NeoNote — Not right or left
❝❝Rather than citing examples of "rightness" being a mental illness, I think I will just cite the old idiom Moderation in all things.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
I will say that from my perspective it's not "right" or "left" that is wrong per se, but the desire to control others while avoiding the consequences of your own actions. The reasons and the justifications change, not the actions.
Just where do you think the "left" learned the self-righteous, sanctimonious posturing?
Frankly, I don't care who did it first, second, or most recently. Or what the scoreboard says.
You're playing the game, perpetuating the problem. And I have absolutely no assurance that if "your guys" win, my life will be better. Just your promises, which are worth exactly nothing based on past experience.
After all, you've just admitted that you can't stand dissent and disagreement.
If I've no investment in the ideology and your side "breaks the rules" to suppress dissent, then there is no benefit for me to support "the system" no matter which side "wins."
I'd be better off bringing down the whole mess and helping people pick up the pieces afterwards.
That's the stakes you're playing for. Not if your side wins, but if there will be a game left to play, or even if there will be recognizable sides.
So thought experiments aside, are you willing to play with these stakes?
The rules of the game mean you can't win. Neither can they. Oh, each side trades advantage with the other, but the conflict goes on and feeds on itself.
That's not being heroic, that's being damn stupid. What good does it do to protect the widows and orphans when there is no safe place to go?
Of course there are rules of the game, number one being winner take all. Number two being that the "truth" of the argument is determined by the winner of the conflict. Number three is that winning the conflict grants the power to silence dissent. Number four is that the conflict is far too important to allow ordinary people to ask questions.
This isn't Darwin, this isn't the nature of man, this is an artificial construct.
Should I go on?
I never claimed that I didn't answer. I implied you were asking the wrong questions. When anyone reduces things to an either/or premise, that is usually the case.
There you go again, assuming the only response is either/or.
You think winning is the answer.
I want to remove the possibility of either side winning and starting the conflict all over again.
Because after you win, after you put down your sword and gun, after you take a deep breath on the field of battle, I and those like me will be there.
Pointing at you.
Laughing.
And you won't be able to touch us.
Sometimes you don't have to win. Sometimes it's enough to keep the other guys from crossing the finish line and claiming their bloodstained glory.
If you think the socialists winning means that the President, Congress, and the courts have unrestrained power, then you already lost.
And they have exactly as much power over you as you choose to give them.
Either/or is a self-imposed trap. It presupposes that there are two and only two alternatives.
The greatest single expansion of the Deep State was signed into law by a Republican.
Would it help you understand my point if I (truthfully) told you that since a month or two after the handoff, I've said that Hong Kong will be remembered in history as the City That Ate A Country?
It's not a matter of free market DNA. It's the fact that Hong Kong has the most capitalist and competitive society on the face of the planet.
I agree we're talking at cross purposes. You see it as all wrapped up and I see a Gordian knot. In the case of Hong Kong, a free Hong Kong has a greater value than the Chinese military.
But for now, let's agree that we do disagree and move on.
And that is when you change the game.
Did you accept the rule set before you started playing?
Well, that is a interesting philosophical premise.
I'd agree that for most purposes, there appears to be an objective reality. From my purely subjective perspective of course. But pursuing that goes way beyond our conversation here.
Are the units autonomous? Well, that's another philosophical bit. For example, is the planet aware? Restricting our conversation to humans, are humans autonomous? I'd have to say that most individuals are not. No matter what the politics.
Are humans and specifically "leftists" dangerous? They can be, and mostly want to be. Are they more dangerous than "rightists?"
No.
As I said political orientation isn't the problem. Politics is.
I prefer Nolan's chart to the right-left dichotomy.
Politics is controlling the other.
I've spent a lifetime dealing with those who want to control others. Some do in the name of environmentalism, some do in the name of Divine moral authority, some do it for the "greater good." The justification changes, but the methods don't.
One of my biggest frustrations in today's politics is that people overlook what "their" side does even as they denounce the "other" side for doing the exact same thing.
We've reached the point where what is done is not nearly as important as who did it.
Meanwhile liberty takes a hit.
*shrugs*
My problem here is once you've won, then what? Especially if in victory you claim power and authority that you never should have had.
Earlier you told me that if the socialists won in 2020, I'll personally lose. My response was to point out that if the EEEEEVVVIIILLLL forces of government already had power to screw me on some technocrat's or politico's whim, then there is no point in me supporting your side because freedom is already gone.
Sure, you promise to fix it, you promise to Do The Right Thing, and I should believe that why?““The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.””
Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan between them escalated the "War On Drugs" and enabled the narco-state. Mandatory minimum sentences were made possible by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Wide scale civil forfeiture including sharing funds and proceeds with local police agencies was made legal by the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The 1208 program and the militarization of local police dates to 1990, although it was changed to the 1033 program and was expanded in 1996. The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law by Bush League.
This is only a small portion of things that have happened on a Federal level.
I ask for nothing except the freedom to live my life as I choose while accepting responsibility for my choices.
Who is the "right" to deny me those things?
I'm going to point out again that you're willing to overlook the abuses of "your guys" while going after the "other guys."
I want less government than absolutely necessary. What I see is a long history of Republicans and conservatives who want to expand government, regulation, and spending. The Deep State owes just as much to Republicans than to Democrats.
I don't care who is "in charge." I don't care who is to blame.
I want less government than absolutely necessary.
I gave specific examples of Republicans abusing power in ways that rival anything that Democrats have done or will do.
You are stuck on the label when you should be looking at the institution.
“Nothing R's have done in your lifetime can compare to the damage of the D's.”
Watergate.
Ford's pardoning of Nixon.
Ford's "Hail Mary" pass to save the CIA and his nomination of George H.W. Bush to director. Since it was before my birth, we'll ignore the rumors about Bush's CIA related activities between 1959 and 1964. Also before my time but I'm doing extra credit, the question remains why Bush was pretty much the one American in his generation who could not "remember" where he was on November 22, 1963.
Iran-Contra.
Changing of banking laws and regulations during the early 1980s, leading to the savings and loan crisis, the eradication of regional banks, and the consolidation of American banks and investment firms into selected giants.
The USA PATRIOT Act, literally the climax of decades old Deep State wet dreams. Start with Inslaw and PROMIS, look at the Danny Casolaro murder, and then look at what has happened the last twenty years.
I could go on and on. I haven't even touched on what happened with the Contract With America, or how the leaders of both major parties colluded and conspired against the Tea Party.
The vice or virtue is not in the label. Democrats and the left are not especially evil. Republicans and conservatives don't get a free pass because they are doing the wrong thing for the "right" reasons.
I wanted to make this about government, the abuse of power and politics in general. You were the one making the case that Democrats and the left were irredeemably evil while Republicans and conservatives were mostly good.
First, stop blaming "leftists" for the evils of government.
Second, accept that the label Republican, conservative, or "rightist" doesn't make you saints or even the best qualified.
When you've done that, I'm ready to talk about the next bit.
I gave you examples, including Republicans who actively broke the law.
As for Republicans being the lesser evil, is there a one of them since Eisenhower who did anything other than go through the motions?
Start by admitting it is a government problem and not a Republican or Democrat situation.
Stop making excuses because some of your interests happen to line up at the time.
Until you do that, you're not ready to have this conversation.
You're treating a premise as an Article of Faith Not To Be Questioned.
As long as you hold onto that, you won't believe what I say or accept any solution that I propose. Because under that premise, it's absolute nonsense and can't possibly be anything else.
Or the premise is invalid.
That is not true.
There has to be a commonality to build on, especially for deeply held beliefs.
For example, I don't think humans need to be saved. So talking to me about a guy nailed to a cross isn't really going to resonate. Likewise, unless you accept anthropogenic climate change, the notion of a climate crisis won't make sense.
As for giving my views and the solutions, I have.
“There has to be rationality.”
Since when? Empires have risen and fallen without rationality. Trade agreements have been negotiated without rationality. Probably fewer than ten percent of Americans living right now are rational by any definition except they obey the rules they've been given.
Just to point it out again, I have stated the problem and the solution repeatedly. You reject the premise and therefore don't believe me. Government is the problem, even if it is a "friendly" government controlled by people you like. As long as you look to government for solutions, you make the problem worse.
Case in point, you've mentioned several times that we need to remove the left ideology from public schools and universities. Our public school system was created in part so that government could control what was taught. Did it never occur to you that as long as schools were publicly funded and government controlled, you can never remove the ideas that you don't like? Rather than taking control of schools and universities, maybe the answer is let the schools compete in a free market. The schools that can deliver value will thrive, the others won't. It's worked for everything from rye flour to smartphones, there is no reason to think it wouldn't work incredibly well for schools.
I haven't said anything about moral equivalence.
I just don't think that we should trust politicos to store and transport nuclear sludge in Hefty bags.
Don't tell me about the "virtues" of Republicans. Tell me why, despite their claimed support of smaller government, they haven't done anything substantial since JFK.
And he was a Democrat.
You've been telling me how virtuous the Republicans are. I'm telling you that based on their behavior, they aren't. There's less than a handful of effective Republican politicos on a national level who demonstrate honor and character. It's not because they are Republicans, it's because they have honor and character.
I gave you specific, catastrophic, and freedom destroying examples of highly placed Republicans turning government against the people. Some were felonies, and some weren't felonies only because no one had enacted laws against them yet.
I have offered solutions, you just don't like what I offered since it doesn't give conservatives legal and "moral" advantages that can be exploited against "leftists" because they are leftists.
“Just as we don't want other ideals imposed on us, we shouldn't impose our ideals on others. No matter how convinced we are that we are right.”
“The only thing they are really giving up is the power to compel behavior in others.”
You can't depend on government to do it for you.
Before Trump, who was doing it?
After Trump, who will continue doing it?
And that is assuming that Trump is a net benefit, something I do not believe.
All I've said is that Republicans aren't saints or "the better choice" because they are Republicans. The evidence supports my claims.
You've said that Democrats are more inherently more evil than Republicans. The evidence doesn't support your claims.
Show me people of honor and character and I will consider supporting them.
Show me Republicans and I will insist on honor and character. Show me Democrats and I will insist on honor and character. The label doesn't get a pass.
A man is measured in the lives he touched.
BTW, mandatory minimums, civil forfeiture of property without criminal convictions, and the militarization of police are hardly minor, superficial issues.
Your entire argument boils down to government is worse with Democrats in charge.
My argument is that government threatens liberty and rights no matter who is "calling the shots."
I gave you specific examples during Republican presidencies that have led to massive abuse of power.
I am not saying that Republicans are as bad as Democrats. I am saying that government is bad and it's time we reduced it's power and scope.
Otherwise we're fighting over who gets to be in charge with no evidence that Republicans are better or Democrats are better.
As long as we have government, let's make it too small to screw up our lives.
We have conditioned generations to believe that government is all wise and mostly benevolent. That government is the first, best, and last solution. That any problem can be fixed with more money and government expertise.
Provided no one asks inconvenient questions.
Me, I think government is radioactive and corrosive. I think it is occasionally useful in extreme circumstances but only if it is behind thirteen layers of protection. I think the risks of invoking government outweigh the benefits by several orders of magnitude.
And I do not trust anyone to use it wisely.
As far as the criminal abuse of the alphabet agencies, why do you think it began with Obama against Trump?❞❞
Comments
NeoNote — Pagans and climate change
❝❝Critics have also noted that much of the science doesn't hold up and that the ten year deadlines keep getting moved.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Pardon, but that is not true. It's a very small minority of critics have publicly claimed the science doesn't hold up. As for the "vast majority of the world's scientists," that's not true either.
This is one area where what little science there is has been buried under layers and layers of politics. It has become heresy to criticize the "conclusions." And the reactions to those who do ask questions are exactly like those historical reactions to those who questioned Islam or Christianity in a less enlightened age. We should be asking why it is necessary to crush dissent. We should also be asking if (notoriously unreliable) politicos are really on the side of Earth and Nature, or if they have their own agenda.
Then we get to the science which really isn't science. It's computer models built on a unproven assumptions, including a carbon dioxide cascade effect that has never been observed either in the laboratory or in the field. The models also minimize other known strong climate influences such as solar variations and atmospheric water, probably because those can't be blamed on human activity. But no, the science is settled and Must Not Be Questioned.
Those of us who follow Earth-centered paths want to believe that we are uniquely qualified to help. Part and parcel of that is the belief that we are uniquely qualified to hurt as well. While there are ecological problems that are human caused like pollution and water table damage and overharvesting the seas and rainforests, Nature adapts. If all humans disappeared tomorrow morning at 7:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, life would go on.
We need to find actual changes that make the World a little better. That doesn't include handing over massive funding and political power to politicos and technocrats who have no understanding of Nature and haven't the slightest idea how to solve the "problem."
As a rule, I don't think either/or solutions apply. It's not save the planet OR consume everything.
Are there solutions? Yes, and a lot of them are beyond our reach for now. When we get nanotech going (and we will), I expect one of the first large scale applications will be vat-grown exotic hardwoods that are virtually indistinguishable from the "real thing" other than cost and availability. Vat-grown stone will follow. Already vat-grown meat shows promise.
And that is just short to medium term.
We can make it better without the need for noble sacrifice.
We also need to address capitalistic solutions that may work. The American bison population is growing because some herds are privately owned and managed. There's evidence that works with African elephants as well. People take care of what they own.
"Eppur si muove."
This is public science we are talking about. Public science means telling the politicos what they want to hear. In living memory, public science has flip flopped on things like forest management, eugenics, recommended diet, humans have only five senses, and the role of sodium in human biology. When discussing public science, we should always ask "who profits?"
I focus on the political of climate science because unlike almost any other field of science, dissent is not allowed. It's not merely a matter of dismissing results, it's discrediting the researchers who don't toe the line.
For most of the 20th Century, we humans have treated Science as the new god. We forget we know much less than we think we know. We forget that science is a process and not an absolute. I just keep remembering a commercial I heard on an old-time radio recording. "Eight out of ten doctors recommend Lucky Strikes for their patients who smoke."
I'd probably ignore the whole mess except governments are demanding tremendous power to Act Now despite having no real solutions. And of course, it's too urgent for debate or to submit to public vote.
I am not anti-science.
I really don't want to turn this into a long debate on climate science or government power.
What I'd like is for people to ask more questions. Why the goalposts for action keep moving. Just what is supposed to be done and how much of an effect it should have. What will be done if the predictions fail to predict.WhileWhy neopagans of all people are treating this as an Absolute Revelation when we know that the World does things we don't expect.
Why we can't start with simple things like planting more trees.
I think asking these questions is important.
It's the political aspect that worries me. I won't kid you, the extreme climate change crowd are a major inspiration for what I call the True Believer™.
I think the science could work itself out, but partial conclusions and unproven techniques have been placed front and center of an agenda that has very little to do with saving the planet.““The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.””
*shrugs*
Like I said, if it wasn't for the politician's rush to do something now, and incidentally completely remake every social structure and institution, I'd be content to sit this one out.
I've done more than a little research on this subject over the years. I've written about it quite a bit. I'm notorious in some circles for being the pagan that doesn't embrace the climate change panic.
But more and more I see this as political. It's not the scientists who are making the noise. It's not the scientists who are calling for massive financial and social changes. And it's not the scientists who want to punish "climate deniers."
I've no problem with bottom up changes providing better alternatives.
I've every problem with unquestioned top down solutions imposed by force.
I firmly believe that there are two phrases which have done more to shape humanity and human history than anything else.
The first is Let me help.
The second is I can do better than that!
Can you name another topic where "science" is defined by consensus rather than it's ability to predict?
Science isn't neutral. Science is a process. As a process, it shouldn't be treated as a conclusion.
The Brontosaurus was, wasn't, and then was again. Our perspective changed, our acceptance changed, but those old bones didn't.
No one is measuring the value of plate tectonics by how many people agree with it. Validity is measured by how well the theory explains observed phenomena and predicts what will happen.
Yet when it comes to climate change, there is always an overwhelming percentage of consent consensus cited, as if this measures validity.❞❞
Practical politics
Thursday - 13Dec2018 Filed in: Quotes & Thinkums&Politics
Australian government passes controversial world-first anti-encryption law amid broad criticism
Read More...NeoNotes — Consider historical context to violence
What is to stop someone else from deciding that it's a good cause to thump you over the head? Once the excuses start, what's to protect you from the politics of the day?
Read More...Defending scoundrels
Tuesday - 22Aug2017 Filed in: Quotes & Thinkums
““The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.””
— H. L. Mencken
“Isaiah's Job”
Isaiah's Jobby Albert Jay Nock
One evening last autumn, I sat long hours with a European acquaintance while he expounded a political-economic doctrine which seemed sound as a nut and in which I could find no defect. At the end, he said with great earnestness: “I have a mission to the masses. I feel that I am called to get the ear of the people. I shall devote the rest of my life to spreading my doctrine far and wide among the population. What do you think?”
An embarrassing question in any case, and doubly so under the circumstances, because my acquaintance is a very learned man, one of the three or four really first-class minds that Europe produced in his generation; and naturally I, as one of the unlearned, was inclined to regard his lightest word with reverence amounting to awe. Still, I reflected, even the greatest mind can not possibly know everything, and I was pretty sure he had not had my opportunities for observing the masses of mankind, and that therefore I probably knew them better than he did. So I mustered courage to say that he had no such mission and would do well to get the idea out of his head at once; he would find that the masses would not care two pins for his doctrine, and still less for himself, since in such circumstances the popular favourite is generally some Barabbas. I even went so far as to say (he is a Jew) that his idea seemed to show that he was not very well up on his own native literature. He smiled at my jest, and asked what I meant by it; and I referred him to the story of the prophet Isaiah.
It occurred to me then that this story is much worth recalling just now when so many wise men and soothsayers appear to be burdened with a message to the masses. Dr. Townsend has a message, Father Coughlin has one, Mr. Upton Sinclair, Mr. Lippmann, Mr.Chase and the planned economy brethren, Mr. Tugwell and the New Dealers, Mr. Smith and Liberty Leaguers — the list is endless. I can not remember a time when so many energumens were so variously proclaiming the Word to the multitude and telling them what they must do to be saved. This being so, it occurred to me, as I say, that the story of Isaiah might have something in it to steady and compose the human spirit until this tyranny of windiness is overpast. I shall paraphrase the story in our common speech, since it has to be pieced out from various sources; and insasmuch as respectable scholars have thought fit to put out a whole new version of the Bible in the American vernacular, I shall take shelter behind them, if need be, against the charge of dealing irreverently with the Sacred Scriptures.
The prophet's career began at the end of King Uzziah's reign, say about 740 B.C. This reign was uncommonly long, almost half a century, and apparently prosperous. It was one of those prosperous reigns, however — like the reign of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, or the administration of Eubulus at Athens, or of Mr. Coolidge at Washington — where at the end the prosperity suddenly peters out and things go by the board with a resounding crash.
In the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet to go out and warn the people of the wrath to come. “Tell them what a worthless lot they are.” He said, “Tell them what is wrong, and why and what is going to happen unless they have a change of heart and straighten up. Don't mince matters. Make it clear that they are positively down to their last chance. Give it to them good and strong and keep on giving it to them. I suppose perhaps I ought to tell you,” He added, “that it won't do any good. The official class and their intelligentsia will turn up their noses at you and the masses will not even listen. They will all keep on in their own ways until they carry everything down to destruction, and you will probably be lucky if you get out with your life.”
Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job — in fact, he had asked for it — but the prospect put a new face on the situation. It raised the obvious question: Why, if all that were so — if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start — was there any sense in starting it? “Ah,” the Lord said, “you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it.”
Apparently, then, if the Lord's word is good for anything, — I do not offer any opinion about that, — the only element in Judean society that was particularly worth bothering about was the Remnant. Isaiah seems finally to have got it through his head that this was the case; that nothing was to be expected from the masses, but that if anything substantial were ever to be done in Judea, the Remnant would have to do it. This is a very striking and suggestive idea; but before going on to explore it, we need to be quite clear about our terms. What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?
As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, labouring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass-man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.
The picture which Isaiah presents of the Judean masses is most unfavorable, In his view, the mass-man — be he high or be he lowly, rich or poor, prince or pauper — gets off very badly. He appears as not only weak-minded and weak-willed, but as by consequence knavish, arrogant, grasping, dissipated, unprincipled, unscrupulous. The mass-woman also gets off badly, as sharing all the mass-man's untoward qualities, and contributing a few of her own in the way of vanity and laziness, extravagance and foible.The list of luxury-products that she patronized is interesting; it calls to mind the women's page of a Sunday newspaper in 1928, orthe display set forth in one of our professedly “smart” periodicals. In another place, Isaiah even recalls the affectations that we used to know by the name “flapper gait” andthe “debutante slouch.” It may be fair to discount Isaiah's vivacity a little for prophetic fervour; after all, since his real job was not to convert the masses but to brace and reassure the Remnant, he probably felt that he might lay it on indiscriminately and as thick as he liked — in fact, that he was expected to do so. But even so, the Judean mass-man must have been a most objectionable individual, and the mass-woman utterly odious.
If the modern spirit, whatever that may be, is disinclined towards taking the Lord's word at its face value (as I hear is the case), we may observe that Isaiah's testimony to the character of the masses has strong collateral support from respectable Gentile authority. Plato lived into the administration of Eubulus, when Athens was at the peak of its jazz-and-paper era, and he speaks of the Athenian masses with all Isaiah's fervency, even comparing them to a herd of ravenous wild beasts. Curiously, too, he applies Isaiah's own word remnant to the worthier portion of Athenian society; "there is but a very small remnant," he says, of those who possess a saving force of intellect and force of character — too small, preciously as to Judea, to be of any avail against the ignorant and vicious preponderance of the masses.
But Isaiah was a preacher and Plato a philosopher; and we tend to regard preachers and philosophers rather as passive observers of the drama of life than as active participants. Hence in a matter of this kind their judgment might be suspected of being a little uncompromising, a little acrid, or as the French say, saugrenu. We may therefore bring forward another witness who was preeminently a man of affairs, and whose judgment can not lie under this suspicion. Marcus Aurelius was ruler of the greatest of empires, and in that capacity he not only had the Roman mass-man under observation, but he had him on his hands twenty-four hours a day for eighteen years. What he did not know about him was not worth knowing and what he thought of him is abundantly attested on almost every page of the little book of jottings which he scribbled offhand from day to day, and which he meant for no eye but his own ever to see.
This view of the masses is the one that we find prevailing at large among the ancient authorities whose writings have come down to us. In the eighteenth century, however, certain European philosophers spread the notion that the mass-man, in his natural state, is not at all the kind of person that earlier authorities made him out to be, but on the contrary, that he is a worthy object of interest. His untowardness is the effect of environment, an effect for which “society” is somehow responsible. If only his environment permitted him to live according to his lights, he would undoubtedly show himself to be quite a fellow; and the best way to secure a more favourable environment for him would be to let him arrange it for himself. The French Revolution acted powerfully as a springboard for this idea, projecting its influence in all directions throughout Europe.
On this side of the ocean a whole new continent stood ready for a large-scale experiment with this theory. It afforded every conceivable resource whereby the masses might develop a civilization made in their own likeness and after their own image. There was no force of tradition to disturb them in their preponderance, or to check them in a thoroughgoing disparagement of the Remnant. Immense natural wealth, unquestioned predominance, virtual isolation, freedom from external interference and the fear of it, and, finally, a century and a half of time — such are the advantages which the mass-man has had in bringing forth a civilization which should set the earlier preachers and philosophers at naught in their belief that nothing substantial can be expected from the masses, but only from the Remnant.
His success is unimpressive. On the evidence so far presented one must say, I think, that the mass-man's conception of what life has to offer, and his choice of what to ask from life, seem now to be pretty well what they were in the times of Isaiah and Plato; and so too seem the catastrophic social conflicts and convulsions in which his views of life and his demands on life involve him. I do not wish to dwell on this, however, but merely to observe that the monstrously inflated importance of the masses has apparently put all thought of a possible mission to the Remnant out of the modern prophet's head. This is obviously quite as it should be, provided that the earlier preachers and philosophers were actually wrong, and that all final hope of the human race is actually centred in the masses. If, on the other hand, it should turn out that the Lord and Isaiah and Plato and Marcus Aurelius were right in their estimate of the relative social value of the masses and the Remnant, the case is somewhat different. Moreover, since with everything in their favour the masses have so far given such an extremely discouraging account of themselves, it would seem that the question at issue between these two bodies of opinion might most profitably be reopened.
But without following up this suggestion, I wish only, as I said, to remark the fact that as things now stand Isaiah's job seems rather to go begging. Everyone with a message nowadays is, like my venerable European friend, eager to take it to the masses. His first, last and only thought is of mass-acceptance and mass-approval. His great care is to put his doctrine in such shape as will capture the masses' attention and interest. This attitude towards the masses is so exclusive, so devout, that one is reminded of the troglodytic monster described by Plato, and the assiduous crowd at the entrance to its cave, trying obsequiously to placate it and win its favour, trying to interpret its inarticulate noises, trying to find out what it wants, and eagerly offering it all sorts of things that they think might strike its fancy.
The main trouble with all this is its reaction upon the mission itself. It necessitates an opportunist sophistication of one's doctrine, which profoundly alters its character and reduces it to a mere placebo. If, say, you are a preacher, you wish to attract as large a congregation as you can, which means an appeal to the masses; and this, in turn, means adapting the terms of your message to the order of intellect and character that the masses exhibit. If you are an educator, say with a college on your hands, you wish to get as many students as possible, and you whittle down your requirements accordingly. If a writer, you aim at getting many readers; if a publisher, many purchasers; if a philosopher, many disciples; if a reformer, many converts; if a musician, many auditors; and so on. But as we see on all sides, in the realization of these several desires, the prophetic message is so heavily adulterated with trivialities, in every instance, that its effect on the masses is merely to harden them in their sins. Meanwhile, the Remnant, aware of this adulteration and of the desires that prompt it, turn their backs on the prophet and will have nothing to do with him or his message.
Isaiah, on the other hand, worked under no such disabilities. He preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favour, and answerable only to his august Boss.
If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants. They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedius business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one's resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. The prophet of the American masses must aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste and character among 120,000,000 people; and this is a distressing task. The prophet of the Remnant, on the contrary, is in the enviable position of Papa Haydn in the household of Prince Esterhazy. All Haydn had to do was keep forking out the very best music he knew how to produce, knowing it would be understood and appreciated by those for whom he produced it, and caring not a button what anyone else thought of it; and that makes a good job.
In a sense, nevertheless, as I have said, it is not a rewarding job. If you can tough the fancy of the masses, and have the sagacity to keep always one jump ahead of their vagaries and vacillations, you can get good returns in money from serving the masses, and good returns also in a mouth-to-ear type of notoriety:
Digito monstrari et dicier, Hic est!
We all know innumerable politicians, journalists, dramatists, novelists and the like, who have done extremely well by themselves in these ways. Taking care of the Remnant, on the contrary, holds little promise of any such rewards. A prophet of the Remnant will not grow purse-proud on the financial returns from his work, nor is it likely that he will get any great reknown out of it. Isaiah's case was exceptional to this second rule, and there are others, but not many.
It may be thought, then, that while taking care of the Remnant is no doubt a good job, it is not an especially interesting job because it is as a rule so poorly paid. I have my doubts about this. There are other compensations to be got out of a job besides money and notoriety, and some of them seem substantial enough to be attractive. Many jobs which do not pay well are yet profoundly interesting, as, for instance, the job of research student in the sciences is said to be; and the job of looking after the Remnant seems to me, as I have surveyed it for many years from my seat in the grandstand, to be as interesting as any that can be found int he world.
What chiefly makes it so, I think, is that in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those — dead sure, as our phrase is — but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else.You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you.Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness; and this, I should say, is just the condition calculated most effectively to pique the interest of any prophet who is properly gifted with the imagination, insight and intellectual curiosity necessary to a successful pursuit of his trade.
The fascination and the despair of the historian, as he looks back upon Isaiah's Jewry, upon Plato's Athens, or upon Rome of theAntonines, is the hope of discovering and laying bare the"substratum of right-thinking and well-doing" which he knows must have existed somewhere in those societies because no kind of collective life can possibly go on without it. He finds tantalizing intimations of it here and there in many places, as in the Greek Anthology, in the scrapbook of Aulus Gellius, in the poems of Ausonius, and in the brief and touching tribute, Bene merenti, bestowed upon the unknown occupants of Roman tombs. But these are vague and fragmentary; they lead him nowhere in his search for some kind of measure on this substratum, but merely testify to what he already knew a priori — that the substratum did somewhere exist. Where it was, how substantial it was, what its power of self-assertion and resistance was — of all this they tell him nothing.
Similarly, when the historian of two thousand years hence, or two hundred years, looks over the available testimony to the quality of our civilization and tries to get any kind of clear, competent evidence concerning the substratum of right-thinking and well-doing which he knows must have been here, he will have a devil of a time finding it. When he has assembled all he can and has made even a minimum allowance for speciousness, vagueness, and confusion of motive, he will sadly acknowledge that his net result is simply nothing. A Remnant were here, building a substratum like coral insects; so much he knows, but he will find nothing to put him on the track of who and where and how many they were and what their work was like.
Concerning all this, too, the prophet of the present knows precisely as much and as little as the historian of the future; and that, I repeat, is what makes his job seem to me so profoundly interesting. One of the most suggestive episodes recounted in the Bible is that of prophet's attempt — the only attempt of the kind on the record, I believe — to count up the Remnant. Elijah had fled from persecution into the desert, where the Lord presently overhauled him and asked what he was doing so far away from his job. He said that he was running away, not because he was a coward, but because all the Remnant had been killed off except himself. He had got away only by the skin of his teeth, and, he being now all the Remnant there was, if he were killed the True Faith would go flat. The Lord replied that he need not worry about that, for even without him the True Faith could probably manage to squeeze along somehow if it had to; “and as for your figures on the Remnant,” He said, “I don't mind telling you that there are seven thousand of them back there in Israel whom it seems you have not heard of, but you may take My word for it that there they are.”
At that time, probably the population of Israel could not run to much more than a million or so; and a Remnant of seven thousand out of a million is a highly encouraging percentage for any prophet. With seven thousand of the boys on his side, there was no great reason for Elijah to feel lonesome; and incidentally, that would be something for the modern prophet of the Remnant to think of when he has a touch of the blues. But the main point is that if Elijah the Prophet could not make a closer guess on the number of of the Remnant than he made when he missed it by seven thousand, anyone else who tackled the problem would only waste his time.
The other certainty which the prophet of the Remnant may always have is that the Remnant will find him. He may rely on that with absolute assurance. They will find him without his doing anything about it; in fact, if he tries to do anything about it, he is pretty sure to put them off. He does not need to advertise for them nor resort to any schemes of publicity to get their attention. If he is a preacher or a public speaker, for example, he may be quite indifferent to going on show at receptions, getting his picture printed in the newspapers, or furnishing autobiographical material for publication on the side of “human interest”. If a writer, he need not make a point of attending any pink teas, autographing books at wholesale, nor entering into any specious freemasonry with reviewers. All this and much more of the same order lies in the regular and necessary routine laid down for the prophet of the masses; it is, and must be, part of the great general technique of getting the mass-man's ear — or as our vigorous and excellent publicist, Mr. H. L. Mencken, puts it, the technique of boob-bumping. The prophet of the Remnant is not bound to this technique. He may be quite sure that the Remnant will make their own way to him without any adventitious aids; and not only so, but if they find him employing any such aids, as I said, it is ten to one that they will smell a rat in them and will sheer off.
The certainty that the Remnant will find him, however, leaves the prophet as much in the dark as ever, as helpless as ever in the matter of putting any estimate of any kind upon the Remnant; for, as appears in the case of Elijah, he remains ignorant of who they are that have found him or where they are or how many. They did not write in and tell him about it, after the manner of those who admire the vedettes of Hollywood, nor yet do they seek him out and attach themselves to his person. They are not that kind. They take his message much as drivers take the directions on a roadside signboard — that is, with very little thought about the signboard, beyond being gratefully glad that it happened to be there, but with every thought about the directions.
This impersonal attitude of the Remnant wonderfully enhances the interest of the imaginative prophet's job. Once in a while, just about often enough to keep his intellectual curiosity in good working order, he will quite accidentally come upon some distinct reflection of his own message in an unsuspected quarter. This enables him to entertain himself in his leisure moments with agreeable speculations about the course his message may have taken in reaching that particular quarter, and about what came of it after it got there. Most interesting of all are those instances, if one could only run them down (but one may always speculate about them), where the recipient himself no longer knows where nor when nor from whom he got the message — or even where, as sometimes happens, he has forgotten that he got it anywhere and imagines that it is all a self-sprung idea of his own.
Such instances as these are probably not infrequent, for, without presuming to enroll ourselves among the Remnant, we can all no doubt remember having found ourselves suddenly under the influence of an idea, the source of which we cannot possibly identify. “It came to us afterward,” as we say; that is, we are aware of it only after it has shot up full-grown in our minds, leaving us quite ignorant of how and when and by what agency it was planted there and left to germinate. It seems highly probable that the prophet's message often takes some such course with the Remnant.
If, for example, you are a writer or a speaker or a preacher, you put forth an idea which lodges in the Unbewusstsein of a casual member of the Remnant and sticks fast there. For some time it is inert; then it begins to fret and fester until presently it invades the man's conscious mind and, as one might say, corrupts it. Meanwhile, he has quite forgotten how he came by the idea in the first instance, and even perhaps thinks he has invented it; and in those circumstances, the most interesting thing of all is that you never know what the pressure of that idea will make him do.
For these reasons it appears to me that Isaiah's job is not only good but also extremely interesting; and especially so at the present time when nobody is doing it. If I were young and had the notion of embarking in the prophetical line, I would certainly take up this branch of the business; and therefore I have no hesitation about recommending it as a career for anyone in that position. It offers an open field, with no competition; our civilization so completely neglects and disallows the Remnant that anyone going in with an eye single to their service might pretty well count on getting all the trade there is.
Even assuming that there is some social salvage to be screened out of the masses, even assuming that the testimony of history to their social value is a little too sweeping, that it depresses hopelessness a little too far, one must yet perceive, I think, that the masses have prophets enough and to spare. Even admitting that in the teeth of history that hope of the human race may not be quite exclusively centred in the Remnant, one must perceive that they have social value enough to entitle them to some measure of prophetic encouragement and consolation, and that our civilization allows them none whatever. Every prophetic voice is addressed to the masses, and to them alone; the voice of the pulpit, the voice of education, the voice of politics, of literature, drama, journalism — all these are directed towards the masses exclusively, and they marshal the masses in the way that they are going.
One might suggest, therefore, that aspiring prophetical talent may well turn to another field. Sat patriae Priamoque datum — whatever obligation of the kind may be due the masses is already monstrously overpaid. So long as the masses are taking up the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, their images, and following the star of their god Buncombe, they will have no lack of prophets to point the way that leadeth to the More Abundant Life; and hence a few of those who feel the prophetic afflatus might do better to apply themselves to serving the Remnant. It is a good job, an interesting job, much more interesting than serving the masses; and moreover it is the only job in our whole civilization, as far as I know, that offers a virgin field.
“The Nature of Liberty”
Thursday - 17Nov2016 Filed in: American classic&Morality & Modern Life&Law&Liberty&Quotes & Thinkums
Ideas
Monday - 24Oct2016 Filed in: Quotes & Thinkums&Law