Sometimes people ask me what's the difference is between do-nothing pwogs like MoBetta / Diggly / etc and dirty greenie hippies. I generally send them here.
It's always worse than you think, and you never know until you look. But first you have to be able to imagine the world might not be what it seems. Given the preconditioning of public perceptions, imagination itself is largely impeded.
I'm referring to conscientious people whose eyes are first opened by perspectives they hadn't previously encountered. This memoir http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/2006/01/umbrella-group.html I published online managed to persuade a chance reader to reorient herself toward more effective political engagement. Others once did the same for me.
I appreciate your posting the White Rose story. Perverted personal ambition and political correctness is something members of the Democratic Party are going to face as the Obama cult falls apart.
Damn! I've said it before and I'll say it again; you're a better man than I, Spartacus. But, yeah, that's what I was going for by linking to the White Rose story.
As Harry Tuttle remarked, "We're all in this together."
My Bolivian friend, who speaks six languages fluently, says that if multiple language learning patterns are established in early childhood, then adding others later is much easier. I think this type of patterning applies as well to conformists like Sara Robinson, who grew up fundamentalist Christian, then became a devout Democrat. We've mentioned before the cult-like behavior of her blogging milieu.
I think the language acquisition comparison is very good.
It's uncanny how much the Robinson pseudo-exegeses resemble the fundamentalists' deterministic "mind reading" screeds. One conformist pattern is much the same as any other; cf Horowitz and Hitchens, authoritarian polemicists first and foremost, with a knack for changing brands.
There's an upside to this, fortunately. As an example, gleaned from the links provided by Spartacus, the Public Good Project and Center for World Indigenous Studies people can speak the language of "deschooling" and teach people how to recognize authoritarian criminality in many different venues, without losing core principles and values. The difference, of course, is a conscious rejection of the conformist patterning that the fundamentalists actively embrace.
I haven't thought about this topic in a while, but I did scribble a post http://tbarj.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/ownership-of-knowledge/ on it a year ago.
Oh fer fuck's sake! A few screwheads show up at their staged media events and the pwogs go fucking ballistic. The've really have jumped the shark this time.
It's always worse than you think, and you never know until you look. But first you have to be able to imagine the world might not be what it seems. Given the preconditioning of public perceptions, imagination itself is largely impeded.
ReplyDeleteI tend to come down harder on the 'willful' part of 'willful ignorance,' but I see what you mean.
ReplyDeleteI'm referring to conscientious people whose eyes are first opened by perspectives they hadn't previously encountered. This memoir http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/2006/01/umbrella-group.html I published online managed to persuade a chance reader to reorient herself toward more effective political engagement. Others once did the same for me.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your posting the White Rose story. Perverted personal ambition and political correctness is something members of the Democratic Party are going to face as the Obama cult falls apart.
ReplyDeleteDamn! I've said it before and I'll say it again; you're a better man than I, Spartacus. But, yeah, that's what I was going for by linking to the White Rose story.
ReplyDeleteAs Harry Tuttle remarked, "We're all in this together."
ReplyDeleteMy Bolivian friend, who speaks six languages fluently, says that if multiple language learning patterns are established in early childhood, then adding others later is much easier. I think this type of patterning applies as well to conformists like Sara Robinson, who grew up fundamentalist Christian, then became a devout Democrat. We've mentioned before the cult-like behavior of her blogging milieu.
Six languages? Holy moly! And here's me just barely getting by in American flavor english.
ReplyDeleteAs for Robinson, I have to wonder how much of her act is groveling servitude and how much is rank opportunism. Both learned behaviors, to be sure.
I think the language acquisition comparison is very good.
ReplyDeleteIt's uncanny how much the Robinson pseudo-exegeses resemble the fundamentalists' deterministic "mind reading" screeds. One conformist pattern is much the same as any other; cf Horowitz and Hitchens, authoritarian polemicists first and foremost, with a knack for changing brands.
There's an upside to this, fortunately. As an example, gleaned from the links provided by Spartacus, the Public Good Project and Center for World Indigenous Studies people can speak the language of "deschooling" and teach people how to recognize authoritarian criminality in many different venues, without losing core principles and values. The difference, of course, is a conscious rejection of the conformist patterning that the fundamentalists actively embrace.
I haven't thought about this topic in a while, but I did scribble a post http://tbarj.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/ownership-of-knowledge/ on it a year ago.
ReplyDeleteShe's back:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009083526/fascist-america-iii-resistance-long-haul
Oh fer fuck's sake! A few screwheads show up at their staged media events and the pwogs go fucking ballistic. The've really have jumped the shark this time.
ReplyDeleteThey never seem to display any stones unless it's time to give the Left another rousing chorus of all-your-votes-am-belong-to-us.
ReplyDelete[yawn]