Culture

This Week In Doom: The Demands And Ravages Of Equality

Image from this site.

Image from this site.

Progressive beasts

We had fun with the foolish Vox explaining that animals “in the wild” suffer from being eaten, from disease, from neglect, from the lack of personal recognition, and so forth, but what was perhaps not obvious was that the demand that we step in and do something was perfectly consistent with the Theory of Equality. Accept as a premise that all can and must be Equal, then it necessarily follows that wild animals should be put under the same strictures, supervisions, and burdens of human animals.

Given Reality as a premise, we are forced to conclude that animals eating each other, and we eating them and them sometimes eating us, is because of the nature or essence of the world. It is the Way Things Are and cannot be changed. Indeed, it also follows that it is insane to wish to change it via human efforts. We cannot alter our nature, nor can we alter the nature of beasts. If we could alter our nature, then the result, if such a thing were even possible, would not be human, because, of course, it is our natures which define what it means to be human. And the same is true for other animals.

Equality demands animals cease misbehaving, but since that is a large program, instead look for increasing demands for vegetarian diets. Of course, it remains to be proven, under Equality, that plants are people, too. But it is true that any systematic harvesting of plants causes the death of a multitude of animals. Hence Equality should lead to the conclusion that human animals should cease being. And, indeed, we see such calls. The difficulty is that once we are absent, there will be nobody left to police the animals. This paradox ought to start some interesting discussions among true progressives.

Unfair parenting

As we all know, the same-sex attracted were unhappy that they could not marry one another. This was because the nature or essence of marriage—holy matrimony, if you will—is constrained to be between just two people, one male, one female, united in “one flesh” toward the final cause of reproduction (just as not all people have two legs, the natural condition, not all marriages produce offspring, the natural condition). The nature of marriage cannot, of course, be altered, just as human nature cannot. But the government, recognizing the earnest and pained calls for Equality, stepped in and created gmarriage so that, currently two, though it is expected to be more, men, or two (or soon more) women could simulate marriage. Equality also demands, and the government is enforcing the requirement, that everybody pretend gmarriage and marriage are identical. This is no surprise, because Equality is and must be an enemy to Reality.

Very well; so much water under the bridge, etc. Now since gmarriage is to be simulation of marriage, in order to be complete, offspring must needs be produced. This is, because of human nature, impossible. But once again the government has heard the pleas and are cooperating with scientists to eliminate, to the extent possible, parents. The nature or essence of parent is the biological mother or father. So if babies are not to be produced by parents, they must come from other means.

Enter “multiplex parenting”, in the news this week and the scientific Equality-driven name for the mixing of DNA from any number of humans, including just one, to create new life—in principle, anyway. The name is Equality-driven because parents can only be the biological mother and father, regardless of what courtesies we extend to some non-parents. The technical term for this marvel-to-be is in vitro gametogenesis. Now whatever the engineering achievement or detriments—nobody expects this to be a flawless process; there will be much “waste”—it is still the case that a human female must volunteer to carry this creation to term. Unless, of course, it is decided midstream to kill it, which a visit to the now well-funded (thanks, Paul Ryan!) Planned Parenthood will “fix”. Regardless, this female might not be the mother, since none of her DNA is required.

Whatever else this process is—and we are edging ever closer to the prophesied Bokanovsky process, about which there is much more to day another day—it is a triumph of Equality.

Incidentally, the Irenist reminds us of this apropos quotation: “Their real children they fabricate by vile arts in a secret place.

Michael Moore’s a Muslim

Equality demands that all religions are equal. Thus this (possibly Photoshopped) image, presented with comment (why progressives are angrily and defiantly embracing Islam waits for another day).

mm

I’ll vote for that

Twelve-year-olds got to do something unusual last week in Cambridge, Mass. They were allowed to vote on how the city spends its money.

Those who wish to congratulate me on predicting this form of Equality (here and here) may do so.

It’s going to take more than two aspirin

Dr. Church loses final appeal at hospital. Board of Directors upholds physician’s expulsion for telling the truth about high-risk LGBT behavior to colleagues. If you close your eyes, disease can’t find you.

Categories: Culture, Philosophy

34 replies »

  1. Now it seems this argument is self defeating.
    Not the daft notion of plant rights.
    If humans can’t alter their nature we ought to stop wasting our time bringing in moral arguments.

  2. I’ve always thought Brave New World was a much better vision of the future than 1984. Do they still teach Brave New World in schools?

  3. My mother was the poster child for this article. The next step beyond vegetarian is vegan. The next step beyond vegan is fruitarian, eat only food offered willingly by plants and trees.

    Still, she enjoyed a burger at Mickey D’s every now and then.

    It is easily explained (but not necessarily correct) by “mirror neurons” run amok. This is the mechanism of empathy and sympathy; but when overdone it dominates your own personality and inverts it: The things you once ate are now treated as you ought to treat your family (love and respect), and your family is despised and so is your species.

    My mother hated guns, but made an exception toward shooting human beings, with little doubt that I was first on her list to exterminate — not for anything I have done or failed to do, but because of astrology that informed her I was her “dispositor”. I gave her the respect of at least considering her claims; evaluating my life versus biorythms (no correlation), astrology (no correlation) “hind casting” as I had been keeping a detailed journal and thus could review such things objectively. However, a person that believes in astrology, upon reading that she is going to have a bad day, will indeed have a bad day and the correlation will be perfect and her faith system reinforced.

    Like most such person she was inundated in cats. When I visited; she fed her cats on fine china and human visitors got the plastic pet dishes. She imagined herself to be an animal; which is partly true but a special kind of animals that is not a cat.

    She struggled daily with her conscience — hated killing animals and yet her cats killed everything they could possibly get their claws on. She was in favor of genetic engineering to “tame” cats, at which point they obviously would no longer be cats, the thing she was attracted to because of their casual violence.

    She was for much of her life a recipient of welfare, so out-of-touch with reality that she could not keep a job. And yet earlier in her life she was a wonderful elementary school teacher and in my home she had introduced literature and science; procuring the entire Life Science Library and Life Nature Library, which when I had my own family, I procured for my children. Unfortunately they had no interest in such things, nor even books — if you cannot get it on an iPhone it doesn’t exist.

  4. While the hospitals promoting disease causing behaviour such a homosexuality is very bothersome, consider that hospitals, doctors and nurses often had no problem with smoking. The behaviour was causing poor health, but in the 70’s and 80’s nurses smoked in the nurses’ lounge. Since many doctors and nurses smoked, people didn’t see smoking as a bad thing, in spite of the warnings on the box. Medicine has been wrong on many things. I suspect in 40 years or so people will look back and wonder why we thought medicine promoting a lifestyle that was deadly was a good idea, much as people wonder today why the medical community actively endorsed smoking by engaging in the behaviour.
    As for the firing of the doctor, people have got a taste of the power of McCarthyism and they are using it to the maximum degree possible. Who wouldn’t want to impose minority ideas on the majority? It’s like finding out you have sports cars and your opponents have SUVs. You are small but will win the race. Power is what people love, only surpassed by the ability to damage and ruin their fellow human beings, even if it means ignoring reality to do it. This is what happens when bratty, spoiled children run your country.

  5. Wow, your Hate Cup runneth over today, Briggs. Do you see the irony of your position against gay people getting married and Dr Church warning people of the dangers of promiscuity, by any remote chance?

    JMJ

  6. I’m sorry to hear about Dr. Church. It must be really strange to BE one of the people the Reality Deniers go after, rather than just reading about them. He was ousted for pointing out that diversity means more than embracing gayness, and that same-sex activity among men causes disease and some really, really awful physical problems most of us dont’ know about and, if we find out about them, find horrifying. But reality doesn’t matter in the face of glitter and rainbows. And I don’t mean that sacrcastically. I am contiually amazed by the references to glitter and rainbows in “LGBT” projects and websites, which I guess is just an effort to forestall being mocked by adopting what mockers might say about them. I talked to someone from the HRC yesterday, it was surreal.

  7. Nate: Yes they still read Brave New World in school. My son is in Grade 8 and they are reading it this year.

    Brave New World’s “predictions” regarding morality and human behaviour seem bang on, while 1984’s depiction of politics are eerily true to form today.

  8. Perhaps Dr. Church was too logical in his approach. Addressing the consequences of a “gay” life violates the progressive dictum “See no evil, Hear no evil, speak no evil.”
    In celebration of Gay Pride and to pursue equality he should have advocated to the Harvard Medical teaching hospitals that their non gay patients be subjected to forced; alcoholism, Drug addiction, depression, suicide, cancer (anal, rectal, colon, pancreatic,liver,lung, skin and genital cancers), anal warts, intestinal infections, STD’s, violent partner abuse, HIV, and AIDS at the same exaggerated rates found in the “gay” community.
    Then at the Gy Parade they could proclaim in the name of fairness and equality those otherwise healthy people who have made healthy life choices be made to experience the consequences of a gay (debauched) lifestyle.
    How could they possible refuse?

  9. Steve E: Is *Brave New World* taught as a “good thing” and that the current condition should be celebrated?

    I noticed that one teaching guide for the book recommends that teachers should “ask students to create a utopia of their own.” This site http://www.webenglishteacher.com/huxley.html> directs users to another site to describe an assignment built around the propaganda departments: “You will be assigned to one of four Department of Propaganda subdepartments responsible for reinforcing correct thought and correspondingly correct behavior.”

    My fear is that the students could be drawing the entirely wrong lessons from the book, especially if “utopias” and “Departments of Propaganda” are signaled by teachers to have a “fun” side.

    (My son once had a teacher–this could have been as early as 8th grade, but more likely was high school—who thought and taught that a writer should not have a “point of view” or be able to advocate that one course of action was more correct than others.)

  10. “…a writer should not have a “point of view” or be able to advocate that one course of action was more correct than others.”

    Let me guess, she made an exception for climate science.

  11. JMJ: Are you arguing that not being married is the reason people are promiscuous? I would point out that a straight guy, Tiger Woods, reportedly bedded hundreds of women while married. Charlie Sheen has HIV—he’s been married repeatedly. Then there’s the “live together without the piece of paper” crowd that never marry and claim it’s equivalent to marriage. Marriage in no way assures people will not have many, many sex partners. So no, there is no irony in this whatsoever.

  12. Why, JMJ, you’re nothing but a rank Realityphobe!

    Don’t miss Bert Walker’s comment above.

    Update I hope you see this. Would you consider telling us why the left is so intent on supporting Muslims/Islam? I ask in honest curiosity. Besides hating Christianity, our once native culture, I can’t see it.

    DAV,

    Ha!

  13. Don’t Slay that Potato
    from the album One Million Lawyers and Other Catastrophes
    Words and Music by Tom Paxton

    How can you do it? It’s heartless, it’s cruel.
    It’s murder, cold-blooded, and gross.
    To slay a poor vegetable just for your stew,
    Or to serve with some cheese sauce on toast.
    Have you no decency? Have you no shame?
    Have you no conscience, you cad?
    To rip that poor vegetable out of the earth,
    Away from its poor mom and dad?

    [Cho:]
    Oh, no, don’t slay that potato!
    Let us be merciful, please.
    Don’t boil it or fry it, don’t even freeze-dry it.
    Don’t slice it or flake it.
    For God’s sake, don’t bake it!
    Don’t shed the poor blood,
    Of this poor helpless spud.
    That’s the worst kind of thing you could do.
    Oh, no, don’t slay that potato,
    What never done nothing to you!

    http://www.mydfz.com/Paxton/lyrics/dstp.htm

  14. Anon: The book is on the reading list for the second term and I haven’t seen the rubric they will be using for marking yet. Judging by how they studied Animal Farm, I expect that they will do a surface level investigation of one or two of the book’s themes, but it remains to be seen.

    I usually read everything on my son’s reading list and discuss the novels with him outside of the school’s lesson plan. I should mention that he attends a private school that usually works above grade level. The school is very open to making the lesson plans available through an online portal to parents. The school is very accepting of feedback regarding how subject matter is handled.

    I read a lot of utopian/dystopian fiction growing up and through my twenties and I am also concerned about how it could be presented to lower grade levels and early high school students.

    Given the nature of Utopia it is not improbable that there will be some who walk away from Brave New World seeing it as a blueprint rather than as a cautionary tale.

  15. LOL! Hey, YOS, you remember John Barleycorn?

    Briggs, I’m all for reality. One thing I like about you is your skeptics approach to statistics. I don’t always agree, but I love the skepticism. It’s a great way to get down to earth. That’s why I support gay folks getting legally married. Because it is a recognition of reality. You can pontificate, and philosophize, and demand and generally fuss about that reality all you like, but it will not change it. And what is to be against? Coupling is the first structural action of society. It’s healthy. It’s good for the whole society however you look at it. And, unless you are gay and discover marriage doesn’t suit you, it has no detrimental effect on you at all. It’s not like gay people don’t pay taxes. That’s for the Church.

    Sheri, stop being such a fatalist. The world is not nearly the horrible place you imagine.

    JMJ

  16. Egalitarism has it’s origins in the french revolution. The poor were suppressed by the nobility. “Noblesse oblige” was not maintained, so the nobles were decapitated. Let this be a lesson: if you are rich you have the moral obligation to invest your earnings back ibto society. Otherwise you are a criminal.

  17. JMJ: Then you must be pro murder, since it’s part of reality too. So is disease. So you’re pro disease, too? How interesting. And you told me to stop being such a fatalist. I could tell you to stop being such a Pollyanna.

    Hans: If the lazy, theiving poor steal your money, you have an obligation to jail the little parasites in self-defense. No one should be forced into slavery to support parasites. That is what taking money from people who earned and giving it to those who didn’t is—a form of slavery. If the rich are smart, they’ll just stop working and the parasite will die. You can’t steal when everyone is a lazy parasite. I am appalled by your idea of justice—I suppose since most people have two kidneys and only need one, you’re a criminal if you don’t donate one to someone whose kidney failed. If you have a womb and you’re not using it, you owe it to those who cannot make babies to loan it out for baby making. If you work 80 hours a week and the lazy slob next door only works 10, you owe him money because you have more than he does (that’s called slavery in reality). All I learned from your object lesson is you are mean thief who thinks everyone owes you and I need to keep my shotgun handy and hope you try to break in an take what your lazy ass thinks is yours.

  18. Peasants don’t over through governments. Activists do, using the poor, uneducated peasants as their tools. The peasants get a bit more out of life, the rich are replaced by new rich and the peasants are taught it’s a good deal. It is fascinating that socialists are in favor of the rich as long as the poor get a 1% increase in living standard and some rich guy gets knocked down. There’s no equality in this whatsoever. This equality in North Korea. Everyone but Kim lives at the same poor level in the cities, and even poorer level in the country. The really kind thing about Kim is he makes sure the poor don’t know about the rich so they can’t be envious. Such a sweet guy. It’s a system to be envied. The socialist paradise, right Hans and JMJ?

  19. Jersey McJones writes “I love the skepticism. It’s a great way to get down to earth. That’s why I support gay folks getting legally married.”

    Non-sequitur. Being skeptical has nothing to do with homosexuality.

    Marriage is the word that describes the social framework of human reproduction. That is what the word means to me; it has never meant anything else and it is unlikely it will ever mean anything else. I recognize your mileage varies and so, unfortunately, I can no longer use the word “marriage” for any purpose since its meaning to a hearer is no longer predictable. I don’t know what word ought now to be used to signify the social framework of human reproduction; maybe no longer a word exists.

    Similarly, “gay” once meant happy and carefree. Now it cannot be used for any purpose since its meaning is likely to be unclear. To my teenagers it means idiotically stupid and has nothing to do with homosexuality OR carefree and happy.

    “Because it is a recognition of reality. You can pontificate, and philosophize, and demand and generally fuss about that reality all you like, but it will not change it.”

    Climate changes. Reality changes. Words change. But not for me.

    “Coupling is the first structural action of society.”

    No. Agreeing to not kill each other is more likely the first structural action of society. “Coupling” has never been a public event, so far as I know; you have to “couple” to vote, for instance, or before speaking in public or writing an article on a blog or newspaper you have to “couple” otherwise it isn’t a structural action of society.

    “It’s healthy.”

    Sometimes it will kill you. Your idea of healthy differs from mine.

    “It’s good for the whole society however you look at it.”

    It’s a disaster, but like “climate change”, will take a long time for its effects to be felt. It took Rome a few hundred years to finally collapse.

    “And, unless you are gay and discover marriage doesn’t suit you, it has no detrimental effect on you at all.”

    That makes no sense. You seem to be using the old form of “marriage” (the social framework of human reproduction) and the new form of “marriage” (any two or more mammals living together) in the same comment.

    “It’s not like gay people don’t pay taxes.”

    Is that the happy gay or the homosexual gay? Not that it matters; I have not argued that whatever kind they are they do not pay taxes. Some do, some don’t.

    “That’s for the Church.”

    Which church? Many exist.

  20. Hans Erren writes: “Otherwise you are a criminal.”

    In France, anyway. “Noblesse oblige” sounds French. They do things the French way, I do things the American way, not that such way is all that precisely defined, but it certainly isn’t French.

  21. Sheri writes: “Peasants don’t overthrow governments. Activists do, using the poor, uneducated peasants as their tools.”

    Exactly right. That’s how Napoleon Bonaparte became dictator of France.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

    It is the story in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”. George Orwell was himself a socialist but realized that human attempts to implement socialism are probably doomed to failure as Sweden is now discovering.

    You can have a utopian society, but if you do, you must keep out the snakes and the pigs. That requires force. Sooner or later the force turns on its master.

  22. Sheri writes “JMJ: Are you arguing that not being married is the reason people are promiscuous?”

    I wasn’t promiscuous before or after my marriage. My wife is the first and only sexual partner I’ve ever had, and she was my wife that first night together.

    A person that is by nature promiscuous does not change his nature just because of the “M” word.

  23. Peter Hitchens on tactics and strategy of some conservatives who use gay marriage law for political gain.
    Insert any other emotive topic and the effect is the same:
    Divide and conquer, then steal ground.
    There’s probably a mathematical code somewhere.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dQWmq-STfI

    JMJ,
    That you take time to hear arguments from the right shows a non bigoted position. I know you poke but I also intuit that this is not why you are reading.
    My take on the objections here are that the enforcement of ideals by law is essentially incorrect.
    That legal enforcement of political correctness is an overreach of power and will create social unrest and consequences far worse than the perceived hurt feelings of a few that such rules pretend to soothe.
    As for hate or “homophobia” I don’t imagine many thinking feeling people do that, even if they take issue with homosexuality.

  24. It took Rome a few hundred years to finally collapse.

    =neep= Arguably, the Roman Empire was the longest-lived polity on the face of the earth. It held structural continuity from at least Tuesday, 2 September 31 BC to Wednesday, 29 May AD 1453, a run of nearly 1,484 years. It survived civil wars, interregnums, revolutions, and even the loss of major provinces. None of the various empires in China even comes close. =/neep=

    Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.

  25. YOS writes “Arguably, the Roman Empire was the longest-lived polity on the face of the earth.”

    Your mileage varied. Rome still exists. So does Germany. A few places no longer exist, such as Bukovenia, but the land still exists and the people formerly Bukovenians are now Ukrainians or Romanians.

    China still exists. So it depends on what a person means by Rome collapsing in a few hundred years.

    “The invading army reached the outskirts of Rome, which had been left totally undefended. In 410 C.E., the Visigoths, led by Alaric, breached the walls of Rome” http://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp

    “Over time, the east thrived, while the west declined. In fact, after the western part of the Roman Empire fell, the eastern half continued to exist as the Byzantine Empire for hundreds of years. Therefore, the ‘fall of Rome’ really refers only to the fall of the western half of the Empire.”

    “Army generals dominated the emperorship, and corruption was rampant. Over time, the military was transformed into a mercenary army with no real loyalty to Rome. As money grew tight, the government hired the cheaper and less reliable Germanic soldiers to fight in Roman armies.”

    Different source, exploring causes: http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/08romfal.htm
    “And where these barbarians met resistance, they sneaked or pushed their way inside the Empire, and in such a profusion that Rome was fast turning into a nation of immigrants.” Sounds familiar to modern times

    Anyway, the important (to me) observation is the many parallels leading to the demise of Rome and similar parallels leading to the demise of many western nations, the United States being relatively more important to me.

    Pretending to an equality that does not actually exist aims for the lowest common denominator for the simple reason that you cannot elevate the stupid; but smart people can easily pretend to be (or forced to be) stupid. Everyone CAN be stupid, but not everyone can be smart. Nearly everyone can egage in sexual behaviors of innumerable kind, but not everyone can or ought to be parents.

  26. I was not referring to the physical existence of the city of Rome, but to the structural continuance of the Roman Empire, even long after it had ceased to be ruled from the Senate House in the Forum. The eastern, wealthy, taxable part of the Empire continued to operate. They never called themselves “Byzantines”; they always called themselves “Romans.” Their administration flowed organically from the apparatus set up by Diocletian. During the period of Late Antiquity, the people of the Empire began referring to it as “Romania Aeterna” and the Celts of Gaul and Iberia, who had maintained their languages all this time, began to speak Latin at last. By the time the administration of the Western lobe of the Empire collapses, the Empire had become Christian and even puritanical. At the time of her greatest licentiousness, she conquered the world.

    In fact, the first wave of barbarians — the Goths, Franks, even the Vandals — were themselves Christian (albeit Arians — but the Constantinids had been Arian as well) and rather straight-laced. They wanted nothing less than to become Romans themselves. If Valens and his like had treated the Goths according to their agreements not tried to pen them up in camps, Adrianople might not have happened. For that matter, if the Senate had paid Alaric the back wages they owed him and his people, the Visigoths might never have marched on Rome.

    When Odoacer occupied Rome and deposed poor little Romulus Augustulus, he gathered up the regalia of the Western Emperor and sent them to the Emperor in the East, saying the sovereignty had returned to a single emperor. Of course, that was all for show; but it was a great show.

    It was the second wave, after imperial administration had collapsed, that did it. The saracen, viking, and magyar barbarians did not know Rome and did not respect the institutions. The Franks, who had rebooted the franchise under Charlemagne, barely survived. His reboot, the Holy Roman Empire of the German People, is not generally considered either a revival or continuation of the romanitas that died at Soissons; but he did offer his hand in marriage to the Empress Irene in Constantinople, and it’s interesting to speculate what might have happened if she had batted her eyelids and said yes.

    It is well to keep in mind that the “stupid” Germanic peoples — the Franks, Lombards, Saxons — gave us the upward flair of the Gothic cathedral, the university, the foundations of natural science, the romance, labor-saving devices and a host of other innovations.

  27. Uh, I’ll settle for the XXX sites and a trophy. How many others can say they have a Gorey on display in their cabinet?

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