Post-America

Except at moments of conversions --of which I have had more than my share in my life-- we tend to select our perceptions according what will re-enforce our narrative and world-view.

Our national behaviors make the most sense to me if I see them as the incipient dynamics either of a) a tyranny that will transform The Most Foolish People On The Planet(c)  into strangers in their own land, the new Indians, or b) a catastrophic implosion that will lead to secession(s) and the birth of new nations where America once stood.

ExCathedra would, of course, prefer the second of these two grim possibilities.

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Cities and states

In a recent post, I suggested that the difference between urban and non-urban be incorporated into the structure of governance. Specifically, that cities of a certain size be separated as city-states rather than dominating the rest of the population outside them. The differences are outlined here.

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Differentiation

Differentiation is a Jungian term for valuating a phenomenon in separate parts rather than as a simple whole. Rather than saying, "My mother is a complete evil witch", you differentiate between her motherly parts and her witcherly parts. It's a task we need to perform in order to move beyond the infantile into the adult world of ambiguity. Theory basis courtesy of Melanie Klein.

A comment from January 2014 that I missed, exemplifies differentiation. He, I imagine him as a he, reponded to my brilliant sidebar essay on Liberalism as follows:

For a blog with a tacky layout, this may be the wisest thing I've ever read.

My response is also, well, differentiated.

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Simple pleasures

The SloCarb diet I am following makes this a typical evening meal:

Two slices of bacon sauteed in olive oil, then adding chopped sweet onion, then chunks of chicken thigh til cooked through, finally a handful of white beans and fire-roasted tomatoes. Add generous shakes of garlic powder, cumin --my favorite spice--, then a sprinkling of salt and a few shots of hot sauce. Mix up.

And you have dinner in a bowl. Mmmmmmm.

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Wise words of wide application

Evil misogynist straightwhitemale patriarch Heartiste, relentless enemy of "pretty lies", referring to his younger self:

He had learned, and not a moment too soon, to watch what women do and ignore what they say about their romantic needs. For all the men who knew nothing about what women wanted, even fewer women knew themselves.

An update about wider application:

There is a term of art in economics that I like: “revealed preference.” The root idea is: Never mind what people say they prefer, or what some pure-reason formula proves they should prefer, but what their behavior shows they actually prefer.

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VDH on uppities

Liberals and Their Uppity Enemies | VDH's Private Papers:



 "...the pained stutter of Barack Obama as his vast mind works so fast that his only too human lips cannot catch up."

LOL!

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Enantiodromia, another example

Courtesy of Mr Goad.

31 Flavors of Fascism - Taki's Magazine:

"The notion of innate equality would seem antithetical to fascism as the term is commonly understood. Yet since equality is a well-meaning human-generated delusion rather than a real or organic phenomenon observable anywhere in nature, it must be enforced by increasingly totalitarian measures. 

Thus, once the seemingly open-minded liberalism I knew and embraced as a kid started gaining power and steamrolling over all opposition, it metastasized into an all-consuming doctrine of coercion, shaming, groupthink, and unblinking thought-suppression that would fit most of my preconceived notions about what constitutes fascism. Modern leftist psychology is supremely collectivist and intolerant of dissent—two commonly accepted defining traits of fascism."

Italics courtesy of ExC.



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AS has his annual outbreak of making sense

The Hounding Of A Young Gay Writer « The Dish:

 "Could it be because they don’t actually want to continue the dialogue with people of faith, but rather seek to leverage the growing majority in favor of gay equality to rhetorically bludgeon the “bigots” into submission, to create a world in which they call the shots the way homophobes used to? Could it be that they enjoy policing the discourse now that they seem in the majority?"

Ya think?

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What made me gay

On another site, one Beyond the Pale, I found a bit of history that explained for me, at last, why I am a man-lover.

I took this oath as a child...

“I, state name here, [but everyone just repeats Stymie's name], a member of good standing of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club, do solemnly swear to be a he-man and hate women and not play with them or touch them unless I have to and especially never fall in love and, if I do, may I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours or until I scream bloody murder.” — The Little Rascals

So I blame my homosexuality on Spanky and Alfalfa...






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One more bossy female

trying to boss us around.

Ban Bossy. Encourage Girls to Lead:


Update. Gavin McInness weighs in, unhappy that Miss Beyonce has joined the fight. He notes that a Black female "who spends thousands of dollars weaving white women’s hair into her own, is telling young girls to be themselves."

Which leads me to ask, is this a form of virtual scalping?

And why is decking yourself out in blond hair if you're black, so different from doing yourself up in blackface if you're white? Isn't she promoting self-hate?

Some days I just want to escape.

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