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Talking with James Howard Kunstler on JHK’s painting and the meditative state, art as documentation, the trap of the picturesque, the human imprint, challenging conventional thinking, mystification on campus, Amherst protests against free speech, Princeton inveighing against Woodrow Wilson, race, gender, & privilege, prioritizing correct English, JHK gets flamed on social media, the fashion on campus for character assassination, the ethics of the internet, Black Lives Matter movement, police violence against blacks, Halloween costume regulations, Maoist totalitarianism on campus, judging past ideologies based on current delusions, fight or flight and the scapegoat mechanism, the danger of aligning with the scapegoat, the story of white privilege, the changing narratives, child abuse as underlying cause for collective dissociation through trauma, being skeptical of one’s own ideas, JHK’s two sides, World Made By Hand series, a liminal world, re-enchantment, JHK on the supernatural and psychological transformation, Paul Bowles as unreliable witness, the reality of the psyche, embracing the impossible, Andrew’s homosexuality from History of the Future, identity after the collapse, homosexuality as a social construction, political disenchantment, the need for servants in the future, the transformation of sexuality in liminality, World Made By Hand as soft propaganda for the transition, the enemy of intellectual despotism, making enemies, intellectual jujitsu, what’s to salvage from society, the decay of language, abolishing speech and rhetoric from education, the movement of the culture Behemoth, extending technological dependency to the next generation, the delusion of solutions, intelligent response, language and the social identity, hostages to dogma, the consequences of women taking over administrative work in universities, emotions superseding thought, Mao’s many distractions, how totalitarianism comes through the back door of democracy, the club of compassion, subjectivity supplanting objectivity, unintegrated traumas projected outward, runaway egotism, the unacknowledged benefits of triggered, stuck in the psychic womb, the mirror of dehumanization, the pursuit of happiness, crybabies, transgender and the coercion of children, a society in identity crisis, what’s older than history, the evolution of war, the journey of the warrior.
Outtakes: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:30 — 18.7MB)
Songs: “El Mariachi” and “Monkey Said,” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra; “Shove That Pigfoot a Little Further Towards the Fire,” by Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas; “We all Know the Way,” by The Builders & the Butchers.
It was inevitable that the takeover of western society by the politically correct fascists would result in a right-wing backlash. I winced several times during this discussion, not because I disagree with JHK’s opinions (or his right to express them), but because it was clear that he’s pointing his finger at the most obvious targets. I think his respect for you kept the conversation balanced. Had he been on RedIceRadio, he may not have been as restrained.
So, if I’ve understood correctly, JHK feels it’s a fact that women taking over the humanities is the reason for the degradation of independent thinking? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood? ‘Women’s brains are different from men’s’. Jeez, really? (written with a sarcastic tone). I didn’t really understand why he felt it necessary to make this point, other than to take a pot-shot at women.
Regarding transgenderism: I went over to the Rigint forum, on your recommendation to check out the discussion about transgenderism, but it was pages & pages of arguments about feminism (ugh) and I gave up after an hour. Transgenderism is one of the most important topics that we need to discuss, yet I get the overwhelming impression that we’re not allowed to discuss it in a critical manner. Sexual re-assignment surgery is self-mutilation and that fact that it’s being openly encouraged as a solution to one’s sexual confusion is of great concern. Might the rise in children complaining about being trapped in the wrong body have something to do with hormonal imbalances in their mothers, while in utero? Example: pseudo-estrogens in the environment? Soy, which is pseudo-estrogenic is found in nearly every processed food since the 80s. Perhaps this has something to do with the increase in gender confusion? This might be a good topic of discussion to carry over to the Kubrikon.
Thanks for the highly relevant conversation — these are issues that need to be discussed. Looking forward to listening to the out-takes.
I didn’t get that feeling from JHK, tho I think he does a disservice to his arguments in some cases, such as this one, by over-simplifying and leaving out context. (Especially apparent in his quip about black lives not mattering to black people.)
I agree that the comment that black lives not mattering to black people didn’t help him make his point. The fact that Blacks are arrested at a percent out of proportion to their percentage of the population doesn’t necessarily make the Police racist. Blacks commit violent crime out of proportion to their population. The vast majority of the crimes against other Black people. If the Police arrest a Black person for a crime against a Black person, are the Police providing a service to Black people or being racist. That does not excuse the regular misuse of Police force experience by people of all races.
Another great discussion. I really appreciate JHK’s bluntness and openness to tease out some subtlety through dialogue. Some superficial thoughts:
I can’t help wonder if so much of the identity politics; gender politics; racial politics; etc., etc. aren’t, in part, a product of the fall of the USSR and “the end of history”. When the grand leftist project failed and neo-liberal finance along with neo-conservative foreign policy (both misnomers) prevailed along with the corporitization of academia – that the leftists didn’t turn inward. Basically the left, after meta narrative politics shifted so far right that the left couldn’t even find the center, focused on minutiae out of impotence.
I tend to disagree with JHK about white privilege. The white narrative is the dominant narrative and history bares this out, the global narrative is the white narrative. History is written by the victors…to the victors go the spoils…the authors are the authorities. 5% (N.A.) of the world’s population doesn’t consume 30% of the world’s resources by accident either. I’m white and I know I’m privileged compared to my native neighbours on whose land I sit. Every institution and system is geared towards my success if I maintain the status quo cover story. I create my own friction rather than having to struggle against an inbred friction. Maybe that’s what happens when empathy kicks in or maybe I’m just retarded. I tend to think systemic racism exists though, from the local to the geo-political. The evidence seems clear enough, look who sits atop the pyramid and how they exploit various peoples.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDIpvO8w5LY
The face pulled at 35:16 really tells the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3y3zccaj8w
I tend to think being gay is a spectrum rather than a binary, but what do I know as a straight? I know there’s a spectrum of straight too, with all sorts of social constructs that could reinforce a range of behaviours. I also know I’m not completely immune from having feelings of affection towards humans of the same gender as myself but that doesn’t mean I feel compelled to act them out sexually. Am I gay? Meh, who cares. I really couldn’t care less how or with whom people stimulate their nervous systems sexually with two notable caveats (that are essentially one):
It’s consensual
It doesn’t involve children.
On a different note Jasun, I just happened upon a writer called Karl Ove Knausgaard today, he reminds me of you a great deal in the little I’ve heard about him or know of you. Ever heard of him? If not…
Oh, and about the phenomenon of ‘triggering’, I’d never heard the word until I heard you using it. I completely agree with your assessment though. I’ve been unwittingly triggering myself non stop for a couple decades as a matter of therapy and growth. I’m a taurus though so I tend to tackle things head on though I’m not sure about astrology ;). In ant case the only way past fear is through it has been my motto. I’ve gone crazy over the craziness but I’ve never entirely lost my sense of humour. When a person has experienced a serious disturbance in their most base creative, potent function (sexuality) everything that follows can be a trigger. Missiles are a form of this potency too. It’s all monkey business; hierarchy and domination. Mammon is deceptive…and thankfully not in control.
I don’t want to get too arrogant but I think I’m all triggered out these days. I’ve journeyed from the personal to the geo-political and have tried to heal through understanding. When you suck off (no pun intended) all the sugar coating there’s a bittter pill called humility that’s left. A certain clarity starts to form. I think I need some psychedelics to clear out the ghosts now, to dissolve the rigidity now that the hard work has been done.
http://homepages.xnet.co.nz/~hardy/cosmologystatement.html
https://www.google.ca/search?q=hairless+chimp&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS7p7rjdfJAhXvuYMKHcWHAHMQsAQIGg#imgrc=H40qPKGv0lZHSM%3A
hahaha
Well I didn’t think I would, but I warmed to JHK some in this interview. He expressed a lot of concerns that any sane individual should be concerned about in the current zeitgeist–even though I thought for all his talk of cowardice of those who could speak up not doing so, he stopped short of naming his own tribe as being some of the worst offenders of spreading these divisive, progressive memes. But that didn’t surprise me after reading his pro-Israel blog posts and comments. One could spend hours discussing the double standards and hypocrisy involved in supporting such a supremacist society, but, alas, it’s clear he takes the expedient route and plays the Shoah card when needed. And Hitler is the preferred bogey man, even though Stalin and other leftist tyrants, caused more death and misery than Adolf ever did. But then Slavs, Cambodians, Chinese, don’t run Hollywood.
To be fair though he did mention Mao, but I’d positively laud the man if he could overcome his ethnocentric defensiveness and broach the subject of Jewish hegemony in sectors of great influence and power. If you’re going to be gung-ho honest and frank, then go the whole fucking hog and put you and yours under the spotlight for forensic analysis. An inventory is an inventory, half measures avail us nothing.
I understand your feelings. Israel is one of those subjects I simply wouldn’t bring up with JHK, besides not knowing enough about it to express much more than a very strong opinion. My conspiratorial view of history being another. But we are full of inconsistencies and what JHK & I have in common to me trumps our differences because it exists at a deeper level than political or social theories. Something to do with a dedication to understanding what it means to be human…
Hello Jasun,
Im one of those people who learned of you through JHK. I confess I didn’t really understand what you were talking about when I first heard you; but I kept listening, probably because of the way you “present?” You speak in a calm, deliberate manner which makes it easy to think about what you are saying.
Once I understood what you are talking about, I became exited, and wanted to discuss your work with a friend. So I sent her a link to your podcast and this was her reply:
“A lot of pompous over-the-top intellectual claptrap. Way too much analysis about what sex is and why people do or don’t have it. I’m thinking he never has it. Very grating and annoying.”
WTF?
LOL
Do you get hate mail?
Dayum? I was confused by it until I reminded myself: “dude, you don’t have any friends; thats why you sitting in your room listening to Jasun Horsley podcasts…”
Now I find her response humorous because it highlights the fact most people can’t process information without first “authorizing” where they think its coming from; and then accepting or declining it on that basis alone.
*sigh*
After listening to your podcasts and reading some of your writings I found myself drawn into trying to understand why people would find your work disturbing and/or uncomfortable?
Whatever it is should be the same force that draws people to it; correct?
My current working theory is; your work causes people to question the “narrative” they have built about their own identity, and fear “losing themselves” if they investigate further?
Jasun; I think you are a strange person, but basically harmless? Have you reached the end of your journey of personal deconstruction?
That was a funny comment, thanks. I don’t get hate mail/comments, much, or at all really, so far, which may change if I find my audience widening. Some of the most aggressive reactions have come from former admirers, disappointed that I don’t agree with their views. I think you are right I am an unauthorized voice and this is one good thing about being marginal, that only people who can think for themselves and use their own discernment to gauge the value of a voice really pay attention to me. It also makes sense that the thing that draws those people to this space is similar or same thing that pushes others away. I would sort of hope that’s the case. I’ve talked many times, most recently to Alan green, about reaching a wider audience in order to reach the few people who I can really reach. But it would be even better just to reach those people without attracting a larger proportion of other folk who were interested by content but not really responding to the transmission behind it (the quest to uncover the soul).
I like your working theory. Does it jibe with me being basically harmless, I wonder? I have mixed feelings about that word.
“Be ye wise as serpents but harmless as doves.” I guess I can take that descriptor.
Simple rule: Anyone who is satisfied with themselves and the way things are is not going to enjoy my podcast.
“I like your working theory. Does it jibe with me being basically harmless, I wonder?” –JH
I think it does; but only because people seeking answers in your field of research are already aware on some level they have been harmed by falsehood, lies and deceit.
There is some connection between fear and truth.
You might be some kind of “trickster” trying to get people to take a closer look at themselves, and their environment?
There are lots of people engaged in this type of work, buts its usually attached to a personal agenda; churches, schools, governments…
You don’t seem to do that. As a matter of fact, you are vigilant against people attempting to smuggle artifacts of “control”, and force into your work; I hear you correct people in your podcasts
To sum up; you are probably harmless; but that doesn’t make you immune from people trying to harm you; don’t use one as a gauge to measure the other.
PS– is there a way to conduct private correspondence with you?
I don’t want to sidetrack the thread.
there’s a contact email in the menu bar at the top, my first name + website. be glad to hear from you
I don’t know if it’s appropriate to share another example of friend feedback re: The Liminalist, if only to show that besides the extremes, the spectrum of feedback includes the “meh”-middle as well. What the hell, why not? Here’s what I got from a friend to whom I had forwarded the Lethem episode thinking he’d enjoy it very much:
The authors’ discussion didn’t engage my interest 100% because I’m unfamiliar with either of their stuff, and that was of course the focal point of their conversation (at the very least, during the 10 minute excerpt I listened to). I honestly wish I could claim to know something of contemporary literature, but the closest I get is the 70s and 80s sci-fi that I read as a teen, which these guys name-checked when they alluded to PK Dick (a personal favorite).
In other words, getting friends interested can be tricky, even when you forward selectively. Nevertheless, I imagine many listeners do share with friends and *eventually* (5 years? 10?) our numbers will grow.
In the meantime, I would definitely recommend appearing as a guest on other podcasts. (In my case, it was KMO’s C-Realm that brought me here).
P.S. BTW, excellent interview with JHK, his transgressions of over-simplification and leaving out the context notwithstanding (BTW, maybe he’s doing it on purpose, to break through the noise and make his thoughts to be more soundbite-like, no matter how controversial they may end up being as a result?)
Black Lives Matter is a mass temper tantrum for people angry at their fathers.
And yes, I am a black person.
Interesting (to put it mildly). What about extending it still further outward to “Society is a mass temper tantrum for people angry at their fathers”?
Also, before that, the infant-struggle of souls enmeshed in our mothers’ psyches (i.e., possessed by our mothers’ unconscious rage and sadness), and mad as hell at our fathers for not having fished us out? (Father, why hast thou forsaken me?)
Regarding your first question; I think thats where Western civilization is headed; black people in the U’S are just the tip of the spear.
Your 2nd question goes deeper than Ive ever considered; but I suspect a mothers unconscious rage and sadness is connected to the ability of her man to contain and illuminate her; or as you have described “be solar”
and,
this male solar will and ability is connected to the mans knowledge and practice of the primal.
Rage and sadness are not the only outlets for the primal; but as you mentioned on a podcast, this is what we have been sold. You mentioned the wound from mother bonding and how thats passed from generation to generation.
What is the cure for that?
How many black students at Princeton University who are trying to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name; still carry last names like WASHINGTON, JACKSON, JOHNSON, JEFFERSON…?
Hypocrisy much?
If you are a black student attending Princeton University, I suggest you change your name to “lucky ______”
Thanks so much!
!!
I support JHKs suggestion that black children master correct English language as a compensatory action to black pathology. Its simple and doesn’t require a lot of money or “permission” from white people…
Its a well established principle of the science/art of troubleshooting to always start simple and only add complexity if you must. For example; when I can’t find a specific tool or item, It means I need to clean up my room or house; in the process, I usually find or discover other things I’ve been pacing the house for days and months muttering and grumbling to myself…
JHK would be more popular if he told people what they wanted to hear and was less direct… but is that really what you need more of? Most blogs are pep rallies of self selected people jacking each other off and building monuments to their egos. If you raise questions, point out contradictions, or identify a paradox; you are driven out; Or as Horsley mentioned “met with a wall of dogma.” Every single black blog Ive attempted to participate in has turned out to be some type of cult dedicated to “feeling good” about being a black person. Those run by black females have this phenomenon turned up to “11”
In addition to mastering the English language, I also suggest they bring back “civics” or “government” class in junior high and high school so black people understand the architecture of the political landscape in which they exist.
The ability to clearly and easily communicate with a rule based spoken language is not only important for inter personal relations; but it also helps people dialogue with themselves when they have no one to talk to.
Ive come to the tragic conclusion that poor language skills are the reason black people are so quick to engage in violence. We’ve all seen it before; two people are arguing and what eventually happens?
The first one to run out of words switches to direct violence.
Poor language skills are the reason black people remind me of Hellen Keller In “The Miracle Worker”; we just flail around getting louder and louder, destroying things, knocking things over… until the cops show up; I had to hang sheets over every mirror in my house.
(((shakin my head)))
JHK is correct and I salute him for clearly and directly suggesting better English language skills as a compensatory behavior to counter black pathology. I know 8 year old Latino/Hispanic children who must translate for their parents and they speak far better English than some black high school graduates.
How does that happen?
After 400 years you still sound like an escaped slave?
WTF?
There is a time and a place for the direct, present based, slang, ebonical dialect commonly known as “black english”; I use it all the time to great effect; it often works when no other language will.
Its clear to me that black people need help; I know cause Im one of em. JHK offered some in the best format possible; a SUGGESTION.
Best thing about it?
Its free.
The truth is black and ugly; thats why most people don’t want it until its all they got left.
Forwarded this to JHK. I imagine he’ll appreciate the support.
I am about 20 minutes into the podcast and I am finding JHK’s monologue utterly bizarre. At the moment, I don’t think it is a valuable use of my time to show specifically why virtually every point he makes is based upon extremely superficial thought and analysis and betrays a very uninformed and cloistered position. What I will say at this time is that all of the the points Kunstler is making seem to rest upon one groping semi-thought. The underlying belief betrayed in each of Kuntsler’s assertions is that historically disenfranchised people who advocate for others to treat them with respect with the language they use & in the behavior they have, who advocate for the authorities not to murder them when they are unarmed and who lobby to live and work and study in places where virulent racists are not venerated with the names of buildings and with statues and monuments — that these people should not feel offended and do not deserve to be able to ask others to treat them respectfully or even humanely. The subtext of what Kuntsler is saying is that people involved in the Black Lives Matter movement (as I am) and similar enterprises are essentially over-sensitive and hysterical and they should accept the status quo and limit their advocacy to their own communities exclusively. I’ve listened to several hours of JHK interviews in recent years and always found his thought and analysis to be deep and considered. The shallow and reactionary posture he dons in this interview I found rather shocking.
It really sounds like James Howard Kuntsler does not get out much. I’m a straight “white” guy, but my ex-wife is black and I have worked with and maintain friendships with a diverse range of people. The stories from their personal lives include discrimination, profiling, racial insults and other disgusting behavior. How totally strange to hear James Howard Howard Kuntsler chastise such people for advocating to be treated with dignity. I found it pretty disgusting, lacking in basic emotional intelligence and representative of a pathetic degree of intellectual turpitude.
As a so-called ‘black man’, I found JHK’s ideas on better communication skills as part of a solution to improving the situation for black people interesting and with merit.
The ability to clearly articulate your thoughts and ideas to a high degree is a skill that has always fascinated me and, if I’m honest, it’s not a skill I currently possess. Guys like James Baldwin, Sidney Poitier, Martin Luther King, Alan Watts, John Michael Greer, Hegel absolutely fascinate me with their immense vocabularies and heightened abilities to express an idea in such a rare manner.
In my case there’s a heated feeling of deep frustration that rises when I’m unable to clearly express myself, often triggered when I’m stupidly attempting to argue a point with my wife. As the yoof’ would say, ‘Epic Fail!’
That frustration can feel to a feeling of ‘impotence’ which is then brought into the World and taints everything that comes my way. I’m not a poor communicator as such, just not at a level congruent with some of the thoughts formulating in my consciousness. Alan Watts and Krishnamurti were superb at this and John Michael Greer presently.
That feeling of impotence, frustration triggers anger which, if not handled well leads to all kinds of damaging behaviours. These can range from over indulgence of junk foods, alcohol, drugs, sex, violence, dependency on religion, (learned helplessness and waiting for a Messiah/father figure to arrive and save the day rather than you do the immense work needed for self-integration)
In fact as I type this out I see the reason why I currently indulge in some poor practices, over indulgence in junk food being one of them….hmnnn..
The point of society being filled with ‘cry-babies’ is another reality I come face to face with on a daily basis as part of my employment is within customer service. To hear what people complain about and how they go about it is depressing. We seem to view everything as a ‘machine’, without feelings and believe we can (mis)treat all machines any way we want. Of course that behaviour never stems from the actual problem, which can be as trivial as someone taking offence to how someone has parked a car to the shopping centre doors being opened 90 seconds later than advertised, but from far deeper, older traumas that have never been addressed. And for most they never will be.
What this has taught me is there’s actually no escaping your demons. You will have to face them and neutralize them somehow or they will forever affect your life, your decisions, how you interact with others, your habits, your happiness, your health. Maybe that’s the silver lining to this? I’m now more resolute on fully integrating the self into a coherent whole living a sovereign life which is (mainly) self determined.
Well not to digress too much. I enjoyed the podcast and this discussion above.
Thank you
🙂
Hey Dan,
I read your comment. Do you have a suggestion for what “historically disenfranchised people” should do to compensate for “discrimination, profiling, racial insults?”
JHK suggests they master the English Language.
What do you suggest?
Midnight basketball?
Yohimbe root?
Convert to Islam?
I find JHK remarkably restrained about race, given the huge role it plays in motivating the dominate U.S culture he finds so problematic? Like a sniper, he pops up, takes a few shots, and then lets the “rabble” fight it out amongst themselves; but I understand why he operates this way. Race would overwhelm everything else related to “The Long Emergency”, peak oil, complexity collapse…
For example; I can’t be the only person to make the connection between what JHK calls “happy motoring”, suburbia, and race?
Automobiles are a filtering device that enable people to vote with their feet (wheels) against integration. For most people in the U.S, the drivers license and automobile are their most basic connection with The State. Criminals and shifty types are always trying to avoid and/or minimize their connections to the state. People are willing to tolerate the expense and time burden of owning and driving cars because it helps them avoid interacting with black ghetto pathology. Its the same with public transportation (buses, trains, light rail…); its not worth putting yourself in close proximity to impulsive, ignorant, violent people.
Ive never heard JHK address this issue?
He is critical of the happy motoring car culture and is always advocating for “walkable communities…”; but the will and ability to drive is the only option left for people of modest means to segregate themselves from the treacherous savagery and skullduggery of a violent, impulsive, ignorant black underclass.
The ugly truth is: black males (of which I am one) commit violent crimes far out of proportion to their percentage of the U.S population; so people and the police are completely justified in their suspicion of people who
look
like
ME.
I don’t trust people who look like me and I’m ME.
Black culture is prison culture, thats all it is; but culture is something that can be CHANGED.
Mastering the language may be the best place to start when you NEED to change your culture.
At the very least it will help you see.
See what?
See what you lookin at.
thwack on the podcast ? anyone ? 🙂
working on it…
I’d like to hear you. Authentic, honest people are at a premium these days. And race, culture, and identity politics is much discussed, but mostly by hysterical, shrieking progressives who can’t seem to string an honest or rational sentence together.
In Shakespeare’s Elizabethan Age swearing and cursing was a colorful, highly decorous, and verbally fertile affair, and yet the “Rule of Law,” was rather weak! Perhaps, the Elizabethans were more sturdy and brave than our pusillanimous selves.
So, a gay couple who are faithful to each other and want to ensure that one of the union gets an inheritance of the resources of the other should death sever the relationship, on the model of hetero unions, seems to me a practical and reasonable desideratum. Voila, gay marriage. Should they adopt children and will such progeny be socially absorptive? Well, that’s an experiment and the data’s still out.
JHK should read a recent book called “The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World” to see how deeply homosexual Ancient Greece was, to the extent of dictating its major myths. Of what relevance is this suggested reading? Well, civitas refers primarily to the Greek City State and our word “civilization” is based on that word, the life of the city. Civilization is primarily homosexual because such are its founding myths as Davidson makes clear. After all, Romulus and Remus are same-sexed twins. Ah, I feel wistful for matriarchy in all this testorone polluted polity.
Acc to J C Pearce, civilization is something that has never happened. In his terminology, you would be speaking about culture, and if culture/matrix is trauma-based and relates to lack of individuation/psychic enmeshment with the mother (see Lloyd de Mause), the statement that culture is primarily homosexual takes on a certain resonance, albeit a disturbing one. (I am guessing, or hoping, that your wistfulness for matriarchy is sardonic.)
On a podcast I never aired, due to the guest’s misgivings, we discussed Greek man-boy love & semen-bonding as the glue that binds culture together.
Romulus and Remus were Roman not Greek. Castor and Pollux were Greek and if you want to make up gay stories about the constellation Gemini then you are perfectly free to do so but I don’t think gay culture is the foundation of myth in general., or civilization . If Davidson has cast the constellations and natural cycles out of myth and replaced it with gay sexuality, as you’re implying, then the book is less than worthless in that regard.
We all see what we want to see though.
“Gay” is a modern concept tho. Ancient Greeks and Romans who diddled young boys or had male lovers didn’t see themselves as gay or AFAIK any equivalent special “ID,” just as present day Moroccans who do the same don’t, or didnt until the western mindset was introduced. Not making a specific counter-argument with this, only pointing out something that may be relevant.
Fair enough. I find it ironic that myth is being (mis)used as an expression of homosexual culture when one of the primary underlying themes is fertility. Too much micro (with coloured lenses), not enough macro going on imo. People don’t really watch the stars anymore though, or grow their own food either so our whole frame of reference has shifted and these newly minted interpretations of myth can be trotted out.
I have no doubt that if we could strip away our cultural biases and repressions that people would be openly having sex in every imaginable way, of course they do anyway but somewhat covertly. We’re much more bonobo than we like to (openly) admit. Of course the Romans and Greeks saw nothing wrong with having slaves either while we enjoy the pretense that we’re beyond that too, out of sight, out of mind.
We’ve succeeded in going forth and multiplying so now we spend our time teasing out subtle, arbitrary, irrelevancies about our identities I guess. There’s no end to that. Apparently high ideals are hard to pin down or live up to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rhypeGB6W4
I have no doubt that if we could strip away our cultural biases and repressions that people would be openly having sex in every imaginable way, of course they do anyway but somewhat covertly.
I used to think that, but not anymore. I think that if we stripped away cultural biases we would also be individuated, hence free of genital organization. the sex drive would then be integrated into the life-force and able to express, and find satisfaction, through subtler channels, without the need for genital friction, aka fucking. Sex would then be mostly procreative, with the deeper soul union aspect being far less coarse or consummate, the look of the eye, the touch of the hand, etc. That’s my guess anyway (& not necessarily my preference).
In response to your observation about Moroccan men: In the arab world, a man whose dick is in another man’s mouth, or up another man’s ass is not gay. It’s the guy who has a dick in his mouth or his ass who is gay. This is their justification for getting around the awkward situation of not having women around to have sex with, and the FACT that probably around 98% of men across the arab world have had sex with men, whether they will admit to it or not. Perhaps one of the reasons why men in antiquity probably had sex with other men was because of the way the sexes were segregated.
It’s a credit to JHK’s intellectual prowess that he’s appeared on Jasun’s podcast a second time. Why? Well, Jasun, for all his Jungian pollution, is able to be “eloquentially” ad hoc. That’s his particular genius. He is the “swift, fantastic toe” of interesting discourse and argument! Warning: I side with Freud contra Jung.
A short survey:
How many of you who are not gay have had someone accuse/suspect you of being gay?
and,
was the person suspecting/ accusing you:
1. male straight
2. Female straight
3. Male gay
4. Female gay
Finally, did you ask them what aroused their suspicion and what was their reply?
Yes, many times
usually male, but not always!
when I was an adolescent, my brother’s girlfriend briefly convinced my mother to worry I was gay because of how close I was to my best friend at that time.
Thats interesting?
Like some girl dating your brother knows you better than your mother? My experiences are that gay men have the best “gaydar”. This does not mean they will not “hit” on you if you are straight. Females (who want to fukc you) are a close second; they don’t assume you are gay if you don’t/wont sleep with them. I think straight men have the worst gaydar because we project our fears and insecurities onto other men.
There is an additional racial aspect in the U.S I would like to highlight. If you are a black male and while not effeminate, you lack aggressiveness and vulgarity, and in addition are “particular”, or deliberate in your mannerism… you will raise suspicions in certain straight white males who have a cartoonish perspective of black male sexuality; and especially certain blk females who are involved in the hyper kinetic black sexual market place from where those certain straight white males get their cartoonish perspective.
For example; I met a black female, took her on a couple of dates; but didn’t sleep with her. Several years later She tells me she thought I was gay?
WTF?
At first I was confused. Then I realized; in her world black guys turning down yssup is like an under cover cop turning down drugs.
“it smell like bacon up in dis muffugah”
And finally for some women its a defensive rationalization.
I suspect things are changing now that theres no consequences to being openly gay?
It’s always the crude alpha males that have accused me of being gay, or inferred it anyway. When I was younger I had an alpha male teacher turn to another student and say “you know what we do to the pretty ones” referring to me. It’s funny how they don’t mind being seen as gay if it means power.
I’ve never thought of myself as pretty or effeminate but it takes all sorts.
All of the above
Everyone says it’s because I’m “pretty” (thin, long eyelashes, high cheekbones, etc) quiet, and on occasion, a fancy dresser
Don’t get much “crude alpha male” types
Mostly, straight/bi girls seem to ask before they sleep with me
Gay girls are just curious and looking for an androgynous friend, I suppose
The few gay men that have asked have only asked friends of mine if I was gay – looking for my number
fun, MORE SURVEYS ! 🙂
Yeh Kunstler is a stirrer , but i cant help thinking his critique of the modern liberal agenda is aimed more at provoking a reaction and perhaps a misguided attempt to get the lefties to snap out of their abstractions and get to grips with the plain fact that in every sense that matters , we are aboard a sunking ship. Noone will be worried about gender equality or race if the industrial behemoth unexpectedly spools down. In purely intellectual terms his critique is full of holes as pointed out by Harlan Morehouse if you google ” kunstler reactionary progressive”.
I dont believe he has fallen into the pit of idealising the white master race of idealised folksy white villages , though his narrative certainly bribgs you face to face with same …
“i cant help thinking his critique of the modern liberal agenda is aimed more at provoking a reaction and perhaps a misguided attempt to get the lefties to snap out of their abstractions and get to grips with the plain fact that in every sense that matters , we are aboard a sunking ship.” — Kutamun
Why can’t you just accept the possibility that he just wants to help black people?
He made a suggestion to help black people. I haven’t heard any of his critics including yourself make a counter suggestion?
As a writer, he must surely understand the utility of words and language?
Is it because he is white?
Is it because he is a Jew?
Hey Thwack mahn i’m sure there are plenty of white fellas in america that are struggling with the kings english , dont have jobs and like to wear baggy pants with crack showing . I try to keep in mind when discussing this issue that this is a country whose president had to send in an elite paratroop division ( 101st airborne – minus its black soldiers ) to escort 9 little black kids into highschool eighty years after one of the bloodiest civil wars the world has seen was fought to free a race of slaves whose every leader has been gunned down or assimilated into the mostly white oligarchic apparatus . Jims free to say whatever he likes and he’s a big boy who can handle any flak he conjures himself i’ m sure .
If i were a member of the long term underclass i would be taking great pride in not using the language of the overlord or affecting his dress and mannerisms . It has been suggested that black people in america began going down this road after the assassination of King , and that there is evidence to suggest that the racism over there goes up a notch every time blacks try to move toward the mainstream , a-la the sixties and even Obamas time . Check out a good book called ” weapons of the weak “, cheers
“If i were a member of the long term underclass i would be taking great pride in not using the language of the overlord” — Kutamun
Is this your counter suggestion to Kunstlers suggestion to help black people?
As Mr Kunstler himself is fond of saying ” not all problems have solutions ” , we dont have to fix everybody , Thwack , but if we do try , why make a racial distinction ? As i said , there are plenty of white gangstas in the land of the free !
Since you have no suggestion to help black people stop murdering each other in record numbers, I have a suggestion for you;
Stop challenging other peoples suggestions.
I have no further questions of you.
So, Howard Kunstler doesn’t know if he’s “primarily a controversialist.” Well, that because he’s a racist, sexist, misogynist xenophobe, and from his sickening prattle, given the flag of his choice, a jingoist as well.
Like a commenter such as “thwack” (anonymity seems to be a fair choice for the fearful), Kunstler seems to fail to realize that Western Culture was derived by a certain group of people – White people (and let’s not devolve into the, there’s no such thing as race, particularly since every commenter previous to me used the common perceptions of the “Other” and themselves) for themselves; maintenance of a psychopath power elite (PPE). Not to stray too far from central points – and yet the seeming periphery, stated in context, for the elastic mind, goes far in elucidating the core – but after much research it is my feeling that the fabled, mythic, you choose the term, Jesus, Merovingian, Mary Magdalene line, is code for ensuring psychopaths are a constant present in the lineages of the progenitors of this psychical edifice made real called, Western Culture. Without them – psychopaths – people like Kunstler, “thwack,”and even Black people like Colin, cannot exist… i.e “common” members of the populace acting as dutiful psychopath mimetics.
Since Western Culture was derived for the few White people who truly benefit from it, it makes sense of the most common sort that they would choose White people they perceive as “under” them to be their cultural maintenance workers, and, therefore, their primary underling benefactors; all “Others” need not apply —— unless chosen, and preferably chosen because they have some tie to the psychopath core.
That Culture, writ large, is a social engineering experiment, cannot be denied, misunderstood, or devalued; you do so at your own peril. And yet. People like Kunstler, et al. have, quite literally turned a blind eye to this fact. Facts such as language becoming a malleable force to be twisted, re-and decontextualized to the point of illogic – even if it means the speaker’s words exhibit an ignorance of history and the present immediate world in which they live. As long as the speaker knows his/her message is backed by some perceived authority, the words will spill from their mouths, repeated enough to become part and parcel of their worldview. After all, what good is the age-old practice of neuro-linguistic programming if the intended targets cannot be easily programmed?
Since many of the first peoples to be subjugated by the PPE were, in fact, also White (though indigenous to the lands in which they lived), the primary chore for the PPE and their close and trusted minions was to coerce these spoils of war folk to become allies in a larger war of which they had no stake and, likely, no knowledge – the war against indigenous peoples of color who lived and thrive on lands with a wealth of natural resources coveted by the PPE. (For those who are clueless to this fact, all you need to do is understand why the Central Intelligence Agency came into being. As it’s first director, Allen Dulles – also director of the CIA antecedent, the Office of Strategic Services, and longtime fan of British intelligence services – stated the raison d’etre for the CIA: “…for the pursuit of unfettered access to the world’s natural resources.” Take Dulles’ thought back in time and you have Aristotle, the socio-political equivalent of Frank Luntz today, and his law of non-contradiction. Today, the PPE minions of education have most Americans, at least, believing this “law” was an explanation of numbers and their intrinsic vale and relation to each other. However, any cultural anthropology professor with his or her salt will tell you (I omit Western History profs because they are charged with protecting history and protecting their students from history) the law of non-contradiction was the excuse for the first enslavement of people, Africans in this case, without war as a precedent to enslavement —— and with it, evolved the philosophical underpinnings of racism and the continued subjugation of Black peoples around the world, including – yes commenter Colin – America.
This brief history is to say, “Words Matter” (Fabian-friendly t-shirts emblazoned with these words – with an “anarchy” symbol included on the limited initial run – forthcoming).
The nature of the 16th century conquest of South American peoples hinged on a year-long debate – the Valladolid Debate – between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda. Las Casa argued that the “primitives” were, indeed, human and had souls. To Las Casas, the Spanish should first seek to convert them from their primitive pagan ways to Catholicism. Sepulveda, said no way, these “things” are sub-human at best and should be exterminated, so as not to waste time appropriating what we know as South America; attempting to convert animals was a waste of precious time and manpower. Las Casas won out but only because he conceded that if the indigenous peoples of that land did not convert they should be slaughtered.
Words Matter.
When Marco Polo first sailed to China his ships were manned by African slaves. The Chinese he encountered had never seen people of such a hue and they asked Polo about them. Marco’s response? They are animals not to be trusted. Always remember that.” Ahhh, yes. And what do we call Polo’s and subsequent voyages in that time to China? The “Silk Road.” More like the “Slick Road.” Polo and his ilk’s main task was to return with opium — for the masses. Silk was but an extra bit of, clothing as a show of separation from the plebes, for the PPE.
Words Matter.
When the U.S. slave trade began in earnest, somewhere between 10 and 50 million Africans were chained, prone, head to toe, in the HULLS of ships and shipped to America. THE HULLS. Unable to shit or piss anywhere but on each other. Think of that? Six to 30-Foot Atlantic swells, and when the ship bottoms out from a swell, guess who takes the brunt? You know. But what are those slave trade voyages called, “The Middle Passage.” Sounds more like a path of a ocean cruise liner; nice and gentle for 1800 miles. Play shuffleboard on one of the many ship decks. No-limit hold ‘em poker games and seven-course banquet dinners every night. Right? RIGHT?! We don’t know how many Africans were brought here because the slave traders quickly learned to fudge the books to reflect the total number of slaves in a separate ledger book from the number of surviving chattel; it drove up the prices for the ship masters. Think of it as the equivalent of the “endangerment” tax break oil companies get today because of the alleged threat of their tankers being hijacked.
The PPE never sleep and…
Words Matter.
I won’t even go into the mass massacre of indigenous people in America. Hopefully you Kunstlerites get it by now. By the mid-1800s there were at least as many Africans in America as there were Whit people. Think that didn’t scare the living hell out of slave masters “Down South” and industrialist “Up South?” You all know Lincoln didn’t give a rat’s ass about Black slaves and the slave trade – in fact, he was a proponent of it. He just wanted those stacks of greenbacks he derived centralized in D.C. so they could be meted out by the PPE representatives in the northern part of the U.S. What Lincoln forgot is that the real psychopath power elite bakers weren’t entertaining some insolent clown form far-flung Illinois attempting to subvert their control over their currency – hence Ford’s Theatre.
Soon after the “Civil War” (remember, Words Matter), the Ku Klux Klan began. No, it wasn’t some joke of little club. It was actually founded by Southern generals who maintained a close relationship with the PPE in England. They used University of Tennessee graduates as their founding members of said “Klan.”
They knew the so-called freed slaves (read the 14th Amendment carefully, then think again about the racial makeup of today’s U.S. prison population – and as always, Words Matter) passed down a tale of the white demon ghost come to take their children at night. You can get the rest yourselves. The indigenous peoples had similar tales of White ghostly figures come to destroy their land; REAL prophesy, not just some mythic pap from “The Book”… of oppression.
In what is now Mexico and Central America conquest was especially brutal. The Spanish arrived looking at full-blown cities. At every turn there was a metropolis far different but equally as impressive as their own. So what did they do when rulers of these cultures reached out to them? Made peace – for a minute. And then slaughtered the shit out of them. Razed their monumental structures and built churches on top of the rubble. Told the indigenous peoples, convert or die (sound familiar?).
In the 1980s there was a repeat of this type of behavior. When Belize sought and fought for its independence the offending colonial-imperialists were English. I worked, as a collegiate undergrad on the most well-known recent excavations at Xunantunich in the village of Succotz, Belize a mere five minutes from the Guatemala border. I also was an assistant Principal Investigator on a second, more secretive project in Belize about 30 minutes north of Xunantunich. As I and my crews scraped away topsoil we found, on monumental structures —— beer cans, sardine tins, aluminum foil leavings, and sometimes plastic from candy wrappers.
The British troops set up camp —— on top of ancient Maya monumental structures, just like the Spanish before them.
“A fight for independence.”
Words Matter.
You see, America wasn’t settled in response of England’s oppressive religion-political constructs. America was settled by the English in an effort to join East and West; to conquer the land that would give Britain its most direct route to the Far East (or, the “Orient,” if you’re still of colonial-imperialist mind). To accomplish this, the evolved Aristotilean practice of enslavement without war was revived exponentially and performed with the utmost brutality.
Africans of various tribes were purposely mixed so that they could not communicate with each other in the slave quarters. With their languages strip from them the slave owners then demanded they learn English. The only problem was they didn’t teach the slaves the language. But they still expected slaves to learn – and learn quickly. If a slave didn’t properly respond to a field hand’s command, the slave was whipped on site. If the slave attempted to explain, the field hand took that as insurrection; the slave was hung.
The practiced art of failing to teach properly Black people European-American language through grammar and its proper usage and through literature linking past forms of English with Americanized English began with the first slaves brought to America.
And it persists today.
Many of you defended Kunstler’s tripe about Black people learning to speak “properly” to the point of twisted illogic, saying Kunstler was giving Black people “advice.”
Ever go to a public school in a Black ghetto? My advice, don’t. Unlike my U.S. private school upbringing in four of, ’The Eighteen” as we call the 18 oldest and most prestigious private-college preparatory schools in the U.S. (“public school” to you English out there), where we took an afternoon break for English muffins and common high tea, a black kid in a ghetto likely never saw an English muffin, save for on a television commercial. Their “tea” more often than not was and remains, “Kool-aid.” Their “lunch” consists of not one thing I would ever put on a plate to eat – ever. High in carbohydrates, high in glucose content; diabetes on a plastic tray.
The teachers are —— mostly White. Not mostly Black graduates from U.S. colleges and universities. Not even mostly Black graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities like Black Fabian females in training, Spelman University. (You know that one, Jasun, right? You know, the Black university named after primary donor, Laura Spelman Rockefeller?) White. And mostly young White women.
Where I now reside, in Austin, Texas, many Black people I meet, though educated to some degree in public schools and in local colleges and universities, have little or no idea of the tidbits of history in above paragraphs. They actively seek to deny their Blackness – and actively admit defeat at the hands of the descendants of their slave master-fathers.
Jason, your brother manifested his issues through drug addiction. You spoke at length in three podcasts of your and your sister’s issues. without rehashing, think: given the fact that Black people in ghettos aren’t flying to Afghanistan or even Mexico and returning to America with tons of opium processed into heroin, why is it so difficult to understand that, through social engineering, particularly of the MK or Naomi or Artichoke sort, that Black people would somehow gain some sort of collective equilibrium and free themselves from their psychopath “fathers’ and “mothers” and NOT indulge themselves in mind, body and soul-numbing drug use?!?!
When inundated with 24-7 forms of mind control that espouses them to be deemed worthy of participation in society at-large only if they entertain White people as athletes or singers or rappers?! And even with that, when expedient, the minions of the PPE are told to appropriate their entertainment stylings, repackage them as a simulacrum with a White face, and have that piece of circus sold back not only to all the White people who purchased a piece of their soul, their culture, but sold back to THEM!
I really could go on much, much longer. However, this comment is long enough. I doubt that many of you will venture beyond a few paragraphs. You will, instead, feign disgust at what I’ve written or dismiss with the banal, “I’m not reading your novel,” which is supposed to act as a passive-aggressive admonition of my historical mentions – fictions -because they don’t match the lies you’ve been taught and continue to hold dear.
Thing is, what you don’t get is that just to navigate successfully through Western Culture, Black people must study the culture through all its forms – and through White people. As a result, those of us who know and do this, know you far better than you know yourselves. We know how haunted you are by your individual and collective shadow selves. We know you can go through your days and be perceived as successes, but be completely oblivious to your environment – and yourselves.
We know that, for all your propaganda about Black people and drug use, Black people and crime, Black people and whatever negative you attempt to pin on us, it is you who do the bulk of the drugs brought from far-flung countries, manufactured drugs made primarily in Israel. It is you who are responsible for more deaths globally daily than Black people have committed in all our time in America.
We know that, though you continue to enslave Africans to mine natural resources, those Edward Bernays-concocted “precious stones” called diamonds, the stones that aren’t at all “precious” are being sold to —— you. Those Bernays-popularized death sticks called cigarettes, were sold to —— you.
But. Until a man who actually is African-American became president, EVERY White man in the United States could look at his baby son his first day at home and say, “One day, son, you can be President.”
Even today, Black people — American Black people, don’t really entertain that idea. But it is you who have fallen for the social engineering. It is you who are the real shadow people, living in a simulacrum you are foolish enough to maintain for the psychopath power elite.
Given the incontrovertible fact that, at your fingertips, are information machines that allow you to penetrate and explode the simulacrum you, instead, choose to seek its “comfort.” You, “thwack” and the others like you have no call at all to challenge any peoples’ struggle to extricate themselves from the lie of the machine to which you are witting slaves.
And should you dare to consider challenging my person, I was born into, raised and U.S. private-schooled in the heart of “The 18” (as the cream of the U.S. college preparatory schools are monikered; I attended four) as a “one-percenter”…by a private school English teacher mother who taught high school students because she was bored with being a housewife with a college degree, and an Office of Naval Intelligence, summa cum laude college graduate father who was, in part, responsible for many of the neuro-linguistic-based mind control programs that are used to keep the majority of the Western Cultured populace sleeping.
I know how weak you are —– and how you choose being comfortably numb over the joyful challenge that is the pursuit of constant awareness… good luck with that.
That’s a very long post, and you seem to have done lots of serious thought about the subject. It doesn’t really seem intended to invite a dialogue however, so much as to correct others in their delusions, by whatever means necessary. My experience of Kunstler is of a warm, kind, thoughtful, highly intelligent and genuinely seeking to understand human being, not of a racist, sexist, misogynist xenophobe. But then I don’t judge people by their ideologies but by what they are transmitting from inside of them, by their way of being. Those who do judge others by their ideologies tend to attack others, as you are doing, from an ideological standpoint yet aimed not at the beliefs but at the individuals themselves. It’s a rich irony which I continue to observe that those who are most concerned about psychopaths behave the most like them. If i let this post through (besides the fact that you make some reasonable points in service to your moral attack), it’s mainly as a demonstration of that.
Jasun,
I didn’t read David Wilson’s comment (tldr); but did he make a SUGGESTION for how black people in the United States can compensate for all our pathology and dysfunction?
Kunstler made a suggestion and was attacked.
The people attacking him and his suggestion don’t seem to make any counter suggestions?
Why?
Suggestions are free to make and black people NEED the help;
I know cause Im one of em.
Not as far as I saw, no.
Sister Rosetta Thwarpe “Up Above My Head”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeaBNAXfHfQ
Nessia, was that your suggestion?
If so, I concur. I don’t know how I never heard of her; she is like the female Chuck Berry.
Thanx
Thwack, There are two reasons I did not reply to your response to my post earlier.
1. I found your tone facetious and obnoxious.
2. You did not respond to my critique of Kuntsler. My critique of JHK examined his prescriptions (or lack thereof) for the European Americans — NOT his prescriptions for African-Americans. James Howard Kuntsler does not believe European Americans need to examine the social privilege they have been granted by dint of their heritage. I am European-American (primarily) and I disagree. I believe it is our responsibility to recognize history and I am in favor of reparations for the genocide perpetrated upon African-Americans and for he centuries of stolen labor.
Your response to JHK focuses on a different aspect of the interview: you support his contention that African Americans must learn to master standard English. I agree. In fact, I think all people living in the United States should seek to master standard English – it is a crucial survival skill. I’ve spent most of my adult life teaching English as a second language to immigrants, so we agree on this point. Interestingly, many European Americans I have contact with have very poor command of English. However, this is often overlooked because they speak with a different accent than many African-Americans. George W. Bush, for example, was the greatest butcher of the English language I have ever witnessed.
My problem with your response, thwack, is that you are presenting the mastery of the English language as a magical bulletproof vest that will rescue African-Americans from persecution. This is fantasy. Language skills are a crucial tool, but police who execute unarmed Black Americans do not administer a language test first. We have a fundamental philosophical difference on this point. When there is abuse or oppression, my focus is on the behavior of the abuser. A case in point: from my life: when the police knocked on the door of my parents’ house in the suburbs in 2011 to “check on things”, it was because they had received a call about a Black person in the neighborhood – my wife. My ex-wife was not administered an English proficiency test by the the the neighbors making the call or by the police who humiliated her and reduced her to tears with their interrogation.
And with that I will exit this exchange. Thank you for the perspectives, twack, Jasun and all listeners contributing.
Thank you for your response Dan.
I have two questions for you:
1. Are you an African American person?
2. What is your suggestion for African American people?
Thank you.
Thwack,
You are apparently dialoguing in bad faith because it is evident that you are not reading the posts you comment upon. If you had read the comment I posted, you would have noticed that I address the question of my ethnicity in it. As to your question #2, I also address the question of JHK’s prescription for African-Americans in my post above.
I will give you my perspective on your question #2 in good faith, make a final comment and then conclude my participation in this exchange that you are mostly treating with disdain. The one thing that I have noticed truly helps African-Americans is a deep investigation into African and Afro Atlantic cultures, including religion, language, music and more. The people of African heritage that I have known who have made these investigations on a deep level appear to be very grounded and high functioning people. I do not find this surprising, either.
You have chosen to obsess over a 45-second segment of a lengthy interview with JHK – the section in which he says that mastery of the English language would benefit Black people. That’s fine. As I commented earlier, it is a good idea for everybody living in the US to master the English language. However, I am not convinced that YOU take this obsession of yours seriously. I say this because your posts are riddled with grammatical and punctuation errors. But, strangely, they seem to be primarily errors that are the result of a lack of proofreading and not a lack of knowledge. So, you are hounding people for their critique of JHK’s suggestion, but you do not even take the suggestion seriously yourself. It is disturbing and suggests that there may be something fraudulent about you and your perspective.
Dan Hanrahan
I’ve been following the discussion but none of it seems all that relevant, to me, to my conversation with JHK. Which isn’t to discourage the debate, only to suggest that everyone has their chosen (mostly unconsciously) area of focus, and that this implies also a necessary blind spot.
It is not possible to have an opinion, any opinion, except by omitting something (Charles Fort).
I don’t understand people’s hostility to JHK, but that’s probably because I haven’t followed his output closely and only have my own personal, direct interaction with him to go on. As always I am interested in the human being and their gather experience, not their views.
I think the most interesting phenomenon of this entire thread is the difficulty people have providing black people with simple constructive suggestions to help them solve problems; and secondarily, these same persons enthusiasm to attack any person who dares to do so (such as Kunstler.)
American Sign Language helps hearing people (like us) communicate constructively with deaf people; but it also allows deaf people to communicate constructively with each other. Is deaf people communicating constructively with each other a valuable enough behavior (in and of itself) for hearing people to support and defend teaching them American Sign Language?
What is the benefit for us if deaf people are able to communicate constructively and effectively with each other?
The race problem seems to have a special “gift” of triggering traumas in people; traumas most people attempt to hide and deny. I suspect (in large part from studying the work of Jasun Horsley) these traumas hold the information necessary to solve the problem?
“if you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding!”
If you are a black person and you need help, I SUGGEST you pay attention to those persons who offer the simple, short suggestions that require the least amount of resources.
Avoid those persons offering “buckets of words”, walls of dogma and suggesting you NOT do what they do.
So behind a “kind, warm, highly intelligent… whatever, hides a racist, sexist, xenophobe, et al., ideologue whose perceptions form his actions (the conversation with the “politically correct” academicians —- and that’s cool???
Hmmm, let me put what you said to the test: so, when I was in Belize working on an archaeological project and the Principal Investigator was known as, “a really great man,” but ensured he had female, blond undergrads, because they were who he preferred to bed, and then, as we looked down on a round limestone altar filled with once-ornately painted, filled with perfectly constructed glyphs that sat in front of a monumental structure that on each solstice, if you stood on its top (as I did), the sun rose directly overhead, and said, “The Maya were too primitive to conceptualize a wheel,” I’m supposed to separate him being said to be a “really great man” from his demeaning, racist ideological stance concerning the ancient Maya and his grotesque treatment of 18-21-year old young women?
Really Jasun Horsley?! Now THAT is cognitive dissonance. And yes, good luck with that.
It’s true that psychopaths often possess people skills to deceive, and it’s of course possible that I have been deceived by Jim. It’s also possible that your lack of such skills has caused me to mistake you for an ideological bombast whose interest is not in dialoguing but in lecturing and belittling. But for now I will go with my gut on this, and suggest you pick up your ideological soapbox and go in peace.
A brief addendum: Your statements to me concerning Kunstler mean, despite all the maleficent actions and grotesque ideological stances of the litany of people you describe in your writings who circled in and around your family, you can be cool with them because they can be perceived as, “warm, kind, thoughtful… intelligent?”
Seriously?!
I almost fell for answering that before I realized it’s not a question, it’s a snark. All I know for sure at this point is that I like Kunstler well enough, despite any views of his I may find disagreeable, and that I dislike you, despite any areas we may agree on, which I am disinclined to try and find out because your approach is so antithetical to comfortable or enjoyable engagement. Please ask a genuine question, or f*** off.
For some time now i have been trying to trace back the philosophical current that is attached to the peak oil narrative that has captivated me so much . Finally i discovered Isaiah Berlin , a russian jew exiled to britain , and he has introduced me to the concept of the counterelightenment , of which the peak oil section seems to be an outgrowth . He specifically mentions Plato , Giambattisto Vicos “new science”, edmund burke and Schopenhauer , all authors espoused regularly by john michael greer .
This current tends to oppose the Judaic talmudic current of scientific rationalism , empiricism , globalism . The fact that Kunstler is a Jew seems a paradox , makes him all the more interesting ; though he decries modernity he will never say a bad word about the jews . I soon realised though that we cant simply force things into these overly simple procrustean beds . The world is composed of people that stick to one side or the other , regularly switch sides, or like the author and readership of this blog , try to hold the tension of the two in consciousness for the benefit of all .
Some general concepts pursuant to this meditation
Empirical
Jews , Jerusalem ,the templars who inform the freemasons who inform the illuminati , scientists , atheists , the internet , globalism founding fathers , neocons, Leo Strauss ,mk ultra and the intelligence agencies, corporate state ,porn , hollywood ..israel , banking system , imf
Romantic
Plato , renaissance men , nietzsche , the golden dawn , druids , jung schopenhauer , herder , hamann , maistre , list , aristocracies , church ,jesuits , nationalism skull and bones ( totenkopf)jesuits ,southern confederacy , surrealists , warhol , byron , vampires ,crowley nazis , existentialists , foucault , the greens ., islam, putin , private wealth
Fascinates me while the Talmudic ” word” informs the empirical subset , the ” tree of life ” is used extensively by the occultists on the other side of the fence . My jewish friends dont like talking about the tree of life , seems they guard it closely. .
Given our recent discussions , it would seem that scientology and aliens would fit , paradoxically , under the ” empirical subset ??”
I am following with interest!
The two snakes of the caduceus with us struggling to balance them
Did Kunstler apologize for being 100% wrong on Peak Oil? If so I missed it. And most of us can’t be fully blamed for lifestyle choices because we have been hypnotized and engineered, which Kunstler also misses. How could that be missed?
I find Kunstler to be a vicious, mean self aggrandizer and a divider. As for black people, the fact that there is even one, one! healthy radiant creative African American person left in this country is testament to the human spirit, after 500 years of constant degradation and brutality at the hands of “the system” created by whites. It also testifies to their moral and physical and intellectual resiliency and general creative superiority to whites. That there are millions of healthy blacks in this country is simply astonishing.
The pants down below the butt is just to make it easier to kiss their ass. Makes sense to me. And the language is creativity, not all of it successful perhaps. I guess Kunstler can’t listen to jazz, blues, reggae, hip-hop, motown, rock, R&B, soul or funk either. They initially broke all the rules of musical language.
As for violence- no one is more violent than this very white state we live in, on multiple levels I don’t need to enumerate. And personal violence is to be expected given the conditions forced upon blacks. It’s a miracle it isn’t worse. Do I wish it were different? Sure. But I honor the incredible spirit and resiliency of those forced to live in it, and wouldn’t dream of pontificating from my walkable community in whitey town for an instant. Hey Jim- if so concerned- head on down to a community center and volunteer to teach reading at an after school program for inner city youths! Be part of your own solution. Criticize your own, and criticize power.
Hello Ginko;
Kunstler made a suggestion to help African American people which you seem to oppose?
Do YOU have a suggestion for African American people which will help them compensate for “500 years of constant degradation and brutality at the hands of “the system” created by whites?”
Thank you.