Disgust

Given events in the U.S. in the last few days, I felt it would be pertinent to revisit the subject of disgust.

Disgust was a long overlooked emotion but recent psychological research into the subject has shown that it plays an important role in many facets of the human person.

Firstly, with regard to the subject of female sexuality, there is a growing body of research which suggests that it has an important role in the regulation of female sexuality.  From this paper,

In addition, the stimuli involved in sexual encounters are in general (at least out of context) strongly perceived to hold high disgust qualities, with saliva, sweat, semen and body odours qualifying among the strongest disgust elicitors . Clearly then, disgust may be an important interfering factor in sexual activity which may help to explain the mechanisms involved in sexual dysfunction  The finding that many of the strongest disgust eliciting stimuli are also involved in sex (e.g., saliva, and sweat) may not only help explain how disgust may be involved in sexual dysfunction, but it also raises the critical question of how people succeed in having pleasurable sex at all

The growing research evidence suggests that arousal is the key disgust suppression mechanism which facilitates sexual activity. In other words, women are quite literally disgusted by the idea of sex unless sufficiently aroused. This is an important finding, especially with regard to its theological implications. Traditionally, the marital debt was supposed to be rendered by each spouse on demand--within reason--yet the arousal dimension, a dimension which appears to be necessary in order for the normal functioning of the act has not been an object of consideration. There appears to be a need for a theology of desire (Eros: Ed).

The implications of a lack of arousal are clear. (from the same paper) 

From a clinical standpoint these findings can indicate that lack of sexual arousal (perhaps due to inappropriate stimulation) may interfere with functional sex, as it may prevent the reduction of disgust and disgust related avoidance tendencies. Consequently, if sexual arousal is low (for a variety of possible reasons), the disgusting properties of specific stimuli, which are relevant for the engagement in pleasurable sex, as well as the hesitation to approach these stimuli are not attenuated. As a result, this could lead to problems with sexual engagement, and lack of vaginal lubrication, which in turn could increase friction and cause problems such as pain with intercourse. It is thus possible that in extreme cases the woman might acquire negative associations with sex and might start to avoid sexual intercourse altogether. Relevant to this, our previous studies with women suffering from vaginismus (Genito-pelvic pain disorder/penetration disorder) have shown that they experience disgust responses towards erotic stimulation at the subjective as well as at a more automatic level. Moreover, the fact that sex related stimuli appeared to elicit disgust rather than arousal in women suffering from vaginismus might further worsen the problem. This is relevant here, since a typical response to disgust is avoidance behaviour in order to create distance from the disgusting stimuli. Thus, it is highly possible that these sexual problems can be directly or indirectly related to low sexual arousal, which as a consequence gives more room for the elicitation of disgust, resulting in a downward spiral and continued maintenance of their difficulties and sexual dysfunction.

As I've mentioned before, "Biblical Christians", whom insist that a wife must submit to his wife without any reference to the qualities of desire are cultivating conjugal trouble.

Recent research into the subject of Vaginismus and Dyspareunia have shown that women who suffer from these conditions have a higher disgust response to sexual stimuli than other women. Furthermore, normal morally conservative women have a higher disgust response than liberal women. (There appears truth to the notion that liberal women are easy and more tolerant of dirt.)

Now treatment for this condition varies in effectiveness with most approaches being based on a systematic desensitisation approach with quite variable success rates. Interestingly, this small and highly ethically dubious study, used "surrogate partners" with 100% success. After reading the about this latter study, I wanted to know a bit more about the characteristics of the surrogates, no details were forthcoming, but this dissertation, which reviewed the literature with regard to male response to vaginismus, is, as they say, very...very interesting.

The male partners of women with vaginismus are typically described as gentle, timid, inexperienced, overly considerate, and passive-dependent men who are unassertive with lower than average sexual desire (Fertel, 1977 cited in Leiblum et al., 1980). The female partner is seen as the more dominant personality in the majority of the cases (O’Sullivan, 1979). A psychometric study of both partner’s personality by Kennedy et al. (1995) found the male partners “to be reserved rather than outgoing, sober rather than happy-go- lucky, shy rather than  venturesome, trusting rather than suspicious, tense rather than relaxed” (p. 16).

A high proportion of the male partners are described as gentlemen, who are kind and polite, display a good deal of tenderness and concern towards their partner, and show much consideration and understanding for her condition (Puxon & Dawkins, 1963;Stanley, 1981). These qualities of support and empathy may help with the continuation of the relationship, but some partners experienced supportiveness without an appropriate level of assertiveness, as an exacerbation of the difficulties caused by vaginismus in a study by Canin (2006). 

Roissy's shadow is ever present in the dissertation.
Several manosphere commentators have noted the link between disgust and non-alphaness and it would appear that there is a sound scientific basis for it.  Arguing against the notion that there is something wrong with women for wanting an alpha male is not just anti-woman but it is anti-nature as well.

NOTE TO THE RETARDED.

I'm not saying that both these conditions are caused solely by a lack of alphaness in the male, rather it would appear that recent research suggests that the that failure of desire arousal (for whatever mechanism) may be responsible. Epsecially, in cases of dyspareunia, organic factors may be at play and need to be excluded before "desire failure" should be considered as a cause.
Seek proper medical advice.

Lucky Guy

Unlike a lot of this segment of the blogosphere, I'm pretty ambivalent on the subject of a hereditary aristocracy or Royalty. It's a sort of backhanded tribute to Marx when one accepts the notion that those born into a life of privilege are actually morally better than those less fortunate.

I must admit that I have strong sympathies for this view of Jefferson in his letter to John Adams,

For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it’s ascendancy.

A cursory read of European history will show that princes have been corrupt, kings bad, dukes dissolute, Earls treacherous and Queens promiscuous. In England, we have the virtue of Elizabeth matched by the prolishness of his Son Andrew and former daughter-in-law Sarah. There have been exceptions of course, but hereditary aristocracy is no guarantee of virtue. I'd be far more accepting of it, if we could rid ourselves of the worst offenders without slipping into war.

Which brings me to Sweden. Nothing really surprises me about Sweden and those superior Aryans Nords anymore. It appears that they have had a Royal Wedding and whilst marrying commoners is not the breech of precedent it was before, I must admit, I'm a bit surprised with Sweden's newest princess, Sofia Kristina Hellqvist.  Her credentials are impressive (NSFW). Topless model, Reality TV show contestant,  admirer of  Jenna Jameson.  The picture in the Wiki link shows her just about to hit the wall.

Clearly, some commoners are more common than others. That prince, he sure is a lucky guy.

Welcome to our new overclass.

Carnal Lite II: The Virtues of Eros.

One of the most important concepts in biology is the concept of conditioning. First described by Pavlov, conditioning is the learned association between between an innate response and some other stimulus. It is a powerful mechanism of learning in aversion therapy, i.e. when you want to teach a patient to avoid a certain behaviour. It is worth keeping in mind in my comments to follow.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because of a recent post by Dalrock, Don't blame Heartiste for the equation of Alpha with virtue, which I believe raises an important question with regard to the relationship between the two. Now, in order to help those who suffer from concept conflation,  I want to distinguish between alpha male traits--traits which women find sexually attractive--and the the PUA lifestyle, which involves the bedding of multiple women.  The two concepts are separate and when I speak of Alpha male behaviour, I'm speaking of the specifically of the traits, not the lifestyle.

Now the reason I raise this point is to pose the question: Is it possible to be properly masculine without reference of alpha traits? Or is alphaness something that forms a component of masculinity?

If you look at it more closely, many of the alpha traits which women find attractive aren't explicitly sexual traits but are rather personality factors, which demonstrate a strong internal locus of control combined with a strong sense of social awareness. Can a man be manly without these factors? Personally, I don't think so and am more of the opinion that a man needs to posses some alpha factors in his personality to be properly masculine.

In other words, Alpha behaviour is a component of masculinity and sexual attractiveness is a sort of virtue. A better way of thinking of it is as an Arete, an excellence of masculinity.

As I've argued previously, Christianity has downplayed this excellence and has sometimes been out-rightly hostile to it, and has in may ways laid the foundation for the current sexual dystopia, by blurring the sexual dimensions of the person, seeing moral goodness as sexually androgynous. When we tend to think of a good man for instance, we don't tend to think of him as a attractive muscular personage, rather we tend to dismiss this aspect and evaluate him solely on his character traits. Likewise for women. Christian goodness or badness seems to seems to evaluate the "vessel" in which the moral actor subsists as morally irrelevant. It's hard to develop a theology of sexual polarity when the underlying religious assumptions regard physical sexual identity as if it didn't matter.

The problem with taking this approach is that it become very difficult to then to analyse deficiencies or excellences of sexual polarity within any type of moral framework. Even Christian conceptions of Eros, tend to "decarnalise it" seeing it as an appetitve element, a thing of desire, rather than as a thing of desire for the opposite sex. If anyone doubts this, have a read of Benedict's speculations in his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, and Benedict is not stupid. This Christian approach to Eros deforms it into a meeting of souls instead of a hedonic delight in the carnal nature of each other. Eros is primarily concerned with the flesh.

Eros is a type of love that brings the opposites together and therefore it's virtues are those which facilitate union. Masculinity under such a framework  must posses qualities which are attractive to the opposite sex, likewise femininity is composed of the qualities which attract the male. The Erotic virtues are those which conform to this ideal and a good man under this analysis is not only a man who is pleasing to God but is also attractive to women. Furthermore, masculinity in this construct becomes a matter of empirical observation instead of some philosophical construct. A component of masculinity must include what women like.

This "carnal lite" view of the sexes leads to other more profound problems. It tends to analyse intersexual relationships without reference to actual human biology, tending to evaluate male female relationships on a "platonic" dimension instead of an "erotic" one. Marital dysfunction is seen more as a "friendship" failure rather than a failure of Eros.  Now by erotic failure, I don't just mean an explicitly sexual failure--i.e a failure in the bedroom--but rather a more inclusive failure of either masculinity or femininity. Wives come home to men who can't make a decision and men come home to whiny bossy wives.  Marriages fail not just because men and women don't posses the character traits to be friends, rather marriages fail because the partners fail to maintain their sexual polarity.
Christianity just doesn't operate on this level of analysis.

Now the reason why I think this is important is because many Christian types feel that the institution of marriage would be all right and dandy if wives would just simply" submit to their husband" as per Paul's command. Paul says much more than this on the subject of marriage and is, in fact, quite explicit that both partners should try to please each other. But what's important here, amongst those who love to emphasise this passage of scripture, is the usual accompanying disregard for the erotic component of male-female relationship, and given the anti-carnal tendencies of Christianity, "pleasing" is quite readily assumed as not including the broader sexual dimension. Therefore Christian marital advice focuses on "understanding" and "patience" instead of losing weight and property maintenance without nagging. Furthermore, Christianity does not seem to grasp that their may be a class of "erotic sins" which wound a marriage.

Now telling women to "submit" without reference to their carnal nature leads to some very interesting and poisonous after effects, especially in light of recent psychological research on the subject of disgust. Accumulating evidence suggests that the emotion of disgust is the sexual gatekeeper in women and it's inhibition through the mechanism of arousal is what permits sexual activity to occur.

Which brings us back to the subject of conditioning. If a women is compelled to have sex without arousal, her innate response will be to associate the act with disgust, The thing that needs to be remembered is that this is a "hard wired" biological response not some choice. Over a while,  a conditioned response will occur and avoidance behaviour will set in, resulting in the marital aridity of folklore. Now the good woman may choose, out of her love of God, to grit her teeth and perform for the husband but she will be acting against her nature and gradually, as the cycle is repeated,  the conjugal aspect of the marriage will become dysfunctional. No matter how you cut it, arousal and disgust matter. Eros is more than just desire, it's about the qualities of the other.

A Jezebel President.

George Bush may have been an idiot but he never left his country impotent, like Jimmy Carter did. How does the most powerful nation in the world get bought to its knees without a shot being fired? Perhaps it's when they elect, through their deliberative and shrewd judgement, an idiot man of God.

Anyone trying to understand the malaise at that time would do well to reflect on this latest piece by Jimmy Carter as an insight into the "mind" of the man. One doesn't expect high intellectual standards from the Left but Jimmy is proof that age does not necessarily give wisdom, nor "faith" intelligence.


Guess the men who fought and bled on Guadalcanal and Tarawa died so such a man could rule.

Give me Tricky Dicky any day.

Pope Francis Appeals to Roissy. (Sort of)

 

In further proof that the Traditionalists are the intellectual equivalent of Liberals, only at the opposite temperamental pole, Pope Francis, who is "persona non grata" amongst them, has once again confounded expectations by laying the boot into Feminism and Gender Theory. Quelle Surprise!

In his THIRD condemnation of Gender studies during his Papacy, Francis makes a shout out to the Manosphere!

The marital and family bond is something serious; it is for everyone, not just for believers. I would like to urge intellectuals not to abandon this topic, as though it had become secondary to commitment in favor of a freer and more just society.

To be quite honest though, Francis once again goes into traditional Platonic Love mode.

"To resolve their relationship problems, man and woman need instead to talk more to one another, listen more to one another, know one another more, love one another more. They need to treat one another with respect and cooperate in friendship. With these human foundations, sustained by the grace of God, it is possible to plan a marital and family union for the whole of life.

Perhaps a better solution would be for men to act like men and women to act like women and then do the talking. This implies knowing how to act like a man and knowing how to act like a woman something which the Church itself has considerably muddled.

 

As I've argued in previous posts, the Church has in many ways been the midwife of Gender theory by pushing a view of human sexuality that downplayed the carnal component of it. Eros became desexualised. The moderns, simply took the cultural capital they inherited and amped it up, and the way to look at Gender theory is that it is a type of Platonic love only on steroids. Spirit disconnected from body as opposed to Aristotlean hylomorphism where spirit and body are one. You Churchy types reflect on The Word made Flesh for a moment.

Pope Francis seems to be proof that the Traditionalists will do all the possibly can to let the Liberals win. The Liberals are the Catholic Church's Sefton.

Bonus Link.

I don't agree with all the things that Zmirak says because I don't think Francis is an enemy of the Right, he's opposed to Traditionalists.  The way to think about what is going on in the Catholic Church is not a Right/Left dichotomy rather, it is a Tradtionalist/Right/Left trichotomy.  With the Trads and the Left both working to undermine the Right.

Perhaps we have our first Reactionary Pope.

Easter Homily.

Perhaps the best homily heard during this Easter period was not heard from the pulpits but from inside the reactionary sphere.  Now, I don't agree with everything over at Alternative Right but there is a lot to agree about in this piece.

Another Victory for Religious White People.

Quote:

But why are Christian Conservatives so weak, so feeble, so unable to stand up on their two hind legs, except to beg for mercy? Some will say it's because they are too nice, too meek and mild "like Mary's holy child," too in love with love, and too at peace with peace to ever kick up a fuss. But the funny thing is that that is more or less exactly how their Liberal opponents like to see themselves – the good guys, the lovable peaceniks, everybody’s friend, etc. Their humanitarian totalitarianism and Twitter hate lynch mobs draw moral strength from the certainty that they are.

and,

 Cook was blamed for his hypocrisy, but this is a little unfair. Hypocrisy usually means you treat identical cases differently, but there is every difference between Saudi Arabia and Indiana, as there is between Islam and Christianity. In Christianity, Liberals merely see a faith that is weaker then their own; one that can be pushed around by their zealots with little fear of reprisals. With Islam they see a faith that is stronger than theirs and accordingly tread much more carefully and respectfully.

The problem revealed by the RFRA debacle in Indiana is not that Liberals exist and want Liberal things, but instead that Christians are not fully Christian and have no idea how to get Christian things. They are at best lukewarm believers in their supposed faith, incapable of acting to defend their beliefs.....

.....A more likely explanation is that Christianity in the modern West is only capable of inspiring a faith that is feeble, doubt-ridden, passive, and essentially worthless – except as a means of enriching its ministry. Perhaps that is where all its enthusiasm has gone, and why there is none left over to fight back against the rampant rival faith of Liberalism, which in itself is a fine example of just how potent comparatively small numbers of religiously motivated White people can be.

 

Testify Brother, Testify!

 

The astonishing march of the Left Wing through Western Culture has only been possible because of the lack of opposition to it. It was only in the 90's that Gay marriage was regarded as a joke and now we see Christians being persecuted by mobs for their feeble opposition to it.

 

Belloc was right, Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe, and if the idea of European Civilisation is dying it's because the faith is dying as well.  Part of the reason I suspect this is the case is because the faith we have had handed down to us has had all the testosterone washed out of it. Christianity still believes in its mission, but it's mission has been redefined as being just another NGO, albeit one that has to comply with Ceasar's bidding.

Another part of the reason is that the Christian teaching on Courage has tended to emphasise it's passive component. Lauding the courage of forbearance and the acceptance of pain whilst downplaying the role of righteous defence and attack.  Doubling down on prayers and fasts may improve ones "spirituality" and ability to bear suffering, but it does nothing to diminish the hurt from the opposition. It's so much easier to withdraw than attack, and justify it as "carrying your cross".

After reading the article, I must admit the first thought came to mind was the Parable of the Talents. Many people have been given the Talent of Christianity only to squirrel it away and do nothing with it. "Accepting Jesus" was quite clear on what was going to happen to them. God expects you to have a pair.

A Sovereign Mind

The true rightist is not a man who wants to go back to this or that institution for the sake of a return; he wants first to find out what is eternally true, eternally valid, and then either to restore or reinstall it, regardless of whether it seems obsolete, whether it is ancient, contemporary, or even without precedent, brand new, ‘ultramodern.’ Old truths can be rediscovered, entirely new ones found. The Man of the Right does not have a time-bound, but a sovereign mind. In case he is a Christian he is, in the words of the Apostle Peter, the steward of a Basileion Hierateuma, a Royal Priesthood.

 Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Neoreaction appears to be a Conservative phenomenon by virtue of association yet to think of it as Conservative is wrong. Neoreaction is neither Conservative or Liberal. It is neither regressive or progressive. It is not traditionalist nor is it modernist. It is not about being either Left or Right, it is about being right: Truth is its imperative.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Our Sefton

...... Nevertheless, my objection is to your blanket “the Jews” when referring to some segment of Jews who are virulently Marxist and/or Zionist. As you note, Ron Unz and Paul Gottfried are righteous. I could add many other names to the list. And as you also note, Christianity is the real root of our disease. It is the Catholic and Lutheran Churches bringing hundreds of thousands of African “refugees” into America. It is the Catholic Church harboring illegal mestizos. It is the tens of millions of evangelical Christians eager for our next war on Israel’s behalf. It is american christians who are Netanyahu’s biggest cheerleaders while our largest Jewish group, Reform Jews, are opposed to him. On all this it appears that we agree.

So when numerically the Christians actively pursuing our destruction outnumber the Jews pursuing our destruction (and their own subsequently) by a hundredfold, what benefit is obtained with saying, “The Jews .. The Jews”? We all know the Jews are more intelligent (on average) than the Christians and that this advantage is weighted toward verbal IQ so they carry an influence greater than mere numbers suggest. But I still fail to see any reason to blame “the Jews” for what the majority of Christians and indeed 100% of Christian leadership fervently advocates. America’s Christians are listening as much (or more) to their Pastors and Priests than to Moishe Goldfarbsilversteinowitz. And I’m sure you’d agree that a Jew weighing his beliefs will be alienated by any movement where every other advocate is railing endlessly against “the Jews .. The Jews!” Don’t we really want and need more smart white people to awaken to our cause? Based on the numbers of secular Jews and Jewish outmarriage rates, the number of Jews who self-identify as “white” rather than “Jew” is on the rapid rise. But secular or not, they’ve been fed “The Holocaust” with their mother’s milk from birth. My suggestion to you then isn’t that you change your mind, but that you become more specific in your condemnations. Instead of “the Jews .. The Jews” perhaps “the Zionist Jews and their Christian pals”? Or “the Christian and Jewish Zionists”? Or “white genocide favoring Christians and Jews”?

Stan D Mute, The Unz Review.

Before reading on, it might be worthwhile to refamiliarise yourself with System 1 and System 2 thinking.

One of my favorite movies is Stalag 17. It's a story about American airmen in a German POW camp during WW2 who have their plans for escape continually foiled. The pattern of consistent failure leads to a realisation that there is an informant amongst them and suspicion falls on an American named Sefton, who has been  fraternizing and trading with the German guards.

Sefton is the obvious choice for the informant. He is friendly with the Germans, is cynical with regard to the war and doesn't real show significant "patriotism". In addition, He possess several unlikable characteristics and places bets against the prisoners who are trying to escape, which makes him all the more repugnant to his fellow inmates. So convinced of his guilt, are the other prisoners, that they beat him up and want to lynch him, with Sefton being only spared by the intervention of the prisoners leader. The prisoners continue to believe that Sefton is the informant until the the very end, where in a plot twist, it is revealed that the congenial, blond, blue eyed, all-American camp security officer, whom nobody suspected, is the German Spy.  For his performance of Sefton in the movie, William Holden won the Academy award for Best Actor in 1954.

Apart from being a good movie, it is a powerful study into the "cognitive" behavior of mobs and how prejudicial (System 1) thinking can lead to false conclusions. More importantly, as the movie shows, sometimes prejudice acts as a smokescreen by making men focus on a probable evil and through cognitive neglect, letting true evil flourish. For the sake of this article, I'm going to call this the Sefton Effect.

The Sefton Effect requires four components for its operation:

1) An aggrieved party of cognitive misers. i.e most humans in groups.
2) A patsy, who by virtue of some attribute, elicits both a strong negative emotional response and is a plausible prima facie (low cognitive demand) explanation for some evil.
3) A villain, who is highly agreeable and continually deflects blame on the patsy.
4) The failure to dispassionately exercise logic and the rules of evidence.

The roots of prejudice can be found in the System 1 mechanism of the human mind. Prejudice is quite simply the result of the mind's capacity to associate facts, experiences and emotions in a low- cognitive-demand, higher-order-reflex arrangement. It is a biocognitve phenomenon which is a feature of the human mind. The reason why Stereotypical thinking is prevalent in human beings is because it's a type of thinking that works in most circumstances and confers a survival advantage. And stereotypes, like prejudices, no matter how politically incorrect, have some basis in the truth. Black men are statistically more prone to criminal activity than white men. White upper middle class men are low probability violent perpetrators. In situations of informational ambiguity, threat or in environments where low cognitive accuracy is habituated, the mind will come to conclusions based on pure probabilistic and associative assessment. It might be unfair, it might be unjust, but its a biological effect of the human brain. Its only by engaging in System Two thinking and by following the rules of evidence and logic, that System One thinking can by over-ridden and and an accurate logical analysis of facts and events can be made.

Real life has similar examples of this type of thing,  The Sefton Effect can be seen in the phenomenon of the Racial Hoax. White perpetrators, wanting to deflect the blame from themselves of a crime will frequently blame a black man for the crime they have committed and, unfortunately, many times they have been successful. The reason why this sort of thing works is because most people are cognitive misers and  are quite content with the solutions provided by intuitive stereotypical (System 1) thinking.

False rape accusations are in a major way facilitated by the effect. Pretty White Southern Girl, Petty Criminal Black man, Beta male mob. Need I say more? The conclusion is foregone even though no facts have been presented.

Now the reason I bring this up is because in my opinion, the Sefton Effect has seriously hampered the Right's understanding of why it has failed in the 20th C, choosing to blame easy to grasp low hanging fruit instead of tackling underlying fundamental issues which plague Conservatism. And perhaps one of the biggest example of the Sefton Effect in Conservatism is anti-Semitism.

It appears that there is resurgence of Conservative thought in the West and one of things that I would hate to see it do is shoot itself in the head by repeating the same mistakes of the past. One of those mistakes is anti-Semitism.

The Jews, many ways, are tailor made to be the Right's bogey man. After all, there is the longstanding cultural embrace of the Left by Judaism, the disproportionate representation of ethnic Jews in the Communist tragedy of Eastern Europe, with its virulent anti-Christian nature. Their self-proclaimed chosen status, the differential treatment handed to Goy and non-Goy, (paging Salomen Morel) whilst lecturing all on the evils of discrimination. Their vastly disproportionate representation in the leadership of the Cathedral and in the institutions of Banking and Finance. The Tribes fierce assault on one noticing (Mearsheimer and Walt) and cynical weaponisation of the Holocaust. Their exclusive claim to Auschwitz (Never mind the Christian Poles killed there) The silencing of any criticism by framing it as a wannabe Nazi restoration. The condemnation of the Nazi's whilst pursuing a policy of Lebensraum settlement in Palestine, the promotion of multi-Culturalism in the West whilst simultaneously promoting mono-culturalism in Israel, the war on Christmas under the banner of discrimination and so on. For the Goy, there's a lot not to like.

Many Goy, seeing this, justly or unjustly, don't like the Jews and will through a mechanism of cognitive biases selectively "interpret" the evidence to prove that they are enemies of the Right.

The Jews fill a vital role for the cogntive-lite-Right, being the low hanging fruit by which they can easily explain the Western cultural decline. Much like Black demagogues seeing an explanation of all evil in the White Man, the lite-Right tend to blame all of Western Society's ailments on the Jews. They are the Lite-Right's Sefton.

However, many of these same Goy fail to notice that many Jews just want to fit in to society. In the U.S., many are secularising and Israel is a secondary priority. Many Jews, as professionals have positively contributed to the sciences, arts and to all other forms of community service and even amongst the Jews themselves, the Rabid Zionists and Leftists are on the nose. It's high time that the Right recognises the Righteous amongst the Jews. I nominate John Monash and Issac Issacs.

It is so easy (cognitively) to stitch them up for the failure of Conservatism in the 20th Century but it is also wrong. Instead of arguing why were there so many Jews in the Communist Revolution, the question should really be, why was Western society so weak that Communist revolution became possible. What changed? Instead of asking why is the media controlled by the Jews? We should be asking why should anyone group be able to control the media and why has society permitted this. Instead we focus on the symptoms instead of the disease. It's the aching sore toe that pre-occupies us, not the cancer in the belly.

Now, the reason I bring this up is because there has been a "tradition" in Right Wing circles of anti-Semitism which has seriously crippled the Right's ability to think about the problems of the 20th Century critically, tending to blame the failure on obvious patsy's like the Jews instead of focusing on the problems that are "in house". They have been the Right's Sefton. Much like our characters in Stalag 17, the Right has concentrated on obvious explanation instead of difficult to comprehend and subtle internalities which rot at conservatism unremittingly from the inside, untreated. Secondly, anti-Semitism is a slow poison which fundamentally weakens the Right, especially Neoreaction by making it susceptible to entryism by Nazi and crypto-Nazi elements. It needs to be remembered that National Socialism is the "right wing" flavor of socialism and any influx of Nazi's, apart from being personally repellant, is also likely to destroy Neoreaction from the inside both intellectually and ideologically, pushing it to the Left. The way that Neo-reaction should deal with the issues of Semitism is to ignore it.  Semitism is irrelevant to Neo-Reaction or Conservatism and is a ultimately distraction from real issues.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom no one can accuse of being a philo-Semite came to the same conclusion. After years of looking into the matter he was of the opinion that the Jews were not responsible for the Russian revolution, he saw that the rot lay deeper:

Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. 

What is more, the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century, against the background of what has since occurred in the rest of the world. What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.

In this secular age, it may not be socially polite nor cognitively pleasing to admit that what ails Western Civilization is a collapse of the faith. It's easier to pin the blame on the bogeyman we don't like rather than see that the rot lies within ourselves.

A Troublesome Intelligence:2

Due to personal commitments, I never got around to putting up a follow up post to this one.  Wade's, A Troublesome Inheritance book seems to have fallen off the radar but I've never been one to not to put a boot into an idiotic theory even if it isn't topical.

One of the problems with Wade's contention, that economic success is a result of genetic selection, is that in many instances he does not control for multiple variables which my also influence his observed results. Wade, for instance, does not control for religion, or political regime which, in my opinion are important confounding variables. Ideally the best way to test for the genetic component of wealth creation is to control for as many confounding variables you can  whilst allowing the genetic component to fully express itself.

Ideally, what you would want to do would be to put as many different genetic groups into the same political, religious and economic climate. Preferably, then, you would like to "acclimatise" them for a few generations to avoid legacy effects and then observe them for a few years and then stratify them upon their per capita wealth.

Fortunately, this data is quite readily available on Wiki, and a short scrutiny of the data pretty much demolishes Wade's claims. I know that the data is not perfect, and that there are other confounding variables, such as religion which aren't dealt with but Wiki has data which is much better than anything Wade presents.

Per Capita Income in the United States by Ancestry (i.e. genetic heritage)  makes for interesting reading. Clearly, if Wade's theory was correct you'd expect the genetic advantage bred into the Northern Europeans would be transferable to the the U.S. with their immigration to it, and that in the equal economic environment of the U.S. they would be able to out-compete with the untermensch from the other parts of the world. And yet the data illustrates that this is not the case. My own ancestors, Croatians, listed 58 on the IMF GDP per capita rankings are ranked 17th in the U.S., on per capita income, just under the English, but well above the Swedes, Scots-Irish, Germans, Danish, Finns and Dutch. Yet, Croatia was a backward frontier outpost of the Austro-Hungarian and Venetian empires with a very limited economy. Clearly, if Wade's was correct, then Nordic economic superiority should have evident, at least in the instance of the Croatians, the opposite effect is observed.

Yet, when you look at Per Capita Income by Country of Birth you see that the Croatians are ranked 48, much closer to the IMF world rankings. How is it then, that after spending only a few generations in the U.S., not enough time for natural selection to occur, that a Croatian's economic potential is so markedly improved?

It's the software stupid. It's culture.

Another  very powerful demonstration of the power of culture is shown by way of the example of Germany. Communism had its hold on Eastern Germany from 1945 to 1989, roughly about two generations worth of time, not enough for selection pressures to be significant. Additionally, most of East Germany was Protestant which had traditionally superior economic performance per captia when compared to Germany's Catholic areas. Yet, despite 2 trillion Euros worth of investment, subsidies by the government  and a new found economic freedom, the Eastern part of Germany is still lagging financially. What gives?  Why should 50 years of communism leave a lasting economic legacy 25 years after unification?

Culture and Culture.

The map on the Left is GDP per capita and the map on the right is worker productivity per capita.

In this fascinating paper on the change in IQ of German military recruits by region of origin Roivanen makes the following point.

These results show a strong correlation between IQ, GDP, and education, confirming the observations made by Lynn and Vanhanen (2012). However, it is difficult to explain these correlations using biological or genetic factors because of the rapid changes occurring within a short time span. It is not reasonable to assume significant genetic or biological differences between East and West Germans in 1992 but not in 1998. [Ed] Instead, social and political factors offer a simpler explanation. Great  differences existed between East and West German societies before the unification in 1990 in terms of education, economics, politics, and religion. Due to political factors, such as lack of democracy and economic freedom, the East German economy did not perform as well as the West German one and offered fewer resources for education, which is known to have a strong effect on IQ. When the two societies started to merge in the 1990s, eastern Germany gained in GDP and the educational expenditure rose. The educational level of East German conscripts was significantly higher in 1998 than in 1992 resulting in robust IQ gains.

Buried in that paper is another gem:

Children from immigrant families had much lower mean scores in PISA 2006 than children with German parents (Prenzel et al., 2008). Ebenrett and Puzicha (1999) do not report the share of conscripts from immigrant families, but census data indicates that it was probably higher in 1998 than in 1992 and this may have affected the stagnant IQ scores in West German cities. On the other hand, 1.3 million Germans moved from East to West Germany from 1989 to 2006, half of them younger than 25 years of age (Lehmann, 2008). The education level of these migrants was higher than that of the general population, with roughly one third of the early 1990s migrants having at least a high school diploma. The east–west brain drain has been an important political issue in unified Germany (Ebenrett,Hansen, & Puzicha, 2003). Arguably, IQ gains in eastern states would have been larger without the migration.

Despite the brain drain from East Germany, German IQ continued to rise! In other words there was a positive effect on IQ despite negative genetic drift!

Now I'm not arguing that genetics don't matter; you can't put in what God's left out, but it's clear that cultural software is very important with regard to IQ and economic performance and reductionist explanations that are biased towards one or the other are false. Wade's theory is rubbish.

For those who are interested, here is an interesting paper discussing the cultural wedge that has been formed by the fifty years of Communist rule between East and West Germany, and why there will be differences between East/West performance for a long time to come.

On Chesterhate.

The other day, on Twitter, there was some discussion with regard to the merits of G.K. Chesterton and his relationship with Neoreaction ,with some negative comments made with regard to his economic ideas.

G.K.C was, like Mencken, a brilliant wordsmith who signature style was to use a paradox to illustrate his ideas. The problem with being a brilliant wordsmith is that people frequently see your work as good literature instead of looking at the ideas incorporated in them and praise your style instead of your content.  Mencken, for example, is seen as a humorous political journalist, instead of a fierce critic of Democracy. Good writing , then, can paradoxically obscure the point of your argument instead of augmenting it. As such, G.K.C is frequently seen as a man of letters instead of a serious intellectual force.

His work on St Thomas Aquinas, written after reading only four books on his subject matter, is considered by many serious scholars of St Thomas to be the best ever book written about him. Etienne Gilson had this to say about him;

For many years I have studied St Thomas and written on him and a now a journalist writes a better book about him than I have!

This isn't praise from the peanut gallery. The subject matter was hard and his mastery complete, and anyone who thinks Chesterton is a lightweight is seriously mistaken. He was one of the first to see the problems that modernity would cause to Western Civilisation, he saw the problems of capitalism without embracing socialism, he argued against the female vote, against eugenics and in fact, many of his positions taken in the early 1900's would be quite compatible with a lot of Neoreactionary ideas. Surprisingly, as I found out a few days ago, he even gave the young Eric Blair one of his first breaks.

But to be fair, Chesterton was also a man of his times and, in my mind, he was biased towards some of the causes he took on. Orwell's criticism of him , especially his "Catholic uber alles" approach,  blinded him to some of the real problems in Catholic countries and has some legitimacy. Furthermore, his optimisitic view of human nature blinded him to some of the realities of it. Operating within the Belle Epoque, in a civilisation which had peaked, and in a society which was mannered and well behaved (but with a large underclass) it would have been easy to have absorbed some of the progressive Kool-aid unthinkingly. It is interesting, that as his years progressed, he seemed to lose some of that optimism with regard to human nature just as Orwell began to lose some of his belief in atheism.

Even though he was one of the huge influences in my life, I did find myself disagreeing with him on some issues, particularly with regard to his ideas on Distributism. Firstly, two things need to be distinguished, the principle of Distributism, which I supported, and the his implementation, which I didn't. Distributism is the notion that the wealth of the nation should be distributed as widely as possible in a society, not so much as everyone having an equal share as much it is as everyone having a reasonable bit. Chesterton was spot-on when he said;

The problem with too much Capitalism is not too many capitalists but too few.

Chesterton understood that unfettered Capitalism caused a concentration of it in an economic elite who's sole elitist virtue was the capacity to make money. The problem is that this elite then gained an disproportional representation in the political and cultural process by sole virtue of their economic success. The meta-economic consequences of this aren't hard to gauge. In essence, he and Belloc, were the forerunners of the Ordoliberal school of thought.

His is ideas for the implementation of his Distributist policies, in my opinion, rested on the pastoralist utopian ideas which are frequently found amongst many conservatives who want to "escape to the country" and return to idealised primitive conditions. Despite years of campaigning, his ideas on Distributism gained little traction in the Anglo-sphere but it needs to be remembered that he was competing with another more publicised alternative which was intellectually easier to grasp (yet wrong) amongst the recently enfranchised prole masses.

In fact, perhaps one of the best implementations of Distributism is in Germany, where the concept of the Mittelstand has been aggressively pushed. This is thanks to the work of the Ordoliberalists.

The point here is that while Chesterton was wrong on some points he was a serious intellectual force and should not be dismissed lightly especially amongst Neoreactionaries. He had to work out many of his positions on his own and in an age which was far more optimistic than our own. He did not have the experience of the 20th Century, which was then a bright future, to balance some of his ideas and assumptions. For some of us, if it is that we can see further than he did and with greater clarity, it's because we stand on his shoulders and have benefited from his labors. He deserves a lot of respect.

The Problems of Semitisation.

On April 25, 1945, this picture was taken of a meeting between American and Soviet forces on the Elbe. After six years of bloody war it truly was a joyous occasion, and it was wise to forget that nearly six year prior, the guys on the right were having another joyous meeting with another group of friends with whom they had since fallen out with.

The Eastern European perspective of the Second World War is not the same as the Western European one. Poles do not regard the Liberation of Warsaw in the same way that the French regard the Liberation of Paris and the emotional response to VE day in Europe has different dimension, depending on which side of the Iron Curtain you had the mis/fortune to inhabit. As Keith Lowe's book, Savage Continent, demonstrated, in the East of Europe the killing continued for a long time afterwards and many of those killed were the good guys.

When Hitler's armies stormed in Poland on September 1st, 1939, it was done with the tacit agreement of the Soviet Union, who had promised to invade Poland--on a as per previously agreed timetable--as per  the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. And though, chronologically, the Germans invaded first,  the Russians were holding off till it was their turn to put on the screws. World War Two, therefore, was a result of the combined German-Soviet agreement to unjustly partition Poland. It is therefore strange for an Eastern European to hear of how Germany "started the war", whereas in reality it was Germany and Russia that did it. For countries in Eastern Europe, the "liberation" from the Germans was the starting date for the enslavement by the Russians. Liberation proper, only occurring after the fall of Communism. What has always perplexed me is, why isn't this fact more readily recognised in the West?  Or what I should really say is, in the European cultures west of the Iron Curtain.

What always amazes me is the differential judgement accorded to both ideologies (and countries) when in reality both were malignant facets of evil. Nazism was vile on so many dimensions; for its system of concentration camps its, treatment of the Jews, it's embrace of savagery and cruelty, its plunder and so on. But so was Soviet Communism, whose body count was greater than that of Nazism and whose cruelties and savageries were on many instances on par. Every now and then I hear of how one was worse/ or better than the other but in my opinion it's a bit like choosing between cancer of the lung or the bowel: both are bad in their own kind of ways, there is nothing good about either of them.

In Eastern Europe both are seen as vile ideologies, but why the slant to the Left in the West? Especially, as the on-the-ground facts were better known there than in the East where there was widespread censorship and suppression of information?

Part of the reason I suspect, is that the West never had to fight the Russians and never got the full  experience of Bolshevism. Had, perhaps, five to six million Anglos or Frenchies been sent to the Gulag and "disappeared" Western perceptions of Russia would be different. Since it only happened to the "Western Slavs/Krauts" it really didn't matter and it really never made it into the public consciousness.  Furthermore, for those in the know, the alliance with the Communist savages must have caused considerable angst, and there is now considerable evidence that the West did know what was going on but preferred to turn a blind eye lest the "alliance" be threatened by moral questions that would have been raised. 

Necessary exigencies partially explain this dual standard during war time but with collapse of the Nazis, and the emergence of the Cold War, there was more than enough time for History to be set straight and yet it hasn't. Why? Part of the reason, I suspect, is because of the "Semitisation" of history in the West.

The terrible experience of Nazism by the Jews has resulted in their community focusing particular attention to the Nazi period, trying to understanding it, particularly with regard to their own cultural context. Given the predominance of Jews in academia and the media, the leftward slant of modern Judaism,  the freedom of speech in the West and the sheer weight of their publications ensured that the West was given a particularly Semitic interpretation of the Fascist phenomenon. This resulted in a moral evaluation which made the National Socialists more evil than the International Socialists.

Furthermore, the Anglo experience of fighting the Germans  and of having the Russians as allies, combined with cultural insularity, tended to emphasise this view. I also feel that once the full horror of what happened to the Jews became apparent, I think many of that many of the Allies were more than  happy to the let the focus fall onto German evil instead lest their own culpability in the Holocaust be bought to light by refusing to provide Jews with refuge.  The prevailing cultural interpretation of the Nazi period became Semitised.

By Semitisation, I mean the interpretation of things through a Jewish dimension to the exclusion of other facts. Now, I want to stress that I don't believe that this is as a result of a deliberate policy by the Jews or some sort of conspiratorial effort, rather, historical and biocognitive factors are more than responsible for this state of affairs.

On the other hand, in Eastern Europe, the post war interpretation of Nazi period was heavily Communised.  Here the official interpretation did not emphasise the Jewish dimension of the Nazi period but tended to see it in terms of the Marxist struggle, though everyone knew that the Jews were treated badly. It's hard to see the Holocaust as anything special when so much indiscriminate death was around in the post-War killing fields or Eastern Europe and where friends are family were disappearing in the night well into the 1970's.

I'll illustrate what I mean by Semitisation. For instance, it's a given that  Hitler is understood to be virulent anti-Semite, which he was, but it needs to be understood that he was primarily a racial purist and his anti-Semitism was secondary to it. The Semitic interpretation tends to see Hitler as intrinsically anti-semitic.  Now there's plenty enough evidence to show that Hitler was not just anti-Jewish, but he was also anti-Slav, anti-Gypsy anti-homosexual, anti-deformed, anti-Communist and anti-Catholic. Well before his final solution was formally implemented in 1942 Hitler had signed the decree for the T4 program  (1939, involuntary "euthanasia" of the mentally defectives) and it appears that the physical liquidation of the Jews was not on the top of his priority list. Though once the Nazi's decided to exterminate the Jews they did so with Germanic efficiency.

However,  as vile as the Final Solution was, an even greater depravity was in preparation, the Nazi's, Generalplan Ost, which would have killed tens of millions of Slavs and literally exterminated Poland. Focusing on Hitler as an intrinsic anti-Semite instead of virulent Darwinian racist downplays the racial purity aspect of the Nazi ideology whilst elevating the importance of the anti-Semitism.  Furthermore, by emphasising the Semitic dimension of Communism i.e. it was generally pro-Semitic early on, Fascism and Communism can be polarised on a Semitic axis. With Fascism being intrinsically anti-Semitic and thus bad, whilst communism which was pro-Semitic, and thus less evil (good). Fascism is thus seen as "more evil" from this perspective and Communist victims are accorded a lower status than Nazi ones. This type of "logic" offends common sense, natural justice and in Eastern Europe, this particularly tends to rub people the wrong way.

Semtisation is not just a Jewish phenomenon, it also needs to be seen as as a Nazi/Crypto-Nazi one, except in the negative sense. Crypto Nazi's are always on the lookout for the Jewish dimension in anything and judge the goodness or badness of a thing by its position on their own Semitic axis. If a Jew or Gentile is responsible for a crime then the Jew is worse even though the culpability is the same. Furthermore, a Jewish dimension is imputed even if there is no factual evidence for it. If the economy is in tatters, it's the fault of the Jews, If a country has lost the war, Jews are to blame. If the public is shifting to the Left the Jews are to blame. Alternative explanations are not sought and conflicting evidence is explained away.

In a paradoxical sort of way both Semites and anti-Semites approach history through a Semitic interpretation, though by opposite directions and both accord Semitic issues a predominance which they doesn't necessarily deserve, since, in reality,  the Jewish aspect of thing is frequently unimportant.

The problem with Semitisation is that it is a distortion of reality and an impairment to accurate thought, and whilst some people may be disposed to hate/love the Jews the fact is that Semtisation tends to inflate their significance out of all proportion to that warranted by events.  Clear thinkers should steer well away from the cognitive habit and concentrate on objectivity and empirical evidence. Furthermore the Right should steer well clear of it, since Semtisation of issues tends to "Frame-shift" them towards contemporary culturally accepted norms of Judaism regardless of their ontological congruence. Semitising an issue in the Nazi /Muslim world would be to make the issue negative on the other hand Semitising an issue in the U.S. would place it either in the "uncritical philo-semite or rabid anti-Semite polarities.

For example, when Mearsheimer and Walt published their book on the Israeli lobby, the response in the U.S. was predictable. They were obviously anti-Semites and crypto-Nazi's by association. Instead of discussing the contents of their book, and the relative merits of it,  M+W, spent a lot of time defending themselves from charges of anti-Semitism. Here in Australia, where there is a far weaker Likud lobby, the book was given a reasonable treatment. In the Middle East, the book was proof of Jewish perfidy and even garnered praise from Osama-bin-Laden, further smearing M+W through guilt by involuntary association. An objectivist would simply say than in democratic country like the U.S.,  lobbies are allowed to be formed and advocate their various interests to lawmakers. The fact that the Jewish lobby is well organised and effectively lobbies for Israel is a credit to them.  Big deal. Its all above board. Car makers, environmentalists and NAACP do it all the time and no one goes rabid when the fact is pointed out. If Americans aren't happy with their county's policies they're welcome to lobby as well, but its far easier to invoke Jewish superpowers, mind control and conspiratorial tendencies than to do something.

Furthermore, for the Right, Semitisation acts like a magnet to wannabe Nazi's and weakens it to entryism by them. It's a no win situation, and the best way out of no win situation is not to get into it.

For the record, I'm eusemetic, and I don't like to talk about Jewish issues since the current cultural frame in which I operate admits only two positions. Uncritical philo-Semitism which needs to be affirmed continuously or presumptive anti-Semitism. Since I'm neither, and most public discussion tends to occur with morons, the matter tends to be a waste of time with me either being called a Nazi or a Jewish tool. The only reason why I'm breaking my silence on the matter is because I'm seeing anti-Semitic muttering amongst some of the Neoreactionaires and I don't think they realise just how wide they're opening the door to the Neo-Nazi's. Furthermore they're chasing imaginary demons instead of tackling serious intellectual problems.

Semitic issues are irrelevant to the problems plaguing conservatism. The problem with Conservatism is not it's relationship with the Jews but its relationship with the truth. If you're a conservative that's constantly thinking about the Jewish Question then you're really not thinking at all.

100 Years Retarded

Was browsing Conservapedia today and noticed this on the biography of Woodrow Wilson;

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924), a Democrat, was elected as the 28th President of the United States of America, and reelected in 1916, serving from 1913 to 1921. A Princeton president who became an intellectual leader of the Progressive Movement, Wilson demonstrated his mastery over Congress by creating the Federal Reserve System, lowering the tariff, and revising the antitrust laws in a way that ended most of the "trust-busting" and drew clear lines on what was allowed. In general these policies would be in line with conservative recommendations in 2009.[ED] He supported liberal policies such as raising wages of railroad workers when they threatened a nationwide strike in 1916. Trying repeatedly and failing to broker peace during World War I, Wilson in 1917 led the United States into the war. He set up a draft and trained millions of soldiers, sending the American Expeditionary Forces to France under the command of General John J. Pershing. Woodrow Wilson was also known for his racist policies promoting segregation, and promoted eugenics based off of Darwinist theory.^[2]. 

Woodrow Wilson was doing in 1913 what has become mainstream Republican policy in 2009.  How depressing is that. Conservatism in the U.S. and the rest of the world is in serious trouble. It has literally become a party of the retarded.

Merry Christmas

Apologies to all for the radio-silence but, as usual, it has been a far busier few months than I have expected.  I must admit that I'm glad to see the year over since it hadn't panned out like I expected it to do. Anyway I hope 2015 is better.

I would like to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas particularly Nick B Steves who took the time out to meet me in New York and another person who met me there but who shall remain nameless. You know who you are.

2014 has been a mixed year for the Right side of politics/culture  across the globe and while things may appear grim, I actually feel that we're in a better place than we were a year ago.

Best wishes to all.

Observations on the Catholic Synod.

For those who are interested, my silence in the blogosphere has been due to other unforseen commitments which I have had to take on, principally, building and designing various elements of a house. I'm still keeping an eye on things and hope (for about the umpteenth time) to be blogging regularly in the next month or so.

However, I thought I would make a brief comment on the recent Catholic Church Synod.

Nial Ferguson, in explaining the rise of the west, explained its success in due to its ability to create "killer apps" which allowed it to overtake other civilisations. I think Ferguson presents a strong and compelling case (though some of his analysis is a bit simplistic) that certain cultural memes enable the flourishing of a civilisation. Ferguson does not go very much into the "software" by which these apps are written but in my mind, it is religious and philosophical culture which are the origin of the code.

Taking a Fergusonian view on the matter then, the recent Synod really needs to be thought of as a Western Civilisation software conference, and one of the foundational bits of Western Civilisational software is the Institution of Sacramental Marriage.  While a lot of Neoreactionaries seem to be concerned with politics as a driver of social change the real money is to found in the religous and philosophical underpinnings of society.  Religion more so than philosophy, because good religion seems to provide some protective effect against bad philosophy.

Tinkering with marriage comes with great peril though I feel we should be alright. I think a lot of strange things are going to happen to the Catholic Church in the next few years and all the gay talk (and I don't mean happy) has unsettled the true guardians of the faith Traditionalists. The problem with Tradition is that it is hermetically sealed, all that has been said about the Faith has been said and there is no new development that can occur out of it. Doubling down is the Traditionalist solution to every problem. I'm sorry people think this is a caricature but I'm calling it as I see it. The Traditionalists have stopped the development of any new "killer apps."

As I see it, the question that Francis is posing to the Synod is this, "How can we develop new applications using pre-existing software and code?" The issue remains inderminate.

Many see the very fact that Francis is asking this question as proof that he has gone "Lefty". But I don't think this is the case. In a speech, which was not widely reported by the media, Francis pretty much lays the boot into "alternative arrangements":

In an audience with members of an international Marian movement, Pope Francis warned that the sacrament of marriage has been reduced to a mere association, and urged participants to be witnesses in a secular world.

“The family is being hit, the family is being struck and the family is being bastardized[Ed],” the Pope told those in attendance at the Oct. 25 audience.

He warned against the common view in society that “you can call everything family, right?”

“What is being proposed is not marriage, it's an association. But it's not marriage! It's necessary to say these things very clearly and we have to say it!” Pope Francis stressed.

This ain't no New Age Pope.  No wonder the media turned a blind eye. The Cathedral does not want you to know.

Somebody's been reading this blog

Firstly, a quote by G.K. Chesterton

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types -- the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. 

Secondly, a quote by Pope Francis at the end of the Synod.

......And since it is a journey of human beings, with the consolations there were also moments of desolation, of tensions and temptations, of which a few possibilities could be mentioned:

 - One, a temptation to hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the solicitous and of the so-called – today – “traditionalists” and also of the intellectuals.

 - The temptation to a destructive tendency to goodness [it. buonismo], that in the name of a deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them; that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives and liberals.”

Francis, pretty much sums up what I feels ails the Catholic Church at the moment and why it is currently withering.  On one hand, there is a strong Traditionalist faction which permits no innovation even within the spirit of pre-existing doctrine, on the other, another faction which innovates stupidly to the Church's destruction.

A YouTube clip to ponder.

What does it mean to be Conservative.

This panel discussion from a few years ago raises several important points.


I think Waleed Aly (a moderate Muslim) gives a very good analysis of what constitutes modern conservatism.

It's a frightening realisation since, if you think about it, real Conservatism is nearly dead. Perhaps this explains the Left's triumph during the 20th Century. More to come.

Alpha Widow.

I'm still quite busy at the moment and therefore blogging is light. Still, this story in the Daily Mail caught my eye and is further proof of a concept developed in the manosphere: The Alpha Widow.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2747077/Wife-admits-let-fantasies-past-lovers-ruin-marriage.html.

Now, I'm not going to say much about the article as it is self explanatory however I want to make a quick comment concerning Neoreaction and the manosphere.

As I see it, Neoreaction needs to be thought of as a ideological/philosophical movement aimed at restoring a true Conservatism.  The current state of affairs with regard to Conservatism is so bad in my opinion that almost anyone whose sole qualification is to be against the Left can claim to be conservative.  The rot is conservative thought is that bad. One area where Conservatism is profoundly diseased is in its understanding of female sexuality and is a classic example of the ideology working to further the enemy's aims. Any Conservative renewal is going to need a rethink in this vital domain of human existence and it's one of the reasons why I think the manosphere has an important role in getting conservatives on board with the real nature of female sexuality.

A paragraph to ponder.

Anthony Daniels, otherwise known by his pen name, Theodore Dalrymple, is perhaps one of the best conservative writers out there. Should it interest anyone to know why I started blogging it is because of him. It's not that his work inspired me, rather, I wanted to also confirm what he wrote about in his articles, as an independent blogger. My writing is no where in his league and I never expected to get the audience that I have but it was my intention to second the observations that he made whilst working with the underclass and social services as a physician.  I had analogous experiences here in Australia and I felt almost duty bound to give support to his views. I imagine that there are doctors in the U.S. who could report the same.

Daniels regularly writes for the Salisbury Review, which purports to be the Quarterly Journal of the Conservative Anglosphere (it too, seems to be soliciting writers, so arid in thought is Conservative Britain) and his writing is generally quite perceptive and well reasoned.  But imagine my surprise when I saw this paragraph in a recent work of his;

The other question to which I have found no satisfactory answer, despite having been asked it many times, is what is a conservative. My reply is that a conservative has no fixed doctrine to which he must subscribe. He has, rather, a general attitude [Ed], namely that man is fallible, that regress is as much to be feared as progress is to be hoped, that human action always has unforeseen consequences so that prudence is a virtue, that ignorance is always greater than knowledge, that those who came before us were as intelligent as we, that tradition contains wisdom as well as irrationality, that life cannot be lived according to a preconceived plan, that wickedness lies in wait for all of us, that man is imperfectible.

Strange, how one of the best conservative writers out there has a difficulty with understanding the nature of conservatism. I don't think Daniels is alone in his view of conservatism. I have a lot of respect for Daniels, and his understanding of conservatism as consisting of tradition, caution and the preference of the familiar seem to be the predominant themes in contemporary understandings of itself and itself reflects the Burkean tradition of thought.  Personally, I think that this is conservatism's fatal flaw.

The problem with this temperamental view of conservatism is that it is bound to no fixed principles, rather, this type of conservatism exists to act as social retardant to innovation, regardless of whether this innovation is good or bad. A temperamental does not have fixed prinicples but rather a fixed attitude. So while a temperamental conservative may oppose moral relativism initially, if enough people come on board, if it is implemented slowly and if it appears to work, he'll slowly come around to the idea and then, he will be resistant to having the principle changed. This type of conservatism does not really afford any protection against the slouch towards Gomorrah. The Conservative impotence at events in Rotherham is a case in point. As I've said before, modern conservatism is simply the Right wing branch of the Left.

Rot Britannia: The Conservative Failure.

Deplorable as the events in Rotherham are, perhaps what's even more dispiriting is that nothing is being done to punish those who had failed in their duty of care.  Britain is currently led by a coalition government headed by a so called "Conservative". What is most galling in this entire sordid episode is the government's response, which seems to consist entirely in  asking calling for the negligent authorities to resign.

Is the government that impotent?  Here is a God given opportunity for the conservatives to rout the lunatic left from one of the branches of government and all they do is dither. It's a Chamberlain moment.

Much like the GOP's response to illegal immigration in the U.S., it seems conservatives everywhere seem impotent when it comes to trying to halt the Left's institutional march.

I mean, why not introduce legislation to punish those who are negligent?  Why not disband the council and put in a set of administrators? Why not launch an enquiry into the behaviour of child protection services (heavily staffed by left ideologues) and purge the system of its rottenness?  How about "compensating" the UKIP voting family that had its foster children taken off them? Or writing up exemplary legislation to allow them to sue officers who debase their office to such a degree. It's all low hanging fruit, just the there for the grabbing but "conservatives" in England, just like everywhere else, sit there twiddling their thumbs.

The fact is that many of the "conservative" governing elite are not conservative at all. What distinguishes the mainstream conservatives from the Left at the moment is perhaps a slightly less insane economic policy, but on social matters they seem in agreement.  The Right has now become the right wing of the Left. This terrible decline in conservative representation in government has meant that  religiously inspired/non-Marxist political policy has now been rapidly pushed outside of the Overton Window in most of the world.  The conservative Right and religious right is increasingly being seen as being extremist.

Not that the rank and file haven't noticed. Around the world the conservative bloc seems to be splitting in all directions, the level of disgust in "our" politicians rises. However as we fissure the left coalesces, and like ISIL, unites.

The failure on the part of the right ultimately stems from a failure to understand itself. What exactly is conservative? Who is conservative? The fatal error, I think, is in seeing conservatism as dispositional ideology; one of temperament and not rooted in particulary ontology. Philosophy matters as we of the true right are about to find out.

In group and outgroup limits have to be redefined, lest we find ourselves voting for crypto-Lefty's representing the Right.

Rot Britannia

Further sign of decline from that once great power, Britain, stems from the northern English town of Rotherham. The sordid details of which can be found here. Now as someone with limited experience of the social services here in Australia, the abuse that was perpetrated on those of low socioeconomic status and in government care comes as no surprise. The poor, freed from the "oppressive" constraints of Christian morality and presided over, in their benevolence, by social services which never, ever have enough money, are sliding to a level of squalor and exploitation that would have made the owners of those "Dark Satanic Mills" proud.

Most of the Newspaper articles dealing with the subject have focused on the Pakistani origins of the perpetrators and the politically correct cultural shield which protected them. These things are irrelevant in my mind. Young children are being abused every day in similar circumstances. The fact that the Pakistanis seemed to be better organised and more "efficient" in their abuse than the average British thug does not take away from the fact the supervising authorities failed miserably in their duty of care to the children.

It appears that despite three internal investigations, no one in any senior position was aware of the the depravity of the situation. Not that these same supervisory authorities were incapable of acting quickly when notified of "genuine" danger.  Or when a Christian gets accused of sexual abuse.

What really stinks is that there are no consequences.  The South Yorkshire Council, which is a cesspit of Labour slime, are going to hold out till the controversy blows over, paid job and pension guaranteed. The Conservative government apparently can't dismiss town functionaries whose exercise of office is criminally negligent, though it doesn't even seem to care about doing so.

Speaking today in Dumfries, Mrs May (Ed: The Home Secretary) said it was not her job to select or dismiss police and crime commissioners but appeared to suggest he should heed calls from his own party to go.

WTF? I mean what use is there having any "conservatives" in power  if they can't clear the worst excess of the Left from office? Why is it that the Left can pretty much flout any convention, not be held to any standards, commit blatant fraud and rest assured that when conservatives are in power they have nothing to fear. I mean 1400 girls were sexually abused under their watch. How bad does it have to get?

And what about politics? Are the Conservatives so limpid in their vision that they don't want to exploit the situation to their political advantage? I mean where is "fire in the belly" and the desire to wipe the bastards out.  Absolutely nothing.  How does such dross rise to the top of the Conservative establishment? Is there not one intelligent conservative in England? Not that the Left's own instinct for survival is diminished. It immediately went into damage control mode and sacrificed the Police Commissioner, a paid member of the Labour party. The Left seems to act whilst the Conservatives dither.