This is what I thought you meant, and am just using the word entity to refer to the group as a whole. — Kev

Ok. Still, even knowing that I'd push back. The powers that be are far from monolithic. I've read articles claiming that the deep state is at war with itself, with various factions trying to figure out what to do next. There's an interconnected web of individuals and organizations, but they may well have conflicting agendas among themselves.

No, I do believe there is plenty of conspiring going on. I just don't think that explains everything, though. — Kev

Ok, you're taking my position to an extreme. didn't say that EVERYTHING is under their control. Someone wins or loses an election or breaks their leg or wins the lottery, they didn't plan that. The big, broad outlines are well within the global plan of the past decades.

And I don't think the absence of these conspirators would solve much (others would probably have taken that place). I think the conditions were set up to make such grand manipulations possible, but not by design. Good intentions have been acted on in the form of poor engineering. There was never a chance that the public would not have become corrupted. — Kev

Ok good point. Could it have been any other way? If you put humans on a planet, does a secret global elite inevitably develop? Probably. Still, it's a good filter for understanding the news. The kids aren't pulling down statues in a vacuum.

At least people in the US are allowed to disagree. Not so in CCP-controlled China, Tibet, Hong Kong and now seemingly the UK:

Who knows the actual meaning of these words today? Historians should not be counted.
Probably, activists that are using this words do not know the history. — Number2018

This is actually a bigger problem than we often think. You see, part of "struggle" in the "culture war" is to redefine terms like "marxist", "nazi" or especially what being a "racist" means as people are very timid at being called racist. When you take the terms out of the historical context and the original ideology, you can accuse people who don't have anything to do with the ideologies and paint the dark picture you want of those who you oppose.

At least people in the US are allowed to disagree. — Professor Death

The control far is more subtle control in the US. What you disagree about is given to you by the media and by the political elite. You see, disagreement in the "culture war" doesn't threaten any way the economy or those in control.

In a way, the culture war is a way to sidetrack political discourse from present real problems (the growing inequality, the costly and inefficient health care system, hugely expensive education system, low real wages, politicians being controlled by lobby groups etc.) to other issues that arouse a vicious emotional debate to make people see themselves as parts of tribes...and vote for their party (in the US). Besides, what better way to divide the middle and lower class to hating each other than a culture war.

(far easier issues than increasing salaries of employees, with naturally the exception of GS:)

The economy does run on human labor, though. "Resources" are not measured by weight or volume. Resources are anything required to produce human value. Without human labor there are no resources. We can run out of raw materials (technically we can't, because the physical material does not just disappear), but the existence of raw materials is not the most important condition in the creation of human value. — Kev

Do you mind if I ask how old you are? I don't think we share the same memories of reality. For sure we have read the same books. Do you know what a non renewable resource is? I grew up in California and we went to ghost towns. Towns that were once thriving economies because of gold. Then there is oil. Have you heard of an oil well going dry? Do you know for awhile our national wealth depended mostly on being the world's supply of oil? The US was an exporter much more than it was an importer. Our national wealth was built on a labor intense industrial economy. I don't think there was anything not made in the US. What happened?

How do we measure "good" in "good lives"? Who decides what is good? There is a non-arbitrary way to measure value, and that is based on what people are willing to pay for.

Not that long ago I don't think anyone would have measured happiness monetarily. For sure hippies did not. In the past people thought happiness was about friends, family and social prestige that could be attained by entertaining people or volunteering. We lived in a truly different culture than the one we have now. A career choice was about self fullment more based on being service to others than monetary reward. Especially for women, we nursed and taught, because doing those things made us feel good about who we are.

If people want to live like the natives did, or adopt certain aspects of that culture that they think is good, they can do that. But the design of power structures is a completely different issue, unless you want people to live in small tribes.

Oh yes, I do wish we adopted the human values of the past. Yesterday something went wrong with my car that I had just driven out of the shop after have the engine rebuilt. It stopped at a stop light, and would not go any further. I called the shop that is run by Japanese and immediately they sent a mechanic to resolve the problem. He could not easily resolve it so we agreed to have it towed to their shop. The mechanic insisted on staying with me and then his boss showed up and had the mechanic drive me home, and he stayed with my car until the tow truck driver hauled it away. I kept assuring them I was fine and they could go home, but they insisted on being sure I was home safe. I felt like a queen with their focus on protecting me and pleasing me. I remember when that was normal. Do you hear me? I remember when people treated each other much, much better than people are treated today. There is nothing money can buy that is better than that.

Do we have culture war? I think so. I think technology that is extremely impersonal and prevents us from getting to a real human being, and putting a monetary value of everything has made our lives hell! What you said about resources is horrifying to me. You do not seem to have a good understanding of reality and I suggest you read something like Youngquist's "GeoDestinies".

We live on a finite planet and perhaps our understanding of reality should take that into consideration. It helps us understand things such as why we now think our national goal should be having the most advanced and expensive military force of earth, forgetting before WW our nation was known for resistance to war and military spending. What we are today is not what made us an international leader. Our industrial base made us great not our military might.

I will argue the autocratic model of industry has resulted in dysfunctional families, and serious economic and political problems. All of which would be resolved with education for democracy and using the democratic model for industry. The most successful high tech industries followed the democratic model. The failure of the American auto industry has been the result of autocratic industry.

Do you have culture wars? We sure do and I hope we talk about this more.

May I help you with the explanation that someone is controlling the dismantling of the Industrail base of the US and promoting the Military Industrial Complex that the UYS has become?

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In 1958 the US replaced its domestic education with education for a technological society with unknown values. There are huge social, economic and political ramifications to this change. And yes, culture wars have followed this education for a technological society with unknown values.

There has been an argument for strong leadership. Will anyone end our cultural war and tell us what values we are defending?

Oh, I'm one of those conservatives who believe in representative democracy, even with it's failures and defects, and believe that changes can happen through consensus, mainly when the at first opposing side finally takes the agenda as it's own too. — ssu

For sure what is happening today is amazing. I don't think we have had such unity since the early days of unions. Unions succeeded because we all supported them, unitl Ronald Reagan destroyed them and our industy moved over seas, while us tax payers have been paying for the military might to defend our over seas industry. That might not seem philsophical but it is the same as Athens history when Athens philosophers determined logos is the controlling force of the universe, not the gods, and democracy was born with a growing middle class.

I suspect right now Black Lives Matter is succeeding because when we saw a police officer gloating while he took a man's life and we identified with the man saying "I can't breath". This is what the establishment is doing to us. More and more of us are realizing what Ronald Reagan started is not in our best interest and we are still furious about what the bankers did to our economy and our lives. The rich and powerful are gloating and we are finally waking up to our reality is not what we fought two world wars to defended.

Among other things we want back our industrial base and an acceptable standard of living for hard working people. We want human values to come back and we aren't buying over priced designer things in a competition to be better than others any more. US is coming back! And we are going to take down the controllers who stold our national wealth and put it in their pockets. We are mad and glad to be united again.

Could it have been any other way? If you put humans on a planet, does a secret global elite inevitably develop? Probably. — fishfry

It depends on how the power structure is set up. Here you can read a developed theory with a lot of primary sources on how the political structure is the determining factor in the trajectory of a society. https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ It's pretty long winded, but there's a lot of gems in there.

Add things mentioned here alreadt: de-escalatory tactics, use of other officials than just the police in every occasion, a wide variety of methods that have been seen successful in reality, not emerging from some ideological agenda. Yet I really would not put the issue of the police using excessive force into being part of the culture war. Is wearing a mask and combating the pandemic part of "the culture war[/quote/

Welcome to the police state we defended our democracy against. Sometimes force is not the best idea. The police officer who took the side of the demostrators and lead through town, was the most successful because he won the hearts of the protestors. Instant peace and fulfilment of our American right to protest.
— ssu

Why the year 1958? The National Defense Education Act that radically changed public education, the new government relationships with media and reserach. That was a busy year for President Eisenhower in establishing the Military Industrial Complex that he later warned us against.

I think the "culture war" and the ongoing polarization have made the discourse highly contemptuous. And unfortunately, on purpose. To discuss values and morals in elections is good, yet things normally ought to be far more palpable to the voter concerning real issues. Because now the duopoly of the two ruling political parties use the "culture war" card in my view as a distraction. Both democrats and republicans seeks to use the culture war to their advantage.

Only in the US is it an insult to call someone liberal. The rest of the world retains the original meaning of the word as it is associated with "liberty". There is so much that could be said. I think meaningful discussion must begin with knowledge of the change in education. We adopted the German model of education and at this point ended education for good moral judgment and left that to the Church as Germany did. We now have reactionary politics as Germany had and our elected officals are doing as poorly as the German elected officals who all about power plays not reasoning. And our media is no longer doing the investigation and reporting of the past, but is sensationalized and appealing more to our emotions than our intellect. And our president was a Wrestlemania star before he became our president. Seriously you can watch Trump in the Wrestlemania ring on youtube. Our leader and a leader of Germany share much in common as the masses in both nations have shared the same eduction for technology for military and industrial purpose. By the way, Evangical Christians are very much a part of this change in education and political matters.

I mean stop for a while to think about it: is really a nationwide topic of uttermost importance which toilets can transgender people use? For transgender it might be important, but I do think this is quite a small minority. Before it was burning the flag. Now it's tearing down statues of George Washington and people talk of "a cultural revolution" taking place in the US. In my view which statues deserve to come down and which to stay is not important compared to things like what to do about unemployment as the pandemic induced global economic downturn is a big problem... not to mention the thousands that still will die from the pandemic.

The gender issues are a national issue, and Evangical Christianity is in step with this. Such issues are extremely important to religious people and determine who they for vote or against. As you indicated perhaps not everyone cares about gender identy issues, but us secular people are no longer united by education for democracy, and the Evangicals are united! To assure the vote of the largest, united. God motivated voting block, it is very important to appeal to them. They don't know, voting about who gets to use a toilet or not, is not a politically important decision. While they get hysterical over such issues, they are clueless about the really important political decisions being made for them and without their awareness. Thanks to the 1958 National Defense Education Act, few people realize they no longer have meaningful political power. They think voting over who gets to use a bathroom or against abortion rights, is the meaning of political power. The New World Order/Military Industrial Complex doesn't need them, only their votes. Those in the seats of power will be Havard or Yale graduates properly prepared to be among the ruling class.

As for tearing down statues and oh my god allowing women to vote and making it law they can not be discriminated against, some good things did come out of no longer transmitting our culture. There were good things about that culture and bad things.

Do you know what a non renewable resource is? I grew up in California and we went to ghost towns. Towns that were once thriving economies because of gold. Then there is oil. Have you heard of an oil well going dry? Do you know for awhile our national wealth depended mostly on being the world's supply of oil? The US was an exporter much more than it was an importer. Our national wealth was built on a labor intense industrial economy. I don't think there was anything not made in the US. What happened? — Athena

But civilization existed for thousands of years before that gold and oil was of any value? Why? Because nobody had done the work to find it, drill it/mine it, and transport it. Non-renewable resources are such only as long as they are 1. resources and 2. non-renewable. Like I said, the actual material does not disappear. We don't know if oil will ever be renewable, although it most likely won't be a resource by the time we had such technology. But when you pay for gold, you aren't just paying for a raw material. You are paying for all the work that went into delivering you that raw material.

Not that long ago I don't think anyone would have measured happiness monetarily. For sure hippies did not. In the past people thought happiness was about friends, family and social prestige that could be attained by entertaining people or volunteering. — Athena

Happiness is not measured monetarily, who would say such a thing? But does that mean you wouldn't spend money on something that makes you happy? You probably take trips/vacations that make you happy, and there is a lot of human labor, other than yours, that goes into that. Money represents human value, so you will trade value for value. Now if you disagree with what other people value, do your feelings dictate reality? Are you always correct? And I'm not saying that you're never correct, or that the trend you see isn't there. But you seem to be tracing back the causality to people's freedom to choose (money).

I don't have time for anymore right now, but I'll come back to this.

Why the year 1958? — ssu


The impact of Sputnik.

We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, — Athena


I graduated high school in 1954 and college in 1958, but I don't remember that kind of instruction. In the 1960s the civil rights movement affected school curricula in that way. — jgill

What do you mean you don't remember that kind of instruction? I can not give a better reply until I know what you are talking about. But I was in high school when the 1958 National Defense Education Act was enacted and I vividly remember that day, because we were afraid of a nuclear war and were doing drills of getting under our desk and covering our heads with our hands. Like that would do any good in a nuclear war. Anyway my teachers were walking about like they were in a state of shock. It was really frightening so I remember that day.

In the afternoon a male teacher announced the purpose of education had been changed. We were now educating for a technological society with unknown values and we should prepare for the day when automation took our jobs. He was right, and now what he was talking about is obvious.

My grandmother was a devoted teacher and because her generation was defending democracy in the classroom, I began researching what that meant when the US began having serious social problems and declared a national youth crisis. I have done this research by collecting old books about education and text books. I will verify what I say with quotes if I am asked to do that.

PS the classics used to be required reading. Now they are not found in school libraries because kids would rather read Captain Underwear, a story of a school principal who is in underwear. I would ban many books in school libraries and put the classics back in, because books equal culture or the culture of lack of culture.

Among other things we want back our industrial base and an acceptable standard of living for hard working people. We want human values to come back and we aren't buying over priced designer things in a competition to be better than others any more. US is coming back! And we are going to take down the controllers who stole our national wealth and put it in their pockets. We are mad and glad to be united again. — Athena

Maga.

Wasn't that above what the people who voted for Trump wanted? Didn't they want to "drain the swamp"? Didn't they want to believe in all of that?

No. No way, you will be divided into two camps that hate each other. The white racists against the marxist iconoclasts. Pick your side, pick your tribe.

Divide et impera

part of "struggle" in the "culture war" is to redefine terms like "marxist", "nazi" or especially what being a "racist" means as people are very timid at being called racist. When you take the terms out of the historical context and the original ideology, you can accuse people who don't have anything to do with the ideologies and paint the dark picture you want of those who you oppose. — ssu

I agree with you.This words have completely lost the meaningful historical connotations. And, it is not clear what they actually mean in the context of the current situation.

you will be divided into two camps that hate each other. The white racists against the marxist iconoclasts. Pick your side, pick your tribe. — ssu

How can you stay above the fray? What is your position?

We lived in a truly different culture than the one we have now. A career choice was about self fullment more based on being service to others than monetary reward. — Athena

We continue to learn about health and our nature. Embracing elements of the culture of the past is not an impossibility. I would even say it's a probability. Have you heard of the "trad" lifestyle? We are constantly looking for what helps us in life, and that process is possible because people have, to a large degree, free choice. What you are suggesting is that you know what is best for people, and they don't. Again, not saying you are 100% wrong, because I'm sure there are some things you could do better for some people than they could do for themselves, but a system where people cannot choose for themselves is deeply flawed.

I think technology that is extremely impersonal and prevents us from getting to a real human being, and putting a monetary value of everything has made our lives hell! — Athena

Those are two different things. But I have to point out that a society that does not quantify value (money) is going to be a much worse hell. We're not talking about the native tribe you wish you could live in, we're talking about a society with hundreds of millions of people.

The problems you have with other people's freedom is rooted in your problem with human nature. Human nature IS problematic because we are not designed to live in this world. This world is basically ideal relative a state of nature... and yet it comes with many new problems. Because we are not meant to achieve the ideal, only to strive for it. We are meant to have challenges that we don't have anymore, and our mechanisms for dealing with those problems have found other ways of occupying themselves. We used to need people to a much greater extent, and because we don't anymore our relationships have suffered, and the reality that our psychology depends on those relationships has become evident.

The most successful high tech industries followed the democratic model. — Athena

I really have no idea what this means. I've never heard of a successful company without a top-down hierarchy. There's never really been an effective group of people that didn't have clearly defined leadership roles. What is your statement based on?

It depends on how the power structure is set up. Here you can read a developed theory with a lot of primary sources on how the political structure is the determining factor in the trajectory of a society. https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified/ It's pretty long winded, but there's a lot of gems in there. — Kev

Thank you so much for this link. As you may know I'm a great consumer and sometimes even connoisseur of alternate ideas. I've always been someone who can read something interesting and provocative for its own sake, without feeling the need to join the movement.

In that spirit I clicked your link, and found what is evidently a little area of the Web I hadn't seen. Someone with a following perhaps. Looks a little intellectual-alt based on the typeface and visual style.

At the top is a name, Mencius Moldbug. Wiki brings up Curtis Yarvin, whose page begins:

Curtis Guy Yarvin (born 1973), also known by the pen name Mencius Moldbug, is an American far-right blogger.[4][5] Yarvin and his ideas are often associated with the alt-right.[6] From 2007 to 2014 he authored a blog called "Unqualified Reservations" which argued that American democracy is a failed experiment,[7] and that it should be replaced by monarchy or corporate governance.[8] He is known, along with fellow "neo-reactionary" Nick Land, for developing the anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic ideas behind the Dark Enlightenment.

Yes I can see that. It connects with a libertarian book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe called Democracy: The God That Failed. The title says it all.

But this is nothing new, right? Wasn't it Socrates who totally distrusted democracy as nothing better than mob rule? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat.

I'll take a look at that essay and the site. I'm always interested in these little communities of alternative thought out there.

From just that one Wiki paragraph, though, I would say I am not in agreement with his remedies. Sure, democracy doesn't work, but even the Founders knew that. We don't have a democracy, we have a Constitutional republic. "If you can keep it," as Ben Franklin said. Our system of government is designed to protect the rights of minority interests. Minority in the sense of less than the majority. Democracy just lets one tribe bully another. It's a terrible idea.

But monarchy? No. I dig the Queen, she is one classy lady. But I would not want a hereditary monarch decreeing what I may do and what I may not do, and when the nation goes to war and wether it works for peace, decided by such an individual.

And corporate governance? What does that mean? Run it like a business? Regularly prune the least productive 10% of society and organize the world into a hierarchy where every single person gets a written report from their superior on how well they serve the globalist agenda?

Man this guy's dangerous. He's an authoritarian globalist, not an alt-right or right-wing type.

Curious, what about this guy interests you? Can you summarize so I don't have to read it all?

ps one more para from Wiki.

Yarvin has links with the website Breitbart News, the former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and with the billionaire investor Peter Thiel.[9] Yarvin's ideas have been particularly influential among radical libertarians, and the public discourses of prominent investors like Thiel have echoed Yarvin's project of seceding from the US to establish tech-CEO dictatorships.[10][11] Journalist Mike Wendling has called Yarvin "the Alt right's favorite philosophy instructor".[12] Bannon, in particular, has read and admired his work.[13]

Interesting. He's a techno-libertarian. I lean libertarian but I oppose the techno-libertarians. Corporate governance based on clever algorithms and sociopathic child-CEOs. No thanks.

Has anyone quoted Oscar Wilde on our Great Republic yet? Old Oscar was a clever fellow. The only country to go from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between, or words to that effect. And he lived in the 19th century. Now, perhaps he'd note there can be no culture without civilization. No culture, no culture wars.

Man this guy's dangerous. He's an authoritarian globalist, not an alt-right or right-wing type.

Curious, what about this guy interests you? Can you summarize so I don't have to read it all? — fishfry

He's not authoritarian, he just stresses the importance of the problem "how do we get there from here?" He theorizes that there is no such thing as incremental progression towards a more ordered society. Occasionally that may happen, but it will always reverse afterwards. Recently I've heard him put the problem of the American government as a "power leak," which is how I imagined it as I read the Gentle Introduction.

I'd recommend you just start reading... because it will likely suck you in. Don't put too much stock in the wikipedia page about him, you'll probably disagree with what it says. His own ideals are not really important in his writing, it's more about how he gives the facts of history a new meaning as he provides more information that you probably didn't know was out there. You can stop at any time and still come out with some valuable insight.

I'd recommend you just start reading... because it will likely suck you in. Don't put too much stock in the wikipedia page about him, you'll probably disagree with what it says. His own ideals are not really important in his writing, it's more about how he gives the facts of history a new meaning as he provides more information that you probably didn't know was out there. You can stop at any time and still come out with some valuable insight. — Kev

Ok I'll check the article out. Thanks.

And by what non-arbitrary standard is the state not a part of "the people"? The media is the media, the universities are the universities, and the state is the state. They all exist, a priori, for the people and by the people. But to consider "the people" self-determined is to reify the abstraction. There is no such thing as "the people." There is a complex system of individuals that can appear to function as a single unit in particular instances. These instances can largely be understood by accounting for incentives. — Kev

I accept your criticism. Probably, the concepts that I use look like vague, taken out of the context and the appropriate conceptual framework. For Butler, in her book.
'Notes toward a performative theory of assembly,' 'the people' means the spontaneously formed, self-organized group, acting-in-concert: it is the primary source of social agency, able to reconfigure the existing political and social fields. The book's central point is to show that protests movements in the West still have the potential and future. Further, giving the concept of 'the people' the priority means maintaining the old tradition (from Rousseau) according to which 'the people' has the ultimate sovereignty over political and judicial institutions. But what does it mean that 'the media' has become the constitutive part of 'the people'?
'The media' is not just a few mainstream media platforms. There are also social networking platforms, numerous apps, sophisticated infrastructure, animating, and organizing flows of information and images. They function in machinic, automized manners. No essential social event is possible without being processed and amplified by 'the media' initiated events. They produce self-sustained images that are not located in the individual consciousness, and that can shape and manage various mass behavioral patterns and reactions. Agitated and affected by 'the media,' 'the people' directly produce value: the newest digital technologies and platforms constitute the most dynamic field of neoliberal capitalism.

As power becomes more accessible to more people we see sweeping changes in social behavior. — Kev

Power does not become more accessible to more people. It looks like people can make more and more individual choices. Yet, the whole environment of our lives has already been structured and programmed. So, even at the most intimate level, we do not produce, we reproduce.

As power becomes decentralized we also see a shift in how power is used. As the power structure shifts to the left, so does the culture. Politics is not downstream of culture, it turns out. The will of the people changes depending on how much power the people have. — Kev

The will of the people’: you applied Rousseau’s concept. It looks like we witness the tremendous ‘shift to the left.’ Yet, ‘the people’ and ‘the will of the people’ are in the reciprocal relation with ‘the media”. And ‘the media’ is unseparated from the newest neoliberal capitalistic processes. ‘Progress’
means formidable acceleration. The culture is crucially dependent on the financial and media support. Your point is that there is the ongoing ‘shift to the left’ in the US and maybe in the West. Let say that the ‘left program’ has been realized: the statues are pulled down or exploded, the flags are burnt, streets are renamed, history textbooks are rewritten: what would remain? ‘The culture’ would survive. Yet, it would be a different culture. Probably, it would not need recognizable historic symbols anymore. The media events and the capitalistic innovations would produce social and political engagement and support the social order.

How can you stay above the fray? What is your position? — Number2018

People usually have some point in what they are saying. Often they describe well certain a problem. Yet especially with what they give then to be the solution, one should be extremely careful and critical. If you can find things that you agree with even if on the whole you disagree with many other points, you aren't falling into the mold of the tribal culture war. One only needs to actually listen what people say to stay above the fray. People seldom do that.

You see, the culture war needs you to be totally against the other side. Understanding any point from the other side is something like appeasement and giving up your ground, a sign of weakness. But you shouldn't let be get played how the culture war does it. Are you for or against taken down historical statues? Are you for or against defunding the police? Are you for or against abortion? These kind of questions want to lure you to give clear "yes" or "no" answers in order to draw you to be either on one side or the other.

Real answers, the one's that actually work, are usually long, complex and, well, boring. People get excited about short snappy answers that one can yell out. "Build a wall and let Mexico pay for it!" is a perfect example of this.

People usually have some point in what they are saying. Often they describe well certain a problem. Yet especially with what they give then to be the solution, one should be extremely careful and critical. If you can find things that you agree with even if on the whole you disagree with many other points, you aren't falling into the mold of the tribal culture war. One only needs to actually listen what people say to stay above the fray. People seldom do that. — ssu

Real answers, the one's that actually work, are usually long, complex and, well, boring. People get excited about short snappy answers that one can yell out. — ssu

I agree with you. Nobody wants to patently analyze the determining processes. Yet, are there real
answers? Or, are there just the illusions that allow us to pretend that we are above the fray?
The ancient police could represent the ideal of harmony and the realm of rationality. Yet, behind the surface, there were irreconcilable conflicts and antagonisms.

Are you for or against taken down historical statues? — ssu

What about you?:smile: :razz: Do you support taking down historical statues?

Do you support taking down historical statues? — Number2018

Taking down statues means that you have something so traumatic in your history that you cannot face it otherwise and cannot accept it being a part of your history, but see it as something needed to be erased away. If you cannot even move the statue away somewhere else from a prominent place (as the prominence of the place of a statue gives respect to it), but you have to destroy it, I'd say there's a trauma and people have problems with their history.

(Statue of Joseph Stalin, now in a park 130km away from it's original place in Vilnius, Lithuania.)


As a history buff I always enjoy statues as they tell a lot of the time when they were put up and what some people (at least those who participated in the statue project) saw as important "to exist to be a reminder future generations". Also that the authorities did then accept them is notable too.

So I'm all in favor of the "World Peace" statue in Helsinki, which was given from the city of Moscow at the last year of the existence of the Soviet Union. The statue, which is a perfect example of socialist realism and can be found in multiple copies in the former Soviet Union, is a great reminder for us Finns just how much we bowed to the Soviet Union, how we truly had Finlandization going on and how much the official lithurgy of "friendship" we had with the Superpower at our eastern border. Tearing it down won't change history. I think it's a great statue of our appeasement of a totalitarian system next door.

(World peace, Helsinki)

Taking down statues means that you have something so traumatic in your history that you cannot face it otherwise and cannot accept it being a part of your history, but see it as something needed to be erased away. — ssu

Consider, though, that the US has statues of CSA rebels everywhere. These enemy leaders fought to maintain the institution of slavery.

Why should black citizens (and not only them) be expected to tolerate such statues?

@Kev, Our friend Noam signed a letter today opposing cancel culture and supporting free speech. JK Rowling and many others also signed.

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/506314-jk-rowling-noam-chomsky-sign-letter-warning-of-restriction-of

https://nypost.com/2020/07/07/j-k-rowling-among-dozens-to-call-for-end-to-cancel-culture/

Then what happened? Chomsky is getting #cancelled. Leftists are outraged that he or anyone else would dare speak out for free expression. That's how bad things are out there. For some reason I can't find a link to the story about his getting in trouble with the left. Whose champion he's only been for fifty years.

That's it. You say "Chomsky" to a leftist and they say, "Old white man who believes in free speech. On the list for the guillotine." When the leftists find their Robsepierre, none of us will be safe.

ps I did find a link, unfortunately it's from a very disreputable source, one that's helped lie the country into more than one war. I speak of course of the New York Times.

Artists and Writers Warn of an ‘Intolerant Climate.’ Reaction Is Swift

Down below we find:

And on social media, the reaction was swift, with some heaping ridicule on the letter’s signatories — who include cultural luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Bill T. Jones and Wynton Marsalis, along with journalists and academics — for thin-skinnedness, privilege and, as one person put it, fear of loss of “relevance.”

If you're for free speech, it's because you're a privileged old white guy. And if you're old you're irrelevant and your ideas are deemed wrong by definition. Noam Chomsky? He's for free speech. Cancel him.

These are dangerous times. People think awful stuff "couldn't happen here," but every bad thing that ever happened in the world happened in a place where the people thought it couldn't happen.

I think that the letter is appropriate to be fully quoted:

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.

This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.

These are dangerous times. People think awful stuff "couldn't happen here," but every bad thing that ever happened in the world happened in a place where the people thought it couldn't happen. — fishfry

None of the people with these authoritarian ideals would ever put themselves in danger to advance their agenda. The fact that Noam Chomsky is now alt-right is just hilarious, not scary.

There is violence ramping up in the States, but it's gang violence in places where the police have been neutered/walked out. Stay out of those places.

But civilization existed for thousands of years before that gold and oil was of any value? Why? Because nobody had done the work to find it, drill it/mine it, and transport it. Non-renewable resources are such only as long as they are 1. resources and 2. non-renewable. Like I said, the actual material does not disappear. We don't know if oil will ever be renewable, although it most likely won't be a resource by the time we had such technology. But when you pay for gold, you aren't just paying for a raw material. You are paying for all the work that went into delivering you that raw material. — Kev

I am having a hard time following your reasoning. When a gold mine is closed the businesses close, and then everything including real estate has no value. We recentedly experienced this in a big way when the banking/housing crisis crashed our economy. All that property lost its value. Lives and futures were destoyed. Now where is the happiness?

Happiness is not measured monetarily, who would say such a thing? But does that mean you wouldn't spend money on something that makes you happy? You probably take trips/vacations that make you happy, and there is a lot of human labor, other than yours, that goes into that. Money represents human value, so you will trade value for value. Now if you disagree with what other people value, do your feelings dictate reality? Are you always correct? And I'm not saying that you're never correct, or that the trend you see isn't there. But you seem to be tracing back the causality to people's freedom to choose (money).

I don't have time for anymore right now, but I'll come back to this.[/quote]

Okay, I am gone. I doubt if anyone questions more what they think than I do and I am not interested in defending myself. Have a nice day.

I am having a hard time following your reasoning. When a gold mine is closed the businesses close, and then everything including real estate has no value. We recentedly experienced this in a big way when the banking/housing crisis crashed our economy. All that property lost its value. Lives and futures were destoyed. Now where is the happiness? — Athena

And before the gold mine was opened how much value did the real estate have? Your problem is not with the loss of value, your problem is with the change in value at all. You think it would be better if the gold was never mined?

The housing crisis was caused by central banking lowering interest rates and creating moral hazard. The property lost it's make-believe value because it was never real. Lives and futures were destroyed because the economy was recklessly manipulated under the pretenses of helping people. They proved that consumption based economic doesn't work. Now we're about to prove that a 2nd time and more-so.

Where is the happiness? Why are you asking me?

I doubt if anyone questions more what they think than I do and I am not interested in defending myself. — Athena

Do you even see the irony here? You doubt yourself so much that you strongly feel that you know that other people don't doubt themselves as much as you.

Thank you for posting this letter. It is a remarkable document.

I wonder where those writers and academics were years, even decades ago, when the alarm bells were being rung. Better late than never, I suppose.

But special consideration needs to be given to Chomsky. He’s been a free speech warrior throughout his entire career, even defending the rights of Holocaust revisionists (his defence of Robert Faurisson was legendary) and war criminals.