Frenchman.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 5 17:31:35 EST 1994
Article: 1213 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 5 Feb 1994 15:59:09 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 21
Message-ID: <2j11at$b11@panix.com>
References: <16F52EC0C.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <2j03bt$dsn@panix.com> <2j0ng3$2bi@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>I suppose the big problem is that while a certain number of high class
>immigrants can acculturate into another society a large mass of poor
>immigrants have neither the ability nor the incentive to do so and it is
>large scale immigration and now the creation of ghettos encouraged by the
>race relations industry that now faces Western european countries.
A cantonal system like they have in Switzerland is sometimes proposed as
a way to deal with ethnically fragmented areas like the Balkans. An
somewhat analogous way of dealing with ethnic problems in the United
States and Europe would be to permit people to segregate themselves if
they wish or to mix with others if all parties agree, with a minimal
overall government to keep order. The unified modern state really has
no place for ethnic diversity. That's why by early modern times there
weren't any Jews in the European countries bordering on the Atlantic.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 5 17:31:37 EST 1994
Article: 1214 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Assorted Stuff
Date: 5 Feb 1994 15:59:53 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <2j11c9$b66@panix.com>
References: <2isdhu$9ic@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
>Speaking of quirky philosophers, has anyone out there read Wilmoore Kendall?
I tried once, but it was sort of like walking into a conversation that
had been going on for a long time, it wasn't clear with whom. Are there
any works you would recommend?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 6 06:53:35 EST 1994
Article: 1221 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Assorted Stuff
Date: 5 Feb 1994 20:09:06 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <2j1fvi$dbc@panix.com>
References: <2j11c9$b66@panix.com> <1994Feb5.235755.29721@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
Alright, I give up. Who is Wilmoore Kendall?
Talk about Generation X ignorance! We aging hippies with Alzheimers
remember W.K. as one of the original reacs at _National Review_, one of
the few who wasn't an ex-Trot. He was a poly sci prof at Yale who
wasn't into the consensus. I couldn't tell you exactly what he thought,
though. Mr. Aiken?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 6 10:19:10 EST 1994
Article: 1227 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 6 Feb 1994 10:17:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2j31n0$3af@panix.com>
References: <16F52EC0C.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <1994Feb5.235531.29606@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Feb6.001707.308@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>I guess I have a problem with "conservatives" [ . . . ] who are so
>squeamish about "extremism" that they do the left's work by silencing
>anything that smacks of "right wing radicalism". As Samuel Francis
>points out, W.F. Buckley gutted conservatism back in the 50's when he
>banned the "extremists" from National Review. He made his magazine
>"respectable" with his enemies, but at the price of being forced to
>enter the debate on his enemy's terms.
My outlook is that it is a lot easier to affect political discussion if
you have a position that makes sense and that you can present straight.
That means you have to have the habit of dealing directly with the
issues. It's hard to deal directly with the issues unless you see your
own view as near the middle of the range of possibly acceptable views.
So if someone succeeds in making you think that your view is at the
edge of that range he's defeated you because he's made it impossible
for you to develop and argue for your viewpoint. You'll spend all your
time and effort making excuses to people who will never admit the
legitimacy of your outlook (think about what happened to that
right-wing extremist Bob Bork!) instead of on more productive things.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 6 10:19:11 EST 1994
Article: 1228 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: strategy the second
Date: 6 Feb 1994 10:18:55 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 13
Message-ID: <2j31ov$3gp@panix.com>
References: <94029.120419U24C1@wvnvm.wvnet.edu> <1994Feb3.233455.11236@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Feb6.025411.23302@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>| Ayn Rand: meglomaniac, adultress, plagiarist, and cult leader.
>
>Plagiarist? From whom could she possibly have copied any of that
>tiresome twaddle?
>From John Galt, I presume. "Who is John Galt?", you may ask . . .
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 6 13:35:23 EST 1994
Article: 1231 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Leftward drift (Was Re: snowbound)
Date: 6 Feb 1994 13:30:12 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <2j3cvk$rtd@panix.com>
References: <1994Jan14.030222.17362@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2hiavb$8t0@news.acns.nwu.edu> <1994Jan23.173800.29913@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Jan26.053852.1719@news.cs.brandeis.edu>,<1994Jan31.134905.15563@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1994Feb5.223311.28073@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <2j2o4e$frq@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <2j2o4e$frq@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (A.T. Fear) writes:
>The trick the Romans had was not so much
>to go out and govern themselves (one official per 400,000 head of population
>I think) but to get local elite groups to do the ruling for them. You can
>see with maastricht's inversion of subsidiarity how that might happen in the
>very near future.
For quite some time the standard method for establishing centralization
in the United States has been for the Federal Goverment to require that
states, municipalities or private institutions establish programs that
meet particular standards and that further things the feds want to
promote. The requirements are sometimes absolute, and sometimes are
simply a prerequisite for getting federal aid. It's all creative
federalism, I suppose.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Feb 7 06:56:00 EST 1994
Article: 1240 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 7 Feb 1994 06:55:51 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 47
Message-ID: <2j5a87$gtc@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb3.105627.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Keywords: REVOLUTION
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
> I am a White revolutionary. My ideal is people and homeland. Although
>there are an infinite number of ways to express my ideal, my role in the
>attainment of that ideal can be stated quite simply by what are known as
>the 14 words: "We must secure the existence of our people, and a future
>for White children." To me, that means ensuring that Whites have the ideal
>of a White nation with sovereignty and a political system which represents
>the nation's interests. I am a White nationalist: my ideal is that of an
>eternal White nation, distinct, proud and sovereign.
This outlook seems mistaken to me. Ethnic cohesion and unity can't be
forced. Ethnicity consists in a sense of common descent and history,
together with common or at least intertwined beliefs, attitudes,
assumptions, habits and the like. I agree that these things are
valuable and worth protecting and developing, but you have to protect or
promote them in a way that respects their nature.
The constituents of ethnicity are things that provide the unconscious or
semiconscious background to what people do, and they arise over time
when people live together without being planned or foreseen. If they
receive an explicit and clear definition so they can be used as the
basis of formal requirements they become something else. However
important someone's ethnicity may be, there isn't much in particular it
tells him to do. How could there be, when by nature it is the
background to all the very different things that the people of a
particular ethnicity do? But if there's not much it tells you to do,
it's hard to treat is as one's most fundamental political ideal.
I suppose another comment is that "white people" seems an artificial
group, sort of like "square objects". Do American white people have
enough in common with each other for what they have in common to serve
as the basis for a political program? In Eastern Europe and even
Canada a lot of people seem to think that whiteness isn't enough for
common nationality. Why is the U.S.A. different?
My own suggestion for dealing with ethnicity in America would be to
limit immigration, so that more of a feeling of common history and the
other intangible constituents of ethnicity could develop, and reduce the
size and activity of the government and allow private ethnic
discrimination, so that to the extent groups find it rewarding to
maintain and develop a separate way of life they could do so.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Tue Feb 8 06:47:41 EST 1994
Article: 1245 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: toodles
Date: 7 Feb 1994 20:48:52 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <2j6r24$4p3@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb7.225039.18825@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Rousseau's stances - for emotion/feelings, for intuition and self
>introspection, for small communities and against "enlightened despots",
>for the natural evolution of social conditions within communities
>(Rousseau is suprisingly close to Edmund Burke on this point), etc. -
>all of these are a rejection of some of the basic tenents of the
>Enlightenment, and a precursor of Romanticism.
I didn't think Rousseau thought "society as it naturally develops" was a
good thing. In the _Second Discourse_ he said he really didn't much
like society at all, and in the _Social Contract_ he said maybe society
would be OK if it were established in a conceptually correct way, which
turns out to be a conceptually very simple way. Doesn't seem very
Burkish to me. What am I missing?
>I take Mr. Bouthillier to be saying that by "white" he means white
>Americans, who _do_ constitute a distinct ethnic group, and not all
>persons who fit the anthropological or popular definition of "white".
>That is, he is not talking about whites of all nations, but rather,
>about American whites, who are, or were, a nation/ ethnic group
>(excluding for the sake of argument those white ethnic enclaves that
>have not assimilated into majority white American culture - certain
>Poles, Italians, Irish, etc.).
I overstated (obviously) when I compared the class of white people to
the class of square objects. My real claim was that even though
American whites may on the whole constitute a distinct ethnic group
their ethnicity doesn't have enough content to serve as the basis for
an overall political outlook. I don't deny that American white
ethnicity is a good thing that's worth protecting and developing in
some way. To say that is not to say that it makes sense to view it as
politically more important than all else. To deal with the political
side of current problems I think it would be enough to establish that
it is a legitimate interest. Then it would be up to whites, to the
extent they do constitute a community, to make something of themselves
as a community. Whites in America are considerably the majority. Why
isn't a system of minimal government enough to enable them to look out
for whatever their communal interests might be?
>Mr. Kalb might find Wilmot Robertson's book "The Dispossed Majority" (a
>very influential book in the white (American) nationalist lexicon) of
>some use, in understanding this argument concerning an American
>"majority" ethnic group.
I will try to take a look at it.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Feb 9 06:34:51 EST 1994
Article: 1247 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 8 Feb 1994 08:17:27 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 12
Message-ID: <2j83d7$oa2@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb3.105627.1@clstac> <2j5a87$gtc@panix.com> <1994Feb7.232006.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Keywords: good stuff
In <1994Feb7.232006.1@clstac> aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
[deletions]
My computer is having convulsions and it's hard for me to compose a
reply or do anything else with it. I hope to be back in a day or two,
at which time I will comment.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Feb 9 10:22:26 EST 1994
Article: 1257 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 9 Feb 1994 10:22:18 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 105
Message-ID: <2jav3a$ji1@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb3.105627.1@clstac> <2j5a87$gtc@panix.com> <1994Feb7.232006.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Keywords: good stuff
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>I suggest that biology (genetic behavior) may play a significant part
>in constituting an ethnicity via markers. I don't have proof of this
>suggestion, but I think there is circumstantial evidence that it is
>quite likely (and thus may explain much of what is called "racism.")
It's possible. Apart from markers, there might (for example) be
differences in average temperament that could have an effect on cultural
development. It seems possible that the radical differences in
environment that caused Eskimos and Papuans to evolve different physical
traits might also have caused the innate responses and behavioral
tendencies that make up temperament to have evolved somewhat
differently, at least on average. I recall a study of newborn infants,
for example, that found that Chinese infants were notably less irritable
and more easily soothed than most others. (It's been several years and
I don't remember the reference.)
>However, I *DO* believe that those things are important and I do believe
>that they are the foundations of a good society. The current political
>arrangement is flatly opposed to those things and I will not support
>that which is flatly opposed to the very principles which I cherish.
I have a hard time thinking of multiculturalism or the multiethnic
ideal as the fundamental problems. You could reject both and keep the
rest of modernity and have a horrible society. I think that's what the
National Socialists did in Germany. They wanted a racially pure
society, which looks like an extreme rejection of the multiethnic
ideal, and they wanted that racially pure society to be homogenous and
subject to strictly rational organization on military lines for a
single secular and clearly specifiable purpose (military victory).
They and modern American liberals mirror each other. Modern American
liberals engage in extreme rejection of ethnic loyalties and want their
society (which, like Nazi society, would have no ethnic distinctions)
to be homogenous and subject to strictly rational organization on
bureaucratic or perhaps economic lines for the purpose of maximizing
the equal satisfaction of the impulses people actually feel (also a
single secular and clearly specifiable purpose).
The point of the harangue about Nazis (for which I apologize) is that
you don't rise above something by finding out what gives your opponents
the creeps and making that thing your guiding star. You have to step
back and ask where your opponents went wrong and ask yourself how to
avoid the error. If an error is widespread it's usually one that is
very hard to define and avoid.
>> The constituents of ethnicity are things that provide the unconscious
>> or semiconscious background to what people do, and they arise over time
>> when people live together without being planned or foreseen.
>
>And white people haven't lived together for a long time? Me thinks that
>we have a history dating back more than 6,000 years.
White Americans haven't.
>To me, ethnicity is merely "group identity" which may be based on
>numerous factors including historical, racial, political, cultural or
>other factors [ . . . ] As I see it, skin color is merely one indicator
>of lineage and the purpose of the society is the creation and
>maintenance of healthy conditions for the continuance of that lineage
>and a positive and enjoyable culture and society for its members.
Your view seems to be that there is a group of people ("Whites") who
view themselves as having common descent and who share a way of life
that they are born into and that involves definite values and ideals
that are sufficient to constitute the basis of a political society. I
don't agree. Whites have had all sorts of political views. It was
whites who invented liberalism and universal human rights and propagated
them throughout the world. It was whites who made the French and
Russian revolutions. All that was long before non-whites had any
political influence whatever in the West. If you say "those people
aren't Whites, they're only whites, and I'm only interested in the 10%
of American whites who are Whites" then what you're talking about
doesn't sound much like ethnicity to me. Ethnicity is basically
something you're born into and what you're talking about sounds more
like something chosen.
>> In Eastern Europe and even Canada a lot of people seem to think that
>> whiteness isn't enough for common nationality.
>
>I know many people in Europe and Canada for whom "whiteness" is sufficient
>basis for nationality. "Whiteness" was, in fact, the basis of virtually
>all of those countries to which you refer; the removal of that basis
>is a "recent" attempt by those governments to engineer the social and
>political fabric of their constituent populations (recent as in the last
>50 years).
If whiteness has been sufficient for nationality in Eastern Europe, why
did Austria-Hungary and the European portion of the Russian Empire ever
break up? Why didn't they merge instead, along with all the countries
of Western Europe, into a single White Nation? As to Canada, I'm sure
you know the situation there better than I, but I thought a lot of
people there think the French ought to break off and have their own
country.
>Again, I don't advocate a system which "lets" whites pursue our
>interests, but one which DOES promote our interests.
It seems to me our basic problems are cultural and religious rather than
political, and no political system can do much directly to solve them.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Feb 9 10:25:19 EST 1994
Article: 1258 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 9 Feb 1994 10:25:01 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 55
Message-ID: <2jav8d$k1m@panix.com>
References: <16F52EC0C.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <2j03bt$dsn@panix.com> <16F56D19A.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
> The historical tendency is towards the left? In what
>form/context? That idea is as off as many of our children's history
>books.
It seems to me that the long-term political and social tendency in the
West has been toward equality, centralization and homogeneity,
secularism, and the liberation of individual desire from social
restraints (other than those required by a universal and rational
system of public order designed to promote the equal satisfaction of
all desires).
With what part of that view do you disagree?
>"Single people with a common past" is an ideology that has ingrained
>the French in a dead end curve by which they have been relegated the
>status of 20th Century tourist attraction.
>From the papers I don't get the impression the French are doing all that
badly. Who's doing better?
It seems to me political freedom is impossible unless people accept some
principle of unity. Ethnicity ("after all, we are all Frenchmen, so we
must work together") is one principle of unity. Other possible
principles are economic success and ideology. You don't like ethnicity.
What do you like?
> While the U.S. has had its problems, what specific "move" has created
>its own problems along those lines?
The formal rejection of ethnicity as a principle of unity here means
that when bad times come we'll have to rely on something else to get
people to cooperate. The "something else" might be dictatorship, or it
might be ideology. In either case life is likely to become unpleasant.
>>Why
>>would it be a good thing for France to become a multicultural society?
>
> I have never lived in France, but I wonder what the minorities who
>live in France would answer to that question.
It's impossible to please everyone equally.
> Why you leave this dynamic to the French alone is a puzzlement. I said
>nothing of specific French-white populations in my post. Is this an isolated
>example for illustration or a limitation on your part to France alone?
You commented on something Mr. Bouthillier said about the French Front
National. I don't see anything special about the French.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Feb 9 10:29:21 EST 1994
Article: 1259 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 9 Feb 1994 10:29:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <2javfv$kkg@panix.com>
References: <2j0ng3$2bi@gabriel.keele.ac.uk> <2j11at$b11@panix.com> <16F56D684.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
>>permit people to segregate themselves if
>>they wish or to mix with others if all parties agree, with a minimal
>>overall government to keep order.
>If we adopted this practice, especially your little gem "if all parties
>agree," we would have undoubtedly totalitarian slave states and dynamic
>oppression of all sorts in this country.
It won't surprise you to hear that I don't understand your point at all.
Totalitarianism and slavery are not consensual arrangements. You don't
enslave someone by choosing to have dealings with someone else.
>There is no place for ethnic diversity?
I think so, but I'm not so sure about you. The specific purpose of
legal rules against ethnic discrimination is to eliminate ethnic
diversity as something that matters. Suppose such rules were vigorously
enforced for three generations. How much ethnic diversity would be
left? Is that what you want?
>That means you don't have one friend, no of one positive contribution,
>nor acknowledge one iota of positive ideas in any faction other than
>your own family? Where do you draw the line?
What are you talking about? I wasn't proposing exterminating people or
compelling them to separate. People can draw the line wherever they
find it most useful or comfortable to draw it in the particular
setting. The purpose of drawing lines is not always to include all
good people and to exclude all bad people. People sometimes prefer to
associate and deal with their relatives, or fellow country boys, or
other veterans. That doesn't mean they think everyone who lacks those
qualifications is worthless. Norway is an independent state today
because the Norwegians thought they were a separate people who could
live more happily if they weren't part of Sweden. That doesn't mean
they're a bunch of xenophobes who like to oppress people.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Feb 9 20:17:55 EST 1994
Article: 1262 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: The irresistible rise of a.r.c.
Date: 9 Feb 1994 20:11:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <2jc1j6$43n@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
I thought some of you might find the following of interest:
From: reid@decwrl.DEC.COM (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: news.lists
Subject: USENET Readership report for Jan 94
Date: 8 Feb 1994 13:59:13 -0800
Organization: DEC Network Systems Laboratory
Lines: 2855
Sender: reid@pa.dec.com
Approved: reid@decwrl.dec.com
Message-ID: <2j91vh$feg@usenet.pa.dec.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: usenet.pa.dec.com
Summary: data for all groups
Keywords: arbitron, statistics, full
This is the full set of data from the USENET readership report for Jan 94.
Explanations of the figures are in a companion posting.
+-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
| +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
| | +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
| | | +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
| | | | +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
| | | | | +-- Crossposting percentage
| | | | | | +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
| | | | | | | +-- Share: % of newsrders
| | | | | | | | who read this group.
V V V V V V V V
1755 26000 323 45% 145 381.3 0% 0.01 0.6% alt.revolution.counter
So with 26,000 readers we're probably twice as big as _Chronicles_ and
50 times as big as _The Scorpion_. We're a lot cheaper, too. So how come
we talk about them and they don't talk about us?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 10 09:02:28 EST 1994
Article: 1272 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: go lefties!
Date: 10 Feb 1994 09:02:13 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 40
Message-ID: <2jdep5$84k@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb10.031819.4863@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>I find it interesting that someone who describes himself as a radical
>leftist (liberal?), should justify "multiculturalism" on capitalist,
>multinational corporate grounds. This supports a thesis concerning the
>contemporary Left as an ally of international capital, often advocated
>these days in some right-wing circles.
The contemporary Left and international capital are obviously allied.
Both favor a universal and homogenous social order made up of isolated
individuals whose fundamental tie is to that universal order rather than
to any lesser grouping. In both cases the purpose of the order is the
rational organization of human and material resources for the production
and distribution of exchangeable goods and services that are valued for
their ability to satisfy actual desires. The only difference is that
the Left prefers a larger component of bureaucratic rule for the sake of
greater equality, while international capital prefers to rely more on
the market for the sake of maximizing production.
The Left and capital are allies in fighting everything that stands in
the way of perfecting such an order. Such obstacles (referred to as
"hate" or "bias") include religious and ethnic loyalties and the complex
of attitudes that supports the institution of the family. The usual
method of attack, in the United States at any rate, is to say "yes, *of
course* these things are important, but they are essentially private,
which means that they can't be allowed to have any influence over
anything of any practical importance, and also people have to be taught
tolerance, which is the view that no practice or attitude relating to
these things is better than any other".
How you come out on all this, meaning whether you join the
counterrevolution or you adhere to the respectable view that opposition
to "hate" is the bedrock moral principle, depends on whether the New
World Order that both the Left and international capital want sounds
good to you.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 10 09:04:55 EST 1994
Article: 1273 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 10 Feb 1994 09:03:57 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <2jdesd$8ks@panix.com>
References: <2j11at$b11@panix.com> <16F56D684.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <1994Feb9.212901.163@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In article <16F56D684.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>, SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
>
>>The unified modern state really has
>>no place for ethnic diversity. That's why by early modern times there
>>weren't any Jews in the European countries bordering on the Atlantic.
> There is no place for ethnic diversity?
A point of clarification: the language first quoted was intended as a
criticism of the unified modern state. My proposal was to make the
state less unified by reducing its functions and permitting the
communities of which it is composed to run their own affairs to a
greater extent than at present. My proposed repeal of
antidiscrimination laws would be one step in that direction. The
purpose of such laws, of course, is to eliminate ethnic diversity as
something of social consequence. I view such laws as simply another
manifestation of the inability of the unified modern state to tolerate
diversity.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Feb 11 11:32:35 EST 1994
Article: 1276 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 11 Feb 1994 09:34:30 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 95
Message-ID: <2jg51m$oe0@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb10.223254.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>> Your view seems to be that there is a group of people ("Whites") who
>> view themselves as having common descent and who share a way of life
>> that they are born into and that involves definite values and ideals
>> that are sufficient to constitute the basis of a political society.
>> I don't agree.
>
>I believe that given sufficient time and proper socio-political
>organization, we will come to be exactly what you think we aren't.
>
>However, I not only pose those viewpoints descriptively, but
>prescriptively. It is not only a fact that such a group of people
>exists, but an ideal that it does so in the future.
Do you have any historic parallels for what you want to do?
I have a hard time thinking what a political society would be like that
treated whiteness (or Whiteness) as its source of political ideology.
The United States never did that -- _Dred Scott_ said "when the Founders
talked about 'all men' they didn't mean blacks", which is something
different. National Socialist Germany tried to do make Aryanness (if
that's a word) the sole source of political ideology and what that
turned out to amount to was war with the rest of the world.
It seems to me that what you have been talking about goes beyond
ordinary nationalism. The Slovaks now have their own country, but I
don't think they view Slovakism as a self-sufficient complex of
principles and ideals. They want a separate state, but they're willing
to establish that state on liberal principles. Maybe that's not good
enough for you because you think liberal principles, at least as
currently construed, are destructive. My difficulty, though, is
understanding the principles on which you would base the government of
your separate white state. "The welfare of whites" doesn't tell me
much, because "the welfare of the people" is the justification for every
type of government ever proposed.
Suppose Martians took all the whites and plopped them down on some other
planet. What kind of government should they set up? In discussing what
kind of government to set up would people talk about whiteness or would
they talk about justice, prosperity, happiness, and so on?
>Ethnicity is not someone you are "born into" it is something you
>believe.
People for the American Way says that "American" means belief in their
interpretation of the ideals of freedom, tolerance and diversity,
together with belief in America and Americans as bearers of those ideals
(except for blemishes that we must all work together to overcome). If
that view is adopted by the government, the media and the educational
system, and the majority comes to accept or at least acquiesce in it,
have those become the beliefs that define American ethnicity? If so,
you're in luck, because we live in an ethnically-based nation with a
ruling class filled with bold and ruthless fighters for the American
people. As it turns out, you and most of the other posters on this
newsgroup are anti-American, but I guess if we don't like it here we can
go somewhere else.
>Ethnicity is possible within a group just as it is likely for people in
>Texas to see themselves as a distinct group while still seeing
>themselves as American.
Could ethnicity link a group to more than one group? It seems that most
American Jews share ethnicity with both the Lubavitcher Rebbe or Yitzhak
Shamir and with George Bush (they are white Americans who have lived
here for quite a while, they speak no other language than English, they
have bought into the American way of life, more than half of them marry
non-Jews, and so on). Even an American white and an American black
would likely feel they share something of a common heritage if they ran
into each other in Transylvania or Swaziland.
>> As to Canada, I'm sure you know the situation there better than I, but
>> I thought a lot of people there think the French ought to break off and
>> have their own country.
>
>So what's your point?
In one of your posts you talked about "the eternal white race" or
something of the part. Elsewhere I think you talked about Whiteness as
a complete and sufficient political, moral and social outlook. A lot of
my post was devoted to showing that ethnicity is something with a lot of
shadings, subdivisions, and cross-connections. The point was that while
important it isn't clearly defined or stable enough to serve as an
object of final loyalty.
>Although our problems ARE cultural and religious, they are also
>political; moreover, it will take political solutions to solve our
>cultural and religious problems.
It seems to me that politics is secondary though important.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Fri Feb 11 21:10:32 EST 1994
Article: 1280 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: More on ethnicity
Date: 11 Feb 1994 21:07:02 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 96
Message-ID: <2jhdk6$ov1@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Some more comments on ethnicity, which summarize a side discussion I've
been having by email, and which I thought might fill out the comments I
posted publicly for anyone who is interested:
The modern state does not tolerate diversity. It attempts to remold
society through and through for a particular purpose. That means that
attitudes, customs and institutions that are inconsistent with the
state's purposes or with the power of the state and of those who control
it have to go. The purpose differs from state to state, although it
always includes securing the power of the state apparatus and of those
who control it. The liberal state as its highest goal (apart from its
own survival) attempts to maximize the equal satisfaction of individual
impulse; the Nazi state attempts to maximize the power of the state and
the particular group it represents as an end in itself. Both attempts
are destructive.
The goal of the liberal state, the equal satisfaction of individual
impulses, is destructive because people can't live that way. Man is a
social and rational animal, which means that the things that are needed
to satisfy him are things that depend on the willing cooperation of
other people in accordance with a shared conception of good and evil.
People want things like the respect of other people, but "respect" has
no meaning in a society that measures the value of things only by
reference to the desires and impulses people actually have and treats
all desires and impulses as equal.
Multiculturalism and "tolerance" is thought to promote freedom and
respect for the peculiarities of each group, but that's an illusion.
Every state forbids behavior and discourages attitudes adverse to its
goals and requires behavior and promotes attitudes that favor its goals.
For example, some groups (the Mormons are said to be like this) like to
keep to themselves and take care of their own and not be responsible for
bailing other people out of messes. In America in 1994 a group like
that would want to discriminate in favor of (prefer to deal with) its
own members and avoid paying taxes to support the welfare system. The
American state in 1994 says they can't do that. Also, in all cases I
can think of such groups base their internal organization on a strong
family system. The strong family systems I know of are based on sex
roles that tell each person concretely what his duties are. In America
in 1994 such a group would be taxed to pay for public schools that view
it as part of their mission to combat sex roles, and would be legally
required either to send their children to them or go to the trouble and
expense of organizing and supporting their own schools.
Again, my proposal is to reduce the role of government and let each
group live more as it chooses. If it wants to have its own way of doing
things and limit its dealings with others (i.e., engage in ethnic
discrimination) it could do so. I haven't proposed that segregation be
legally required, only that there be no legal requirement of
integration. If non-WASPs decided they didn't want anything to do with
WASPs they could refuse to deal with them.
The reason for the proposal is that people generally live good lives
based not on abstract philosophical principles or ideas they made up
themselves or what they saw on TV or what the schools told them, but
rather on the particular way of life they learned at home and in the
community in which they grew up. A particular way of life involves a
complex of concrete attitudes, habits and understandings that vary from
culture to culture. Therefore, people will live better if they grow up
and live in a particular culture, which usually means as a member of a
particular ethnic group since ethnic groups are the prime bearers of
culture. For someone to grow up and live as a member of a particular
ethnic group that supports the standards and practices defining a
particular way of life requires that the group be separated to some
degree from other groups. Therefore, some degree of ethnic separatism
promotes the good life.
I don't doubt that you can find good and bad people in all groups and
all walks of life. So what? There will be no more good people and no
fewer bad people in integrated than other groups. The advantage of
living within a culturally cohesive group is that standards are likely
to be clearer and more coherent, and people do better if there are clear
and coherent standards. It's easier to raise children, for example, if
what you tell them sounds like what they are hearing from other sources.
It's easier to live in accordance with your own standards of honesty,
honor or whatever if the people you deal with know and respect those
standards as well. That kind of mutual understanding is far more likely
if the people with whom you deal are people with whom you share a
cultural heritage.
You don't handpick your neighbors, the people you work with, or the
people at your kids' school, so what things might be like if you could
handpick everyone you deal with doesn't much matter. Since what you're
going to be dealing with is a cross section of the people in the
community you're living in, what makes the most sense is to try to live
in a community in which the people have attitudes and habits that (as
much as possible) you share or at least think you can live with
comfortably. For most people that's going to be their own ethnic
community.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 13 12:42:48 EST 1994
Article: 1283 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 12 Feb 1994 12:18:45 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <2jj31l$hec@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb9.202108.28759@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <1994Feb11.145119.82680@ucl.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
monaghan@zanskar.avc.ucl.ac.uk (N.O. Monaghan) writes:
> (3) The Anglican Church did come into being until long after the
> 1200's.
I thought the Anglican church was simply the part of the Catholic church
existing in England, as the Gallican church was the Catholic church in
France. (I realize that things became more complicated after Henry VIII
broke with Rome.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 13 12:42:49 EST 1994
Article: 1288 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: NR
Date: 13 Feb 1994 06:59:36 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <2jl4n8$3s6@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb13.021403.23459@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994Feb13.021403.23459@news.cs.brandeis.edu> deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>The latest issue of National Review is dedicated to the issues of
>"multiculturalism", PC, and immigration. Pretty good stuff.
I usually take a look at it when I'm at the library to see what they
have. They had quite a good issue several months ago on PC in the
newsroom that included several longish articles by people who were
there and had watched it all develop.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 13 16:28:50 EST 1994
Article: 1292 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Guide to the American Right.
Date: 13 Feb 1994 13:14:15 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <2jlqln$dng@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb11.145119.82680@ucl.ac.uk> <2jj31l$hec@panix.com> <2jl397$k9h@gabriel.keele.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
cla04@cc.keele.ac.uk (J.R. Wood) writes:
^^^^^^^^^
Would it avoid confusion if I referred to you simply as "cla04"?
>I must confess that I've never heard the expression used in that form,
>though the Latin for the church in England would be Ecclesia Anglicana.
>The High Anglican line is that the Church of England is part of the
>'catholic' church, in fact I've heard sermons where the Roman Church
>has been described as the 'Roman Mission'.
I suppose my question was motivated by my impression of High Anglican
theory and the analogy to the Gallican church.
>Popular historians in England such as Arthur Byrant have emphasised the
>distance of the Englaish church from Rome in the Medieval period. Alas
>for me this is far too late to have firm knowledge about so I can't say
>whether they're right or perpetuating a patriotic myth.
I seem to recall that the statute against appeals to Rome in Henry
VIII's time, among the whereases and preambles and statements that
England has always been an empire, entire and complete, had a long list
going back to the 8th century of situations in which the Ecclesia
Anglicana had ignored directives from Rome. When I read it some time
ago it didn't seem very impressive ("in 989 the Pope told the Bishop of
Winchester to come to Rome and Ethelred the Unready told him not to, and
he didn't go" sort of thing).
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 13 19:40:31 EST 1994
Article: 1295 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 13 Feb 1994 19:40:17 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 72
Message-ID: <2jmh9h$cbn@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb13.122406.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>> It seems to me that what you have been talking about goes beyond
>> ordinary nationalism.
>
>No, it is your understanding of what I want that might be beyond
>ordinary nationalism.
My understanding of what you want is certainly shaky. I thought you
spoke about the eternal white race, and said that for you whiteness (or
Whiteness) is a sufficient source of political and moral principles. If
so, it seems to me that emphasis on the eternity and self-sufficiency of
one's group goes beyond ordinary nationalism, by which I understand the
view that one's ethnic people as it has historically evolved would have
a better life if it had at least a degree of political, economic and
social independence. An ordinary nationalist could, I think, base his
views on the right of all nationalities to self-determination. It seems
that you object strongly to that line of thought.
>You said *MY* viewpoint was ideological. What the hell is PFTAW's?
It's purely ideological, of course, and I don't like it or them. My
point in mentioning them was to show that ideology (PFTAW-think, for
example) does not create ethnicity. You seemed to be saying the
contrary.
>> The point was that while important it isn't clearly defined or stable
>> enough to serve as an object of final loyalty.
>
>I think you are wrong. There are people fighting and dying for their
>ethnicity. If that isn't/can't be one's final loyalty (according to you)
>then what can?
God. The divine order of the world. Maybe someone philosophically-
minded might have an impersonal (non-theistic) conception of the good or
the order of the universe that could work as an object of final loyalty.
Nothing smaller would work, it seems to me.
The fact that people fight and die for their ethnicity doesn't
demonstrate that ethnicity is their final loyalty, only that it is
connected in some way to their final loyalty. A man might be willing to
die for his honor, his family, his country *and* his religion. It can't
be that each of them is his final loyalty.
>Suppose it took thirty years to bring about this "equitable" situation?
>Where would whites be after this thirty years of neglect?
You seem to think that white separatism will be more successful faster
if it's not presented as part of a package in which each group gets to
be separatist within some sort of overall peacekeeping system. I don't
see why that is so.
>The only reason that you've offered your "solutions" is because your
>dear American State is threatened.
The present American State is not at all dear to me. What's wrong with
disarming those who favor its current form by pointing out that it's
working to nearly everyone's disadvantage and that deconsolidation
could be done in a way that works to the benefit of both whites and
groups other than whites? If you think the white way of life is going
downhill under the current system you should take a look at what's
happening to the black way of life.
You have complained that I misread what you say. It certainly seems to
me that you have misread me. (It's hard for me to understand how you
could have read what I wrote as favorable to PFTAW, for example.)
Should we drop this exchange?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Wed Feb 16 12:43:49 EST 1994
Article: 1300 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 16 Feb 1994 09:11:01 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 91
Message-ID: <2jt9hl$aba@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb15.221332.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>> It's purely ideological, of course, and I don't like it or them. My
>> point in mentioning them was to show that ideology (PFTAW-think, for
>> example) does not create ethnicity.
>
>I apologize, I thought that you were advocating their particular
>position (in opposition to my own).
I looked again at what I wrote, and I could have been clearer. No
apologies are needed.
>Still, most instances of religion are not developed well enough to
>cover every aspect of life.
We were talking about ultimate loyalties. It seems to me that your
ultimate loyalty need not be the thing that determines everything about
your life, and in fact it's better if it doesn't.
Someone might think his ultimate loyalty is to God but also be loyal to
his country, his family, his co-workers, a particular conception of
honor, and so on, each of which has features that aren't determined by
his religion. He might try to put it all together by saying "God made
man an animal that is both social and rational, and as a social animal
man is what he is partly because of his particular loyalties and
attachments, while as a rational animal man should see himself and
those particular loyalties and attachments as part of a general
system". Someone like that could take family loyalty seriously enough
to die for if need be, but when he participates in politics he could
nonetheless be concerned more with the well-being of the community as a
whole and all the people and families in it than with the interests of
his own family.
That's more likely to happen if the political community (to the extent
possible) leaves things alone that directly affect the interests of
particular families and sticks to things that promote the common good
of all families. The same considerations apply to ethnic groups as to
families, I think. So to me it seems perfectly consistent to take
ethnic loyalty seriously, to favor a political system in which the
important issues generally have no direct relation to ethnicity, and to
treat neither ethnic nor political loyalties as ultimate.
Maybe your response would be "yes, that's consistent, but I would rather
have a political order just for my ethnic group than one that has to
deal equally with others as well". To me, it's a matter of
practicalities, line-drawing, and balancing opposing benefits and
detriments. There might be someone in Canada who would like an All-
White Canada better than Rainbow Coalition Canada, an independent French
Canada better than Anglo-French Canada, an independent French Canada
that includes only farmers who attend mass every Sunday better than one
that has a lot of big-city cosmopolitan atheists in it, and so on until
he gets down to a single clan living together as his ideal political
community. Most people are going to stop before then because they see
some advantages to diversity as well as unity. But when two opposing
things like diversity and unity both have benefits and detriments, it
seems likely there will be a variety of ways, none of them perfect, to
promote the benefits and suppress the detriments.
For example, you seem to favor a whites-only state with leftish social
welfare programs. One problem I have with that is that leftish social
welfare programs tend to break down informal and traditional social
arrangements within the state, such as the family, kinship, and ethnic
or regional subdivisions. Sweden isn't my political ideal any more than
the United States is. But if the government does less, and in
particular does not take on responsibility for the well-being of
individuals, then it becomes a lot less troublesome for people with
different ways of life and beliefs about good and evil to live under the
same government. If the government isn't responsible for how people
live, then birds of a feather can flock together and establish whatever
way of life seems good to them, and if the way of life is a good one it
will do good things for them while if it's a bad one they won't have the
legal right to force other people to bail them out. If you want to
maintain local rule and minimize centralization it even seems
advantageous to have a diversity of peoples with conflicting outlooks
within the same political system because diversity makes centralization
more difficult. I think that view is consistent with the original U.S.
constitution, by the way. (See Madison on factions.)
>Do you understand my particular conception of ideology? There is such a
>thing as ethnic ideology, religious ideology, or any other kind of
>ideology. As I use the term, ideology refers to justification for
>particular ends (or more properly, a whole belief system towards
>specific ends).
I think of ideology as something explicit and ethnicity as something
nonexplicit made up of habit, manner and feeling.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 20 07:44:46 EST 1994
Article: 1305 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Josiah Royce on Loyalty
Date: 18 Feb 1994 05:39:31 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 10
Message-ID: <2k25t3$2cu@panix.com>
References: <9402171532.AA20388@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <9402171532.AA20388@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu> rickertj@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (John Rickert) writes:
> Could someone inform me about Josiah Royce's philosophy of loyalty?
Not I, but is he someone we should all know more about?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 24 06:47:09 EST 1994
Article: 1312 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Another victory for the New World Order
Date: 23 Feb 1994 11:00:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 10
Message-ID: <2kfuj5$qdd@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb18.195745.118462@ucl.ac.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aaiken@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Andrew C. Aiken) writes:
>Then again, a victory for the other side: the closing of EuroDisney.
I wonder what you do with an abandoned Disneyland?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 24 06:47:25 EST 1994
Article: 12612 of talk.philosophy.misc
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Help for angst about death
Date: 24 Feb 1994 06:44:03 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 20
Message-ID: <2ki3u3$8dr@panix.com>
References: <16F662BE3.LADEN@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> <2kh54f$a7h@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Xref: panix talk.origins:58512 talk.philosophy.misc:12612 talk.religion.misc:79640
In <2kh54f$a7h@panix.com> mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon) writes:
>> why is there
>> something and not nothing?
>English has certain "bookkeeping" requirements which naive English speakers
>are prone to regard as "universal law" but which turn out to be merest
>convention.
The relevance is obscure. There was something rather than nothing long
before the English language existed and I suppose there will be
something rather than nothing long afterward. There were even
cosmological theories explaining why there is something rather than
nothing before the English language evolved. My understanding is that
there are even non-Western cosmological theories.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 24 08:31:39 EST 1994
Article: 1315 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 24 Feb 1994 08:13:55 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 41
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References: <1994Feb15.221332.1@clstac> <1994Feb24.035824.6241@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
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wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>Our real problems are moral problems stemming from the growth of
>liberal, "humanistic" ideas. Convince me that skin color causes
>morality.
Skin color doesn't cause morality, but it seems to me that giving some
weight to ethnicity is likely to be needed for the actual existence of a
tolerable morality.
The problem is that morality can't practically be derived and given
effect through the exercise of reason alone. At least for most of us,
morality depends on habits we grow into because they are accepted by the
people we grow up among and on moral perceptions that develop and are
made concrete in social practices over times that are measured in
generations. It follows that morality as an intelligent system of
practices and attitudes in which people generally participate will exist
most easily if people view themselves as members of a group with a
specific way of life that on the whole has included their families and
the bulk of their closest associates for generations. It is hard to
separate thinking that way from thinking of oneself as a member of an
ethnic group.
When people write books and plays about (say) the '40s they emphasize
how bigoted they were. On the other hand, a comparison of things like
the problems young people had in those days with those they have today
is enough to make you weep. The two sorts of change go together, I
think. The people who write the books and plays would no doubt agree;
they think the change was worth it, I don't.
>appeals to tribal "ethnicity" will destroy us.
There are many possibilities of destruction. Attempts to make ethnicity
illegitimate as a principle of loyalty is another. If something is part
of human nature and can serve a good purpose it seems to me it should be
domesticated rather than driven underground.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 24 17:16:47 EST 1994
Article: 1316 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Mr. Deane's Responses
Date: 24 Feb 1994 08:32:43 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 25
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References: <1994Feb17.141357.1@clstac> <1994Feb18.132644.96810@ucl.ac.uk> <16F66C46C.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu>
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SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu writes:
>If I was forming a group which I wanted to perform at maximum
>productivity, I'd clearly take the best possible INDIVIDUALS, whom
>would be selected on an individual basis, not for anything as
>superfluous as what they looked like or what generalized group they
>represented.
The idea seems to be that the all-star team will beat any other. Why
suppose that? Human behavior is not so mechanical.
Teams that have played together for a long time usually do better than
teams that have just been formed. Think of cultural habits and
attitudes as things that arise because they have been found useful when
very large teams play together in very complicated and demanding games
for a very long time. If you think of culture that way it doesn't seem
so surprizing that (say) an all-Greek organization might do better than
an organization that includes people representing a random selection of
the world's cultural groups, even if the people in the latter
organization have superior formal qualifications.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Thu Feb 24 19:52:50 EST 1994
Article: 1319 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Race, Gender and the Frontier
Date: 24 Feb 1994 19:52:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 56
Message-ID: <2kji4l$o06@panix.com>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) writes:
> Deep cultures are those cultures that were the earliest to
>arise within relatively benign habitats and also the first to be
>left behind by technical progress. They are populated by people
>who are evolved to understand and exploit human nature.
I have trouble with your deep culture/shallow culture distinction, and
with your account of the origin and characteristics of each type of
culture. If the habitat is benign, what's the need to understand and
exploit human nature? Also, in their homeland of origin who would there
be for the people of these deep cultures to exploit?
>They are culturally "deep" but technically less sophisticated.
How does the culture become deep if the environment is so benign? Why
don't its people just follow their impulses instead of developing
cultural depth?
>homosexuals opting for a kin-selection strategy of caring for
>reproductively viable relatives.
To raise a side issue, does this strategy actually have much to do with
human beings? I know a guy whose uncle put the moves on him, but
somehow I doubt that's the sort of kin-selection strategy you have in
mind ...
>The deeper cultures diffuse into the now benign habitats of the
>shallower cultures and gradually come to dominance, given the deep
>culture's social superiority.
Who are these deeper cultures? Peoples from physically benign
environments or places thought to be the cradle of mankind (South Sea
Islanders; Africans) never seem to dominate much of anything. Peoples
who diffuse into benign habitats and prosper (the Jews, the Chinese, the
Indians in East Africa) have cultures that I would call "deep" but
didn't develop them by living in benign environments. Also, such people
are certainly no more natural or less morally rigid than the people
among whom they live. (You speak later of the "more 'natural' but less
morally rigid deep cultures".)
>The greatest danger to the shallow culture is that the deep culture
>will come to such social, sexual and political dominance that it
>prohibits the shallow culture from escaping and achieving a new level
>of power in the new habitats that it opens up. For example, this
>happened to the Chinese when early merchants were prohibited from
>utilizing their, then, superior sailing technologies by the Emperor's
>bureaucracy.
Is it relevant to your example that China has been conquered only by
people from environments less benign than China itself?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 26 07:11:45 EST 1994
Article: 1326 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Race, Gender and the Frontier
Date: 25 Feb 1994 22:29:59 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <2kji4l$o06@panix.com>
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jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) writes:
>> I have trouble with your deep culture/shallow culture distinction,
>
>It really isn't a distinction. It is a spectrum.
Then my problem is with the conjunction of traits you attribute to deep
cultures -- the more natural and instinctive lifestyle and also the
ability to manipulate and dominate people whose way of life is more
"cultured" in the current sense. The two don't seem to me to go
together. It seems to me that what you call "shallow culture" people
would be more adaptable, quicker to see and take advantage of new
opportunities, and able to cooperate more effectively for common goals.
Those are important advantages if the issue is competition and
domination.
>> and
>> with your account of the origin and characteristics of each type of
>> culture. If the habitat is benign, what's the need to understand and
>> exploit human nature?
>
>Wasn't it clear from the context that by "benign habitat" I was
>referring to the non-human environment?
Yes, of course. I questioned why someone would go to the trouble of
learning how to exploit other people if he could just sit around and eat
breadfruit that grows by itself.
>Pick a place on the spectrum of habitats and your "deeper cultures" are
>those that evolved in the more benign habitats [ . . . ] Secular Jews
>and Indians to a lesser degree (except in Great Britain), take over
>existing niches in society and fit the model of a deeper culture
>coming to dominance.
But Jewish culture developed in quite difficult circumstances and has
always been highly moralistic and bound up with the study of what looks
to an outsider like an extraordinarily artificial system of religious
law. Secular Jews are outstandinly successful in the learned
professions. They look to me like a people who very strikingly fail to
fit at least part of your characterization of a deep culture.
>The only place where secular Jews and Africans are encountering each other
>in large numbers is in the United States. Until recently, the
>overt and active discrimination against Africans and lack of urbanization
>kept them from demonstrating their genetic strengths with respect to
>the secular Jews.
I take it Africans have the deeper culture? It seems to follow from
your view that they will soon be dominating and manipulating the Jews.
Somehow that seems unlikely to me. It's also worth noting that if
Africans are starting to dominate the rest of the country the results
haven't shown up in comparative income figures yet. (I haven't seen the
_Time_ article you mentioned.)
Your theory seems to be based on the observation that some peoples have
cultures that are instinctive and close to nature, others have cultures
that promote the ability to manipulate or exploit, others have cultures
that inculcate a sort of moral naivete that makes people honest and
productive but easy to take advantage of, and so on. I don't deny the
observation, but your theory seems overly simplified to me because it
classifies very different and contradictory things as "deep cultures".
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 26 07:11:46 EST 1994
Article: 1327 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 25 Feb 1994 22:34:37 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
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References: <1994Feb25.134255.1@clstac>
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aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>if the thing you are loyal to is something that does determine
>everything about your life (like a religion, or ideology), then it is
>ridiculous to engage in a situation that is contrary to that goal.
>Compromise for the sake of compromise is ridiculous.
I might have a philosophy of life that tells me that I should try to
promote the good of man, and that part of a man's good is to know his
good and rule himself by reference to it. If so, my philosophy might
lead me to think I should give other people a certain amount of freedom
because otherwise it is impossible for them to realize part of what it
is for them to have a good life. To give people freedom, though, is to
accept that you will have to compromise with them. So compromise with
others might be a requirement of the philosophy I've committed to.
In addition, I might think that I don't have specially privileged access
to knowledge of the good. If so, I might favor a system that forces
compromise among ethical views because the requirement of compromise
prevents people from ignoring each other's views and forces them to
argue with each other and try to come to a common understanding, which
is likely to be better than the understanding any one person could come
to individually. A natural scientist might well prefer a system in
which results are checked, and are accepted only if independent
investigators agree on them, to a system in which he himself decrees
what results will be accepted. Would that be ridiculous? If not, is
political ethics so *wholly* different that it wouldn't benefit from
some sort of requirement of general acceptance?
>I don't think that you would advocate that one should ever sacrifice
>his commitment to God for his other, secondary, commitments [ . . . ]
>If no, then you recognize that one's commitment to these other things
>is secondary, and therefore sub-valued with respect to God's word.
Sure, but what follows? For me, neither ethnic nor political loyalty is
ultimate because each is too much a part of this world.
>What you are saying is that the ultimate loyalty is to balance
>competing interests of family, community, nation and faith.
The ultimate loyalty (which is the same as faith) is to the Good, which
includes family, community and nation.
>However, it is just as possible that they don't compete since it is
>possible to have an ideology that places them all in concert with each
>other. Lest you think this impossible, I suggest you examine Islam.
>What I understand of Islam is a complete individual/communal/religious
>system of morality.
Such views exist. I suppose Talmudic Judaism is another example. Those
views aren't mine, though.
>> Maybe your response would be "yes, that's consistent, but I would rather
>> have a political order just for my ethnic group than one that has to
>> deal equally with others as well". To me, it's a matter of
>> practicalities, line-drawing, and balancing opposing benefits and
>> detriments.
>
>What practicalities? That one should dish up one's taxes, self-determination
>and loyalties to a system that is in no way committed to either protecting
>or securing one's basic interests?
There are advantages of living in a political system that includes
people of different sorts. I might want to cooperate with people who
are quite different from me in various sorts of ways, and living under a
common political system would facilitate that. When Jewish scientist
and scholars left Germany for the U.S., that was their loss and our
gain. I and someone quite different from me might be affected by each
other's views, and that might be a good thing. A new and more complete
view might arise out ot the clash of partial views.
I would agree that the problem that at some point diversity goes too
far, and social standards and values get lost because there isn't
enough social coherence to sustain them, has become pressing today.
Where that point arises is a matter of judgement, though, because the
considerations go both ways. I would also say that some groups get
along better than others, so the particular type of diversity is
important. That again is a matter of practical judgement.
>I don't think that I've made ANY statements with regard to social
>policies. It is unlikely that you could have any idea of what my social
>policies are.
I thought you said you were a "moderate leftist" and suggested you
didn't mean anything unusual by the phrase except that your moderate
leftism related to the governance of an all-White community. I'm sorry
if I misinterpreted you.
>I don't think that the diversity necessarily makes centralization more
>difficult. After all, the old addage "divide and conquer" relies on
>that particular feature.
I think diversity makes it more difficult for a limited and popular
government to consolidate. You are right that if government is in
principle unlimited and is responsible only to itself (which is the
direction in which our own government is headed) then diversity aids a
"divide and conquer" strategy.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sat Feb 26 19:38:55 EST 1994
Article: 1329 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 26 Feb 1994 08:41:31 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 43
Message-ID: <2knjib$208@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb24.035824.6241@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <2ki96j$ic7@panix.com> <1994Feb26.015825.28604@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
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wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>I do not think that race, per se, has caused these problems. The
>problems have not even been caused by forced integration.
>
>The modern roots of many of our problems have much more to do with the
>"please yourself" mentality of the 60s (and somewhat before and 'til
>now). We must look to our fallen nature as men -- a nature that we
>share with all races -- and not our skin color if we want to address
>our _real_ problems. As Dr. Walter Williams says, these are _human_
>problems.
I agree with each thing you say here. I would add, though, that the
solution to these human problems is not something that can be designed
and carried into effect with respect to all humanity at once. The
solutions are very concrete and practical, so we have to start with
what's right in front of us by putting our own lives in order, then our
families, then our communities. That process of going by stages from
the particular to the universal doesn't work unless the smaller units of
society are cohesive, which implies ethnic cohesiveness. In the absence
of ethnic cohesiveness or something very much like it, all we have
between the individual and the universal state is completely voluntary
associations, and ethical life withers. People mostly learn that there
are things that are more important than pleasing themselves by being
born into communities that they feel to be part of what constitutes
their own identity and so are not really voluntary. Again, it seems to
me that's not likely to happen in the total absence of ethnic
consciousness.
>Our problems aren't with "blacks" qua "blacks" -- our common problems
>stem from the system which attempts to reduce the poor, including poor
>blacks, to a kept class -- vassals of the all-encompassing state.
I agree completely. I should add that if I've harangued you it hasn't
been because I thought you needed a harangue from me but because it's a
way of working out ideas and arguments and your post happened to be an
occasion for rehearsing them. I hope you will forgive me if I get like
this at times.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 27 06:44:17 EST 1994
Article: 1331 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Race, Gender and the Frontier
Date: 26 Feb 1994 21:15:19 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 55
Message-ID: <2kovnn$nku@panix.com>
References: <2kmfnn$fco@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) writes:
>the GENETIC adaptation dictated that a large percentage of children
>raised under Judaic law would depart from that law and become secular
>WITHOUT BEING EXPELLED FROM THE JEWISH ETHNIC GROUP.
You seem to be implying that Jewish law and Jewish genes are at cross-
purposes to each other. That seems odd to me. It also seems to me that
secular Jews are notable for characteristics inconsistent with "deep
culture" as you describe it -- compared with other people (WASPS, for
example) they have stable monogamous families, their birth rates are
low, they tend toward moralism which sometimes leads to weird
ideologies, they have an inclination toward pursuits that involve formal
learning and abstract reasoning. Also, is it relevant to your
"dictated" language that there really wasn't a significant number of
secular Jews until after the French Revolution?
>From their positions of secular moral authority, they broadcast
>neomorals (profeminism, prohomosexuality, pro "diversity", pro-
>anything-PC) and those neomorals are (and this is crucial) ADOPTED WITH
>TOTAL FIDELITY MORE FREQUENTLY BY SHALLOWER CULTURE YOUTH THAN THEIR
>OWN YOUTH.
I doubt that the all-caps statement is true. I suppose to the extent
total fidelity requires simplemindedness you might find it more often
among those of us with _goyishe kopfe_, but I doubt that Jewish practice
has been affected less by neomorals than non-Jewish practice. You
should look at "Counting the Jews" in the October 1991 issue of
_Commentary_ for a discussion of the effect of modern trends relating to
sex and the family on the Jews. As to the earlier part of your
statement, neomorals have also taken root in European countries without
large numbers of Jews. Also, the obvious philosophical sources of
neomorality (the major philosophers of liberalism, for example) are not
Jewish.
My own view is that the role of the Jews in the creation of our current
situation is very much a side issue. If the Jews had all moved to Mars
in 1500 we'd be in about the same place as in fact we are. Very likely
their position in the world has made it rational for them to favor
particularism for themselves and universalism for everyone else, but
they're not supermen. It's difficult for a highly visible minority
successfully to maintain both sides of an inconsistent position for
long, and it's difficult to promote social dissolution among people who
aren't already headed in that direction.
In any event, present trends (low birth rate and an intermarriage rate
of more than 50%) seem likely to lead to the disappearance of non-
Israeli secular Jewry in a few generations. So it seems pretty clear
that promoting the further loosening of traditional standards and ethnic
ties is not now in the interests of Jews as a people.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 27 09:43:09 EST 1994
Article: 1336 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 27 Feb 1994 09:42:58 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 75
Message-ID: <2kqbhi$hsd@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb25.052143.1@clstac> <1994Feb27.042541.3399@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
Is it possible to spin off something from the Bralick/LeBoutillier
exchange? I would like to ramble on for a while about some of the
issues, if I can do so without adding fuel to the fire or seeming to
argue with anyone. Comments are welcome, but none are expected.
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>I think that hte best of Western Civ is universal in scope -- hence,
>all peoples can and should benefit from Western Civilization [ . . . ]
>Nobody's tribe should be in charge of Western Civ because it is greater
>than any of them -- yours included [ . . . ]
>Christ showed that Christianity transcended ethnicity in the situation
>you mention [ . . . ] As I understand it, the aim of the counter-
>revolution is to restore Christian civilization. That won't be done by
>exclusion.
I suppose my view is that all peoples can and should benefit from
Western Civilization just as all peoples can and should benefit from
Chinese Civilization. (I'm a great fan of Confucius, and firmly believe
that all programs of multicultural education should begin with a serious
study of the _Analects_. That would show them!)
However, Western Civilization is an abstraction. It's made up of
English, French, German and other national civilizations, the memory of
the Italian Renaissance and classical antiquity, Christianity, the
Hebrew scriptures, modern natural science, the traditions of European
art and music, the histories and ways of life of particular regions and
classes, and so on indefinitely. It varies by time, place and social
grouping, and it's not something fixed, definite and portable that stays
the same when transfered to peoples and places that have not
historically been part of it.
Variations are valuable. Western civilization doesn't contain all the
value of all civilization, and no particular form of Western
civilization exhausts the value of the Western heritage. Accordingly,
non-Westerners can make their biggest contribution to the world by
remaining non-Western and taking what they can use from the West, while
the West and each part of it should do likewise and retain its own
individuality. To retain individuality in a world of easy
communications require picking and choosing, which means a certain
degree of exclusiveness and ethnocentricity.
After the conquests of Alexander, Hellenistic civilization spread from
Spain to India. If its triumph had been complete the subsequent history
of the West might have been more like that of China, where the dominance
of a single cultural tradition has been far more complete. In the West,
the Romans and the Jews, two vigorous, stubborn and self-centered
peoples, resisted Greek civilization or transformed it to their own
tastes and purposes, and thereby added immeasurably to the future of the
world. The situation today seems to call for similar resistance to a
new universal form of civilization. I don't see how such resistance is
possible in the long run unless it is at least partly ethnically based.
It seems to me that no form of Western Civilization is identical with
Christianity, and also that taking ethnic loyalties seriously is
consistent with that religion. St. Paul says that in Christ there is
neither Greek nor Jew; he also said that in Christ there is neither male
nor female. I don't think he meant that Christianity requires
eliminating the distinction between Greek and Jew any more than it
requires eliminating the distinction between male and female. Instead,
I understand him to mean that Christianity leaves ethnic distinctions,
like distinctions of sex, much as they were while placing them and all
other human and natural things in a setting within which they should be
understood and dealt with. St. Paul thought it consistent with
Christianity to be all things to all men. To me that suggests that each
of the things we can be -- Greek or Jew, for example -- is fully
consistent with Christianity. (The foregoing statement is true only
within limits -- Paul didn't become a murderer so he could evangelize
the murderers.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Sun Feb 27 20:00:57 EST 1994
Article: 1337 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Race, Gender and the Frontier
Date: 27 Feb 1994 09:46:14 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 14
Message-ID: <2kqbnm$i5d@panix.com>
References: <2kovnn$nku@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
rburns@netcom.com (Randall J. Burns) writes:
>until around 1000AD Judaism was a _clearly_ polygamous religion.
I realize that polygamy wasn't declared illegal under Jewish law until
some time in the later Middle Ages, but had been under the impression
that the declaration simply made explicit and formal what had been the
attitude and practice for a very long time. Maybe I'll take a look at
_Encyclopedia Judaica_ on the issue -- it's an interesting one.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Feb 28 06:47:13 EST 1994
Article: 1340 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Race, Gender and the Frontier
Date: 27 Feb 1994 20:38:51 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 26
Message-ID: <2krhvb$ct7@panix.com>
References: <2kovnn$nku@panix.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
jabowery@netcom.com (Jim Bowery) writes:
[You attribute many more behavioral differences than I would to the
genetic differences among human stocks. I don't know enough to discuss
the matter effectively, though. You might discuss with Mr.
LeBouthillier his view that 80% (I think he said) of the genetic
heritage of Ashkenazi Jews is non-Semitic.]
>Even Jarred Diamond (jewish geneticist) claims that the rate of
>cuckoldery is vastly in excess of what is commonly believed. My own
>figures from a blood-type study in London indicate it is one in 3
>families and that is PRE sexual revolution.
What I know of the effects of marital infidelity makes this very hard
for me to believe.
>> _goyishe kopfe_,
>
>Translation?
"Non-Jewish heads."
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Feb 28 09:02:39 EST 1994
Article: 1342 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 28 Feb 1994 09:02:16 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 156
Message-ID: <2ksth8$9n@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb27.182930.1@clstac>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
aelebouthill@vmsb.is.csupomona.edu writes:
>all moral statements of should/should not, good/bad can only be
>determined with respect to their utility in the fulfillment of a goal.
I don't think such statements can be made sense of in that way. It is
never trivial (in the sense that it is trivial to ask "is this bachelor
unmarried") to ask "is this goal that I might have chosen differently
good". Therefore, the meaning of moral statements is not exhausted by
their utility in fulfilling a goal that we have but might just as well
not have had.
>I disagree that we should attempt to benefit others except as we
>ourselves benefit.
On your account, this simply means that benefiting others without a
return doesn't fit into the particular goals you happen to have chosen
for yourself. That's an interesting statement about your personal
characteristics, but so what?
>> Variations are valuable.
>
>To whom? and why?
To anyone who wants the best life possible. As you say, people can
learn from each other. The reason people can learn from each other is
that they are not identical.
>> Western civilization doesn't contain all the value of all civilization,
>> and no particular form of Western civilization exhausts the value of
>> the Western heritage.
>
>I think that you are implying that Western Civilization is an abstract
>end that people work towards.
"Western Civilization" is certainly an abstraction. I doubt that many
people consciously take it as an end.
>I think it is the result of Westerners pursuing their interests (as
>they see them).
I would say it is the result of their pursuing whatever goods they
recognize.
>Western Civilization is an abstraction of the various products of
>Western cultures (and consequently their underlying goals, values and
>beliefs).
Agreed.
>I think that a "world civilization" is possible but it will have to
>explicitly recognize the existence of whites. To the degree that the
>rest of the world does that, they can benefit from our existence.
World civilization can exist in the sense that a variety of
civilizations in communication with each other will eventually sort
themselves into some sort of order that could be called by that name. A
world civilization that existed in the sense Hellenistic civilization,
Chinese civilization or the civilization of the Western Roman Empire
existed, as a melting-pot of peoples recognizing a single authoritative
cultural heritage and eventually speaking a single language, would
degenerate. Eventually, I think, it would fall into an enduring state
of brutal anarchy and tyranny.
The former sort of world civilization could recognize separate European-
based civilizations that would include most whites; the latter would
treat whites and everyone else as part of a common mass.
>Websters defines civilization as:
>
> 2. the condition of being civilized; social organization of
> a high order, marked by the development and use of a
> written language and by advances in the arts and sciences,
> government, etc.
> 3. the total culture of a particular people, nation, period,
> etc.
> 5. intellectual and cultural refinement
These are the senses in which I have been using the word.
>In "The Philosophy of Civilization," by Albert Schweitzer, he states:
>
> "For a quite general definition we may say that civilization is
> progress, material and spiritual progress, on the part of
> individuals as of the mass.
Here he seems to be saying that civilization is a process of organizing
and building up a better way of life for a people and its members.
That seems generally OK to me, and is consistent with the Websters
definitions, at least if you assume a better way of life involves a
highly organized society marked by formal institutions, writing,
technical skills, refinement, and so on. I don't object to the
assumption.
> In what does it consist? First of all in a lessening of the
> strain imposed on individuals and on the mass by the struggle
> for existence...
>
> The struggle for existence is a double one: man has to assert
> himself in nature and against nature, and similarly also
> among his fellow-men and against them.
>
> A dimunition of the struggle is secured by strengthening the
> supremacy of reason over both external nature and human nature,
> and making it subserve as accurately as possible the end proposed."
Here Schweitzer appears to be emphasizing the importance for
civilization of technical advances. Technical advances are important,
but they create their own problems. I don't think our most pressing
problems today are caused by too few technical advances.
He speaks of the "struggle for existence", but at present it isn't bare
existence that is the problem. Also, how can we say that
"strengthening the supremacy of reason over human nature and making it
subserve as accurately as possible the end proposed" is a good thing
without knowing what end is proposed? If I read in the paper that
someone had invented a new and amazingly effective and flexible means
of mind control, I'm not sure I would be pleased.
> A society/civilization has an end to which all other things
>are subordinate.
Not a single end that can be known at the time and stated in explicit
and concrete terms. What was the end to which the civilizations of
Greece or Israel were subordinate? In the case of Israel maybe it was
"to do what God wants", but if "what God wants" was so clear and
concrete and everything was so subordinate to it it's hard to see why
the prophets made a practice of denouncing everything in sight, from the
King and accepted religious ceremonies on down.
> So... my proposition is that civilization is the result of morality
>and develops a culture. In other words, it is the result of bringing
>its members to a certain moral and cultural concensus on the ends for
>which that society exists.
In general, I agree. "Bringing" is too active a verb, though. It makes
it sound as if someone could intentionally create a civilization, which
is not the case. Also, the consensus you speak of is never fully
conscious and explicit.
>exporting a set of values from one civilization to another is
>ridiculous unless those values are coordinated and interpreted to the
>goals of that receiving civilization. This disproves the major premise
>of multi-culturalists. The real goal of multi-culturalism is to
>subserve all other cultures to a world consumerist state.
In general, I agree. I note, though, that given your initial comments
on words like "should" and "good" your only possible objection to the
goal of multiculturalism is that you personally don't share it. That's
a point that your biographer would find of interest but I'm not sure of
its relevance to the discussion of politics from a general perspective.
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Feb 28 16:42:21 EST 1994
Article: 1344 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Ponzi scheme ...
Date: 28 Feb 1994 11:24:38 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 11
Message-ID: <2kt5s6$nov@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb28.134451.22557@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
In <1994Feb28.134451.22557@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>A Ponzi scheme is also known as a "pyramid scheme." Anyway, I can't even
>remember what context I used the term in ... duh.
Social security? Middle-class social programs in general?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Feb 28 20:30:04 EST 1994
Article: 1346 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Into the thick of it
Date: 28 Feb 1994 18:51:50 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 71
Message-ID: <2ku02m$dt6@panix.com>
References: <1994Feb26.015825.28604@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <2knjib$208@panix.com> <1994Feb28.174619.4420@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
wbralick@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Will Bralick) writes:
>The family is its own somewhat unique ethinic mix, for example, I am
>Czech, Croatian, Dutch, Welch, Scottish, and English in some mix. My
>wife is Scots-Irish, French Arcadian, and American Indian. My children
>then are Czech, Croatian (my grandfather put down "Austrian" at Ellis
>Island), Dutch, Welch, Scottish, Scots-Irish, French Arcadian, and
>American Indian. Now, I consider myself ethnicly slavic (50% Czech-
>Croatian), but I daresay my family is a rather typical example of an
>American family. What is our "ethnicity?"
I don't know all the details (it would make a difference if your wife
had three Indian grandparents and grew up on a reservation), but I would
probably call your family's ethnicity white American.
Ethnicity is not something immutable or strictly genetic; it's a matter
of felt common heritage, descent and way of life, where the heritage
and way of life are understood as something in which your family and
relatives and the bulk of their closest associates have on the whole
participated for some time. Ethnic groups can split for historical
reasons (the Serbs and the Croats still speak the same language, but
the Serbs were conquered by Turkey and the Croats by Austria so now
they are two separate groups). They can also merge when members of
several groups live together over time. I think that's what's been
happening with the European groups in this country. People's ethnicity
can also be mixed or vague, as when a new ethnicity is arising out of
something else but things haven't quite jelled yet.
>Perhaps the most important point here is that there is no such thing as
>a "white" ethnicity. The whole view of a monolithic European "white"
>ethnicity is inconsistent with historic fact. To buy the notion of a
>"white" ethnicity is to buy the viewpoint of the pro-fessional victim
>groups rattling around in America today.
Ethnicity is almost never monolithic. There are subdivisions, shadings
and cross-relationships. It nonetheless exists and matters. The
Boston Irish are white, and also Irish Catholic, and also New
Englanders, and feel that each of those matters. I don't see why you
say there is no such thing as white ethnicity. People commonly divide
the population into white, black, Asian, American Indian and Hispanic,
with maybe a few other odd types tossed in, and they feel those
divisions are important. Is that just a mistake?
>| People mostly learn that there
>| are things that are more important than pleasing themselves by being
>| born into communities that they feel to be part of what constitutes
>| their own identity and so are not really voluntary. Again, it seems to
>| me that's not likely to happen in the total absence of ethnic
>| consciousness.
>
>Growing up Catholic does somewhat the same thing. One of my problems with
>Mr. LeBoutillier's position is that he assigns too much importance to skin
>color. A black, conservative, traditional Catholic probably supports
>Western culture far more than does a white, liberal atheist.
I think of "American Catholic" as an ethnic group or something close to
it. Typically you're born into it, your family and relatives are
Catholic, and you commonly go to Catholic schools, live in heavily
Catholic neighborhoods, or otherwise do things that mean you associate
with Catholics more than others. Also, people view Catholicism as an
aspect of their other ethnic affiliations (Irish, Polish, Italian), and
"cultural Catholics" feel free to reject the religion but nonetheless
view themselves as in some important sense Catholic.
(I know too little about black Catholics to comment on the particular
example.)
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
From panix!not-for-mail Mon Feb 28 20:56:50 EST 1994
Article: 1352 of alt.revolution.counter
Path: panix!not-for-mail
From: jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: alt.revolution.counter
Subject: Re: Mr. Deane's Responses
Date: 28 Feb 1994 20:56:34 -0500
Organization: Institute for the Human Sciences
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <2ku7ci$97b@panix.com>
References: <16F66C46C.SESSMAN@ibm.mtsac.edu> <2kia9r$k5v@panix.com> <1994Mar1.000904.17802@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: panix.com
deane@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (David Matthew Deane) writes:
>Our current multiracial army will fall to pieces again, the first time
>it is REALLY challenged by a tough, resourceful, motivated, and
>homogenous enemy.
I assume there'll be no shortage of counsellors to help the surviving
troops get in touch with their feelings of grief and guilt. It could be
an opportunity for real personal growth. The male troops might learn to
admit their own vulnerability more readily, while the female troops
might attain a sense of empowerment through their superior ability to
reach out and find consolation through sympathy and sharing.
Exactly what is the problem you see?
--
Jim Kalb (jk@panix.com)
"Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not of our side."
(Halifax)
Do let me know if you have comments of any kind.
Back to my archive of posts.