Violence and Growth

In a post below, I promised a discussion in a few days of the issue of whether violence enables personal growth in crucial ways; I want to draw your attention to the comments, where some excellent arguments have already been fielded.  I'm going to think about that over the weekend and try to construct something worthy.

Preparatory readings, for those of you interested:  The Smell of Death, by myself; the Laches, by Plato; and Aristotle's arguments about courage and practice, from the Nicomachean Ethics.  (I don't mean to suggest that my writing is as useful or worthy as theirs, but since I'm the one writing the introduction to the discussion, it will be on my mind.)

Mixed News in Legal Affairs Today

The bad news is that the DC Circuit Court agreed to an en banc rehearing of the Flynn case, meaning that poor General Flynn is in for at least another month of this punishing process.  If they rule in favor of Sullivan, he'll have to appeal to SCOTUS for relief, which will take even longer. 

The good news?  The couple who defended their home against BLM threats and trespassers is having the nonsense charges dropped by the Missouri AG.  (UPDATE:  The headline and opening paragraph are apparently misleading.  No good news today.  See comments.)

The Devil's Dance Floor

One last one for the night, to wash away the ska or just for the tin whistle and quick tune.

Ska: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Yeah, not a Hall thing, but ... well, it's Wednesday. The Wanderer wouldn't mind.

Is ska even a thing anymore?

Um, update ... Don't post videos without watching them first. Reel Big Fish's version of "Brown Eyed Girl" ... not really anything I would ever post anywhere, I think.

Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding

In Defence of the Bad, White Working Class

A Hillbilly Elegy type article from Australia. I think many of the same social dynamics are playing out across the Anglosphere.

It's hard to excerpt. It's a well-written essay and it is well worth reading in its entirety. But here's something I think will resonate here:

Even if I was wronged or oppressed or marginalised, claiming victim status seemed absurd (since I often came across people who were more unfortunate than me), limiting (since there were other, enriching aspects of life to focus on), humiliating (because in the working-class world self-pity is reviled), and self-defeating (because if you allow yourself to think and behave like a victim, you quickly fall into lumpen despair).

At university, I discovered that this ethos didn’t apply. A season of despair would not send middle-class teens spiralling into a life of drug-addled indigence; they could simply brush themselves off and enrol again next year. Strong, class-enforced safety nets meant that self-pity could be accommodated, and victimhood could even form part of a functional identity.

Indeed, the willingness to expose your wounds is another sign of privilege. Those for whom injury has a use-value will display their injuries; those for whom woundedness is a survival risk, won’t. As a consequence, middle-class grievances now drown out lower class pain. This is why the wounded lower classes come to embrace conservative discourses that ridicule middle-class anguish. Those who cannot afford to see themselves as disadvantaged are instinctively repulsed by those who harp on about disadvantage.

Language is another site of class-conflict. I grew up in violent environments. For people like me, ‘symbolic violence’ or ‘offensive speech’ were, if anything, a benign alternative to real violence and real hate. It was often registered as a joke—or yes, banter—because we understood its relative harmlessness. When I first came across someone who reacted to something that was said to him as though something had been done to him, I thought he was insane. But he wasn’t. He was from a lower middle-class family and was unfamiliar with our habits of speech. He’d never been beaten, so the words felt ‘violent’ enough for him to react in a way that was, in our environment, laughable.

The witness will please refrain from testifying

I'm surprised at Attorney General Barr, thinking he was supposed to be speaking when so many important people had points to make in front of the cameras.

Virtue and cowardice

John Kass nails it:

Human beings do not wish to see themselves as cowards. They want to see themselves as heroes.

And, as they are shaped and taught to fear even the slightest accusation of thought crime, they will not view themselves as weak for falling in line. Instead they will view themselves as virtuous. And that is the sin of it.

The proper role of violence in civil society

I'm not sure this was what BLM wanted, but it seems that even in places like the NYT comments sections, fellow-travelers find themselves debating what violence is, whether it's wrong, and what it means to enable it without engaging in it personally.

Some of our society's old discussions about whether words and symbolic actions like Tweets and cross-burning are really "violence" will need to be revisited, if we're to excuse trashing retail outlets, injuring cops, and forming a mostly peaceful cordon of non-violent protestors around the violent ones to protect them from the cops.  We may also have to re-think what it means to acquiesce to a corrupt "system."  Many NYT commenters are at least thinking about the strategic ramifications of failing to prevent the entangling of their pristine message from the insane display that is repelling a lot of potential voters.

The Church Militant

For Catholic readers, a priest has decided that it is obligatory to fight the evils in Democratic platform planks. 

Ymar’s Post

Wednesday. 

Men’s Rea

Conversation with left leaning friend tonight:

Her: “Why can’t cops treat us the same way they treat white collar, middle class criminals?”

Grim: “I hate to break this to you, but you are a white collar, middle class criminal.”

Her: “What crimes have I committed?”

Grim: [Explains crimes]

Her: ‘AAAAHHH!’

Well, at least they won’t be able to prove that she meant to break the law. 

Higher Math

Xenon

New headlights, to go with all the other new stuff. Brakes, oil, plugs, clutch cables, tires — the bikes are newer than they’ve been in a while. 

Barr is Having a Day

It's unusual to hear a two-time US Attorney General state that he's not confident that Congress would defend even its own building from defacing or destruction.

Let the money follow the student

Heads came to a sharp point when the President put a voucher proposal into the latest COVID relief bill:

Drawing on his history of supporting school-choice initiatives, he announced an ambitious new effort to give parents billions in federal funds – as much as $10,000 per child -- and allow them to pick the emergency-education method that would best fit their child’s and families’ needs.

“If the schools do not reopen, the funding should go to parents to send their children to [the] public, private, charter, religious or home school of their choice,” Trump told reporters Thursday during a press briefing. “The key word being ‘choice.’ If the school is closed, the money should follow the student so the parents and families are in control of their own decisions.”

And if not that, then at least require the schools to go back to their core role as babysitters.  The only thing worse than spending $10K a kid for an ideologically corrupt non-education is to fail to get some expensive childcare out of it.

As my husband says, with all the kids staying home, how long before families pass the hat to hire a schoolmarm to come out here on the train from back East?

Medical mystery

West Hunter poses a mystery:  why have premature births dropped like a rock during lockdown?  His readers offer two main theories:  protection from an unknown pathogen, and decreased access to doctors who induce premature deliveries.

Ymar’s Post

It’s Monday. Time for more. 

Old Norse “Class”

First in a series, if you wanted to learn. 

Three Gorges

It’s going to be a massive issue if the dam fails, worldwide for supply chains. Watch this space for links to advice about that. 

What’s your over/under on failure?  The CCP’s confidence is probably a bald lie.