I have visions in my mind from time to time. I’m not literally seeing things in the outer world, but inside my skull. I don’t really make any effort to decide if they are real or simply something assembled in my unconscious.
Be that as it may, I saw Osama Bin Laden in my mind the other day. He was cautiously happy, and he asked me: why do you think we attacked you?
The answer was more or less “because your culture is disgusting”. You DESERVED to be attacked.
And for my part, I can’t say he was fully wrong. I look around me, and I see decadence, stupidity, complacency, degeneracy, and an utter lack in most quarters of that spine and loyalty which makes a culture a culture, and a community a community. We ARE decadent.
Watch this video, that I saw in my gym yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TdaXhpjHws
Ponder that while we are living like this, our soldiers are out in dozens of countries killing people, some of whom on any reasonable account deserve it, some of whom don’t, and some of whom are completely innocent and killed by accident or cruelty.
The people who manipulate this system have so enslaved us to radical partisanship that none of this can be discussed.
And I would ask, too, where are the left wing commentaries on culture, on our decadence, on our lack of intellectuality, of intelligence, of literacy? It has disappeared, has it not? Even our academics find themselves unable to say anything intelligent about nearly anything. They REPEAT. They write cant, and the lost and lonely who read it repeat it by rote, until it changes. Since they don’t understand it–since they CAN’T understand it, since it is utter and complete nonsense–it doesn’t matter when the story changes.
It is literally like being told what clothes to wear each day, and DOING IT, while pretending that you chose your outfit, which just happens to match that of everyone you know.
I remember the 70’s and 80’s. There were self identified Leftists who had at least coherent critiques. There were people talking about the superficiality of our culture even then. Most of those people were people like Ray Bradbury, who dreamed of a world dedicated to good literature.
Do you think Kamala Harris has read a good book in the past year, that was not patently political, or from Oprah? I very much doubt it. And I am very sure Joe hasn’t. He was never even remotely intellectual EVER.
But where are these people? Where are the people asking where we are going, what we are doing, who we are, and who we are becoming? They have been ritually decapitated. They are repeating the same slogans as everyone else. The smarter ones are running the cult and advancing its agenda, but nobody anywhere is asking any HUMAN questions about any of this.
There are a few outliers–certainly people like Jordan Peterson, who has become a phenomenon for speaking common sense in a world denuded of it–but far from enough. They are not part of the mainstream the way they perhaps once were. I just feel like I heard a lot more smart things when I was younger. Now it is one set of slogans shouting at another, and a concerted effort at censorship and shutting down everyone with anything unique and different to say.
I have given up trying to save the world. The world will be better for it. All the same, that is not to say I may not try and create a small oasis at some point.
I seem to have finally ended whatever it was that made me binge drink. That is progress, progress I am trying to build on now.