The Maelstrom of Violence

[pbrower2a]

(08-23-2017, 01:33 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I’m addressing mostly Kinser.  I’ve too much to say.  I’m skipping the stripes for some semblance of brevity.

First, Breitbart is on my bookmark list of sites to be visited which advocate worldviews different from mine.  This morning’s observation was a trend towards quote quotes.  Brietbart will absolutely accurately quote blue leaning people; press, politicians, pundits, whomever.  This isn’t to say they don’t cherry pick.  This meshes with my notion that good propaganda doesn’t lie, but it is based on a carefully selected solid kernel of truth.  The Breitbart agenda, as I read it, isn’t to bring those with urban and rural values together.  The quotes seem selected to generate outrage, to present as absurdly false ideas which seem rational by the extreme blue.  I won’t deny that extreme partisans disagree, often emphatically.  It’s the art of generating outrage that seems interesting.  If one buys into this approach, the country’s divide is only emphasized.  It’s just Eric’s demonization habits inverted and put on steroids.

I try to avoid overt propaganda.  I did watch FoX News this week for eclipse coverage. (I had hoped to see it at a totality site that could have been anywhere from the Missouri Ozarks to western North Carolina... mix-ups involving a day off work (my brother got the following Monday off instead), but even worse, excruciating gout in my right foot. I could have done no driving. My brother would have surely found some India Pale Ale, which is more intoxicating than he thinks it is.

But FoX News, which has slick and sophisticated news coverage, at the least was unable to make propaganda out of a total eclipse of the sun.

Quote:I don’t see S&H as clockwork predetermined.  I’m unusual in seeing Bush 43’s Iraq war with it’s associated stay the course vs cut and run debate as a massive potential crises.  That war reprises Vietnam, experimented with a new form of colonial imperialism, exposed sole superpower power to be less that what some hoped, and put containment vs active shaping of the world on the table.  It just didn’t become a typical Anglo American crisis as the new ideas failed.  We stuttered and stumbled into the next crisis, the economic collapse, where some not so  new ideas again sputtered.  This left the see saw see sawing.

Depending upon the circumstances, some things can be possible at certain times but not others or can have very different meanings. . A temperature of 55 F is possible where I live is possible in January or July. In January it indicates freakishly-warm weather that will not last long as it is typically between two blizzards. In July it indicates a clear night with some Canadian air mass settled in. Just don't be surprised if the temperature reaches 80 F that day.

Unorthodox expressions of culture are often extremely unsafe for either the expression or the creator during a full-blown Crisis Era.

"Degenerate" Art by Nazi standards. You know -- daringly human, unlike the empty, pretentious taste characteristic of Nazis.


Cultural orthodoxy in a post-Crisis High might be hedonistic, but that is about all that one can get. People are getting late starts in life or picking up the pieces left over from the destruction of the Crisis. There might be some leftovers like Picasso or Miro, but that is it. Once the Awakening begins, people start make daring expressions contrary to the staid orthodoxy of the High, but in the name of high-minded principles  As the Awakening turns into the Unraveling, people violate cultural orthodoxy just for the sake of violating something.

Quote:What I find refreshing, though, is Kinser’s open admission of tribal thinking.  Most won’t admit that that’s what they are doing.

I will admit that tribal thinking exists.  There are many who will follow Kinser’s thinking fairly precisely, though not all will admit it.  It is to a great extent human nature.  One just does tend to care more about family, friends and members of one’s familiar culture.

I dunno. I don't see how I am tribal. I never found a tribe upon which to attach myself. I had opportunities in an ethnically-mixed high school where there was much latent hostility between groups. The white racists were the least attractive, and they couldn't understand why I didn't want to join those losers. I talked to non-white people to find out what made them different, and I found the similarities. Maybe I was looking for the similarities and didn't realize it. Similar values and hopes? Deal me in!

Quote:As a progressive, I do not see it locked, inevitable and fixed.  As a progressive, I am aware of progress.  Slavery ended.  Old groups of reviled immigrants have been embraced.  Women are in parts of the working place where they once were not accepted.  Today, we have different groups of immigrants.  Today we have a health debate.  Everybody contributing would produces a good result, but some think their own tribe ought to get a better deal and strive to bring it all down.  It is natural to look for a good deal for one’s self one’s friends and one’s culture.  “I’ve got mine, up yours” is an unfortunate trend, and not just in medicine.

We have been slow in leaving and shunning the  ethos of "every man for himself" excellent for atomizing humanity.

Quote:It is not inevitable.  Who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’ is a culturally learned thing.  Some will view ‘us’ as a tribe with certain cultural, racial, religious and perhaps regional affiliations.  Others will view ‘us’ as Americans, and embrace cultural values that all humans are equal under law and equal in dignity.

Are "values" a possible cause for community? Shared intellectual and avocational interests?

I have Asperger's, and I thus am little more than my intellect, morals, ethics, and vocation. I am afraid that unless I create I am a crashing bore and a social misfit.

Quote:This is not fixed and unchangeable, but rather a significant element of the red / blue divide.  I will often say the blue believe in community and mutual support while the red value independence.  Ideally, the two could respect and understand each other and their differences.  In part, the problem is that the red have smaller tribes.  The blue will embrace and integrate much sooner than the red.  Many blue will see a strong cultural refusal to accept and share with others of their tribe as out and out evil.

The Regeneracy comes when people recognize something that transcends identity. "I am white", "I am a Texan", "I am middle class", "I am an Irish-American", "I have a degree from Texas A&M", and "I am a Catholic" are all themselves empty identity.  

Quote:This mutual inability to understand is a core part of the divide.  Either that, or perhaps many of the blue leaning understand all too well.

Thus, in Boston, you have a few hundred flying Nazi and Confederate banners surrounded by many many more who reject tribe oriented hatred.  In other parts of the country, the ratio is different.

In my case I understand all too well. It is all too blatant. I associate the Confederacy with the defense of the ancient vice of chattel slavery that should have died centuries ago... why could Jesus not tell people that economic exploitation was a violation of the Commandment "Thou shalt not steal" and chattel slavery a denial of the humanity of a slave as well as economic exploitation in the worst form, and thus the worst form of theft?

It took Thomas Paine to formulate the best reason to abhor slavery, to wit that slaves were stolen property and possessors who could not have title to a slave could be divested of slaves without compensation as is done with stolen property in practice.

...Putting two symbols suggests syncretism, and when the symbols have negative connotations, the negatives (Confederate slavery and Nazi genocide) often become the focus of the syncrerism.



Start thinking of all that could be horrific in a fusion of fascism and Bolshevism. Now stop. I don't want you to vomit.

Or maybe you could imagine twisting the stars-in-a-diagonal cross design of the Confederate flag into a swastika.

Quote:There is much else in recent postings which is just wrong by my own blue leaning values, but that will do for now.

Likewise for me.