Funny watching the neural-net information processing of the internet.
I first came across Bezmenov a few months ago, and since then I've been seeing more and more references to him. I guess the Great Internet Hive-Brain is starting to figure out that this is important.
I guess the Great Internet Hive-Brain is starting to figure out that this is important.
Same thing here with Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." It's all over the place in just the last week or so.
In Bezmenov's case, he just said in 1985 what I've been thinking and writing about since 1995. Locke vs. Rousseau, and it is open, though unacknowledged, WAR.
And even though Marxism-Leninism has failed everywhere, Locke is still losing.
"And even though Marxism-Leninism has failed everywhere, Locke is still losing."
And why is that? I have been trying to understand (though I know why intellectually) why a system that accounts for people as they are rather than insisting on people as they could be in a perfect world seems to go down in flames every stinkin' time. Obama's campaign is only the latest manifestation of this notion. I weep for my country.
The short answer: You can't compete with all the different forms "other people will solve your problems for free".
In other words, the hungry, ignorant man immediately grasps that he is handed a fish, but is bewildered when handed a net. The man who shivers in the cold thinks happily of the man who invites him to sit by his fire, and somewhat poorly of the man who loans him an axe, flint and steel.
Slightly longer answer:
It's the same reason why Africa can't pull itself together: the farmers can't compete with free food, the tailors can't compete with free clothes, and there's no opportunity to build a viable, economically sound base of small businesses upon which economic self determination is based.
Slightly longer than that answer:
Let's start with the proposition-for-the-sake-of-argument that Lockean philosophy has failed in the ecology of ideas. (!) In a Darwinian sense, this doesn't mean that the ideas are inferior. (They are, in fact, superior for their stated purpose) What it means is that the niche in which they thrived has changed in the memetic environment, as suitable carriers for the meme die off. The niche changes, and Locke is out competed by destructive mental viruses, at least in part because Locke's not autodefending; it works in conjunction with other mental defenses* built into the classically educated mind that are no longer common.
Locke thrives in an educated mind capable of seeing past the immediate contingencies and into second and third orders of consequence. It also requires a dash of selfless community, and probably a half dozen other factors that don't come immediately to mind.
Locke doesn't work for the ignorant. It doesn't work for the easily lead or bought. (Perhaps, part of its failure is a resistance to leading or buying that competing memes show no hesitance towards)
Pick up any high school history textbook and you will see "the basic values of Americanism, America patriotism." In fact, that is part of the problem. When bad things are explained in our country's history, they happen anonymously. We only do good things. And if something goes wrong it is only because we are misunderstood because are values are good and pure.
You do realize that when there is talk of rampant "Marxism-Leninism being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students" it sounds a little too familiar, hmmm?
I recall, very early on in your commenting here, that you objected that TSM had a very Ayn Randian view of communism - like that was a bad thing. This, at the time, suggested very strongly that you didn't.
And if something goes wrong it is only because we are misunderstood because are [our]values are good and pure.
Mark, this is the way you think. "Values good and pure" = honest.
That is how school is being taught now. Values. Intent. Facts are very secondary. What was the MEANING of the "Trail of Tears". Funny thing, Andrew Jackson was quite associated with that in my history book. Not "Anonymous." (Despite the fact that he didn't have as much to do with it as others.)
You're projecting onto us your motivations, again.
The US isn't pure. No country is. No politician is. No human is.
You just keep trying to demand that only if we do it again, but HARDER, we'll perfect man! Have the Right Values! The Right Intent! Voila!
That's not at all what I, and most of the people here who comment believe, and we've laid out our beliefs to you time, and time again.
And you've ignored us.
Some like Markadelphia seem to have forgotten the perennial pursuit of the "New Soviet Man" as if human nature could be re-invented. If only we'd work with them on it. For another generation. Advice from the point of their gun. Maybe they never really knew about that but that can be remedied by reading the "Gulag Archipeligo".
*If* we accept the proposition that many members of our society have been damaged (perhaps irretrievably?....shudder...) by Gramscian war-memes, is that really actionable? What do we do with/about the infected? Can we do anything about them, without risking a dark path?
"Re-education" is a concept that comes with chilling, horrifying implications. but what if it was the initial education that had been corrupt in the first place? Clearly, the topic must be critically examined from a more nuanced perspective.
We (quite rightly) reject ideological suppression in the polity because it costs us, threatening to make monsters of the monster slayers. We enter perilous waters, and must tread with great care, because that temptation is ever present in this discussion.
It's been ongoing as long as I've been alive. One jab of the sharp stick-in-the-eye was "The Ugly American," a book that I could find in the bookcase of every adult overseas whose house we visited in the early 60's when my parents were missionaries - usually along with a couple James Bond novels which had much more interesting covers and between-the-page writing. A lot of them also had Neville Shute's apocalyptic "On the Beach."
In the mid 70's my High School American History teacher was an avowed Marxist who explained to us in lectures with pictures and diagrams how Capitalism was doomed to failure, and who taught us that everything BAD that happened in history was the fault of White American Capitalists.
My parents are degreed Educators, one with a PhD and one with a Masters, and upon retelling or relating such classroom episodes I was never told that any of it was wrong - I was encouraged to believe that there was nothing we did that went unspoiled.
There was no mention of "the basic values of Americanism, America patriotism." - those things were smugly derided as we marched off to see the anti-war propaganda epic "Hearts and Minds" during school-time.
Since then the New Student has been developed, Mk.III - Markadelphia is a product of his limited and carefully tailored horizons. He has no direct or first-hand memory of things being any different - of a before-time. Indeed that so-called before-time has been pierced with many pitfalls and undermined at every possible level so as to render it unjudgeable and untrustworthy. Objective fact in the analysis of History has been killed by the post-modernist interpretive scheme wherein the narrative is the message and the value of the message is its truth in delivering the narrative - the Feeling. This new perspective on the world works well with the brave and incisive thinking of the Mk.III delelopment.
"Objective fact in the analysis of History has been killed by the post-modernist interpretive scheme wherein the narrative is the message and the value of the message is its truth in delivering the narrative - the Feeling."
Bullseye. Perhaps a subtitle should be: "How To Embrace Tautology and Declare Oneself Omniscient."
We saw a shining example of it four years ago with the RatherGate slogan, "Fake but Accurate."
We see it today with a local troll who believes every conspiracy theory and crackpot notion that comes along, provided it fits his ideology.
you wonder why locke hasn't caught on. hmm. well, i don't know my locke.
so: is he an anarchist or a statist?
i see a lot about useful idiots to an ideology, etc., being disposed of, etc. an interesting watch, for sure. at least, it makes this much clear:
it doesn't matter what kind of state one of your Great Thinkers attempts to build, much like it doesn't matter how a lowlife goes about raping or robbing his mark.
there is no thinking to be done for others' sake. "society" is descriptive, not proscriptive.
Didja ever give your kids "Soviet Life" to read instead of "Highlights" just to address the cultural imbalance? Both are kinda dental-office material, but one has stories and pictures about "Boris and his Tractor" and the games for little kids are like "Find the Chickens on the Collective Farm."
Plus you get an incisive article on "Free Heathcare" and "Turkmenia and Uzbekistan Today" with two cute girls on a motorcycle on the cover. Plus there's always the big "Victory Day" issue with lotsa soldiers and missile launchers.
That's what I got to read sometimes, about all those happy fun-loving students...
"The man who shivers in the cold thinks happily of the man who invites him to sit by his fire, and somewhat poorly of the man who loans him an axe, flint and steel".
Or as Terry Pratchett said "Build a man a fire and you will keep him warm for an hour. Set a man alight and he will be warm for the rest of his life ..." >};¬)
Lenin once said that if you gave him a child for eight years the child would be a lifelong Bolshevik. For two generations now Americans have given Marxists/Leninists their children for 12-16 years.
Khrushchev said that in the long run Marxism/Leninism would win because America would destroy itself from the inside. It looks like he was right, though he did not live to see it.
Americans elected a Marxist/Leninist President of the United States, something I didn't believe would happen even as it was taking place.
looks like obama and his henchmen know this by heart...and it goes back even further it didnt happen overnight..people just wont or cant belive it could happen here...bad thought process
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/10/it-fits-all-available-evidence.html (27 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke"
Funny watching the neural-net information processing of the internet.
I first came across Bezmenov a few months ago, and since then I've been seeing more and more references to him. I guess the Great Internet Hive-Brain is starting to figure out that this is important.
great find.
now where did I put my mittens & parka?
I guess the Great Internet Hive-Brain is starting to figure out that this is important.
Same thing here with Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." It's all over the place in just the last week or so.
In Bezmenov's case, he just said in 1985 what I've been thinking and writing about since 1995. Locke vs. Rousseau, and it is open, though unacknowledged, WAR.
And even though Marxism-Leninism has failed everywhere, Locke is still losing.
"And even though Marxism-Leninism has failed everywhere, Locke is still losing."
And why is that? I have been trying to understand (though I know why intellectually) why a system that accounts for people as they are rather than insisting on people as they could be in a perfect world seems to go down in flames every stinkin' time. Obama's campaign is only the latest manifestation of this notion. I weep for my country.
Regards,
PolyKahr
>>And why is that?
The short answer: You can't compete with all the different forms "other people will solve your problems for free".
In other words, the hungry, ignorant man immediately grasps that he is handed a fish, but is bewildered when handed a net. The man who shivers in the cold thinks happily of the man who invites him to sit by his fire, and somewhat poorly of the man who loans him an axe, flint and steel.
Slightly longer answer:
It's the same reason why Africa can't pull itself together: the farmers can't compete with free food, the tailors can't compete with free clothes, and there's no opportunity to build a viable, economically sound base of small businesses upon which economic self determination is based.
Slightly longer than that answer:
Let's start with the proposition-for-the-sake-of-argument that Lockean philosophy has failed in the ecology of ideas. (!) In a Darwinian sense, this doesn't mean that the ideas are inferior. (They are, in fact, superior for their stated purpose) What it means is that the niche in which they thrived has changed in the memetic environment, as suitable carriers for the meme die off. The niche changes, and Locke is out competed by destructive mental viruses, at least in part because Locke's not autodefending; it works in conjunction with other mental defenses* built into the classically educated mind that are no longer common.
Locke thrives in an educated mind capable of seeing past the immediate contingencies and into second and third orders of consequence. It also requires a dash of selfless community, and probably a half dozen other factors that don't come immediately to mind.
Locke doesn't work for the ignorant. It doesn't work for the easily lead or bought. (Perhaps, part of its failure is a resistance to leading or buying that competing memes show no hesitance towards)
I sense an essay there, Geek. . .
"because we did not listen."
But who are you not listening to?
Pick up any high school history textbook and you will see "the basic values of Americanism, America patriotism." In fact, that is part of the problem. When bad things are explained in our country's history, they happen anonymously. We only do good things. And if something goes wrong it is only because we are misunderstood because are values are good and pure.
You do realize that when there is talk of rampant "Marxism-Leninism being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students" it sounds a little too familiar, hmmm?
More from another of Bezmenov's "useful idiots."
Who just happens to be an educator.
I recall, very early on in your commenting here, that you objected that TSM had a very Ayn Randian view of communism - like that was a bad thing. This, at the time, suggested very strongly that you didn't.
Where might you have learned that?
You match his description perfectly.
Time for yet another book, Kevin. It's "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First," by Mona Charen.
Now don't gripe. Reading is what were here for, isn't it?
And if something goes wrong it is only because we are misunderstood because are [our]values are good and pure.
Mark, this is the way you think. "Values good and pure" = honest.
That is how school is being taught now. Values. Intent. Facts are very secondary. What was the MEANING of the "Trail of Tears". Funny thing, Andrew Jackson was quite associated with that in my history book. Not "Anonymous." (Despite the fact that he didn't have as much to do with it as others.)
You're projecting onto us your motivations, again.
The US isn't pure. No country is. No politician is. No human is.
You just keep trying to demand that only if we do it again, but HARDER, we'll perfect man! Have the Right Values! The Right Intent! Voila!
That's not at all what I, and most of the people here who comment believe, and we've laid out our beliefs to you time, and time again.
And you've ignored us.
Marxists are all thieves at heart.
The only thing that really deters thieves is getting their asses shot off.
Some like Markadelphia seem to have forgotten the perennial pursuit of the "New Soviet Man" as if human nature could be re-invented. If only we'd work with them on it. For another generation. Advice from the point of their gun. Maybe they never really knew about that but that can be remedied by reading the "Gulag Archipeligo".
Eagle 1
The other question to consider is...
*If* we accept the proposition that many members of our society have been damaged (perhaps irretrievably?....shudder...) by Gramscian war-memes, is that really actionable? What do we do with/about the infected? Can we do anything about them, without risking a dark path?
"Re-education" is a concept that comes with chilling, horrifying implications. but what if it was the initial education that had been corrupt in the first place? Clearly, the topic must be critically examined from a more nuanced perspective.
We (quite rightly) reject ideological suppression in the polity because it costs us, threatening to make monsters of the monster slayers. We enter perilous waters, and must tread with great care, because that temptation is ever present in this discussion.
Dang Geek. You're on a smokin' roll today. ++
It's been ongoing as long as I've been alive. One jab of the sharp stick-in-the-eye was "The Ugly American," a book that I could find in the bookcase of every adult overseas whose house we visited in the early 60's when my parents were missionaries - usually along with a couple James Bond novels which had much more interesting covers and between-the-page writing. A lot of them also had Neville Shute's apocalyptic "On the Beach."
In the mid 70's my High School American History teacher was an avowed Marxist who explained to us in lectures with pictures and diagrams how Capitalism was doomed to failure, and who taught us that everything BAD that happened in history was the fault of White American Capitalists.
My parents are degreed Educators, one with a PhD and one with a Masters, and upon retelling or relating such classroom episodes I was never told that any of it was wrong - I was encouraged to believe that there was nothing we did that went unspoiled.
There was no mention of "the basic values of Americanism, America patriotism." - those things were smugly derided as we marched off to see the anti-war propaganda epic "Hearts and Minds" during school-time.
Since then the New Student has been developed, Mk.III - Markadelphia is a product of his limited and carefully tailored horizons. He has no direct or first-hand memory of things being any different - of a before-time. Indeed that so-called before-time has been pierced with many pitfalls and undermined at every possible level so as to render it unjudgeable and untrustworthy. Objective fact in the analysis of History has been killed by the post-modernist interpretive scheme wherein the narrative is the message and the value of the message is its truth in delivering the narrative - the Feeling. This new perspective on the world works well with the brave and incisive thinking of the Mk.III delelopment.
"Objective fact in the analysis of History has been killed by the post-modernist interpretive scheme wherein the narrative is the message and the value of the message is its truth in delivering the narrative - the Feeling."
Bullseye. Perhaps a subtitle should be: "How To Embrace Tautology and Declare Oneself Omniscient."
We saw a shining example of it four years ago with the RatherGate slogan, "Fake but Accurate."
We see it today with a local troll who believes every conspiracy theory and crackpot notion that comes along, provided it fits his ideology.
Bullseye. Perhaps a subtitle should be: "How To Embrace Tautology and Declare Oneself Omniscient."
Or: "How to Ask Yourself the Right Questions So That The Answers Are Obvious."
Damnit, Kevin, give a guy some warning, willya? My screen is all splattered with hot tea again ...
you wonder why locke hasn't caught on. hmm. well, i don't know my locke.
so: is he an anarchist or a statist?
i see a lot about useful idiots to an ideology, etc., being disposed of, etc. an interesting watch, for sure. at least, it makes this much clear:
it doesn't matter what kind of state one of your Great Thinkers attempts to build, much like it doesn't matter how a lowlife goes about raping or robbing his mark.
there is no thinking to be done for others' sake. "society" is descriptive, not proscriptive.
Didja ever give your kids "Soviet Life" to read instead of "Highlights" just to address the cultural imbalance? Both are kinda dental-office material, but one has stories and pictures about "Boris and his Tractor" and the games for little kids are like "Find the Chickens on the Collective Farm."
Plus you get an incisive article on "Free Heathcare" and "Turkmenia and Uzbekistan Today" with two cute girls on a motorcycle on the cover. Plus there's always the big "Victory Day" issue with lotsa soldiers and missile launchers.
That's what I got to read sometimes, about all those happy fun-loving students...
Damn! Well, that explains your bitterness. . . . ;)
Heh! We talked about this last year at the Rendezvous, I appreciate bending your ear and posting comments.
"The man who shivers in the cold thinks happily of the man who invites him to sit by his fire, and somewhat poorly of the man who loans him an axe, flint and steel".
Or as Terry Pratchett said "Build a man a fire and you will keep him warm for an hour. Set a man alight and he will be warm for the rest of his life ..." >};¬)
I have transcribed this interview and it can be read here: http://uselessdissident.blogspot.com/2008/11/interview-with-yuri-bezmenov.html
Lenin once said that if you gave him a child for eight years the child would be a lifelong Bolshevik. For two generations now Americans have given Marxists/Leninists their children for 12-16 years.
Khrushchev said that in the long run Marxism/Leninism would win because America would destroy itself from the inside. It looks like he was right, though he did not live to see it.
Americans elected a Marxist/Leninist President of the United States, something I didn't believe would happen even as it was taking place.
looks like obama and his henchmen know this by heart...and it goes back even further it didnt happen overnight..people just wont or cant belive it could happen here...bad thought process
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>