Christianity

[Harbal]

REMINDER

Could those wishing to be critiqued by Alexis Jacobi this week please submit their application by 12 noon, Wednesday, 25th Jan.

Thank you.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Sure, make this all about me.

And the Fowles quote revolves around the manner in which I am myself "fractured and fragmented" in regard to moral and political value judgments. And in my belief that in a No God world my own existence itself is essentially meaningless and purposeless.

Numerous pages back now, I told you that if you want to converse with me you'd have to both slow down and show more seriousness in relation to those questions and issues which are so fraught and problematic in our present. I also said that you could get what you want from me -- to the degree that you are up-front and honest about what you are up to.

But where I would start is definitely by making it also about you. That is very different from saying 'all of only about you'. But what is *you*? Who is this person with these strangely formed, or malformed, ideological problems? That is certainly a good question to ask insofar as you clearly wish to assume a role of 'moral judge'.

I said that to talk to me you will have to amend your ways. That means you are going to have to be willing to examine yourself as subject. Similarly to demands made on Immanuel Can. The question I have is What is this moral imperiousness that empowers you to think and believe that your particular assessments are the right ones? What is its origin? What empowers it and gives it life?

Given your recent performances I have a strong sense that you will shoot back and make references to 'wiggling' (not agreeing to your condemnatory approach) and remaining up in intellectual heights instead of getting down on the ground which, for you, means constructing a Nazi-like regime and state. Your entire premise is ridiculous, in my view, and your tactic is non-different from argument games that are played with gusto in our culture in our present. Because you demonstrate that you too play these games you implicate yourself in ways that I think it fair to identify and call out.

So two statements I will make: One is that you are for me the subject to be examined. And two is that the best method for that examination is an intellectual and philosophical one. If you say "No! I want you to reveal a social cleansing plan and I want you to talk about internment camps and also about how the millions of bodies will be disposed of" -- this is in fact what your *argument* and your entire presentation resolves into, it is there, right there, that you have made yourself a subject necessarily.

So what is going on in you?

But if you interject here and say "No! I refuse to let you off the hook! YOU are the subject here and I am inquiring of you!" I will then respond and say "Except I am not making any recommendations at all and I am not involved in political praxis or in implementing any 'programs'". And if you then ask "Why?! Why are you not building internment centers?! Why have you not contracted out for the body disposal systems?! How bloodless of you?! Won't you 'grow a pair"? At that point I will simply recommend that you try to find a therapist or in any case some interlocutor who can help you with your problems.

Is this making any sense to you? Given your recent performances I can't imagine that it is. But one can hope, no?

So now I am going to tell you how I orient myself in relation to all the problematic issues and questions. Are you ready? I see myself as being in a process of seeking out and considering the ideas and viewpoints of people who think very very differently from how I do. In a process means I am doing that, not that I have concluded it. So for example if I refer to Shockley by the reference it does not mean that I am advocating Shockley's ideas or using him as a conversational proxy. The same can be said if for example I make a reference to Noam Chomsky. But the list of people who I have bothered to read first-hand is extensive and in fact that in itself is some part of my 'platform' in these conversations: My view is that it is imperative to read widely and to be familiar with how people, other people with very different ideas about things, think.

And my primary assertion is that one must read them first-hand and avoid relying on opinions formed about them buy others. Note that you made what I consider a cardinal mistake and that this mistake flags you. You submitted Wiki articles that frame a topic or person in a morally condemnatory light. For others, perhaps, there would be no issue here as such tactics are common. But for me that is not the case. It is necessary in my view to have read Shockley, Chomsky, Duke and even Hitler yourself before you can fairly offer commentary on any of them.

So I also notice that when you refer (as you bombastically do!) to the National Socialist state you make a related error that is, again in my view, even more egregious. The phenomenon of fascism; the two European wars; the political empire-related power-games that determined these events -- all of these events are complex and also were co-created. The actual examination of the history reveals a significantly different picture than the 'popular version' you seem to work with. That view is based on a Manichaean reduction into a pole of 'good' and a pole of 'evil'. Obviously then your reference to Nazi and Hitler functions in your argumentation [sic] in this crass and simplistic manner. Is this making any sense to you?

Again, based on your recent performances I cannot see how you'd manage to turn things around. The dogs have left the starting gate and they are quite a ways down the track, no?

So then now you may have a glimmer as to why *you* become the subject.

You are (in my view) an outcome of a whole set of causal factors, circumstances, decisions, assessments and all of these things are part-and-parcel of the emergence of a person (a subject) who thinks like you do, reacts like you do, evinces the same moral imperiousness as you do, and as such you are a person (in my view) who shows himself incapable and in fact not interested in clear thinking and reasonable statement-making. That is why I use terms like *hopped-up* and *hysterical* in reference to you.

So with that said let me make a general statement about all those issues that are so concerning to you -- as a man without a defined morality and as one who bizarrely declares himself on the outside of that decisiveness while demonstrating acute involvement in the same seemingly without noticing it.

In my view all the issues that have come up today need to be examined closely and with care in order to understand how the people who form the ideas have come to make the choices that they do make. I have made one reference previously and it is a good one as far as I am concerned: Renaud Camus and his concerns. I regard him as an upstanding intellect. I regard his concerns as having a priori validity. And I regard the cultural debate about French identity as being -- what is the word? -- legitimate and also moral. To put it differently I do not regard it as illegitimate and immoral -- yet I certainly recognize that this is how the issue is painted! Meaning, that in our present cultural and intellectual climate there is only one way to refer to Renaud and his ideas: with condemnatory terms. In that, and right there, we can clearly notice how 'thought control' and 'ideological coercion' function.

Still, and with that said, I also recommend reading people like Kathleen Belew (A Field Guide to White Supremacy) and as I said previously Jai Lynn Yang (One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965) because it is always a good idea to fully understand what I might call 'the other side of the argument' or the other pole.

I asked you whether you recognized that in the US we are deeply involved in a social and cultural crisis. You did not have much to say on the matter. Why? But allow me to make *clarifying statements* then that have bearing on my thought and what I've written in this post. In our present there is a tremendous and an astounding amount and degree of 'thought control'. We are deeply enmeshed in political, social, ideological and also economic struggles and battles of consequence. In this climate the first casuality -- in my opinion -- is the capability of 'thinking freely'. The entire idea of 'freedom' 'free intellectual process' 'free communication of ideas' has been revealed to be a farce. These things, these rights, do not in fact exist. They are being assailed.

And I regard that as one of my primary topics of interest. Such that when I encounter a man like you who carries on like a Bozo and a victim of these stifling processes I am inspired to confront that man -- as the topic and as the subject.

Now, is any of this making sense to you?

[Alexis Jacobi]

REMINDER

Could those wishing to be critiqued by Alexis Jacobi this week please submit their application by 12 noon, Wednesday, 25th Jan.

Thank you.

Can we please extend that to Friday evening? I am planning a trip out into the jungle for a couple of days.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Here is a link to Yang's book.

I recommend reading the review, 3 down, by Simeon Stylites. It provides the *cleanest* angle to fairly assess the cultural shifts the US nation is undergoing.

Here is a link to Belew's book.

Belew also wrote Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America and her thesis is that it was the Vietnam War, and by extension all of America's war adventures, that tend to politicize people radically.

She has been interviewed by US Congressional committees so some here may be aware of her.

[iambiguous]

Of course, it's allowed. Here.

No.
Therefore the distorted reactions, the gratuitous Nazi references, the implied racism and racist policies. Even before anything is said.

Come on, you know how these things often unfold in forums like this and over at ILP. It's like the phone game. There's the OP. But then by the end of the thread there can be discussions and exchanges that bear little or no resemblance at all to the OP. AJ posted things here relating to race and intelligence. I reacted to that given the manner in which here in America today there is open talk [even in the mainstream media] of fascism. Those who are flagrantly racist and see the "demographic crisis" as having begun when America stopped living in the 1950s. Some being avowed Nazis. So, I'm curious as to where AJ fits into all of that. Connecting the dots between what I construed to be his pedantic theoretical assessments and actual flesh and blood folks who would naturally be curious when someone argues that "on average" they are of a race that intellectually is dumber than those of other races. The Northern European white race in particular.

If AJ is not a racist, fine. But how does he connect the dots between his theoretical views on race, the demographic crisis and "what is to be done" to end it?

Isn't interested in going there? Well, why not? I've made it crystal clear that my own interest in philosophy revolves around connecting those dots. Otherwise philosophy becomes something that Will Durant's "epistemologists" pursue. Something that get's further and further removed from the actual lives that we live.

But when you make arguments that intellectually -- culturally? morally? -- there is a racial hierarchy, those who are not of the race that you put on top are going to wonder what their fate might be if you are in a position of power in their community. Given the historical instances of this.

Notice the race put on top in these studies is Asians. But the boogeyman that's brought out is white people. You don't ask AJ "What will happen if Asians are in a position of power? ". You ask about "Northern Europeans".
Again demonizing white men.

Right, that "slightly" more intelligent race. But, still, the Asians should focus on interacting "somatically" with their own people. More specifically, Japanese with other Japanese, Nigerians with other Nigerians, French folks with other French folks. Keep the culture and the community...pure?

What's your own take on race and intelligence?

Averages don't tell me anything about individuals and their abilities. Average IQ of races is a pretty worthless measurement.

Is that the same as arguing that when it comes to race and intelligence, no race is smarter or dumber "on average" than any other race? That's what my own ventures into the science of race has "here and now" convinced me.

What particular policies would you pursue given that?

I believe in color blindness. I would eliminate all programs which take race into consideration. That includes affirmative action programs, of course.

Okay, but where were those back in the days before the civil rights movement when affirmative action for the white race was often the de facto reality here in America? And in some parts of the country the de jure reality. Affirmative action was merely a "for all practical purposes" policy to create opportunities for people of color that were never there when affirmative action for white folks was everywhere.

Only when those of color went to the head of the line did the white racists start bitching about "affirmative action".

But not you, right? You were equally outraged when white folks did get all the breaks way back then.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If AJ is not a racist, fine. But how does he connect the dots between his theoretical views on race, the demographic crisis and "what is to be done" to end it?

Now we move toward the core of the issue. I start from the assertion, from the understanding, that *for people like you* and for this culture, and this particular time that we are in, that you use a term like *racist* to control what other people can both think and say. Racist is a 'hot-word' and it is used (by people like you) to shut down anyone who says anything sensed by you to be a prohibited expression. This gives you the right to jump down with both feet on those you label with the term. There are numerous lunatics on this forum who use that term, and other terms like Nazi, as a way to control discourse. It is a common tactic today. It is part of a *function* and that function is to control thought and expression. This usage has a history and the history can be known.

So what I do, in case you have not noticed (those like you are enormously slow in this regard because your preposterous 'moral authority' blinds you) is to neither confirm or deny your accusation. Why? Simple. It is part of a coercive game that you play, but it is a game with consequences. The second that one cooperates with you (answering your 'questions' and demands for more information) one has fallen into the trap that you set. Discourse with people like you is a trap. You are a trap.

Is any of this getting through?

Who gave you the right to decide who and who is not a racist? Who gives you the authority to act as a moral judge? What ideological predicates did you absorb, or which were installed in you, that has allowed you to tell other people what they should think about *race* and any other topic? Are you aware of the degree that multiculturalism and its ideology is just that, an ideological stance? Are you aware as well that though anti-racism sounds like a fine and noble thing the doctrines associated with it, and the social policy, end up as destructive to race-categories? Are you aware as well that anti-racism describes itself as preserving of the rights of those it defends? But if anti-racism ends up destroying the category of 'race distinction', then when it is examined closely it may not be the noble thing it tarts itself up to be.

When one has come under the spell of numerous Progressive declarations one becomes blind to subtleties as I have just described. And I have made it very clear that I see Progressivism and our modern form of Egalitarianism as Marxian tools -- and I regard these as inherently destructive.

To say what I have said is not a 'declaration in defense of holding racial prejudice'. However, I am largely certain that you can only take it this way. Why? Because you are *hopped-up* and *hysterical* and your purpose is to control ideas, thought and communication.

Why else do you take the tack that you do?

You see, you are an activist, not me. My interest is in exploring why people have the ideas (and values) they do. But your object is to act in some way against those whose ideas and values you do not like.

I have made it plain in reference to a culture -- for example France and for example Japan (because they are distant from us) -- that I cannot fairly put forward an argument to invalidate the concerns of either identified Frenchmen or identified Japanese if those concerns are vital to them. I do not see a moral way around granting this right to those people. Do I recognize that the entire issue is problematic? I do. But it is not for me to set myself up as their moral judge.

What you say, then, to that is "OK, now tell me how you and *your ilk* are going to enact the social cleaning regime?" But I am not and I would not call for any such thing.

What I am saying is that I definitely consider it a valid concern for a given community -- you can pick any one you wish -- to recognize their own selves, their own somatic being (their bodily selves) as something defensible. The validity of the assertion is easiest to see when some *other* is examined.

What is the inverse of this choice or attitude? It is equally important to examine it and see what it is comprised of. The inverse is a social policy, supported by an activist's ideology, that renders many sorts of identifications as immoral. Once immorality is established then a very powerful tool of 'blame & shame' is exploited. This explains what you are up to.

Again, to say what I am saying is not to make a statement in favor of a racist policy. And it is definitely not any sort of admission or declaration about my own position. I do not really have a position. What I have is interest in the topic and interest in what is going on contemporaneously in our culture and cultures.

As an example I am aware that relatively Sweden opened the immigration gates and significantly altered the demographic of the nation. This was undertaken, I gather, by high-minded progressive types. The result is said to be cultural and social conflict which is now tearing at the social fabric (I have never visited Sweden so I only can refer to anecdotes). Now, if I say this do I implicate myself because I am aware that this is so? Yes -- when dealing with people like you! That is the kind of statement you seek out, isn't it? But in my way of seeing things I recognize no problem in talking openly about the issue -- if it is carried out fairly and intelligently.

But again you and *your ilk* look for any sort of statement that you feel gives you a condemning moral authority. And you exploit the circumstance to full advantage.

As I said to Seeds I am pretty certain that the ideology that has you two in its grip is that of Americanism. Americanism involves a vast imposition of values on everyone else. It is a multi-faceted model involving political forms, cultural practice, and of course ideologies of egalitarianism and also of democracy (a sham-concept if ever touted as a value by an American). Americanism, similarly in this sense to the way declarations of anti-racism function, ends up leveling and destroying other cultures and folkways. There is something insidious in it.

Nevertheless, all these things are topics for proper conversation -- not activist stances and moralizing bombast.

Right, that "slightly" more intelligent race. But, still, the Asians should focus on interacting "somatically" with their own people. More specifically, Japanese with other Japanese, Nigerians with other Nigerians, French folks with other French folks. Keep the culture and the community...pure?

This statement reveals that you really are an *activist*. You could not, it appears, allow anyone to hold to or protect what you have defined negatively as 'purity'.

So you are an activist and an advocate of the *Americanism* I describe. But I doubt you've really examined it our yourself critically.

[Dubious]

Right, that "slightly" more intelligent race. But, still, the Asians should focus on interacting "somatically" with their own people. More specifically, Japanese with other Japanese, Nigerians with other Nigerians, French folks with other French folks. Keep the culture and the community...pure?

There is nothing "pure" about a culture but it does "define" a group who have spent a long time building it up through time according to what ever collective perceptions that group may have. As such, and however separated, every collective has the right to protect it, "purity" having nothing to do with it because hardly any representational culture remains frozen in time; conditions change constantly and purity becomes an oxymoron.

Raising the Nazi flag every time such debates happen is also a mug's game. The preference and mandate to protect one's own is universal and not just the white man's prerogative. Refugees inundating Western Europe and America have demographically focused and advanced these problems into these regional cultures. It's partly due to geographical proximity but even without that being the case, who among these migrants would what to go to Russia or China! They don't seem to have the kind of issues we have in the West.

[Belinda]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

The preference and mandate to protect one's own is universal and not just the white man's prerogative. Refugees inundating Western Europe and America have-------

Yes, but it's not good enough to describe what is the case. You should say what you stand for; tribalism or universalism. You can't live on the moral fence forever. Sheep or goat sort of thing.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:

The preference and mandate to protect one's own is universal and not just the white man's prerogative. Refugees inundating Western Europe and America have-------

Yes, but it's not good enough to describe what is the case. You should say what you stand for; tribalism or universalism. You can't live on the moral fence forever. Sheep or goat sort of thing.

Guten Morgen, Fräulein Belinda!

However that may be it was Brother Dubious who wrote what you quoted.

Myself, I have lots of critiques against the major engine of Universalism — Americanism, with entire sets of attending presumptions and ideological determinants.

But one thing I do not have is any power to stop the processes that have been set in motion.

You can indeed sit on a fence.

While there I find myself whistling a snappy little tune . . .

C’mon Iambiguous! Sing it!

[phyllo]

But one thing I do not have is any power to stop the processes that have been set in motion.

You can shift the direction of the motion. Ever so slightly.

[Harbal]

Myself, I have lots of critiques against the major engine of Universalism

I'm glad to hear it. Why should the major engine of Universalism be the only thing to go uncritiqued?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Myself, I have lots of critiques against the major engine of Universalism

I'm glad to hear it. Why should the major engine of Universalism be the only thing to go uncritiqued?

What would you add, Little Brother?

[Harbal]

What would you add, Little Brother?

You've gone back to diminishing me by referring to me as "little" something or other.

[Immanuel Can]

What would you add, Little Brother?

You've gone back to diminishing me by referring to me as "little" something or other.

It means, "I'm the big guy who knows all the important stuff, and you can be my padawan, learning at my feet."

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy... CAN I?

[Harbal]

What would you add, Little Brother?

You've gone back to diminishing me by referring to me as "little" something or other.

It means, "I'm the big guy who knows all the important stuff, and you can be my padawan, learning at my feet."

Yes, I suspected it meant that.