Jim
Forget about cultural marxism
Today’s left is, in substantial part Cultural Marxism from the Frankfurt School. Should you conclude that the Frankfurt School is really really important?
If you conclude that Cultural Marxism is really really important and rules the world, it follows that Jews rule the world. Hard to prove they don’t. It also follows that leftism was just fine and democracy was just fine all the way up to and including the New Deal, and if we could revive the New Deal coalition and get rid of the Jews everything would be lovely.
If you believe that the Cultural Marxism is _/the problem/_ rather than _/a problem/_ , it follows that getting rid of Jews would solve the problem. Hard to prove that getting rid of Jews would not solve the problem. In the course of my many arguments with my Jewish commenter B, I have endorsed pretty much everything that /pol/ and Steve Sailer says about Jews, other than that they rule the world and are responsible for every bad thing everywhere that ever happened anywhere. And B has mostly agreed, because we both agree that reform Jews are _/a problem/_, though not _/the problem/_, and Orthodox Jews have resisted the rot better than most. We just disagree as to what extent Orthodox Jews have resisted the rot, and to what extent they will continue to resist the rot.
But it is pretty easy to prove that democracy was not just fine and the New Deal was not just fine.
From the day that Cromwell cracked down on those to his left in 1653, the predecessors of today’s regnant left were fleeing, or being expelled, to America, and, in America, were plotting to conquer America, reconquer England, and conquer the world. To this end, they founded Harvard, which was from the beginning the center of their conspiracy. And none of them were Jews.
As they became increasingly successful, obtained worldly power, they increasingly came to compete with each other for superior holiness, each holier than each of the others. And pretty soon became holier than Jesus. Being holier than Jesus, swiftly became unitarians, then atheists, then extremely militant atheists hostile to the parent religion from which their heresy sprung.
It was not the Jews that gave us prohibition, female emancipation, and the war between the states, though they eagerly attached themselves to those movements once those movements had already succeeded.
British Imperialism was an anti colonialist movement, the disastrous predecessor of today’s even more disastrous anti colonialism, and as one can trace modern leftism back through super protestantism to the prohibitionists and the emancipators, one can trace modern anti colonialism through the London School of Economics to British imperialism. In the 1830s or thereabouts, the British government gradually came to notice that the colonialists had conquered an empire. The colonialists were initially merchant adventurers, meaning they engaged in a bit of trade and a bit of piracy, were initially mobile bandits. Being successful mobile bandits, they had, without anyone quite noticing, transitioned to being successful stationary bandits. They had come to rule, and rule well. The British government decided to shoulder the white man’s burden, to rule for the greater good of the poor victimized natives who were being oppressed by these evil piratical colonialist bandits. The result was, unsurprisingly, extremely bad, and every failure convinced them to double down, which doubling down continued almost to the present day, until finally the Chinese started to step into the vacuum the anti colonialists had created. The Chinese have fixed Nigeria, and throughout Africa are remedying the destruction and horror that the anti colonialists created when they drove the colonialists out.
You are not going to be able to make any sense of Africa if you fixate on Cultural Marxism and the Frankfurt School.
The sexual revolution did not begin in the sixties. Rather, that was recovery after a retreat during the war and postwar period, during which the left had focused on the proletariat rather than female emancipation, an unsuccessful attempt to move towards socialism, an attempt that was largely the result of Jewish influence. This failed effort to move left towards command socialism gave breathing room for marriage to make a partial and temporary recovery. It gave the left something to do other than double down on destroying marriage. The sexual revolution began in Victorian times. And you cannot blame the Jews for either Victorian original, or its sixties rebirth.
If you want to blame Jews for the sixties sexual revolution, you are going to focus on Margaret Meade’s mentor. But Margaret Meade herself was the protestant descended left, and we can tell who had the power by whom Margaret Meade fucked. She was the protestant descended left, by blood, by culture and by upbringing descended from the prohibitionists and the emancipationists, and was fucking the protestant descended left.
The eighteenth century view of women was that they were the uncontrollably lustful sex, that given half a chance they would crawl nine miles over broken glass to have sex with their demon lover. In the Victorian era, this was replaced by the doctrine that women were naturally pure and chaste, except that evil lecherous men forced their vile lusts upon them. This resulted in the abrupt removal of eighteenth century controls on female misbehavior. Women, such as the protagonist of “Pride and Prejudice” were allowed to be “out” while fertile age and single, giving them every opportunity for twentieth century style misbehavior. The evidence produced in the case of the divorce of Queen Caroline suggests that they did in fact misbehave, but, lacking cameras everywhere, it was possible to get away with denying this fact. Queen Caroline attended a ball naked from the waist up, and returned to her hotel with someone she met at the ball, but the official truth remained that she was a chaste woman cruelly mistreated by her lecherous and philandering husband. In view of what Queen Caroline got up to and got away with, and in view of the lack of controls on the protagonist of “Pride and Prejudice”, who at one point was in a cottage by herself visited by male love interests, we may suppose a covert sexual revolution in Victorian times, going public in 1910, in part because cameras were getting usable.
Queen Caroline getting sainted despite fucking around indiscriminately predates the Frankfurt School by quite a bit.
Forget about Cultural Marxism. Remember the divorce of Queen Caroline.
The problem with getting rid of Jews is not that it is rough on Jews. The solutions I propose are likely to be rough on lots of people. The problem with getting rid of Jews is that you wind up with socialism. If the Frankfurt School is the root of all evil, then the New Deal is just peachy.
The problem is not that “Frankfurt School” is the way that smart people say “Get rid of the Jews”. The problem is that “Frankfurt School” is the way smart people say “Let us have socialism”.
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What is a “Puritan” – is it a nonconformist Protestant?
If so then it includes Roger Williams and co in Rhode Island – not just the people in Massachusetts.
And it includes people such as the free market “Leeds Mercury” newspaper in 19th century England. There were many voluntarist non Conformists in the 19th century and before (the very name “non Conformist” does not scream “statist” to me – it indicates the opposite). Of course there were bad hard core Protestants who wanted to ban everything in sight – but were they really the norm? And did Catholics not support banning certain things (such as pornography) also?
Were “Puritans” really responsible for, say, the censorship of Franco’s Spain (although Franco himself, oddly like Cromwell, was actually a lot more moderate than some of his supporters) or the policies of the Irish Republic?
Are “Puritans” really responsible for, for example, government spending taking about half the entire economy (in so many Western nations) mostly on the Welfare States?
What about the “Labour Codes” of Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal that condemn so many people to unemployment – are “Puritans” responsible for them?
What about the credit bubble financial systems (the grand efforts to lend out vastly more “money” than was every really saved) – is this boom-bust ism really the fault of “Puritans”?
Even on Prohibition in the United States – as J. Goldberg points out (see “Liberal Fascism”) “scientific” people with little or no religious faith were at least as much to blame as hardcore Protestants.
Let us turn to today.
We have two basic problems.
The out of control monetary system – the credit bubble financial system, the complex effort to lend out vastly more money than was ever really saved.
And.
The out of control fiscal situation – with unfunded “entitlements” (the Welfare States) threatening to destroy every Western nation. Not just economically – but culturally also (very Cloward and Piven).
Does the Puritan theory help us explain or deal with either of these basic problems?
No it does not.
Where Protestant theology can be attacked is on the two basic philosophical assumptions in life.
The ability of human beings (with effort) to know moral right from wrong – and the ability of people (again with effort) to choose moral right over the impulse to do wrong.
The two great founders of Protestantism both denied both of these basic principles.
Martin Luther did it openly and in very blunt language – see his war-of-words with Erasmus.
The language of John Calvin is less clear – but, I would argue, he denies both these basic principles also.
Neither Luther or Calvin wished to create moral chaos or secular dictatorship.
On the contrary, like Mohammed before them, Luther and Calvin wanted people to follow the letter of scripture – and not be mislead by that “whore” reason, or by any “moral sense”.
However, if the literal meaning (the COMMANDS the WILL of God) is ever discredited – the follower of Luther or Calvin is left with NOTHING.
Nothing apart from THE STATE.
After all if we are absolutely vile and totally base, with no good in us at all (as both Luther and Calvin teach) how can we tell moral right from wrong – Luther and Calvin say “we can not”.
And, even if we could tell moral right from wrong, do we have the ability to choose good and resist the impulse to do evil? Luther and, I would argue, Calvin also, say that we do not – that we can not choose good and resist evil. Not without the constant intervention of God – in every detail.
Without God there is, for someone brought up in such a cultural tradition, only THE STATE.
However, English (and to some extent Dutch) Protestantism may be different – as many non Roman Catholic thinkers on this island never rejected the ideas of natural law or moral reason (or moral sense).
Never rejected the idea that ordinary people could, with great effort, tell moral right from wrong – and choose moral good against evil.
Even if they had to stand against the entire world.
The idea that “The State is GOD” is alien to England – both the to the Established Church (an Established Church is not the same thing as a State Church) – the Anglican Church, and to many of the “Dissenters” also. For example the Methodists of England and Wales, and some of the Protestant Churches of Ulster – the Church of Scotland being organised rather differently and having an historically different view of the State.
Erm. What?
There is a lot about “the Jews” in the article – although it is actually a defence against the charges of (unnamed) people that “the Jews” are to blame for X,Y,Z.
It used to be fashionable to hate Jews – for example Paul Johnson points out that some of the savage language that Karl Marx (himself from a family that was one Jewish) uses against businessmen (capitalists) is taken word-for-word from the savage invective of Martin Luther against the Jews. Although Karl Marx adds his own abuse – for example businessmen are “inwardly circumcised Jews” (old Karl really seems to have had some sort of problem with his the origins of his own family).
It may becoming fashionable to hate Jews again – to blame them for X,Y,Z.
So what actually is the position of the Jewish religion of Judaism on the basic principles.
The position, of all the big branches of Judaism, is clear.
Human beings (not just Jews – everyone, if they make the great effort), can tell moral right from wrong.
And – human beings (again not just Jews – everyone, if they make the great effort) can choose to do good against the desire to do evil. Everyone can fail – but we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and try again (and try harder).
Does this mean that non Jews can go to Heaven?
YES.
Do Jews who fail to really make an effort to resist evil (who do terrible evil – and carry on doing it) go to Hell?
YES.
I as an Anglican (whose father was a non practicing Jew) know all this – no Jew has any excuse for not knowing.
For example these were the matters that led to Judaism and Islam being deadly enemies in Arabia in the time of Mohammed – “raise your hand” was not the battle cry of the Muslims because they wished the Jews to surrender (no surrender was accepted) – they wished the Talmudic Jews to take off their hand from certain savage parts of scripture. For it was the practice of Jews to place their hand over such things as the passages of scripture mandating the stoning to death for adultery (and so on) when reading aloud – in case people took these passages literally.
It was the position of Mohammed (even though he could not personally read- at least so it is said) that if anything was in scripture it should be done – literally. He was like Luther and Calvin in this respect – the WILL of God was the only source of morality (not reason and not any moral sense). If God declared the old blind poet was to be murdered by deception (treachery) then treachery and murder were good. And if God said that murdering a pregnant female poet, for protesting about the murder of the old blind poet, was good – then this was good also (as the WILL of God was the DEFINITION of “good”).
Jews may hide in ritual and so on (the 613 rules – note, someone can go to heaven even if they regularly break most of them) – but there are philosophical principles at the core of Judaism – and they are directly opposed to the philosophical principles of mainstream Islam.
So the conflict is about a bit more than a Jewess supposedly poisoning Mohammed to death for murdering her family and making her one of his many slaves. There is more to the Muslim dream that the very trees and stones will cry out saying “Oh Muslim there is a Jew hiding behind me – come and slay them” than that. There are basic philosophical problems at work here.
What of Jews who reject Judaism – what do they believe?
They can believe anything – belief is NOT genetic.
They may turn out like Adorno – or they may turn out like Ludwig Von Mises or Ayn Rand.
Saying that Jews tend to be more interested in ideas (for good or ill) is like saying that Irish people tend to be more violent and wild than other people – in which case, as a half breed, I should be a very violent man who is deeply interested in ideas…… errrr I had better stop there.
Although Karl Barth did use to say that the English (not just the Celts) were “hopelessly Pelagian”.
The old idea that the English (as well as the other inhabitants of these islands) tended to believe that they could work out what was moral right and what was moral evil – regardless of what they were told from on-high. Even if they claimed to be stupid and anti intellectual – in fact especially if they did so (like my grandmother the late Ethel Draper “I am not clever – but I know what is right” said quietly – but with the “I will stop the Panzer Division with my bare hands” look)
And the old belief that an inhabitant of these islands will the stand against “the community” (indeed the world) if they believe they are standing for good against evil – although they will cover themselves with self mocking humour.
“Get out of the way – so that we would kill them” – “Well I would love to, but I seem to have got stuck here, and a sword has fallen into my hand – I have no idea where it came from. I am such a silly goose….”.
Of course it is all a myth – there are, in fact, as many cowards and other such in these islands as there any where else.
But it is nice.