Author: Bill Vallicella

American Restoration

Substack articles by Bruce Abramson. From his About page:

Suppose you think that it’s wrong to discriminate based on race. To the Woke, you’re a racist.

Suppose you say that humans are either male or female. To the Woke, that’s dehumanizing.

Suppose you champion free speech. To the Woke, you’re promoting hatred.

Suppose you think that the ends don’t justify the means. To the Woke, you’re impeding justice.

Suppose you believe in God. To the Woke, you’re an unstable superstitious bigot.

The list of such absurd defamations is long, and it grows longer every day. But it’s no joke. Once the woke have labeled you a hateful, dehumanizing, unstable racist whose mere existence stands in the way of justice, they will treat you as if that’s who you really are. They will work to destroy you—terminate your personal relationships, professional aspirations, and financial possibilities.

Worst of all, the Woke are winning. The United States is mired in a Second Civil War. The country no longer functions as either a free society or a constitutional republic. Every single one of our major institutions has been corrupted: Academia, K-12 education, the media, the civil service, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the legal and medical professions, and nearly every important professional society. Recent years have even uncovered deep Woke rot running corporate boardrooms, the IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, and the military.

Leaders and organizations that are not Woke themselves cower in fear and fall in line. More than 60% of American report being afraid to voice their opinions; they fear woke reprisal.

This situation is neither tolerable nor sustainable. If we don’t move quickly to restore the free society America was born to be, we will slide irretrievably into an autocratic, elitist oligarchy.

We are beyond the time of timidity and prudence. We have become both the counterculture and counterrevolutionaries. Very little of what we have done in the past is suited to those roles. If we are to restore America, we will need new lessons, strategies, tactics, and priorities.

This essay series is for those who want to master the techniques we need.

Is Abramson exaggerating? I'd say he isn't. What say you?

Saturday Night at the Oldies: A Temporary Retreat into the Past; Back to the Fray Tomorrow

Freddy Fender, Cielito Lindo.  Tex-Mex version of a very old song.

Arizona's own Marty Robbins, La Paloma.  Another old song dating back to 1861. 

Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger, 1963. 1963 was arguably the best of the '60s years for pop compositions. 

Emmylou Harris, Hello Stranger. Same title, different song.  This one goes out to Mary Kay F-D. Remember the Fall of 1980, Mary Kay? 

Get up, rounder/Let a working girl lie down/ You are rounder/And you are all out and down.

Carter Family version from 1939.

Joan Baez, Daddy, You've Been on My Mind. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Bruce  Langhorne's guitar.

Joan Baez, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Langhorne's guitar.

Joan Baez, A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall. The voice of an angel, the words of a poet, and Langhorne's guitar. The incredible mood of this version, especially the intro, is made by Langhorne and the bass of Russ Savakus, another well-known session player from those days. I've been listening to this song since '65 and it gives me chills every time. 

And now the fifteen-year-old is an old man of 73, and tears stream from his eyes for the nth time as he listens to this and we are once again on the brink of nuclear war as we were back in October of '62.  It'll be a hard rain indeed, should it fall. 

Carolyn Hester, I'll Fly Away.  Dylan on harp, a little rough and ragged. Langhorne on guitar? Not sure.

Joan Baez and her sister, Mimi Farina, Catch the Wind. Fabulous.

Joan Baez, Boots of Spanish Leather.  Nanci Griffith also does a good job with this Dylan classic. 

Betty Everett, You're No Good, 1963.  More soulful than the 1975 Linda Ronstadt version.

The Ikettes, I'm Blue, 1962. 

Lee Dorsey, Ya Ya, 1961.  Simplicity itself. Three chords. I-IV-V progression. No bridge.

Best Amazon Comment I’ve Read So Far This Year

While poking around for a reliable, powerful, bicycle tire pump to keep my mid-sized mountain bike tires up to around 65 psi, I found the following. Comments enabled for anyone who has a pump to recommend. The reviewer is recommending this device.

Andy's Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars This pumps me up more than DJ Khalid

Reviewed in Canada on July 15, 2019

Color: Navy Blue Style: Air Center Plus 
 
 

The Phenomenal Principle

Ed Buckner sends this:

“If there sensibly appears to a subject to be something which possesses a particular sensible quality then there is something of which the subject is aware which does possess that sensible quality”. (Howard Robinson, Perception, 1994, London: Routledge, p. 32)

That is the question. If it sensibly appears to Jake that there is a green after-image, does it follow that there is something green of which Jake is aware?

I’m inclined to answer yes. But then we have the problem that there is nothing green and physical outside Jake’s brain, nor inside Jake’s brain. So what is it that is green? We agree that it can’t be a physical item, if Robinson’s Principle is true.

I recommend Robinson’s 1994 book, and also his November 2022 book Perception and Idealism.

Ed seems to be coming around. Robinson is asking the right question, and Ed answers in the affirmative or at least is so inclined. (By the way, I read Robinson's excellent Matter and Sense: A Critique of Contemporary Materialism, Cambridge UP, 1982, when it first came out. I expect his later work, which I haven't read, is equally good.)

It is best to approach the question from the first-person point of view. A green after-image sensibly appears to me. (It appears visually and so sensibly.) Does something appear or does nothing appear? The datum is not nothing, so it is something.  It is indubitably something. And it is a describable, definite something: green, pulsating, etc. The green item is not outside my head. But it is not inside my head either. (As Bill Lycan says, if I have something green inside my head, then I am in big trouble.)

It follows that the indubitable phenomenal datum cannot be a physical item that is green, pulsating, etc. The inference is correct and the conclusion is true.  What Ed should do is simply admit that there are sensory qualia.  But he appears loathe to do so. He needs to explain why. Is he ideologically committed to materialism? I don't think that's it. 

We know that Ed reasonably rejects the characteristic Meinongian thesis that (i) some of the items to which we refer both in thought and in language have no being (Sein) whatsoever (not Dasein, not Bestehen, not intentionales QuasiSein, not any Seinsmodus) but nevertheless (ii) are mind-independent Soseine that actually (not merely possibly) instantiate properties. But this rejection of Meinong cannot be a good reason for Ed to refuse to countenance the green after-image, and this for two  reasons. First, the sensory quale in question is not mind-independent. Second, it exists. In its case, esse est percipi, to be is to be perceived. The green after-image is perceived, and by the same stroke, it is/exists.

But it may be that Ed is confusing the green after-image with the green unicorn. And we did catch him in that confusion in an earlier thread. Suppose I am thinking about a green unicorn. Let's use 'thinking' in the broad Cartesian way to refer to any object-directed act of awareness, including imagining. Imagining a green unicorn, I am not imagining an image since a unicorn is an animal, not an image; I am imagining a unicorn. The object-directed act of mind purports to display a mind-independent animal,  not a mind-dependent image. 

But of course there are/exist no unicorns!  For that very reason, a sensory quale such as a green after-image cannot be assimilated to a green unicorn. What's more, unicorns are not mind-dependent. Qualia are; ergo, etc. 

Your move, Ed. Give us some good reasons why you will not admit qualia. If your reasons are neither pro-materialist not anti-Meinongian, what are they?

Of Wokery and Merit

Destructive, anti-civilizational wokesters are not just against merit, they are positively for anti-merit, dysfunction, incompetence, stupidity, corruption, malevolence, and more. Qualifications don't matter; 'wokifications' matter: being black, female, lesbian, cognitively impaired, truth-insensitive, reality-denying, physically feeble, morally corrupt.  Mayorkas, Fetterman, Buttigieg, practically the whole of the Biden administration.  After watching this C-SPAN video will you tell me that Phil Washington is qualified to head the Federal Aviation Administration? Qualified or 'wokified'? Is being 'woke' and 'diverse' a qualification? 

Suppose you question whether John Fetterman is qualified to be a U. S. Senator given his mental and physical impairment. You will be called an 'ableist.' What's next? 'Qualificationist?' "You're a white-spremacist qualificationist! You believe people need to be qualified for the positions they apply for!"

You will never understand the Left until you understand that they reliably take the side of losers, underdogs, and criminals, who comprise their clientele and path to power.  And with lefties it is always about power, first and forever.

Here we read about a 78-year-old Englishman who, in defending himself against a screwdriver-wielding home invader, caused the miscreant's death and is now facing a murder charge.

Dear old England, the mother country. It is sad to see your mother, senile and decrepit, go down the toilet, having lost all her moral sense and the will to live.

Once again one sees the justification for my political burden of proof:

As contemporary 'liberals' become ever more extreme, they increasingly assume what I call the political burden of proof.  The onus is now on them to defeat the presumption that they are so  morally and intellectually obtuse as not to be worth talking to.

Actually, that is far too mild a statement. Perhaps tomorrow I will tell you what I really think.

UPDATE (3/17).  I say above that leftists reliably take the side of criminals. More proof, as if more proof is needed:

THE AGE OF REASON?

I wrote here about Hennepin County, Minnesota’s left-wing prosecutor who let off two juveniles (the older aged 17) who murdered a woman in the course of a home invasion. This was part of her stated rationale:

[County Attorney Mary] Moriarty has said she is simply “following the science,” which she says is conclusive about adolescent brain development. According to Moriarty, the human brain is not fully developed until 25 years old.

Which is why, according to Moriarty, “we need to treat kids like kids.” As opposed to treating murderers like murderers.

Read it all. Why is 'Minnesnowta' such a hot-bed of anti-civilizational wokeassery? Does the cold clime freeze their brains unto willful self-enstupidation?

A Five-Second Test to See Whether You’re Aging Well

Here’s how it works:

  • Start in a standing position with 10 points
  • Sit down into a cross-legged position on the floor
  • Rise back up into a standing position

Simple, right? Only for each time you used a hand, knee or forearm to accomplish the task, you have to subtract a point. If you sat down and stood back up using only your core and leg strength, that’s a perfect 10. The goal is to land around eight points or better.

Your humble correspondent is 73 years of age.  He used his right hand twice: once to get onto the floor, and once to get up off the floor. So his score is eight points. Now you tell us your age and your score.

The Purpose of Schooling

According to Anthony Esolen,

The purpose of schooling—which is not the same as education—is to encourage people to express confident platitudes, which they are pleased to call their opinions, about things they know nothing of. This is far worse than ignorance. 

Esolen is (usually) a good writer and a clear thinker who often communicates important truths. So why does he begin his essay so irresponsibly? Journalistic responsibility requires that the writer not tamper with the established meanings of words and phrases. (See Merriam-Webster.) That's what wokesters do, as witness their hijacking  of the word 'equity.' (See Merriam-Webster.)

Has Esolen suffered a reverse-metanoia? I rather doubt it.  Am I being overly punctilious? I don't think so.

Once again, language matters!  (587 entries and counting) Dismounting my high horse, I now return to ruminating over modal collapse arguments against the doctrine of divine simplicity.

Do You Really Want to Teach at a University?

Substack latest. Do you want to feed the unhungry in a leftist seminary?

Comments and replies:

Tony: One of the best, and certainly the most concise, essays on the problem. The mild criticism when I was at NYU was that the universities were offering "higher skilling." Higher infantilization was right around the corner. 

Bill: Thanks, Tony. One could go on to mention what a lousy deal a college degree is these days: as the quality goes down, the price goes up.  And then the trifecta of corruption: overpaid do-nothing administrators pushing the destructive DEI agenda; federally insured loans without oversight; stupid students and their parents who go into deep debt for something of little or no value. One absurdity leads to another: bad financial decisions are then to be rewarded by student loan forgiveness! Let the waitresses and the truck drivers pick up the tab. The law, unmoored from morality, and positively promotive of immorality, becomes a mere power tool for the advancing of the interests of amoral if not immoral elites. Talk about moral hazard!

Tony: Which connects to the inherently fraudulent banking system and the Ponzi scheme called Social Security. A perfect storm of moral hazards.

Bill: I agree. But permit me a quibble. Ponzi schemes are set up with fraudulent intent.  The SS system was not so set up. Initially, at least, it was reasonable and well-intentioned: to keep workers from ending up in the gutter, subsisting on cat food. It was insurance against destitution, and like all insurance, the premiums were relatively small. Of course, it soon enough transmogrified into an ultimately unsustainable retirement program.  My main point at the moment, however, is the pedantic one that SS is not a Ponzi scheme strictly speaking.  But it may be more than pedantic inasmuch as lefties could take it as a smear against SS as opposed to a legitimate criticism. Or as I put it about a dozen years ago, though not in a reply to Tony Flood:

Language matters.  Precision matters.  And if not here, where?  If you say what you know to be false for rhetorical effect, then you undermine your credibility among those whom you need to persuade.  Conservatives don't need to persuade conservatives, and they will not be able to persuade leftists.  They must pitch their message to the undecided who, if rational, will be put off by sloppy rhetoric and exaggeration.

I note that W. James Antle, III, the author of the linked article, refers to the SS system as "the liberals' Ponzi scheme."  But of course it is not a Ponzi scheme.  A Ponzi scheme, by definition, is a scheme set up with the intention of defrauding people for the benefit of those running the scheme.  But there is nothing fraudulent about the SS system: the intentions behind it were good ones!  The SS system is no doubt in dire need of reform if not outright elimination.  But no good purpose is achieved by calling it a Ponzi scheme.  That's either a lie or an exaggeration.  Not good, either way.  The most you can say is that it is like a Ponzi scheme in being fiscally unsustainable as currently structured. Why not make the point accurately without a distracting rhetorical smear? Conservative exaggeration is politically foolish.  Is it not folly to give ammo to the enemy?  Is it not folly to choose a means (exaggeration and distortion) that is not conducive  to the end (garnering support among the presently uncommitted)?

Tony:  I take your point about imputing ill-intent, but the passive voice of the "SS system was not so set up" (as a Ponzi scheme) obscures agency and its motives (which you were not writing an essay about). Before the Social Security Act of 1935 there was the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which was not hatched overnight. The conspiracy to nationalize US banks was at least a decade in the making. The propaganda seeding the mass media (as today, post-SVB collapse) was that there's nothing worse than a bank run or "panic" (or is it a "threat to public health"?). That line served those who wanted to bring banking under governmental control (with the bankers overseeing the government). The easy money of the '20s led to the crash that engendered the destitution you referenced. Intelligent people engineered the FRA, and equally intelligent, educated, sober, well-meaning people came up with the SSA (and other agencies) to address the former's unforeseen consequences. Their ideological heirs now prevent the inevitable insolvency of SS with easy money: the central bank writes a check to itself with "our" money (denominated in federal reserve notes), postponing the day of reckoning. My issue is moral hazard, and one seems to engender another. As Tucker reminded us last night, the bankers effed up, but none went to prison. The government moved heaven and earth to shore up the same morally hazardous system because, as all the right people know, "there's no alternative." As I wrote in Christ, Capital & Liberty:

Just as advances in technology decreased the fear of “getting caught” consuming pornography, so did the central bank in the financial markets decreased the fear of suffering losses for making bad loans. As Peter Schiff put it regarding the 2008-2009 Meltdown:

Just as prices in a free market are set by supply and demand, financial and real estate markets are governed by the opposing tension between greed and fear. Everyone wants to make money, but everyone is also afraid of losing what he has. Although few would ascribe their desire for prosperity to greed, it is simply a rose by another name. Greed is the elemental motivation for the economic risk-taking and hard work that are essential to a vibrant economy. [Peter Schiff, “Don’t Blame Capitalism,” The Washington Post, October 16, 2008.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/15/AR2008101503166.html

But over the past generation, government has removed the necessary counterbalance of fear from the equation. Policies enacted by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Housing Admini­stration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which were always government entities in disguise), and others created advantages for home-buying and -selling and removed disincentives for lending and borrowing. The result was a credit and real estate bubble that could only grow—until it could grow no more. [CCL 126-127]

I'll stop here before I write an essay!

Bill: And I'll leave you with the last word. You make substantive points of more importance than my linguistic one, although I retain my conviction that language matters: any toleration of linguistic slovenliness spills over into a toleration of sloppy thinking. 
 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Ramblin’ Charles Adnopoz

At a book giveaway hereabouts the other day I did snag me a copy of Dave van Ronk's memoir, The Mayor of MacDougal Street. I'll have to dig into it one of these Saturday nights and pull out some tunes that you've never heard before.  In memory of the Mayor, here is his version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now." And here is his "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me."

David Dalton, Who is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan, Hyperion, 2012, p. 65:

As Dave van Ronk pointed out in his autobiography, many of the people involved in the first folk revival of the 1930s and '40s were Jewish — as were the folkies of the '60s. Van Ronk reasoned that for Jews, belonging to a movement centered on American traditional music was a form of belonging and assimilation.

[. . .]

"The revelation that Jack [Elliot] was Jewish was vouchsafed unto Bobby one afternoon at the Figaro," Van Ronk recalled.  "We were sitting around shooting the bull with Barry Kornfeld and maybe a couple of other people and somehow it came out that Jack had grown up in Ocean Parkway and was named Elliot Adnopoz.  Bobby literally fell off his chair; he was rolling around on the floor, and it took him a couple of minutes to pull himself together and get up again.  Then Barry, who can be diabolical in things like this, leaned over to him and just whispered the word 'Adnopoz' and back he went under the table."

Ramblin JackLacking as it does the proper American cowboy resonance, 'Elliot Charles Adnopoz' was ditched by its bearer who came to call himself 'Ramblin' Jack Elliot.'  Born in 1931 in Brooklyn to Jewish parents who wanted him to become a doctor, young Adnopoz rebelled, ran away, and became a protege of Woody Guthrie.  If it weren't for Ramblin' Jack, Guthrie would be nowhere near as well-known as he is today. 

 

Pretty Boy Floyd.  "As through this life you ramble, as through this life you roam/You'll never see an outlaw drive a family from their home."  No?  An example of the  tendency of lefties invariably to  take the side of the underdog regardless of whether right or wrong.  

Ramblin' Jack does a haunting version of Dylan's Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.  It grows on you. Give it a chance. Here is a Dylan version with a good video. See if you can spot Phil Ochs.

Cigarettes and Whisky and Wild Women.  Take a lesson, kiddies.

Soul of a Man. 

Dylan's unforgettable,  Don't Think Twice. 

Here is Jack with Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen, Buffy Sainte Marie singing the beautiful, Passing Through.

At 1:41 Baez starts a great Dylan imitation.

Dylan on Baez.