Author: White Whale

I actually saw a writer on “evolution” use this analogy, that since the DNA of fruit flies and humans is so similar, that the proteins really did act like virtual Legos, so that the end results of their actions only differ so much in appearance because different things have been built from them.

If we take the logic of Darwinism, you literally could build life from Legos. You would just have to add motion. They have to move, or no one formation could be more adaptive than another, but over some billions of years in a wind chamber–or water–of some sort not only would static structures be built, but living, moving ones.

To be clear, there is no more or less life in Legos than any other form of matter without spirit. You are, on their rendering, literally just the sum–the pile–of your molecules, none of which possess intelligence, or unique specialness individually or as systems.

I don’t think I have misrepresented this. I think this is literally and accurately the correct idea, applied to an unfamiliar context. I further think it shows, through exaggeration, the improbability that the DNA sequence is both necessary (clearly it is) and sufficient (which I do not believe).

The credo of the loner is “I would rather be alone by myself, than alone with others”. Now, this is not my motto, personally, but I am close enough to this to see it.

How often in our modern world do we feel alone in a crowd? Was it not to describe this that Riesman (if I’m not mistaken) came up with the phrase “The Lonely Crowd” some fifty years ago?

would involve optimization of nervous system activity, coupled with simple ideas which work to facilitate goal directed motion.

I will expand on this before long. It’s a work in progress.

It seems to me one of our biggest cultural problems is that our “media-industrial complex” conspires to prevent calm. Somewhere, a radio, TV or computer is always on, and always speaking, morning, noon, and night.

Economies have both qualitative and quantitative aspects. Socialists focus solely the latter. They focus on the reallocation of resources, while ignoring the creativeness that led to the existence of such resources in the first place.

This was Marx’s error. Like the Mercantilists he posited finite resources, which meant that as competition led to increasing concentrations of wealth, the number of people with money would constantly decrease until almost all resources were held by almost no one, at which point revolution was “inevitable”.

Practically, though–and to the frank disappointment of many intellectuals who derived the meaning in their lives from the contemplation of participating in mass violence–Capitalism does NOT lead to anything but increasing wealth across the board.

This wealth is made possible by the non-material, qualitative factors of creativity, and industriousness in the pursuit of new creation.

I will add that socialism is to society what Marx claimed Capitalism was with respect to the environment: a coercive, abusive force backed ideologically by a narrative justifying such hegemonic pretensions.

I say this often, but one paradigmatic difference between Fascism and Communism is that the former looks out for worlds to conquer, whereas the latter looks first INSIDE, making the civil war the paradigmatic Communist war, only followed upon completion by what we would normally view as Imperialism.

For me, this is nothing less than the rejection of any and all human culture that is unmodified by mutable propaganda. I have defined this elsewhere as Cultural Sadeism.

I think one reason many people seek distractions is that we are conditioned, indirectly, to avoid fully adopting roles: the role of father, of employee, of husband/wife. The basic training is that your goal in life is to fulfill yourself, and since you can never know what lies over the next hill you never commit fully to any understanding of yourself–particularly one which connects in a lasting way with others–you expect to remain fixed.

Yet, this is somewhat maddening, never resting in fixed self conceptions. We need something fixed. I think that is the role of the media: it changes constantly, but it never REALLY changes, qualitatively. You can watch TV your whole life, and never really be altered by it.

You can chase “experience” your whole life–hang gliding, skydiving, travel, sexual conquests–and grow little. I would argue, in fact, that picking a slot for yourself–virtually any slot will do–is THE best path forward, when coupled with awareness.

The Japanese consider an old stone that has gathered moss to be attractive. I tend to agree with them.

I am speaking off the cuff here, but hopefully that makes some sense.

I feel many of the psychological problems–so-called ADHD, depression, anxiety–which produce so many pill-popping Americans are best understood as cultural problems. Specifically, how do we interface with one another? How do we support one another?

To use a computer analogy it’s like we don’t “synch” properly, lacking, as we do, shared understandings of life.

Obviously, any number of sub-communities exist which perform this function in part. If you dress as a Goth, or obsess over NASCAR, or collect butterflies, or whatever, other people do it too.

Churches obviously serve as one source of community. So do the unexamined political habits of Leftism.

Quite often, I think people just need to feel valued, and understood. When men don’t get this, they get angry. When women don’t get this, they get sad. (in general).

But what you often get is the presenting complaint, which is of course related to how that person interacts with others, but also, I would argue, to the fundamental atomization of our modern society.

I will have more to say on this, but wanted to make a quick note.

After all the rain is done falling, after all the wrongs of the world have been righted, after everyone has healthcare funded by someone else, the right to never be offended, the right to force others into silence, and after all the money is gone: what then?

What is left? What will be retained of our social institutions after the radical programs of the Socialists have been implemented? What do they have in Cuba? Their religion is largely gone. Their cultural traditions have been assaulted–likely effectively–for 50 years, and they have learned to live in fear, and alone, not knowing who they can trust in a police state with informers everywhere.

What is left in Britain? The shell of habit, the outer dress of a once important nation, reduced to shambling mediocrity because they know longer know what they believe and why?

Conservatism is based upon the idea of evolution, of taking existing practices and improving them. Leftism is based upon destruction: kill them all (figuratively, as institutions, and literally in the case of complete socialism), and let the State sort them out. If the State doesn’t approve–say, of the Russian Orthodox Church, or the Catholic Church–then it will not be replaced. What remnants remain have to be furtive and cautious.

And even in purportedly moderate socialists, one sees this impatience, as with religion in particular. They simply want to do away with it. There is no hint in them of a genuine desire for co-existence. They view themselves as right, and want to wage their wars of cultural imperialism for the purported good of mankind.

Yet, again, what in the end is left? Empty shells. That’s what I see.

Henry Hazlitt, in his excellent book “Economics in one lesson”, says that the two principle economic errors from which all other derive is failing to take the long term into account, and failing to account for the effects of a given policy on all groups. For example, you can spread the wealth in the short term, and go bankrupt in the long term. You can help one group, but hurt another.

Generalized, these two traits constitute wisdom, or foresight. These words seem antique, because we are surrounded by fools who think only in the short term, and only of themselves.

And many of these fools think anyone who doesn’t think like them is foolish. The way you sort this out is by asking them to articulate for you what the effects of their ideas and policies will be on all people, over the long haul. The genuine fools will think you impudent for asking the question, try to change the subject, insult you, then finally lapse into petulant silence.