It holds the first official words of wisdom from pre-civilization onwards and instead of being read as it was written it's regarded as a totem to be danced around, or to be mocked.
But if you prefer to just contribute to the cacophony by mocking yesterday's oddity, you'd better get it done before the animal mass of humanity forgets about it [remember covidpocalypse? where's humanity's true reckoning on *that* particular madness?] as they always do when they turn to dance around the next madness.
We live a short while together on this planet. It's a shame that every stage and microphone is hogged by the same folk who have been hogging it ever since agriculture/adam.
You know that book I referred to? It was written by critics who were never heard IN THEIR OWN DAY, only to be worshipped post-mortem as magical entities.
But sure, mock zeus, or the dutch tulip craze, or whatever ephemeral madness should happen to have captured the attention of humanity for a few days or a few centuries.
Your story should be added to a new edition of the great classic book 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds: All Volumes - Complete and Unabridged'
You have to write this book and include my story. ;) It would be good to do a post and address Starbucks' change of heart and the role that the $25M civil rights verdict for the white manager at the heart of the BLM/Living While Black Starbucks Race Hoax played. She also reaped significant punitive damages. She had been fired in the aftermath.
I understand your PhD thesis had something to do with supposed police brutality. Why don't you tell us what you think the LAPD would have done differently with a white driver under the facts of the Rodney King incident.
There's a massive vibe shift. Now, I agree with the guy who said don't declare victory in the 4th quarter (if indeed this is the 4th quarter - who knows?) but there is a vibe shift.
People are no longer scared to call bullshit. At least I'm not.
Yes, write that book -- it's very important to remind people what we've been through, what we're coming out of, & how many things we still have to achieve just to get back to normal...
For people broadly of the right, it will be great ammunition in the conflicts ahead, so there's a great market.
But also for liberals who want to complain about excesses or keep the lefties or activists at arm's length -- again, a market there, too.
History tends to be written by the victors. I am less sanguine than many here that this is all over, so, frankly...you are one of the few of us with nothing to lose. If they take power again, they'll hate you anyway, and you'll have produced an important historical document for the resistance, and for Chinese historians of the 22nd century trying to understand how the West fell behind. (I know, I'm too morbid.) If they are defeated, well, it'll be cited heavily by every Republican for the next twenty years or so, or perhaps after.
Also, now that so much political writing is done in blogposts and other things that aren't archived (I mean, I can't go back and see what Roissy said about game in the 2000s)...I think a unitary text will be a good way for people in the future to look back and see what people at the time thought, and if you're a good writer (as you definitely are), your stuff tends to persist. Also, being a participant does add something...Churchill's WW2 history will never be the only source anyone will use, but it will always stay in print.
I don't know if it will be a leatherbound tome on the shelves of the elite or a PDF-successor circulated between dissidents on the run from drone strikes in 25 years, but either way I think it will be important.
Nice quip about the Chinese historians of the 22nd century researching the West's demise. Reminds me of the underrated movie "Looper", where in the near future, all paper currency has been replaced by Chinese bills.
But not by any organized and articulate opposition, but because it is being eaten alive by its own internal inconsistencies, incoherencies, and absurdities. Put bluntly, the message and the messengers are just too hateful and stupid for it to survive.
It’s all but over as a serious belief system in the mainstream. There was a very brief period where the median woman had a belief system that was some approximation of extreme woke. But it was untenable for the reasons you say, and it’s just no fun. There may be some momentum in corporate and academia, but it’s mostly toothless.
I will always say wokeness officially was officially over once Shane Gillis was invited to host SNL.
One consequence of the Starbucks policy that I noticed was that the cream and sugar stations were taken away and now you have to ask the staff to add that to your coffee. A small but telling gesture about how accommodating anti social behavior leads to other effects. Similarly one can no longer pre order food and grab it off the pick up racks in a lot of restaurant chains because they have to keep them behind the counter to prevent theft.
Anyway, the most overt anti-racist and DEI stuff is declining but it’s not dead. I have a friend who works at Eli Lilly and as part of his planning for 2025 he was told to examine how DEI could be embedded (yes, this is the term used) in all the work he is involved in. Mind you, he is a scientist and not in HR or an executive. This seems to be a pretty brash considering the size of the company and ripe for some enterprising journalist to investigate and expose.
"A small but telling gesture about how accommodating anti social behavior leads to other effects."
The West has been accomodating anti-social behavior since they let Susan Sontag get away with slandering an entire race by comparing it to cancer, when even by that time it could never be said about hers (of course, that's why she said it).
"I have a friend who works at Eli Lilly and as part of his planning for 2025 he was told to examine how DEI could be embedded (yes, this is the term used) in all the work he is involved in."
I hope it is "embedded." Because nothing will destroy that company and any social institution faster. Imposing DIE top-down and by force will reduce any institution to rubble faster than the DIE mob can shriek "white supremacy."
The phrase "defining deviancy down" springs to mind - for half a century we have been lowering standards in terms of social behavior and expectations and it's produced a more dysfunctional and atomized society. I wish there would be a reckoning for the people who pushed this (and there are legions) but we are also in a post-accountability age it seems to me.
DEI is corrosive but more so to some businesses/institutions than others. Lilly has the advantage of offering products that have essentially a permanent supply of buyers, plus for people with the scientific background that would be in this industry there are really not that many alternatives to the biggest pharma companies to get the level of income and security they enjoy. Now a company like Boeing on the other hand is one that I could see going under - its problems are not strictly due to DEI, but there is no question that the larger problem of making excellence in your product secondary to other goals has done a ton of damage. Unfortunately for society, either company's demise would overall be very bad - we should have a robust domestic pharmaceutical industry as well as commercial aerospace, both are massive advantages for us globally.
Yes. See the new thread about the likely result of the LA fires over at Steve's old site. The stalwart commenter "Another Dad" contributed a long post listing all the outrages for which there will never be any accountability.
I'm not familiar with the Sontag statement but offhand I would concede that the white race (I assume is who the quote would be about) has spread through local invasion and achieved widespread metastasis. Sounds like a stage IV
The white race going from over a quarter of the world population when Sontag made her famous remark to less than an eighth of the world population today and still dropping, doesn't sound much like cancer to me.
Or if it is, it's the kind of cancer you want to have!
That could happen with cancer. You have a large primary tumor removed surgically or shrunk with radiation, but the cancer has already seeded remote sites and soon a much smaller number of cancer cells are growing in a worse place like the brain or the lungs.
Obviously these metaphors break down at some point. You can't really can't end a sea (of troubles) by opposing it with arms either. Night isn't actually black. Dirty deeds cannot be done dirt cheap if you consider all the costs.
It's rather dismaying that Susan Sontag is remembered to this day, mostly for that quote, but the vastly better writer and reporter, Oriana Fallaci, seems to be entirely forgotten. Fallaci is essential to understanding the later decades of the 20th century in the West. Her "Interview with History" is spectacular. Henry Kissinger famously said of his interview with her that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press." (https://lithub.com/the-interview-that-became-henry-kissingers-most-disastrous-decision/)
Fallaci also quoted Kissinger as describing himself as "the cowboy who rides alone into town with his horse and nothing else.” Well, presumably also a brace of Colt .44s.
You can download "Interview with History" free from the Internet Archives:
I think Kissinger's disaster with Fallaci had less to do with Vietnam, Latin America, Richard Nixon, or any other of the fashionable complaints of the time than with his use of the word "alone" in the quote you provided. He was probably just trying to put his self-image in terms he thought would appeal to Americans ("cowboy"), but this collaterally implied he wasn't part of the administration he was part of, so he simultaneously alienated his collaborators—including the President—while also putting himself squarely in the crosshairs of anyone unhappy with US foreign policy, of whom there were many and very outspoken.
It was a slightly thoughtless remark that practiced politicians (those who run for actual electoral office) avoid by being evasive and tedious in every public utterance. That Kissinger was not like this was part of the reason for his relative popularity.
And yes, Oriana Fallaci was a great. Sadly, she spent most of the last years of her life as a fugitive in America from prosecution in Europe for her anti-Islam statements.
She is also a candidate for the inventor of the modern selfie:
"The West has been accommodating anti-social behavior since they let Susan Sontag get away with slandering an entire race by comparing it to cancer, when even by that time it could never be said about hers (of course, that's why she said it)."
Nonsense. Thinking that Ashkenazi Jews are not white is a peculiarity of anti-semites that Sontag did not share.. Sontag's quote was self-race-hate.
It's definitely not dead. My husband's law firm continues to double the signing bonuses of new minority associate hires compared to white ones. Illegal as all get out... but it goes on.
Wow, that seems like something that will definitely result in a lawsuit at some point. Unfortunately the only way this crap ends is for enough whites (and to a lesser extent Asians) to actually experience first hand the consequences of DEI where it cost them real money or opportunity. Far too many whites imagined DEI as this benign initiative that would never impede their own opportunity or that of their children. When they learn otherwise however, some percentage of these rubes will turn against it, and hard. It appears that leaders in both the public and private sector are starting to realize that in most cases there is no professional downside to dropping DEI - in fact it's advantageous.
Makes sense, given Baltimore's racial and political dynamics. I have a friend that works for a large midwestern law firm and the difference in qualifications for new associates depending on their racial background are pretty stark. However, apparently most of the 'diverse' associates ultimately never make partner - when the rubber hits the road even a woke law firm cannot afford too much dead weight.
I am a big fan of the approach found in parts of Europe of a nominal charge for access to toilets, something like 50c.
Madame Pipi hangs around and keeps the place clean and an eye on vagrants and no-goods.
People with male children like me can also let their children use the bathroom at lower risk.
In the 70s there was an anti-pay toilet movement. Literally illegal in much of the US.
Yes it’s bonkers.
I would heavily subsidise public toilets but even small co-payments have a very virtuous effect.
Didn't know about that, sounds awesome!
We want the book!
If you do, you should do it quickly.
Humanity moves from insanity to insanity quite rapidly.
There's an ancient book that everybody's heard of but which nearly everybody misunderstands quite grossly.
https://ydydy.substack.com/p/first-english-translation-of-the
It holds the first official words of wisdom from pre-civilization onwards and instead of being read as it was written it's regarded as a totem to be danced around, or to be mocked.
There's wisdom there. Useful stuff.
https://ydydy.substack.com/p/rambams-dream
But if you prefer to just contribute to the cacophony by mocking yesterday's oddity, you'd better get it done before the animal mass of humanity forgets about it [remember covidpocalypse? where's humanity's true reckoning on *that* particular madness?] as they always do when they turn to dance around the next madness.
We live a short while together on this planet. It's a shame that every stage and microphone is hogged by the same folk who have been hogging it ever since agriculture/adam.
You know that book I referred to? It was written by critics who were never heard IN THEIR OWN DAY, only to be worshipped post-mortem as magical entities.
But sure, mock zeus, or the dutch tulip craze, or whatever ephemeral madness should happen to have captured the attention of humanity for a few days or a few centuries.
Ignore the eternal explanation and answer.
“When America went Crazy”
I’ll buy it…but I’m afraid that writing it today is like declaring victory early in the fourth quarter.
"...writing it today is like declaring victory early in the fourth quarter."
With reason. The other team lost its mind, couldn't play, and forfeited the game.
he other team... forfeited the game."
But, to who?
The last Trump admin sat on its thumb, what makes you think this one will be different?
Agreed. Hold your victory party, but don't let your guard down.
Totally write it.
Your story should be added to a new edition of the great classic book 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds: All Volumes - Complete and Unabridged'
You have to write this book and include my story. ;) It would be good to do a post and address Starbucks' change of heart and the role that the $25M civil rights verdict for the white manager at the heart of the BLM/Living While Black Starbucks Race Hoax played. She also reaped significant punitive damages. She had been fired in the aftermath.
I understand your PhD thesis had something to do with supposed police brutality. Why don't you tell us what you think the LAPD would have done differently with a white driver under the facts of the Rodney King incident.
I visited your Substack site and concluded that the woke people are evil, not sick.
There's a massive vibe shift. Now, I agree with the guy who said don't declare victory in the 4th quarter (if indeed this is the 4th quarter - who knows?) but there is a vibe shift.
People are no longer scared to call bullshit. At least I'm not.
Yes, write that book -- it's very important to remind people what we've been through, what we're coming out of, & how many things we still have to achieve just to get back to normal...
For people broadly of the right, it will be great ammunition in the conflicts ahead, so there's a great market.
But also for liberals who want to complain about excesses or keep the lefties or activists at arm's length -- again, a market there, too.
Need a book so that no one can downplay or forget how bad things actually got.
History tends to be written by the victors. I am less sanguine than many here that this is all over, so, frankly...you are one of the few of us with nothing to lose. If they take power again, they'll hate you anyway, and you'll have produced an important historical document for the resistance, and for Chinese historians of the 22nd century trying to understand how the West fell behind. (I know, I'm too morbid.) If they are defeated, well, it'll be cited heavily by every Republican for the next twenty years or so, or perhaps after.
Also, now that so much political writing is done in blogposts and other things that aren't archived (I mean, I can't go back and see what Roissy said about game in the 2000s)...I think a unitary text will be a good way for people in the future to look back and see what people at the time thought, and if you're a good writer (as you definitely are), your stuff tends to persist. Also, being a participant does add something...Churchill's WW2 history will never be the only source anyone will use, but it will always stay in print.
I don't know if it will be a leatherbound tome on the shelves of the elite or a PDF-successor circulated between dissidents on the run from drone strikes in 25 years, but either way I think it will be important.
So I say go for it.
Nice quip about the Chinese historians of the 22nd century researching the West's demise. Reminds me of the underrated movie "Looper", where in the near future, all paper currency has been replaced by Chinese bills.
The book could read a lot like the Babylon Bee. You'll have to quote very extensively for anyone to believe it.
DEI is over by no means. I just this morning got an email inviting me to a DEI meeting, the subject of which is immigration and naturalization.
The famous “Give me your tired, your poor…” quote is included, but is hilariously attributed to Ezra Pound, Poet. So much for quality work.
"DEI is over by no means."
True. Though the tide is definitely turning.
But not by any organized and articulate opposition, but because it is being eaten alive by its own internal inconsistencies, incoherencies, and absurdities. Put bluntly, the message and the messengers are just too hateful and stupid for it to survive.
It’s all but over as a serious belief system in the mainstream. There was a very brief period where the median woman had a belief system that was some approximation of extreme woke. But it was untenable for the reasons you say, and it’s just no fun. There may be some momentum in corporate and academia, but it’s mostly toothless.
I will always say wokeness officially was officially over once Shane Gillis was invited to host SNL.
The Ezra Pound thing would be too good to be true if I had not seen similar mashups so often
Yes- I was going to point it out to the author, but I’ll let it go.
In the popular consciousness, it’s a fringe belief system that gets mocked.
Ezra Pound was one of the great poets of the last century. I'm happy he was referenced even through a misattribution.
lol yes Pound was well-known for his love of huddled masses and humanitarian liberalism...just don't tell them what he thought about Jewish bankers!
Haahaaaaaaaa! Ezra Pound, we are really dealing with idiots here.
I would read that book ten times and then paper my walls with its pages.
One consequence of the Starbucks policy that I noticed was that the cream and sugar stations were taken away and now you have to ask the staff to add that to your coffee. A small but telling gesture about how accommodating anti social behavior leads to other effects. Similarly one can no longer pre order food and grab it off the pick up racks in a lot of restaurant chains because they have to keep them behind the counter to prevent theft.
Anyway, the most overt anti-racist and DEI stuff is declining but it’s not dead. I have a friend who works at Eli Lilly and as part of his planning for 2025 he was told to examine how DEI could be embedded (yes, this is the term used) in all the work he is involved in. Mind you, he is a scientist and not in HR or an executive. This seems to be a pretty brash considering the size of the company and ripe for some enterprising journalist to investigate and expose.
"A small but telling gesture about how accommodating anti social behavior leads to other effects."
The West has been accomodating anti-social behavior since they let Susan Sontag get away with slandering an entire race by comparing it to cancer, when even by that time it could never be said about hers (of course, that's why she said it).
"I have a friend who works at Eli Lilly and as part of his planning for 2025 he was told to examine how DEI could be embedded (yes, this is the term used) in all the work he is involved in."
I hope it is "embedded." Because nothing will destroy that company and any social institution faster. Imposing DIE top-down and by force will reduce any institution to rubble faster than the DIE mob can shriek "white supremacy."
The phrase "defining deviancy down" springs to mind - for half a century we have been lowering standards in terms of social behavior and expectations and it's produced a more dysfunctional and atomized society. I wish there would be a reckoning for the people who pushed this (and there are legions) but we are also in a post-accountability age it seems to me.
DEI is corrosive but more so to some businesses/institutions than others. Lilly has the advantage of offering products that have essentially a permanent supply of buyers, plus for people with the scientific background that would be in this industry there are really not that many alternatives to the biggest pharma companies to get the level of income and security they enjoy. Now a company like Boeing on the other hand is one that I could see going under - its problems are not strictly due to DEI, but there is no question that the larger problem of making excellence in your product secondary to other goals has done a ton of damage. Unfortunately for society, either company's demise would overall be very bad - we should have a robust domestic pharmaceutical industry as well as commercial aerospace, both are massive advantages for us globally.
"post-accountability age"
Yes. See the new thread about the likely result of the LA fires over at Steve's old site. The stalwart commenter "Another Dad" contributed a long post listing all the outrages for which there will never be any accountability.
I'm not familiar with the Sontag statement but offhand I would concede that the white race (I assume is who the quote would be about) has spread through local invasion and achieved widespread metastasis. Sounds like a stage IV
The white race going from over a quarter of the world population when Sontag made her famous remark to less than an eighth of the world population today and still dropping, doesn't sound much like cancer to me.
Or if it is, it's the kind of cancer you want to have!
That could happen with cancer. You have a large primary tumor removed surgically or shrunk with radiation, but the cancer has already seeded remote sites and soon a much smaller number of cancer cells are growing in a worse place like the brain or the lungs.
Well, it could, but that's "removed surgically or shrunk with radiation" rather than diminishing on its own.
Or maybe Sontagists would claim to be the surgeon or radiation therapist in this metaphor?
Obviously these metaphors break down at some point. You can't really can't end a sea (of troubles) by opposing it with arms either. Night isn't actually black. Dirty deeds cannot be done dirt cheap if you consider all the costs.
It's rather dismaying that Susan Sontag is remembered to this day, mostly for that quote, but the vastly better writer and reporter, Oriana Fallaci, seems to be entirely forgotten. Fallaci is essential to understanding the later decades of the 20th century in the West. Her "Interview with History" is spectacular. Henry Kissinger famously said of his interview with her that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press." (https://lithub.com/the-interview-that-became-henry-kissingers-most-disastrous-decision/)
Fallaci also quoted Kissinger as describing himself as "the cowboy who rides alone into town with his horse and nothing else.” Well, presumably also a brace of Colt .44s.
You can download "Interview with History" free from the Internet Archives:
https://archive.org/details/InterviewWithHistoryByOrianaFallaciInterviewArtEbook/page/n3/mode/2up
The fact that you can do so is a sad statement on her unpersoning since her death.
I recall Oriana Fallaci's interviews with bigshots like Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.
She was awesome.
I think Kissinger's disaster with Fallaci had less to do with Vietnam, Latin America, Richard Nixon, or any other of the fashionable complaints of the time than with his use of the word "alone" in the quote you provided. He was probably just trying to put his self-image in terms he thought would appeal to Americans ("cowboy"), but this collaterally implied he wasn't part of the administration he was part of, so he simultaneously alienated his collaborators—including the President—while also putting himself squarely in the crosshairs of anyone unhappy with US foreign policy, of whom there were many and very outspoken.
It was a slightly thoughtless remark that practiced politicians (those who run for actual electoral office) avoid by being evasive and tedious in every public utterance. That Kissinger was not like this was part of the reason for his relative popularity.
And yes, Oriana Fallaci was a great. Sadly, she spent most of the last years of her life as a fugitive in America from prosecution in Europe for her anti-Islam statements.
She is also a candidate for the inventor of the modern selfie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriana_Fallaci#/media/File:Oriana_Fallaci_self_portrait_Rolleiflex.jpg
"The West has been accommodating anti-social behavior since they let Susan Sontag get away with slandering an entire race by comparing it to cancer, when even by that time it could never be said about hers (of course, that's why she said it)."
Nonsense. Thinking that Ashkenazi Jews are not white is a peculiarity of anti-semites that Sontag did not share.. Sontag's quote was self-race-hate.
"Thinking that Ashkenazi Jews are not white is a peculiarity of anti-semites..."
Reductio Ad Anti-Semiticum
The best argument against slander is the truth. And the truth is, slander is demonic and corrupt, and defiles the reputation of those who use it.
So, you think Sontag thought Ashkenazi Jews were not white?
It's definitely not dead. My husband's law firm continues to double the signing bonuses of new minority associate hires compared to white ones. Illegal as all get out... but it goes on.
Wow, that seems like something that will definitely result in a lawsuit at some point. Unfortunately the only way this crap ends is for enough whites (and to a lesser extent Asians) to actually experience first hand the consequences of DEI where it cost them real money or opportunity. Far too many whites imagined DEI as this benign initiative that would never impede their own opportunity or that of their children. When they learn otherwise however, some percentage of these rubes will turn against it, and hard. It appears that leaders in both the public and private sector are starting to realize that in most cases there is no professional downside to dropping DEI - in fact it's advantageous.
It’s a large Baltimore firm. I think people are afraid to speak out and be punished- which I am sure continues to go on elsewhere.
Makes sense, given Baltimore's racial and political dynamics. I have a friend that works for a large midwestern law firm and the difference in qualifications for new associates depending on their racial background are pretty stark. However, apparently most of the 'diverse' associates ultimately never make partner - when the rubber hits the road even a woke law firm cannot afford too much dead weight.
If it's a criminal defense firm, they may need translators and spokesmodels, and they have to pay more due to high demand.
Even in non-crim it's supply and demand. Got to have some off-color people to "diversify" your group portraits and keep Lefty happy..
Yes, please write that book! Make sure “Part I” is in the title to imply the downfall has just begun. Things will get even more entertaining and ugly.
I would read it.
Women, huh? Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
There. Think of all the MP&A I just saved you, Steve.