Emptiness Part IV at New Ruskin College
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
06-02-05,08-08-05,08-11-05
Emptiness Part IV
Passion Play: TE 194.5.4.4/1
(http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lip01.html)
For me the perfect symbol of the fascist is not the swastika, but the smirk. The smirk that says ‘I know what I just said is a lie as well as you, but so what? What can you do? I control the mass media and can say whatever I want . . . and you can not do anything about it . . .’
And do you not think that Davis, Springer, and Franken are smirking over what they have said about the Swift Boat Vets, and what they have done to Gardner? Didn’t you notice the smirk on Hannity’s face when he introduced Dr. Hammesfahr as the “Nobel Prize Nominee”, as did Glen Beck and Sussman, (a local weatherman turned hate radio talker), too? Could you not hear the smirk on Rush Limbaugh’s face when he reassured his listeners that Social Security is not a welfare program, “it is a Ponzi scheme.” (He had no larger point. He knows that his elderly listeners would be offended if told the truth. (What can you do?))
And do you not think that Michael Weiner, Ron Lowenstein, Michael Krasney, Mrs. Jack Swanson, and Don Imus are smirking about what they have done to me?
They control the mass media, the power . . . what can you do?
In the Last Letter I argued that if your definition of fascism included the way fascists make use of the state then your definition would do you no good. For if the fascist must first take control of the state for your definition to be satisfied it will be too late!
My definition was operational: how the fascist acts on the world. I pointed out at the time that the bad faith of the fascist is not determined by the state of mind of the fascist, who cares if Hitler was “sincere”, but rather my point was that the “bad faith” is what we, the observers, attribute to the actor.
Simple minded conservatives find this contingent definition unsatisfying. They want an “objective” definition, and objective difference, between the fascist and the other political actors. They worry that if the only difference is “subjective” then it is less meaningful. My point has always been that this subjective judgment is more significant.
“Our men are our walls” was the Spartan boast. It is just because we say “bad faith”, just because we are here, now, making this judgment, that the “reality” is contingent on us, our act of judgment, which gives it importance. If it were “objective” then what of it? One might conclude: ‘I do not have to speak out against it, everyone will see, after all, it is objective.’ With my definition you do not have this out.
I say no. It all depends on you. I can not do this alone. Because we are contingent, floating in this moment of time, this is why your subjective judgment is so important.
I am set upon from all sides. I will conduct one last act, a protest. This I can do alone. But injustice, this I can not overcome by myself alone. If you do not first make the subjective judgment with me, that this is wrong, then I must die.
That is what was said in the Last Letter. Now what I am saying in Emptiness is this: After fourteen years of silence, of standing alone, I see that there is no one left. There is no one to make this subjective judgment, the attribution of bad faith.
For example Don Imus not only was reading my GAB Robins email on his program but seemed to also be getting reports from Bo Dietl’s “surveillance technicians” as well. This was in 2003. Twelve years after the Last letter. He thought it was a good joke. Twelve years later and he still thought it a good joke.
Senator Hatch, appearing on the Imus show, also thought it a good joke saying, “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners.” I can not do this alone. There is no one left to say, bad faith.
In fact Don Imus yammered on so much that at one point Bo Dietl complained that Don Imus had blown his source by mentioning too much detail. (Then later, after many posts here at this web site about him, one day Imus sighed and said, “I deserve whatever happens to me . . .” But this is not quite right. If Deidre stays with him and he enjoys his mansions until his last dieing breath, he will not “deserve” that. God does not always intervene and punish the wicked, to say the least. (On second thought perhaps he does deserve Deidre. Perhaps there is justice?))
But the evil force which is at play among us, is not something out there, other, it is intermixed in you, in your every breath, in your ‘having it both ways.’ Not bad faith which is what we attribute to those with whom we disapprove, but good faith, this ready belief in ourselves, if not in any one individual act of ours, which we may be willing if forced, by a court of law for example, to admit was mistaken, even willfully wrong, then at least in our good intentions overall, by which we excuse ourselves taking into account our total life picture which we hold of ourselves.
Don Imus actually thinks that there is nothing wrong with what he has done. And Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he has done only confirms Imus in his false belief about himself. And the two support each other. Then radiating outward more are added until you have the entire society, a world of six billion, most living in appalling poverty, fresh water becoming more scarce, clouds of pollution hanging over their heads, . . .
And all of this results from this joke, Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he did to “some of your listeners.” The failure to attribute bad faith. The city’s walls have fallen.
And this basic tendency to excuse, to embrace ourselves can be enhanced. Money for example can be used to create an environment supportive to the ego, and the egomaniacal life. Society too, may endorse this egotistical view of ones life. The real damage done by gender and racial quotas is not the misallocation of resources but is found in the damage done to reason and the reinforcement of the egotist’s view of himself. A whole culture of “diversity” has developed as invidious as it is insidious.
Who is more “diverse” than me, admittedly only a White male? The obnoxious theory encourages the various “schools of resentment”, as described by Dr. Alan Bloom. Simply being a Woman, Black, a Jew, a “farm worker’s daughter,” an immigrant from whatever country, legal or illegal, etc., confirms the egotist in his predilection to justify himself.
Rationalizations are always at hand. First, for example, they conspire with my employers to harasse me, then have me laid off, and drive me into poverty. Then say “See, he is poor. I told you he was no good.”
And some readers may not credit this, thinking ‘no, no one could be that . . .’ And this is the point. Mrs. Jack Swanson is that deluded. She thinks her conduct justified. Don Imus the day after I left GAB Robins, after months of harassment, said on the radio, “what is he going to do commit suicide?”
In fact those very villains who have worked with others to destroy my life have at various time stated on the radio that they do not believe one should simply give up and commit suicide. They want me to continue. “Don’t give up!” they shout, “You have got to keep trying.”
And again the point I am trying to make in Emptiness is that all of this is done in perfect sincerity. Ron Lowenstein, Michael Weiner, Michael Krasney, the Red Comedian, actually believe that “as Jews” they had a duty to harasse and destroy my life because I had “wronged” Yvonne, or because I had challenged there views.
And our liberal society encourages all of them in their hubristic self delusion. But not bad faith! Never them! They really believe that they are good people . . .
Connected with the notion of being “more diverse” is the idea of ones “good intentions.” Intentions are the focus, the justification, for all acts. For their acts will not be evaluated in rational, disinterested discussion, where the consequences are evaluated, but will rather be judged on the basis of who acted, how divers were they, and what was their intention not the consequences of their acts.
In the market economy such a labyrinth of rationalizations, such a personal focus on who is “diverse” or on the “in” and what their “intentions” were is of little consequence.
For in the market these motivations, delusions, are not the subject of the economic transaction. The subjective notions are irrelevant. See that this situation is just the opposite of that which obtains in the political economy where, as I have just argued, just the failure to make these subjective decisions leads to catastrophe. In the market the issue is: Buy this, or that, at this or that price? End of discussion.
In the political economy things are very different. And here again we have gained a nice vantage point to see how the simple minded conservatives are lead astray. How their very way of discussing these questions misdirects them from the reality of the situation into falsity. For the problem is not that the actors in the political economy are “lazy” or “stupid” or “greedy” as is often claimed by the simple minded. Indeed this focus on these personal qualities is exactly what is mistaken.
The solution is not to get more “diverse” actors with better “intentions” but to move as much of the economic activity out of the political sector as possible and into the private economy. If not directly then with vouchers and other substitutes, i.e. mediums of exchange so as to eliminate these psychological rationalizations wherever possible.
For the problem of dishonesty, inflation, in the political economy is insoluble. People are people. Show them one political problem or another and they will refuse to acknowledge it exists, if forced to acknowledge it they will justify it, rationalizations come into play, as has been described, they will argue that your criticism is not “diverse” enough, or that you have some prejudice, that in any case their “intentions” in the program justify this aspect or the other, and so on in an unending stream, which if they are pressed will become increasingly emotional as they inflate the political process until the discussion can be change to something more interesting to their own interests.
And this is why you live on a planet of six billion, in appalling poverty, without drinking water, polluted . . . etc. etc. (Recall that I originally wrote the Senate about the use of technology in education so we could educate the world’s billions. For this I have been set upon, and destroyed.) The world’s poor are not poor due to theft as the Pope and other churchmen and Marxists claim.
They are poor because of this misdirection. Because you misdirect most of your lives doing things like following me for fifteen years harassing and ruining. And then, like Senator Hatch, joking about it in the complete confidence that you are “good.” Because you would rather waste your time on your silly foolish selves, blocking every advance, laser disks, or nuclear power stations, blocking construction even of homes for your fellow citizens, foolish, selfish, . . . but all of which you immediately justify with a discussion of your “intentions” which are more “diverse” than mine and on and on . . . and then get “angry” and so the passion play continues.
Like your simian ancestors you cling to your branches chattering on and on, telling lies. What are your words, these puffs of air across your vocal cords, these sounds you make with your lungs casting air over your larynxes? So many grunts and screams, wild impossible sounds of agitation, assertions to power, some which attract the female of the species to mate with you, so as to secure for her offspring this ability to shout and lie.
And your history, what has it been but the regular harvest of your lies? In one interview one Swift Boat Vet was asked how it was possible that so many citations and reports could have been so inaccurate? The reply was that the Navy operated on trust and people like TE 194.5.4.4/1 took advantage of the Officer’s trust and the Navy’s reliance on the personal honor of Naval officers.
Had I been conducting the interview I should have asked if these controversies did not themselves cast a light on the Vietnam War? Was it not in fact a kind of make believe war, a fraud? How could any reasonable person have run the “Demilitarized Zone” from the ocean to the Laos frontier and with any honesty, with any honor, with one shred of integrity left, say, ‘Yeah, right, that is far enough, no need to go further, this is the sideline here, mark that with a chalk line, good, we will play on this side . . .’?
Of course, now, you can easily see this idea for the insanity that it was. Now you wonder ‘what were those people thinking?’ Now. But then there were all sorts of ideas, whole political-strategic theories, many reports, books, long speeches, thoughtful meditations, ingenious rationalizations by, TE 194.5.4.4/1, and by all the rest, the whole political establishment, the American elite.
And more, much more. Do you not suppose that some military officers knew the mistakes that were being made early on? Knew and did nothing? High ranking, politically connected officers who knew tens of thousands would die in utter futility? Men who retired to Tucson on pensions paid by a grateful nation? Admiral McCain for example? (The Joint Chiefs had a meeting to decide if they should resign in protest over the Vietnam War. (They decided not to resign. (Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert S. McNamara )))
At the other end there was the conscript army, made up of the lower and middle classes. And all of it, the whole American society came tumbling down into South East Asia, with its mass of rationalizations, good ‘intentions’, and unbridled egotism. One young Naval officer brought a movie camera to film his political commercials to which Hollywood special effects would later be added. (I am not making this up!) A mass of confusion, an anarchy of ideas, Emptiness . . .
And it is instructive to note what the Swift Boat Vets do not talk about. They do not spend much time talking about global strategy circa 1960. They do not talk about the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the political question “who lost Vietnam”; the “mission creep” as Washington administered the war. They confine themselves to their little area of the beach, of things about which they have personal knowledge. Is this because they were low ranking officers and enlisted men? No! Because this is how most people are most of the time.
We do not lift up our heads and make a global assessment of the entire human epoch! We do not say, ‘Right, now let’s make an honest appraisal of the entire situation.’ We find ourselves in a situation, we take it for granted most of the time, but in any event what can we do? We find ourselves in the Delta, there are certain rules of engagement, “ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.”
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
06-02-05,08-08-05,08-11-05
Emptiness Part IV
Passion Play: TE 194.5.4.4/1
(http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lip01.html)
For me the perfect symbol of the fascist is not the swastika, but the smirk. The smirk that says ‘I know what I just said is a lie as well as you, but so what? What can you do? I control the mass media and can say whatever I want . . . and you can not do anything about it . . .’
And do you not think that Davis, Springer, and Franken are smirking over what they have said about the Swift Boat Vets, and what they have done to Gardner? Didn’t you notice the smirk on Hannity’s face when he introduced Dr. Hammesfahr as the “Nobel Prize Nominee”, as did Glen Beck and Sussman, (a local weatherman turned hate radio talker), too? Could you not hear the smirk on Rush Limbaugh’s face when he reassured his listeners that Social Security is not a welfare program, “it is a Ponzi scheme.” (He had no larger point. He knows that his elderly listeners would be offended if told the truth. (What can you do?))
And do you not think that Michael Weiner, Ron Lowenstein, Michael Krasney, Mrs. Jack Swanson, and Don Imus are smirking about what they have done to me?
They control the mass media, the power . . . what can you do?
In the Last Letter I argued that if your definition of fascism included the way fascists make use of the state then your definition would do you no good. For if the fascist must first take control of the state for your definition to be satisfied it will be too late!
My definition was operational: how the fascist acts on the world. I pointed out at the time that the bad faith of the fascist is not determined by the state of mind of the fascist, who cares if Hitler was “sincere”, but rather my point was that the “bad faith” is what we, the observers, attribute to the actor.
Simple minded conservatives find this contingent definition unsatisfying. They want an “objective” definition, and objective difference, between the fascist and the other political actors. They worry that if the only difference is “subjective” then it is less meaningful. My point has always been that this subjective judgment is more significant.
“Our men are our walls” was the Spartan boast. It is just because we say “bad faith”, just because we are here, now, making this judgment, that the “reality” is contingent on us, our act of judgment, which gives it importance. If it were “objective” then what of it? One might conclude: ‘I do not have to speak out against it, everyone will see, after all, it is objective.’ With my definition you do not have this out.
I say no. It all depends on you. I can not do this alone. Because we are contingent, floating in this moment of time, this is why your subjective judgment is so important.
I am set upon from all sides. I will conduct one last act, a protest. This I can do alone. But injustice, this I can not overcome by myself alone. If you do not first make the subjective judgment with me, that this is wrong, then I must die.
That is what was said in the Last Letter. Now what I am saying in Emptiness is this: After fourteen years of silence, of standing alone, I see that there is no one left. There is no one to make this subjective judgment, the attribution of bad faith.
For example Don Imus not only was reading my GAB Robins email on his program but seemed to also be getting reports from Bo Dietl’s “surveillance technicians” as well. This was in 2003. Twelve years after the Last letter. He thought it was a good joke. Twelve years later and he still thought it a good joke.
Senator Hatch, appearing on the Imus show, also thought it a good joke saying, “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners.” I can not do this alone. There is no one left to say, bad faith.
In fact Don Imus yammered on so much that at one point Bo Dietl complained that Don Imus had blown his source by mentioning too much detail. (Then later, after many posts here at this web site about him, one day Imus sighed and said, “I deserve whatever happens to me . . .” But this is not quite right. If Deidre stays with him and he enjoys his mansions until his last dieing breath, he will not “deserve” that. God does not always intervene and punish the wicked, to say the least. (On second thought perhaps he does deserve Deidre. Perhaps there is justice?))
But the evil force which is at play among us, is not something out there, other, it is intermixed in you, in your every breath, in your ‘having it both ways.’ Not bad faith which is what we attribute to those with whom we disapprove, but good faith, this ready belief in ourselves, if not in any one individual act of ours, which we may be willing if forced, by a court of law for example, to admit was mistaken, even willfully wrong, then at least in our good intentions overall, by which we excuse ourselves taking into account our total life picture which we hold of ourselves.
Don Imus actually thinks that there is nothing wrong with what he has done. And Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he has done only confirms Imus in his false belief about himself. And the two support each other. Then radiating outward more are added until you have the entire society, a world of six billion, most living in appalling poverty, fresh water becoming more scarce, clouds of pollution hanging over their heads, . . .
And all of this results from this joke, Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he did to “some of your listeners.” The failure to attribute bad faith. The city’s walls have fallen.
And this basic tendency to excuse, to embrace ourselves can be enhanced. Money for example can be used to create an environment supportive to the ego, and the egomaniacal life. Society too, may endorse this egotistical view of ones life. The real damage done by gender and racial quotas is not the misallocation of resources but is found in the damage done to reason and the reinforcement of the egotist’s view of himself. A whole culture of “diversity” has developed as invidious as it is insidious.
Who is more “diverse” than me, admittedly only a White male? The obnoxious theory encourages the various “schools of resentment”, as described by Dr. Alan Bloom. Simply being a Woman, Black, a Jew, a “farm worker’s daughter,” an immigrant from whatever country, legal or illegal, etc., confirms the egotist in his predilection to justify himself.
Rationalizations are always at hand. First, for example, they conspire with my employers to harasse me, then have me laid off, and drive me into poverty. Then say “See, he is poor. I told you he was no good.”
And some readers may not credit this, thinking ‘no, no one could be that . . .’ And this is the point. Mrs. Jack Swanson is that deluded. She thinks her conduct justified. Don Imus the day after I left GAB Robins, after months of harassment, said on the radio, “what is he going to do commit suicide?”
In fact those very villains who have worked with others to destroy my life have at various time stated on the radio that they do not believe one should simply give up and commit suicide. They want me to continue. “Don’t give up!” they shout, “You have got to keep trying.”
And again the point I am trying to make in Emptiness is that all of this is done in perfect sincerity. Ron Lowenstein, Michael Weiner, Michael Krasney, the Red Comedian, actually believe that “as Jews” they had a duty to harasse and destroy my life because I had “wronged” Yvonne, or because I had challenged there views.
And our liberal society encourages all of them in their hubristic self delusion. But not bad faith! Never them! They really believe that they are good people . . .
Connected with the notion of being “more diverse” is the idea of ones “good intentions.” Intentions are the focus, the justification, for all acts. For their acts will not be evaluated in rational, disinterested discussion, where the consequences are evaluated, but will rather be judged on the basis of who acted, how divers were they, and what was their intention not the consequences of their acts.
In the market economy such a labyrinth of rationalizations, such a personal focus on who is “diverse” or on the “in” and what their “intentions” were is of little consequence.
For in the market these motivations, delusions, are not the subject of the economic transaction. The subjective notions are irrelevant. See that this situation is just the opposite of that which obtains in the political economy where, as I have just argued, just the failure to make these subjective decisions leads to catastrophe. In the market the issue is: Buy this, or that, at this or that price? End of discussion.
In the political economy things are very different. And here again we have gained a nice vantage point to see how the simple minded conservatives are lead astray. How their very way of discussing these questions misdirects them from the reality of the situation into falsity. For the problem is not that the actors in the political economy are “lazy” or “stupid” or “greedy” as is often claimed by the simple minded. Indeed this focus on these personal qualities is exactly what is mistaken.
The solution is not to get more “diverse” actors with better “intentions” but to move as much of the economic activity out of the political sector as possible and into the private economy. If not directly then with vouchers and other substitutes, i.e. mediums of exchange so as to eliminate these psychological rationalizations wherever possible.
For the problem of dishonesty, inflation, in the political economy is insoluble. People are people. Show them one political problem or another and they will refuse to acknowledge it exists, if forced to acknowledge it they will justify it, rationalizations come into play, as has been described, they will argue that your criticism is not “diverse” enough, or that you have some prejudice, that in any case their “intentions” in the program justify this aspect or the other, and so on in an unending stream, which if they are pressed will become increasingly emotional as they inflate the political process until the discussion can be change to something more interesting to their own interests.
And this is why you live on a planet of six billion, in appalling poverty, without drinking water, polluted . . . etc. etc. (Recall that I originally wrote the Senate about the use of technology in education so we could educate the world’s billions. For this I have been set upon, and destroyed.) The world’s poor are not poor due to theft as the Pope and other churchmen and Marxists claim.
They are poor because of this misdirection. Because you misdirect most of your lives doing things like following me for fifteen years harassing and ruining. And then, like Senator Hatch, joking about it in the complete confidence that you are “good.” Because you would rather waste your time on your silly foolish selves, blocking every advance, laser disks, or nuclear power stations, blocking construction even of homes for your fellow citizens, foolish, selfish, . . . but all of which you immediately justify with a discussion of your “intentions” which are more “diverse” than mine and on and on . . . and then get “angry” and so the passion play continues.
Like your simian ancestors you cling to your branches chattering on and on, telling lies. What are your words, these puffs of air across your vocal cords, these sounds you make with your lungs casting air over your larynxes? So many grunts and screams, wild impossible sounds of agitation, assertions to power, some which attract the female of the species to mate with you, so as to secure for her offspring this ability to shout and lie.
And your history, what has it been but the regular harvest of your lies? In one interview one Swift Boat Vet was asked how it was possible that so many citations and reports could have been so inaccurate? The reply was that the Navy operated on trust and people like TE 194.5.4.4/1 took advantage of the Officer’s trust and the Navy’s reliance on the personal honor of Naval officers.
Had I been conducting the interview I should have asked if these controversies did not themselves cast a light on the Vietnam War? Was it not in fact a kind of make believe war, a fraud? How could any reasonable person have run the “Demilitarized Zone” from the ocean to the Laos frontier and with any honesty, with any honor, with one shred of integrity left, say, ‘Yeah, right, that is far enough, no need to go further, this is the sideline here, mark that with a chalk line, good, we will play on this side . . .’?
Of course, now, you can easily see this idea for the insanity that it was. Now you wonder ‘what were those people thinking?’ Now. But then there were all sorts of ideas, whole political-strategic theories, many reports, books, long speeches, thoughtful meditations, ingenious rationalizations by, TE 194.5.4.4/1, and by all the rest, the whole political establishment, the American elite.
And more, much more. Do you not suppose that some military officers knew the mistakes that were being made early on? Knew and did nothing? High ranking, politically connected officers who knew tens of thousands would die in utter futility? Men who retired to Tucson on pensions paid by a grateful nation? Admiral McCain for example? (The Joint Chiefs had a meeting to decide if they should resign in protest over the Vietnam War. (They decided not to resign. (Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert S. McNamara )))
At the other end there was the conscript army, made up of the lower and middle classes. And all of it, the whole American society came tumbling down into South East Asia, with its mass of rationalizations, good ‘intentions’, and unbridled egotism. One young Naval officer brought a movie camera to film his political commercials to which Hollywood special effects would later be added. (I am not making this up!) A mass of confusion, an anarchy of ideas, Emptiness . . .
And it is instructive to note what the Swift Boat Vets do not talk about. They do not spend much time talking about global strategy circa 1960. They do not talk about the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the political question “who lost Vietnam”; the “mission creep” as Washington administered the war. They confine themselves to their little area of the beach, of things about which they have personal knowledge. Is this because they were low ranking officers and enlisted men? No! Because this is how most people are most of the time.
We do not lift up our heads and make a global assessment of the entire human epoch! We do not say, ‘Right, now let’s make an honest appraisal of the entire situation.’ We find ourselves in a situation, we take it for granted most of the time, but in any event what can we do? We find ourselves in the Delta, there are certain rules of engagement, “ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.”
www.NewRuskinCollege.com
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