Speak the Truth

Consider a young man who has, since the shooting in Oregon on Thursday, shared every pro-gun-control theme that came across his desk. Last night, he told me he was thinking of getting a gun and a carry permit. It's safe to tell me this, and to seek advice on how to do it and what models would be wise. In public, though, he clearly feels he must aggressively signal his "virtue" on this and other liberal agenda issues. One gets the sense that he's doing it largely to try to appear attractive to young women of his generation. It's not at all what he really thinks, deep down. It's what he feels is safe to express.

This was brought to my mind this morning when I read this heart-felt article from a young woman who is a little ashamed about how much she loves being a mother. I know a young woman, about the same age as the young man I started with, who has similar feelings. She is a feminist philosopher, but came to me a few times after the birth of her sons to express a sense that being a mother was better than everything else she'd ever known. She wanted to ask someone who would hear the question with understanding: was that wrong for her to feel?

Of course it's not wrong.

It makes sense to be circumspect about your political views in polite company: religion and politics are the perennial topics to avoid at a dinner party. That's not what is going on here, though. They are talking about their views all the time in public. They're just committed to signalling support for views they don't really hold but are afraid to question, or even not to affirm loudly and publicly.

Herodotus tells us that the ancient Persians raised their noble sons with only three kinds of education. They taught them "to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth." Obviously I think that is shortsighted: many more things should be known, so that you can explore the walls of the world, understand the mathematics that will let you track the leading edge of physics, peer into deep metaphysical wells, contemplate the limits of language and thought.

Yet the first lessons should not get lost. That there is much more to know does not change the fact that the Persians were right about the core of a good and noble life. Ride. Shoot straight. Speak the truth.

25 comments:

Tom said...

I didn't know the Persians read Jeff Cooper!

Ahem. More seriously, one of the things I found most useful in Thomas Kuhn's work on scientific paradigms was that scientists will stick to a paradigm they know is deeply flawed until they have a better paradigm. I think this is generalizable to humanity. We cannot operate without a world view; we will stay with one we know is flawed rather than abandon it and live in a nonsensical world.

One of our projects in saving our nation is to understand the flaws in statists' world view and create a new paradigm that resolves their internal contradictions in ways that make sense to them. We need to do this in creative work like movies and novels, and we need scholars who can accomplish this academically, and we need people bent on persuading rather than attacking to work one-on-one with friends, co-workers, etc.

Most statists can't accept our current world view because their current paradigm was specifically molded to reject ours. And, I think, one reason that the statists are so powerful around the globe because there are problems within our paradigm as well. What we need is a new paradigm.

Naturally, it can't be completely new. Nothing is. It has to draw on the traditions that we truly value and find useful for explaining the world and guiding our behavior, and it also has to solve the contradictions that have come up in our world views, and offer the statists some new way of explaining their contradictions as well.

If Kuhn is right, then this new paradigm won't be perfect either. New contradictions will crop up and eventually create the conditions for yet another revolution, another paradigm. But usually that's a problem for other generations, so let's not worry about that now.

Eric Blair said...

Sheeple. Same as it ever was, really.

james said...

I've not read Kuhn that I can recall, but I think I get the idea. However, even if a model is flawed it retains some domain of validity, and within that domain it is still perfectly useful. And, who knows?, within one of the descriptions of a model you may find tools useful for extending it.

Tom said...

james, that's right. The model explains some things very well, and there's still productive work that can be done with it. Dropping the model loses that usefulness, so people won't drop one model until they have a new model to replace it.

Kuhn was specifically talking about big changes in scientific paradigms, like the change from the earth-centered Ptolemaic model of the universe to the Copernican sun-centered model. The Ptolemaic model actually worked quite well for over a millennium, but anomalies developed over time. However, astronomers couldn't just toss it aside until they had a new system to replace it with, or else suddenly the fields of astronomy and physics wouldn't make sense anymore. There was still useful work that could be done within the Ptolemaic model, despite the problems, so astronomers wanted to do that work rather than ditch the model for something new.

Kuhn's work is often seen as an attack on the standard idea of how science works, so he's not terribly popular in conservative circles, but he had some very interesting and, I think, useful ideas about how groups of people change their world view. We don't need to adopt his other positions to benefit from them.

Tom said...

One example of this is when I explained to a lefty friend of mine why I carry. Instead of talking about the Founders and the right to self-defense, I told her that I carry for the same reasons I recycle, drive a car with good gas mileage, try to stay informed about what's going on in my community, vote, give to charities, etc. I see it as just another part of being a good citizen. We are all responsible for the safety of our communities. I didn't even mention the 2nd Amendment.

Basically, I just added protecting the community physically to the list of things lefties think we should do for our communities. She didn't run out, buy a gun, and take a concealed carry class, but that seemed to make a lot of sense to her.

Of course, I do believe in the 2A and the God-given right of self-defense, but she wasn't going to listen to any of that, so I didn't feel a need to say it.

Grim said...

One of our projects in saving our nation is to understand the flaws in statists' world view and create a new paradigm that resolves their internal contradictions in ways that make sense to them. We need to do this in creative work like movies and novels, and we need scholars who can accomplish this academically, and we need people bent on persuading rather than attacking to work one-on-one with friends, co-workers, etc.

Good. So what does this paradigm look like to you? I gave a sketch of an argument to statists in terms of discussing the citizen as an officer of the state (which is true, of course, though we don't talk that way -- we talk about 'governors' and 'the governed,' but in fact the citizen is supposed to be an active member of the government in many respects, including the enforcement of laws via jury duty, citizens' arrests, electing of legislators, etc).

raven said...

It may be a "flaw in their world view" to us, but be perfectly in accordance with their goal, that is, total dominion over all.
Don't make the mistake of thinking the enemies of freedom have a common viewpoint- we seem to make this exact mistake with the Jihadi's.

Tom said...

Grim: I don't know yet. I'm trying to listen and understand; I'm reading some of their intellectuals. I'm not sure what it all comes down to, yet, but I'll be posting here as I try to figure it out. Have you fleshed out your 'citizen as officer of the state' argument? I'd be interested to see that.

Also, in terms of anomalies on our side, I think there are issues that the right just ignores, like problems caused by international free trade agreements, or the tremendous power of mega-corporations (a type of organization that didn't exist back during the Founders' day), those sorts of things. Maybe admitting some problems in our own paradigm would let us work with some on the left to work toward that new paradigm.

In short, I'm not really sure, but I'm working on it.

raven: You are right. However, we also have to be careful not to mistake everyone on left for an enemy of freedom. You are also right that there isn't one viewpoint on either side, but there are commonalities. Or, maybe the best strategy is to focus on one demographic's paradigm. We're never going to win anywhere close to everyone; but maybe we can shift enough to change the balance of power.

Tom said...

raven: It may be a "flaw in their world view" to us, but be perfectly in accordance with their goal

I should have addressed this first. It doesn't look like a flaw to us; their whole world view is deeply flawed to us. What Grim is describing is two lefties who are seeing some contradictions in their own world views, and that's what we have to work with.

In terms of persuasion, it really doesn't matter what we think their flaws are; it only matters what they think their own contradictions are. If we can understand where they think the contradictions in their own philosophies are, then we have something to work with. We can begin to build a coherent philosophy that addresses what they themselves recognize as anomalies while bringing them closer to our ideals.

Ymar Sakar said...

In public, though, he clearly feels he must aggressively signal his "virtue" on this and other liberal agenda issues.

Know what's that called?

It's not at all what he really thinks, deep down. It's what he feels is safe to express.

The Southern pov on that is pretty obvious.

In New England and California, Obeying Authority no matter the cost, reporting things to human resources while secretly whispering in the dark about this or that, is normal. And expected of the sheep who think they are citizens or lions.

They taught them "to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth." Obviously I think that is shortsighted: many more things should be known

What's shortsighted is modern people thinking their progeny would survive the steppes without those 3 things. You won't live long enough to get the rest of the preferred cache that moderns think they need for long sighted voyages.

Speak the truth.

That depends on modern people's tolerance for being called crazy and disliked now a days. They are weak, do not expect too much from that weakness which never wishes for glory or any true meaning in life.

Ymar Sakar said...

Kuhn's work is often seen as an attack on the standard idea of how science works, so he's not terribly popular in conservative circles, but he had some very interesting and, I think, useful ideas about how groups of people change their world view. We don't need to adopt his other positions to benefit from them.

He's merely a voice crying out in the wilderness. Most breakthroughs in science came about as a result of accidents and when people rejected the social status quo of beliefs and barriers.

Here's a list of all those times "scientific consensus" and the authority of the "experts" failed to see their own noses.

https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/science-progresses-when-a-person-breaks-the-limits-of-society/

As for conservatives being against Kuhn, that would normally follow if the person seeks to conserve something. But in the modern, a lot of that is due to being a cuckservative as well. The Left has dominated elite well funded science for some time now, to the point where many people agree with their methodology, as flawed and deceptive (gaia cult) as it has been shown to be.

A citizen or warrior might make judgments due to bias or due to personal experience, anecdotal evidence, but if one presumes to look at a human that acts like a sheep, the model of behavior changes. The sheep obeys an authority or an order of hierarchy in life, whether that is obeying the fear vs predators or obeying the sheep dogs or obeying the shepherds. Once the structure of authority has been imposed over the sheep, the sheep does not resist nor do they become confused. They act and obey. When mental conditioning and mind control takes hold over a subject, they are controlled. No other authority can supersede the one already in the minds of the subjects. Other examples are people who believe in a religion, they do not convert easily. That religion has a hold of them, authority wise, in terms of who the faithful obey. They will not obey the heathens or heretics or illegitimate prophets of another religion. Still another example would be men and women in romantic relationships. It used to be that once that slot in the social hierarchy was filled, the man and the woman was offlimits to anyone else, because they were socially recognized as a pair and anyone seeking to steal one or the other away would be labeled a villain and crucified by social exile or other punishments. The point is that once in history, a wife of a warrior would rather kill herself, if she couldn't kill her captors, in order to keep herself faithful to her lord or master or husband. That slot has been filled.

It is not merely sheep that obey authority, humans of all sorts do as well, due to society and social conformity. A pack fights until the hierarchy is established. Once established, that slot is filled until it is unfilled.

Ymar Sakar said...

We are all responsible for the safety of our communities. I didn't even mention the 2nd Amendment.

Sun Tzu once wrote that attacking an enemy's strong point is folly. That one should attack the enemy's weak points by understanding the enemy, and avoiding being attacked in one's own weak points by understanding oneself. That's how it turns out. The Left has certain hard points of defense, propaganda and mind control wise, that takes a huge amount of force to break through. Usually they will go zombie silent or say "I don't want to talk about this anymore" once their defenses are breached. Most patriots or American citizens have the courtesy and politeness to stop there. 2 days later, the Leftist zombie comes back, renewed, with the fire of the Faithful and the advice of their religious authorities, believes even harder as a zealot or fanatic. Thus avoiding the mention of the 2nd Amendment evades the Left's primary defense, which was constructed against the US Constitution.

Don't make the mistake of thinking the enemies of freedom have a common viewpoint- we seem to make this exact mistake with the Jihadi's.

They may not have a common viewpoint, but they do have a common chain of command. Decapitate or subvert that chain of command and they will obey the new leadership as easily as they did the old. That is how the Left took over Western civilization, they just stole all the leadership spots and some of the staff spots, and next thing you know, they're in charge. They are the "boss now" somehow: feminism and civil rights.

Have you fleshed out your 'citizen as officer of the state' argument?

A warrior is normally responsible for his own safety first and foremost, and is charged with the defense of the home, family, relatives, and children non related. A serf and slave is not given such responsibilities, since what is the point. I think people just sort of go back to that when the "vitality of diversity" has failed the West.

tremendous power of mega-corporations

Like Google and Warren Buffet or Gates? Leftist corporations that are feared or hated by their enemies or competitors. Conservatives ignored the Left's allies because they were going for politics. That is fine, so far as it goes in politics. Once politics fails though, people see with new eyes who the real enemies were.

We're never going to win anywhere close to everyone; but maybe we can shift enough to change the balance of power.

Bunch of writers and authors are taking on the Left over the HUGO awards. One of the more unexpected counter offensives in this century.

it only matters what they think their own contradictions are.

As Alinsky liked to repeat, heighten the contradictions and make them follow their own rules, for once.

Btw, as a thought exercise, if not all Democrats and Leftists are enemies of X, then were the people in Rot Uk enemies of women? Because when it came down to it, They Obeyed their Orders to help the Muslim rape gangs. Was that because they were personally for it? Or does the excuse "I'm just obeying orders" mean they aren't our enemies.

raven said...

Actions speak louder than excuses. IMO the good folk of Rotterham would have done well to start feathering the police heads. With gray goose quills.
Used to be, one was forced beyond the pale- those "authorities" walked there freely. Few examples of abuse under color of law are more repugnant.

Grim said...

"So we’ll drink all together/
To the grey goose-feather/
And the land where the grey goose flew."

Tom said...

[Kuhn]'s merely a voice crying out in the wilderness. Most breakthroughs in science came about as a result of accidents and when people rejected the social status quo of beliefs and barriers.

Hardly. Kuhn had a powerful impact on the history of science. More than 40 years after he first published his ideas, he is still mandatory reading in history and sociology of science programs. Also, he wasn't discussing breakthroughs, per se, but revolutions. The heliocentric system wasn't a breakthrough; it drastically changed how we understood the universe, from physics to astronomy, with theological implications.

You rightly point to the current conservative embrace of constructivism, though. After opposing the conclusions and implications of the sociology of science, they have embraced them when it comes to anthropogenic climate change.

They may not have a common viewpoint, but they do have a common chain of command.

Nah. It's a disorganized mess. The left are as bad as Protestants when it comes to that.

Grim said...

I think Tom is right about that. There's no chain of command. There are ribald competing interests. They hate each other even more than they hate us.

Ymar Sakar said...

More than 40 years after he first published his ideas, he is still mandatory reading in history and sociology of science programs.

That's usually what happens when a lone voice crying out in the wilderness produces profitable results later on. Society adopts his name and ideas, and teaches it to others, as if it was always the case.

But as with the history of scientific geniuses and breakthroughs, it was not always the case. The issue is not what they do with his ideas 40 years later, what matters is what they did to him at the time when he researched those ideas and put them into effect. If society accepted it and promoted it, that would be one thing, but if they rejected it at the time, as America did with the Wright Brothers, and only later accepted it because it was useful, then he was still a voice crying out in the wilderness. He would have just become a useful voice later on and got co opted by the universities.

I think Tom is right about that.

You've made that pov clear here before, Grim.

That doesn't change anything.

They hate each other even more than they hate us.

So FDR was right to become a Stalin lover? I doubt that. The point is, it doesn't change anything.

The left are as bad as Protestants when it comes to that.

While Islam has heresies and often conflicting dogmas, like the Sunni and Shia, they do have religious heads. And that means they have a chain of command, even if it is bifurcated along certain lines.

To think the Left is akin to Protestants, means that you doubt the Leftist alliance is organized enough to find common cause through their differing points of view, to generate a systematic religious head that has authority over the faithful, as does the Shia and Sunni Caliphs did for Islam.

But as the examples of Hitler and Stalin shows, just because people are against each other, doesn't mean they will fight each other over you. As with Poland, they can agree to form pacts and alliances, as the Left has done, not only with Leftist organizations but also with Islamic organizations. An organization that can make an alliance with foreign infidels like Islam work, should have little trouble with domestic factions.

What it comes down to, Grim and Tom, is that you doubt the Leftist alliance's ability to make and maintain alliances, to make and maintain religious heads because they are either not a religion to you or they are too fragmented to be a concern.

That is what I call "underestimating the Leftist alliance for human utopia". Little profitable predictions can come out of people who continue in that folly.

Ymar Sakar said...

Btw, since nobody has mentioned it yet, I was waiting on my test of a tactical flashlight.

Now that those tests are concluded, people who want to do citizen arrests, might wish to upgrade their non lethal kits. I'm sure most Americans have the standard lethal kit right now, but for arrests, you need something justified as non lethal. And against mass murderers and what not, range and force projection are also beneficial.

A tactical flash light jams out the ability of a single target to accurately acquire targets and fire at them, with a relatively high range even in daylight. Certainly better odds of success than charging straight at a shooter in a more open terrain, no concealment or cover between you and the shooter.

Non lethal tools can also have dual or triple use purposes, which becomes easy to justify in court or to Leftist traitors later on, seeing as you can justify having it for beneficial work like navigating the night of darkness. Rather than the old people control propaganda that you have a gun because you were going to hunt down a human and kill them for fun and giggles.

This is part of the idea that "tools" don't consist of something called a "gun" or a "sword", and then it just ends there. It never ends there, not to a human brain at least.

Tom said...

Well, Kuhn made a pretty big splash in 1962. By 1967 everyone in the field knew his work, and a lot of people out of it. It quickly spurred Bruno Latour and others in their work. Latour is, of course, also still mandatory reading. We discussed something he wrote here a month or two ago.

Tom said...

While Islam has heresies and often conflicting dogmas, like the Sunni and Shia, they do have religious heads. And that means they have a chain of command, even if it is bifurcated along certain lines.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a chain of command." I think even a cursory glance at the Middle East today, and a light survey reading of Islamic history, shows that reality doesn't support the idea of a single chain of command there. There are many chains of command, and plenty of individual initiative and divisiveness. Sometimes disparate groups work together, but as often as not they are killing each other. There simply is not one chain of command that all Muslims are part of, and there hasn't been since Mohammed's death.

I don't doubt that these disparate groups, whether Muslim, Protestant, or Leftist, can form alliances, or that they all share certain commonalities within their overarching ideology. But that also is not a chain of command. There is simply not one single head for any of these three. Even during WWII, Hitler was a head, Stalin was another, Mao another, Mussolini another, etc. There was never one overarching organization, and the various organizations at various times fought and killed each other.

What it comes down to, Grim and Tom, is that you doubt the Leftist alliance's ability to make and maintain alliances, to make and maintain religious heads because they are either not a religion to you or they are too fragmented to be a concern.

No, that's not what I think at all. I've spent a lot of time thinking, studying, and talking here about how to overcome the Left in the US. I am usually close to Anglo-Saxon fatalism about the issue: I often feel like the war is already lost and it's my determination to make a good account of myself on the field as I go down under their axes.

No, what I think is, it does no good to be blind to genuine weaknesses and opportunities that are there, even though we're likely to lose. The Left is massive, powerful, holds most of the strategic ground socially and culturally, and often works in alliances. That doesn't change the fact that they are not a monolithic organization, or that their various organizations have a good amount of infighting that we can take advantage of, or that a lot of those organizations don't even really have a chain of command because they cannot compel obedience. It doesn't change the fact that they are not uniform robots but rather unique human beings, and as such are liable to all the weaknesses we humans have.

I also think that it's is stupid to say, "Well, since we're all gonna die, let's just swing blindly as they come." No. When you are selling your life, that's when you want to extract the highest price possible for it, and that means you must clearly look at the enemy and understand his strengths and weaknesses, and strike where it will count.

Musashi said that it is stupid to die with a weapon yet undrawn, and I interpret that in just this way.

We do have one significant advantage over the fatalistic Anglo-Saxon. We aren't fighting physical battles and we will live to fight and fight and fight. Sadly, that means we may also live to see the results of our defeat, should that happen.

But one thing you should not think about me: I do not underestimate the American Left. I think it's likely we lose. I'm just determined not to give up, and not to fight stupidly.

Tom said...

Interesting notes on the flashlight. Do you recommend any specific ones?

douglas said...

Out here in LA-LA land, those sorts are a dime a dozen. My wife is very involved at the local elementary school, and despite the hard left cant of the populace, there are a whole lot of stay at home moms, and women who do the bulk of the day to day child rearing. No gender roles? Makes for good bumpers ticker slogans, but they pretty much ignore it in real life. there are a ton of people who are on the left purely for emotional and sociological 'group dynamic' reasons- wanting to belong. That's why the entertainment and education realms are so important and something the left understood and exploited and we pretty much let them. It's going to take a long time, if we are ever able, to change that. But here in the bowels of left-dom, I can tell you, I do see cracks that are exploitable.

Grim said...

I second Tom on the flashlight, too, Ymar. I'd be interested to hear what models you think work best.

I think even a cursory glance at the Middle East today, and a light survey reading of Islamic history, shows that reality doesn't support the idea of a single chain of command there.

Indeed, the most effective opponents of Shi'ite Iranian domination of Iraq are Shi'ite Iraqis. ISIS or some other Sunni rebellion might take away part of Iraq, but if Iran is foiled in controlling the Shi'a regions it'll be because the ayatollahs in Najaf don't really want to be controlled by the ayatollahs in Qom.

Ymar Sakar said...

I think even a cursory glance at the Middle East today, and a light survey reading of Islamic history, shows that reality doesn't support the idea of a single chain of command there.

Islam used to be united during the Ummayid or Abbasid dynasties. Under a caliph for their respective branches of Islam.

Now a days, the fragmentation in the ME is due to Western interference and beat downs, so modern day ME is not a good indication of Islam's historical successes under a more unified chain of command. Historically, they had a lot of conflicts and heresy issues, but the Roman Catholic Church had the same issue, but the Pope was still the Pope.

Interesting notes on the flashlight. Do you recommend any specific ones?

A few initial investigations are available on my blog, but unlike with swords and H2H schools, flashlights aren't something I have a long history with. I'm more used to the very dim, battery running out, head lambs. I had heard maglight was making some very bright and blinding stuff, but technology has outpaced even that.

The NRA and other civilian preparation and survivalists would be better sources for specific flashlights. The one I tested came from their sub community more or less, and since it was rebranded, it's not even on Amazon. And they all look alike too, the 25 dollar ones, the 50 dollar ones, and the high end 90+ dollar ones. So there's little way to differentiate them other than by testing them. Having somebody else use it on you at 50 meters in broad daylight to see how much the "blind" factor becomes.

Aiming can be an issue, but for people that have trained to do zig zag movements to go into and out of cover, while firing a firearm via ironsights, that should be of little issue to them. Generally the hand sized or pocket sized lights with focus zoom construction, provides more tactical options. With new tech LED lights and reflection technology, a light can be thrown pretty far now, without using a very large reflector or case. Batteries are still an issue.

. I am usually close to Anglo-Saxon fatalism about the issue: I often feel like the war is already lost and it's my determination to make a good account of myself on the field as I go down under their axes.

No, what I think is, it does no good to be blind to genuine weaknesses and opportunities that are there, even though we're likely to lose. The Left is massive, powerful, holds most of the strategic ground socially and culturally, and often works in alliances.


Tom, that is close to my pov in 2008 as well. Technically 2007, because it had nothing to do with the Presidential candidates.

However, I am used to over the years encountering rejection of the Leftist alliance's true nature, by people who don't want to deal with the issue at all. They think the Left is weak or a clown without a clown car, something easily ignored. And they don't even belong to the Leftist death cult, that's just how normal people think.

ISIS or some other Sunni rebellion might take away part of Iraq, but if Iran is foiled in controlling the Shi'a regions it'll be because the ayatollahs in Najaf don't really want to be controlled by the ayatollahs in Qom.

Currently a Shia or Sunni caliph doesn't exist. Iran is the closest thing to it. Without a caliph, being a single secular leader and religious head of authority, any religion can become fragmented. Right now Islam seems to function very close to the autocephalous patriarchs of Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. But ISIL's new born caliphate, may change that.

Ymar Sakar said...

That doesn't change the fact that they are not a monolithic organization, or that their various organizations have a good amount of infighting that we can take advantage of,

True, almost no organizations are monolithic. And they do have weaknesses that others can subvert. Even sub communities that have reputations for being weak or decadent, like gamers, can fight off the Leftist encroachment on their territory.

However a unified chain of command doesn't mean a monolithic organization, as I use it. A unified chain of command would be like the Executive Branch or the US Marine Corps. There is an authority at work compelling obedience. Does that mean there are no conflicts, no disagreements, no independent contractors or rebels or Muslim traitors and saboteurs? It's not a monolithic organization, even the more authoritarian ones, but the unified chain of command still exists. Unified under one authority, one hierarchy.

It may be very loose, but it is still organized around totem principles. One is above you, one is below you. The Left just uses very strange ways to determine who is above you, punching up at the oppressor, and who is below you, the so called victim.

Feudalism is also a unified chain of command. There were situations where, say, the Duke Aquitaine was a vassal to the King of France, but Aquitaine was more powerful than France...