The Limits of Diversity

The Oscars and Hollywood’s Race Problem

By Roxane Gay, Jan. 22, 2016 (LINK to article)

" . . people of color want to see their lives reflected in the movies they watch"

You mean, they want to see themselves, including their race, reflected in the mirror of film and TV.

Of course they do. But then they need to make their OWN films with their own directors and actors. Just do it, instead of always blaming white people for being so - errr, white, and preferring white actors.

You prefer to see people of your race on the screen, I prefer to see people of mine. Of course we do. It's natural.

We need to stop pretending that race doesn't matter, when clearly it does.

However, before we can stop pretending, we need to understand WHY we pretend.

It's ideological, an OVERREACTION to Jim Crow, Apartheid and, of course Nazism and the Holocaust. Because they made such an ugly issue of race, with their racial supremacism, we overreacted by denying the importance of race altogether, embodying it in an ideology which now serves the age-old strategy of “divide and rule”, dividing society into a morally superior, now supposedly "colour-blind", elite and the morally inferior, naturally (human nature being what it is) less colour-blind, masses, who must submit to the authority of and domination by their "moral superiors".

We need to get a handle on this madness, before it drags us even further into the Orwellian world it has already taken us far enough into: http://unapprovedcomments.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/the-wests-overreaction-to-nazism.html

Civilisational Boom & Bust

What If?

By Thomas Friedman, Jan. 20 2016 (LINK to article)

What if consumer capitalism is inherently unsustainable on our finite, vulnerable and overpopulated planet, which I and many others recognised it to be more than 40 years ago, before Ronald Reagan, Margret Thatcher and Helmut Schmitt led the world in putting it into turbo mode?

We (mine and previous generations of white men) have screwed up badly, with America now leading western civilisation, and the rest of the world following, towards the abyss.

Not that I'm blaming America. A big part of our problem is that we all try to blame others for what's gone wrong, rather than admitting our own part in it.

Nothing new has gone wrong. Ever since the first states and civilisations emerged from a tribal society, they have been subject to a continuous cycle of civilisational boom and bust, just not on the global scale or level of technological development that we are now experiencing, or with such a huge dependent human population that will suffer the consequences.

It doesn't have to be like this, but to put an end to this cycle of boom and bust, we need to view and understand our own species and civilisation from a human-evolutionary, i.e. Darwinian, perspective, which tragically, a previous generation of academics made a taboo of doing, in OVERREACTION to the Nazis having hijacked and abused the half-baked ideas of social Darwinism for their own evil purposes.

It is probably too late now to avoid bust entirely, but it is not too late to reduce the scale and death toll. Here is where to START.

Beware When Philosophers Preach

What Do We Owe Each Other?

By Aaron James Wendland  January 18, 2016 (LINK to article)

"Levinas has taught us . . .  our responsibility for others is the foundation of all human communities . . . And since welcoming and sharing are the foundation upon which all communities are formed, no amount of inhospitable nationalism can be consistently defended when confronted with the suffering of other human beings."

The author reminds me more of a preacher quoting a prophet from his sacred scripture, than of a serious philosopher, seeking to assert his own moral authority and thereby promote his status and career prospects within the priesthood, i.e. academic fraternity.

What he says is moralistic nonsense, and could be dismissed as such, if it were not for the pernicious influence it has on society, especially on our political and media elites, just as church ideology and moralising once did.

It needs to be taken apart in detail and debunked, which space doesn't allow for here.

Basically, he is advocating the ideology of post-racial multiculturalism (not coincidentally, the exact but equally extreme and insane opposite of Nazi racial ideology), which demonises prejudice (an OVERREACTION to the Holocaust, which was wrongly blamed on prejudice), instead of recognising it as a healthy aspect of human tribal nature, which, like human sexuality, needs to be managed and controlled in an acceptable and civilised fashion, of course, but not demonised and suppressed as part of the age-old strategy of divide and rule, so successful practiced by the medieval church, as it is now by our "liberal" elites.

See BLOG in which I elaborate on these "heretical" ideas.

We are Being Tribally Scammed by the State

In Online Dating, ‘Sextortion’ and Scams

By Kate Murphy, Jan. 15, 2016  (LINK to article)

“For most of us, there are pockets and maybe whole sections of our minds and hearts that are not really reality-driven. . . . People don’t want to know what’s behind the curtain, they really don’t.” 

This reminds me very much of our relationship with the STATE. which for centuries has manipulated our inherent and intense tribal nature for its own mercenary purposes, posing as it does, not as a lover, but as our tribe or nation, which evolution adapted our brains to feel a deep yearning for and no less passionate about and loyalty towards.

The modern "nation state" conflates and confounds very different aspects of the original tribal environment in which human nature evolved, long before the first states and civilisations emerged from it. It deceitfully poses as our tribe or nation (intra- and inter-tribal environment) itself, while at the same time facilitating society’s SELF-exploitation (as an extra-tribal environment, i.e. as human resource and market), to the personal advantage of its ruling elites and favoured (especially wealthy and academic) clients, but at the expense of society at large, which, effectively, is being scammed.

It's a form of "self-scamming", of course, which, as in the case of romantic scamming,  our brains are wired to be mugs for, but which ultimately is not just harmful, but self-destructive.

See BLOG in which I elaborate on these ideas.

In Overreaction to Evil Society Risks Losing its Way

Can Germany Be Honest About Its Refugee Problems?

By Jochen Bittner, Jan. 15 2015 (LINK to article)

While this article is more realistic than many others, which completely gloss over the difficulties of "integrating" millions of immigrants/refuges into an ethnically very different established society, it still doesn't address the central issue, because that would contradict the ideology which the West embraced in OVERREACTION to Nazism and the Holocaust, an ideology which denies the importance of race and ethnic origins and demonises natural human prejudices in respect to in-group/out-group psychology and dynamics.

It is an overreaction of the kind that the NYT itself warned against in an editorial, The Price of Fear (Nov. 20, 2015), in response to the Paris attacks:

“In the reaction and overreaction to terrorism [evil] comes the risk that society will lose its way.”

This is exactly what happened in the aftermath of WW2 and the Holocaust.

As an ideology it also became an instrument of socio-political intimidation, rewards, punishments, manipulation and control, a modern, secular replacement for the power-political role of medieval church ideology, serving the age-old strategy of “divide and rule”, whereby society is divided into a morally superior, now supposedly "colour-blind", elite and the morally inferior, naturally (human nature being what it is) less "colour-blind", masses, who must submit to the authority of and domination by their "moral superiors".

I elaborate HERE.

The Gordian Knot of Post-Racial Ideology and Reality

The Other Obama Legacy

By Charles Blow, Jan. 14, 2016 (LINK to article)

In this piece Charles Blow is clearly indulging - as most writers do on the subject of race - in Orwellian double think:

"I spoke to a room full of beaming high school and middle school boys, a vast majority of whom were black,” he writes, but then goes not to say that  “. . race is tangential to [Obama's] record."

Mr Blow's black identity is clearly and understandably of huge importance to him, but at the same time, in line with post-racial ideology, he is denying, or playing down, the importance of race.

We cannot have an honest discussion about race and ethnicity without facing up to their reality and importance, which post-racial multicultural ideology denies, or plays down, and suppresses. Thus the ease with which “progressives”, who embrace this ideology, exhort Europe to take in ever more refugees and immigrants irrespective of their different ethnic origins and identities.

The ideology of post-racial multiculturalism was, I believe, misconceived, in overreaction to European (white) imperialism, slavery, Jim Crow, Apartheid and, above all, Nazism and the Holocaust.

Interestingly, a recent NYT editorial, The Price of Fear (Nov. 20 2015), warns against just such an overreaction:  “In the reaction and overreaction to terrorism [evil] comes the risk that society will lose its way.”

Race and ethnicity are clearly not just the social construct we are taught they are (except when you try dividing closely related peoples from the same subcontinent into different races, as the Nazis insanely did), but real and important. Not in the way that racial supremacists believe they are, but because central to any deep and meaningful sense of both personal and group identity.

This, however, contradicts the “nation state’s" claim to represent a single nation, thus creating the demand for the Orwellian double think that has us tied up in a Gordian knot.

Notwithstanding our fears of the consequences, this Gordian knot urgently needs to be cut.

I elaborate on these ideas in THIS and appended blogs.

The False Premise of American Nationhood

When the State of the Union Is Strong, but Doesn’t Feel Like It

By Bryce  Covert, JAN. 13, 2016 (LINK to article)

This commentary on the "state of the union" is so wrong-headed it is difficult knowing where to begin in criticising it.

It is based on false premises. First and foremost, the false premise that America is a nation. It is not. Like all states, it is a mercenary "patron state" deceitfully posing as a nation, in order to legitimise itself, its ruling elites, and the immense power they wield and abuse, to their own and favoured (especially wealthy and academic) clients personal advantage, at the expense of society at large.

Then there is the false premise (which follows from the first) that economic growth is an absolute good, that everyone, no matter how wealthy they may be, always needs more money.

Far from being an absolute good, perpetual economic (and population) growth poses a dire threat to any society's very survival.

In order to understand where I'm coming from with my criticism, one must view ourselves, our society and civilisation from a human-evolutionary perspective, which tragically a previous generation of academics made a taboo of doing, in OVERREACTION to the Nazis having hijacked the half-baked ideas of social Darwinism, which they abused for their own evil purposes.

It is exactly the kind of overreaction warned against in a recent NYT editorial, The Price of Fear: “In the reaction and overreaction to terrorism [evil] comes the risk that society will lose its way".

Western civilisation has indeed lost its way - badly, and unless corrected, fatally.