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Writing in National Review Peter Kirsanow offers a sobering
look at our new reality. It’s not the reality you used to know and perhaps even
like, but it’s a new fictional world that fulfills a certain number of ideological
preconceptions.
Strangely enough, no one seems to care any more that its unreal.
Kirsanow sums it up:
Exchanges
established by the federal government are exchanges established by the state.
Rachel Dolezal is black. Iran will honor an agreement not to develop nuclear
weapons. ISIS is a JV team. There’s an epidemic of sexual assaults on college
campuses. Michael Brown had his hands up and pleaded “don’t shoot.” Caitlyn
Jenner is a woman. Obamacare is working. 2+2 doesn’t necessarily equal 4. The
polar ice caps are disappearing. The IRS is doing a decent job. The border is
secure.We’ve ended two wars responsibly. Hillary Clinton turned over all
work-related e-mails. An $18,200,000,000,000 debt can grow without mention.
People who burn down buildings and overturn cars aren’t thugs. The OPM hack is
manageable. We’ve reset relations with Russia. Entitlement reform can be kicked
down the road. We’re more respected around the world.
One might call it a mass delusion, as Kirsanow does, but,
whatever one calls it, he is right to say that it is not going to end well.
6 comments:
Just don't tell anyone, and everything will be okay.
Don't rock the boat.
If you say it enough times, it's true.
Perhaps the thing we detest most about Jonathan Gruber is that he was right.
Our news media is the modern incarnation of Tass News Service, with the splash of ESPN.
Postmodernism has infected every part of our culture. We expect lies. We are cynical. We are dishonest. Sincerity is meaningless.
This is what we get when we fall all over ourselves in an orgy of "tolerance." We are increasingly ruled by a biomass of go-along-to-get-along people, smiling all the way, feeling like everything is okay, and everyone is okay, and that everything everyone says is okay. We may shake our heads and ask "What is it that they want so badly that they lie to each other and believe lies, even though they know they're lies?"
It’s shockingly simple: They want to be thought of as NICE. By everyone.
Niceness is their highest value… the coin of the realm. Nice people are nice. Not nice people are mean. And they don’t want mean people to think they’re not nice, either, so it’s a double-bind worldview. They’re trapped in the social Empire of Nice, and there is no escape.
However, there is a prize: everyone thinks the nice person is nice. Not much more, but certainly nice. No one can say anything bad about the nice person, which isn’t a fully human, fully-alive experience, but it is nice.
They don’t want to be thought of as mean, so they follow the nice trends and celebrate all kinds of nice self-congratulation. It’s a dualistic worldview, brought to them through television, Internet, viral emails, movies, social media, cute JPEGs, et cetera.
The Glowing Box tells them what is nice, and how to think. They imitate, and pass it on.
That’s what they want: to be nice, for others to think of them as nice, for others to be nice to others, and the world to be a nice place.
They want to be comfortable. People who create discomfort — by thinking or encouraging others to think — are not nice. Just like their most challenging teachers in their school years, who created a “not nice environment” that demanded the best of them and others… the highest effort, playing on their growth edge. Standing for something beyond the comfort zone of niceness. That wasn’t nice because some people couldn’t get an A because they wouldn’t think or work hard enough to get it, creating despair. That’s not nice. And this view of thinkers — those with higher standards for humanity — continues to this day. Thinkers are mean, caught up in their heads.
Unrepentant thinkers are haters. They have no heart.
That's how life works in the Empire of Nice.
Fun, huh?
Acton, you are spot on.
If everyone cannot be a genius (the NCLB or Lake Wobegon reality where all children are above normal) then nice is achievable.
They are so nice, they don't judge. They may repeat a popular stance, then defend their belief by a few tactics of the nice. 1. "My God is a loving God." (God is nice too!) or 2. "We are not to judge" irregardless of the fact they just did. For example, "abortion should stay legal because who am I to judge." The tactic has the effect of moving the debate from abortion to judging. Because the nice don't judge, they are therefore tolerant. And because they are tolerant, their view of abortion is correct.
Nice people are not to be confused with people who have integrity. Integrity is costly, and for nice people, nothing is worth the cost of being in the out group.
That's a diverse list. Let's see if we can categorize:
1. Personal distortions:
* Rachel Dolezal is black.
* Caitlyn Jenner is a woman.
2. Political distortions:
* Michael Brown had his hands up and pleaded “don’t shoot.”
* People who burn down buildings and overturn cars aren’t thugs.
* There’s an epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses.
3. Geopolitical fears
* Iran will honor an agreement not to develop nuclear weapons.
* ISIS is a JV team.
* The OPM hack is manageable.
* The border is secure.
4. Partisan whining:
* Obamacare is working
* Exchanges established by the federal government are exchanges established by the state. .
* Hillary Clinton turned over all work-related e-mails.
* The IRS is doing a decent job.
* We’ve ended two wars responsibly.
* We’ve reset relations with Russia.
* We’re more respected around the world.
* An $18,200,000,000,000 debt can grow without mention.
* Entitlement reform can be kicked down the road.
5. Science:
* [Actic sea ice] is disappearing.
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
We had to destroy the village in order to save it,
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