Saturday, December 29, 2012

More on the Track Record of That Hideous Strength

Some time back, we discussed how CS Lewis's great work 'That Hideous Strength' has been taken as perversely prescriptive rather than descriptive.
http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/that-hideous-strength-wasnt-intended-as.html

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised really.  After all, the UK followed the prescription of 'The Abolition of Man' so as to make a nation of 'men without chests'.  And they've followed Screwtape's advice damnably well also.  Whether CS Lewis was a prophet is well beyond the scope of this blog, but the man KNEW Satan in the intimate way that nearly all great saints throughout history have.

So let's take a look at another of the themes of 'That Hideous Strength'.
Here Ransom is wrestling with Jane's rationalization hamster.

(hat tip to http://escapetoreality.org/2011/03/26/that-hideous-strength-by-cs-lewis/ )
Jane said, “I always thought it was in their souls that people were equal.”
“You were mistaken,” he said gravely. “That is the last place where they are equal. Equality before the law, equality of incomes – that is very well. Equality guards life; it doesn’t make it. It is medicine, not food. You might as well try warming yourself with a blue-book.”
“But surely in marriage . . . ?”
“Worse and worse,” said the Director. “Courtship knows nothing of it; nor does fruition. What has free companionship to do with that? Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not. Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends – comrades – do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed…”
“I thought,” said Jane and stopped.
“I see,” said the Director. “It is not your fault. They never warned you. No one has ever told you that obedience – humility – is an erotic necessity. You are putting equality just where it ought not to be.

If we construct what CS Lewis is saying as an argument, and apply the principle of charity, we might formulate it something like this:

As a woman your marriage and in particular your erotic life will be much better, by and large and on the average, if you adopt a posture of obedience, humility, and submission with your husband.

So how much support is there for this?
Anecdotally, I've never known any women who have a Biblically complementarian relationship with their husbands to have any complaints at all as regards that part of their lives as compared to their more 'equalitarian' sisters.

But it turns out there is actual data we can appeal to on this question.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/blackwhiteandgray/2012/05/religious-affiliation-and-the-frequency-of-orgasisms/

Suffice it to say, the more conservatively religious the woman, the more likely she is to regularly achieve release with her husband.  This is also not a small difference, but a rather gross one.  I'd like to see Catholics more broken down into Catholics in name only and hardcore traditionalist Catholics, and Biblical complementarians broken out of 'Conservative Protestants', but the direction is pretty clear.

If one projects further back in history, if CS Lewis' thesis is largely correct, one would expect to see women in previous eras experiencing more 'voluptuous spasms'.
http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2010/01/did-feminists-discover-sex/

Feminists maintain the Victorians lived in total ignorance, with women consigned to frigidity or frustration. In fact, physicians were publicly candid about female sexuality in the nineteenth century, including Dr. Charles Knowlton, who wrote of the female sexual organ, as is recounted in Linda Lichter’s excellent book, Simple Social Graces. In the 1970s, the historian Carl Degler uncovered a sexual survey of married women born between 1850 and 1880. Most of the middle-class women surveyed reported that they typically experienced “voluptuous spasms” while in bed with their husbands.


Every generation likes to pretend that it invented sex.  It seems pretty likely that these high Victorian women would put up better numbers than any of the groups in the 1994 study.

Glen of Instapundit fame recently suggested that the Republicans purchase women's magazines as a way of subverting the low information voter and some of the organs of culture.
I suggest that something like this would be an excellent series to run.  Use the cult of the orgasm as an armor-piercing weapon against the fell rationalization hamster.





Thursday, December 27, 2012

Only The Schools Attended by the Elite Should Be Protected by Armed Guards

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/26/Rahm-s-Kids-School-Protected-by-Armed-On-Duty-Police

So sayeth Rahm Emanuel the anointed one.  So sayeth the Obamanation of Desolation. 

Perhaps we should post the names and addresses of all those who protect gun control advocates, and insist that they stop protecting them with evil guns.  Frankly, I am increasingly convinced that we can not live under the same sky.  Simple secession is probably not enough, and even that isn't possible without a veritable ocean of bloodshed.  Anyone who expects civility under present circumstances is smoking something considerably more potent that what was voted on in recent initiatives in Washington.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

On The Difficulty Of Avoiding Being A Heretic In Today's Church

You really have to work hard to NOT be a heretic presently. Hint, anytime you disagree on an issue with theological significance with most of 2000 years of Christian tradition, you’re probably a heretic—especially if you’re a pastor, elder, or church leader. Here’s an amusing note: I’ve RARELY met anyone with a title like ‘head pastor’ who I haven’t considered a heretic. The pastors who I’ve considered orthodox rarely have more than 150 or so in their congregation, with many having much less.


Here’s only part what you’re got to do to NOT be a heretic:

You have to strongly oppose abortion and make no bones that it is a serious sin

Ditto homosexuality

You have to have a complementarian as opposed to egalitarian or equalitarian view of men and women. You have to teach the whole Scripture on male-female relationships, not just what is comfortable to the women in your congregation.

You also have to not put women on a pedestal as somehow more pure or sinless than men.

You have to not put minorities on a pedestal as being somehow more pure or sinless than white people. In short, you can’t be an ‘anti-racist’—read, anti white. Those who would like to disagree with me on this point are invited to explain why pretty much everyone pre-1960 in Christendom is wrong and THEY and the current cultural zeitgeist are right.

It’s damned hard not to be a heretic today. This isn’t even an exhaustive list, it’s just sufficient to declare a supermajority of pastors today rightfully heretics.



Saturday, December 22, 2012

Low Church Vegetarians?

It's been my observation that the least annoying variety of vegetarians are the sort that were raised in a bona fide culture that is vegetarian.  Most of the others, especially the vegans, seem to be almost all SWPLs with degrees that don't pay much who are desperately trying to distinguish themselves from the hated proles.
But for the cultural vegetarian, it's no big deal, and they don't get sanctimonious about it, despite the fact that it ACTUALLY IS a religious issue for them.

For instance, a group of my colleagues at work and I were cooking a bunch of freshly caught fish at a team building event some time back.  We'd brought along some veggie burgers and the like for the vegetarians in our group.  Knowing that some vegetarians have a concern for meat contaminating their vegetables when cooked on the same grill, I inquired of them if they'd like me to cook their veggie burgers first so as to not adulterate them with fish.  They all told me, oh, don't worry about that Jehu, just toss 'em all on.  You see, they understand that incidental animal material is going to be part of pretty much anything you cook or eat---even just grains.  They don't have a complex about it in the way that status-striving Western vegetarians and especially vegans generally seem to.  In short, they're Low Church Vegetarians---which is kind of ironic considering that they have a legitimate tradition going back thousands of years.  Perhaps it's always the new 'converts' that demonstrate the over-the-top zeal.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Apocalypse When

Apparently not now, as here on 12-20-2012, a trip through Costco is not even slightly a madhouse, even a mere few days before Christmas.  My suspicion is that the whole 2012 thing was just a convenient meme to hang the gut feeling that our entire society and way of life are well past their sell-by date.  While lots of people, myself included, do indeed believe that the existing order is unsustainable and will collapse in a reasonable amount of time, the 21st of December holds no special significance.  For if it did in even the minds of a very very small minority, Costco would be cleaned out rapidly of things like rice and thrice-cleaned beans, both of which they sell at prices very close to the price per ton on the world market for such goods.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Serious Hygiene Needed in the Scientific Establishment

http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2012/12/brave-new-world-of-scientism-stakes-are.html#links

Ultimately the problem boils down to, what gets rewarded gets done.  I've previously written about peer review here
http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2011/02/peer-review-what-it-is-and-isnt.html

Note that my own experience with same is in areas where there is much less inherent temptation and politicization.  But there are NEVER just two roaches in a kitchen.

Probably the only reasonable way to clean things up would be to have a 'loyal opposition', which made it its work to attempt reproduction and verification on large numbers of papers that are published.  That loyal opposition would have to be incentivized through equivalent publication credits and availability of funding, or it'll never happen (this is why it will never happen).  They'd have to be given significant funding and prestige for taking scientific scalps.  At the front end, journals would have to approve experimental designs in advance and commit to accept the paper REGARDLESS of what the results were assuming the experiment described was carried out faithfully.  Presently the bias introduced based on what the journals want to hear is pretty massive, especially in areas like health and medicine.

Monday, December 17, 2012

On Violence And Following The Script

http://claytonecramer.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-provoked-clackamas-mall-shooter-to.html

One of the things I learned a pretty good amount of as a non-neurotypical with really bad emulation in a public school back in the 80s was the way the untrained and poorly trained initiate and conduct violence.

In essence, they pretty much always had a script they'd follow.  And they'd follow it extremely predictably, almost religiously.  There was nearly always a ritual of pushing, insults, and attempted intimidation that preceded any actual blows.  Everything was to be precisely according to the script that they'd constructed in their mind.  Did they get this script from watching others, or perhaps from TV?  Did it really matter?

One of the things that I learned was that deviating strongly from the script, or preempting them by 'skipping forward a few scenes', would generally give you a significant advantage.  They would generally hesitate at least a few seconds, and THEN they'd do the equivalent of 'checking morale'.
The dirty little secret is that schoolyard and bus stop conflicts have a lot in common with ancient warfare---they're more about morale than almost anything else.  If you get in the first attack, and press your advantage relentlessly, you will nearly always win, especially if your first strike comes before the actual aggressor had planned to take it.  You're also way less likely to be punished by the official authorities if you don't allow the circle of onlookers to form but instead execute a competent preemptive strike once its clear that pugilism is going down today.

It is pretty likely that what the CCW holder did in the Portland mall was break the script of the attacker.  By drawing his weapon after taking cover, the assailant realized that the game was up and had to check morale.  In this case, as in so many others, his morale failed and he offed himself without the need of any shots fired by the CCW holder.  This is likely the main reason why the body count was so low in comparison to so many other such cases.  Interestingly, there WAS a no-gun policy at this mall, but fortunately the CCW holder aimed to misbehave.  Fortunately also, the lack of a clear shot also prevented him from having to have an up close and personal trip to 'see the elephant'.  There is a lot of trauma associated with such trips that I don't wish on anyone.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Sweden Engages In Evil and Suicidal Behavior

http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/court-terminates-parental-rights-in-homeschool-case/

Taking a child away from a competent family is the height of evil behavior on the part of a state.  It is also ultimately suicidal, because nothing pisses a man off more than that, and competent men can make their anger keenly felt in a fragile society.  Sweden IS a fragile society, perhaps even moreso than the United States because of the climate.  Probably you'll get away with it this time Sweden, but I'd be shocked if you weren't running at least a 1 in 100 chance of national destruction each time you pull something like this.

Hint:  your power grid is the lifeline of your population, and it is likely just as vulnerable as that of the US.  You've probably got other bottlenecks in your JIT infrastructure that are exceedingly vulnerable to attack besides this, and I wager you've got about as much slack in your system as in the US---which is to say a criminally low level.  Machiavelli would counsel you better than to do things like this.  You think that guy Breivik in neighboring Norway was bad?   You'd wish for a hundred like him rather than one who simply wants to see your system burn and has the necessary competencies to do so.  Tread very carefully.

Of course you won't.  It isn't in your nature.  The fact that you snatched his son while he and his family were in the process of leaving the country for good for India is indicative of that.  So you'll likely receive the cup of wrath that God has stored up for you through your malice, arrogance, and lack of foresight.  Lots of innocent people are going to die, because you insist on manufacturing enemies of an existential nature out of whole cloth and eventually, one of them is going to strike you a blow you can't endure.  But hey, at least it will reduce your carbon footprint, right?

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Milestone For Florida: Soon To Exceed One Million Active CCW Holders

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/state/florida-concealed-weapons-state-about-to-register-one-million-active-conceal-carry-permits

This really is quite impressive---the number is nearly 5% of the population in Florida.  Notice also how the feverishly predicted 'rivers of blood' have failed to manifest.  Should malefactors decide to riot over developments in the Zimmerman case, the unprecedented CCW density may produce...interesting...results.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Antifa Gives the Ultimate Endorsement to Golden Dawn

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/12/08/anti-fascists-claim-golden-dawn-bombing/

There's no bigger endorsement than to bomb their headquarters.  This works out about as well as you could hope for really for the Golden Dawn, as none of them were even killed, although not for any particular concern on the part of the Antifa (read, Anti-Whites).  If the progressive groups weren't jumping for joy to claim responsibility, I'd almost suspect this was a counter-intelligence operation.  But sometimes the Reichstag fire really WAS set by a communist.  This is a gift from God.  I wager He hates Golden Dawn far less than He hates their opponents.  Note also the comments in the article, they're pretty pro-Golden Dawn.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Another Reason to Favor the Citizen's Dividend

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/welfare-spending-equates-168-day-every-household-poverty_665160.html

Frankly, it'd be a lot cheaper over time.  To administrate a citizen's dividend, all you need is a dozen or so geeks, a small server farm, and lots and loads of EFTs.  It could actually be reasonably efficient since large amounts of efforts at means testing (i.e., are you good enough at gaming the system) would not be necessary.  Administrative overhead would be negligible, and there'd be no such thing as a welfare cliff.

A citizen's dividend would also give society the ability to transition into two radically different possible futures without apocalyptic disruption.

Future 1:  Technological singularity, most people are rendered zero or negative marginal product workers by advancing robotics and AI.
or
Future 2:  The end of cheap energy forces a massive economic contraction forcing the end of lots of make work and demanding a radical simplification of rules and structures.

Honestly I think the probability of Future 1 or Future 2 is pretty high, probably well over 50%.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Dividends and the Fiscal Cliff

It is uncertain whether the tax on dividends is going to go up next year.  It may rise to the rate of ordinary income and it may not.  I've noticed that several companies, for instance, Smith & Wesson, have issued fairly large special dividends at the end of this year, perhaps to get them under the wire of any change in taxation.  It would probably be a good idea, from a shareholder value perspective, for some companies to pay their 2013 dividends early---in the same manner that individual taxpayers will sometimes cluster deductible expenses right at the end of a tax year that would normally occur over the course of two tax years.  I wonder if we'll see any of that as it becomes clearer that we will or we will not see a significant change in the taxation of dividends.

Increasing the dividend tax rate will likely drive companies more towards stock buybacks, which IMO are not really a good thing, because they are so often misused.  Considering that the agents typically have large numbers of stock options themselves, a little imagination will tell you whether stock buybacks are typically exercised when the stock is cheap versus when it is expensive.  Frequently they're also used merely to cover for the dilution caused by the issuance of said options.  Because of the incentive alignment problem, I'm not in favor of stock options in general at the highest decision making levels of publicly traded companies.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Thought Experiment: Imposing Order on Detroit

Anyone care to take a gander at how much wealth would be created by imposing Order (in the reactionary or Moldbuggian sense) on Detroit?  I suspect that even were you to impose NYC policing norms (how the hell do they get away with that in NYC anyway), you'd be talking billions of dollars created virtually overnight, in a manner that'd make even Helicopter Ben envious.

How much wealth have we foregone in the US because we lack the will to impose Order?  How would the number of people you'd have to kill to impose Order compare to the ordinary toll of homicide and aggravated assault imposed by the lack of Order?

Could an Imperial Governor from the old school---perhaps @1900 or so---make Detroit the envy of America?

Achieving a state of Order really wouldn't be that hard insofar as a technical or military problem.  It is solely an issue of Will.  Presently we lack the Will even to ask the question in public.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Convergence of Spheres is No Accident

https://foseti.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/volunteer-thought-police/

Foseti finds the phenomenon of 'Volunteer Thought Police' fascinating.  I find it rather infuriating.  But I rather suspect that more of my moral system is routed through my disgust response than is his.

To his post I supply this response.  This response also explains why there is so much overlap between Reaction and the purveyors of Game.

I’ll tell you what motivates a lot of these Voxian Gammas.


The mistaken impression that if they suck up to the Cathedral, especially the feminist league, that perversion of honest nunnery, that they’ll enjoy higher status and get laid more often or with a less obese variety of women.

This is why, IMO, it is important for Reaction to be in the forefront of spreading a less wrong perspective on male-female relationships than the presently politically correct platitudes. G-Damned Cathedral doesn’t even get its f*** collaborators laid on a regular basis. The Nazis with their spiffy uniforms, and probably even the Soviets enjoyed far more success on that front. Partially choking off the flow of gammas is an important objective.

Just ask the gammas—hey, is all that talking down other men really working for you? Are you getting laid like tile? Underneath most gammas is a massive core of resentment.



Saturday, December 1, 2012

Steve Sailer with More on White People with Sometimes Not Even Spanish Surnames

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/12/quiz-can-you-pick-out-white-hispanic.html

Increasingly I think white people should make a two-pronged attack.
First, use ridiculous bad faith and claim Hispanic whenever and wherever it gives them personal benefits. 
I for one an a HUGE fan of the great Saint Diego Matamoros, and I have a soft spot for the Spanish Inquisition, which has a history blackened by the propaganda of the perfidious English.

Secondly, we need to push at minimum that nobody lighter than Zimmerman should be allowed to get any affirmative action bennies---even while collecting them ourselves.  Heightening the contradictions, as Lenin would say.  Who...Whom, that's all there is to politics, and white people need to learn this lesson now.  Learn it good and hard.

There are several good reasons to learn Spanish as a white person.  First, there's actually a lot of good literature written in Spanish, and knowing Spanish will give you another entry wedge into the Romance languages as a whole.  In addition, it turns out you can say all kinds of reactionary and Christian stuff in Spanish without anyone batting an eye---even people who speak Spanish.  Call for an airstrike from the Holy Spirit?  Venerate the great Slayer of Moors?  Describe your disdain for homogamy?  Spanish gives you the pass.