Nice post, William. Dissident and conservative aren't really synonymous terms; indeed, little of the mainstream conservative movement I would consider to be dissidents. A dissident is a person fundamentally opposed to the globohomo world order on religious, metaphysical or other grounds. A conservative, at least in the way the term is commonly used, is someone against an *aspect* of the globohomo world order but not the system in its entirety -- i.e. you'll have conservatives against abortion, or pro-gun, or against trannies or boycotting Bud Light or whatever, but they basically accept the egalitarianism ratchet effect and Whig history powering the system's forward momentum. This is why conservatives usually lose.
When I think of conservatives my mind goes back to this wonderful and prophetic quote by Robert Lewis Dabny (chief of staff to Stonewall Jackson) in 1897:
"It may be inferred again that the present movement for women's rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. . . . Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its bark is worse than its bite, and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it in wind, and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women's suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position."
LOL. That quote pretty much sums it up. I guess that is why I have been wanting to write this series, to get at why conservatives seem so helpless to do anything about progressives excising conservatives from public and private institutions and the body politic, trying to make America a one-party State.
Thoughtful essay, Hunter! I agree that everything government touches, it breaks. That's because it's an unnatural, unnecessary, and evil system to begin with. Seeking power over others and then justifying the use of force and deception to achieve such as status is evil.
Truly, I believe that we were created to be free men and women, and to inherently follow Natural Law. Somehow, that got corrupted. And you know what I think about that.
In fact, it is these demon-channeling, secret-society psychopathic tyrants who invent false dichotomies with special categorizing labels like "Conservative" and "Liberal." They're word-spells, cast upon already-weakened folks who gave over their true power — their spirit — to the wayward wizards in the first place. I mean, we've all done it. Now some of us are just reclaiming our spiritual nature and experiencing the scales falling from our eyes.
This is why we continue to see a broadening chasm amongst humanity: Some people are clinging to the false reality, to their spell-cast beliefs, out of fear of the unknown. But until one questions reality/beliefs, embraces uncertainty, and lives unafraid of the posturing tyrants, one will continue to be mesmerized and enslaved by them.
A lot of that spell is likely to break when our elite destroy the dollar. That will feel like being cast into an abyss for a lot of people, many of whom will embrace a CBDC but a lot of people are going to suddenly look at our elite very differently. That could get interesting.
I think conservative is still worth exploring as a means to understand the self, but we are of course so much more than such a label.
"...labels like 'Conservative' and 'Liberal.' They're word-spells..." True and very well said. The left learned to use labels to sell their lies in exactly the same way that corporations use labels to sell products. And yes they " invent false dichotomies" to create divisions that they can then exploit for political gain.
So here is what I keep saying that no one ever seems to believe: The leftists have been able to use the word-spells, and labels, and to create false dichotomies ONLY BECAUSE THEY CONTROL THE MASS MEDIA. It is the left's control of the MSM that enabled them to achieve victory after victory in their March Through the Institutions.
What would it take for us to learn how the left did this and turn the tables on them, use their mass-media tactics and power against them? Because right now no rightist writers seem to really understand how the leftists do mass media. How might the independent right media here on Substack coordinate their efforts to create a mass media to counter the left's mass media? Because if that doesn't happen, the left are going to keep winning until we have nothing left to lose.
The Vigilant Fox Substack has done some good work in that regard. Many here are acting as an alternative news media. But yes, the corporate media backstopped by the left is absolutely a black magic spell making complex, and Fox News is not some white hat savior and not anything like a sufficient alternative to break that spell.
Such media is good for seeing how people are being manipulated, which is something like my job, but yeah, it is all a manipulation. But I have to say, even the talent on Fox News has been near speechless at times, at the naked depravity the likes of MSNBC has descended to.
Rightful Freedom, I agree with the sentiment of your ideas. I disagree with creating
new dichotomies based on the old ones. This is, in my perspective, another trick of the spell-casters, to keep us battling over no-thingies, when we need to have true debate over how we will come together if/when SHTF.
"...creating new dichotomies based on the old ones..."
Respectfully, that isn't what I mean. The leftists use the mass media like a gun, and lies as their bullets. We need a gun, so we can use truth as our bullets. By understanding how the leftist mass media works, we can create our own mass media.
But no rightists seem interested in taking the time and making the effort to understand how the leftist mass media came to exist, how it works, and how they use it. It's not simple or obvious.
Thank you for clarifying your point. Learning *how* the wayward wizards machinate their systems for maximum consciousness manipulation is crucial for full awareness and high-level discernment.
Hello, William. Very interesting chart by NeoF. I did something a little bit similar in a video before I was on Substack. I plotted some people whose work I'd reviewed on a continuum of theists to atheists. Then I did another sort by their belief in their own superiority. What I concluded was that people who believe (or not) in their own superiority tend to cluster in terms of their worldviews more than those who believe (or not) in religion. In other words, superiority was a greater predictor of commonality than ideas about God. And predictably, I had the most disagreement with those.
I wonder how NeoF's chart would shake out in that dimension? For instance, Robert Malone and 'John Carter' may be divided on philosophical vs. political approaches but they share a very strong belief in their superiority. In my episode on 'Black Pill Hatfill & Malone', he chortles about needing bulldozers to bury the bodies. Their 'optimistic' future is 5G warfare where you can't trust anyone but him.
I didn't do a thorough scan but does NeoF include any women? I think your charts on how the left sees the right and the right sees the left both describe viewpoints of superiority. But you know me, I think all these categories are designed to divide and conquer us.
I got a friendly response from Rolo Slavsky on my last episode on him: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-hatest-story-ever-told. In my reply to his comment, I said that "My objection to name-calling (on either side) isn't from being thin-skinned but because it 'goes soft' on challenging the ideas. It diverts the argument into who's more clever, not who's right. It also limits the 'parameters of the possible,' as you put it, on metaphysical reality."
Superiority is an argument to the authority of the person, not the validity of the idea. Someone, I feel, should be representing the idea that we're metaphysically, spiritually and politically equal, and what would be possible, if so, rather than just being optimistic about the superior people winning.
Much of the left in America is trapped in a sense of superiority, despite descending into juvenile name-calling in response to any argument they disagree with. Believing you are at the leading edge of evolution and the arc of justice is one thing, acting like it makes you better than everyone who has ever lived is another. It is not like everybody on the right is better than that, it's just that some sort of un-reality has take over the collective mind of those who lean socialist. I'm not much for name-calling either, but I also am not going to soften my perspective about that even if many on the left would be "triggered" by it, and would call practically everything I say "hate speech."
I don't know if there is any actual argument to be made for our metaphysical, spiritual and political equality, but I know even if one is superior, acting like you are is the stuff of narcissism and socio-pathy. I like to hang out at my local VFW, where I don't really fit in "intellectually" but I don't walk around like I'm better than anybody, more with an easy smile and a friendly demeanor. Be good and kind to people, basically.
Hi, William. I think your article does a good job of showing how each side feels they're superior to the other, which they stereotype. We're all being manipulated. The liberals I know, and I'm surrounded by them, are manipulated through their compassion for other people. You and I know the actual policies are bogus and there are good reasons to be against them. But they're being told that the right isn't onboard because they lack compassion and only care about themselves. It's all a lie to keep us fighting.
The test of hierarchical individualist vs. egalitarian communist is another trick. You and I both identify as anarchists, which is literally the opposite of hier-archy, without archons. Yet our only other choice is egalitarian communist, which we adamantly are not. It forces us into a false choice between superiority, which is hierarchy, or an infantilizing centralized welfare state. There's no option of self-reliant communities or reciprocal systems.
You should NEVER compromise your perspective. You should believe your ideas are better than everyone else's because otherwise, you would change them. Ideas are superior, people are not. I never get the sense from you that you think you're better than anyone else. I'd happily buy you a drink at that VFW ;-)
John! Nice to hear from you and thanks for bringing my article to Rolo's attention and for your kind compliment on it.
Would you disagree that you think some people are better than others and you're in that category? I remember that being the crux of my disagreement with Harrison on ponerology. If some are born evil or psychopaths, then we have to believe in an evil God. It limits 'the parameters of the possible' as Rolo says.
I would say that superiority is a viewpoint you own and represent with full commitment. You are unabashed in your belief that men, in general, are better thinkers than women. Maybe morally better as a whole? I don't know that for sure. But I think it's far too late to back down from being the voice of superiority. It suits you and you're good at it.
I was surprised to find you in the Malone camp, though. William posted a link to your 5G article, which I read along with zinnia's. I have a draft of a response to both but I haven't figured out a way to connect them. You are, as always, an original thinker and a witty worthy adversary, my superior friend.
Oh and sorry for the quotes, that was petty. I haven't figured out what to do with brand names that seem like names, like 'Margaret Anna Alice' or especially 'Sage Hana' where the gender's changed. Do I treat them like names or like 'Rurik Skywalker'? Dunno.
I think people are generally smart enough to figure out when someone is pseudonymous, especially these days when that's a considerable fraction of the Internet. So quotation marks aren't necessary.
As to superiority, this is a tricky question. I certainly don't believe in equality in any sense; that idea has done too much damage, and is too contradicted by evidence, to be very useful. Yet it doesn't follow that global superiority is a straightforward thing. In my case, I'm probably smarter than most people, and physically stronger than most guys. On the other hand I know plenty of people who are much more intelligent than I am, particularly at specific tasks; lots of guys who are in better shape; guys who are better looking or more charismatic. And there's no necessary correlation: someone might be better at math than I am, but not as good with words; they might run faster, but not be able to lift as much.
So while I don't hold to equality, one must balance this with humility lest it become narcissism or hubris. It's also much more important, in my view, to compare oneself to an ideal rather than other people: the former encourages effort, the latter complacency.
As to connecting psychic warfare and zoomer girl derangement, this isn't something that occurred to me to do - aside from both relating to the psychoemotional effects of online environments, the subject-matter is somewhat distinct.
(BTW, on the male/female issue. Greater male variability unambiguously demonstrates that males outnumber females at both ends of the IQ distribution; but there's also evidence that the mean female IQ is a bit higher. So who's smarter? It's complicated. The moral dimension is also nuanced: male and female instincts are different, neither is globally better than the other, although bad results can certainly obtain when one is applied in its improper domain).
Thanks for the reply, John. My statement was "metaphysically, spiritually and politically equal," not IQ tests or physical strength or skills. Are you a better, more moral person than someone else no matter what circumstances you had been born into? The position I represent is that I'm no better than anyone else, fundamentally as a person. Would you agree with that for you?
I look at the objective of 5G Warfare as being 5D: depopulation, dispossession, destruction, depression and disconnection. Depopulation is being done by raising the death rate and lowering the birth rate. 'Zoomer Girl Derangement', from zinnia's view, is certainly related to the latter.
From her perspective, the problem for women is not being pretty enough. It's not that they aren't trying--despite diet, exercise, make-up and nice clothes, some girls are just ugly, she states. And it isn't self-esteem because it's 'entirely unhelpful' that the world tells you you're beautiful just as you are. You're really not. Because if you were, you could get what you want. What she needed to hear was, "that it was okay for me to aspire to things beyond a high-powered career; that it was okay for me to want to fall in love and for me to want to be a mother."
My guess is that zinnia's dream isn't dropping her infant off at daycare and then rushing to her high-powered, soul-sucking job. It's being able to actually be a mother and raise her own kids, something generations before us took for granted. And it's finding a man who wants to support her financially so she can stay home and raise their kids.
Is that what you want, John? Are you looking for the right woman, who's pretty enough, so you can support her to raise your kids? For men who want that, there are many attractive women to choose from. So I'm not sure why you wouldn't have found that yet, if it was what you wanted.
Telling women that the problem is them not being pretty enough if men don't want what they do, no matter how pretty they are, seems cruel. It blames their 'derangement' on themselves, like Malone's pet theory blames people for their own 'mass psychosis.'
I'm not saying this is the fault of men either. I write a lot about how the mortgage was raised to a two-income level so men would need to double their incomes in order for women to have the same choice their mothers did. I believe it should have gone the other way with the labor of men also serving the family and community rather than women serving the market, aka making the rich richer. That's what my economic system enables.
So I wanted to get your thoughts on that before I wrote the article. Thanks, John.
I'm certainly not going to speak for zinnia; I'd suggest you ask her directly.
As to spiritual equality, no, I definitely don't believe in that. There's a spiritual hierarchy, one which implies different levels of ability and responsibility. There are some humans who are lower than animals; others are highly advanced. This has absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances of one's birth, aside from the role played by genetics and upbringing, which affect potential. It also isn't fixed: some rise, others fall, depending on their behavior. All that said, separating biological, metaphysical, spiritual, and political notions of quality is a gross error. They're all mutually interrelated. The concept that people can be "spiritually" or "politically" equal despite being grossly unequal in every other way is how we arrived at the present morass of affirmative action, DIE policies, anti-white ressentiment, feminism, mass immigration, and all the rest of it. It's destroying our civilization, and the sooner this boomer piety is torn down the better off everyone will be.
My question was for you, John. Are you looking for a woman that you can support while she stays home to raise your children? If you're not, you're blaming 'zoomer girl derangement' on women, although what they want is something men like you don't want at all. Their inability to be happy is because the choice of being a mother and raising kids has been taken from them. The high-powered career is the only goal they can control. And being pretty will only get them more hook-ups with guys who want the sex but not the responsibility. Again, this isn't the fault of the guys. Instead of blaming either gender we should be looking at the system.
If I'm a parent who's both evil and good, would you want me as a parent? Someone who's only evil some of the time is a psychopath, in my book. It would be better to have no God at all and more hopeful to be an atheist than believe there's supernatural evil working against us.
In the magical tradition it is said the Astral realm, which is the creative energy flowing through all things becoming creation continually, contains all that is good and evil, so everything depends on what you imagine, dream about, focus on, what you intend and will into being. We are all capable of enormous evil, most of us prefer to focus on what is good most of the time.
Hi Tereza, certainty-of-thought would make for an interesting chart, I think. Some writers are clearly much more certain of their position than others, as you point out. However, certainty among dissidents is, I believe, far less than any other group so far because (1) it is so far outside the mainstream, (2) everyone is bathed in globohomo egalitarian technocracy, there is no escape from it, and (3) there isn't a clear direction for dissidents on a path to oppose globohomo effectively. So I think these factors encourage a certain playing around with ideas, a certain exploration and creativity of though, that doesn't exist elsewhere (which is part of what makes the dissident right space so interesting so far).
I don't think any women were included on the chart; this wasn't a conscious decision, and apologies if I didn't include you or others. I was merely trying to demonstrate the idea, not aim for comprehensiveness. Generally speaking I think men are at the forefront of any non-mainstream movement and women come in to fill in the gaps later (take, for example, cryptocurrency; it was literally only men interested in it for many years). There's also a *lot* more drama surrounding women, and they tend *generally* to try to make discussions and arguments about themselves (look at a Laura Loomer, for example) instead of about the ideas themselves. They're also much more likely to flip if social pressure is applied to them. Again, these are just generalities based on tail ends of bell curves; there are always exceptions to the generalization...
Thanks for the reply, NF. Here's what I wonder, is 'dissident right' a contradiction in terms? Can someone be described as a dissident if they're still falling into a category of mainstream thought like 'right' or 'left'? If someone is a dissident liberal, wouldn't that make them someone who disagrees with the mainstream liberal view? Or a dissident woman as someone who breaks that stereotype of interest in self rather than ideas? Like someone who wades into a group of men she knows will disagree with her but doesn't succumb to the social pressure ;-)
I wasn't feeling that I should have been included in this group. I'm certainly dissident but wouldn't describe myself as right or left, conservative or liberal. Mostly too 'out there' for either. But I definitely have zero interest in myself and could talk about ideas all day.
I'd differentiate between believing in the superiority of your ideas, which we should all do, and believing that you are better as a person. If I didn't believe my ideas were better, I wouldn't think them.
I think men are on the forefront of cryptocurrency because men are gamblers, something that's been proven across cultures and throughout anthropology. Cryto is a gambling chip with no inherent value other than what someone else will pay for it, like the stock market.
If you were looking for dissident women interested in ideas and NOT themselves, you couldn't do better than Conspiracy Sarah, Heather B., kitten seeking answers, Pasheen Stonebrooke of Diva Drops, Visceral Adventures, and Kathleen Devanney, just off the top of my head. I don't know who Laura Loomer is and wouldn't waste my time finding out.
Hi Tereza, it depends on one's definition of terms... I am using the term "dissident", as I explained to William in my initial response, as someone who opposes the egalitarian ratchet effect and its sense of Whig history which powers the forward momentum of globohomo. I don't know in what context you are using the term "right" versus "left", but to me those are rules of thumb for inegalitarianism/hierachy versus egalitarianism/societal flattening. Based on this definition I see "leftist dissident" as an oxymoron, as someone who inherently believes in the egalitarian ratchet effect cannot to one's core oppose this system. This is why, for example, the Occupy Wall Street types and the Bernie types *completely folded* when demanded by globohomo instead of forging an alliance with the non-establishment right. This was always preordained based upon their internal weighing of values, in my opinion.
Does your worldview have no room in it for hierarchies within those areas?
Maybe you’re having an emotional reaction to intellectual thoughts where the individuals as positing viewpoints that, as part of their priors, have hierarchies. I try to be the humble peasant that I am, but I’m dang proud of my philosophical and theological viewpoints.
The dichotomy is that I can humbly speak with others in a reasonable manner about ideas, assess them, and dialogue. But if you ask me what my own thoughts are on things, or look at my writing, you’re very quickly going to see some hard positions, spoken bluntly, and have to convince me you’re more well thought out than not just myself, but Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the others you run into are the same, just different topics or different authorities they rely upon.
Thanks for giving me a great illustration of my point, Uncouth. Rather than responding to my position that "Someone should be representing the idea that we're metaphysically, spiritually and politically equal," you attacked me as a person by saying, "Maybe you’re having an emotional reaction to intellectual thoughts..." So instead of talking about the hierarchies of ideas as better, we're talking about people as more or less capable of rational thought. Ideas are better, people are not, imo.
Does your worldview have no room in it for the possibility that we're all created equal? And if we start out equal, what makes one person better than another later? If I was born into your exact circumstances, what could cause me to make better or worse decisions than you? The idea of free will is the belief that we have made ourselves, the most important part of ourselves, our morality. It says that we are God and have created our self. I think that's an arrogant position, to think we're God and have made ourselves. If God made us, God made us exactly who we are. If God didn't make us, then nature and nurture made us exactly who we are.
If your arguments are based on a belief in someone else's authority and superiority to think for you, it would be foolish to try to change your mind with facts and logic. But don't claim that an appeal to authority is an intellectual argument and not an emotional reaction. Aristotle would recognize it as a rhetorical fallacy.
I thought UBs response was respectful. I would also say, God made us as we are, but some of us make better choices than others, a lifetime of good or bad choices changes the body and we don't put people in positions of responsibility for making bad choices over a lifetime (well, maybe we do now.) Even in an anarchist arrangement someone has to lead.
As a man, William, you're likely not subjected to the accusation that your arguments are emotional and not rational, and thereby dismissed. I'm sure you know the word 'hysterical' has the same root as 'hysterectomy' because this has been used for centuries if not millennia to label women and silence them. If you expressed a philosophical position and I asked you whether you're having an emotional reaction because intellectual thought intimidates you, wouldn't you take that as an unfair way to undermine your argument? How do you argue back? You're now arguing that you are not an emotional person and that you really are capable of intellectual discussions. You're defending your own personality for no reason whatsoever because you've said nothing emotional. At the same time, it's the use of insults and name-calling instead of arguments that I'm critiquing by men (something you never do.) That is an emotional response.
On the philosophical, I'm certainly not arguing that people who make bad choices should be put in a position of responsibility. Under my anarchist economic system, it's the ideas that rule, not the people, and they compete by measurable criteria for increasing the number of local exchanges of goods and services. So it doesn't really matter who leads because it can't be corrupted by any means I can think of, and I think about that a lot.
Harrison Koehli's recent post is about how incompetent leadership often and typically becomes malicious. That seems about right, based on the state of institutions public and private in the West. So the system, whatever it may be, will generally be corrupted by incompetent leadership, or competent but malicious/selfish leadership. So it really does matter who leads, always in my experience.
As for emotion and argument, I endeavor not to get emotional about any argument, though that is a challenge when the person is attacking me while I attack systems/institutions, particularly if I care about them. Calling people names as argument avoidance is generally the stuff of people who think their emotions are more important than any logic or reason. It is also the stuff of contempt/dismissal by some men toward women. That said, while it is not absolute, women do tend to value emotion far more than men do, while men tend to value reason and logic above emotion more than women do.
In a well designed system, it shouldn't matter who's in charge. If it depends on a person, then your system is archist not anarchist.
You know my system pretty well. It 'pays forward' the collective mortgage debt as local carets. The three forms of corruption it's vulnerable to are concentration, extraction and indebtedness.
So the overarching rules need to guard against this. Most importantly, the maximum amount can't exceed the debt formula and has to be distributed equally to all commonwealth members.
Let's say your commonwealth has a 'communist' in charge who hands it out as UBI and says, "Spend any way you want." You won't be much better off than now but you won't be worse. And if you, William, say "This is bullshit. I have a plan to keep this money circulating and providing food and services," you can run your plan against theirs in the algorithm and, if it beats it, secede with everyone else who wants a better plan.
So a good leader can do good but an incompetent leader can't keep the money for himself. The commonwealth can start over with a new system anytime they want, with no damage done.
But if you see other ways it can be corrupted, let me know. This is the time to be thinking that through.
An honest question is an honest question, not an attack. So many have passions and convictions tied up with equality that they view hierarchal worldviews as anathema and respond poorly to them. I was trying to discern whether your responses to those worldviews was to your commitments to prior metaphysical claims or not.
Now, as to your question.
We are all, in a sense, created equal in God's eyes. However, due to our choices of what we do with the free will He gives us, we are not continually loved equally upon this earth nor will we be in Heaven. We have a free will to become as beasts, or adopted sons of God, and heirs of Heaven; though not equally so. There is a hierarchy in Heaven, and those that have grown in virtue and grace are more loved by God. We are called to fill the empty hierarchy to replace those areas of the fallen angels when they betrayed God and went to war with him. This is basic Catholic doctrine and, honestly, if you're surprised by it or haven't heard of it before than I'm sad that any Catholics in your life haven't made it more clear to you.
As far as appeals to Authority. Those are not emotionally done, but done with facts and logic. The mere fact that you think that an appeal to authority is one only of an emotional reaction shows that you don't understand authority and hierarchy in the first place - that they exist because we recognize it as Truth. We can't all have time or ability to examine the Truth to the extent they do, but we can read their arguments, and others, and see how they compare. That's a logical thing. Trust me, I've been swayed, and so have others.
But everyone appeals to authority. All Protestants do in saying Sola Scriptura is a mere appeal to authority; the authority of Scripture. They necessarily believe the authorities behind that scripture, even though unexamined, which were the Catholic Church putting it together, the authors, and God the Holy Spirit inspiring the whole thing. So yes, any Christian, OF NECESSITY, must recognize appeals to authority. I would argue that pagans do as well with their own religions, when "God says 'X' therefore we do 'Y'" is an appeal to authority.
Humans do it all the time. It is logical and true of the human condition.
So, again.
Is there any room in yours for a hierarchy? You didn't answer my question, and I graciously answered all yours.
I did not know that about Catholics. Just curious, who originated the idea that some Catholics might replace fallen angels in the hierarchy of Heaven?
I know as a sometimes self-described anarchist, I have had some problems with hierarchy that was not heavenly. I think that is where a lot of people want to argue against the inherent nature of hierarchy, because so much of what passes for hierarchy in this culture is pathological. But of course if you want anything to work, if you want to build anything, someone has to lead.
Even in the longhouse there seems to me, a hierarchy.
It would honestly take me some time to dig up which of the Church Fathers first put forward the idea. It's been Church Doctrine since the early 200's or 300's if I recall correctly though.
But it's what puts the beggar on par with the Pope. The Pope may be damned to hell if he governed poorly, for all that he's on top of the Church Hierarchy here on Earth. The beggar, should he act according to God's will, grow in virtue and grace, may ascend and be placed over many in Heaven. Catholics will point to the Scripture of Christ saying the First shall be Last and the Last shall be First to put this in context. As well, Paul (when talking about his meditations and raptures) speaks of multiple hierarchies in Heaven.
So there's a lot of scriptural basis for the hierarchy of Heaven. But it's beautiful in how it lends us to treat each other as eternal beings and potential heirs of Heaven. To help each other ascend to God, running the race as Paul says, not in a competitive, zero sum way, but in a "Let me give give you a hand, and see if we can beat the best time together!" type of way.
And again, I don't recall the angelic part. Possibly Augustine?
I assumed Augustine, when you mentioned the timeline.
John Michael Greer talks about that sometimes too, how some of the most impressive "magicians" he has ever met were just regular people living a quiet life. I have found more timeless wisdom among the "lowly" working class than among professionals, generally. I've long assumed those who seek after power over others here on earth find considerably less success in the afterlife.
That was a good laugh, Uncouth. I attended 16 yrs of Catholic school including college, which I entered as a religion major. One of my earliest memories is arguing with the priest who taught religion about free will vs. predestination. It took me decades of thinking about it to realize they were both true.
To accept the concept of hierarchy is to be fine with any place you are in it. Are you okay with lacking a human soul and being just a beast, as the Catholic Church taught about indigenous peoples? Are you fine if someone makes you their slave because the Old Testament said you were cursed by God as the descendants of Ham? Can you be driven from your home and annihilated, starved, because God gave the land of Canaan to someone else?
You believe in hierarchy because the Catholic hierarchy tells you that you're at the top. The easiest 'Truth' for people to follow is the teaching that God likes them best because they're superior to others. If I had 'room' for that belief, I would be unethical.
The first rule of ethics is that they state 'what' without stating 'who.' The second rule is that any proper nouns can be reversed and the statement will still be true. So if you're okay with hierarchy in principle, you won't have a problem with the 'woke' being put over you for jobs, houses, morality. Are you fine with this or only a hierarchy that favors you?
The Catholic Church has never taught that indigenous peoples don't have souls. If you were taught that, you were mistaught, pure and simple. You can read the Fathers of the Church on this, or doctrines and dogmas going back to the 100 and 200's, which continuously state the same thing through Columbus and the American Indians, the North American Martyrs, St Kitari (sp), etc.
The people of Canaan were driven from their land on order of God for their misdeeds and sins. God clearly states to Abraham that they haven't sinned enough for them to bring the judgment upon themselves yet, and sends him to Egypt where his descendants have to go through their own slavery and trials for hundreds of years before giving the land back to them. So don't exactly say that God isn't Just; He waited until they lost the right to it in His eyes.
Slavery is a complicated question. Aristotle calls everyone that works for wages a slave. How is someone making minimum wage, with no benefits, different than a slave in the time of the Romans? The slave in Roman times would have their food given to them for them, their family, a roof over their head, a small amount of money for spending or saving to buy their freedom. Which is better? This is the slavery that St Paul says is ok, and that the Church doesn't condemn, not the chattel slavery popular in American minds and that is practiced in most Muslim countries today, rising at this moment. It's what was in Scripture, of selling oneself into slavery for seven years, afterwhich debts were forgiven.
The woke have their own hierarchy as well, if you haven't noticed it. I'm at the bottom of it. I'm at the bottom of the Church's hierarchy as well. I don't understand your insistence to claim I'm at the top of any hierarchy. I said, at the beginning, I am simply a peasant. A laity. The Church's hierarchy tells me so, and I am completely ok with this. I kneel before my Priest, my Bishop, the Pope. If we had a King I would kneel before him, a Duke, etc. This is normal and natural.
The woke hierarchy bows and grovels before deformities in the human condition. I bow and kneel before perfections and things that lead one to God.
And that, right there, is the difference. The wonderful, beautiful, humbling difference. That an indigenous girl, St Kitari is above me in Heaven and someone that can intercede for me, a priest, a Bishop, for a president, a King, for a Pope. That a beggar can perform miracles.
The definition has changed over the past few decades. The Republican Party used to be the party of Bob Hope and Thurston Howell III. Today, the Ivy League cranks out wokies. The Republican Party has become the party of people who listen to talk radio: farmers, truck drivers, carpenters, etc. The divide is mostly rural vs. urban.
Someone who uses mass quantities of diesel fuel to do his job is going to set a much higher standard of evidence for global warming. For someone who lives in an apartment building and takes public transport, believing in global warming is a warm snuggly self-hug.
I have to laugh at the Bill Kristols of the former Republican Party who have been retreating into supporting Democrats because they have become the party of neoliberals and neocons.
I have been appreciating your posts trying to connect ecology and conservatism.
I've asked myself this same question often over the past few years. I'm not sure the terms liberal and conservative have any meaning outside propaganda uses.
I think they do have value to understand the self, but yes, it takes some discernment to work through the propaganda. I take them to be something of the conflict between saving and protecting what works, is meaningingful and important, with the need for change.
While the Right is working out heuristics for distinguishing between “conservative” and “liberal,” the Left is still stuck on pre-school distinctions, like the difference between “man” and “woman.”
I have found it fascinating that the left is so good at defining conservatives like children imagine monsters, while the right has such a very hard time defining itself. Meanwhile the left is busy taking hammers to every definition for anything they don't like.
Am I liberal or conservative? I do not know. At age 18 when I could first vote, I was a Republican like my parents and neighbors. What did I know? What mattered was graduating high school, finding a college, and boys. Years later, after divorce, a college degree, and the start of a career, I began to change my mind. And came to dislike Republicans. Eventually I registered as a Democrat. Still not happy with the candidates for elective offices. The labels have switched several times. I am currently a liberal on many subjects and a conservative on others. I think capitalism is wrong, and corporatism worse. I think we are all in this together and need to take care of each other. Life has a spiritual component. Multi-billionaires have no place in a society that refuses to provide shelter or food for everyone. While I am not religious and no longer consider myself Christian, I am happy to invoke God to protect America (and Gaza). America’s track record of inciting or even advocating for war is wrong. I believe the Constitution of the USA is a fine document; the current crop of politicians has enabled the too many violations, I consider them traitors. I think “global warming” is a con, and genetically modified food is a crime. I am not interested in solar panels. I think NAFTA and supply chains were an error. After a brief look at the Cultural Cognition Worldview Scales, I find I disagree with all of them — it is way too simplistic, and in fact obscures the real issues. I like your analysis of the “scales”. I think government tries to do too much and doesn’t do enough, or perhaps the problem is that they do the wrong things. Recently, the lockdowns were wrong, the drug mandates were wrong, the censorship was wrong. Democracy in America is a shadow of its former state, this has happened because of politicians and money. America has become an extortion racket — where the wealthy extort the “middle class” and the poor. When I was 18 the Protestant church my family attended undertook efforts to care for the local poor and the recent immigrants (at that time they were from southeast Asia and had arrived with nothing); the members of the church provided money, materials, and labor.
Nice post, William. Dissident and conservative aren't really synonymous terms; indeed, little of the mainstream conservative movement I would consider to be dissidents. A dissident is a person fundamentally opposed to the globohomo world order on religious, metaphysical or other grounds. A conservative, at least in the way the term is commonly used, is someone against an *aspect* of the globohomo world order but not the system in its entirety -- i.e. you'll have conservatives against abortion, or pro-gun, or against trannies or boycotting Bud Light or whatever, but they basically accept the egalitarianism ratchet effect and Whig history powering the system's forward momentum. This is why conservatives usually lose.
When I think of conservatives my mind goes back to this wonderful and prophetic quote by Robert Lewis Dabny (chief of staff to Stonewall Jackson) in 1897:
"It may be inferred again that the present movement for women's rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. . . . Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its bark is worse than its bite, and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it in wind, and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women's suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position."
LOL. That quote pretty much sums it up. I guess that is why I have been wanting to write this series, to get at why conservatives seem so helpless to do anything about progressives excising conservatives from public and private institutions and the body politic, trying to make America a one-party State.
Thanks for the encouragement and the restack.
Thoughtful essay, Hunter! I agree that everything government touches, it breaks. That's because it's an unnatural, unnecessary, and evil system to begin with. Seeking power over others and then justifying the use of force and deception to achieve such as status is evil.
Truly, I believe that we were created to be free men and women, and to inherently follow Natural Law. Somehow, that got corrupted. And you know what I think about that.
In fact, it is these demon-channeling, secret-society psychopathic tyrants who invent false dichotomies with special categorizing labels like "Conservative" and "Liberal." They're word-spells, cast upon already-weakened folks who gave over their true power — their spirit — to the wayward wizards in the first place. I mean, we've all done it. Now some of us are just reclaiming our spiritual nature and experiencing the scales falling from our eyes.
This is why we continue to see a broadening chasm amongst humanity: Some people are clinging to the false reality, to their spell-cast beliefs, out of fear of the unknown. But until one questions reality/beliefs, embraces uncertainty, and lives unafraid of the posturing tyrants, one will continue to be mesmerized and enslaved by them.
A lot of that spell is likely to break when our elite destroy the dollar. That will feel like being cast into an abyss for a lot of people, many of whom will embrace a CBDC but a lot of people are going to suddenly look at our elite very differently. That could get interesting.
I think conservative is still worth exploring as a means to understand the self, but we are of course so much more than such a label.
Yes, we are SO MUCH MORE than the spell-cast labels!💝🤗💜
"...labels like 'Conservative' and 'Liberal.' They're word-spells..." True and very well said. The left learned to use labels to sell their lies in exactly the same way that corporations use labels to sell products. And yes they " invent false dichotomies" to create divisions that they can then exploit for political gain.
So here is what I keep saying that no one ever seems to believe: The leftists have been able to use the word-spells, and labels, and to create false dichotomies ONLY BECAUSE THEY CONTROL THE MASS MEDIA. It is the left's control of the MSM that enabled them to achieve victory after victory in their March Through the Institutions.
What would it take for us to learn how the left did this and turn the tables on them, use their mass-media tactics and power against them? Because right now no rightist writers seem to really understand how the leftists do mass media. How might the independent right media here on Substack coordinate their efforts to create a mass media to counter the left's mass media? Because if that doesn't happen, the left are going to keep winning until we have nothing left to lose.
The Vigilant Fox Substack has done some good work in that regard. Many here are acting as an alternative news media. But yes, the corporate media backstopped by the left is absolutely a black magic spell making complex, and Fox News is not some white hat savior and not anything like a sufficient alternative to break that spell.
I would humbly suggest to distrust all MSM and the "official" alt-media. They are all in on the game, and it's been rigged against us from the get-go.
They employ incrementalism and a same-old-story playbook that gets amplified with increasingly fancy technology.
Such media is good for seeing how people are being manipulated, which is something like my job, but yeah, it is all a manipulation. But I have to say, even the talent on Fox News has been near speechless at times, at the naked depravity the likes of MSNBC has descended to.
Rightful Freedom, I agree with the sentiment of your ideas. I disagree with creating
new dichotomies based on the old ones. This is, in my perspective, another trick of the spell-casters, to keep us battling over no-thingies, when we need to have true debate over how we will come together if/when SHTF.
"...creating new dichotomies based on the old ones..."
Respectfully, that isn't what I mean. The leftists use the mass media like a gun, and lies as their bullets. We need a gun, so we can use truth as our bullets. By understanding how the leftist mass media works, we can create our own mass media.
But no rightists seem interested in taking the time and making the effort to understand how the leftist mass media came to exist, how it works, and how they use it. It's not simple or obvious.
Thank you for clarifying your point. Learning *how* the wayward wizards machinate their systems for maximum consciousness manipulation is crucial for full awareness and high-level discernment.
Hello, William. Very interesting chart by NeoF. I did something a little bit similar in a video before I was on Substack. I plotted some people whose work I'd reviewed on a continuum of theists to atheists. Then I did another sort by their belief in their own superiority. What I concluded was that people who believe (or not) in their own superiority tend to cluster in terms of their worldviews more than those who believe (or not) in religion. In other words, superiority was a greater predictor of commonality than ideas about God. And predictably, I had the most disagreement with those.
I wonder how NeoF's chart would shake out in that dimension? For instance, Robert Malone and 'John Carter' may be divided on philosophical vs. political approaches but they share a very strong belief in their superiority. In my episode on 'Black Pill Hatfill & Malone', he chortles about needing bulldozers to bury the bodies. Their 'optimistic' future is 5G warfare where you can't trust anyone but him.
I didn't do a thorough scan but does NeoF include any women? I think your charts on how the left sees the right and the right sees the left both describe viewpoints of superiority. But you know me, I think all these categories are designed to divide and conquer us.
I got a friendly response from Rolo Slavsky on my last episode on him: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-hatest-story-ever-told. In my reply to his comment, I said that "My objection to name-calling (on either side) isn't from being thin-skinned but because it 'goes soft' on challenging the ideas. It diverts the argument into who's more clever, not who's right. It also limits the 'parameters of the possible,' as you put it, on metaphysical reality."
Superiority is an argument to the authority of the person, not the validity of the idea. Someone, I feel, should be representing the idea that we're metaphysically, spiritually and politically equal, and what would be possible, if so, rather than just being optimistic about the superior people winning.
Much of the left in America is trapped in a sense of superiority, despite descending into juvenile name-calling in response to any argument they disagree with. Believing you are at the leading edge of evolution and the arc of justice is one thing, acting like it makes you better than everyone who has ever lived is another. It is not like everybody on the right is better than that, it's just that some sort of un-reality has take over the collective mind of those who lean socialist. I'm not much for name-calling either, but I also am not going to soften my perspective about that even if many on the left would be "triggered" by it, and would call practically everything I say "hate speech."
I don't know if there is any actual argument to be made for our metaphysical, spiritual and political equality, but I know even if one is superior, acting like you are is the stuff of narcissism and socio-pathy. I like to hang out at my local VFW, where I don't really fit in "intellectually" but I don't walk around like I'm better than anybody, more with an easy smile and a friendly demeanor. Be good and kind to people, basically.
Hi, William. I think your article does a good job of showing how each side feels they're superior to the other, which they stereotype. We're all being manipulated. The liberals I know, and I'm surrounded by them, are manipulated through their compassion for other people. You and I know the actual policies are bogus and there are good reasons to be against them. But they're being told that the right isn't onboard because they lack compassion and only care about themselves. It's all a lie to keep us fighting.
The test of hierarchical individualist vs. egalitarian communist is another trick. You and I both identify as anarchists, which is literally the opposite of hier-archy, without archons. Yet our only other choice is egalitarian communist, which we adamantly are not. It forces us into a false choice between superiority, which is hierarchy, or an infantilizing centralized welfare state. There's no option of self-reliant communities or reciprocal systems.
You should NEVER compromise your perspective. You should believe your ideas are better than everyone else's because otherwise, you would change them. Ideas are superior, people are not. I never get the sense from you that you think you're better than anyone else. I'd happily buy you a drink at that VFW ;-)
Hi Tereza,
You heard from Rolo because I brought your article, which I thought was balanced and on point, to his attention.
Yours,
The oh-so-superior 'John Carter'
John! Nice to hear from you and thanks for bringing my article to Rolo's attention and for your kind compliment on it.
Would you disagree that you think some people are better than others and you're in that category? I remember that being the crux of my disagreement with Harrison on ponerology. If some are born evil or psychopaths, then we have to believe in an evil God. It limits 'the parameters of the possible' as Rolo says.
I would say that superiority is a viewpoint you own and represent with full commitment. You are unabashed in your belief that men, in general, are better thinkers than women. Maybe morally better as a whole? I don't know that for sure. But I think it's far too late to back down from being the voice of superiority. It suits you and you're good at it.
I was surprised to find you in the Malone camp, though. William posted a link to your 5G article, which I read along with zinnia's. I have a draft of a response to both but I haven't figured out a way to connect them. You are, as always, an original thinker and a witty worthy adversary, my superior friend.
Oh and sorry for the quotes, that was petty. I haven't figured out what to do with brand names that seem like names, like 'Margaret Anna Alice' or especially 'Sage Hana' where the gender's changed. Do I treat them like names or like 'Rurik Skywalker'? Dunno.
I think people are generally smart enough to figure out when someone is pseudonymous, especially these days when that's a considerable fraction of the Internet. So quotation marks aren't necessary.
As to superiority, this is a tricky question. I certainly don't believe in equality in any sense; that idea has done too much damage, and is too contradicted by evidence, to be very useful. Yet it doesn't follow that global superiority is a straightforward thing. In my case, I'm probably smarter than most people, and physically stronger than most guys. On the other hand I know plenty of people who are much more intelligent than I am, particularly at specific tasks; lots of guys who are in better shape; guys who are better looking or more charismatic. And there's no necessary correlation: someone might be better at math than I am, but not as good with words; they might run faster, but not be able to lift as much.
So while I don't hold to equality, one must balance this with humility lest it become narcissism or hubris. It's also much more important, in my view, to compare oneself to an ideal rather than other people: the former encourages effort, the latter complacency.
As to connecting psychic warfare and zoomer girl derangement, this isn't something that occurred to me to do - aside from both relating to the psychoemotional effects of online environments, the subject-matter is somewhat distinct.
(BTW, on the male/female issue. Greater male variability unambiguously demonstrates that males outnumber females at both ends of the IQ distribution; but there's also evidence that the mean female IQ is a bit higher. So who's smarter? It's complicated. The moral dimension is also nuanced: male and female instincts are different, neither is globally better than the other, although bad results can certainly obtain when one is applied in its improper domain).
Thanks for the reply, John. My statement was "metaphysically, spiritually and politically equal," not IQ tests or physical strength or skills. Are you a better, more moral person than someone else no matter what circumstances you had been born into? The position I represent is that I'm no better than anyone else, fundamentally as a person. Would you agree with that for you?
I look at the objective of 5G Warfare as being 5D: depopulation, dispossession, destruction, depression and disconnection. Depopulation is being done by raising the death rate and lowering the birth rate. 'Zoomer Girl Derangement', from zinnia's view, is certainly related to the latter.
From her perspective, the problem for women is not being pretty enough. It's not that they aren't trying--despite diet, exercise, make-up and nice clothes, some girls are just ugly, she states. And it isn't self-esteem because it's 'entirely unhelpful' that the world tells you you're beautiful just as you are. You're really not. Because if you were, you could get what you want. What she needed to hear was, "that it was okay for me to aspire to things beyond a high-powered career; that it was okay for me to want to fall in love and for me to want to be a mother."
My guess is that zinnia's dream isn't dropping her infant off at daycare and then rushing to her high-powered, soul-sucking job. It's being able to actually be a mother and raise her own kids, something generations before us took for granted. And it's finding a man who wants to support her financially so she can stay home and raise their kids.
Is that what you want, John? Are you looking for the right woman, who's pretty enough, so you can support her to raise your kids? For men who want that, there are many attractive women to choose from. So I'm not sure why you wouldn't have found that yet, if it was what you wanted.
Telling women that the problem is them not being pretty enough if men don't want what they do, no matter how pretty they are, seems cruel. It blames their 'derangement' on themselves, like Malone's pet theory blames people for their own 'mass psychosis.'
I'm not saying this is the fault of men either. I write a lot about how the mortgage was raised to a two-income level so men would need to double their incomes in order for women to have the same choice their mothers did. I believe it should have gone the other way with the labor of men also serving the family and community rather than women serving the market, aka making the rich richer. That's what my economic system enables.
So I wanted to get your thoughts on that before I wrote the article. Thanks, John.
I'm certainly not going to speak for zinnia; I'd suggest you ask her directly.
As to spiritual equality, no, I definitely don't believe in that. There's a spiritual hierarchy, one which implies different levels of ability and responsibility. There are some humans who are lower than animals; others are highly advanced. This has absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances of one's birth, aside from the role played by genetics and upbringing, which affect potential. It also isn't fixed: some rise, others fall, depending on their behavior. All that said, separating biological, metaphysical, spiritual, and political notions of quality is a gross error. They're all mutually interrelated. The concept that people can be "spiritually" or "politically" equal despite being grossly unequal in every other way is how we arrived at the present morass of affirmative action, DIE policies, anti-white ressentiment, feminism, mass immigration, and all the rest of it. It's destroying our civilization, and the sooner this boomer piety is torn down the better off everyone will be.
My question was for you, John. Are you looking for a woman that you can support while she stays home to raise your children? If you're not, you're blaming 'zoomer girl derangement' on women, although what they want is something men like you don't want at all. Their inability to be happy is because the choice of being a mother and raising kids has been taken from them. The high-powered career is the only goal they can control. And being pretty will only get them more hook-ups with guys who want the sex but not the responsibility. Again, this isn't the fault of the guys. Instead of blaming either gender we should be looking at the system.
I think creation is all things evil and good. Presumably that is God too.
If I'm a parent who's both evil and good, would you want me as a parent? Someone who's only evil some of the time is a psychopath, in my book. It would be better to have no God at all and more hopeful to be an atheist than believe there's supernatural evil working against us.
In the magical tradition it is said the Astral realm, which is the creative energy flowing through all things becoming creation continually, contains all that is good and evil, so everything depends on what you imagine, dream about, focus on, what you intend and will into being. We are all capable of enormous evil, most of us prefer to focus on what is good most of the time.
Hi Tereza, certainty-of-thought would make for an interesting chart, I think. Some writers are clearly much more certain of their position than others, as you point out. However, certainty among dissidents is, I believe, far less than any other group so far because (1) it is so far outside the mainstream, (2) everyone is bathed in globohomo egalitarian technocracy, there is no escape from it, and (3) there isn't a clear direction for dissidents on a path to oppose globohomo effectively. So I think these factors encourage a certain playing around with ideas, a certain exploration and creativity of though, that doesn't exist elsewhere (which is part of what makes the dissident right space so interesting so far).
I don't think any women were included on the chart; this wasn't a conscious decision, and apologies if I didn't include you or others. I was merely trying to demonstrate the idea, not aim for comprehensiveness. Generally speaking I think men are at the forefront of any non-mainstream movement and women come in to fill in the gaps later (take, for example, cryptocurrency; it was literally only men interested in it for many years). There's also a *lot* more drama surrounding women, and they tend *generally* to try to make discussions and arguments about themselves (look at a Laura Loomer, for example) instead of about the ideas themselves. They're also much more likely to flip if social pressure is applied to them. Again, these are just generalities based on tail ends of bell curves; there are always exceptions to the generalization...
Thanks for the reply, NF. Here's what I wonder, is 'dissident right' a contradiction in terms? Can someone be described as a dissident if they're still falling into a category of mainstream thought like 'right' or 'left'? If someone is a dissident liberal, wouldn't that make them someone who disagrees with the mainstream liberal view? Or a dissident woman as someone who breaks that stereotype of interest in self rather than ideas? Like someone who wades into a group of men she knows will disagree with her but doesn't succumb to the social pressure ;-)
I wasn't feeling that I should have been included in this group. I'm certainly dissident but wouldn't describe myself as right or left, conservative or liberal. Mostly too 'out there' for either. But I definitely have zero interest in myself and could talk about ideas all day.
I'd differentiate between believing in the superiority of your ideas, which we should all do, and believing that you are better as a person. If I didn't believe my ideas were better, I wouldn't think them.
I think men are on the forefront of cryptocurrency because men are gamblers, something that's been proven across cultures and throughout anthropology. Cryto is a gambling chip with no inherent value other than what someone else will pay for it, like the stock market.
And I have 17 episodes showing that Robert Malone is pretending to be a dissident but rounding up the rebels to herd them back to the slaughterhouse by a different route. All linked at the end of this episode: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/truth-is-like-a-chamelion except this one: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/meryl-and-malone.
If you were looking for dissident women interested in ideas and NOT themselves, you couldn't do better than Conspiracy Sarah, Heather B., kitten seeking answers, Pasheen Stonebrooke of Diva Drops, Visceral Adventures, and Kathleen Devanney, just off the top of my head. I don't know who Laura Loomer is and wouldn't waste my time finding out.
Hi Tereza, it depends on one's definition of terms... I am using the term "dissident", as I explained to William in my initial response, as someone who opposes the egalitarian ratchet effect and its sense of Whig history which powers the forward momentum of globohomo. I don't know in what context you are using the term "right" versus "left", but to me those are rules of thumb for inegalitarianism/hierachy versus egalitarianism/societal flattening. Based on this definition I see "leftist dissident" as an oxymoron, as someone who inherently believes in the egalitarian ratchet effect cannot to one's core oppose this system. This is why, for example, the Occupy Wall Street types and the Bernie types *completely folded* when demanded by globohomo instead of forging an alliance with the non-establishment right. This was always preordained based upon their internal weighing of values, in my opinion.
Teresa,
I’m curious about the last bit, about equality.
Does your worldview have no room in it for hierarchies within those areas?
Maybe you’re having an emotional reaction to intellectual thoughts where the individuals as positing viewpoints that, as part of their priors, have hierarchies. I try to be the humble peasant that I am, but I’m dang proud of my philosophical and theological viewpoints.
The dichotomy is that I can humbly speak with others in a reasonable manner about ideas, assess them, and dialogue. But if you ask me what my own thoughts are on things, or look at my writing, you’re very quickly going to see some hard positions, spoken bluntly, and have to convince me you’re more well thought out than not just myself, but Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the others you run into are the same, just different topics or different authorities they rely upon.
Thanks for giving me a great illustration of my point, Uncouth. Rather than responding to my position that "Someone should be representing the idea that we're metaphysically, spiritually and politically equal," you attacked me as a person by saying, "Maybe you’re having an emotional reaction to intellectual thoughts..." So instead of talking about the hierarchies of ideas as better, we're talking about people as more or less capable of rational thought. Ideas are better, people are not, imo.
Does your worldview have no room in it for the possibility that we're all created equal? And if we start out equal, what makes one person better than another later? If I was born into your exact circumstances, what could cause me to make better or worse decisions than you? The idea of free will is the belief that we have made ourselves, the most important part of ourselves, our morality. It says that we are God and have created our self. I think that's an arrogant position, to think we're God and have made ourselves. If God made us, God made us exactly who we are. If God didn't make us, then nature and nurture made us exactly who we are.
If your arguments are based on a belief in someone else's authority and superiority to think for you, it would be foolish to try to change your mind with facts and logic. But don't claim that an appeal to authority is an intellectual argument and not an emotional reaction. Aristotle would recognize it as a rhetorical fallacy.
I thought UBs response was respectful. I would also say, God made us as we are, but some of us make better choices than others, a lifetime of good or bad choices changes the body and we don't put people in positions of responsibility for making bad choices over a lifetime (well, maybe we do now.) Even in an anarchist arrangement someone has to lead.
As a man, William, you're likely not subjected to the accusation that your arguments are emotional and not rational, and thereby dismissed. I'm sure you know the word 'hysterical' has the same root as 'hysterectomy' because this has been used for centuries if not millennia to label women and silence them. If you expressed a philosophical position and I asked you whether you're having an emotional reaction because intellectual thought intimidates you, wouldn't you take that as an unfair way to undermine your argument? How do you argue back? You're now arguing that you are not an emotional person and that you really are capable of intellectual discussions. You're defending your own personality for no reason whatsoever because you've said nothing emotional. At the same time, it's the use of insults and name-calling instead of arguments that I'm critiquing by men (something you never do.) That is an emotional response.
On the philosophical, I'm certainly not arguing that people who make bad choices should be put in a position of responsibility. Under my anarchist economic system, it's the ideas that rule, not the people, and they compete by measurable criteria for increasing the number of local exchanges of goods and services. So it doesn't really matter who leads because it can't be corrupted by any means I can think of, and I think about that a lot.
Harrison Koehli's recent post is about how incompetent leadership often and typically becomes malicious. That seems about right, based on the state of institutions public and private in the West. So the system, whatever it may be, will generally be corrupted by incompetent leadership, or competent but malicious/selfish leadership. So it really does matter who leads, always in my experience.
As for emotion and argument, I endeavor not to get emotional about any argument, though that is a challenge when the person is attacking me while I attack systems/institutions, particularly if I care about them. Calling people names as argument avoidance is generally the stuff of people who think their emotions are more important than any logic or reason. It is also the stuff of contempt/dismissal by some men toward women. That said, while it is not absolute, women do tend to value emotion far more than men do, while men tend to value reason and logic above emotion more than women do.
In a well designed system, it shouldn't matter who's in charge. If it depends on a person, then your system is archist not anarchist.
You know my system pretty well. It 'pays forward' the collective mortgage debt as local carets. The three forms of corruption it's vulnerable to are concentration, extraction and indebtedness.
So the overarching rules need to guard against this. Most importantly, the maximum amount can't exceed the debt formula and has to be distributed equally to all commonwealth members.
Let's say your commonwealth has a 'communist' in charge who hands it out as UBI and says, "Spend any way you want." You won't be much better off than now but you won't be worse. And if you, William, say "This is bullshit. I have a plan to keep this money circulating and providing food and services," you can run your plan against theirs in the algorithm and, if it beats it, secede with everyone else who wants a better plan.
So a good leader can do good but an incompetent leader can't keep the money for himself. The commonwealth can start over with a new system anytime they want, with no damage done.
But if you see other ways it can be corrupted, let me know. This is the time to be thinking that through.
Teresa,
An honest question is an honest question, not an attack. So many have passions and convictions tied up with equality that they view hierarchal worldviews as anathema and respond poorly to them. I was trying to discern whether your responses to those worldviews was to your commitments to prior metaphysical claims or not.
Now, as to your question.
We are all, in a sense, created equal in God's eyes. However, due to our choices of what we do with the free will He gives us, we are not continually loved equally upon this earth nor will we be in Heaven. We have a free will to become as beasts, or adopted sons of God, and heirs of Heaven; though not equally so. There is a hierarchy in Heaven, and those that have grown in virtue and grace are more loved by God. We are called to fill the empty hierarchy to replace those areas of the fallen angels when they betrayed God and went to war with him. This is basic Catholic doctrine and, honestly, if you're surprised by it or haven't heard of it before than I'm sad that any Catholics in your life haven't made it more clear to you.
As far as appeals to Authority. Those are not emotionally done, but done with facts and logic. The mere fact that you think that an appeal to authority is one only of an emotional reaction shows that you don't understand authority and hierarchy in the first place - that they exist because we recognize it as Truth. We can't all have time or ability to examine the Truth to the extent they do, but we can read their arguments, and others, and see how they compare. That's a logical thing. Trust me, I've been swayed, and so have others.
But everyone appeals to authority. All Protestants do in saying Sola Scriptura is a mere appeal to authority; the authority of Scripture. They necessarily believe the authorities behind that scripture, even though unexamined, which were the Catholic Church putting it together, the authors, and God the Holy Spirit inspiring the whole thing. So yes, any Christian, OF NECESSITY, must recognize appeals to authority. I would argue that pagans do as well with their own religions, when "God says 'X' therefore we do 'Y'" is an appeal to authority.
Humans do it all the time. It is logical and true of the human condition.
So, again.
Is there any room in yours for a hierarchy? You didn't answer my question, and I graciously answered all yours.
I did not know that about Catholics. Just curious, who originated the idea that some Catholics might replace fallen angels in the hierarchy of Heaven?
I know as a sometimes self-described anarchist, I have had some problems with hierarchy that was not heavenly. I think that is where a lot of people want to argue against the inherent nature of hierarchy, because so much of what passes for hierarchy in this culture is pathological. But of course if you want anything to work, if you want to build anything, someone has to lead.
Even in the longhouse there seems to me, a hierarchy.
It would honestly take me some time to dig up which of the Church Fathers first put forward the idea. It's been Church Doctrine since the early 200's or 300's if I recall correctly though.
But it's what puts the beggar on par with the Pope. The Pope may be damned to hell if he governed poorly, for all that he's on top of the Church Hierarchy here on Earth. The beggar, should he act according to God's will, grow in virtue and grace, may ascend and be placed over many in Heaven. Catholics will point to the Scripture of Christ saying the First shall be Last and the Last shall be First to put this in context. As well, Paul (when talking about his meditations and raptures) speaks of multiple hierarchies in Heaven.
So there's a lot of scriptural basis for the hierarchy of Heaven. But it's beautiful in how it lends us to treat each other as eternal beings and potential heirs of Heaven. To help each other ascend to God, running the race as Paul says, not in a competitive, zero sum way, but in a "Let me give give you a hand, and see if we can beat the best time together!" type of way.
And again, I don't recall the angelic part. Possibly Augustine?
I assumed Augustine, when you mentioned the timeline.
John Michael Greer talks about that sometimes too, how some of the most impressive "magicians" he has ever met were just regular people living a quiet life. I have found more timeless wisdom among the "lowly" working class than among professionals, generally. I've long assumed those who seek after power over others here on earth find considerably less success in the afterlife.
That was a good laugh, Uncouth. I attended 16 yrs of Catholic school including college, which I entered as a religion major. One of my earliest memories is arguing with the priest who taught religion about free will vs. predestination. It took me decades of thinking about it to realize they were both true.
To accept the concept of hierarchy is to be fine with any place you are in it. Are you okay with lacking a human soul and being just a beast, as the Catholic Church taught about indigenous peoples? Are you fine if someone makes you their slave because the Old Testament said you were cursed by God as the descendants of Ham? Can you be driven from your home and annihilated, starved, because God gave the land of Canaan to someone else?
You believe in hierarchy because the Catholic hierarchy tells you that you're at the top. The easiest 'Truth' for people to follow is the teaching that God likes them best because they're superior to others. If I had 'room' for that belief, I would be unethical.
The first rule of ethics is that they state 'what' without stating 'who.' The second rule is that any proper nouns can be reversed and the statement will still be true. So if you're okay with hierarchy in principle, you won't have a problem with the 'woke' being put over you for jobs, houses, morality. Are you fine with this or only a hierarchy that favors you?
Tereza,
The Catholic Church has never taught that indigenous peoples don't have souls. If you were taught that, you were mistaught, pure and simple. You can read the Fathers of the Church on this, or doctrines and dogmas going back to the 100 and 200's, which continuously state the same thing through Columbus and the American Indians, the North American Martyrs, St Kitari (sp), etc.
The people of Canaan were driven from their land on order of God for their misdeeds and sins. God clearly states to Abraham that they haven't sinned enough for them to bring the judgment upon themselves yet, and sends him to Egypt where his descendants have to go through their own slavery and trials for hundreds of years before giving the land back to them. So don't exactly say that God isn't Just; He waited until they lost the right to it in His eyes.
Slavery is a complicated question. Aristotle calls everyone that works for wages a slave. How is someone making minimum wage, with no benefits, different than a slave in the time of the Romans? The slave in Roman times would have their food given to them for them, their family, a roof over their head, a small amount of money for spending or saving to buy their freedom. Which is better? This is the slavery that St Paul says is ok, and that the Church doesn't condemn, not the chattel slavery popular in American minds and that is practiced in most Muslim countries today, rising at this moment. It's what was in Scripture, of selling oneself into slavery for seven years, afterwhich debts were forgiven.
The woke have their own hierarchy as well, if you haven't noticed it. I'm at the bottom of it. I'm at the bottom of the Church's hierarchy as well. I don't understand your insistence to claim I'm at the top of any hierarchy. I said, at the beginning, I am simply a peasant. A laity. The Church's hierarchy tells me so, and I am completely ok with this. I kneel before my Priest, my Bishop, the Pope. If we had a King I would kneel before him, a Duke, etc. This is normal and natural.
The woke hierarchy bows and grovels before deformities in the human condition. I bow and kneel before perfections and things that lead one to God.
And that, right there, is the difference. The wonderful, beautiful, humbling difference. That an indigenous girl, St Kitari is above me in Heaven and someone that can intercede for me, a priest, a Bishop, for a president, a King, for a Pope. That a beggar can perform miracles.
And all can lead to God
The definition has changed over the past few decades. The Republican Party used to be the party of Bob Hope and Thurston Howell III. Today, the Ivy League cranks out wokies. The Republican Party has become the party of people who listen to talk radio: farmers, truck drivers, carpenters, etc. The divide is mostly rural vs. urban.
Someone who uses mass quantities of diesel fuel to do his job is going to set a much higher standard of evidence for global warming. For someone who lives in an apartment building and takes public transport, believing in global warming is a warm snuggly self-hug.
I have to laugh at the Bill Kristols of the former Republican Party who have been retreating into supporting Democrats because they have become the party of neoliberals and neocons.
I have been appreciating your posts trying to connect ecology and conservatism.
I've asked myself this same question often over the past few years. I'm not sure the terms liberal and conservative have any meaning outside propaganda uses.
I think they do have value to understand the self, but yes, it takes some discernment to work through the propaganda. I take them to be something of the conflict between saving and protecting what works, is meaningingful and important, with the need for change.
Some one with a brain
Way to go with the mention! Congratulations. Thoughtful article. Keep up the good work.
While the Right is working out heuristics for distinguishing between “conservative” and “liberal,” the Left is still stuck on pre-school distinctions, like the difference between “man” and “woman.”
I have found it fascinating that the left is so good at defining conservatives like children imagine monsters, while the right has such a very hard time defining itself. Meanwhile the left is busy taking hammers to every definition for anything they don't like.
Am I liberal or conservative? I do not know. At age 18 when I could first vote, I was a Republican like my parents and neighbors. What did I know? What mattered was graduating high school, finding a college, and boys. Years later, after divorce, a college degree, and the start of a career, I began to change my mind. And came to dislike Republicans. Eventually I registered as a Democrat. Still not happy with the candidates for elective offices. The labels have switched several times. I am currently a liberal on many subjects and a conservative on others. I think capitalism is wrong, and corporatism worse. I think we are all in this together and need to take care of each other. Life has a spiritual component. Multi-billionaires have no place in a society that refuses to provide shelter or food for everyone. While I am not religious and no longer consider myself Christian, I am happy to invoke God to protect America (and Gaza). America’s track record of inciting or even advocating for war is wrong. I believe the Constitution of the USA is a fine document; the current crop of politicians has enabled the too many violations, I consider them traitors. I think “global warming” is a con, and genetically modified food is a crime. I am not interested in solar panels. I think NAFTA and supply chains were an error. After a brief look at the Cultural Cognition Worldview Scales, I find I disagree with all of them — it is way too simplistic, and in fact obscures the real issues. I like your analysis of the “scales”. I think government tries to do too much and doesn’t do enough, or perhaps the problem is that they do the wrong things. Recently, the lockdowns were wrong, the drug mandates were wrong, the censorship was wrong. Democracy in America is a shadow of its former state, this has happened because of politicians and money. America has become an extortion racket — where the wealthy extort the “middle class” and the poor. When I was 18 the Protestant church my family attended undertook efforts to care for the local poor and the recent immigrants (at that time they were from southeast Asia and had arrived with nothing); the members of the church provided money, materials, and labor.