Monday, June 1, 2020

It Takes an Intellectual...

Just in time, you might say, John Podhoretz (via Maggie's Farm) reminds us of what he calls George Orwell’s “timeless admonition:"


Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.


Indeed, it is impossible to follow intellectual debates in this country without thinking that something is seriously wrong with the American mind. Not in the sense that it is warped or even ill, but that it is infested with terminal stupidity. And especially with the mind of America’s elite intellectuals. It did not begin yesterday. It has been around forever:


The glorification of mob violence and petty criminality that was one of the disgraceful hallmarks of bien-pensant thinking throughout the 20th century resonates through every tweet, ­every deep TV observation and every piece of writing that casts the coast-to-coast destruction and anarchy in a positive light.


Rationalize and justify, find a deeper meaning to the mindless violence. That is the media agenda. It was borne out of cowardice, I would maintain. After all, people who are terrified of mob violence are the first to insist that they are on the rioters side. So, intellectuals, lacking in moral character, are falling over themselves to excuse the moral depravity of the rioters. As noted yesterday, Atlanta Mayor Bottoms struck the correct counter-note, when she said: “We are better than this.”


Our elite intellectuals do not think so. Isn't that telling?Beginning with a Northwestern University professor named Steven Thrasher, they are providing air cover for the rioters. In their eyes we live in a police state. Thus, it is right and honorable and just to burn down police precincts.

How much do you wager that Thrasher will keep his job. After all, fomenting violence against the police or against the state makes you something of a hero.


Podhoretz writes:


A Northwestern University journalism professor named Steven Thrasher took to Slate to offer this analysis: “The destruction of a police precinct is not only a tactically reasonable ­response to the crisis of policing, it is a quintessentially American response, and a predictable one. The uprising we’ve seen this week is speaking to the American police state in its own language, up to and including the use of fireworks to mark a battle victory. Property destruction for social change is as American as the Boston Tea Party. . . .”


There is nothing new about this, Podhoretz reminds us. After all, Norman Mailer was defending criminal acts of violence committed by minority group members decades ago:


The difference between the hoodlums of Mailer’s day and the antifa “insurgents” of Thrasher’s and our time is that our insurgents are fully aware there is a phalanx of media and academic apologists at the ready, who will not only excuse their behavior but laud it. This both provides them internal psychological cover for the unleashing of the evils inside them and a vocabulary to explain away the evils they release.


An important point, worthy or emphasis. Today’s rioters know that they have the media on their side. They know that they will not be portrayed as idiot thugs or even as violent insurrectionists. They will be portrayed as heroes, as a vanguard of the revolution. It's not just about being permitted to riot; it's about being rewarded for rioting.


After all, they are doing what leftist intellectuals have been encouraging for yo these many years. If they add a little violence to the formula, that just means, Podhoretz suggests, that they have an excess of righteous zeal:


Ideological partisans of all stripes face this temptation every day — the temptation to believe that those who seem to be making the same argument you make but then add violence to the mix only do so out of an excess of zeal. In other words, the violent people may be wrong in their tactics, but their passionate loathing of injustice simply got the best of their good intentions.


Perhaps they feel it necessary to do so because they don’t want the bad behavior to discredit their beliefs, or because they can’t bear to examine their ­beliefs in light of the violence and wonder if they are a part of what made the violence happen.


Can you, by the amoral calculus of the American left, ever be too strongly opposed to injustice?

Besides, to keep with a theme of this blog, the rioters are doing little more than expressing their emotions, openly, honestly and shamelessly. Isn't that what therapists have been telling them to do? Isn’t that the height of mental health and emotional well being? Do we want them to bottle up their feelings and get cancer?

4 comments:

Sam L. said...

I expect that some of us think that jail time should be the next resting place for the looters and fire-starters. And their instigaters. And the media.

UbuMaccabee said...

Yeah, I know all about Antifa and the skinny white trash and their involvement in this attempt to destroy America. They are the vanguard, and they are allying with the black criminal caste to burn down the cities and force a revolution. I am unequivocal that they should all be executed by sniper fire. All of them. All of them. Stop a car full? Bonnie and Clyde treatment. My guess is they are maybe 10 thousand of them. We’ll find out they are all the sons and daughters of the DNC and our Shitmedia. Waste them.

If you do not have guns and ammo, well, sorry for you. You had plenty of warning. Decades of warnings. You'll just have to hide or run. If you have guns and ammo, band together with your neighbors and shoot to kill if you live where a jury will never convict (like I do). Think through the perimeter of your home. Defense points, strong lines of sight. Arm the wife and kids. Young children reload magazines. Sniper fire is the best; utterly demoralizing.

Hey, you know why AntifaBlacklivesmob didn’t attack Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago? Because the Mexicans have thumos. They have spine and balls and they are not going to let the llantas pour into their neighborhoods and loot Hispanic stores. No way. Bongonians are afraid of Mexicans because they are a tribe, organized, and defend themselves as a tribe. You attack one you attack all. They are unified and work together. Same goes for Koreans. Whites need to learn from them. Whites just let other whites get beat and do nothing because we are weak and timid. Feminized. Blacks know this about us. Nobody bargains from weakness. When black criminals are terrified of whites again, this ends for good. Until then, expect more of it. Stopping at a gas station? Better have a .45 at the ready.

Oh, also, George Floyd was a violent criminal, with a history of violent behavior, and I bet more video reveals he resisted arrest. He was fucked up (likely multiple drugs) and the autopsy said he did not die from asphyxiation. Likely heart attack from drugs and fighting with cops and too many Big Macs washed down with pot and malt liquor. Oh, and go look up the MPD procedures on restraining a violent perp. May not like the answer, but it may not be illegal. Like all the other black race hysteria, I'll wait until the trial to see what actually happened.

https://tinyurl.com/ybl5w45z


Going to work the heavy bag. Black thugs only understand mass, force, and power. No power and you get jumped. Blacks fear Vikings. Deep down they do.

Oh, speaking of deep down. I'm enjoying watching leftist cities with leftist elite government elected by leftist citizens being utterly defeated by a loosely organized criminal caste of white punks and black lowlifes. Their weakness is so unbelievable it is surreal. It's dripping, dickless, spineless, mealy-mouth epic weakness. This is URtext weakness, the very Platonic archetype of weakness. And they are so proud of their weakness; they parade it around for everyone to see and hear. They are so in love with their empty words they speak, imagining it will do anything except elicit contempt. They are vain about their cowardice. And then seeing leftist white pussies being beaten senseless in the streets by the very animals they raised to be what they are. And CNN building! Santa Monica! DC! The very essence of ambivalence right there. Black savage who is what he is vs leftist white pussy who ruined the greatest nation in world history. Tough call. I'll take the savage. Burn, baby, burn!

Maybe this great chimpout will cause the mass migration of normals to flee to normal land and leave the leftist animals to prey on each other in leftistland and our national divorce will begin to have an outline. This is going to leave deep and permanent scars.

Maybe Napolean will show up? Maybe Franco? Maybe something more ominous.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Ubu: “Maybe Napolean will show up? Maybe Franco? Maybe something more ominous.”

I suspect Trump will be viewed as the Tooth Fairy when compared to he who will come...

I’ve been saying this for years. Few seem to care. Not my problem.

Sighted in two AR-15s with iron sights yesterday. I have a basic human right to defend my life and the lives of those I love. If that seems uncomfortable for you (whomever you are), I could not care less...

UbuMaccabee said...

Nice, IAC. After buying a new AR for my Nigerian pal (he was Nigerian special forces, so he knows the drill) I bought a new Mossberg 12GA 590 with 15 round magazines. I'll have 60 rounds on my hip when I come out from the bushes. God I love the way a shotgun feels when it kicks. Biggest gun last Sat in US history is my guess. Gun store was filled with non-felon black folks looking to defend their lives and property. Right on!

Uncomfortable? We're waaaaaaay past that.