Daily Archives: November 26, 2023

Sixty years ago, the assassination of JFK violently robbed the country of its chosen future and darkened it for a generation, along with the Vietnam War and the upheaval of the Sixties. For some, grief begat laments and counterfactuals of brighter futures denied and, for others, justifications for a radicalism more poisonous than any previously witnessed in American historyone that plagues the country to this very day.

The sudden, violent murder of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas convulsed the entire nation. Two aspects distinguished the event from previous assassinations.

First, news of the murder was relayed instantaneously around the world. In the new era of television, everyone knew and experienced a moment of shared universal grief at the same time.

Second, the grief was compounded by the apparent senselessness of the murder. Kennedy was the torchbearer of a new generation promising America a New Frontier; Lee Harvey Oswald, was a disturbed leftist intent on satisfying his own delusions of self-importance.

To those desperate for an explanation, the judgment rendered by journalist James Reston resonated loudly: Somehow the worst in the nation had prevailed over the bestsomething in the nation itself, some strain of madness and violence.

As posited by James Piereson, liberals, in particular, ingested this explanation, agreeing that the real cause of Kennedys murder was a perniciousness latent within America. Despite Oswalds Marxist leanings, this perniciousness could be found in the opponents of progress, such as conservatives whose ideas were no more than irritable mental gestures and the racist reactionaries in nut country.

Indeed, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson, and other liberals moved expeditiously to give the tragedy purpose by obscuring Oswalds radical leftism and crafting the myth of JFK as a martyr for civil rights.

According to this narrative, JFK was poised to lead the nation into a new era of race relations. Kennedys civil rights bill would have passed had it not been for the opposition from segregationists (within his own party). In the assassinations aftermath, LBJ attached new urgency to the bill and championed its passage as a tribute to JFK.

Unfortunately, Johnsons successes did not satisfy an increasingly restless segment of the civil rights movement, or a youthful cohort intoxicated by New Left heterodoxy. Dissatisfied leaders called for greater militancy and a departure from peaceful civil disobedience. Riots in numerous cities punctuated the growing frustration and, in response, Johnson appointed a commission to investigate the cause.

In 1968, the commission concluded its study and named the cause: white racism. Putatively, an America recognizing its racist past would be constructive, as it would spur Americans on to examine how to achieve a genuinely color-blind democracy.

The admission of guilt, however, did not satisfy militants; instead, they seized on the conclusion to assert that the entirety of American society was racist. Eventually radicals, black and white, declared themselves in possession of a new consciousnessan awareness of the real truththat granted them the prerogative to condemn and, where possible, rectify such iniquities. Such consciousness amplified the collective guilt hypothesized by Reston.

According to Shelby Steele, this supposed consciousness led the African American community down a fateful path once one realizes the entire system is racist, then one can conclude he or she will always be a victim. Furthermore, any attempt to integrate, seek advancement, or even adhere to prevailing norms would be futile, and more pointedly, would constitute faithlessness to this new consciousness.

The concurrence of black consciousness capitalizing on white guilt resulted in the former communitys trading its newfound freedom for the power to extort obligations from the latter. The latter acceded to these demands because doing so restored a measure of moral authority; by fulfilling the black communitys demands, whites could reassure themselves they were benefactors to black advancement.

In assuming this role, however, white liberals also incautiously accepted the blame for the metastasizing dysfunction within the African American community instead of holding black men and women accountable for the same transgressions they would decry in their own community.

By the mid-70s, white guilt, black consciousness, and New Left radicalism converged in a punitive liberalism that aimed to eradicate the perniciousness underlying a seemingly inexhaustible list of American sinsgreed, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, slavery, genocide, environmental destruction, militarism, and imperialism.

Because punitive liberals self-righteously accept collective guilt and possess an enlightened consciousness, they believe themselves justified in constructing an alternate morality and acquiring the authority to enforce it.

In terms of practical politics, punitive liberalism cultivated a network of identity-based interest groups focused on promoting and taking advantage of this sense of historical guilt. In terms of policy, punitive liberalism enacted affirmative action, environmental regulations, and welfare entitlements; abandoned longtime Cold War allies; and, campaigned for unilateral disarmament.

By the end of the 70s, punitive liberal policies had sapped the vitality and ambition of Americans, supplanting the standbys of enterprise and resilience with restrictions and dependency. The ensuing stagnation only convinced punitive liberals of the need for more regulations and welfare.

The vicious cycle slowly ensnared more and more Americans, and cruelly so, just as changing global economic circumstances shifted the U.S. from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based economy.

The new cognitive elite emerged at the vanguard of the modern information economy, and as Charles Murray has explained, it was distinguishable from its agrarian and industrial predecessors in that it had relinquished the obligation to espouse and model the civic and moral virtues that others should emulate if the polity is to remain prosperous and whole.

Indeed, the cognitive elite, increasingly segregated in gated clusters around the country, continues to marry, raise children, earn high incomes, forsake vice, and attend church at rates far greater than the rest of the population. Meanwhile, more and more average Americans succumb to the dysfunctions once only observed in the underclass.

Unburdened by this traditional role, the cognitive elite sought to fundamentally transform the country, which was achievable, in part, if it ensured the enlightenment of the next generation in accordance with its ideological precepts.

While the cognitive elite is prevalent, it is not pervasive. Having failed to achieve the revolution dreamed by its New Left forerunners, punitive liberals have instead sought to capture the entire edifice of Americas educational institutionsfrom primary learning to post-graduate studies.

Christopher Rufo has extensively documented this undertaking whereby leftist radicals have transmuted the dogma of collective guilt and identity consciousness into a pedagogy and curriculum of critical race theory in direct opposition to the Judeo-Christian premises of the American Creed.

This evolution explains how the sunny triumphalism of JFK gave way to the dour defeatism of Jimmy Carter and then the cavalier conceit and condescension of Barack Obama.

This evolution explains how the Democratic Party, home of FDR and Truman, the vanquisher of Nazism and the champion of an independent Israel, became the platform for the anti-Semitic defense of Palestinian radicalism.

This evolution explains how the academic delinquents who accused American soldiers returning from Vietnam of killing babies spawned the faux intellectual elite unapologetically declaring their support for Hamas terrorists who murdered babies.

On this day, Americans lament more than the tragic death of a young president; on this day, Americans lament the nihilism born from those who were incapable of accepting its senselessness.

Read the rest here:

The Two Tragedies of November 22nd - The American Conservative

What are we to make of the frustratingly delayed ceasefire in Gaza?

It had seemed unlikely to happen. Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his goal was to eliminate Hamas. That excluded a ceasefire. Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas That will not happen. At most, thered be an hour here, an hour there. Now there will be four days plus likely extensions. But in fact, destroying Hamas was probably not the real goal.

Why? Because in situations like Gaza, a Hamas will always arise: despair leads to nihilism and a primitive theology that reduces your daily hell to good/us vs. evil/them, embracing death and martyrdom as the best of awful outcomes. Even if you kill them all, theyll regenerate, like the doctor in Doctor Who. The only way to eliminate Hamas is to abolish the conditions that keep birthing it.

If so, what was the real aim? Consider what Israel actually did. Its reduced most of Gaza to rubble, through bombing, invasion and a complete siege. It herded most people southward, using official warnings and threats. When/if the assault resumes, the space will be constricted further. What then? Expulsion to Egypt, perhaps, and what a cabinet minister called a Gaza Nakba.

Its happened before, in 48 and 67. Meanwhile in the West Bank, settlers harass Palestinians into abandoning their villages while everyones focused on Gaza. Expulsion was always an open preference on Israels religious right and has moved now to less extreme camps, like the centrist Yesh Atid party. The expulsion option is in the air and there is something harrowing about it.

Exile following expulsion from your land was a leitmotif of Jewish experience for the last 2,000 years, if not entirely in a negative sense. It cant help resonating deeply and toxically. It is doing to them what they did to us except the Palestinians played little part; they werent involved till recently.

Still, expulsion hasnt happened, and looks as if it may not. Why? Partly because compliant, supine Arab regimes like Egypt and Jordan explicitly refused to absorb a Palestinian exodus, perhaps due to fury over the Israeli onslaught from their own populations. Saudi Arabia also demurred, pausing the normalization of its relations with Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden on his part, assured them that the U.S. wouldnt allow the forced relocation of Palestinians. The fact all this had to be put on the public record suggests it was a real possibility.

Biden himself made the sharpest reversal. He initially rushed to Israel to say he had Bibis back in his fight against sheer, or pure, evil. But Biden then applied intense pressure for a ceasefire. Why? Fear of losing in 2024 because of surprisingly high anger about Gaza in his own party, especially among the young. Palestine was supposed to have gone away by now.

Having speculated about this one event which is inevitable in international crises, since we never know and will probably never learn, what was said in private versus the bombastic public hooey let me turn briefly to the larger historical meaning of the event. (This is always a bad idea.)

It feels like part of the decline of unipolar U.S. dominance, what Biden calls the U.S. as the indispensable nation. The U.S. is still deferred to in the West. But elsewhere, deference is being deferred.

In Latin America, most people would happily dispense with U.S. centrality; Asia and Africa are similar. All those nations have internal inequities and serious shortcomings like autocracy and suppression of basic rights. But among both the rulers and the ruled, theyve had sufficient experience with the U.S. imperium to recognize and disdain it.

I base this mainly on the widespread, ongoing Gaza protests, apparently impervious to western media claims about the conflict, and also on particular countries stands, like South Africa and Indonesia.

I know the end of U.S. dominance (finally) has been proclaimed often, so please feel free to pity me for thinking its arrived yet again.

This column originally appeared in the Toronto Star.

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Speculating on the ceasefire moment in Gaza - rabble.ca

We hear people claim that it is wrong to label something a stigma and that we must not stigmatize people. Some now even assert that we must retire the word pedophile since it stigmatizes people who are erotically attracted to children. Rather, we must speak of a minor-attracted person (or MAP).

A student in one of my classes told me that the word transvestite must not be used, since it stigmatizes cross-dressers. I said that it was a descriptively accurate term for men who dress like women (and vice versa, although that is less common) and that I had not heard of its descent into a derogatory insult. I will continue to use it where appropriate and necessary.

This raises the question of whether anything should be stigmatized. I argue that some stigmas are good and should be applied appropriately. Otherwise, we will sink in a sea of relativism and antinomianism.

One can stigmatize a particular proclivity, behavior, or person while still seeking the well-being of those so stigmatized. The sociologist Erving Goffman defined stigma as an attribute that is deeply discrediting. For example, a convicted pedophile has been correctly discredited to work with young children.

Of course, people can be stigmatized for the wrong reasons, such as their race, physical appearance, handicaps, or other features beyond their control. And those suffering from moral stigmas may repent of them and lead new lives.

However, it is not loving to endorse a sinful bent or behavior. One can correctly assign a stigma without hating or seeking harm for the person so stigmatized. We can stigmatize something without cursing the person who practices the stigmatized behavior. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. (Romans 12:14) We can add this to that command: bless those who are rightfully stigmatized, and do not curse them.

Stigma is an inescapable concept for anyone seeking to make significant moral distinctions. The question for us all is discerning what is stigma-worthy and what is not. For Christians, our test book is the Bible.

Moreover, one should apply the standard used to identify the stigma to oneself first, as Jesus taught:

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brothers eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

Without proper stigmas, we cannot create or maintain a decent society. We simply cannot accept every action or every lifestyle. Wrongdoing and wrong living are real and should be rejected and shamed. Some desires (such as erotic desires for children) are, in themselves, disordered loves and should be stigmatized as such. Having such disordered desires is not on the order of having brown hair or white skin or being tall. This is the reality of concupiscence, which is due to original sin. Our sinful natures are sexually disordered, to one degree or another, in one way or another.

For Jesus and the Bible as a whole, desires not acted on may also be sinful:

You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. (Matthew 5:27-30)

Some engage in heterosexual lusts and immoral behaviors with adults and have no sexual desire for children. Their concupiscence differs from that of a pedophile. We are all sinners, by nature and by choice, but sin affects each person differently. We are disordered in various ways. However, we should all struggle to master ourselves to walk the narrow path laid out by Jesus. (Matthew 7:13-14)

It is especially important that pedophilic behavior be stigmatized and illegal, since it is tantamount to rape. A culture that countenances pedophilia is an anti-child and anti-God culture. Jesus had strong words for those who mislead or abuse children. (Mark 9:42)

People with pedophilic desires need not act out on these desires and may receive help with this sexual disorder. The same goes for transvestitism. (Deut. 22:5) These desires must not be normalized, since they are morally wrong. They should be stigmatized and, thus, resisted in ones inner and outer life.

The rejection of all stigmas means the descent into nihilism and anarchy. Those who say no to nothing say yes to perversity. But even those who rail against stigmatizing, stigmatize those who stigmatize pedophilia and transvestitism, deeming them as phobic or censorious or worse. So, stigma is an inescapable concept for anyone seeking to make significant moral distinctions.

The question for us all is discerning what is stigma-worthy and what is not. For Christians, our test book is the Bible. This means that we take all that the Bible says as objectively true and we take that objective truth as the standard for analyzing everything else. Notice what Paul writes about Scripture:

the Holy Scripturesare able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15-17)

The Bible not only teaches the way of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. It is also our standard for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that we are equipped for serving God regarding the truth that God has graciously revealed in the Bible.

The Bible, rightly understood and applied, tells us what to stigmatize and what to praise, as well as which thoughts and actions are commendable and which thoughts and actions are contemptible. Because of this, we should defend the biblical use of stigmas in order to honor Gods moral order and to speak the truth in love to our neighbor. (Ephesians 4:15)

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. is Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary, and author of World Religions in Seven Sentences.

Originally published at DouglasGroothuis.com. Reprinted with permission.

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In Defense of Stigma - The Stream

A shopper walks past NHS signage promoting "Stay Home, Save Lives"

At some point during the Covid pandemic the bit between lockdowns, when everything was open but we were still wearing masks and edging gingerly around each other I went into a gift shop, looking for a present for my niece. I had my sister on the phone, and was consulting her about the trinkets on the shelves, when a small, grey-haired woman started hissing at me from across the room.

Excuse me! she whisper-shouted, in a tone of trembling outrage. Dont you know theres a pandemic?

But Im wearing a mask, I replied, blushing with confusion. I took an automatic step towards her and she flattened herself against the wall.

You keep TALKING! she hissed. Tiny particulates can get through the mask!

It was an unsettling encounter, and not just because I felt unfairly reproached. My accuser looked so normal, in her glasses and raincoat and neat bob. She clearly felt herself to be a good, responsible person, trying to enforce Covid-safe behaviour. And yet, she was obviously losing her mind.

This is the constituency that is most easily forgotten when we tot up the casualties of the pandemic. The ones who went quietly, respectably mad. Not the conspiracy theorists, with their lurid fairytales and flamboyant nihilism. But the people who were inclined too inclined to be public-spirited and obedient.

A new study by psychologists at Bangor University has found that the people who stuck most closely to lockdown rules have suffered the worst impact to their mental health. Communal personality types those with a strong sense of duty towards others were most anxious about getting or spreading the infection, and therefore adhered rigidly to the protocols. This in itself must have had an impact on their mental health: the more scrupulous the self-isolation, the worse the loneliness.

The most law-abiding people have also found it hardest to transition back to normality. They miss being told what to do. Lacking regular announcements on how to live now, many are still following infection prevention measures. They are locked into a state of perpetual emergency.

Story continues

Some, it should be admitted, were a bit unravelled already. The hissing woman in the shop was probably always the type to patrol other peoples behaviour, with relish. Being public-spirited does not automatically make you personable or sane.

American universities are distributing handbooks of basic small talk, for a generation of students incapable of making face-to-face conversation. After introducing yourself to a stranger, for example, you should: Stop! Let them tell you their name. This is not the kind of knowledge a university should have to impart. Lockdowns and smartphones have been blamed, but what about the parents? Teaching your offspring good manners by which I dont mean fussy etiquette, but the ability to make other people feel comfortable in your company is an act of love.

A teenager who knows how to talk to grown-ups who can look them in the eye, ask interesting questions and laugh in the right places has a superpower that will never leave them. It will flatter every adult they meet, earning them leniency at school and university. It will help them get their first job, and every job thereafter. Teaching small talk is the single most effective thing you can do to improve your childs prospects: vastly more important than violin lessons or extra maths.

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Pro-lockdown obsessives still long to be told what to do - Yahoo Eurosport UK

Im so weak. I dont think I can make it through this.

Ive had many friends tell me something along those lines over the years. They all thought they werent strong, brave, or resilient. They all thought they were coping terribly with the challenges that life threw in their paths.

And they are all amongst the most mentally strong people I know.

It is sometimes in our fear that we find courage, in our anger that we find meaning, and in our vulnerability that we find strength.

Here are the 8 signs youre a mentally strong person, too even if you dont think so.

It sounds so simple, yet plenty of people out there are the exact opposite theyre stuck in a victim mindset, blaming everything and anything for the misfortunate theyve co-created for themselves.

But if youre mentally strong, theres a high chance youre not like that. On the contrary, you always take accountability for your actions, no matter if theyre good or bad.

If you make a mistake, you admit to it. If you hurt someone, you apologize and change your behavior.

This is because you understand that despite the limited control that we have over our lives, we do carry a lot of responsibility for how we react to what happens to us.

You may not always be able to choose your circumstances, but you can always choose your approach.

You may not be able to influence other peoples actions, but you can always remain in charge of your own actions, as well as your thoughts.

Since most of our life isnt within our control for example, you didnt choose the body you were born in, nor the country, nor the socio-economic situation, nor the fact that your boss is annoying and that its raining today its actually very common for people to try to grasp for any control they can get their hands on.

They obsess over minuscule things. They plan too far into the future. They let anxiety swallow them whole. They keep trying to butt their noses into other peoples business.

Little do they know that true power isnt about having as much control as possible its about the art of letting go. Of letting be. Of stepping back.

If a friend doesnt reciprocate the time and energy you invest in the relationship, you let them go no matter how much it hurts.

If your new job doesnt seem to be the right fit for you, you find a different position even if it means changing your priorities and rethinking your goals.

No, you dont always get it right. But thats okay. You dont have to be perfect to be mentally strong you just have to keep trying.

Do you know what true resilience is?

Its not facing challenges without a scratch. Its getting a dozen scratches, feeling the pain, and as they form into scars, your newfound skills make it easier for you to only get half a dozen the next time.

Its okay to be scared. Its okay to struggle. But if youre mentally strong, it means you incorporate all those struggles into who you are and grow stronger as a result.

It means you learn your lesson. And it means you emerge stronger and wiser, proud of how far youve come.

On a similar note, we usually think of mentally strong people as those who dont crumble under the weight of obstacles. Those who never cry. Those who always remain optimistic, no matter what.

But we rarely see those people in the comfort of their own bedrooms, right? We rarely see them weep into their pillow, stare at the ceiling late into the night as they doubt their decisions, and try to calm their nerves as anxiety storms through them.

The truth is, the strongest people I know arent the coldest ones. Theyre the ones who are in touch with their feelings. The ones who arent afraid to cry, laugh, or admit that theyre nervous.

Theyre the ones who dont shy away from their vulnerability. Instead, they embrace it.

We all doubt ourselves from time to time.

What if my partner doesnt love me anymore?

What if Im not talented enough?

What if I lose everything Ive worked so hard for?

However, what defines mental strength isnt the fact that you doubt yourself. Its how much power you let those doubts have over you.

At the end of the day, thoughts are just that: thoughts. You only give them power if you focus on them and magnify them, turning them into an issue.

But if you accept that your thoughts are just there, rolling through you in the same way clouds roll through the sky, you wont be as likely to yield to doubts and fears.

Life is essentially meaningless.

We dont know why were here. We dont know if we have some inner purpose or if our whole existence is just a lucky coincidence.

But while youre here, you might just as well create your own meaning.

This is the core principle of optimistic nihilism, and its also what many resilient people have in common while they accept the fact the universe may be meaningless, they dont give up on meaning altogether.

No, they go out into the world and forge their own path.

The fact that you go after your dreams, that you are keen to learn more about the world and yourself, and that you dont give up on yourself even if things get hard

It means youre creating meaning. It means youre stronger than you think.

Its not easy to remain disciplined, and even though you often falter, you push yourself when it truly matters.

However, theres more to pushing ones limits than you might think.

If you just push and push, youll soon burn out, stretching yourself way too far way too soon.

This is why mentally strong people approach self-improvement with care. They dont hurl themselves into ten new habits overnight.

No, they take it step by step. They push, but they also know when to loosen up a little, when to take a break, and when to have some self-compassion.

Discipline mixed with self-love is where true strength is born.

Ive had to learn this the hard way.

For most of my life, I relied on external validation so much that I felt like I had to earn other peoples love and admiration through competitions, good grades, and professional success.

But during lockdown, there was none of that to keep me going. For the first time ever, I had to look myself in the eye and find my self-worth from within. I had to accept that I was worthy of love even if there were no As to strive for, no rewards to win, and no people to impress.

And when the lockdown was over, I was stronger than ever before.

You dont have to take on a large challenge, win a shiny medal, or do something impressive to be strong.

The fact that you can accept yourself as you are now thats what makes you strong.

See the original post:

8 signs you're a mentally strong person (even if you don't think so) - Hack Spirit