Unbelievable dancing

Unbelievable, even impossible? Definitely not normal.

Have fun, watch and enjoy. It's Friday night.

It's hilarious!

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The discussion spreads to Sailer's blog

The discussion about the The Self-Defeat of the United States has spread to Steve Sailer's blog. Commenter Togo writes:

As a couple of Europeans explain, "conservatism" in the US is not really conservatism. Which tends to explain why it's in a perpetual state of disorganized retreat.

And then continues to quote me saying:

The reason that we find a strong conservatism in America and not in Europe is that American conservatives are not at all conservative but liberals to the core; French Revolution egalitarians and PC addicts with fear of “racism”, etc. European conservatism is of a essentially different kind, and totally unacceptable under the current world order. In the American mythology, which is the foundation for our current civilizational paradigm, the old pre-WWI Europe is the worst of the evils, much worse than Communism of fascism. After all Wilson and Roosevelt understood and respected Lenin and Stalin. It was the old (and vital!) Europe that was Satan itself in their eyes.(…)

And ends with quoting Geza's thoughts on the topic.

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Case study: Robohobo, part 1

I was involved in a controversy recently with the authors of Gates of Vienna. The background is that Fjordman had written an article, The Self-Defeat of the United States. He wrote e.g.:

The USA currently looks more like a defeated nation than the world’s sole remaining superpower. It’s the only nation in history where the majority of the population has elected a member of an organization known for hating the majority population of that country.

[...]

Europeans can and should maintain good relations and cooperate with ordinary North American citizens, who live under the same Multicultural regime as we do, but we cannot and should not rely on aid from the American elites. They are as hostile as the EU elites.

And I picked it up from there and continued a discussion in the comment thread. It was a very good an civilized discussion, mainly consisting of an exchange with PRCalDude, a man that it is a pleasure to disagree with. Part of my argument was in how the current (destructive) world order is upheld by America, the issue of American troops in Germany, and how Germany is the most wing-clipped of all European nations -- where national confidence is effectively in a total coma. Then came the following comment from Robohobo:

ConSwede says:

"...Germany. This is exactly an example of what I am talking about. They will *never* stick up for themselves..."

And the Swedes will? What about the lovely little place called Malmo we hear about on this very blog? Me thinks that this is a case of Pot - Meet - Kettle.

And I have the same question as You New, "How would you best describe your political views?"

That has always escaped me.

I also think that too many including the US elites make the mistake of not counting in the core of the US population, us redneck hicks in flyover country clinging to our families, religion and guns in hard times. Be pretty sure, we have about had enough of The Won. The big Zero that the rest of the world thinks they love so much.

I answered that comment as properly it was possible given the nature of the comment, but my answer got erased by Dymphna, and next Baron Bodissey backed up her decision while describing me as the one lacking good manners. The position of Dymphna and the Baron is that Robohobo's comment was an honest attempt to engage in the discourse, which was dismissed by me in a rude and insulting way.

But this is not what happened, and I can show it wasn't. I will first clarify the nature of Robohobo's comment. Fundamental and essential for Dymphna and the Baron's judgment of the situation is their claim that Robohobo was honestly trying to engage in the discourse. I will show that he wasn't and that they are wrong. Next I will come to my answer to Robohobo and show how this was a proper way of answering such a comment written in bad faith. Two of my previous articles -- The Western weakness, in big and in small and What can be known? -- provide a background for this analysis.

Let's go through Robohobo's comment step by step. Let's start from the beginning:

"...Germany. This is exactly an example of what I am talking about. They will *never* stick up for themselves..."

And the Swedes will? What about the lovely little place called Malmo we hear about on this very blog? Me thinks that this is a case of Pot - Meet - Kettle.

What is Robohobo trying to do here? Did this comment at all have a place in the discourse? Seeing only the answer by Robohobo, without having seen the previous discussion, one would have thought that I had been engaging in a pissing contest between Sweden and Germany, and that I had tried to elevate Sweden at the expense of Germany. But well, anyone who has been following my writings know that I'm the furthest from a praiser of Sweden that you will ever get. And more importantly, with regards to the discourse at hand, Sweden is too insignificant to even enter the discussion.

So how did Robohobo manage to shoehorn Sweden into the discussion? Had he so utterly misunderstood what had actually been discussed that he honestly thought that I had been engaging in a pissing contest between Sweden and Germany, and attempted to elevate Sweden by denigrating Germany? No, of course not! Instead it's clear from the comment by Robohobo (and previous comments by him) that he dislikes my criticism of America as a polity. In spite of how I agreed with Fjordman in how Europeans should maintain good relations and cooperate with ordinary American citizens, apparently he takes it personally, which would most probably be because he's personally identifying with America as a polity. So that's how Sweden enters the picture, Robohobo wants to get back at me at a personal level (a pretty useless attempt since I don't care much for the image of Sweden). This is the general idea of an ad hominem, to deviate from the discourse; instead of dealing with the content of the discussion, go for the person! Use the fact that my country is bad, and paint the situation as if I had tried to elevate my country at the expense of another. The expression "Pot - Meet - Kettle" is indicative of the sandbox fighting level that is intended here by Robohobo.

But Baron Bodissey and Dymphna didn't see this. Is it the blindness of non-judgmental egalitarianism or the automatic sympathy for hurt American feelings, or a combination of both?

And I have the same question as You New, "How would you best describe your political views?"

The background here is that You New, who honestly engaged in the discourse, had asked me "How would you best describe your political views?". I had then answered the question. And then -- after that -- Robohobo repeats the same question. It is easy to objectively conclude that this does not fulfill the requirements of an honest question. Anyone who claims that this is an honest question is either dishonest or a mindless serf of non-judgmental egalitarianism.

Any sane person can see that Robohobo is not the least interested in my answer to the question -- the answer had already been given just before! Instead this is a rhetorical question, the purpose of which was to land in the following statement:

That has always escaped me.

So, as we already concluded, there's no interest in hearing me explaining my political views, instead the combination of "How would you best describe your political views? -- That has always escaped me", in this context, constitutes the speech act of declaring the deliberate intent of having no interest in understanding my political views. And I think, to be honest, that someone that deliberately intend not to understand my views, most certainly won't understand them, or at least won't be caught showing any signs of doing so.

Robohobo ends by writing:

I also think that too many including the US elites make the mistake of not counting in the core of the US population, us redneck hicks in flyover country clinging to our families, religion and guns in hard times. Be pretty sure, we have about had enough of The Won. The big Zero that the rest of the world thinks they love so much.

This is the only part in which he actually engages in the discourse. And this is what his introductory attempts to ritually taking the power out of what I had written -- by bringing it down to a personal level, using sandbox fighting jargon, using a rhetorical question, and demonstratively showing his lack of interest to interpret me properly -- was all about. There was no genuine interest in discussing e.g. Sweden here, after all.

It is a problem, however, for these "redneck hicks" -- if they are going to fight the American establishment -- if they react allergically to a description of how bad off America and its establishment truly is, and their knee-jerk reaction is to attack such criticism (using sandbox fighting jargon etc.). It also notable how Robohobo ties the support of Obama with coming from "the rest of the world". After all Obama was elected in America by Americans (something completely unique and exceptional, as pointed out by Fjordman). So where were this "the core of the US population" when Obama was elected? Where were they even during the Republican primaries, when McCain was chosen?

I think this contributes to illustrate the predicament of America. Keep in mind that, unlike how it is across Western Europe, there's no anti-establishment party of any significance in America. And at the same we see many critical Americans -- describing themselves as "redneck hicks" or whatever -- identifying so strongly with their establishment that they are prepared to go to pretty low levels in defending it, when it is criticized the same way as we criticize our establishment here in Europe. I cannot see but that these two things are connected. It suggests that there simply are not enough Americans with an anti-establishment mindset, in the way we have in Europe, to build the basis of an anti-establishment party of any substance.

In my next part I will continue this analysis and come to what was written in my answer to Robohobo, which was obliterated by the moderation regime at Gates of Vienna.

More:

On the Self-Defeat of the United States

The Western weakness, in big and in small

What can be known?

Moving on, blogging on
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Luton: Morality reemerging in the West

The police broke up a march on Monday 13/4/09 by British people wanting to reclaim their streets from Muslim fanatics. Officers said it was illegal to stage the protest in Luton where extremists were allowed only last month to shout abuse at troops home from Iraq.



This is the first time I can remember seeing Westerners act morally. All morality is ultimately rooted in moral outrage. Without socially manifested moral outrage there can only be nihilism. All the priestly preachers of the all-encompassing Enlightenment tsunami, and their priestly institutions, have during the last centuries, and especially during the last decades, worked eagerly to deprive the Westerners of all sense of morality, all sense of honour, and left us with nothing but their cynical, destructive and cruel nihilism; which is in the process of killing us as a civilization.

It's good to see the goodness and honour of these young men. It shows the natural sense of morality that after all exists under the surface among the Westerners. Something we haven't seen since the days of Enoch Powell. Something that has been utterly suppressed by the traitorous pharisees in our ruling classes.

Here are more video clips of the event.

Here follows the declaration of the protesters:

Join our next march Bank Holiday Sunday the 3rd May @ 5pm St Georges square.

The whole country witnessed the hate filled scum that gate crashed the soldiers homecoming! Two of there regiment died in iraq and they should of met a heroes welcome when returning to there home town.

Luton borough council and the bedfordshire Police gave permission to these Muslim fanatics to protest. Our council and Police force need to decide if they back this disbanded Terrorist group Al-Muhajiroun or they back the local residents of luton!
The people of Luton are calling for all the scum that turned out that day to dishonour our armed forces to be given an ASBO that bans them from our town centre 24 hours a day and 7 days a week!

Neither soldier nor member of the public should ever have to brush shoulders with these scum ever again. This same extremist group stand outside Don Millers bakery every Saturday recruiting and trying to convert people for there Jihad. Luton Police and the council allow this - WE WILL NOT!

There are future homecoming parades already planned through Luton and these vermin need to be banned from the town centre. If they were to enter the town centre they could then be arrested and dealt with through the courts.
2 members of the public were arrested when tensions boiled over as the Terrorists tried to ruin the homecoming parade. How many more British people will need to be arrested before our council & the Police listen?

Cut the politically correct tape tying everyone's hands and do something about this Terrorist group who hate everything our great county stands for.
We must stress that this is a very small number of Muslim fanatics and not the wider Muslim community so lets unite against these worthless scum and turn out in our numbers be that Muslim, Catholic, Christian, Jewish, White, Black or Asian. Turn out in your numbers so the whole country can see the residents of Luton are fed up and are having no more of it!!

There is no point sitting in your armchair and shouting at the TV. The only way to get the message across is to take it to the streets. This is a chance to show the Poilce and the council the power of public opinion.
The entire country is behind us

The next Protest will be held on Sunday 3rd May! Be there!

Update: Lionheart has a post describing how these people had applied for a permit to parade, but was denied it. Babs summarizes the whole thing at GoV: "[A] permit was applied for to hold a parade in honor of St. George's Day which was denied by the Luton Council. The original parade idea was to be pro country, like a 4th of July parade in the states I assume. The fact that indigenous Brits were denied the right to assemble while "other elements" of their society not only assemble but become violent on a fairly frequent basis so enraged the organizers that they decided to hold a parade without a permit. Hence, rather than a positive parade so to speak, the signage and mood of the parade became reactionary."

Hat tip: Gates of Vienna and Lionheart.
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Moving on, blogging on

Step by step I have detached myself from the site Gates of Vienna (GoV). For the last two years it's been like a home to me, but I think those times are over and that it's now time for me to move on. For a year and more I haven't been blogging much, instead I have preferred to comment at GoV. This due to a combination of reasons, mainly two: i) that I haven't considered myself having the time to maintaining a blog, and ii) that I preferred to engage in dialog, in a debate, and GoV has served this purpose well most of the time. Now, however, for a number of reasons, this situation has changed; I'm inspired to blog again, and I expect that I will continue to comment very little at GoV compared to the last two years.

This development started during the second half of last year. The changed situation was to a high degree triggered by external events, the pivotal world events of August and September. This shifted the focus quite drastically from unity about the issue of Islam, and more and more onto issues where there was a glaring antagonism among the participants. I felt more and more unease about my participation at GoV. About half of the commenters enjoyed my comments and craved for more, while about half of the commenters hated my comments and attacked me increasingly aggressively for them. Several times during the autumn I intended to bail out, but Baron Bodissey always encouraged me to continue. But by the end of last year the climate had become so hostile, regarding certain hot topics, that reasoned debate had become effectively impossible about these topics.

My criticism of the weaknesses/arrogance of America and Christianity was disdained and often attacked. But the topic that was truly too hot to handle was the one about Russia. Also the topic of anti-German hate -- and how German national identity is effectively suppressed into a total coma under the current world order -- had the potential to freak people out.

Around new year the topic of Russia became too hot for Baron Bodissey, and rather than dealing with the hostile climate which effectively made reasoned discussion impossible, he literally closed down the discussions about Russia. This was a major setback for the previous legacy of GoV and a major surrender of Baron Bodissey's excellent ambitions of having an open and open-minded debate at his blog.

A problem for GoV is that it needs to straddle the situation of being an American site and wanting to encourage a very open debate. They get quite a share of emails from Americans complaining that the atmosphere of the site is uncongenial to Americans. And as far as I understand, almost all such emails are complaints about me and my comments. My take on this is that the truth about America (as a political entity) is not a flattering one -- and this has become more glaringly obvious than ever, since the pivotal world events of August, September and November in 2008 -- but that the truth nevertheless needs to be explored and expressed. But people's reactions are more than anything else rooted in their identity -- and emotions are emotions. This is the situation that Baron Bodissey has to straddle.

So the truth needs to be explored and stated, but not necessarily at GoV (in every aspect). I have no wish to push things at GoV and for Baron Bodissey, and I never had. On the contrary, I have stated so, many times, to the Baron; I have often regretted the situation and I have periodically bailed out due to the pressure. But the Baron has always encouraged me to come back.

But it's not only my mind that has been divided about this thing. There has been this double nature of the Baron's position about me. On one hand he has lifted and encouraged comments by me; he has defended my analyses as often being right and "not mindlessly anti-American", but at the same time made a habit of describing me as abrasive and untactful, and even rude and insulting.

Before the chain of events triggered by the pivotal world events of the latter half of 2008, I had less urge to protest this sort of stereotyping of me as a person. Up until the summer of 2008 I saw the counterjihad movement as one movement, and I saw me and the Baron as two warriors side by side in this common struggle. In such a situation I do not pay too much attention to comments about my person. The common cause, the common struggle, and the duty that comes with it, was above everything else. I even volunteered as "attack dog", for the sake of the common cause, in the LGF affair. I can be nasty if I choose to be so. Maybe this has contributed to the Baron's view of my way of behaving?

I admit that in my role as a "warrior", and also under the pressure of massive attack from many directions at the same time, that I have indeed on occasion behaved more badly than I wished to. And in any case that I have failed and realized so, I have also made sure to say that I'm sorry. But these are the exceptions. The Baron's general description of me is unfair. He is confusing the animosity against my ideas, from commenters and people emailing him, with my personality. His duality in his description of me is something that given his situation, given the straddling that he has to do, might feel balanced to him, but is nevertheless unfair. Surely what I write is annoying to many people, but this is collateral. My intention is not to be annoying, even though it, of course, is meant to be thought provoking.

But the war in Georgia, the financial crisis, and the new world that it opened up -- and the antagonism that these and other things triggered, and the hostility against my views of so many commenters at GoV -- made it clear to me that there was not truly any one movement. This has several consequences. And I will have to come back to it several times in what I write here. E.g. I feel now that I have been too hard on certain people when I before saw them as being too much in breach with what should have been the one movement. Before I also felt the urge in trying to influence the direction of what I thought to be the one movement. I can see now that this was futile, and that there is no one movement. What is left is just me, and my thoughts. Which I can write down -- and which I will, here at my blog! And then there are my friends, and the people I enjoy discussing with. Suddenly it's all very simple.

The breakdown of GoV as the beacon of free debate triggered me into a hiatus that has been going on for the last three months. Effectively I have been disconnected from everything (with a few exceptions). I and the Baron were no longer warriors in a common struggle. Our relation had been "reduced" to being friends. I put "reduced" in scare quotes since this friendship has been one of the most rewarding and inspiring that I have ever had. And in return I have always tried to give back the very best of me, in every way that I could. My only "flaw" has been that my honesty has never been negotiable. But this is also something that the Baron has appreciated (most of the time). Another flaw of mine is that I have to be inspired to have anything to give, and I have not always been inspired.

And before I go on, let me just state that the breakdown, at the dawn of this year, of GoV as the beacon of free debate, is not anything I hold against Baron Bodissey. Very much to the contrary! Instead the Baron should have loads and loads of credit for going so very far in his excellent ambitions of keeping a genuinely free and open debate at his blog. But these excellent ambitions caved in due to external factors. There were too many sea-changing events during the later half of 2008. And there are limits to what a small blog can keep up with.

Now I know there are several people (several of whom I consider my friends) that think that I made too much of a big thing of something that happened recently at GoV, when a comment of mine was deleted and I was then described (I would say stereotyped) as rude, insulting, etc. (All very unfairly according to me, the details of which I will get into in a forthcoming post.) I cannot, at this point, entirely explain why I, in effect, accepted this sort of stereotyping of me before, while I react strongly against it now. But I think it has to do with how, when being a warrior on the battlefield, in the middle of a struggle, such things were insignificant details. While when off the battlefield, such comments are a complete turn off from someone you expect to be your friend.

Having given the best of myself, putting a lot of effort into my analysis, I just cannot accept from a site -- that has unfortunately become increasingly failed due to external pressure, where hostility is lurking under the surface much of the time -- to hear that I'm the bad guy. It's just not fair.

This is the "negative" factor that inspired me to start blogging again. To me discussion at GoV has become a dead end. This sort of forced me to start blogging again, since after all I need an outlet somewhere. Another negative factor -- and bear with me for a few more posts -- is that I want to get into the details of this, probably insignificant, event, that after all was the little stroke that fell the great oak. Both in trying to explain it to myself and to others.

However, among the positive factors that make me start blogging is that I have come to many new thoughts during my three months of hiatus; so there is much to write about. And not only that, I've reached a new, and more easy-going, attitude about the whole thing. I know by now better who I really am, and what my real ethnic and cultural roots really are. I'm a happy person. Also I'm essentially lonely. I'll be writing because this is what I do, and for nothing else. And mostly I won't write for people today, but for people in some future. The only pain is that I will have to moderate my blog, and deal with all the complaints from people in how I do it.

And before I end this post I want to say that before I started writing about this, with the very first post in the beginning of this week, I emailed Baron Bodissey, trying to deal with the disappointment I felt through that private channel. And he answered that he didn't mind being publicly refuted, and that he thought that was a good way to handle it. So this is what I've done. Read further...

What can be known?

Quite a lot can be derived from the nature of things. From the nature of Islam, from the nature of Christianity or America. The essence of Germany can be understood even though its not readily observable in these times. The national characters of Spanish and Swedish people, and their difference, can be observed, and we can derive things from it -- i.e. when speaking in terms of groups, though not about individuals. The same with men and women, etc.

But we live in times where this is not acknowledged. Philosophically, blank slate empiricism has been elevated to the highest truth. Social science is reduced to surveys, followed by advanced statistical analysis; a method that is considered to be the epitome of how to achieve knowledge today. Math is considered neutral so a disproportionate effort is put there. But virtually no effort is put in conceptual analysis of what the concepts used in the survey really means. This since conceptual analysis is considered opinion. So these investigations are consequently grossly blunt, no matter how sophisticated the ensuing mathematical analysis. Junk in, junk out as they say. And typically such surveys start from a blank slate, since the common wisdom is that nothing, in social science, can really be known. There is no essence of things. Every investigation has to start from zero.

So let's have a look at utterances of people. What can be objectively observed about that? What constitutes a lie? A promise? An honest question? In the wake of the latter Wittgenstein, linguistic philosophy became and important branch of 20th century philosophy where things like these were explored. John Austin was first out with his speech act theory -- we are not just simply saying things with words: we are acting! There are certain preconditions that have to be fulfilled for a speech act to be of a certain kind. E.g. was George Bush really lying about WMD in Iraq? Were the preconditions of the speech act "lying" really fulfilled?

John Searle is another philosopher of this school. Here is his analysis of the felicity conditions for promising. These are the most important preconditions for a speech act to constitute a promise:

1. S expresses the proposition that p in the utterance of T.
2. In expression that p, S predicates a future act A of S.
3. H would prefer S's doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer his doing A to his not doing A..
4. It is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events.
5. S intends to do A.
6. S intends that the utterance of T will place him under an obligation to do A.

So from the utterance of someone it can be objectively observed and derived whether it is truly a promise or not, for anyone paying attention to the details, in spite of the superficial look of it. E.g. in a normal context "I promise to beat you up!" is not a promise (it breaks rule #3 in above list). If all other criteria are fulfilled, but S says the utterance with his fingers crossed, then rule #5 is broken. Making promises about the past is of course senseless and breaks rule #2. And to promise something one would have done anyway violates rule #3, e..g. for certain men to say "I promise to obey my wife".

So an utterance can be objectively observed and judged, and we can categorize what sort of speech act it is, using such criteria. But as I described in a previous post, under the paradigm of non-judgmental egalitarianism, making a judgment is of course considered as something bad, and therefore often as invalid, and we are implored to pretend that things are not as they are. So such analysis might become called mind-reading, or is considered jumping to conclusions or pure speculation. And in the flow of events this normally becomes the common wisdom. But we can stop the time, and properly analyze people's speech acts. And the analysis can be presented. And so I will. Read further...

On the Self-Defeat of the United States

Here are the reflections from Geza to my comments to the thread The Self-Defeat of the United States at Gates of Vienna. (There are several comments by me in the thread, starting early up. Especially an interesting exchange with PRCalDude.)

Geza has been a trustworthy participant at this blog, and now so again. So here's Geza's take on it:

As for your first sets of comments in the Self-Defeat of the United States thread, I am largely in agreement with you but I have a few quibbles.

Firstly, you are correct that even if the opposite of Obama was elected, American-Euro-Russo relations would probably not improve. Even if we take a look at probably the best electable GOP candidate right now, Mitt Romney, he would still follow the same path as Obama and play along with the multicultis and transnationals in Britain and continue to antagonize France (America and France may be sister nations in ideology, but they are bitchy sisters who fight a lot), Germany, and Russia. Every high ranking American politician disdains Europe, regardless where they fall on the political spectrum. A conservative Republican may admire Poland for its devout Catholicism but would retch at Polish displays of nationalism. Likewise, a socialist Democrat may admire Finland's socialist programs but be disappointed at the lack of diversity in the country. So, even if an American politician admires something about a European country, he will continue to find fault with that country if it does not share a similar charactistic with America such as propositionalism or diversity. In most cases, whatever ails Europe, the American critic, whether he be left or right, insists that the cure can be found in America.

The clash between America and Europe was of course inevitable mainly because America is not an organic nation such as Germany or Slovenia and therefore is incapable of relating to Europe. American culture is not tied to a specific ethnicity and even the day it was founded, anyone could have become an American. If America had remained a WASPish country with the majority of the settlers hailing from Britain then it may have had the potential to become a nation in the European sense but it was not meant to be and this started much earlier than the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Due to the very nature of America, and to a lesser extent, Canada, they simply cannot understand why Europeans do not go the propositional route and are deathly afraid of European nationalism, no matter how benign. Nationalism doesn't exist in America, only jingoism and it is seen as a relatively harmless although most liberals do find it very annoying. Even the furthest of the right in America cannot be accurately described as nationalists (e.g. right wing militia groups) due to their hatred for the government. The majority of nationalists respect the role of the government even if they do not agree with it; they do not entertain paranoid conspiracy theories about what the government may be doing to them like these militia groups. Some may try to use white nationalists as a counterpoint to nationalism existing in America. I think white nationalism is a misnomer mainly because you cannot force an ethnicity into being by collecting a bunch of like minded white people from very different backgrounds and reaching a consensus on culture, language, and religion. Due to the education system and the culture of America, they can never understand the positive aspects of nationalism and always equate any right wing group in Europe that does not tow the multicultural line as fascist.

However, I think Europe can be blamed for quite of bit of their problems with regards to America. I noticed that you mentioned the trauma of the World Wars which should be considered a factor of why Europe gives into America's demands so easily. Europe wanted peace at any price after WWII, so much so that they were willing to put with their immature cousin's antics provided that their immature cousin was strong enough to protect them from each other. But it didn't stop there, did it? Let's take a look at Japan. It also wanted peace at any price after they lost to America, so why is Japan, relatively speaking, more robust as a culture and people than almost any Western European country? I think the main reason is that Japan does not have a culture of self-critique and although the Japanese are capable of feeling great shame over certain things, they do not take it to the same extreme as the Germans (I think this is primarily a German ethnic quirk). The Japanese do not spend a lot of time worrying about what happened in Manchuria. They stopped caring and even if someone did broach the subject, they would defend themselves, unlike the Europeans. I was also attribute some of the European malaise to the downfall of imperialism in the Third World. They realized that they were no longer the "masters of the universe" and this greatly deflated their collective ego.

I do not think that the decline in Christianity contributed to the the decline of Europe. Europe could have been as Christian as America post-WWII and I think both you and I would agree that it would have still allowed for Third World immigration in order to evangelize the heathens or for some other ridiculous reason. Christianity, whether the liberal or traditional sort does not act as a safe guard from cultural decline. It can coexist with a strong culture but for how long before it mutates into something else or becomes irrelevant is debatable.

I will post my answer to Geza's reflections another day. My blog is now active again, and I will continue write a new post here every day

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The Western weakness, in big and in small

The protean doctrine of egalitarianism is the main virus that creates the pathology of the Western weakness. I have reflected many times when participating in blog discussion about how this is in operation at a small scale even there. Egalitarianism is (and has to be) a game of play-pretend. In the context of discussions, in the West, the doctrine states that every opinion and utterance is of equal value. It's a game of play-pretend where pointing out, or otherwise illustrating, that so is not the case is considered being in breach of good manners.

This gives an advantage to the people who engage in a debate in bad faith, who deliberately deviate from the serious discourse, lower it to a personal level, etc. Because the others must pretend that it is not so, otherwise we are "impolite".

We find the same pattern in the society at large, where when the fair-minded person with good intentions, points out the fault of asocial or bad behaviour in our society, then it's the decent and honest guy, who is protesting, that becomes chastised or even ostracized for it. In effect the people behaving badly gets a special protection by this game of play-pretend. We see it, at the larger scale, in our society, how criminals are elevated at the expense of the victims of crime. And even how we have special interest groups who effectively have a license to behave badly. But the only real crime, under the yoke of post-modern egalitarianism, is for the good and decent person to point out that their behaviour is not "equally good".

This is a pattern deeply ingrained into all ways of thinking of the modern Westerner. He might see the fault of it in specific cases, but it is so built into the very grammar of his moral thinking that, even so, he's inclined to follow the pattern in many other cases.

I used to see myself as part of a movement. Then I saw it as my duty to expose people who engaged in forums in bad faith or otherwise not being constructive and derailing the serious discourse. I have found that people in general are slow to pick up on what was evidently there to see at an early point. But in every case, people within the movement have eventually seen too what I had already pointed out much earlier. The problem is that there is little credit given for pointing out these things beforehand, much more time is spent in describing such a person as someone behaving badly. Quite as the whistle-blowers about the wreckage of mass immigration will be shown to be right, but will still forever carry the reputation of being bad people.

So if you are a good and decent person who see as your duty to take upon a someone acting in bad faith, count on the surrounding Westerners not paying attention to the details, but looking at it through their egalitarian prism, i.e. i) it's seen as a personal quarrel between two people where both are equally guilty and equally bad, a position which is in harmony with and a logical consequence of ii) how the behaviour of person acting in bad faith is seen as "equally good", in the first place. The tolerance of truly bad behaviour is very high in today's society, while the judgment over bad behaviour is regularly met with intolerance, and ironically enough considered as bad behaviour. This is the consequence of this egalitarian game of play-pretend that is so deeply ingrained in the very grammar of the current Western life form.

It's like they say: Don't argue with a crazy person in the street, because the people passing by will see you as equally crazy too. A truly good and decent person with a strong sense of duty, that would often intervene against troublemakers in the street, would be thanked by gaining a reputation of being a troublemaker himself. There's no reward for being good and decent in this way in today's society. Goodness is defined in terms of non-judgmental egalitarianism. However, eventually the other people will be confronted by the troublemaker themselves, and of course at that point they'll get it. However, beforehand they are often unable to do so, unless it's too blatantly obvious. Otherwise they cannot see it (beforehand), they can only feel it (when it happens to them).

So this dynamics has broken down my sense of duty. But this is nothing I regret anymore, because I see the big picture of it all too clearly, with this wall of play-pretend egalitarianism. However, what makes me sad is when people who are supposed to be my friends take the side of people acting in bad faith, while stereotyping me as rude and insulting. People that I have given the best of my friendship, to whom I have gone very far in being generous and supportive, and given the best of my soul. I understand that it's based on routine behaviour and is thoughtless, but nevertheless it saddens me.

This post is a general background to what I want to say. I will continue this week to post a couple of examples of what I'm talking of. Read further...