Kind of reminds me of Lt. Aldo Raine from "Inglorious Basterds." And yes, I also prefer my Nazis "in uniform." I just wish their uniforms weren't so ugly.
The nervous virtue-signaling suggests to me that the upper-middle classes are now becoming economically insecure, at least to a greater degree than before. The professions are becoming proletarianised (subject to managerial supervision and providing less personal autonomy).
They are becoming conscious of the possibility of downward social mobility, escalating competition for opportunity and the threat of crime and social disintegration.
The upper middle classes are feeling pressured by the privileges and excesses of the true elite and the perceived mediocrity and vulgarity of their social inferiors. The display of so-called 'luxury beliefs' is reminiscent of Veblen's theory of the leisure class. It is a display of status, in this case a fraudulent advertisement of social assurance that disappeared a while ago. The bourgeois parody of Maoism is a survival strategy.
I agree. And I think the economic pressure is compounded by the twin dragons of pharmacology and 24/7 news cycles. The addiction to both is warping the way they interpret reality, to such a degree that I wonder if many of them really do believe they're living in some kind of rightwing Nightmareland.
OTOH, if that's truly how they see the world, why advertise? If the cops are a bunch of racist killers, shooting off their guns like Yosemite Sam at anything with a sun tan, and if the most dangerous terrorists are white dudes who voted for Trump, you'd think these bourgeois revolutionaries would go full underground, having strategy meetings in their basements by candlelight. That's why it's so hard to take them literally or seriously.
It's a feedback loop of delusion. The fantasy that the pale-skinned lower orders are nature's racists is pure projection, blended with class contempt and informed by malicious suggestion from the misinfotainment industry. It is very Shakespearian: the working class are now either villains or fools. But it has become conventional and the upper middle classes are conformists. People without any shared experiences in common with their social subordinates fall for it.
The effects of psychoactives (prescribed and otherwise, above all cannabis) must be profound. Add sleep deprivation, overstimulation by the 24/7 news cycle and social media, the effects of excessive exposure to artificial light and immersion in dematerialsed experience (video games and digital/video infotainment) and you are bound to get a warped sense of reality.
Indeed: “It is very Shakespearian: the working class are now [considered] either villains or fools.”
I’m committed to helping responsible “elites” become less foolish than their supposed inferiors. I receive the Washington Post’s daily Coronavirus newsletter, which gets more ridiculous by the week. I forwarded today’s issue to a beloved friend with the following reflection:
Dear [friend],
I hope you realize by now that this game show is fraud aiming to look like a farce. Since we’re in Jeopardy, I’m going with Crimes Against Humanity for 500, Alex.
Karen
From WaPo: “Lab-made coronavirus treatments are losing their effectiveness, and scientists are racing to develop therapies that are “more potent and more resistant to new variants,” my colleague Mark Johnson reports.”
Though I have nothing interesting to add, I just want to acknowledge how damn good you are! I thoroughly appreciated this most precise ethical and aesthetic dissection of woke garbage.
The closing paragraphs are lovely- just a wonderful reiteration of the kind of uplifting common sense that seems to be in short supply. Actually, it may not be, but many good people are bullied into keeping their mouths shut.
Nov 21, 2022·edited Nov 21, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone
One of the reasons I left Minneapolis. No shortage of signs like that all over the city, though Minneapolis is one of the most unequal cities in America. I wasn't about to wait for bio-weapon 2.0 and liberals telling me I can't leave my house without getting jabbed every other month.
What I did in my time in my house and garden in the city though, was to plant 20 fruit trees and 200 species of plants and mushrooms, food for me, birds and bees. I once after taking out most of the grass produced 200lbs of potatoes. I built a greenhouse out of used sliding glass doors and reclaimed lumber, that the city fined me $2500 for because I didn't pull a permit. Then when I filed for the permit they declined it, fined me some more and said they were going to tear it down, until I got local media involved. I had a stack of letters a foot tall about this, that and the other fucking thing, from the 16 years I lived there.
Then I sold it 6 seconds before the market collapsed this spring, and the new owners ripped up most of the plants and filled in the pond with the garden beds...to plant virtue signaling turf grass.
Sweet! Aw, man, my wife would dig you so much. For a while all she talked about was urban gardening. Particularly the notion of "rooftop farming" (Even though I reminded her this was the ghetto food model in Gibson's sprawl series).
The rest of your story is sadly, horribly believable. The fact that so many American voters cheer on these permit gangsters and rent-seeking vampires is even more depressing than the virtue signs.
In my novel I filled the house next door with magical "lesbians", made every house in the neighborhood off-grid/self-sustaining, and perpetrated an "apocalypse" on the city (and the world), so it's all good :)
Another example of the triumph of form over substance. If elegant *and functional* materials were more affordable and available, your garden would have been the pride of the neighborhood!
Few appreciated it when I started, but the last few years I heard a lot more positive responses and the letters from the city decreased. A lot of people I had never encountered said a lot of nice things after the for sale sign went up. A few people had questions about what my plan is. I have 80 acres now to experiment with.
I feel fortunate there's only one like that in my neighborhood. All the neighbors understand these people are kooks and treat them accordingly. They also have a sign by the door, "no stupid people allowed." Self awareness is very rare in these types.
Yes, that sounds fortunate. It also sounds like a sane arrangement; there will always be a kook who makes a fuss, and decorates their home with that fuss. That seems like a rational outcome. It's the blocks loaded with "Nazi flags" that freak me out.
I worry less about people who openly display their cult than the ones who keep it all in their bunker. After all the mass crimes, the neighbors say, "we had no idea, he seemed so nice..."
"In the best case scenario, what Woke ornaments advertise is how easily the decorators can be emotionally manipulated by agitprop, and/or their fears of losing social status if they don’t join the chorus." This is what i assume whenever I see one of those signs.
"If possible, load your yard up with topiary and bonsai trees. Stick a marble birdbath out there, or a Japanese koi pond." This is what we have done with our property. A birdbath and lots of interesting flowers, a bird sanctuary in the back yard (or maybe a squirrel sanctuary it's not clear who reaps the greater benefit).
Spot on about white antiracists. I think I mentioned it here in this substack, or else one of the closely aligned substacks, but I'll repeat. I'm kind of beige -- white if you're not paying close attention, but if you look at me closely you can detect something "ethnic" but hard to pinpoint. My middle name gives a clue what it is. One of my dissertation committee members always seemed butthurt that I didn't want to get involved in all of the special events for disadvantaged minorities, but I had no need because I considered myself basically a white guy with an olive complexion. She was fundamentally committed to helping those poor disadvantaged minorities even if they didn't want or need her help. It took me 15 years to figure out what was really going on. I am 100% certain she grew up in one of the worst kinds of racist households. Obviously it still bothers me, otherwise I wouldn't have posted twice about it.
I think I might have mentioned it elsewhere, but the worst thing about hypersensitive "race- consciousness" is probably close to what you experienced. It's not just the "bigotry of low expectations" (which is bad enough), but the gross weirdness of race-obsessed people in general. There's a real horror story at play here, where the most fundamentally racist people who've ever lived have ascended into positions of academic and corporate power, and are trying to purge anyone who sees human complexity from those realms.
Yeah, it’s worse now. When I was growing up there was a simple (non-ethnic/cultural) joke about these types; it was the proverbial Boy Scout insisting on helping grandma cross the road, whether she needed, wanted it or not!
I finally dragged myself out of the kitchen (I was cooking/baking literally all day) and your article was the first thing I read. I laughed out loud at least three times, and I am *duly impressed* by your use of the word 'synecdoche'!
Also: "Also not pictured," 6 ft. x 2 ft. porch banner that says "Vaccinated . . . because we're not idiots." (I actually saw these while traveling, in several places between Southern California and Eastern Michigan, in addition to hundreds of the pathetic Skittles banners.)
As for the lawn, we live IN THE DESERT so when my husband and I bought our house in 2006, we said, "The grass has got to go." We worked with a local designer who specializes in *landscapes for people who live in the desert* (see, I didn't shout that time, so proud of myself, no rainbow necessary). We added a Mission fig tree that is now producing hundreds of figs every year, and two big vegetable garden beds. Nature makes beautiful art.
Hey Sharine! Yeah, I haven't seen that exact banner, but I've seen similar crap. They'd probably have us all wearing star badges or blue hats if they could get away with it. Just another of our postmodern manias, linked as always to a grift.
" We added a Mission fig tree that is now producing hundreds of figs every year, and two big vegetable garden beds. Nature makes beautiful art."
Hey Mark! Back on the subject of the egregores, I just read a new book by Jonathan Cahn (hadn't heard of him before, but he's a Jewish Evangelical pastor) called Return of the Gods. He makes a convincing case that the USA is possessed by three demons: Baal, Ishtar, and Moloch. Yeah, I know. You have to read it. As a Catholic, I was already convinced a) that pagan gods were just demons, and b) that countries / civilizations can be possessed, but Cahn dives into the subject from a Jewish perspective with a historian's reading of the ancient cultures that were possessed by these demons the first time around. You will be astonished by the evidence he provides. Even explains why the rainbow became the woke flag. I had assumed it was a deliberate corruption of God's promise to Noah, but turns out there is more to it than that, going back to ancient Sumer. Highly recommended to everyone with an interest in the subject and an open mind. We have to KNOW what we're fighting in order to stand against it effectively.
Very interesting, Felix. I will check it out. I've been having a lot of thoughts lately on the subject of demonic possession, not just of individuals but of institutions. Having only read the first few pages, I suspect there is significant overlap between his theories and my own.
I used to live in Cambridge, Maskachusetts, where these multicolored slogans were everywhere. My favorite was businesses with "All are welcome here!" signs next to "No mask, no service!" or "Not vaccinated, wear a mask!" The brainwashing ran so deep that there was no hope of even explaining the contradiction (cf. ACLU saying that "vaccine" passports enhance freedom).
Further to my previous comment, it occurred to me that we are, in a sense, being unfair to the privileged wokerati or the sophistocastrati. Were they to be candid (as elites have traditionally been), they would act as a lightning rod for discontent.
If the upper middle classes were to acknowledge the reality of crime, they would have to take responsibility for retreating into safety while allowing the cities to rot or burn. Were they to champion the traditional forms of family life, they would draw attention to the fact that chronic economic insecurity now erodes discourages family formation, promotes family fragility and suppresses fertility for those less fortunate. The unacknowledged social Darwinism of the emerging Western model would be exposed as would the Sado-Malthusian agendas behind all the pseudo-therapeutic rhetoric.
Again, I think it's possible that it's purely a smokescreen for some of them. That might make for an interesting film, actually; a family trying to keep up with Woke appearances while committing all kinds of thought crimes behind closed doors.
You could never get such a film made today. Hypocrisy is not a problem IMO, without it we would all be fairly unsociable. I certainly would be.
What is truly wrong is the immoderation and, above all, the resistance to argument, exhortation and empathy. The implacability of it all.
The internet sensation of that BIPOC girl (Samantha Foss) expressing contempt for her father Donald while delivery a 'eulogy' (an ironic one, for which there is no word and never should be) simply because he was not a SJW was shocking...as was the fact that a handful of people clapped after hearing it. This nonsense is inflicting true harm...including to the woke themselves. It is coarsening people on a scale that is catastrophic.
"The internet sensation of that BIPOC girl (Samantha Foss)..."
Yes. That was quite horrific and tragic. But also instructive in the sense of drawing accurate maps of the terrain. The cult has powers. They are trivial before God, but they exist. I hope she and others like her can find their way out of the maze.
This is precisely why the ethical posture of the elite and the associated professional and managerial classes is risible: they enjoy privilege without responsibility. A regime that is energetically committed to experimental social engineering does not accept that this invariably has risks. These risks have, in many instances, been realised at the expense of others.
Take away everything that made Jenny Holzer interesting and than garify it. The aesthetic is definitely late 80s I-just-moved-in-my-own-apartment wall art. So you can pinpoint to whom this drek appeals and why.
So many great nuggets in here, but the best is the insinuation that the Woke's lifeblood and nectar is Diet Pepsi. Most of these homeowners were probably born during Pepsi's "The Choice of a New Generation" years. Indeed it was.
I love this! They're putting a target on them in a way that will stay there even after the sign is down. Also, people must realize the sign isn't going to change hearts and minds, except maybe in a negative way. Anyways, excellent piece! I like the way you mind works and grateful you share it with us!
"They're putting a target on them in a way that will stay there even after the sign is down"
Right after posting,. I kicked myself for not mentioning this part of it. Once you've put the flag up to signal virtue, what does it mean -- socially or otherwise -- to take it down?
I don't mind the rainbow signs, just like people still wearing masks, it lets the idiots self-identify. Which is....useful.
I avoid displaying anything in my front yard or my windows. I like being left alone.
Kind of reminds me of Lt. Aldo Raine from "Inglorious Basterds." And yes, I also prefer my Nazis "in uniform." I just wish their uniforms weren't so ugly.
A great piece and very insightful.
The nervous virtue-signaling suggests to me that the upper-middle classes are now becoming economically insecure, at least to a greater degree than before. The professions are becoming proletarianised (subject to managerial supervision and providing less personal autonomy).
They are becoming conscious of the possibility of downward social mobility, escalating competition for opportunity and the threat of crime and social disintegration.
The upper middle classes are feeling pressured by the privileges and excesses of the true elite and the perceived mediocrity and vulgarity of their social inferiors. The display of so-called 'luxury beliefs' is reminiscent of Veblen's theory of the leisure class. It is a display of status, in this case a fraudulent advertisement of social assurance that disappeared a while ago. The bourgeois parody of Maoism is a survival strategy.
I agree. And I think the economic pressure is compounded by the twin dragons of pharmacology and 24/7 news cycles. The addiction to both is warping the way they interpret reality, to such a degree that I wonder if many of them really do believe they're living in some kind of rightwing Nightmareland.
OTOH, if that's truly how they see the world, why advertise? If the cops are a bunch of racist killers, shooting off their guns like Yosemite Sam at anything with a sun tan, and if the most dangerous terrorists are white dudes who voted for Trump, you'd think these bourgeois revolutionaries would go full underground, having strategy meetings in their basements by candlelight. That's why it's so hard to take them literally or seriously.
It's a feedback loop of delusion. The fantasy that the pale-skinned lower orders are nature's racists is pure projection, blended with class contempt and informed by malicious suggestion from the misinfotainment industry. It is very Shakespearian: the working class are now either villains or fools. But it has become conventional and the upper middle classes are conformists. People without any shared experiences in common with their social subordinates fall for it.
The effects of psychoactives (prescribed and otherwise, above all cannabis) must be profound. Add sleep deprivation, overstimulation by the 24/7 news cycle and social media, the effects of excessive exposure to artificial light and immersion in dematerialsed experience (video games and digital/video infotainment) and you are bound to get a warped sense of reality.
Indeed: “It is very Shakespearian: the working class are now [considered] either villains or fools.”
I’m committed to helping responsible “elites” become less foolish than their supposed inferiors. I receive the Washington Post’s daily Coronavirus newsletter, which gets more ridiculous by the week. I forwarded today’s issue to a beloved friend with the following reflection:
Dear [friend],
I hope you realize by now that this game show is fraud aiming to look like a farce. Since we’re in Jeopardy, I’m going with Crimes Against Humanity for 500, Alex.
Karen
From WaPo: “Lab-made coronavirus treatments are losing their effectiveness, and scientists are racing to develop therapies that are “more potent and more resistant to new variants,” my colleague Mark Johnson reports.”
Though I have nothing interesting to add, I just want to acknowledge how damn good you are! I thoroughly appreciated this most precise ethical and aesthetic dissection of woke garbage.
The closing paragraphs are lovely- just a wonderful reiteration of the kind of uplifting common sense that seems to be in short supply. Actually, it may not be, but many good people are bullied into keeping their mouths shut.
Thanks. I agree about common sense being bullied into silence It's one of the most horrible things about living in these times.
One of the reasons I left Minneapolis. No shortage of signs like that all over the city, though Minneapolis is one of the most unequal cities in America. I wasn't about to wait for bio-weapon 2.0 and liberals telling me I can't leave my house without getting jabbed every other month.
What I did in my time in my house and garden in the city though, was to plant 20 fruit trees and 200 species of plants and mushrooms, food for me, birds and bees. I once after taking out most of the grass produced 200lbs of potatoes. I built a greenhouse out of used sliding glass doors and reclaimed lumber, that the city fined me $2500 for because I didn't pull a permit. Then when I filed for the permit they declined it, fined me some more and said they were going to tear it down, until I got local media involved. I had a stack of letters a foot tall about this, that and the other fucking thing, from the 16 years I lived there.
Then I sold it 6 seconds before the market collapsed this spring, and the new owners ripped up most of the plants and filled in the pond with the garden beds...to plant virtue signaling turf grass.
Sweet! Aw, man, my wife would dig you so much. For a while all she talked about was urban gardening. Particularly the notion of "rooftop farming" (Even though I reminded her this was the ghetto food model in Gibson's sprawl series).
The rest of your story is sadly, horribly believable. The fact that so many American voters cheer on these permit gangsters and rent-seeking vampires is even more depressing than the virtue signs.
In my novel I filled the house next door with magical "lesbians", made every house in the neighborhood off-grid/self-sustaining, and perpetrated an "apocalypse" on the city (and the world), so it's all good :)
Another example of the triumph of form over substance. If elegant *and functional* materials were more affordable and available, your garden would have been the pride of the neighborhood!
Few appreciated it when I started, but the last few years I heard a lot more positive responses and the letters from the city decreased. A lot of people I had never encountered said a lot of nice things after the for sale sign went up. A few people had questions about what my plan is. I have 80 acres now to experiment with.
I feel fortunate there's only one like that in my neighborhood. All the neighbors understand these people are kooks and treat them accordingly. They also have a sign by the door, "no stupid people allowed." Self awareness is very rare in these types.
Yes, that sounds fortunate. It also sounds like a sane arrangement; there will always be a kook who makes a fuss, and decorates their home with that fuss. That seems like a rational outcome. It's the blocks loaded with "Nazi flags" that freak me out.
I worry less about people who openly display their cult than the ones who keep it all in their bunker. After all the mass crimes, the neighbors say, "we had no idea, he seemed so nice..."
There's probably not much of a market for counter programming flags. Maybe there should be, but like on the internet, trolls are best ignored.
I suspect many of them are handmade. I know that their hearts are probably in the right place, but those flags are still ugly as sin.
I'm not sure they have hearts, since their centerpiece dogma is killing babies. Those who do have a heart don't have much of a brain.
Daiva's right. I'm not talking about the Woke, I'm talking about the counter-Woke versions.
Both are kooks, and potentially dangerous.
They are certainly "virtue-signalers" under the same general taxonomy. And they're fucking up my view, man!
Centerpiece dogma of those with handmade counter-programming flags?! Looks like the subjects you talk about are no longer the same 🤭
If you have questions, let us know.
Only observations 😇
"In the best case scenario, what Woke ornaments advertise is how easily the decorators can be emotionally manipulated by agitprop, and/or their fears of losing social status if they don’t join the chorus." This is what i assume whenever I see one of those signs.
"If possible, load your yard up with topiary and bonsai trees. Stick a marble birdbath out there, or a Japanese koi pond." This is what we have done with our property. A birdbath and lots of interesting flowers, a bird sanctuary in the back yard (or maybe a squirrel sanctuary it's not clear who reaps the greater benefit).
Spot on about white antiracists. I think I mentioned it here in this substack, or else one of the closely aligned substacks, but I'll repeat. I'm kind of beige -- white if you're not paying close attention, but if you look at me closely you can detect something "ethnic" but hard to pinpoint. My middle name gives a clue what it is. One of my dissertation committee members always seemed butthurt that I didn't want to get involved in all of the special events for disadvantaged minorities, but I had no need because I considered myself basically a white guy with an olive complexion. She was fundamentally committed to helping those poor disadvantaged minorities even if they didn't want or need her help. It took me 15 years to figure out what was really going on. I am 100% certain she grew up in one of the worst kinds of racist households. Obviously it still bothers me, otherwise I wouldn't have posted twice about it.
I think I might have mentioned it elsewhere, but the worst thing about hypersensitive "race- consciousness" is probably close to what you experienced. It's not just the "bigotry of low expectations" (which is bad enough), but the gross weirdness of race-obsessed people in general. There's a real horror story at play here, where the most fundamentally racist people who've ever lived have ascended into positions of academic and corporate power, and are trying to purge anyone who sees human complexity from those realms.
Yeah, it’s worse now. When I was growing up there was a simple (non-ethnic/cultural) joke about these types; it was the proverbial Boy Scout insisting on helping grandma cross the road, whether she needed, wanted it or not!
I finally dragged myself out of the kitchen (I was cooking/baking literally all day) and your article was the first thing I read. I laughed out loud at least three times, and I am *duly impressed* by your use of the word 'synecdoche'!
Also: "Also not pictured," 6 ft. x 2 ft. porch banner that says "Vaccinated . . . because we're not idiots." (I actually saw these while traveling, in several places between Southern California and Eastern Michigan, in addition to hundreds of the pathetic Skittles banners.)
As for the lawn, we live IN THE DESERT so when my husband and I bought our house in 2006, we said, "The grass has got to go." We worked with a local designer who specializes in *landscapes for people who live in the desert* (see, I didn't shout that time, so proud of myself, no rainbow necessary). We added a Mission fig tree that is now producing hundreds of figs every year, and two big vegetable garden beds. Nature makes beautiful art.
Hey Sharine! Yeah, I haven't seen that exact banner, but I've seen similar crap. They'd probably have us all wearing star badges or blue hats if they could get away with it. Just another of our postmodern manias, linked as always to a grift.
" We added a Mission fig tree that is now producing hundreds of figs every year, and two big vegetable garden beds. Nature makes beautiful art."
Cool
Bless their virtue signaling hearts.
Bless them, but also...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN8Z7y_QcwE
Hey Mark! Back on the subject of the egregores, I just read a new book by Jonathan Cahn (hadn't heard of him before, but he's a Jewish Evangelical pastor) called Return of the Gods. He makes a convincing case that the USA is possessed by three demons: Baal, Ishtar, and Moloch. Yeah, I know. You have to read it. As a Catholic, I was already convinced a) that pagan gods were just demons, and b) that countries / civilizations can be possessed, but Cahn dives into the subject from a Jewish perspective with a historian's reading of the ancient cultures that were possessed by these demons the first time around. You will be astonished by the evidence he provides. Even explains why the rainbow became the woke flag. I had assumed it was a deliberate corruption of God's promise to Noah, but turns out there is more to it than that, going back to ancient Sumer. Highly recommended to everyone with an interest in the subject and an open mind. We have to KNOW what we're fighting in order to stand against it effectively.
Very interesting, Felix. I will check it out. I've been having a lot of thoughts lately on the subject of demonic possession, not just of individuals but of institutions. Having only read the first few pages, I suspect there is significant overlap between his theories and my own.
I used to live in Cambridge, Maskachusetts, where these multicolored slogans were everywhere. My favorite was businesses with "All are welcome here!" signs next to "No mask, no service!" or "Not vaccinated, wear a mask!" The brainwashing ran so deep that there was no hope of even explaining the contradiction (cf. ACLU saying that "vaccine" passports enhance freedom).
"(cf. ACLU saying that "vaccine" passports enhance freedom)
The ACLU has become my go-to example of an institution "wearing the skin of the thing it killed."
Further to my previous comment, it occurred to me that we are, in a sense, being unfair to the privileged wokerati or the sophistocastrati. Were they to be candid (as elites have traditionally been), they would act as a lightning rod for discontent.
If the upper middle classes were to acknowledge the reality of crime, they would have to take responsibility for retreating into safety while allowing the cities to rot or burn. Were they to champion the traditional forms of family life, they would draw attention to the fact that chronic economic insecurity now erodes discourages family formation, promotes family fragility and suppresses fertility for those less fortunate. The unacknowledged social Darwinism of the emerging Western model would be exposed as would the Sado-Malthusian agendas behind all the pseudo-therapeutic rhetoric.
The "sophistocastrati." Chef's kiss, my friend.
Again, I think it's possible that it's purely a smokescreen for some of them. That might make for an interesting film, actually; a family trying to keep up with Woke appearances while committing all kinds of thought crimes behind closed doors.
Thanks.
You could never get such a film made today. Hypocrisy is not a problem IMO, without it we would all be fairly unsociable. I certainly would be.
What is truly wrong is the immoderation and, above all, the resistance to argument, exhortation and empathy. The implacability of it all.
The internet sensation of that BIPOC girl (Samantha Foss) expressing contempt for her father Donald while delivery a 'eulogy' (an ironic one, for which there is no word and never should be) simply because he was not a SJW was shocking...as was the fact that a handful of people clapped after hearing it. This nonsense is inflicting true harm...including to the woke themselves. It is coarsening people on a scale that is catastrophic.
"The internet sensation of that BIPOC girl (Samantha Foss)..."
Yes. That was quite horrific and tragic. But also instructive in the sense of drawing accurate maps of the terrain. The cult has powers. They are trivial before God, but they exist. I hope she and others like her can find their way out of the maze.
Well said! They rely on a “model” that allows them to feel that they have no responsibility for these problems, and no capacity to solve them.
This is precisely why the ethical posture of the elite and the associated professional and managerial classes is risible: they enjoy privilege without responsibility. A regime that is energetically committed to experimental social engineering does not accept that this invariably has risks. These risks have, in many instances, been realised at the expense of others.
It’s Schuld, goddammit. The Swedes are terrible spellers, always have been.
Thanks for the catch, York.
Take away everything that made Jenny Holzer interesting and than garify it. The aesthetic is definitely late 80s I-just-moved-in-my-own-apartment wall art. So you can pinpoint to whom this drek appeals and why.
So many great nuggets in here, but the best is the insinuation that the Woke's lifeblood and nectar is Diet Pepsi. Most of these homeowners were probably born during Pepsi's "The Choice of a New Generation" years. Indeed it was.
Thank you for sparing Diet Coke.
I love this! They're putting a target on them in a way that will stay there even after the sign is down. Also, people must realize the sign isn't going to change hearts and minds, except maybe in a negative way. Anyways, excellent piece! I like the way you mind works and grateful you share it with us!
"They're putting a target on them in a way that will stay there even after the sign is down"
Right after posting,. I kicked myself for not mentioning this part of it. Once you've put the flag up to signal virtue, what does it mean -- socially or otherwise -- to take it down?
Great point as usual, Rose.