If you ever doubted that the political correctness of the West is a cult of human sacrifice, one that needs a continual stream of victims to sustain its reality-denying pieties, now is the time to watch the MSM.
Political correctness is not a cult of human sacrifice. It is method of silencing the open expression of opposing viewpoints by making the expression of such viewpoints socially unacceptable. It is a method of winning debate by sweeping the opposition off the field. It is a despicable practice at odds with the idea of a free society. Shephard Smith will never be accused of being a insightful political news anchor, but with commentary such as the following offering:
The person who is responsible for this according to a cornel in the army is a major in the US army, an officer in the US army, who was about to be deployed, was upset about the prospects of being deployed. Can we connect the dot between that and what he did today? Umm. You can. We don’t have the information that says he was so upset that he went out and shot. We cannot connect and we will not. But we will leave those facts on the table for you and when we can draw them together, if we can, we will.
Thanks Shep. By the way, when you go about connecting your dots, you may find you will need more than one dot.
No, human sacrifice is not at the heart of political correctness, but the loss of human life is one of the necessary consequences. If heightened sensitivities results in the US military being unwilling or unable to protect itself from people who find their primary loyalty is not to their country and their comrades in arms, than we have gone a long way towards surrendering our ideals and way of life.
Nicholas, I’m curious why you say a system that silences people and has the loss of life as one of its necessary consequences is nonetheless not a death cult.
The thing about a cult of human sacrifice, it seems to me, is that it cannot have a full understanding of what it does and remain a viable cult. In other words, they must believe in their myth; death cults cannot be fully conscious of themselves as “death cults”. As Jesus said, forgive them for they do not know what they do…
Imagine, for example, what it took for the Aztecs to line up the literally thousands of their victims in their staged mass sacrifices/yearly festivals. Knowing what they did, why would anyone have been taken captive by them alive? how would the ceremonies have been staged without impossible disruptions from desperate victims kicking and screaming to the end? It seems to me, many of the victims, however horrified, must have played along, believing to some extent that they were partaking in some cycle of renewal by which the human came to partake in the divine. In other words, people actively engaged in sacrifice – the making something sacred – while buying into a myth by which the death cult was not simply a death cult. And, indeed, it was not simply a death cult but part of a larger social reality (for example it was a form of population control and dietary protein provision in a harsh Malthusian environment). The Aztec, like the PC, can only be denounced as a “death cult” from the point of view of the outsider with a certain kind of perspective that comes form a comparative and historical understanding of religions, an outsider who knows or believes there is a better way.
I call political correctness a death cult because of the consequences of its world view which reduces all human relationships by feeding them through a standard framework of filter for understanding human relationships, one that depends on the ostensibly universal relevancy of the Oppressor-Oppressed dichotomy. This world view, with its absolutist claims of injustice, works against decentralized negotiation of our differences, denying people like Hassan the kind of feedback that might have gotten him to deal with certain resentments and realities prior to taking it into his mind that the only way his sense of injustice could be addressed was by mass killing. This is what the linked post is suggesting.
One of the confounding ironies of PC is that it has emerged, in reaction to the Holocaust, in apparent opposition to what it claims to be the “fascist” norms of white, western, bourgeois society that supposedly lead, at least potentially, to genocide. It claims to be the anti-death cult. But since it is, like all leftist movements, ultimately Utopian or nihilist when it comes to actually existing societies, which it always puts on trial as not good enough, as hegemonic screens for oppression, it is in continual need of proof that the supposedly neutral procedures of bourgeois society are actually proto-Nazi in their systemic racism, etc. It positively wants those proof and is willing to produce them, on an altar. Its needs eventually become indistinguishable from its fears. And so the MSM cannot, in the moment it realizes someone has just killed a dozen soldiers on an American army base, distinguish its fear that this man might be a Jihadist from its desire to make excuses for this “victim” of the white male, anti-Muslim, hegemony.
Political Correctness, I would suggest, positively encourages and requires proofs of its central claim: that most of us are victims, potential or actual human sacrifices, of the hegemonic Western society; that the meaning of our existence is reducible to our being either guilty whites or subaltern peoples. Just as Palestinian suicide bombers are not strictly an Islamic phenomenon, since their production actively serves a Western audience and victimary ideology, so I would imagine we can’t understand Hassan’s killing and self-sacrifice outside of a Western ideology that denies all kinds of specific forms of individuality and responsibility in order to fit us into the meta categories of victim or oppressor. ANd what is the denial of the individual identity and responsibility, his reduction to a group status that accords him a fragile “identity” as victim or oppressor, other than a form of human sacrifice?
What strikes me about the shooter is that he was using the US Army to gain advantages in his career (as it appears most of his medical training came from the US Army), but when asked to step up to the plate and fulfill his commitment he didn’t want to. That alone is problematic, but compounded with is religious beliefs it is more than problematic. However I see a similarity to what happens in Canada occasionally when we are expected by certain segments of our citizens to welcome US military deserters as refugees even through these ‘refugees’ volunteered to serve. I fear that we have lost are perspective on what should be common sense – if you make a commitment you keep it; if you have a problem with something you are volunteering for you don’t volunteer to do it. But apparently those standards are no longer expected.
“And what is the denial of the individual identity and responsibility, his reduction to a group status that accords him a fragile “identity” as victim or oppressor, other than a form of human sacrifice?”
If we are going to term Hassan’s loss of individual identity to the group identity by which the politically correct MSM ultimately categorize Mr. Hassan as a victim, then yes I would agree, though the term in this sense is being used metaphorically. I think Political Correctness is more properly seen as an effort to limit expression and win in the market place of ideas by sweeping alternative view points off the field of discussion, and allowing acceptance of ideas that are in direct conflict with the ideals of liberty and equality under the law. Can you openly state that Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that a wise Latina would make for a better judicial decisions as the sexist, racist comment that it is? No, you “cannot”. If that is the case, then could a person also get away with claiming he would make a better justice on the grounds of his male sex and Caucasian lineage? No. Both statements being equally incorrect, political correctness accepts one and disparages the other, leaving us with a distorted language that does not serve us in arriving at truth. If Political Correctness is a to be considered a death cult, it is the death of Truth that is its focus.
David Warren weighs in on the crippling falsehood of political correctness.
“And all this is quite apart from less checkable information that was quickly available through the Internet, painting a much grimmer figure of a man with openly Islamist views, able to rise through the U.S. military, because of the syndrome of political correctness.”
and
“Getting at Islamist cells, to say nothing of lone, self-appointed jihadis within our society, means getting over the false sentimentality that turns a terrorist incident into an “incomprehensible tragedy” when it is not incomprehensible”
Political correctness has undermined the defense of our society, even inside the institutions of our military forces.
Well, Nicholas, aside from the fact that Hassan came within a hair of achieving suicide by cop, he killed 13 people. And when we listen to the PC nonsense that results from his action aren’t we witnessing an official and MSM response that increases the probability of similar murderous acts happening in future, compared to alternative possible official responses that would set up ways for measuring, recognizing, and variously marginalizing Jihadist ideology before it takes people over the edge. If so, then the PC nonsense is clearly something that finds its validation through “understanding” the mental breakdown of the poor wretch, and not by doing what it could to minimize murderous acts. In other words, it worships a myth that requires blood, that encourages people like Hassan to show us, in a way we can’t ignore, how they are victims of the normal, i.e. “racist”, “Islamophobic”, “dirty Kaffir”, American.
Yes and yes, though I am not willing to go along with “..it worships a myth that requires blood…” I see it more as an attempt to impose a certain world view, a world view that is inconsistant and capricious, one that delights in viewing people as victims, and all the crippling that that entails. Its efforts to assign blame and oppressor status adds litte to our understanding of the general human condition. Such a world view has consequences in terms of our abitlity to protect ourselves from those that would harm ouselves and our families.
My own aversion to political correctness is related to its infringement on our freedom of speech and thought. We are arguing for the same position but with different emphasis. There is some truth in what you say, and I will leave it for you to continue to advance your viewpoint. Thanks for your argument. I will leave the last word to you.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Political correctness is not a cult of human sacrifice. It is method of silencing the open expression of opposing viewpoints by making the expression of such viewpoints socially unacceptable. It is a method of winning debate by sweeping the opposition off the field. It is a despicable practice at odds with the idea of a free society. Shephard Smith will never be accused of being a insightful political news anchor, but with commentary such as the following offering:
The person who is responsible for this according to a cornel in the army is a major in the US army, an officer in the US army, who was about to be deployed, was upset about the prospects of being deployed. Can we connect the dot between that and what he did today? Umm. You can. We don’t have the information that says he was so upset that he went out and shot. We cannot connect and we will not. But we will leave those facts on the table for you and when we can draw them together, if we can, we will.
Thanks Shep. By the way, when you go about connecting your dots, you may find you will need more than one dot.
No, human sacrifice is not at the heart of political correctness, but the loss of human life is one of the necessary consequences. If heightened sensitivities results in the US military being unwilling or unable to protect itself from people who find their primary loyalty is not to their country and their comrades in arms, than we have gone a long way towards surrendering our ideals and way of life.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I have come to the conclusion that psychiatrists are crazy and must be incarcerated before they hurt anyone else.
Derek
November 7th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Thanks for posting this!
Nicholas, I’m curious why you say a system that silences people and has the loss of life as one of its necessary consequences is nonetheless not a death cult.
The thing about a cult of human sacrifice, it seems to me, is that it cannot have a full understanding of what it does and remain a viable cult. In other words, they must believe in their myth; death cults cannot be fully conscious of themselves as “death cults”. As Jesus said, forgive them for they do not know what they do…
Imagine, for example, what it took for the Aztecs to line up the literally thousands of their victims in their staged mass sacrifices/yearly festivals. Knowing what they did, why would anyone have been taken captive by them alive? how would the ceremonies have been staged without impossible disruptions from desperate victims kicking and screaming to the end? It seems to me, many of the victims, however horrified, must have played along, believing to some extent that they were partaking in some cycle of renewal by which the human came to partake in the divine. In other words, people actively engaged in sacrifice – the making something sacred – while buying into a myth by which the death cult was not simply a death cult. And, indeed, it was not simply a death cult but part of a larger social reality (for example it was a form of population control and dietary protein provision in a harsh Malthusian environment). The Aztec, like the PC, can only be denounced as a “death cult” from the point of view of the outsider with a certain kind of perspective that comes form a comparative and historical understanding of religions, an outsider who knows or believes there is a better way.
I call political correctness a death cult because of the consequences of its world view which reduces all human relationships by feeding them through a standard framework of filter for understanding human relationships, one that depends on the ostensibly universal relevancy of the Oppressor-Oppressed dichotomy. This world view, with its absolutist claims of injustice, works against decentralized negotiation of our differences, denying people like Hassan the kind of feedback that might have gotten him to deal with certain resentments and realities prior to taking it into his mind that the only way his sense of injustice could be addressed was by mass killing. This is what the linked post is suggesting.
One of the confounding ironies of PC is that it has emerged, in reaction to the Holocaust, in apparent opposition to what it claims to be the “fascist” norms of white, western, bourgeois society that supposedly lead, at least potentially, to genocide. It claims to be the anti-death cult. But since it is, like all leftist movements, ultimately Utopian or nihilist when it comes to actually existing societies, which it always puts on trial as not good enough, as hegemonic screens for oppression, it is in continual need of proof that the supposedly neutral procedures of bourgeois society are actually proto-Nazi in their systemic racism, etc. It positively wants those proof and is willing to produce them, on an altar. Its needs eventually become indistinguishable from its fears. And so the MSM cannot, in the moment it realizes someone has just killed a dozen soldiers on an American army base, distinguish its fear that this man might be a Jihadist from its desire to make excuses for this “victim” of the white male, anti-Muslim, hegemony.
Political Correctness, I would suggest, positively encourages and requires proofs of its central claim: that most of us are victims, potential or actual human sacrifices, of the hegemonic Western society; that the meaning of our existence is reducible to our being either guilty whites or subaltern peoples. Just as Palestinian suicide bombers are not strictly an Islamic phenomenon, since their production actively serves a Western audience and victimary ideology, so I would imagine we can’t understand Hassan’s killing and self-sacrifice outside of a Western ideology that denies all kinds of specific forms of individuality and responsibility in order to fit us into the meta categories of victim or oppressor. ANd what is the denial of the individual identity and responsibility, his reduction to a group status that accords him a fragile “identity” as victim or oppressor, other than a form of human sacrifice?
November 8th, 2009 at 6:55 am
What strikes me about the shooter is that he was using the US Army to gain advantages in his career (as it appears most of his medical training came from the US Army), but when asked to step up to the plate and fulfill his commitment he didn’t want to. That alone is problematic, but compounded with is religious beliefs it is more than problematic. However I see a similarity to what happens in Canada occasionally when we are expected by certain segments of our citizens to welcome US military deserters as refugees even through these ‘refugees’ volunteered to serve. I fear that we have lost are perspective on what should be common sense – if you make a commitment you keep it; if you have a problem with something you are volunteering for you don’t volunteer to do it. But apparently those standards are no longer expected.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
“And what is the denial of the individual identity and responsibility, his reduction to a group status that accords him a fragile “identity” as victim or oppressor, other than a form of human sacrifice?”
If we are going to term Hassan’s loss of individual identity to the group identity by which the politically correct MSM ultimately categorize Mr. Hassan as a victim, then yes I would agree, though the term in this sense is being used metaphorically. I think Political Correctness is more properly seen as an effort to limit expression and win in the market place of ideas by sweeping alternative view points off the field of discussion, and allowing acceptance of ideas that are in direct conflict with the ideals of liberty and equality under the law. Can you openly state that Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that a wise Latina would make for a better judicial decisions as the sexist, racist comment that it is? No, you “cannot”. If that is the case, then could a person also get away with claiming he would make a better justice on the grounds of his male sex and Caucasian lineage? No. Both statements being equally incorrect, political correctness accepts one and disparages the other, leaving us with a distorted language that does not serve us in arriving at truth. If Political Correctness is a to be considered a death cult, it is the death of Truth that is its focus.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
David Warren weighs in on the crippling falsehood of political correctness.
“And all this is quite apart from less checkable information that was quickly available through the Internet, painting a much grimmer figure of a man with openly Islamist views, able to rise through the U.S. military, because of the syndrome of political correctness.”
and
“Getting at Islamist cells, to say nothing of lone, self-appointed jihadis within our society, means getting over the false sentimentality that turns a terrorist incident into an “incomprehensible tragedy” when it is not incomprehensible”
Political correctness has undermined the defense of our society, even inside the institutions of our military forces.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Well, Nicholas, aside from the fact that Hassan came within a hair of achieving suicide by cop, he killed 13 people. And when we listen to the PC nonsense that results from his action aren’t we witnessing an official and MSM response that increases the probability of similar murderous acts happening in future, compared to alternative possible official responses that would set up ways for measuring, recognizing, and variously marginalizing Jihadist ideology before it takes people over the edge. If so, then the PC nonsense is clearly something that finds its validation through “understanding” the mental breakdown of the poor wretch, and not by doing what it could to minimize murderous acts. In other words, it worships a myth that requires blood, that encourages people like Hassan to show us, in a way we can’t ignore, how they are victims of the normal, i.e. “racist”, “Islamophobic”, “dirty Kaffir”, American.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Yes and yes, though I am not willing to go along with “..it worships a myth that requires blood…” I see it more as an attempt to impose a certain world view, a world view that is inconsistant and capricious, one that delights in viewing people as victims, and all the crippling that that entails. Its efforts to assign blame and oppressor status adds litte to our understanding of the general human condition. Such a world view has consequences in terms of our abitlity to protect ourselves from those that would harm ouselves and our families.
My own aversion to political correctness is related to its infringement on our freedom of speech and thought. We are arguing for the same position but with different emphasis. There is some truth in what you say, and I will leave it for you to continue to advance your viewpoint. Thanks for your argument. I will leave the last word to you.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
It’s as you say a small difference in point of view. Regards to you.