About Cultural Revolutions

Then . . .

And now. Click on the photo for the story of this woman dining in DC, who was approached by BLM protesters, not satisfied to invade her while in a restaurant but insisting on the alleged need for compelled speech.

The woman dining in the restaurant is bravely exhibiting the correct approach when someone threatens you to make you say something you don't believe.  Here is a classic photo showing how to be brave.  Click on the photo for the story of the man who refused to salute Hitler.

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Purported Protesters Display Who They Are on the Streets of Portland Oregon

On Twitter, Andy Ngo is documenting the horrific conduct on the streets of Portland and Seattle, night after night. I forced myself to watch about 10 of these videos over the past week. The videos are graphic and highly disturbing, many involving beatings of non-violent people. Rampant morally reprehensible behavior, despite the claim that these are "protesters." Police almost entirely absent.

There has been no coverage for the past ten days from the New York Times or NPR. Based on these videos, another Twitter user recently posted: "Portland was a nice city last time I visited. Now it's ruled by violent mobs. #failedstate"

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Divided We Are Falling

Eric Weinstein's Tweet isn't really about the "race" of this perpetrator and the "race" of this victim. Tomorrow there will be another incident in which the "races" will be reversed and then that news coverage (and lack thereof) will also be reversed. THAT is what is tragic. We are now divided so sharply that we refuse to see the humanity in members of outgroups.

To satisfy our selectively-blinded morality and to sell commercials, our respective teams of "news" media now look only for facts that fit predetermined narratives, ignoring everything that doesn't fit. In other words, our "news" stories are pre-written nuance free, with a few blanks left open for tonight's names and tonight's minor details. And since there is so much going on, they will easily find the stories they seek, the kinds of stories that are guaranteed to make us nod, then clench our fists, then vomit our anger at the opposing team on social media.

We and our teams of "news" media have trained each other so very well that these insane battle lines now seem inevitable. So much so that if Jesus, The Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King all suddenly appeared and earnestly reminded us to love both our neighbors and our enemies, it would would unite us, if only for a moment. We would tell them all to go fuck off.

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About Portland, Oregon

Michael Tracy is a journalist who offers his analysis of the "peaceful protests" of Portland Oregon. His article is titled, "How white radicals hijacked Portland’s protests." Here is an excerpt:

The overwhelmingly white, anarchist activists who populate the ongoing protests in Portland, Oregon should not be underestimated for their strategic savvy. In seizing the mantle of “Black Lives Matter”, they’ve discovered a work-around to arrogate moral cover for whatever insurrectionary upheaval they would have been ideologically committed to fomenting anyway. The Left/liberal political and media class is deeply invested in preserving the untouchable sanctity of “BLM”. So by fusing themselves in the public mind with this ambiguously-defined protest movement, or even putting themselves at the vanguard, the anarchist whites insulate themselves from the type of scrutiny that might ordinarily be prompted by activists whose ultimate goal is the overthrow of the state — and who are happy to engage in what they call “a diversity of tactics” (up to and including violence) to achieve this.

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Joe Rogan Discusses Polarization, Education, Woke Culture and More with Jonathan Haidt

This episode of Joe Rogan's podcast, first released 18 months ago, features moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has studied the culture wars as deeply as anyone. I recommend the entire discussion as a fruitful approach to the current madness. Haidt focuses on how we have raised children since the 1990s and the dangers of overprotecting them. At about 1:20, Haidt shows some stunning graphs showing that girls are have been terribly hurt (much more than boys) by the advent of social media and smart phones, along with unrealistic conceptions of beauty.

This excerpt by Haidt begins with his description of classical liberalism (Min: 55:10):

I think young people are losing touch with some of the hard-won lessons of the past, so I'm not going to say “Oh, we have to just accept whatever morality is here.” I still am ultimately liberal in the sense that what I dream of is a society in which people are free to create lives that they want to live. They're not forced to do things. They're not shamed. There's a minimum of conflict and we make room for each other. If we're going to have a diverse society, we've really got to be tolerant and make room for each other. That's my dream. I think in the last five or ten years, we've gotten really far from that. My first book, "The Happiness Hypothesis," was about ten ancient ideas. One is that we're too judgmental. You know “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” But I think the new version of that . . . if there were a 21st century Jesus, he'd say: “Judge a lot more. Judge all the time. Judge harshly. Don't give anyone with the benefit the doubt. Don't let anyone judge you. That is not going to be a recipe for a functioning society. So, no, I do not accept this aspect of 21st century morality.

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