More than 50 years ago Martin Luther King's "Mountaintop" speech, delivered the day before his assassination, addressed the elephant in the room of current American culture. The elephant is, of all things, weaponized decency.
"We are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle where we have moved from a struggle for decency to a struggle for genuine equality. This is where we are getting the resistance because there was never any intention to go this far. People were reacting rather than acting in good faith for the realization of general equality."
The decency factor is still heavily in play as the puritanical "woke" ideology of the "left" has been embraced by the powers-that-be. It's also mostly performative. The CIA has even released new LBGTQ, BIPOC recruiting videos to show just how progressive they truly are. Netflix, HBO Max, Prime have sections specifically dedicated to Black films, Pride films and so on. I have absolutely zero problem whatsoever with any of the films, but it's suspect because as major media outlets enhance their brand by celebrating diversity, they are enforcing the racial/identitarian lines that keep many from sharing what we have in common too. This ideology is cynically manipulated by the corporate oligarchs as a way to provide the illusion of inclusion and equality across class lines. America is becoming (if it isn't already) an authoritarian state that uses decency in the guise of identity politics as a shield to hide behind, and as a cudgel to bludgeon, even the most anodyne forms of dissent. The shield comes in the form of performative statements of the "progressive" wing in American politics to fend off real criticism from the grass-roots left; and the cudgel is in the form of cancel culture where writers and dissenters who veer from the narrative of "decent/socially acceptable" behavior lose their jobs and reputations. Big tech monopolies like YouTube/Google, Facebook and Twitter will ban or algorithmically suppress people like Abigail Shrier and others who they deem to be irresponsible in the form of "hate speech." Speaking of which, we may not have reached Orewellian "two minutes of hate" territory yet, but it certainly feels like the prequel to 1984 is being written right now, in real time.
Paul, not you too. I can go anywhere on the internet and read this kind of thing. Next week why don't you do Ivermectin.
Books are not burning. The government is not banning books. Private companies are allowed to sell or not sell whatever they want. Big tech can publish or not publish whatever it wants. It is just a few web sites after all. If people disagree with an author they have the option of speaking out. That is all that's happening.
Well, far be it from me to criticize reading and books - I write for a living and I read basically all the time - but I was intrigued a few years ago to read Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Vs The Goddess (https://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com). As we (in the industrialized world) shift from a literate, book-reading culture to one more focused on images and pictures, I wonder if some of the upheaval and confusion and hostility is due to that shift back to what we once were - a culture based on images and on the spoken word.
Hello Paul. I'm looking forward to your next few pieces on these writers. A page of Ellul is worth three chapters of most of what is written today, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around Jaynes. As a suggested counterpoint, I would recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It could be read as contrary to your central argument...or not...depending on how you take it.
I am retired magazine editor, but I've been a carpenter and woodworker for nearly 40 years and I'm working hard on getting better as a mason and tile setter. I can tell you that virtually all tradespeople are grateful for power tools and, although a few like me do some occasional hand tool work for fun, nobody's going backward on this. When home computers became a thing, I was surprised to find many of the best woodworkers I knew whole-heartedly embraced the PC revolution. There was even a group of enthusiasts on the early Netscape boards who called themselves the Electronic Neanderthals.
The design of a circuit board and the rake and bevel angles of the teeth on a hand saw are both manifestations of technology. "Zen" takes a hard and unsentimental look at this. Mathew Crawford has a similar, if less philosophical, exploration in his first book, Shop Class as Soul Craft. In a more ambiguous fashion, so does Kubrick's movie 2001, the point being that The Machine will be a runaway disaster until we master The Machine. (And as a side note, early in "Zen" the author has a discussion with his son about the abstract laws of physics and science, ghosts, and Native American spirituality that I'm still trying to process 30 years after having read it.)
Your criticism of the after-effects of The Machine are well founded, but it would be impossible for eight billion people in the world to live in a pre-industrial arrangement. Some level of technology will be necessary to fend off mass starvation and the fratricidal power struggles that would follow. In order to master the machine our leaders and thinkers need a much deeper knowledge of and appreciation for technology. But most politicians in the West today could not fix so much as a leaky faucet. Their skill is emotional manipulation rather than the cool, deliberative objectivity of a good mechanic. That being so, how can any of them arrange the components of a modern industrial society such that all these gears and systems mesh harmoniously? They can't, they don't even try. The Machine can be fixed, but as long as humans bring a disordered mind to the task, the gears will grind, the oil will burn and waste and pollution result.
Paul, I apologise in advance if this is a misreading, but I find the suggestion that "wokeness" is winning to be somewhat confusing, with regards to the UK at least. Despite a poverty of ideas and competence, the Conservative Party continues to gain popularity and votes in working class areas through messaging that focusses almost exclusively on the culture wars and anti-wokeness. Unless we are taking the experience of a narrow strand of the academic middle-classes as emblematic of wider society (and if we are, why? - They have always been at a remove from the experience of the majority), I don't see values of wokeness taking any sort of hold, let alone 'winning', anywhere. So I suppose my question is, what specific "woke" values do you think have been/are being adopted by a majority (or even sizeable minority) in the UK that you perceive to be damaging?
So grateful for these links to many new to me and intriguing writers. Your essays are always eye openers and fantastic that you are sharing other voices as well 🙏🏼🧡🙏🏼
Paul. I'm not qualified to comment on the meat and potatoes of this discussion, but I must say "Oh, Bravo" for the photo heading this blog. It is like a photo of the most decadent dessert ever. I just want a piece! Where is this wonderful place?
“irreversible damage - the transgender craze seducing our daughters” the name hardly suggests a rational balanced look at the issue. Where is the love, the tolerance and the attempt to bridge the gap and understand. I trawled through your reading suggestions last night and I came away profoundly depressed. Anyone who calls their blog/newsletter “common sense” is probably hawking the opposite. Surely we need to come together in a spirit of tolerance and companionship but instead substack seems full of even more angry people. Substack is just another cog in the machine, another force for the amplification of division. You have been absorbed in to the machine Paul.
The growing dislike of books seems to accompany a growing dislike of truth itself. The idea that the world is plastic and we can mould it to suit 'our truth' seems to grow as we 'harden our hearts' and make ourselves the opposite of the 'clay' in the potter's hand.
If we refuse to be the clay (as the 'uberman' does), then other things (and people) have to be marred beyond recognition, because God has not made the world this way; he has actually made it so that WE can be shaped by IT).
I'm seeing things as an arc along the same line which actually turns full circle.
As Jesus is the alpha and omega, so hatred of Him has an alpha and omega - full circle.
I'm thinking of Romans as a universal truth:"...just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to.... do what ought not to be done..."
I'm thinking of how the circle may be nearing completion in Canada, which is possibly at the far end of 'woke' countries, with the detention of a pastor for organising outdoor, socially distanced meetings in order, to sing, pray and read, with 25 or so other people, since they were unable to do so indoors. Unable to promise he would not do so again, he has been refused bail and so now languishes in jail.
So the rebellion against the 'truth' of the world eventually exposes itself in hatred for all talk or celebration of the maker of that world. To rebel against reality is to rebel against God.
Not on Substack, but my own Creative Good newsletter (https://creativegood.com/blog) argues similar points - and occasionally points to your work, Paul. Keep up the good work.
More than 50 years ago Martin Luther King's "Mountaintop" speech, delivered the day before his assassination, addressed the elephant in the room of current American culture. The elephant is, of all things, weaponized decency.
"We are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle where we have moved from a struggle for decency to a struggle for genuine equality. This is where we are getting the resistance because there was never any intention to go this far. People were reacting rather than acting in good faith for the realization of general equality."
The decency factor is still heavily in play as the puritanical "woke" ideology of the "left" has been embraced by the powers-that-be. It's also mostly performative. The CIA has even released new LBGTQ, BIPOC recruiting videos to show just how progressive they truly are. Netflix, HBO Max, Prime have sections specifically dedicated to Black films, Pride films and so on. I have absolutely zero problem whatsoever with any of the films, but it's suspect because as major media outlets enhance their brand by celebrating diversity, they are enforcing the racial/identitarian lines that keep many from sharing what we have in common too. This ideology is cynically manipulated by the corporate oligarchs as a way to provide the illusion of inclusion and equality across class lines. America is becoming (if it isn't already) an authoritarian state that uses decency in the guise of identity politics as a shield to hide behind, and as a cudgel to bludgeon, even the most anodyne forms of dissent. The shield comes in the form of performative statements of the "progressive" wing in American politics to fend off real criticism from the grass-roots left; and the cudgel is in the form of cancel culture where writers and dissenters who veer from the narrative of "decent/socially acceptable" behavior lose their jobs and reputations. Big tech monopolies like YouTube/Google, Facebook and Twitter will ban or algorithmically suppress people like Abigail Shrier and others who they deem to be irresponsible in the form of "hate speech." Speaking of which, we may not have reached Orewellian "two minutes of hate" territory yet, but it certainly feels like the prequel to 1984 is being written right now, in real time.
Paul, not you too. I can go anywhere on the internet and read this kind of thing. Next week why don't you do Ivermectin.
Books are not burning. The government is not banning books. Private companies are allowed to sell or not sell whatever they want. Big tech can publish or not publish whatever it wants. It is just a few web sites after all. If people disagree with an author they have the option of speaking out. That is all that's happening.
Well, far be it from me to criticize reading and books - I write for a living and I read basically all the time - but I was intrigued a few years ago to read Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Vs The Goddess (https://www.alphabetvsgoddess.com). As we (in the industrialized world) shift from a literate, book-reading culture to one more focused on images and pictures, I wonder if some of the upheaval and confusion and hostility is due to that shift back to what we once were - a culture based on images and on the spoken word.
Hello Paul. I'm looking forward to your next few pieces on these writers. A page of Ellul is worth three chapters of most of what is written today, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around Jaynes. As a suggested counterpoint, I would recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It could be read as contrary to your central argument...or not...depending on how you take it.
I am retired magazine editor, but I've been a carpenter and woodworker for nearly 40 years and I'm working hard on getting better as a mason and tile setter. I can tell you that virtually all tradespeople are grateful for power tools and, although a few like me do some occasional hand tool work for fun, nobody's going backward on this. When home computers became a thing, I was surprised to find many of the best woodworkers I knew whole-heartedly embraced the PC revolution. There was even a group of enthusiasts on the early Netscape boards who called themselves the Electronic Neanderthals.
The design of a circuit board and the rake and bevel angles of the teeth on a hand saw are both manifestations of technology. "Zen" takes a hard and unsentimental look at this. Mathew Crawford has a similar, if less philosophical, exploration in his first book, Shop Class as Soul Craft. In a more ambiguous fashion, so does Kubrick's movie 2001, the point being that The Machine will be a runaway disaster until we master The Machine. (And as a side note, early in "Zen" the author has a discussion with his son about the abstract laws of physics and science, ghosts, and Native American spirituality that I'm still trying to process 30 years after having read it.)
Your criticism of the after-effects of The Machine are well founded, but it would be impossible for eight billion people in the world to live in a pre-industrial arrangement. Some level of technology will be necessary to fend off mass starvation and the fratricidal power struggles that would follow. In order to master the machine our leaders and thinkers need a much deeper knowledge of and appreciation for technology. But most politicians in the West today could not fix so much as a leaky faucet. Their skill is emotional manipulation rather than the cool, deliberative objectivity of a good mechanic. That being so, how can any of them arrange the components of a modern industrial society such that all these gears and systems mesh harmoniously? They can't, they don't even try. The Machine can be fixed, but as long as humans bring a disordered mind to the task, the gears will grind, the oil will burn and waste and pollution result.
Tom
Paul, I apologise in advance if this is a misreading, but I find the suggestion that "wokeness" is winning to be somewhat confusing, with regards to the UK at least. Despite a poverty of ideas and competence, the Conservative Party continues to gain popularity and votes in working class areas through messaging that focusses almost exclusively on the culture wars and anti-wokeness. Unless we are taking the experience of a narrow strand of the academic middle-classes as emblematic of wider society (and if we are, why? - They have always been at a remove from the experience of the majority), I don't see values of wokeness taking any sort of hold, let alone 'winning', anywhere. So I suppose my question is, what specific "woke" values do you think have been/are being adopted by a majority (or even sizeable minority) in the UK that you perceive to be damaging?
The first part negates the second. I feel more excited about a three day sloughing off than looking into all the suggested reading!
So grateful for these links to many new to me and intriguing writers. Your essays are always eye openers and fantastic that you are sharing other voices as well 🙏🏼🧡🙏🏼
Paul. I'm not qualified to comment on the meat and potatoes of this discussion, but I must say "Oh, Bravo" for the photo heading this blog. It is like a photo of the most decadent dessert ever. I just want a piece! Where is this wonderful place?
“irreversible damage - the transgender craze seducing our daughters” the name hardly suggests a rational balanced look at the issue. Where is the love, the tolerance and the attempt to bridge the gap and understand. I trawled through your reading suggestions last night and I came away profoundly depressed. Anyone who calls their blog/newsletter “common sense” is probably hawking the opposite. Surely we need to come together in a spirit of tolerance and companionship but instead substack seems full of even more angry people. Substack is just another cog in the machine, another force for the amplification of division. You have been absorbed in to the machine Paul.
Let’s Stop poking sticks in each other’s wounds!
The growing dislike of books seems to accompany a growing dislike of truth itself. The idea that the world is plastic and we can mould it to suit 'our truth' seems to grow as we 'harden our hearts' and make ourselves the opposite of the 'clay' in the potter's hand.
If we refuse to be the clay (as the 'uberman' does), then other things (and people) have to be marred beyond recognition, because God has not made the world this way; he has actually made it so that WE can be shaped by IT).
I'm seeing things as an arc along the same line which actually turns full circle.
As Jesus is the alpha and omega, so hatred of Him has an alpha and omega - full circle.
I'm thinking of Romans as a universal truth:"...just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to.... do what ought not to be done..."
I'm thinking of how the circle may be nearing completion in Canada, which is possibly at the far end of 'woke' countries, with the detention of a pastor for organising outdoor, socially distanced meetings in order, to sing, pray and read, with 25 or so other people, since they were unable to do so indoors. Unable to promise he would not do so again, he has been refused bail and so now languishes in jail.
So the rebellion against the 'truth' of the world eventually exposes itself in hatred for all talk or celebration of the maker of that world. To rebel against reality is to rebel against God.
'crucify him' becomes 'let it all burn'
Thank you, Paul. Someone in the Orthodox Peace Fellowship forwarded this today. An example of the Machine, for sure:
The Horrifying Rise Of Total Mass Media Blackouts On Inconvenient News
Stories
Caitlin Johnstone
Two different media watchdog outlets, Media Lens and Fairness & Accuracy In
Reporting (FAIR), have published articles on the complete blackout in
mainstream news institutions on the revelation by Icelandic newspaper Stundin
that a US superseding indictment in the case against Julian Assange was based
on false testimony from diagnosed sociopath and convicted child molester
Sigurdur Thordarson.
FAIR's Alan MacLeod writes that "as of Friday, July 2, there has been
literally zero coverage of it in corporate media; not one word in the New
York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, Fox News or NPR."
"A search online for either 'Assange' or 'Thordarson' will elicit zero
relevant articles from establishment sources, either US or elsewhere in the
Anglosphere, even in tech-focused platforms like the Verge, Wired or
Gizmodo," MacLeod adds.
"We have not found a single report by any `serious´ UK broadcaster or
newspaper," says the report by Media Lens. "But in a sane world, Stundin´s
revelations about a key Assange witness - that Thordarson lied in exchange
for immunity from prosecution - would have been headline news everywhere,
with extensive media coverage on BBC News at Six and Ten, ITV News, Channel 4
News, front-page stories in the Times, Telegraph, the Guardian and more."
See it all here:
https://t.co/QoSYkcQVIg
Not on Substack, but my own Creative Good newsletter (https://creativegood.com/blog) argues similar points - and occasionally points to your work, Paul. Keep up the good work.