Guest Post by Eric Peters
Here’s the trouble.
Most people can’t read… and so, can’t think.
Not quite literally, perhaps. But, meaningfully. They have been taught – very deliberately – to be sloppy and fluid with words. A given word has a vague, constantly shifting meaning – that meaning transmitted and accepted by a kind of semi-conscious collective osmosis. You “get the drift” – and the word is henceforth used accordingly. It is not necessary to formally announce the new meaning. It just sort of happens.
Examples include liberal and fascist.
A liberal was once a person who believed that people ought to be let alone; that government, if it has any role in human affairs, ought to have a very minimal and background role. That it was tyrannical to control other people, to interfere in their lives, to deprive them of their property, to compel them to fund things they abhorred. Thomas Jefferson was a liberal in this sense.
We all know what is meant by “liberal” today.
It is not Thomas Jefferson.
What about “fascist”? It is among the most inaccurately used words in the language.
Trump was derided as a fascist for criticizing open borders – and (key thing) open-ended federal entitlements. In other words, it is racist – the new meaning of “fascist” – to object to or even question “helping” (another much-abused word) random strangers from other countries who are helping themselves (with help from the government) to the contents of our wallets.
But “fascism” – properly defined – is simply the marriage of Big Business and Big Government. Which Trump may represent – but his recent opponent (the not-“racist”) represented far more virulently. What, for example, could be more textbook fascist than the partnering of the privately-owned/for profit health insurance cartels with the government? The former using the power of the state to compel people to do business with it?
Fascism is Big Business helping itself to the contents of our wallets, with the “help” of Big Government. The car industry and Wall Street bail-outs are further textbook examples of fascism – but that meaning (the proper meaning) isn’t used because it doesn’t serve the purposes of the ruling entente.
The new – political – meaning, on the other hand, does.
Question the economic sanity (let alone the morality) of not merely inviting the huddled masses of the world to come to the New World but of “helping” them with increasingly dwindling resources .. and you are a fascist.
That is, a racist.
You do not like certain people on account of their ethnicity – and actively seek to harm them. Even though you don’t and aren’t. You just want them out of your wallet.
Very effective at stifling discussion. A kind of linguistic photon torpedo aimed at people who aren’t racists – but who do object to having their pockets picked.
Incoherence reigns.
What is a “conservative”? Does anyone know? Is there a defining principle that can be used to identify one?
Beats me.
It seems a “conservative” can be pretty much anyone who says he is one – from a George W. Bush authoritarian (and much closer to actual fascism) to the “kindler, gentler” sort his father claimed to be. They want “less” government – but not really. Support “freedom”… to do as they think you ought to.
It is a very big tent, indeed.
When words have no meaning – or their meaning is fluid – thought becomes impossible. In its place, reaction. People are taught to be instinctive rather than reflective. To respond emotionally to certain triggers.
Thus, if you are on the political left, you will respond in a certain very predictable way when the word “choice” is uttered. Even though choice is entirely peripheral to the issue at hand. (For purposes of this discussion, I am not going to debate the moral rightness – or wrongness – of terminating a pregnancy. I merely point out that the issue is precisely that. Not “choice.”)
The government has co-opted terms such as “market” and “customer.” But markets – properly defined – are defined by free exchange, which means one is free to not exchange. When government is involved, that is never an option. Just as it is etymologically abusive to speak of people being “customers” of state organs such as the IRS and the DMV, which one must do “business” with.
Few people raise their hands – or even stop to think about this. It just sort of seeps into the general consciousness and becomes the unspoken basis for conversation. Which is exactly what is desired. To abort certain lines of thought before they even form into thoughts. To channel consciousness along certain lines only.
More than 2,400 years ago, in ancient Greece, Aristotle laid the foundation of Western civilization on the principle that a thing is what it is. A is A. It cannot be something else. A cannot also be B.
To topple Western civilization, it was necessary to render the mind of the West no longer able to make this distinction. To accept that A can also be B.
Or, C.
Or any of them.
It is why people – most of them – can no longer speak coherently about such things as slavery and theft. Because these words no longer have meaning. Or rather, they have fluid meanings. It is not – according to modern usage – theft to have your neighbor’s property taken for your purposes when his property is taken by others acting on your behalf under color of law. It is only theft when you actually do the taking yourself.
You are not allowed to own another human being. Meaning, to force him to work for your benefit, deprive him of his freedom to act, dictate to him how he will live, even to the extent of what he may and may not do with his own body.
But the government does all these things routinely. Legally.
It happens because A is no longer A.
Because people can’t read.
And so, can no longer think.
You’re right, Eric. The ability to read is fast disappearing. The public indoctrination-education system is partly to blame, but much of the blame also lies with people themselves. Not reading is easy; it’s the path of least resistance. Many people are simply too lazy to learn. Unfortunately, illiteracy makes it easier for our owners and their ass media running dogs to control us.
It’s said that 25% of the population is functionally illiterate. That means they cannot understand the direction on a medicine bottle or a recipe. Since some occupations require 100% literacy (teachers, doctors, engineers, accountants, etc.) it means that other occupations have an illiteracy rate much higher than 25% (miners, loggers, fishermen, construction workers, etc.) Look inside a machine operator’s cab and you won’t see one word. It’s all symbols because machinery manufacturers know most operators are illiterate.
It also explains why so many blogs that once used text have gone to podcasts to accommodate their dumbed-down audiences. I refuse to listen to podcasts because I can read ten times faster than some mumbling idiot can speak. I rarely waste my time on videos for the same reason. They, take too long and, like TV, bypass the critical thinking areas of the brain whereas reading requires thinking.
I’ve been writing my pathetic little blog http://WWW.geroldblog.com for six years now, have only 400 free subscribers and I use long articles and big words to control my readership, but I rarely get stupid comments because we’re all on the same page. We may not all think alike, but we all think because we can all read. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but whadya expect during the decline of civilization?
Teachers require a 100% literacy rate?
News to me, and I’m hard pressed to find a supporting example of it in our current illustrious common core school system.
LBGT…Q
Q can be queer or questioning, and queer is not the queer we grew up with, it can be just about anything. For a group of fucknuts that hate labels, they sure have more than enough.
My “modern liberal” cousin announced to the FB world she is black, fat, and queer.
Anyone that voted for Trump is a horrible racist, violent, homophobic, misogynistic, KKK loving mother fucker who is more concerned with their guns and hilary’s emails than her mental and physical safety.
She’s a special kind of stupid, and a shitload of fun to have at family party’s.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. A lot of people don’t read anymore, and I have run into idiots who think they are well read because they have a collection of Stephen King’s books. The most depressing and scary thing is that young people don’t seem to know a damn thing about communism and socialism. 1984 should be required in high school.
The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM15mO9G4Ng
Damn! Reading is as natural for me as breathing. I never even think about it…….I just do it. I guess I have my parents and teachers to thank for that so it stands to reason that parents and teachers are to blame for producing so many non-readers today.
I still keep books in my car to read when I go to appointments and expect to be waiting.
One of the characters in One Hundred Years of Solitude asks a soldier of the Liberales if a man can marry his aunt. We’re fighting this war so a man can marry his mother if he wants, came the reply.
In the book, we also see the day the conservative government comes into town. Soon, an idyllic lifestyle is impacted, barefoot soldiers enforce the law as declared by the new mayor sent by the government and rules on the color houses must be painted.
The book is an allegory derived from the bible story of Cain. The main character, the founding father has murdered a man. He leaves town to found another city. Cain is said to have founded several cities. The law that comes to town is the same as the law that came to the Israelites on two tablets. They had created their own golden calf and as yet had not received much in the way of law from it. So it was a shock to them that a greater God would impose serious rules on them.
In the book, the patriarch’s son marries the mayor’s daughter. This is symbolic of Rachel who marries Jacob. Jacob is a son of the chosen of God. Rachel is the younger daughter and she is attached to her crooked father’s gods. The father had given Jacob Leah. In the same way, the book’s character chose the mayor’s younger daughter and, like Jacob waiting 7 years, he has to wait until she comes of age. The girl dies giving birth to twins. Rachel gives birth to two boys and dies. The boys are Cain (Esau) and Abel (Jacob) once again. In the book, the older brother is a huge hunter who ran away from home at at early age, seduced by a prostitute. The younger brother is a weaker sort and he falls for a pure girl, not yet a woman corrupted by menstruation; a daughter of the law.
I mention all this to say, the war between the liberals and conservatives is an old one, going back to the time when Abel chose to serve God (a feast) and Cain merely chose to pay him homage with some floral arrangements.
Maggie, your hillbilly friends would like this one, I kept all the big words to a minimum.
The marriage of big business and big government is corporatism, not fascism. Fascism is corporatism, plus a one party state, plus virulent nationalism.