A Quillette article. (HT: JIO)
'Institutional capture' by anti-civilizational wokesters is fait accompli and we are collapsing on all fronts. Imagine being a English professor facing the daunting task, not of Higher Education, but of Higher Remediation.
Here by Auron MacIntyre at The Total State (Substack):
The city of Philadelphia has announced an agreement to pay a $9.25 million settlement in connection with the police response to protests after the death of George Floyd in 2020. While dozens were killed and billions of dollars of damage were done during the riots that raged across America for weeks in the summer of 2020, it is the participants themselves who will be paid restitution by the government.
Law and order in the United States have now descended to a level of anarcho-tyranny in which the government funds rioters with the tax money of their victims. The slow death of the rule of law in America would be ugly enough, but what we are witnessing instead is the twisted, grimacing corpse of a system that was once designed to protect the safety of Americans now being used to punish us for disagreeing with our political elites.
UPDATE 3/24
This fellow and I so far appear to be 'on the same page.' Two days ago, before I had heard of him, I spoke of our time as
. . . a time when those in control of the state apparatus have forgotten, or rather willfully ignore, the purposes that justify government in the first place, namely, the tasks of securing the life, liberty, and property of those governed. But the Orwellian wokesters now in charge invert these values in the Orwellian manner and aid and abet those who aim at the opposite.
As MacIntyre points out, what we are witnessing is "more than the slow death of the rule of law," but the inversion of our founding values. And yet brazen liars such as Nancy Pelosi yammer on about the rule of law while her shills in the media intone in unison the scripted mantra, "No one is above the law," as they pervert the law Soviet-style to destroy Donald J. Trump. Thankfully, Nancy dear is no longer with us (nor against us) politically speaking; others, however, far worse and more dangerous because less stupid, will take her place.
And as usual the Left Coast leads the way. (Because it is closer to China?) Here is Substacker David Zweig on lockdown and surveillance Santa Clara-style.
DEI and the collapse of the universities.
Substack latest.
Over the last three years, many of us who are naturally and by training skeptical of supernatural explanations have wondered whether the astonishing upsurge of irrationality and outright evil society-wide and, most depressingly, in the institutions that ought to serve as bulwarks against this madness, may be due to demonic influence. For the scale of the evil wokery on all sides, and the speed of its spread, seems beyond the reach of naturalistic explanations. See, for example, my Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?
Naomi Wolf, a former lefty who has seen the light, develops the theme in detail and in depth in her essay Have the Ancient Gods Returned?
Since 2020 the world, I feel, has been bathed, infused, bombarded even, with intensely powerful energies that are totally unfamiliar to us in this generation, but that may derive from a pre-Christian, pre-solidly-Jewish time, a time when early Judaism was struggling with the seductive and oppressive entities that always sought to seduce the Children of Israel away from the monotheistic truth, the One God.
The ancient “shedim” are the only “principalities and powers” I can imagine that are capable of manifesting a national, and now a global, network of policy advocates, social workers, graphic designers, Members of Parliament, who are all on board with an escalating euthanasia death cult. The ancient “daimones” are the only entities I can imagine powerful enough in just two years and a bit, to destroy families, to ruin sexuality and fertility, to make a mockery of human rights, to celebrate the end of critical thinking, to march us all in lockstep to worship of technocrats and technocracy; medical cultism and an orgiastic cult of self- and other-annihilation.
And — I must notice — if these “shedim” or “daimones” are powerless — why are their symbols reappearing everywhere? I used to see fundamentalist Christians who warned of Satan lurking in rock and roll, as fanatics. But what I myself am seeing around me, I cannot unsee.
A Temple of Baal archway was in fact expensively reconstructed from its original in Syria, and moved to a appear at a major thoroughfare in London, and was now unveiled in Washington, DC, and in New York.
Why?
A bizarre opening ceremony in a new train site in Switzerland, at which European leaders were present, included a horned entity (“an Ibex”), the upholding of a symbolic lamb, the appearance of a terrifying angel, and the writhing of nearly naked men and women in S-and-M-themed and bondage postures.
Seen at SOTU 2023 as worn by Senator Ed Markey, Massachusetts Democrat:
For a long time now, the Democrats have been the abortion party. But under the 'leadership' of the 'devout Catholic,' Joe Biden, they've 'evolved' to use the Hillary word which means devolved: they now celebrate abortion by expressing 'love' for it. And they are not above using rank Orwellianisms to express their 'love.' "Abortion is health care" is the most outrageous of them.
Story here.
Why down with the first (I allude to the menthol cigarette ban) and up with the second? Why the differential treatment and the misplaced moral enthusiasm? The locoweed I smoked with band members in the late '60s was tame stuff, poor in tetrahydrocannabinol as compared to the potent THC-rich product on the market today. Since then, cigarettes have been wussified what with the addition of filters and lower nicotine levels.
So why the differential treatment? The short answer is that it is not in the interest of a police state to promote alertness and attention, which is what nicotine does, while it is in such a state's interest to promote dopiness and lethargy and escapism and every manner of vice.
It is the tried-and-true panem et circenses principle. Keep the masses fat and stupid, doped up on hooch and weed, distracted by mass sporting events such as the Stupor Bowl and pornography, expectant of regular initiative-inimical handouts and 'freebies,' and they will be easy to control.
Sate the peoples' blood-lust with HollyWeird brutality and gun violence while at the same time stripping law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights. Alec Baldwin easily serves as poster-clown for this sort of thing: he make big bucks in movies that celebrate violence while knowing nothing himself about firearms and their safe handling. The nimrod is on record as opposing the National Rifle Association, an outfit that promotes gun safety and defends constitutionally-protected (not constitutionally-conferred) natural rights. Baldwin is a contemptible fool whose willful self-enstupidation resulted in a young woman's death. He has been brought up on charges of involuntary manslaughter, which sounds just right to me. (It's a stronger charge than negligent homicide.)
We saw the same panem-et-circenses pattern with the COVID-19 lockdown. The churches were targeted for closure while the liquor stores stayed open. Police states brook no critique or competition from organized religion, but a liquored-up citizenry is kept distracted and manipulable.
Similarly with Biden's wide-open border policy. It is not just to flood the nation with 'undocumented Democrats' so as to insure in perpetuity the hegemony of what is now a hard-Left party, but also to allow in as much fentanyl as possible to poison and kill off the native population, and in particular the poor white trash of Appalachia and elsewhere in fly-over country, the people Hillary spoke of as deplorables and Obama as clingers to guns and Bibles.
A government worth having promotes virtue in the people and in particular the virtues of self-reliance and self-control. A totalitarian state, however, works best by promoting vice. A reader sent me to this perceptive article portions of which I will now share:
Remember that the “government,” as I describe it, is much more than just the state. It includes schools, banks, and corporations, collaborating with the state to govern a population. This need not be a conspiracy — although it often is — it can simply occur because of a shared set of objectives and priorities. For the government to cooperate correctly with itself, it needs maximal data and predictability in the population.
That’s why modern governments exert an inverted form of pastoral power to promote vice. Greed, lust, and vainglory are very predictable: if you know that every merchant will do anything to maximize profit, then you can predict their trading patterns with precision. The “rational actor,” the utilitarian automaton, and the pleasure-maximizer are the ideal constituents of the modern population. This means we can expand Dr. E. Michael Jones’ well-known dictum that “sexual liberation is political control”4 by saying: manipulation of any vice is political control.
This is why the government is promoting Impossible burgers, even though the company loses money: they want to centralize all protein production. Impossible is a tool to nudge the population’s behavior through a desire for “meatiness” in food. The government seeks to steer the rudder of our vices until all protein comes from patented software and gene edits. They won’t even have to pass a law.
To summarize and expand upon three of the main points made in the above quotation:
1) The government is not just the State but the latter together with all its adjuncts and extensions including Big Tech and Big Pharma. But 'adjunct' might not be the best word given the regulatory capture of the former by the latter.
2) If the interests of different groups align and they move in the same direction, this need not be due to any conspiracy among the groups. It follows that anyone who alleges a commonality of direction, towards increasing wokeness, say, is not automatically a conspiracy theorist.
3) ". . . modern governments exert an inverted form of pastoral power to promote vice." A genuine insight beautifully expressed. I hope you won't take it amiss if I nominate that good Catholic, Joe Biden, for the annual Pastor of Vice award.
You may recall that in 2016, Joey B. received the University of Notre Dame's Laetare Medal. Read this for a good laugh:
“We live in a toxic political environment where poisonous invective and partisan gamesmanship pass for political leadership,” said Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s president. “Public confidence in government is at historic lows, and cynicism is high. It is a good time to remind ourselves what lives dedicated to genuine public service in politics look like. We find it in the lives of Vice President Biden and Speaker Boehner.
Might we call this the 'regulatory capture' of a once-great university by the WokeState and its puppets and pimps? (Or is that going too far?) The (so-called) Catholic universities are the most corrupt of all, for they have fallen the farthest. They are in dire need of defunding by sane and reasonable alumni. Not a dime for those who support DEI.
The churches, the RCC in particular, the universities, the once-great ones especially, and the Fourth Estate should serve as checks on the State and its omnivorous appetite for power and control. They should function as bulwarks against and critics of the government and its metastasizing octopus of grasping and sucking agencies and agents.
Another episode in Victor Davis Hanson's chronicling of our wanky descent into unhinged Unsinn. Here is a choice morsel:
Current racial tribalization obsessions have descended into a nadir that makes Al Sharpton’s 1990s Tawana Brawley/Crown-Heights career start (“If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”/ “We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”) look amateurish in comparison. In this context, new calls arise for ludicrous reparations simply because we have become a ludicrous society.
First-rate political analysis by DiploMad 2.0. (HT: Bill Keezer)
But there is little to be hopeful or happy about this New Year. 2023 is likely to be worse than the last three. You are well-advised to seek your happiness within. Not that one should withdraw from the fray entirely. Fight on, but not at the expense of your tranquillitas animi. For the sake of sanity, dial back your intake of media dreck, 'legacy' and 'social.' This world is a passing scene and a vanishing quantity. And you with it. Take the current slide into the abyss as a warm invitation to seek out the really real (ὄντως ὄν) before it's too late.
They unwittingly gave me the confidence that I could do what they do, and indeed do it better, but they also deprived me of the intellectual formation that I had to spend years developing on my own. They set me forward, and they set me back.
To cheat students is bad enough; to corrupt them is far worse. The latter is happening now in classrooms at all levels throughout the land. To speak of a decline in standards would be an understatement: perversion of standards.
The Big Apple is now rotten to the core, thanks to 'progressives.' There is no wisdom on the Left, no common sense, no basic decency. Cal Thomas:
The exodus of New Yorkers for less expensive and safer climes has been well documented. In 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 300,000 residents left New York state. I suspect the number this year will match or exceed that. High taxes, crime, and the cost of housing and living are all contributing factors. Police are leaving, too: 831 so far this year. Who can blame them, given the way they are treated?
[. . .]
It gives a new meaning to the opening line of the Frank Sinatra song “Start spreading the news. I’m leaving today.” Except the leaving now is from, not to New York.
One thing you need to know about 'progressives' is that the spirit that animates the leaders of their movement, if not every rank-and-file useful idiot and somnambulant fellow-traveller, is the spirit of Mephistopheles. Goethe had his number:
I'll translate the first two lines. "I am the spirit that always negates! And rightly so. For the worth of all that comes to be is in its ceasing to be." This is the spirit of Mephisto and of Karl Marx, who quotes it approvingly somewhere. (Look it up! Why do I have to do all the work?)
'Progressive' nihilism is supposed to issue in utopia and the immanentization of the eschaton. But how do the destroyers know that it will? How do they know that burying the hard-won wisdom of the past and destroying what has taken centuries to build will clear the ground for the arisal of an earthly paradise? They don't know it. But we know that past attempts have failed disastrously. We know that from history, the same history that the 'progressives' with their latter-day equivalents of book burning will not learn from but will attempt to erase.
You need to ask yourself whether you support the depredations of cultural Marxism which include ethno-masochistic wokery, 'critical' race-delusionality, reality-denying social constructivism, the celebration of grotesquerie, the canonization of worthless individuals, the destruction of monuments to the great and noble, the destruction of the family, the moral corruption of children, the excusing of brazen mendacity at the highest levels of government . . . and I'm just warming to my theme.
One more thing.
There are really only two effective ways of 'voting.' One is with your feet, as when, for example, New Yorkers head for DeSantisLand. The other is with your wallet.
If your alma mater supports the DEI agenda, politely inform their financial officers that they will not receive one red cent from you as long as they do. This is something you can do that is not merely 'performative' as this word is now being used. (For the record, I do not approve of this linguistic innovation.) For, as Lee Iaococca said, "When money talks, ideology walks." Even the most irrational among us begin to think straight when money is on the table and their financial survival is on the line.
Here is a letter you are free to take as a model.
For more on cultural collapse, take a gander at this seven-minute video featuring the inimitable Camille Paglia.
. . . the thought that demonic agents are at work behind the scenes becomes ever more credible. Or do you think that the depth of human depravity has an adequate naturalistic explanation?
Our moral trajectory is decidedly downward. Anyone who is not morally obtuse can see that. Rod Dreher is a good source of lively commentary on the Decline of the West. Here is one of his latest on the demon question.
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Vito Caiati comments:
I appreciated yesterday’s brief post which affirms that “As We Slide into the Abyss” . . . “the thought that demonic agents are at work behind the scenes becomes ever more credible.” If you recall, we discussed this horrific possibility last May (Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?), and I find that each day reinforces my conviction that something of this nature lies behind the depraved words and acts, now celebrated rather than condemned, that increasingly define our time. To better understand what is going on, I have turned to the writings and comments of several Roman Catholic exorcists, who, while noting the extraordinary powers of the Evil One, such as infestation, vexation, obsession, and possession, affirm that these are “far less to be feared. . . than in the underground influence he exerts in souls that are not sufficiently instructed or well-tempered.” It is this latter ordinary activity, the ceaseless implanting of temptation into human minds, so many of which have now abandoned the protections offered by faith in and worship of God that provides a vast open field of opportunity for Satan. In this regard, I recommend this short essay by the exorcist Fr. Vincent Lambert, The Devil's Lies are Subtle, which speaks suggestively of the means and ultimate ends of this assault on human reason and morality.
Dreher's right about a lot of things despite his TDS. But who among us is wholly free of faults, foibles, and fatuities? Read on:
The United States is a country where we castrate young males and cut the breasts off of young females, and call it liberation. We are a country where it is considered moral progress to bring in deviant men who dress like women, and have them read to children modern fairy tales teaching them to question their bodies and their sexual identities. We are ruled by an elite class that treats LGBT culture as sacred, and that celebrates its way of life in commerce, in advertising, in education, and everywhere it can possibly be inculcated into the rhythms of daily life. Our ruling class and its dominant value system now celebrates racism, and calls it "diversity, equity, and inclusion." Our young people are suffering a horrible mental health crisis. Millions of our people, especially poor and working class people, are succumbing to "deaths of despair" via drug and alcohol addiction.
Our young are going to live with less material, social, and emotional security than their parents and grandparents, while our liberals are tearing down all sources of solidarity outside of radical politics, and our conservatives mostly don't care. The United States is busy destroying its higher education system, which used to be the envy of the world, all for the sake of ideologizing it. We are also destroying the capacity for excellence in science and nearly every other field of endeavor, for the sake of DEI ideology. The rich are getting richer, and the numbers of the economically precarious grow daily. And for the past two decades, Washington has not seen a war it didn't want to fight, even as the woke war machine understandably struggles to convince young Americans that serving in the armed forces is worth doing. Respect for God is in collapse among American youth. Violent crime is up. American pop culture celebrates what is most violent, sexual, and degraded in the human experience, and exports that baseness globally. Over and over, as I travel through Eastern Europe, I hear the same thing from beleaguered parents, teachers, and religious leaders: that there is no way to resist American pop culture and its effect on their young. A high school teacher in Poland once told me that there is nothing at all in his country remotely as powerful as Western pop culture in forming the moral sensibilities of young Poles. What we Americans have done and are doing to our country, we are training the next generation of young people abroad to do to theirs.
And on and on.
Try being a normal conservative outside of the US bubble, and you'll see how America, which used to be a beacon of hope to others, is now seen with ambivalence, and even hostility, by people who see how the United States is destroying its own society, and is also trying to export its corruption abroad. It's a challenge to love your country when you listen to older people in the former Soviet bloc ask you, one way or the other, what happened to the Shining City on a Hill that they used to love?
Excellent, Rod, excellent! But then why the hell do you attack Trump? Did you listen to his announcement speech? WTF is wrong with you?
Rod Dreher on The Racial Masochism of the Left:
Where does the Left and all its institutional allies — which is to say, every major institution in American life — plan to go with this? Do they really believe that all whites, Asians, and Latinos can be trained to accept brutality from black criminals? Do they really think that America itself is Barnard College? So far, they haven't had any real pushback, so maybe they do.
This is what happens when you abandon classically liberal concepts of justice. This is what happens when you Kendify and DiAngelize policy and discourse. When the backlash comes, it's going to be quite ugly. Understand right now that it will be 100 percent the fault of the Left.
I spoke with a salesman at Sportsman's Warehouse the other day. He told me that before 11:00 am he had sold five AR-15s.
That's not a good sign, my friends.
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Vito Caiati responds:
Regarding your short post “Ethnomasochism,” I was reminded of this observation by Machiavelli in I Principe (Chapter 14): “Molte sono le conseguenze negative che ti provoca il fatto di essere male armato, ma la più grave è che ti rende oggetto di disprezzo. . . .” (“There are many negative consequences brought to you by being badly armed, the most serious is that it makes you the object of contempt”). Your conversation with the gun salesman appears to indicate that many people have instinctively grasped the truth of the Florentine’s point.
To which pertinent observation I had the following. The natural contempt that many people have for the weak and vulnerable is at present aided, abetted, and exacerbated by a society in collapse, a society in which half of the population and most of those who run our institutions think it 'racist' to enforce laws and to enforce them equally. And so the weak and the vulnerable, the loving and the kind, are arming themselves for defense against depredatory elements of the sort that leftists used merely to coddle, but now positively promote. At a recent CCW class I was surprised to see so many sweet old ladies fixin' to pack heat. None of this would be necessary, of course, if government did its job. But it doesn't and anyone who votes Democrat is voting to insure that it doesn't, 'going forward' as journalists and pols like to say.
Alaric is sacking Rome. An obscure Roman philosopher is penning an agenda for the salvation of the republic. His writings are lost to history. In any case, too little, too late. Will we share his fate?
Three years after the Visigoth invasion, a Christian Platonist and mystic in North Africa puts pen to paper. As Rome goes under, and night falls, the Owl of Minerva rises in the pages of The City of God.
If St. Augustine could see us now he might remark that while the pagan gods failed Rome, we failed the true God when we began worshipping idols.
Joseph-Nöel Sylvestre’s 1890 Painting Depicting the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in AD 410.
'Equity' is wokespeak for equality of outcome without regard for merit or qualifications. In Joe Biden, the demented have finally a representative at the highest level of government in the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Who can deny that this is progress? To question it would be discriminatory and ableist.
