Moderates United

Fear plus shame equals a need to submit.  It equals conformity.  It equals a thirst for authority and authoritarianism.

Fear plus anger equal rage.

Anger plus shame equals hate.  I liked the bit Dave Chappelle did on “Sticks and Stones” (watch it before you comment, you schmuck) where he talked about poor whites in the South who told their kids “at least you ain’t a nigger”.

Anger at their condition.  Shame at their condition.  The two equal the KKK.  The two also equal the Nazis.

I am reminded, too, of the saying that “Germans are either at your feet or at your throat”.  The two conditions fit perfectly for a society which will wind up both being told what to do, and dictating to others.  That was then, of course.

I did read William Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”.  Notable in the history section was how often Germany was trod on, and by so many powers.  Trauma breeds the Satanic Three: fear, anger, and shame.

Oh, there may come a time when we all speak the truth.  Until then, I will try and speak my truth, and hope that others see it, recognize it, feel it, and benefit from me saying what had lain latent under the sea.

No time is ever devoid of the need for prophets.  Whatever else I am, I am willing to suffer for the truth, to suffer to bring it to light, and to suffer for doing it.

After all this time, I am slowly becoming used to being me.  You know, come what may, I am in the game.  I am in the game.

Might I suggest that modernist ethics is constituted by the substitution of traditional moral narratives by novel ones, and post-modernism by the replacement of moral reasoning with moral posturing?

I think this is close to the truth.

Place them on a pedestal they don’t deserve, them teach them resentment and self pity.

It is written, somewhere, that “those the gods want to destroy they first exalt.”

I am really feeling the truth of this this morning.

The converse, of course, is humility coupled with a spirit of acceptance and tranquility.

I think it is vitally important to distinguish between “crimes” of stupidity and crimes of malice.  For me personally, I had the realization a day or so ago that my parents were just really, really stupid.  Yes, in some respects it was protective arrogance which caused that stupidity, but it was stupidity nonetheless.

I honestly think it is more accurate to say “the world” in general is stupid than to say it is malevolent, or for that matter good.

This leads to the, for me, necessary conclusion that no more important task confronts anyone wanting to make the world a better place than to think clearly and act coherently. 

Be what you want to see.

https://www.infowars.com/the-suicide-rate-in-the-u-s-has-hit-the-highest-level-in-50-years-and-there-is-concern-that-it-will-go-much-higher/

So the data is taken from 2017, making the last time that the suicide rate was this high 1967, when the “Summer of (drunken, stoned, irresponsible and profligate) Love” happened.

Back when we were in a cultural civil war, and it was hard to pick sides for many.

It occurs to me the best metaphor is being a child caught in continual nasty arguing between two parents.  I’ve been there, and so have many others.  You just want it to stop.

We all occupy, ideally, many levels of social interaction.  We have, hopefully, our family and friends, then our community, then the broader nation, then the world.  I think all of us most instinctively crave peace and quiet and continuity.  We want the world to be predictable, to be roughly the same ten years from now as it is today, and for that to be something we can count on.

I would suspect the suicide rate goes up every time there is mass confusion and strife.  Chris Cornell–who no doubt wrestled with personal demons, with Developmental and likely other trauma all his life–took his life in the Trump era, in the Antifa era, in the #MeToo era.  He took his life during all the shouting and screaming.

Many people walking among us are on the edge (I am not, by the way: I feel good), and it doesn’t take much to push them over.  A swing in the overall vitriol of the public space is certainly sufficient for many.  They look at it and say: what the fuck am I hanging around for, for THIS?

And I will say, too, that for those who don’t understand suicide, I will say that I have felt the feelings that I am quite sure lead some to take their lives.  If you have not felt these feelings, you have no idea how awful living can feel.  You may think you can compare what you call bad days to that, but it’s off by several degrees of magnitude.  There may be words, but I don’t have them, and in any event, I don’t want to conjure any of that back at the moment to look at them and try to describe them.

I actually had a not bad night’s sleep last night.  I don’t think I shook, screamed, had nightmares or woke with a startle response.  OK, that last maybe once.  I am very sensitive.  Still, I think I have found the frequency in my Neurofeedback.  Maybe I will name it Kenneth.  My days are slowly qualitatively changing for the better.

I have specific things to offer people in despair, but I want to climb the ladder out first.  Only from there is a helping hand optimally useful.

I think it is useful to postulate that we all grow up with dominant social “frequencies”, by which I mean sorts of behavior, and tones of behavior, emotional temperatures and flavors–it is a complex mix–which feels normal to us.  We synchronize as children with this frequency, or perhaps frequencies, as is often the case with children who split their time between two homes, as mine did.

This frequency represents not just specific people, but the feeling of normal.  It continues even when those people are absent.  It defines what you can see and feel in others.  If you have no way to receive what they are sending, because you were never exposed to this frequency, then you will have no way of truly understanding them and connecting with them.

It is a truism that if you want to change your life you need to change the people in your life.  When this is actually good advice is when you grew up at a dysfunctional frequency, and have surrounded yourself with people who respond to it as well, in the same ways.

And to evolve, to change, to grow, you have at some point to surrender that frequency, to go somewhere else.  And what is frightening about this is the lack of givenness.  What you grew up with is there even when all the people are gone.  When you change frequencies, nobody is there at all.  You are in terra incognita.

And obviously, people can be good influences on each other, teachers of one another.  One person can gradually teach another to see and feel in a different, better (or for that matter, worse) way.

But I think this is an important point.  The specific people come and go, but the memory of what being in that place felt like does not.  This is not, by and large, a  primarily conscious thing.  It goes deep into how “life” feels to us.

People need to have reasons to do what they do. The essence of free markets and democratic methods is that the most reliable, least rotten reason is self interest. Johnson observed several centuries ago that people are rarely less harmlessly applied than in the getting of honest money.

Socialists, for their part, think we should all be idealists, that we should look not to our own good, but the common good. And who defines “the common good”? People who stand to benefit from changes in how it is pursued.

And for ideals to mean anything, they must be embraced by all. If you force people into behaviors not of their own choosing, you not only do not improve”society”, but on the contrary make it more brutal and unpleasant.

If you study the private correspondence, and public arguments, as in the Federalist Papers—it’s hard not to think that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to make armed insurrection easier, and government—out of fear of this threat—less likely to be abusive.

Think about this carefully. I believe it to be true.

If you think about it, Brexit is really a secession of sorts. The UK, within the EU as currently constituted, is much like a State within the Republic of the United States, with an important difference that they have no real Constitution, as far as I know, and certainly no bill of rights.

No reasonable person, it seems to me, could or should accept being ruled so absolutely by others so far away.

I think World War 2 really was the war to end all large European wars. If there is another one, it will be a civil war waged against the EU apparatus itself.

I’ve only had two cavities in my life, one as a child, one as an adult.  My dentist does not like my practice, but every time I go in there she has to admit there is nothing to complain about.

My thing is to clean my teeth thoroughly once a day, in the morning, after using a prebrushing rinse.  I use an electric toothbrush, use it mindfully, then use a tongue scraper, then floss.  My thought is that it takes 24 hours for plaque to solidify, and if I treat it with a rinse first, perhaps 12 hours more, which I never give it.

I think brushing twice daily, thoroughly, is too much.  That’s my own gut feeling.

I’ve recently realized, though, that a mouth rinse with baking soda at bedtime is not a bad idea.  That reduces acid while I sleep.  There’s no downside I can see.  I add it to my nasal irrigation, throat cleansing device.

My two cents.  I will remind you, though, that there seems to be a link between root canals and cancer: https://rootcausemovie.com/

I haven’t watched the movie–as I commented at the time, the ADA got it pulled from Netflix–but the gist of it sounds right to me.  This is actually a decent link.  It may be worth seven dollars.  I’ll see how the week goes.

For me, though: zero root canals, few cavities.  My dentist says whatever I’m doing, keep doing it.  I’m there like clockwork every six months, and never anything to report.

Take care of your teeth. I think this is vastly more important than it might seem at first glance.