Conformity

Dean, your little rules of thumbs regarding age, they aren't based upon solid principles. You wrote,

... it will still stand that the more you know, the more you have to re-evaluate when you find a contradiction or consider changing a belief."

But, the more open you are to the truth, the more fun you have reintegrating and adjusting your views. The longer a person who cares about thinking in principles has had to work with the principles, and to know himself, the easier it is to find contradictions, and to re-integrate. After childhood, which does have a special epistemological flexibility, the rigidity or openness a person has is more psychological than related to age. People who feel insecure, or who have too much of their identity wrapped in a set of ideas, get more defensive. People who feel comfortable with who they are are more open to seeing their errors and correcting them. That's not age related as such.

Post 21

Friday, January 18, 2013 - 2:07pm

Dean,

My brain is almost 45 years old and I can still change my mind with ease, so there.

No, scratch that. I'm going to have to withdraw that statement.

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/18, 2:14pm)

Post 22

Friday, January 18, 2013 - 3:57pm

Ed,

That's like my resolution not to make any New Year's resolutions. Some resolutions are impossible to keep! ;-)

Steve,

My understanding of the term "white supremacist" is that it means whites are superior to all other races. I don't think Brad Trun believes that. Doesn't he believe that Asians (or Jews) are superior?

Of course, the problem with collectivizing races or ethnicities, however true statistical differences might be in the aggregate, is that people are not aggregates; they're individuals. The result of collectivizing them is what we see in Trun's political views. His failure to view people as individuals leads him to deny individual rights as reflected in his advocacy of racial barriers to immigration.

Post 23

Friday, January 18, 2013 - 7:35pm

Bill,

"White Supremacy" appears to be a term that covers a lot of movements that Trun wouldn't agree with (at least not totally) - like the KKK, the Nazi Aryan purity nuts, Nordic Supremacy groups (he seems to agree with some of their views on hair and eye color), some of the old progressive Eugenicists, etc.

But they all have in common this pattern of creating a set of psuedo-scientific 'reasons' for giving the white race or their part of it a claim to being superior to this or that other race. I don't think that Trun's mention of IQ's of Jews or Asians in any way distracts him from his primary focus on Blacks as inferior. I'd say it qualifies as a variant of White Supremacy.

Post 24

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 5:19am

Steve:

As a grumpy old gray haired guy, I loved your comments re; youth. There is an objective difference between being young and old: the old person has already been where the young person is today, and only with luck and fortune will the other be true. As an old person regarding a younger person, my thoughts are "I hope you make it."

But I also think that the young, just like the old who used to be young, have the right to be young. To be precious, like we all once were, and believe -- truly believe -- that we were the first to have such thoughts, to enjoy such experiences, to see the world as it truly is, for the first time, like no other. As well, to rail at being regarded as precious. Sorry, that is also part of the deal. Been there, done that, had that directed at me.

Because in a sense, although it is not true, in another sense it is true enough. Our youth is the first time we experience the world. And just like we had the right(who could possibly take it away from us?)to be that young, so do all of us, as peers. We can't fault the young for being young, because we once enjoyed the right in exactly the same manner, as peers with a temporal shift.

The old should be grateful; for getting there at all. It isn't guaranteed, and that is something we don't fully appreciate when we are young. I mean, in one sense, we know it, but that is part of what it means to be young; to believe we will not only live forever, but be young forever. It is a necessary component of being young.

As well, the shields are not at 100% effectiveness anymore when we are old. We've been in battles, we've lost close friends, and we show the damage. Old men are often more timid than young men, not just because of physical stature or frailty or loss of vitality, but because of learned experience, often burned fingers. And face it; sometimes what is needed is other than timid thinking, and so, youth is a required element in the stew.

regards,
Fred

Post 25

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 9:22am

Fred,

I couldn't agree more with your paean to youth. That was well said.

In my post I intended to attack (in my venomous fashion :-) the unnecessary part of the generation gap - that distancing the young do from those who are older. Some of it is unavoidable and natural, because we have real differences. But much of what we see today is totally new on history's stage and fairly extreme (what was that awful novel about the boys run amuck on an island?).

This is a cultural thing where the younger generation behaves much more as if they were of a different species and this degree of separation deprives them of values and thinking that would otherwise be theirs with a closer relationship. And this happens at a time in our national life where the educational system is badly failing to transmit the best and richest of what we have to the next generation. And at a time where tribalism, collectivism and factionalism are on a rampant increase.

My specific attack was on the concept of holding youth as a value in such a way that it becomes a necessary part of the identity. This results in losing not just that adopted core value of youth, when enough time passes, but they no longer have a sense of themselves as a whole person. When one has a sense that the only time they are really alive is when they are young, they will probably end up generating a mediocre life for themselves later.

A healthy maturing of ones identity means being able to 'try on' the attitudes and behaviors of life's next stage... in minor ways as one progresses - a kind of flexibility in acting one's age, and then acting more mature. (Like a little boy clomping around in his father's shoes). If a person holds too tightly to the age they are, they don't make a natural progression and that's bad because the organic container we come in is going to transition with or without our identity maturing.

We need to like ourselves at the age we are, of course, but we also need to like some things about the age we are going be next. (Which is a tough transition when you are moving from very old age to very, very old age - but it should not be when moving from teens to twenties, or twenties on to forties, etc.) How can you maintain an excitement about what you are going to be doing in the future if some part of you is horrified at who you will be - an older person?

Like the proper formation of a concept, where the essence is retained, and specific measurements dropped, we need to grow more sophisticated, more deeply aware of what our essence is as an individual and to let go of what is accidental - it is in this area that we can steer our growth as a person towards the kind of character traits we want more of. Blind worship of youth - that peer-persure driven tribe within a tribe cult doesn't leave enough room for the young individual to stand and develop or to experience enough conscious individual decision making.

Post 26

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 11:56am

Steve:

Re; "blind worship of youth."

We sure can't blame youth for that which is in essence a modern marketing ploy. Who is selling the youth culture, riding it like a cash-cow pony?

I have a schtick, a riff where I compare JFK's America and the graduating class of 1962 to the graduating class of 2012; I've painfully subjected that to the folks here about 16 times.

There is a glaring fact: the class of 2012 didn't raise itself. The class of 1962 grew up to deliver -this- world to the class of 2012.

At the same time, it is hard to feel sorry for the class of 2012, because well over half of them are begging for yet more of the same, even bigger government and endless screwing over of generations unborn.

But that, too, is because we've let them be instructed in our public schools to value exactly that. They are no more to blame than the Muslim street, being instructed from birth in their political context to fear and loathe the Godless West, inculcated from birth by their own activist theocrats with an agenda.

I just had this conversation with my retired schoolteacher/sister: it doesn't matter if 99% of Americans are fundamentally decent folks just living their lives and enjoying their freedom, if 99% of us are unawares what the activist 1% of reptilian agenda driven power grubbers have been up to for the last hundred years. By the time this once free nation began to wake up, they were sunk in fang deep.

This has been a rout, in place. Will take decades to turn around, and we haven't stopped sinking yet.

regards,
Fred

Post 27

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 12:06pm

Steve:

I said: "And just like we had the right(who could possibly take it away from us?)to be that young"

..and as I wrote it, I cringed, because there are certain crimes against children that DO take that away from them-- that force them to grow up in an instant. The irreversible nature of some crimes is what makes them so horrific. Such crimes impact the one and only life opportunities given to all of us. Taking away those opportunities from others is an example of the worst kind of crime.

regards,
Fred

Post 28

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 3:05pm

Fred,

Yes. And for placing blame... well, most of it has be with the generations past who didn't clean up the problems from having Progressives in charge of the educational system. Like you said, it has been a rout. That 1% activists have had the field to themselves.

Post 29

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 4:09pm

Steve:

Don't hold me to the 1%/1%/98% numbers in this analysis, they are just illustrative.

Well, let's say there was another fringe 1% who was paying attention, and screaming mightily the whole time; still not effective during the process. Because 98% was enjoying its freedom, just living its life, and pretty much just ... annoyed by the screaming at the fringe.

The tactics of those polar opposite 1%/1% were not symmetric in the least.

Let's call the freedom defending 1% 'A' and the freedom eating 1% B.

Initially, A is also just living its life, enjoying freedom in a free nation.

A radical fringe of B show up, like freedom eating termites, and start gnawing away.

There is a slow realization by a tiny fringe -- A -- that the termites have shown up. "Hey...look over there. Termites." B says "We're not termites; you are paranoid delusional Mccarthyites! Ha-ha-ha!"

The 98% sees the noise and can't be bothered; there is life to live, and the living is good. Can't we all just get along? With termites?

The actions of these fringe actors -- A and B as well as the 98% -- are not symmetric, precisely because the agenda of B is ultimately based on forced association.

It's like rapists and rape victims; they are not in any symmetric race, like a competition between peers. There is only aggression in one direction -- from the rapist to the rape victim. There is no 'compromise' possible, and any such 'compromise' is simply concession to aggression. The victim is not acting with aggression when the victim says "no" and denies any compromise with a rapist-- no matter how forcefully the victim says "no."

It is the same principle when an agenda is introduced into a free nation that is ultimately based on forced association. The aggression is all in one direction, and there is no compromise, only concession.

A fringe group of radicals has largely convinced a sleeping nation that concessions to forced association are 'compromise' -- that giving in to aggression against freedom is a virtue. Not only a virtue, but THE virtue, because how else could any paradigm based on forced association ever get a toehold in a free nation otherwise?

And so, 98% of us allow all of us to be slow boiled. What was once a can't mistake it external struggle against Totalitarianism has long erupted into an internal struggle.

Call it what we will; termites, or phlegm left over from catching The Cold during The Cold War, America is infected from within. Not recently, but from an incessant attack that has lasted for a century or more.

It is clear that the termites are emboldened. Are convinced it is safe to come out into the light of day, and boldly pronounce victory. And this is when they are the most dangerous...to themselves.

Because their crap never floats, and they always over-reach. Always. As they are now.

They are going to undeniably wear the coming wreck. But by 'they' I don't mean just the Democrats; I mean, the National Party that brought us this big government hot mess. The GOP of the last 50 years is not group A. The GOP of the last 50 years have paid gladhanding lipservice to freedom, and were a near fatal distraction.

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 1/22, 4:11pm)

Post 30

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 - 5:20pm