Love Your Servitude

[PaleoEuropean]

[Sakis]

Great stuff.

[JamesBond007]

Great stuff.

Stuff for idiots. If someone wants to free themselves or has freed themselves it would be through books etc... rather than video on youtube. Real philosophy requires reading . Americans don't read because Americans are anti-intellectual morons. Here is some real philosophy that is 100 times better than that video :

How To Be Free

In his article "How a state collapses" , Llewellyn H Rockwell Jr (a libertarian thinker) outlines a theory of how a people may initiate the collapse of a tyrannical government to whose authority they do not consent. He begins by noting that, among political philosophers, only a 'few geniuses' have considered the dynamics of state collapse, among them Etienne de la Boetie, who wrote in his 1550s tract Discourse on Voluntary Servitude that 'in order to have liberty nothing more is needed than to long for it.' This is because tyrants are "automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: It is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or, rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude."

In other words, Boetie seems to be saying that all that is required to topple a tyrant is that people refuse to cooperate with him -- an act which in the present day would be called passive resistance or passive civil disobedience. Boetie's strategy is effective because a tyranny cannot be sustained without the cooperation of a majority of its victims: their non- cooperation, while not attacking the tyrannical authority directly, nevertheless 'gums up the works' so that such authority cannot effectively operate.

But if Boetie's strategy sounds good in theory, it has some deficiencies in practice. One of these is what might be called the defector problem: While we may all be resolved to passively resist any tyranny, nobody wants to be a martyr; so if you are the one the authorities have decided to make an example of, it is tempting to take the easy way out and cooperate (ie, 'defect'), particularly if the alternative is crucifixion.

But the real problem with the Boetiean strategy is the problem of information: First, people have to be educated about the strategy (ie, have information on it), and second, they have to agree among themselves to pursue this strategy (ie, they have to convey the information about their agreement to each other). Furthermore, they have to have information on defectors in order to punish them, so that the strategy will be kept from eroding and possibly falling apart. Unfortunately, however, while the Boetiean strategy might be made known to many, the informational pathways which would give people the ability to assent among themselves and to determine defectors are in most cases very restricted, particularly when the tyrant controls the major media of communication.

Adding to the informational difficulties is the ability of the authorities to censor information, and to manipulate it. This poses a special problem for the Boetiean strategy because of what is known in systems theory as a negative feedback loop. To explain, if the authorities can use the mass media to convince the populace that everything is all beer and skittles, or at least that opponents of the regime tend to come to unpleasant ends, then this discourages resistance, and encourages defection. What is going on here is that, because people see (or rather, "see") that resistance is futile, this discourages resistance and thus makes it even more futile, which makes it yet more futile, ad infinitum, ie, the process feeds back into itself to converge to a state of total defection and totalitarian subjugation.

A closely-related case of feedback which stabilizes tyranny in 'democratic' countries is what, for lack of better terminology, may be called a 'non- proportional-representation election system'. By this I mean any system in which there are just two (or occasionally three) major political parties or candidates, and where the only voting option is to vote for just one. The effect of such a system is to marginalize the competition by inducing voters to vote for one of the two or three major parties or candidates on the theory that a vote for a minor party or candidate will constitute 'wasting one's vote'. The dynamic here is that, by convincing each voter that the competition 'can't win', this forecloses that very possibility, i.e., it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in which belief of impossibility causes the impossibility. This, of course, is a feedback loop similar to the one discussed above.

To foreclose the feedback loop which puts political competition out of the loop, it is necessary to have a proportional-representation electoral system. In the principal form in which it has actually been instituted (mostly in Europe), each voter casts his vote for a single party, and the proportion of the total votes cast which a party attracts determines the number of the party's representatives to hold seats in the legislative assembly. In terms of systems theory, the proportional-representation system is superior not merely because it disrupts the feedback loop which damps out political competition, but also because it is a more accurate method of conveying the information of voter preferences to the body which will do the governing; a friend of mine while hearing me talking about this mentioned that it tends to produce unstable governments; but in reflecting on his comment, it seems to me that this is actually a valuable feature of such a system -- after all, an unstable government is less likely to be able to effectively meddle in the affairs of its citizens.

From the above discussion, we see that the key to implementing the Boetiean strategy for defeating tyranny is the free flow of information. As it happens, however, the importance of the free flow of information goes far beyond this; for as I have shown in Systems Theory, it is actually the key to moral behavior and the maximization of social good. It is not, then, merely a convenient metaphor to speak of immorality and evil as the Dark Side, for the fleurs du mal grow and flourish only when bathed in the darkness of ignorance and secrecy. It is for just such reasons that tyrants seek to control information; and it is why some of the worst tyranosaurians of the present day seek to control the Internet. At this time it is not at all certain that the Net will survive the chokeholds which the censors are attempting to place around its neck, but it is by far the most promising insurance against tyranny which humanity has ever purchased.

But if information is a major problem in human freedom, an even more fundamental problem is determining exactly what freedom is. The slave, for example, is always free to not work, but he will not be free of the punishment which his 'freedom' imposes. Likewise, he is free to run away, but -- if successful -- he will not be free of earning his own living (as opposed to having it provided by his master) -- a point much emphasized by Marxists in criticizing the 'wage slavery' of capitalism -- nor will he be free from defending his freedom from others who may wish to take it away. What I am driving at is that it is misleading to say we are 'free' or 'unfree'; rather we can only say that there are different circumstances of living, each of which imposes its own unique constraints on freedom. Another way to put this, perhaps, is to quote the line of the popular song which goes, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to loose": Our ultimate goal is not 'freedom', but rather the kind of 'slavery' which makes our life most satisfying.

A good way to emphasize the above point is to observe that, in many respects, the Mafia are the freest men in the world: They make a free market in products which people want -- drugs, porn, prostitution, loans, assassinations, counterfeit money, and so on -- and acquire a good deal more freedom than most of us have from the money they make doing it. But if they are free to do many things, they are also not free to do others: they cannot behave freely in the sense that they are always having to watch their back, either because of their enemies or because of the police.

The men who founded America came seeking freedom, and they found it: the freedom to starve, to acquire exotic diseases, to be assaulted by Indians, and to fight among themselves. The Noble Savage is free in much the same way: He is free of civilization, and also free of its advantages. The lesson, then, is that civilization imposes significant constraints on behavior; but in imposing those constraints, it makes men free in other and more valuable ways -- free to ride the roads, read the literature, soar in space, and surf the Net (yeah -- feelthy peectures!). These are freedoms the Noble Savage, in all his freedom, has never even imagined; so the question is, Are the tradeoffs we make in acquiring the advantages of civilization worth giving up the freedom of the Noble Savage? In the majority vote which people take with their feet, the answer is a resounding Yes.

So how, then, can the individual be free in the best sense, particularly from the political tyrant? That is, how can he best find the kind of situation in life to which he is most ready to devote (ie, enslave) himself? To answer this question we must really address two issues -- what the individual can do, and how society should be structured. While there is no formula for freedom, there are a great many particular things which can be done to enhance freedom. While I have investigated a number of these in my book Handbook of the Coming American Revolution -- particularly as they apply to the way society should be structured -- I have collected a number of other suggestions below which I think the reader may find helpful or thought-provoking:

* People cannot be free if they are ignorant, and the more knowledgeable a person is, the more likely he is to be free -- or to be able to free himself. But because the information available to people is overwhelming in volume, it is necessary to develop good criteria for selecting the information you imbibe. Here are some helpful rules:

(1) Prefer books to periodicals. Books are far more likely to have enduring value; periodicals are, by their very nature, transitory in worth.

(2) If you like something an author writes, read more of his stuff. An author whom you find interesting is more likely to have written other material that will please you than an author you have no knowledge of.

(3) Modern books are usually better than older ones. This is partly because modern books benefit from more up-to-date knowledge (tho they don't always), and partly because the publishing business is now very competitive, unlike in earlier days, years, or centuries; and competition means the best will generally rise to the top (ie, get published). A great many older books ('classics') are much overpraised, but it took me a long time to figure out that it was the books which were lousy, and not my taste.

(4) Don't waste your time reading lousy stuff, even if it is supposed to be 'important'. If it's lousy, chances are it's not important at all, at least for your purposes.

* A small but well-organized and highly-dedicated group can have a significant political or social impact. Mass movements are fine if you can create one, but chances are you can't. So remember -- in political activism, as in government, small is beautiful.

* Most of the unpleasant (and hence freedom-negative) situations which people get themselves into could have been avoided if only one of the parties had utilized good manners. I say this on the basis of having had many conflicts with others, yet never ending up with any enemies (ok, hardly ever). I take this to be due to my always being fair, admitting my own faults, never insulting anyone (tho often criticizing vigorously), and recognizing that no one (including myself) is perfect, and that getting along in this world requires tolerating such imperfection.

* Make a habit of doing good turns without expecting compensation. In the long term it will yield great benefits -- it will enhance your reputation, particularly if you do things anonymously, but 'get caught' in the act; and it will encourage others to behave in the same way and thereby make the world a better (and freer) place for all of us.

* Don't be a sheeple -- if someone pushes you, push back. In contrast to to doing good turns, one must be careful not to let anyone intrude on one's freedom -- to do so is only an invitation for them (and others) to intrude more. Accordingly, while one need not make a big deal out of small slights, any clear case of intrusion must be met head-on. This is important not merely to discourage further intrusion, but to fix your reputation as one not to be intruded on. But if you have to chasten someone, keep your response appropriate to the degree of offense you were given -- you don't want to start a Hatfield-McCoy feud (ie, a feedback loop of revenge in which the responses keep escalating).

A special and very important case in point is when you are intruded upon by government bureaucrats: In such a case you must determine the person who is responsible for bothering you, and see that he is bothered in response as much as he can possibly be bothered. Bureaucrats don't generally want to fool with people who fight back -- they would rather buffalo someone else who costs them no pain and who can make them look good by kowtowing to them.

* Never do anything you wouldn't want anyone else to find out about, ie, don't act 'immorally'. That's because shameful acts have a way of becoming public, and a person who has a reputation for shameful behavior is less free than one with a sterling reputation. But on the other hand, if you have done shameful things, the best way to handle them is the Bill Clinton way -- just behave as if they were inconsequential. (What seems to be happening in such a case is that people tend to value you as you value yourself -- if you regard your behavior as correct or inconsequentially immoral, others will come to do the same.)

* Establish a community who will help you in time of need. One of the reasons that Americans are more vulnerable to tyranny in the present day is because family ties have been greatly weakened -- in most cases by government actions which take over family responsibilities (welfare, social security, unemployment, education, etc). The result is that people are no longer connected to a network of others, but are rather isolated individuals whom the government finds vulnerable in their aloneness, and thus finds easy to manipulate by threats or force.

There are many kinds of communities besides families which people have established, and which have served to make them less vulnerable to the world at large. Simple friendships are one example, tho they are often unsatisfactory because they are superficial and based on little else than exchange of drinks or dinners. Clubs and mutual aid societies are often better; but the best are associations formed under conditions of mutual activity or struggle, as in combat, political activism, working closely together on a job, or the like. Another useful association in this regard is the condominium: When people live in close association for a long time, they develop friendship and trust in a natural way; and for this reason the condo may prove in time to be one of the best substitutes for the 'small town' (and maybe even the family) ever invented.

The basic mechanism of establishing a community which will help you is to establish a network of mutual obligations. Under such circumstances people will be far more inclined to help you than if they don't know you from Adam, irrespective of how impressive and compelling your cause.

* Make as much moolah as you can -- a wealthy man is freer than a poor one for the simple reason that a wealthy man can do a lot more things than a poor one. And since America is a wealthy society, this means there are many more people who have resources they can devote to promoting freedom -- if not America's, then at least their own.

* Avoid the legal system if you can -- justice, such as it is (and it usually isn't), is a crapshoot, and besides -- and far more importantly -- resorting to the courts is usually a confession that interpersonal relations have broken down (see discussion of manners above). What is more, losing in court may mean losing money or your freedom, and even winning means losing lawyer fees; so there is little freedom to be found in court.

On the other hand, however, if you must use a court, here are some suggestions:

(1) Get your adversary to agree to binding arbitration. The American Arbitration Association is often used by disputing parties in order to stay out of court, and there are many private arbitrators whose listings can be found in the Yellow Pages. With an arbitrator, you don't have to have a lawyer, and you can make your case the way you want to, and without all the legal fol-de-rol. And best of all, the courts almost always uphold the settlements of binding arbitration, so when the arbitrator makes his decision, it's final.

(2) If you are forced to go to (a government) court, you don't necessarily have to have a lawyer. You may do better by hiring a paralegal (they're listed in the Yellow Pages), and have them help you in preparing your case. They can show you how to do research or help you do it (most research for lawyers is done by paralegals), and can give you help with the legal formalities that you will need to know in order to represent yourself. Yet another alternative is to find a lawyer who will let you and your paralegal do most of the research and preparation yourself, and whose main function is to read what you come up with and actually present your case in court (This will permit a big saving in hourly legal fees).

(3) If you want to sue someone, don't do it unless you can find a lawyer who will take the case on a contingency basis, ie, his payment -- if any -- is a percentage of the amount you win in court. What this does is to keep you out of a losing situation in court -- after all, if a lawyer doesn't think he can make anything out of the case, why should you think that you can?

* Don't fall for the liberal-conservative dichotomy. It is false and misleading, and is easily used by tyrants to restrict freedom. For example, our 'conservative' tyrants have given us a 'war on drugs' which has eviscerated many of our rights; while our liberal tyrants have given us 'civil rights' which have eviscerated even more rights. The point is that the only real political divide is between small government (whose harm is limited) and Big Government (whose harm seems to be unlimited) -- a divide which really translates into the question of how much taxes should the government be allowed to impose on us (right now American taxpayers are estimated to pay 40% of their incomes, which I imagine is actually a far too conservative number if the hidden taxes such as 'fees' and (government- caused) inflation are taken into account).

* Don't buy into the politically-correct nonsense in which men and women are said to be 'equal'. What this idiotic doctrine has done is to provide a rationale for feminizing men, thus making them weaker and less aggressive in protecting their own and their family's freedom, and making them more easily manipulated by government bureaucrats.

* Keep in mind that the most effective fights for freedom are not fights at all, but simple avoidance. For example, moving from a high-tax state like Massachusetts to a low-tax state like Florida is a great way to vote with your feet for freedom, while avoiding wear and tear on yourself. "He who fights by running away, will fight more fiercely another day."

* The most important fights for freedom are not over drugs, sex or other pleasure activities, but rather over more subtle issues like speech, gun control, and -- most important of all -- taxes. The reason for this is that pleasure activities have a natural constituency -- the people who indulge in the activity -- who can be expected, in one way or another, to fight for freedom in these areas because it is very much in their personal interest to do so. This is not to say that such fights are not important, for they very much are -- it is just to say that they are not priority.

* Sew the seeds of freedom -- you may find that what you have sown will help you when you need it. Distribute literature in your neighborhood; talk to your neighbors; exchange videos; educate your local police; use your imagination.

* It has been said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Furthermore, as J Edgar Hoover once remarked, freedom must be 'rewon for each generation'. Both assertions are true because there is always someone eager to enhance his power by taking away your freedom. Accordingly, if you are too cowardly or too negligent to fight, you are going to end up as somebody's slave. Which, given your behavior, is exactly in my opinion how you should end up.

* If you have to become a revolutionary (and I hope things won't come to that), don't fight the tyranny's soldiers -- instead, target its leaders. When the head is gone, the body will collapse.

We began this essay by considering how a tyranny might be made to collapse, but our real consideration has been a far more important one -- to steal the title of libertarian Harry Browne's selfishly-offputting screaming-Me!- Me! book, it has been "How to find freedom in an unfree world". This is important not merely because governments don't collapse that often, but because the school of thought (libertarianism) from which Lew Rockwell comes -- tho perhaps not Rockwell himself -- have a fascination with anarchy which is akin to the fascination which little children have with their toilet activities -- a fascination which keeps them from recognizing that anarchy is an unstable state which generally ushers in a tyranny which is worse than the one which it replaced. Government, like the poor, will always be with us -- the trick is to make it serve us and not vice versa. More to the point, perhaps, is to realize that freedom isn't free -- it exacts a cost that not all men are willing to pay, and often requires tradeoffs that not all men are not willing to make. More than this, however, is the fact that one cannot be truly free unless he is willing to lay down his life for that freedom. But once a man makes that decision -- once he has decided that he would rather 'live free or die', he becomes free by the very act of his decision.

[JamesBond007]

Great stuff.

Don't wanna be an American idiot ! :

The book is not organized in the manner of this review but based on my reading the following is a distillation of the book into the primary characteristics and causes of American unreason as discussed by Susan Jacoby.

1. The Preference for Video over Print Media

A reading culture is being replaced by a video culture. Reading is increasingly a minority activity. As Susan Jacoby points out, if nothing is else lost, intellectual conversation is at least lost with the decline of reading. The author notes that the decline in reading for pleasure or improvement is an across the board phenomenon that includes all demographics of wealth, age, sex, etc. Susan Jacoby points out that an increasing amount of conscious time is devoted to screen time with the corresponding denigration of reading time. This creates an all-consuming commercial entertainment culture where variety and choice are more of an illusion than a reality. Intellectual substance is replaced with a cacophony of noise. The only subjects that do lend themselves to a hyperbolic video culture are those that appeal to thought, reason and logic. An interesting historical parallel that I see to this modern trend in the decline of print was in the decline of book learning found in the rise of Christianity to cultural and political dominance in the fourth and fifth centuries. The leads to point 2 found below.

I think the danger with this, not spelled out in the book, is in the subordination of the active engagement with ideas, words and language found in reading to the passive reception of condensed visual images found in compact video feeds. That is, passive receiving replaces active seeking - this is the cable news business model. Although higher quality screen time can be found and is desirable, there is still an intellectual loss when the mode of engagement moves from the active to the passive, the quality and quantity of the material notwithstanding. This is the worrying aspect of the shift from the print to the video culture. The consumers of information go from active seekers to passive receivers. It is not a matter of misplaced nostalgia for books and print or a matter of snobbish intellectual elitism that prefers books to screens (though I take snobbish, elite and intellectual to be compliments) the worry is that it is much easier to program, device or fool passive receivers of information than it is to program, device or fool active seekers of knowledge. Propaganda and ideology depend on there being passive receivers of the correct information. As people grow accustomed to passive reception, they lose, or never acquire, the skills, discipline and attention span needed for active acquisition of knowledge with the discernment and skepticism this acuity develops. It is just easier to be passive so there is a natural inertia in this direction that cannot be overcome. When children are started on screens from their earliest years, no matter the quality or subject of the content, they are being trained to be passive consumers of prepackaged messages, not active seekers or creative doers. But it is the active seeking and creating that is most beneficial to the developing brain. The problem becomes more acute when the videos consumed and electric games played become mind numbingly redundant.

2. Fundamentalist Christianity

Not a conspiracy, just a cabal, an unholy trinity of neoconservative Jews, fundamentalist Protestants and right-wing Catholics. The passive culture is a perfect target audience for religion of every type and ideology of any stripe. A passive video culture makes the world safe for reality denying Christian fundamentalism which is one of the most easily identifiable features of the American anti-intellectualism and unreason with willful ignorance as the clearest defining characteristic of Christian fundamentalism. For example, Biblical creationists are still denying the proven science of the 19th Century. There is the civic danger inherent in so many people accepting the passive media culture, it allows for the normalizing and thus mainstreaming of Christian beliefs that should be consigned to the lunatic fringe. Fundamentalist Christianity and evangelical revivalism are emotional states which appease and appeal to the uneducated and unread. Fundamentalists, in an astounding display of willful ignorance, turn away from any form of learning not in agreement with the literal words of the Bible and their fantasy beliefs in personal salvation. It is anti-intellectual, non-rational and science defying. Christian beliefs are at war with science and contrary to the way in which we actually find the world.

An interesting point made the author is that fundamentalist churches (the Christian right) have grown so much in the last forty years because they focused on growing membership through evangelization and conversion whereas the traditional liberal or progressive churches focused more on using their existing membership to generate support for social and political issues. Most of the fundamentalist growth came at the expense of the more mainstream liberal denominations. The primary fault line between the fundamentalist and more liberal denominations is the literal interpretation of the Bible insisted upon by the fundamentalists and rejected by and more liberal denominations. This magnified the anti-intellectualism of the fundamentalist of the fundamentalists as they receded into their own, but rapidly expanding, echo chamber. Fertile ground for fundamentalist recruitment and conversion is found among the down-and out so to speak, anyone unhappy, disillusioned, burned out, unfortunate, at a low point in life, they take advantage of these people by offering them the false consolations of deliverance and salivation. This became the army of the New Right. Add to this the strange and uniquely American bizarre cults of Mormonism, Christian Science and the Jehovah’s Witness and we can see that religious fundamentalism is the real American exceptionalism. They offer the temptation of certainty for anyone uncertain.

3. Non-Religious Ideologies

Fundamentalist religion is not the only anti-intellectual path to non-rational thought or unreason. Actually, one can be ‘intellectual’, even overly intellectual about a subject, and still lack rationality as seen in many political ideologies from both the reactionary right and lunatic left. Their social convictions and economic paradigms are treated as articles of faith. One can use the tools of intellectual inquiry as the basis for non-rational ideas. That is, not all intellectual efforts come to rational conclusions but all anti-intellectual efforts come to non-rational conclusions. The economic paradigms of unrestrained capitalism and universal communism are both built upon a pseudo-philosophical foundation and confirmed with pseudoscientific principles. However, market capitalism is as a normal American value while communism is seen as alien and anti-American. Both are ideologies, but the former is accepted unquestioned and later is rejected out of hand.

4. Suspicion of the Experts and Education

Now comes the pathological skepticism of experts and expert opinion where a high level of esoteric education is seen as alien to the American values of doing and pursuing. A chronic suspicion of experts coincides very nicely with folk beliefs in the wisdom of the common folk. Worse yet, many people do not stop at simply mistrusting experts but engage in the narcissistic self-deception that they know more than the experts. Worse again is the increasing number of people who take pride in their ignorance as a display of the freedom from experts and a sign of their independent thinking. When this happens, reality itself becomes destabilized. It becomes increasingly difficult to know what is ‘going on’ in the world and around us when there are many competing narratives of the truth. Where we this today is in the controversy over wearing masks in the Covid-19 environment. The advice of medical experts is to wear a mask. But in America, the medical issue is converted into an issue of personal choice enabling any non-expert person to express their opinion on a matter of personal choice on equal terms with a medical expert. This is clever way of trying to skirt the false equivalency fallacy by committing a type of false definition fallacy by redefining the issue from one of medical expertise to one of personal choice. This is a puerile understanding of liberty and personal choice.

This is also the viewing of an educated minority as a separate class, not one of us so to speak. The ‘know-it-all’ experts imposing their views on everyone else. This is still seen today in the ambivalent attitude of many toward the doctors and medical experts. Further, for Americans, there can be no experts on political, social or religious questions. Americans think everyone can have a valid and sound opinion on political, social or religious questions. Any such claim to expertise in these areas is seen as opinionated or chauvinistic. There is an age-old American suspicion that too much knowledge or education is a dangerous thing, it leads to disregard of the more important practical aspects of life found in chasing and achieving. The bashing of experts leads to an increasing naive and ignorant population easily taken in by junk thought – see #7 below. When all else fails, experts can be dismissed with the dreaded opprobrium of elitist.

5. Popular Culture

On can of course enjoy both the Beatles and Beethoven but the dumbing down comes in drawing a false equivalency between the Beethoven and Beatles. There is infinitely greater expressive richness, technical intricacy and utter beauty in the Ninth Symphony compared to the Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band. As Susan Jacoby points out, nothing dumbs down a culture more than severing it from its specific historic antecedents. The loss of common cultural knowledge is propelled by slick and sentimental marketing.

An aspect of pop culture discussed by Susan Jacoby is the difference in of response in Europe and in the U.S. to cutting edge stem cell and biomedical research. Europeans responded by becoming less religious and more skeptical about the claims of religion whereas Americans responded by becoming more skeptical about science and more accepting of religious claims.

Contemporary popular culture displays increasing contempt for reading and writing. Literary allusions and historical references are no longer understood necessitating the dumbing down of the remaining written material directed at a general audience. There is no longer the temperament and thus no time for reading magazine or newspaper articles of substantive depth and attendant length. Attention span is narrowed by the increasing quick response video feedback brainwashing network. Thus, writers and editors have lowered their expectation for what a general audience will be able to comprehend or have the patience to read. As Susan Jacoby puts it, the standard is now coarse content for a coarse public.

6. Changes in National Education Priorities

With the shock of Sputnik came an emphasis on STEM as it is known today, science, technology, engineering and math. Of course, these are all important subjects of study, the problem is that this new emphasis crowds out education in the arts and humanities which are now thought of as frills at best, even as useless distractions. This has led to precipitous decline in common cultural knowledge. Education has been traded for skill training. This ushers in a junk culture and a cartoon media to produce a shallow cult of celebrity where one can become “famous for being famous” as noted by historian and social theorist Daniel J. Boorstin. The cult of celebrity becomes necessary in a dumbed downed culture where a superficial focal point is needed to maintain public attention. The image becomes the message. The video culture and the celebrity culture become co-dependent and mutually reinforcing.

7. Junk Thought

Junk thought comes from both the hard-core right and the soft-core left. “Men are from Mars, women from Venus” – a great example of headline pop junk thought. Simply put, there is an anti-intellectual and nonrational contempt for experts and evidence in the physical sciences as well as the humanists and social sciences. Junk thought is both cause and a product of unreason and irrationality. This is the none too surprising result of after 1 – 6 above. This can be both or either a left-wing or right-wing phenomena. This is where evidence is treated as an undesirable barrier to what one wants to believe. In America, junk thought is as easily available as junk food. Junk thought is thought and ‘theory’ delinked from evidence but the language of science is used to promote pseudoscience such as the faith-based deception of intelligent design. Other examples that should be able to go without mention, but alas need to be mentioned are astrological and psychic readings as well as new age spirituality and the vast literature of narcissistic self-help propaganda. One of the truly pernicious manifestations of junk thought is the anti-vaccination crowd (who confuse coincidence with causation) who by even the standards of the 1960s are archaic anachronisms. Another example was the repressed memory movement of the 1980 – 1990s that resulted in many fabricated and suggested memory recoveries used as the basis for false accusations of abuse. Junk thought is characterized by its highly subjective and emotional appeals that cannot be falsified. Another example of pseudoscience is the supposed innate brain difference between boys and girls, this is the same old junk thought previously applied on a racial basis. The most galling part of junk science is that the purveyors of junk science are the ones who use the pejorative ‘junk science’ to discredit genuine science with the claim they are being suppressed by elites (real scientists).

8. Distractions Junkies

Distraction is now becoming its own reward. Social relations are now with screens, not with beings. Often, having a smartphone present at a social occasion is like inserting an offstage person that only the person with the smartphone can see, this has a chilling effect on the interpersonal relationships of the embodied people present. The smartphone is no longer an appendage of the person, the person is now the appendage of the smartphone. Screen time displaces people time, reading time, interaction time, conversation and discussion time. Let us make no mistake about it, there is great profit to be gained in marketing this displacement. We reside in a ubiquitous infotainment ecosystem echo chamber of noise from which there is no escape. The conflation of information and entertainment into a passive source of distraction has been accomplished through the internet. Computers and smartphones are not just tools but represent a whole new way of life, one of utter, banal and puerile distraction with endless prepackaged engagement for all ages, including “infantainment”. I agree with the author that while many mediums can be used for constructive education and learning, only reading is indispensable to intellectual life. The new videotainment is just the updated version of the comic book. An argument for an education based on video simulations has the same force as an argument for an education based on comic books.

9. Media Industry Consolidation

Though this topic is not discussed in the book, I think it is an important part of the explanation for American unreason. There is near monopoly control over U.S. media outlets with about five closely and interrelated companies owing most of the major of media, publishing and entertainments properties. I believe that this leads to an observable and increasing homogenization of content. The consolidation diminishes variety and expands control over content, this leaves only an illusion of variety and choice even for those who still value variety and choice. This is yet another explanation of the dumbed down, anti-intellectual, irrational status quo of American unreason.

10. The Implications

Lacking basic intellectual tools, it is much easier to be made into a fool of or to be fooled. This is true for voters, elected officials and decision makers. It should come as no surprise that a dumbed down public will elect dumb-down representatives and public officials. Many people take pride in their ignorance as a demonstration of their authenticity and humanity while at the same convincing themselves that are literate and well-informed critical thinkers. Anti-intellectualism combined with willful ignorance reduces the entire activity of thinking downward in that what accounts for intelligent or wise is defined down along with the rest of the enterprise of junk thought that lowers the lows. This is what makes deceptions possible and renders dishonesties plausible. This makes the non-critical thinking public ready to accept extremism and conspiracy theories.

Concluding Thoughts

Optimism about the future is irresponsible in that one cannot reason with people who do not believe in reason and instead prefer some form of irrational faith. With so many people self-isolating it is more difficult to make common cause or come together for a purpose or become engaged in an issue as each person (zombie) is safely stultified, satiated and satisfied in their own personal smartphone or computer cocoon.

American intellectual history is astounding in its irony. A country with a birth in the glow of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment with the advantages of modern scientific knowledge still clinging to a popular culture of anti-rationalism and ignorance. Politics and public discourse are dominated by single-minded self-assured fanatics from the extremes of right and left. Willful ignorance provides the firm foundation for extremist political appeals and religious fundamentalism as well as the echo chambers in which they are heard. Anti-intellectualism, unreason and the general decline of intellectual life in America can take many forms and has many and varied causes. Of course, the greatest risk of anti-intellectualism is that narrowness and ignorance become the new normal to be passed onto to the next generation. Cultural treasure is difficult accumulate and easy to squander

https://www.amazon.com/Age-American-.../dp/1400096383

[CordedWhelp]

Don't wanna be an American idiot ! :

The book is not organized in the manner of this review but based on my reading the following is a distillation of the book into the primary characteristics and causes of American unreason as discussed by Susan Jacoby.

1. The Preference for Video over Print Media

A reading culture is being replaced by a video culture. Reading is increasingly a minority activity. As Susan Jacoby points out, if nothing is else lost, intellectual conversation is at least lost with the decline of reading. The author notes that the decline in reading for pleasure or improvement is an across the board phenomenon that includes all demographics of wealth, age, sex, etc. Susan Jacoby points out that an increasing amount of conscious time is devoted to screen time with the corresponding denigration of reading time. This creates an all-consuming commercial entertainment culture where variety and choice are more of an illusion than a reality. Intellectual substance is replaced with a cacophony of noise. The only subjects that do lend themselves to a hyperbolic video culture are those that appeal to thought, reason and logic. An interesting historical parallel that I see to this modern trend in the decline of print was in the decline of book learning found in the rise of Christianity to cultural and political dominance in the fourth and fifth centuries. The leads to point 2 found below.

I think the danger with this, not spelled out in the book, is in the subordination of the active engagement with ideas, words and language found in reading to the passive reception of condensed visual images found in compact video feeds. That is, passive receiving replaces active seeking - this is the cable news business model. Although higher quality screen time can be found and is desirable, there is still an intellectual loss when the mode of engagement moves from the active to the passive, the quality and quantity of the material notwithstanding. This is the worrying aspect of the shift from the print to the video culture. The consumers of information go from active seekers to passive receivers. It is not a matter of misplaced nostalgia for books and print or a matter of snobbish intellectual elitism that prefers books to screens (though I take snobbish, elite and intellectual to be compliments) the worry is that it is much easier to program, device or fool passive receivers of information than it is to program, device or fool active seekers of knowledge. Propaganda and ideology depend on there being passive receivers of the correct information. As people grow accustomed to passive reception, they lose, or never acquire, the skills, discipline and attention span needed for active acquisition of knowledge with the discernment and skepticism this acuity develops. It is just easier to be passive so there is a natural inertia in this direction that cannot be overcome. When children are started on screens from their earliest years, no matter the quality or subject of the content, they are being trained to be passive consumers of prepackaged messages, not active seekers or creative doers. But it is the active seeking and creating that is most beneficial to the developing brain. The problem becomes more acute when the videos consumed and electric games played become mind numbingly redundant.

2. Fundamentalist Christianity

Not a conspiracy, just a cabal, an unholy trinity of neoconservative Jews, fundamentalist Protestants and right-wing Catholics. The passive culture is a perfect target audience for religion of every type and ideology of any stripe. A passive video culture makes the world safe for reality denying Christian fundamentalism which is one of the most easily identifiable features of the American anti-intellectualism and unreason with willful ignorance as the clearest defining characteristic of Christian fundamentalism. For example, Biblical creationists are still denying the proven science of the 19th Century. There is the civic danger inherent in so many people accepting the passive media culture, it allows for the normalizing and thus mainstreaming of Christian beliefs that should be consigned to the lunatic fringe. Fundamentalist Christianity and evangelical revivalism are emotional states which appease and appeal to the uneducated and unread. Fundamentalists, in an astounding display of willful ignorance, turn away from any form of learning not in agreement with the literal words of the Bible and their fantasy beliefs in personal salvation. It is anti-intellectual, non-rational and science defying. Christian beliefs are at war with science and contrary to the way in which we actually find the world.

An interesting point made the author is that fundamentalist churches (the Christian right) have grown so much in the last forty years because they focused on growing membership through evangelization and conversion whereas the traditional liberal or progressive churches focused more on using their existing membership to generate support for social and political issues. Most of the fundamentalist growth came at the expense of the more mainstream liberal denominations. The primary fault line between the fundamentalist and more liberal denominations is the literal interpretation of the Bible insisted upon by the fundamentalists and rejected by and more liberal denominations. This magnified the anti-intellectualism of the fundamentalist of the fundamentalists as they receded into their own, but rapidly expanding, echo chamber. Fertile ground for fundamentalist recruitment and conversion is found among the down-and out so to speak, anyone unhappy, disillusioned, burned out, unfortunate, at a low point in life, they take advantage of these people by offering them the false consolations of deliverance and salivation. This became the army of the New Right. Add to this the strange and uniquely American bizarre cults of Mormonism, Christian Science and the Jehovah’s Witness and we can see that religious fundamentalism is the real American exceptionalism. They offer the temptation of certainty for anyone uncertain.

3. Non-Religious Ideologies

Fundamentalist religion is not the only anti-intellectual path to non-rational thought or unreason. Actually, one can be ‘intellectual’, even overly intellectual about a subject, and still lack rationality as seen in many political ideologies from both the reactionary right and lunatic left. Their social convictions and economic paradigms are treated as articles of faith. One can use the tools of intellectual inquiry as the basis for non-rational ideas. That is, not all intellectual efforts come to rational conclusions but all anti-intellectual efforts come to non-rational conclusions. The economic paradigms of unrestrained capitalism and universal communism are both built upon a pseudo-philosophical foundation and confirmed with pseudoscientific principles. However, market capitalism is as a normal American value while communism is seen as alien and anti-American. Both are ideologies, but the former is accepted unquestioned and later is rejected out of hand.

4. Suspicion of the Experts and Education

Now comes the pathological skepticism of experts and expert opinion where a high level of esoteric education is seen as alien to the American values of doing and pursuing. A chronic suspicion of experts coincides very nicely with folk beliefs in the wisdom of the common folk. Worse yet, many people do not stop at simply mistrusting experts but engage in the narcissistic self-deception that they know more than the experts. Worse again is the increasing number of people who take pride in their ignorance as a display of the freedom from experts and a sign of their independent thinking. When this happens, reality itself becomes destabilized. It becomes increasingly difficult to know what is ‘going on’ in the world and around us when there are many competing narratives of the truth. Where we this today is in the controversy over wearing masks in the Covid-19 environment. The advice of medical experts is to wear a mask. But in America, the medical issue is converted into an issue of personal choice enabling any non-expert person to express their opinion on a matter of personal choice on equal terms with a medical expert. This is clever way of trying to skirt the false equivalency fallacy by committing a type of false definition fallacy by redefining the issue from one of medical expertise to one of personal choice. This is a puerile understanding of liberty and personal choice.

This is also the viewing of an educated minority as a separate class, not one of us so to speak. The ‘know-it-all’ experts imposing their views on everyone else. This is still seen today in the ambivalent attitude of many toward the doctors and medical experts. Further, for Americans, there can be no experts on political, social or religious questions. Americans think everyone can have a valid and sound opinion on political, social or religious questions. Any such claim to expertise in these areas is seen as opinionated or chauvinistic. There is an age-old American suspicion that too much knowledge or education is a dangerous thing, it leads to disregard of the more important practical aspects of life found in chasing and achieving. The bashing of experts leads to an increasing naive and ignorant population easily taken in by junk thought – see #7 below. When all else fails, experts can be dismissed with the dreaded opprobrium of elitist.

5. Popular Culture

On can of course enjoy both the Beatles and Beethoven but the dumbing down comes in drawing a false equivalency between the Beethoven and Beatles. There is infinitely greater expressive richness, technical intricacy and utter beauty in the Ninth Symphony compared to the Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band. As Susan Jacoby points out, nothing dumbs down a culture more than severing it from its specific historic antecedents. The loss of common cultural knowledge is propelled by slick and sentimental marketing.

An aspect of pop culture discussed by Susan Jacoby is the difference in of response in Europe and in the U.S. to cutting edge stem cell and biomedical research. Europeans responded by becoming less religious and more skeptical about the claims of religion whereas Americans responded by becoming more skeptical about science and more accepting of religious claims.

Contemporary popular culture displays increasing contempt for reading and writing. Literary allusions and historical references are no longer understood necessitating the dumbing down of the remaining written material directed at a general audience. There is no longer the temperament and thus no time for reading magazine or newspaper articles of substantive depth and attendant length. Attention span is narrowed by the increasing quick response video feedback brainwashing network. Thus, writers and editors have lowered their expectation for what a general audience will be able to comprehend or have the patience to read. As Susan Jacoby puts it, the standard is now coarse content for a coarse public.

6. Changes in National Education Priorities

With the shock of Sputnik came an emphasis on STEM as it is known today, science, technology, engineering and math. Of course, these are all important subjects of study, the problem is that this new emphasis crowds out education in the arts and humanities which are now thought of as frills at best, even as useless distractions. This has led to precipitous decline in common cultural knowledge. Education has been traded for skill training. This ushers in a junk culture and a cartoon media to produce a shallow cult of celebrity where one can become “famous for being famous” as noted by historian and social theorist Daniel J. Boorstin. The cult of celebrity becomes necessary in a dumbed downed culture where a superficial focal point is needed to maintain public attention. The image becomes the message. The video culture and the celebrity culture become co-dependent and mutually reinforcing.

7. Junk Thought

Junk thought comes from both the hard-core right and the soft-core left. “Men are from Mars, women from Venus” – a great example of headline pop junk thought. Simply put, there is an anti-intellectual and nonrational contempt for experts and evidence in the physical sciences as well as the humanists and social sciences. Junk thought is both cause and a product of unreason and irrationality. This is the none too surprising result of after 1 – 6 above. This can be both or either a left-wing or right-wing phenomena. This is where evidence is treated as an undesirable barrier to what one wants to believe. In America, junk thought is as easily available as junk food. Junk thought is thought and ‘theory’ delinked from evidence but the language of science is used to promote pseudoscience such as the faith-based deception of intelligent design. Other examples that should be able to go without mention, but alas need to be mentioned are astrological and psychic readings as well as new age spirituality and the vast literature of narcissistic self-help propaganda. One of the truly pernicious manifestations of junk thought is the anti-vaccination crowd (who confuse coincidence with causation) who by even the standards of the 1960s are archaic anachronisms. Another example was the repressed memory movement of the 1980 – 1990s that resulted in many fabricated and suggested memory recoveries used as the basis for false accusations of abuse. Junk thought is characterized by its highly subjective and emotional appeals that cannot be falsified. Another example of pseudoscience is the supposed innate brain difference between boys and girls, this is the same old junk thought previously applied on a racial basis. The most galling part of junk science is that the purveyors of junk science are the ones who use the pejorative ‘junk science’ to discredit genuine science with the claim they are being suppressed by elites (real scientists).

8. Distractions Junkies

Distraction is now becoming its own reward. Social relations are now with screens, not with beings. Often, having a smartphone present at a social occasion is like inserting an offstage person that only the person with the smartphone can see, this has a chilling effect on the interpersonal relationships of the embodied people present. The smartphone is no longer an appendage of the person, the person is now the appendage of the smartphone. Screen time displaces people time, reading time, interaction time, conversation and discussion time. Let us make no mistake about it, there is great profit to be gained in marketing this displacement. We reside in a ubiquitous infotainment ecosystem echo chamber of noise from which there is no escape. The conflation of information and entertainment into a passive source of distraction has been accomplished through the internet. Computers and smartphones are not just tools but represent a whole new way of life, one of utter, banal and puerile distraction with endless prepackaged engagement for all ages, including “infantainment”. I agree with the author that while many mediums can be used for constructive education and learning, only reading is indispensable to intellectual life. The new videotainment is just the updated version of the comic book. An argument for an education based on video simulations has the same force as an argument for an education based on comic books.

9. Media Industry Consolidation

Though this topic is not discussed in the book, I think it is an important part of the explanation for American unreason. There is near monopoly control over U.S. media outlets with about five closely and interrelated companies owing most of the major of media, publishing and entertainments properties. I believe that this leads to an observable and increasing homogenization of content. The consolidation diminishes variety and expands control over content, this leaves only an illusion of variety and choice even for those who still value variety and choice. This is yet another explanation of the dumbed down, anti-intellectual, irrational status quo of American unreason.

10. The Implications

Lacking basic intellectual tools, it is much easier to be made into a fool of or to be fooled. This is true for voters, elected officials and decision makers. It should come as no surprise that a dumbed down public will elect dumb-down representatives and public officials. Many people take pride in their ignorance as a demonstration of their authenticity and humanity while at the same convincing themselves that are literate and well-informed critical thinkers. Anti-intellectualism combined with willful ignorance reduces the entire activity of thinking downward in that what accounts for intelligent or wise is defined down along with the rest of the enterprise of junk thought that lowers the lows. This is what makes deceptions possible and renders dishonesties plausible. This makes the non-critical thinking public ready to accept extremism and conspiracy theories.

Concluding Thoughts

Optimism about the future is irresponsible in that one cannot reason with people who do not believe in reason and instead prefer some form of irrational faith. With so many people self-isolating it is more difficult to make common cause or come together for a purpose or become engaged in an issue as each person (zombie) is safely stultified, satiated and satisfied in their own personal smartphone or computer cocoon.

American intellectual history is astounding in its irony. A country with a birth in the glow of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment with the advantages of modern scientific knowledge still clinging to a popular culture of anti-rationalism and ignorance. Politics and public discourse are dominated by single-minded self-assured fanatics from the extremes of right and left. Willful ignorance provides the firm foundation for extremist political appeals and religious fundamentalism as well as the echo chambers in which they are heard. Anti-intellectualism, unreason and the general decline of intellectual life in America can take many forms and has many and varied causes. Of course, the greatest risk of anti-intellectualism is that narrowness and ignorance become the new normal to be passed onto to the next generation. Cultural treasure is difficult accumulate and easy to squander

https://www.amazon.com/Age-American-.../dp/1400096383

You’re the hijackinist hijacker who ever hijacked

[Sakis]

[size=4]Don't wanna be an American idiot !

It certainly takes great effort and time to achieve some kind of freedom but there is no need to be so absolute,the video is not a promise of freedom it's just a summary of thoughts.

[gixajo]

The only way to be free is to get rid of everything that makes us slaves, which would basically be everything that causes us fear or desire.

There is no single path for that, each one must learn to find their own.

I´ve posted the original interview with Huxley months ago.

It must also be said that when that interview was made, Huxley was very old and had been floating between drugs and mystical religions for several years.

Paying attention to what James Bond says, I would recommend reading his works and not sticking with what others say he once said, explained in a YouTube video with cute drawings.

For example 3 novels: "Point Counter Point", "Brave New World" and "Island".(the last two have nothing to do with the first one)

[PaleoEuropean]

The only way to be free is to get rid of everything that makes us slaves, which would basically be everything that causes us fear or desire.

There is no single path for that, each one must learn to find their own.

I´ve posted the original interview with Huxley months ago.

It must also be said that when that interview was made, Huxley was very old and had been floating between drugs and mystical religions for several years.

Paying attention to what James Bond says, I would recommend reading his works and not sticking with what others say he once said, explained in a YouTube video with cute drawings.

For example 3 novels: "Point Counter Point", "Brave New World" and "Island".(the last two have nothing to do with the first one)

This is a lecture, straight to the point. This isn't about literature but case studies, philosophy and insight into the herd mentality. Literature serves a purpose but lectures are just as important.

[PaleoEuropean]

The only way to be free is to get rid of everything that makes us slaves, which would basically be everything that causes us fear or desire.

There is no single path for that, each one must learn to find their own.

I´ve posted the original interview with Huxley months ago.

It must also be said that when that interview was made, Huxley was very old and had been floating between drugs and mystical religions for several years.

Paying attention to what James Bond says, I would recommend reading his works and not sticking with what others say he once said, explained in a YouTube video with cute drawings.

For example 3 novels: "Point Counter Point", "Brave New World" and "Island".(the last two have nothing to do with the first one)

Also not everyone wants to read a handful of books and spend 10 years reflecting on them and digging into 20 textbooks worth of psychology, allegory, political science etc. If you think the video is too simplistic and the cartoons dont speak to your method of learning then the thread isn't directed at you. Everyone has to start from somewhere, this is just an introduction for people who aren't as sophisticated and well read. Even the normies have a right to enlightenment.