Maps Of Meaning

 https://www.deployyourself.com/book-review/maps-of-meaning-jordan-b-peterson/

I'd recommend following the link for a better review of the book than I'm likely to do 

I'd also recommend reading "12 Rules For Life" and to a lesser degree "Beyond Order, 12 More Rules for Life"

In any case, this book would be down the list -- not because it is "bad", but primarily because it is much longer than it needs to be to get it's points across. 

From the linked:

The Basic Structure Of Myths

Myths from different places of the world have some common characteristics because of shared human nature. Whether it is the story of Homer’s Odyssey, the Passion of the Christ, stories of creation in Mesopotamia or Egypt, they all have one commonality – the journey of a brave hero and his triumphant return from the unknown.

The primal forces of nature form the basis of most myths. They represent the unknown, from wherein all life originates. Its creative and destructive nature is mostly represented as feminine. For example, according to the Mesopotamian myth of creation, the unknown is a ferocious Mother Dragon Tiamat from whose pieces the cosmos was created. In Sumerian creation myth, the sea goddess Nammu birthed the sky and the earth.

The feminine, often the mother, is portrayed as either ‘great’, or ‘terrible’, where the terrible unknown is shown in forms of an evil monster, a stepmother, or a storm; the great, or promising unknown is often characterized by a fairy godmother, a treasure or a magical place.

In mythology, the opposite of the Great and Terrible Mother, is the Great and Terrible Father. The father represents the structured, known territories of culture that man has built for protection. The father is most often represented as an old, wise king – great when he is just, protective and wise, and terrible when he is oppressive, tyrannical, or evil.

Finally, the hero of the story is the brave explorer, trapped between the unknown forces of the Mother and Father – or nature and culture. He is the one who fights the negatives of nature and culture and wins by bringing out the positives, proving to be a role model for humans.

We live by "stories", the more profound and meaningful reach the status of "myth". Are they "true"? Often not in the sense of scientific or legal "evidence", but perhaps more "true" in the sense that they speak to our nature and are much more meaningful than a listing of "facts".

We tend to look at science as "true", yet it as well is based on a faith narrative that goes something like "The universe was randomly created in a "Big Bang". Luckily for us, 100s if not thousands of physics variables just happened to be "set" (randomly) to values that allowed our existence. Even better, there happened to be a planet in the "Goldilocks zone" (not too hot, not too cold), and "somehow" life happened. That "somehow" would appear to be vanishingly unlikely, however it retains a place in scientific mythology."

"Maps" makes an attempt to explain more about "universal myths" than you really wanted to know. The excerpt above gives a flavor, the not so long linked review is probably all you need rather than reading the book. 

Atheism Not Working As Promised

 https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/atheists-against-atheism/

I've done a mind numbing amount of reading and writing on this subject. My writing is always too long for a modern audience, and the sad fact is that I'm not very good at. it anyway. Perhaps some others can save the day?

The following quote is from Niall Ferguson, a well respected intellectual. 

I know I can’t achieve religious faith . . . but I do think we should go to church. We don’t have, I don’t think, an evolved ethical system. I don’t buy the idea that evolution alone gets us to be moral. It can modify behaviour, but there’s just too much evidence that in the raw, when the constraints of civilisation fall away, we behave in the most savage way to one another. I’m a big believer that with the inherited wisdom of a two-millennia old religion, we’ve got a pretty good framework to work with.

He is right that HE can't achieve religious faith ... as Luther put it:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. 

Smart people are looking around at the "Post God" world and coming to the obvious conclusion that things aren't working as advertised. It is yet another case of "mail order bride arrives in wrong shape and color". 

I may not ever look physically like Arnold Schwarzenegger, or spiritually like Jesus Christ (not in this life, I will in Heaven), but I'm way better off if I go to the gym and church anyway! 

Imprimis Great Reset

 https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/what-is-the-great-reset/

I've posted on "The Great Reset" a number of times, here is one of the later ones. 

This article is a good one, documenting some interesting things that you can just go and look up ... they aren't secret, just not covered by the MSM.

In October 2019, the WEF collaborated with Johns Hopkins and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on another pandemic exercise, “Event 201,” which simulated an international response to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus. This was two months before the COVID outbreak in China became news and five months before the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic, and it closely resembled the future COVID scenario, including incorporating the idea of asymptomatic spread.

The CLADE X and Event 201 simulations anticipated almost every eventuality of the actual COVID crisis, most notably the responses by governments, health agencies, the media, tech companies, and elements of the public. The responses and their effects included worldwide lockdowns, the collapse of businesses and industries, the adoption of biometric surveillance technologies, an emphasis on social media censorship to combat “misinformation,” the flooding of social and legacy media with “authoritative sources,” widespread riots, and mass unemployment.

How do "conspiracy theories" happen? If you read the above ... all out in the open (though not publicized in the MSM), couple that with the now pretty much accepted theory that Covid was a "lab leak", it isn't really too hard to think there might be "connections".  

Summary Of Clinton Dirty Tricks

 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-a-guide-to-clinton-dirty-tricks

A good summary worthy of being kept around for reference, 

If you read this blog regularly, this is old news. I continue to recommend "Rigged" which shows how this fake news contributed to the 2020 fake election.   

Bronze Age Mindset

https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/are-the-kids-altright/

The link is to an excellent review of the book by Michael Anton whom I highly respect.

I have read the book. I find it "weird and offensive" which is clearly intended by the author. It was published in the middle of 2018, and to support my "weirdness claim", on page 85  he mentions that "the. Trump family knows the secrets of Tesla". I'm not going to go and dig into what these may actually be ... my guess is that this is a "conspiracy theory" like the old "the auto and gas companies have a carburetor that would give you "hundreds" of MPG, but they collude to keep it secret". If you want to go down that rat hole, here is a portal ... vast free energy, wireless power, and who knows. "The conspiracy" discredited him and he went into hiding. 

I tend to  disbelieve conspiracy theories, but there are many that buy them. There was once was one that claimed the Russians, major oil/gas producers who had paid millions to prevent fracking by the US and Canada, colluded/conspired with Trump (a major supporter of fracking) to get him elected over Hillary Clinton, (a major opponent of fracking). 

Hard to imagine anyone would be taken in by that, but since millions were, it shows that conspiracy theories can work! 

The book is allegedly written by "Bronze Age Pervert", whose identity is very shadowing, there anr claims/conjectures that he is actually a PHD of some note, and that the weird apparently uneducated syntax and spelling are just more cover for someone who presents at least a moderate threat to current CRT, progressivism, wokeism, etc 

Politico covered it here in August 2019, with comments like: 

Most of the well-known figures associated with the alt-right or “alt-lite” — Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Richard Spencer — have been successfully demoralized, deplatformed or otherwise banished from the public square. But this has not eliminated the underlying source of their relevance: disaffected young men, mostly white, with internet access.

The spectre of "disaffected young men, mostly white, with internet access" is the woke equivalent of anti-communism in the age of McCarthy -- with "deplatforming" being the key mechanism of suppression as opposed to the "House Un-American Committee" in the 1940s. 

The Antton article is worth the time. This excerpt from the Politico link above gives one view of the book: 

The 200-page book mixes Nietzschean philosophy with critiques of contemporary Western society, denigrating homosexuality, Judiasm, Islam, feminism and much else along the way. “Inside every noble Greek was an unquenchable lust for power,” is one fairly typical statement. “Modern world not bad just because modern,” is another, displaying the author’s habit of lapsing into broken English by dropping articles. The book claims that the leaders of the European Union have “tiny moleman eyes.” Many of its passages are profane and unprintable.

For those who are too distracted by video to read, perhaps audio is still a possibility. This podcast is excellent, although the tech problems are distracting, but Steve did an excellent job of editing.

Rather interesting that as I post this, Russia has just invaded Ukraine  ... perhaps BAPism is going to actually be a force in the real world!    

New York Times Still Wants Thomas Lynched

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html

Yes, I subscribed to the NYT under the "know your enemy" philosophy. 

The Times has become the unabashed enemy of any apostates who dare question  the religion of of "Progressivism, Secular Humanism, Wokeism, Critical Race Theory, Materialism, etc ", especially if they are Black! 

This makes Clarence Thomas their sworn enemy, as well as his wife Gunni. There is nothing more offensive to the left as a Black Conservative, Christian, Constitutional Originalist -- especially one with any sort of power, which a sitting SCOTUS judge certainly has.  

It is a long article that shows just how hard the left attacks their enemies, and shows how far we have strayed from Lincoln's 2nd inaugural. 

The Times article must be long because it seeks to tear down a man that supports what Lincoln did without declaring it's real purpose. Lincoln sought to unify a nation divided by slavery, but a nation that prayed to the same God,  recognizing that man was not the measure of all things. 

The NYT firmly believes that man IS the measure, and that "Progressivism, Secular Humanism, Wokeism, Critical Race Theory, Materialism, etc" are "truth". They firmly believe there is no "higher power" than the power of man, so power will define "the just, the good, the wise". 

The article begins with: 

The call to action was titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” Shared in the days after the 2020 presidential election, it urged the members of an influential if secretive right-wing group to contact legislators in three of the swing states that tipped the balance for Joe Biden — Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The aim was audacious: Keep President Donald J. Trump in power.

The group, the Council for National Policy, brings together old-school Republican luminaries, Christian conservatives, Tea Party activists and MAGA operatives, with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council. Founded in 1981 as a counterweight to liberalism, the group was hailed by President Ronald Reagan as seeking the “return of righteousness, justice and truth” to America.

Obviously, this "secret group" ("secret" web page here) with stated goals like “the return of righteousness, justice and truth to America" is a clear and present danger -- the fact that Clarence Thomas and his wife would agree with such a group is a threat to the "just" forces like the NYT that have recognized that America is a stain on the planet, founded on slavery, dedicated to white privilege, sexism, destroying the environment, and all that is evil ... like Christianity.

As Hillary Clinton stated (without evidence) in 2019, about if it bothered her that then current Democrat candidates failed to adequately defend her when criticised by Trump supporters.

"No, it doesn’t kill me because he knows he’s an illegitimate president,” she said. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did.”

2016 was "illegitimate", questioning 2020 is "the big lie" and if you engage in it, you need to be removed from social media if not worse. If you take part in a mostly peaceful demonstration where the only person killed was an unarmed white female military veteran, you can be imprisoned with no legal representation and no trial for over a year. 

If one only read the NYT and it's adjuncts in the MSM, it may seem that there is only the "center, correct, progressive" wing in American politics, opposed by the evil forces of the right, and far right. 

We all know that affirmative action is a wonderful thing. As MLK said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today".

Here is how that worked out for Clarence Thomas:

Thomas got his law degree from Yale but stuck a 15-cent cigar sticker to the frame of his diploma after failing to get a big law job — such firms, he would write, attributed his academic pedigree to preferential treatment. Instead, he took the only job offer he received and went to work for Missouri’s Republican attorney general, John Danforth, and discovered the writings of the Black conservative Thomas Sowell, who assailed affirmative action as undercutting self-reliance; Thomas wrote that he “felt like a thirsty man gulping down a glass of cool water” to see his own beliefs articulated. A few years later, after he was appointed by Reagan to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, he would complain that Black civil rights leaders “bitch, bitch, bitch, moan and moan, whine and whine.”

What standard did big law firms use to judge Clarence Thomas? The standard of preferential treatment for blacks. Later, that problem was "solved" by quotas in business as well as universities. By the time I joined IBM in 1978,  Thomas would have been in high demand -- no matter his credentials, it was the color of his skin that mattered, as we see today with "BLACK Lives Matter" ... White, Hispanic, Asian? Not so much, except the ivy league schools discriminate against Asians because if they used merit, our colleges, med schools, etc would approach 100% Asian. 

We live in a nation that judges on the basis of color, gender, sexual identity, etc, with the assumption that if you are especially a White male, credentials don't matter because you got them based on "privilege". 

As the left labors to create a new Civil War, it is good to review the much shorter 2nd inaugural address by Lincoln, as opposed to the interminable screed from the NYT: 

Fellow Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war – seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.1 The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!

If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 

Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

We certainly no longer live in a nation that reads the same Bible ... in fact, very few read the Bible at all. 

As the screed from the NYT shows, we are a nation with a lot of malice toward an "uppity Black" that has the audacity to be a SCOTUS Judge, conservative, Christian, and obviously very intelligent ,,, although the left maligned his intelligence with extreme malice when he was first appointed ... from the article:

During his first decade on the court, Thomas was often characterized by his critics as a cipher who almost never asked questions from the bench and was an underwhelming understudy to Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Cipher", a person of very little power used by others. 

My my, how times have changed! The NYT now sees this "cipher" as a threat to their progressive dogma worthy of wasting a lot of ink in the attempt to discredit him. 

What REALLY matters today is your political persuasion, and the reaction of the left to a Black Republican proves that Democrats have never allowed Blacks to leave the plantation ... it is just a political plantation now, and they really want to lynch those that escape!  

 

 

Totalitarian News Initiative

 https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2020/trusted-news-initiative-vaccine-disinformation

Big Brother is world wide.and he is trying to insure you to see only his narrative.

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was set up last year to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy, such as elections. The TNI complements existing programmes partners have in place.

The partners currently within the TNI are: AP, AFP; BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU),Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Microsoft , Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, The Washington Post.

The TNI cooperative framework has been jointly developed amongst partners, and relates to only the most serious disinformation, which threatens life or the integrity of the electoral process. This is entirely separate from and does not in any way affect the editorial stance of any partner organisation.

I think the proper term would "existing progroms". 

If Big Brother says that Trump was not really elected because of Russian interference, and Biden was validly elected and any questions about  that are "The Big Lioe", that is the narrative, and you better parrot it! 

Oh, BTW, there is a critical problem with our elections and they MUST be extensively "reformed" so they can be trusted. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/590511-biden-says-elections-might-not-be-legitimate-if-the-election-reform

You might be confused how it can be that if Biden's election was certainly valid and can't be questioned, it it is CERTAIN ("Jim Crow" even) that without massive national changes to voting laws, the midterms might be "invalid" (translation -- without the "reforms" Republicans might make electoral gains, perhaps even taking control of both houses!). 

This is the world we now live in. Can we get to ACTUAL valid elections .... like voter ID required, zero mail in voting, voter rolls up to date and cross checked, etc? 

Key points of Democrat "reform"; voter ID racist, no state can have it, all states must have mail in voting. 

Is Man Good By Nature?

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/04/20/jane-goodall-finds-chimps-alas-share-human-savagery/f8620298-67f8-4ca7-ae45-32d5ede3d588/

One of the core tenets of  leftism is that man is basically "good" -- "The noble savage".  The assertion is that society that corrupts, and if society lets "nature take its course" ... usually focused on the goodness of removing sexual mores ("repression"), we would basically get back to "The Garden". 

Religions say that man is "fallen / not enlightened / etc" and needs religion, family, and society to be moulded into being "civilized" rather a violent savage.

The link is to Jane Goodall's observation that chimps were very violent forced a lot of the left to realize that there was a snake in the drug fueled "garden" postulated by many 1960s leftists. 

"Make love not war" turned out to not be as "natural" as the mostly wishful thinking "humanists" thought. 

Perhaps man needed to accept his fallen nature, and be Baptized and led by the Holy Spirit to actually experience love. 

NPR vs SCOTUS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/npr-stands-by-supreme-court-mask-story-despite-denials/

NPR is standing by reporting from its legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, alleging that Justice Neil Gorsuch refused a request from Chief Justice John Roberts that he don a mask on the bench — a request that Totenberg implied was made by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is diabetic.

So NPR reports that Neil Gorsuch refused a request from the Chief Justice to wear a mask.

“On Wednesday, Sotomayor and Gorsuch issued a statement saying that she did not ask him to wear a mask. NPR’s report did not say that she did. Then, the chief justice issued a statement saying he ‘did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other justice to wear a mask on the bench.’ The NPR report said the chief justice’s ask to the justices had come ‘in some form.'”

So who are you going to believe, the justices themselves or NPR? 

Hard to understand how their could be division in our country isn't it?

Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver.

 http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2014/11/ideas-have-consequences-by-richard.html

This is one of those books that I have read a few times, and find that I enjoy it and find new insights each time. (I might leave out the cheesy Star Trek video clip if I was to do a "serious review"" again. 

This is just a glorified link to a book that I didn't want readers of this blog to miss. 

I'll only include one quote ... it is worth following the link to the more extensive review, and of course reading the book itself. 

"For four centuries every man has been not only his own priest, but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state."