I originally encountered the term "Prog Mgr Class" at Yuri Bezhmenov's Sub. Until then I had labelled it in my own thought process as "Technocratic Oligarchy". There is one more process that is clearly apparent which I haven't seen as much recognition of. That is the splitting of costs/benefits within the context of the PMC class.
This is extremely apparent in all the modern policies where the PMC class structures policy to receive all the benefits thereof while dumping all the costs onto others, invariably working class people. This is precisley how globalism works - benefits for me costs for thee.
They: gain zero-effort wealth from appreciation, cheaper workers, social prestige, richer cultural sphere
We: receive unaffordable housing, crowded schools with NESp student populations, competition for scarce unskilled jobs that remain, lose social cohesion
In the "before times" to use W Yang's terminology we all wore costs & received benefits more evenly. I remember seeing a graphic showing GM workers were the highest paid in the 50s simultaneously as GM was most profitable company on the USA. Another showed today's most profitable business alongside their workers receiving the lowest pay in the nation.
Growing up in the US during the 50's, I felt things were still pretty patriotic as a "whole of society", presumably a continued residual from winning WWII? But this was also the period of almost zero global competition so GM, et al., and the unions had no forcing function to restrain their cost growths and quality declines, making them subsequently ripe for market penetration by Japanese and European companies with better pricing, and improving quality.
And as the foreign worker's income and skill levels increased, some focus on more foreign trade and nacsent globalization started. Plus, I suspect much of the productivity increases developed over those decades involved computerization and automation, so the labor-capital balance continued to shift away from labor, so labor demand remained lowish, along with the corresponding pay scales, except for that subset of really computer literate workers.
It is thus easy to see how the corporate/ business leaders might not have worried about the separation of pay vs. productivity, except perhaps to wonder if their workforce was too underpaid, then said workforce would not be able to buy all of the imported stuff. But the political class should have been all over this separation, and I guess they were after a fashion, but they did not present it as that sort of dichotomy - just continued class clashing.
My reading on The French Revolution is that at no point was the Crown , the Court, Versailles, The Intendants who ruled France as out of touch as our present Elites, nor as detached from their nation, nor even the most flitty philosophes. In truth they were caught in terrible contradictions, and had a decent man as King- decent and indecisive.
The Origins of Contemporary France by Hippolyte Taine and Tocquevilles Ancien Regime are two main books I read on the matter, as well as Talleyrand by Duff Cooper.
The Source for our elites views of the French Revolution are Charles Dickens and Mel Brooks, whose villains they have adopted as model.
One of the difficult taskd is to diagnose problem it's when it is systemic and we are not to able to see it, because we think it is problem with a person. Especially if the person has identifiable flaws and foibles. How can such a person be and do... This is one of the most solid articles doing just that. Thank you.
"Redemption requires more than simply the execution of your duty, even if you follow that duty to the end. True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for [your actions]... That you acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong.
You have done none of this.
Perhaps, if you had more time... but then again, perhaps not. Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all.
It is not for everyone."
That's a quote from a left-wing author's web comic that I'd apply to the PMC you describe. It would probably bug him that I'm using it here, but I find it very applicable. I suppose in some sense I fall in that PMC class - I'm a 'knowledge' (desk) worker, not a manual laborer, and I have always had zero interest in manual labor. I was always told the money was in tech or finance. But I come from a very long line of manual laborers, on both sides, so I don't discount them the way the rest of the PMC does.
Unfortunately I'm too 'liberal' for the blue collar set and too 'conservative' for the laptop class, so I'm stuck trying to figure out where I'm supposed to fit in. My hobbies mostly align with the laptop class, although they're slowly getting ruined by their presence in them (example: some board game conventions I used to frequent pre-Covid are still requiring masks *to this day* ... not to mention the spaces being more and more overrun by militant rainbow-pronoun people), while my politics mostly (though not entirely) align with surburban and rural working class folks.
On this plus side, this keeps me well-balanced, because I can talk to anyone... although I am seeing less and less point in talking to the laptop class, because they're only interested in ranting rather than an actual analytical conversation. All they want is someone to affirm their pre-existing beliefs about those Deplorable garbage people.
The elites pushed away and ridiculed the ‘working class’. Then were surprised that the WC were not having it, and sided with someone who not only ridiculed them back, but was infinitely better at the art of ridicule, than the po faced, haughty snoots could ever be.
Regarding your characterisation of Trump as a weak candidate, I think he did remarkably well given that all the forces of the US government and the entire mainstream media were aligned against him, not to mention a couple of gunmen, one of whom actually shot him.
To have carried on against the barrage of lawsuits, the massive fines, the unceasing denigration in every media outlet, the bullets and to have ultimately prevailed was an astonishing feat. On a level playing field he would have annihilated Harris. Of course, in a world where the playing fields were level there would be no need of Trump in the first place.
What I noticed in university is that some of the presumptions made to formulate free market theory aren't present in reality. The presumptions are wishes. In that vein the theory is perfect. But the theory turns to TP as soon as it leaves the page it's written on and attempts are made to devise workable policies from it. Further, as von Mises taught me in his book, Human Action the moment the policy hits the street the man on the street looks to either take an undue advantage usually in ways presented most excellently within this article or he looks for ways to circumvent the impacts of them on himself. So that even where the presumptions used to formulate the theory that constructs rigid policies are true and real, Human Action will bring them into ruin or disrepute post haste. It's almost as if von Mises was teaching us that the best policies are no policies at all. Even then the genius and perfidy of mankind would compel those agents who would be angels to make a policy. And circle we come. Trump is merely the vehicle by which we navigate another arc of the circle back to McKinleyism.
I completely agree there is a "sliding scale" on immigration - some is good, but discrimination is essential and Howard was essentially right. My Mum said the same thing to me 20 years before that, but even then she would have been considered a right wing reactionary.
But people are not toasters - is there a sliding scale on free trade, beyond a certain small amount of strategic defensive industry protection? For example, has the decoupling of productivity from wages growth been more about the former than the latter?
The social resilience/efficiency trade off is hard. Made harder by the failure of economics to take resilience seriously in its obsession with efficiency.
"The social resilience/efficiency trade off is hard." What a marvelous way to phrase that!
I understood that the early classical economists thought of themselves as studying "political economics", while by the time I took my 2 semesters of econ in the 1960's, the professional level focus was almost totally on mathematical modeling and the "science" of economics? The poor "demos" got lost in the shuffle, perhaps starting with Keynes? Until the 1990's when someone (I forget who?) began exploring the psychology of consumers? [And the word or phrase for that subdiscipline also escapes me at the moment!!]
A common response I hear from my (former) side often now is that all these working class people thinking Trump actually cares about their jobs? They believe Ds are better for all working people, that Trump is just a self-interested billionaire duping the poor slobs. (I don't believe Trump personally gives a crap about the working class, but I also don't believe Ds do either, and apparently the many more billionaires who backed Harris were just being altruistic...) For decades now, they (formerly we) have said and firmly believed that on balance, unless you're wealthy, Ds are the better vote.
Leaving aside all the trans and DEI insanity and the metastasizing bureaucracy it too deeply infuses (which is what lead me away from the Ds around 2016 and they'd have to jettison soundly to get me back), are working class folks going to come out any better (economically speaking) voting R? (Sincere question. I trust your perspective.)
Excellent question. We cannot tell until we see what policies actually get implemented. The President proposes, Congress disposes. Second-term Presidents tend to be a bit lame-duck. Picking J D Vance as his VP candidate may prove to be inspired for that reason too—Vance is a very plausible successor. It suggests that Trump is thinking in terms of legacy, which I would rate a positive indicator.
I am not keen on the tariff proposals, for lots of reasons. There are enough 1930s parallels without going all Smoot-Hawley. Resisting the CCP I am up for. Backing them into a corner a la Japan in 1941, I am really not.
Regarding resisting the CCP but not backing them into a corner: how do you see that working if done "correctly"? Denying them access to as much high tech IP and goods as possible, tailoring tariffs on selected industrial goods or capabilities, while retaining contracts for toys, kitchen ware, etc.? But not going so far as to stop oil or food transports across the Indian ocean intended for China, unless it is in retaliation for some other action they have taken (say threatening Japan or Taiwan?)?
I am certainly not the student of Asia that you are, but if the Han Chinese have this view of their "racial" superiority based on 3000 or so years of "civilization", but almost all of that history being of a very authortarian and autocratic nature, part of me wonders why we don't run a PR campaign highlighting that they have failed to achieve a society with the level of personal liberty and prosperity of the non-communal individualist West (even as dispora Chinese have often made the commercial and sometimes political transition towards more Western values, plus Taiwan of course).
Degrading their ability to continue a military build up, yes. Threatening the basic functioning of their society in peacetime, no. So, something like the things you suggest.
Just pointing out that the Chinese societies without the CCP (Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong) have done much better is a powerful point. As is the “your civilisation had all those chances and blew them”. I don’t expect great things from saying so, but again, a some grit in the sand of the autocratic militarisation is good.
LoL. Quantum entanglements for fun and profit ... 😉🙂
But a thorough and "scholarly" analysis. However, while, as you suggest, too many Democrats and their media mavens seem unwilling to look very deeply in the mirror, to read the writing on the walls, there are apparently some welcome exceptions, notably on the "gender identity" front. ICYMI, Sam Harris -- even he is a bit of a hypocrite and something of a proximate cause for Kamala's loss:
And even The Bulwark -- "Never Trumpers"? -- is willing, tentatively, to consider that maybe most transactivists are aiming for a bridge too far if not "barking mad", the more sensible view:
I've discovered since the election there is also an Elon Derangement Syndrome... A "unified theory" should be self-consistent and explain alike phenomena.
One factor I would suggest is that there is a huge emotional immaturity in these people - even well-qualified adults who effectively regress to child-like tantrums when they don't get their way- watch "The View" reactions if you want to see what I mean - or for much greater entertainment watch the Cenk vs Lichtman meltdown. (Lichtman has clearly crossed the line from analyst to barracker - hence made errors in prediction the outcome due to loss of objectivity).
Re: Elon. A transparently smart, astonishingly successful guy backs Trump. That just ramps up the need to establish that there can be no good reason for him to do so.
Yes, the emotional immaturity is striking. This is the valorisation of female-typical emotional incontinence. Something that I touch on here.
Seem to recollect the Cenk and Kasparian -- Young Turks show? -- meltdown in 2016, though Kasparian at least seems to have since read the writing on the wall:
Ana: "Not only did I suddenly see the flawed thinking of some on the left, I also witnessed their cruelty and hypocrisy in real time. These terrible traits that I had associated solely with my political opponents were obviously not exclusive to their tribe. I was stupid for ever thinking that was the case."
Though I think she's somewhat wide of the mark with her tweet which seems to have precipitated her sea change:
Ana: "I'm a woman. Please don't ever refer to me as a person with a uterus, birthing person, or person who menstruates. How do people not realize how degrading this is? You can support the transgender community without doing this shit."
But I don't think she quite understands what "adult human female" actually MEANS -- i.e., that "female" uniquely identifies those who produce ova, who menstruate and give birth as part and parcel of that definition:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Too many -- present company excepted of course ... 😉🙂 -- are just turning the sexes into some "immutable identities" based on "mythic essences" (Jane Clare Jones' phrasing), into empty signifiers. Instead of labels for quite transitory reproductive abilities.
Very true. Also perhaps intelligence isn’t what many people think of as intelligence. We may have been operating with an incorrect definition of the term.
Maybe we need to fall back on Cyril Northcote Parkinson's idea of how to select a leader?
"Wanted: Prime Minister of Ruritania. Hours of work: 4 A.M. to 11.59 P.M. Candidates must be prepared to fight three rounds with the current heavyweight champion (regulation gloves to be worn). Candidates will die for their country, by painless means, on reaching the age of retirement (65). They will have to pass an examination in parliamentary procedure and will be liquidated should they fail to obtain 95% marks. They will also be liquidated if they fail to gain 75% votes in a popularity poll held under the Gallup Rules. They will be invited to try their eloquence on a Baptist Congress, the object being to induce those present to rock and roll. Those who fail will be liquidated. All candidates should present themselves at the Sporting Club (side entrance) at 11.15 A.M. on the morning of September 19. Gloves will be provided, but they should bring their own rubber-soled shoes, singlet, and shorts."
So you are consenting that the left wing academics are more intelligent than "your folk"? This retarded caveman mentality is precisely what makes the right continue to lose and lose more ground. Academia is a consensus generating apparatus, and if right wingers don't recapture it, good luck convincing your son that being transgender is not normal, because "society" will.
A great article as usual...
I originally encountered the term "Prog Mgr Class" at Yuri Bezhmenov's Sub. Until then I had labelled it in my own thought process as "Technocratic Oligarchy". There is one more process that is clearly apparent which I haven't seen as much recognition of. That is the splitting of costs/benefits within the context of the PMC class.
This is extremely apparent in all the modern policies where the PMC class structures policy to receive all the benefits thereof while dumping all the costs onto others, invariably working class people. This is precisley how globalism works - benefits for me costs for thee.
They: gain zero-effort wealth from appreciation, cheaper workers, social prestige, richer cultural sphere
We: receive unaffordable housing, crowded schools with NESp student populations, competition for scarce unskilled jobs that remain, lose social cohesion
In the "before times" to use W Yang's terminology we all wore costs & received benefits more evenly. I remember seeing a graphic showing GM workers were the highest paid in the 50s simultaneously as GM was most profitable company on the USA. Another showed today's most profitable business alongside their workers receiving the lowest pay in the nation.
That is an excellent point. The bureaucratic mode of governance strongly encourages it.
Growing up in the US during the 50's, I felt things were still pretty patriotic as a "whole of society", presumably a continued residual from winning WWII? But this was also the period of almost zero global competition so GM, et al., and the unions had no forcing function to restrain their cost growths and quality declines, making them subsequently ripe for market penetration by Japanese and European companies with better pricing, and improving quality.
And as the foreign worker's income and skill levels increased, some focus on more foreign trade and nacsent globalization started. Plus, I suspect much of the productivity increases developed over those decades involved computerization and automation, so the labor-capital balance continued to shift away from labor, so labor demand remained lowish, along with the corresponding pay scales, except for that subset of really computer literate workers.
It is thus easy to see how the corporate/ business leaders might not have worried about the separation of pay vs. productivity, except perhaps to wonder if their workforce was too underpaid, then said workforce would not be able to buy all of the imported stuff. But the political class should have been all over this separation, and I guess they were after a fashion, but they did not present it as that sort of dichotomy - just continued class clashing.
Astonishing erudition, Lorenzo. Thank you for sharing this.
My reading on The French Revolution is that at no point was the Crown , the Court, Versailles, The Intendants who ruled France as out of touch as our present Elites, nor as detached from their nation, nor even the most flitty philosophes. In truth they were caught in terrible contradictions, and had a decent man as King- decent and indecisive.
The Origins of Contemporary France by Hippolyte Taine and Tocquevilles Ancien Regime are two main books I read on the matter, as well as Talleyrand by Duff Cooper.
The Source for our elites views of the French Revolution are Charles Dickens and Mel Brooks, whose villains they have adopted as model.
One of the difficult taskd is to diagnose problem it's when it is systemic and we are not to able to see it, because we think it is problem with a person. Especially if the person has identifiable flaws and foibles. How can such a person be and do... This is one of the most solid articles doing just that. Thank you.
"Redemption requires more than simply the execution of your duty, even if you follow that duty to the end. True redemption demands that you seek forgiveness for your past misdeeds. That you atone for [your actions]... That you acknowledge that you could, in fact, be wrong.
You have done none of this.
Perhaps, if you had more time... but then again, perhaps not. Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all.
It is not for everyone."
That's a quote from a left-wing author's web comic that I'd apply to the PMC you describe. It would probably bug him that I'm using it here, but I find it very applicable. I suppose in some sense I fall in that PMC class - I'm a 'knowledge' (desk) worker, not a manual laborer, and I have always had zero interest in manual labor. I was always told the money was in tech or finance. But I come from a very long line of manual laborers, on both sides, so I don't discount them the way the rest of the PMC does.
Unfortunately I'm too 'liberal' for the blue collar set and too 'conservative' for the laptop class, so I'm stuck trying to figure out where I'm supposed to fit in. My hobbies mostly align with the laptop class, although they're slowly getting ruined by their presence in them (example: some board game conventions I used to frequent pre-Covid are still requiring masks *to this day* ... not to mention the spaces being more and more overrun by militant rainbow-pronoun people), while my politics mostly (though not entirely) align with surburban and rural working class folks.
On this plus side, this keeps me well-balanced, because I can talk to anyone... although I am seeing less and less point in talking to the laptop class, because they're only interested in ranting rather than an actual analytical conversation. All they want is someone to affirm their pre-existing beliefs about those Deplorable garbage people.
The current academic conundrum. I know it works in practice, but does it work in theory.
Excellent stuff as ever Lorenzo.
The elites pushed away and ridiculed the ‘working class’. Then were surprised that the WC were not having it, and sided with someone who not only ridiculed them back, but was infinitely better at the art of ridicule, than the po faced, haughty snoots could ever be.
Solid.
Excellent work, as always.
Regarding your characterisation of Trump as a weak candidate, I think he did remarkably well given that all the forces of the US government and the entire mainstream media were aligned against him, not to mention a couple of gunmen, one of whom actually shot him.
To have carried on against the barrage of lawsuits, the massive fines, the unceasing denigration in every media outlet, the bullets and to have ultimately prevailed was an astonishing feat. On a level playing field he would have annihilated Harris. Of course, in a world where the playing fields were level there would be no need of Trump in the first place.
Electorally weak is not the same as resilience. He has shown himself to be astonishingly resilient.
What I noticed in university is that some of the presumptions made to formulate free market theory aren't present in reality. The presumptions are wishes. In that vein the theory is perfect. But the theory turns to TP as soon as it leaves the page it's written on and attempts are made to devise workable policies from it. Further, as von Mises taught me in his book, Human Action the moment the policy hits the street the man on the street looks to either take an undue advantage usually in ways presented most excellently within this article or he looks for ways to circumvent the impacts of them on himself. So that even where the presumptions used to formulate the theory that constructs rigid policies are true and real, Human Action will bring them into ruin or disrepute post haste. It's almost as if von Mises was teaching us that the best policies are no policies at all. Even then the genius and perfidy of mankind would compel those agents who would be angels to make a policy. And circle we come. Trump is merely the vehicle by which we navigate another arc of the circle back to McKinleyism.
I completely agree there is a "sliding scale" on immigration - some is good, but discrimination is essential and Howard was essentially right. My Mum said the same thing to me 20 years before that, but even then she would have been considered a right wing reactionary.
But people are not toasters - is there a sliding scale on free trade, beyond a certain small amount of strategic defensive industry protection? For example, has the decoupling of productivity from wages growth been more about the former than the latter?
The social resilience/efficiency trade off is hard. Made harder by the failure of economics to take resilience seriously in its obsession with efficiency.
"The social resilience/efficiency trade off is hard." What a marvelous way to phrase that!
I understood that the early classical economists thought of themselves as studying "political economics", while by the time I took my 2 semesters of econ in the 1960's, the professional level focus was almost totally on mathematical modeling and the "science" of economics? The poor "demos" got lost in the shuffle, perhaps starting with Keynes? Until the 1990's when someone (I forget who?) began exploring the psychology of consumers? [And the word or phrase for that subdiscipline also escapes me at the moment!!]
A common response I hear from my (former) side often now is that all these working class people thinking Trump actually cares about their jobs? They believe Ds are better for all working people, that Trump is just a self-interested billionaire duping the poor slobs. (I don't believe Trump personally gives a crap about the working class, but I also don't believe Ds do either, and apparently the many more billionaires who backed Harris were just being altruistic...) For decades now, they (formerly we) have said and firmly believed that on balance, unless you're wealthy, Ds are the better vote.
Leaving aside all the trans and DEI insanity and the metastasizing bureaucracy it too deeply infuses (which is what lead me away from the Ds around 2016 and they'd have to jettison soundly to get me back), are working class folks going to come out any better (economically speaking) voting R? (Sincere question. I trust your perspective.)
Excellent question. We cannot tell until we see what policies actually get implemented. The President proposes, Congress disposes. Second-term Presidents tend to be a bit lame-duck. Picking J D Vance as his VP candidate may prove to be inspired for that reason too—Vance is a very plausible successor. It suggests that Trump is thinking in terms of legacy, which I would rate a positive indicator.
I am not keen on the tariff proposals, for lots of reasons. There are enough 1930s parallels without going all Smoot-Hawley. Resisting the CCP I am up for. Backing them into a corner a la Japan in 1941, I am really not.
Regarding resisting the CCP but not backing them into a corner: how do you see that working if done "correctly"? Denying them access to as much high tech IP and goods as possible, tailoring tariffs on selected industrial goods or capabilities, while retaining contracts for toys, kitchen ware, etc.? But not going so far as to stop oil or food transports across the Indian ocean intended for China, unless it is in retaliation for some other action they have taken (say threatening Japan or Taiwan?)?
I am certainly not the student of Asia that you are, but if the Han Chinese have this view of their "racial" superiority based on 3000 or so years of "civilization", but almost all of that history being of a very authortarian and autocratic nature, part of me wonders why we don't run a PR campaign highlighting that they have failed to achieve a society with the level of personal liberty and prosperity of the non-communal individualist West (even as dispora Chinese have often made the commercial and sometimes political transition towards more Western values, plus Taiwan of course).
Degrading their ability to continue a military build up, yes. Threatening the basic functioning of their society in peacetime, no. So, something like the things you suggest.
Just pointing out that the Chinese societies without the CCP (Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong) have done much better is a powerful point. As is the “your civilisation had all those chances and blew them”. I don’t expect great things from saying so, but again, a some grit in the sand of the autocratic militarisation is good.
> "A unified theory ..."
LoL. Quantum entanglements for fun and profit ... 😉🙂
But a thorough and "scholarly" analysis. However, while, as you suggest, too many Democrats and their media mavens seem unwilling to look very deeply in the mirror, to read the writing on the walls, there are apparently some welcome exceptions, notably on the "gender identity" front. ICYMI, Sam Harris -- even he is a bit of a hypocrite and something of a proximate cause for Kamala's loss:
https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-reckoning
And Leor Sapir:
"A Democratic Reckoning on “Gender Identity”?
The party’s handling of the issue played a key role in its defeat on November 5. Now, some voices are starting to speak out about it."
https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-democratic-reckoning-on-gender-identity
And even The Bulwark -- "Never Trumpers"? -- is willing, tentatively, to consider that maybe most transactivists are aiming for a bridge too far if not "barking mad", the more sensible view:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/jen-psaki-dont-speak-to-me/comment/77952692
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/all-the-feelings/comment/78422575
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/all-the-feelings/comment/78420289
I've discovered since the election there is also an Elon Derangement Syndrome... A "unified theory" should be self-consistent and explain alike phenomena.
One factor I would suggest is that there is a huge emotional immaturity in these people - even well-qualified adults who effectively regress to child-like tantrums when they don't get their way- watch "The View" reactions if you want to see what I mean - or for much greater entertainment watch the Cenk vs Lichtman meltdown. (Lichtman has clearly crossed the line from analyst to barracker - hence made errors in prediction the outcome due to loss of objectivity).
Re: Elon. A transparently smart, astonishingly successful guy backs Trump. That just ramps up the need to establish that there can be no good reason for him to do so.
Yes, the emotional immaturity is striking. This is the valorisation of female-typical emotional incontinence. Something that I touch on here.
https://www.notonyourteam.co.uk/p/feminisation-has-consequences-i
"emotional immaturity", indeed.
You may recollect Ben Garrison's "Attack of the Crybullies" after or about the time of the 2016 election:
https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/4jl9vv/opinion_ben_garrison_are_you_triggered_by_cartoon/
Maybe a bit more "restrained" this time around, but not by much ... 🙂
But thanks for the heads-up on Cenk & Lichtman -- bookmarked for later viewing pleasure ... 😉🙂:
https://nypost.com/2024/11/20/us-news/cenk-uygur-slams-allan-lichtmans-stupidly-wrong-election-prediction-in-wild-clash-on-piers-morgan/
Seem to recollect the Cenk and Kasparian -- Young Turks show? -- meltdown in 2016, though Kasparian at least seems to have since read the writing on the wall:
Ana: "Not only did I suddenly see the flawed thinking of some on the left, I also witnessed their cruelty and hypocrisy in real time. These terrible traits that I had associated solely with my political opponents were obviously not exclusive to their tribe. I was stupid for ever thinking that was the case."
https://kasparian.substack.com/p/independent-and-unaligned
Though I think she's somewhat wide of the mark with her tweet which seems to have precipitated her sea change:
Ana: "I'm a woman. Please don't ever refer to me as a person with a uterus, birthing person, or person who menstruates. How do people not realize how degrading this is? You can support the transgender community without doing this shit."
https://x.com/AnaKasparian/status/1638608868485005314
But I don't think she quite understands what "adult human female" actually MEANS -- i.e., that "female" uniquely identifies those who produce ova, who menstruate and give birth as part and parcel of that definition:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
Too many -- present company excepted of course ... 😉🙂 -- are just turning the sexes into some "immutable identities" based on "mythic essences" (Jane Clare Jones' phrasing), into empty signifiers. Instead of labels for quite transitory reproductive abilities.
Thank you for the links - I've discovered a vlogger on YT DeVory Darkins, he's my source for these "historical receipts".
Intelligence is overrated.
Very true. Also perhaps intelligence isn’t what many people think of as intelligence. We may have been operating with an incorrect definition of the term.
Courage far more important
Yes. We have no reliable mechanisms for selecting for character. That is turning into a huge problem.
Maybe we need to fall back on Cyril Northcote Parkinson's idea of how to select a leader?
"Wanted: Prime Minister of Ruritania. Hours of work: 4 A.M. to 11.59 P.M. Candidates must be prepared to fight three rounds with the current heavyweight champion (regulation gloves to be worn). Candidates will die for their country, by painless means, on reaching the age of retirement (65). They will have to pass an examination in parliamentary procedure and will be liquidated should they fail to obtain 95% marks. They will also be liquidated if they fail to gain 75% votes in a popularity poll held under the Gallup Rules. They will be invited to try their eloquence on a Baptist Congress, the object being to induce those present to rock and roll. Those who fail will be liquidated. All candidates should present themselves at the Sporting Club (side entrance) at 11.15 A.M. on the morning of September 19. Gloves will be provided, but they should bring their own rubber-soled shoes, singlet, and shorts."
So you are consenting that the left wing academics are more intelligent than "your folk"? This retarded caveman mentality is precisely what makes the right continue to lose and lose more ground. Academia is a consensus generating apparatus, and if right wingers don't recapture it, good luck convincing your son that being transgender is not normal, because "society" will.
If that was for me, courage is more important.
As for academia 🔥 it .
See - Courage.