There’s Christmas shopping for the big items – something someone really wants, or if you can’t afford that, or just can’t find that one special thing in time, something they’ll really appreciate, or that they’ll eventually appreciate once they get over their quite graciously concealed disappointment in your total inadequacy as a human being – or, as things work out in the end, something you think they should appreciate, damn it. No wonder tensions run high at Christmas and some folks dread the holiday. It’s the thought that counts – yeah, right. If they only knew what you were thinking as you drive around the parking lot at the mall, hoping for a parking spot to open, the anxiety building and nothing on the radio but those dogs barking out Jingle Bells again.

But then there are the stocking-stuffers, the small items that fill in the corners, so to speak. Shopping for those gifts is kind of fun. You can cut loose and say that’s cool – what the heck. And you buy an odd book, or calendar, or mug, or collection of Disney figures playing strip poker. There’s no pressure.

And who knows what sort of small things you’ll get? Of course sooner or later you’ll get one of those word-a-day calendars. That’s because you seem to like language, as such – new words fascinate you and you’re always using them, because now you can say what you really mean, precisely, or you’re an arrogant asshole who likes to make everyone else in the family feel inadequate. But it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows that it pays to increase your word power – you don’t want to sound like a rube. And books to help you with that were the original self-help books, long before the age of psychobabble about self-realization and creative selfishness.

So what’s the word for the day? The word is ressentiment:

Ressentiment is a sense of resentment and hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one’s frustration, an assignation of blame for one’s frustration. The sense of weakness or inferiority and perhaps jealousy in the face of the “cause” generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one’s frustration. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability.

Okay, it’s French. But many of our best words are – chic, suave, and, when we talk about dinner, that beast out in the field is a cow, an Angle-Saxon word, but when it gets to the table it seems to be beef, a word derived from the French, from Old French boef (ox) and modern French bœuf. It’s okay. Blame the Norman Conquest. Everyone wanted to talk like the winners. And they ate well.

But this word, ressentiment, is one of those words that may be quite useful these days, when you want to say what you mean, precisely. And at True Slant, Julian Sanchez offers this item on “the politics of ressentiment” – and it really is a pretty good analysis of where things stand here in America at the moment. After all, it would be nice to have a good way to explain what happened over the last eight or none months with the explosion of the Tea Bag Movement and the ascendency of Glenn Beck and the ongoing Saga of Sarah. That Palin woman, an obscure poorly-educated woman with little seeming ability to think clearly and keep her facts straight, who lost when she ran for vice president, an office made for obscurity, and then resigned as governor of far-off and not terribly important Alaska, has not faded from the scene. Each day she seems to become more and more important to a certain segment of Americans, and because the news folks have to report that, she is in the public eye hourly. Something is going on here. And maybe it is ressentiment.

At least that is what Julian Sanchez thinks. He’s been reading Matt Continetti’s increasingly baroque attempt “to paint substantive criticism of Sarah Palin’s published arguments as some kind of mob persecution.” And he’s been reading one of those thoughtful, intellectual conservatives, Conor Friedersdorf, who pokes holes in Continetti’s arguments about the mob – most everyone in America – out to get her.

Sanchez agrees with Friedersdorf. There is no mob. But he sees something else:

He’s got a fine case on the specifics, but I think misses the mark when he dubs the modern right’s obsession with its own supposed victimization an instance of the “politics of schadenfreude.” If you’re going to import hoity-toity foreign terms into your political analysis, you may as well play fully to type and pick a French one, which happens to be more accurate in the instance anyway. Schadenfreude is as ubiquitous in politics as in any other competitive game; you can bet Democrats in the ’20s were laughing their asses off over Teapot Dome.

So he prefers ressentiment:

Conservatism is a political philosophy; the farce currently performing under that marquee is an inferiority complex in political philosophy drag. Sure, there’s an element of “schadenfreude” in the sense of “we like what annoys our enemies.” But the pathology of the current conservative movement is more specific and convoluted. Palin irritates the left, but so would lots of vocal conservatives if they were equally prominent – and some of them are probably even competent to hold office. Palin gets to play sand in the clam precisely because she so obviously isn’t. She doesn’t just irritate liberals in some generic way: she evokes their contempt. Forget “Christian conservative” – she’s a Christ conservative, strung up on the media cross on behalf of all God’s right-wing children.

And he reminds us of the 2004 Republican convention:

After witnessing three days of inchoate, spittle-flecked rage from the people who had the run of all three branches of government, some wag (probably Jon Stewart) puzzled over the “anger of the enfranchised.” And it would be puzzling if the driving force here were a public policy agenda, rather than a set of cultural grievances. Jay Gatsby learned too late that wealth alone wouldn’t confer the status he had truly craved all along. What we saw in ‘04 was fury at the realization that ascendancy to political power had not (post-9/11 Lee Greenwood renaissance notwithstanding) brought parallel cultural power. The secret shame of the conservative base is that they’ve internalized the enemy’s secular cosmopolitan value set and status hierarchy – hence this obsession with the idea that somewhere, someone who went to Harvard might be snickering at them.

One thinks of Richard Nixon. It was about resentment, and not much else:

The pretext for converting this status-grievance into a political one is the line that the real issue is the myopic policy bred by all this condescension and arrogance – but the policy problems often feel distinctly secondary.

And he points to the Republican National Committee’s new ad on healthcare reform – no mention of policy, just taking up the Tea Party slogan “Listen to Me!” And that is about it:

There’s almost nothing on the substantive objections to the bill; it’s fundamentally about people’s sense of powerlessness in a debate that seems driven by wonks. To the extent that Obama enjoyed some initial cross-partisan appeal, I think it owed a lot to his recognition that most people care less about actual policy outcomes than they do about feeling that they’re being heard and respected.

Sanchez goes on to discuss why people buy SUV’s – there have been studies, and most of them come down to people buying them because they symbolize an inversion of the “anti-American” values of critics. Those Harvard policy wonks think they’re bad? Screw them! As Sanchez says – “It betrays an incredible sensitivity, not to excessive taxes or regulations on the vehicles, but to the feeling of being judged.”

And maybe that is what every tea-bag party with all the shouting is about. Who do you think you are? Don’t judge me! You may know things and have all your facts and logic and all that, but… something. Do they want power, or just to express how it’s just not fair, whatever it is?

Sanchez takes them at face value, that they want power, the power to decide things, but sees a problem:

Ultimately, this is a doomed project: Even if conservatives retook power, they wouldn’t be able to provide a political solution to a psychological problem, assuming they’re not willing to go the Pol Pot route. At the same time, it signals a resignation to impotence on the cultural front where the real conflict lies. It effectively says: We cede to the bogeyman cultural elites the power of stereotypical definition, so becoming the stereotype more fully and grotesquely is our only means of empowerment.

You can see how that goes – So, you think we’re racist peckernecks who refuse to calm down and think and work things out and offer ideas? Yeah, well maybe we are. And maybe, just to piss you off, we’re proud of it. And thus we’re your worst nightmare, so deal with it.

And Sanchez says this of Palin – “If the animating force is ressentiment, the leader has to be a loser to really deserve the role. Which is to say, expect the craziness to get worse before it gets better.”

And Conor Friedersdorf comments on all this. After reviewing all the thoughtful, intellectual conservatives (there are some, although his list a bit more inclusive than reality dictates), he gives in:

Unfortunately, the conservative base and the media at large are more interested in rallying behind or lavishing attention on Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin, all of whom fit Mr. Sanchez’s description. One piece of evidence confirming his diagnosis is the kind of insults the talk radio right and its lackeys in the blogosphere use when they’re trying to discredit political or ideological opponents via insults. Mark Levin, a man intelligent enough that he needn’t have an inferiority complex, for some reason adopts the rhetorical style of the classic insecure bully – juvenile name calling, constant self-aggrandizement, vituperative outbursts. It hardly matters whether he actually feels these things (you wouldn’t think so when you read him in print) or just feigns it because it’s what attracts an audience. Mr. Sanchez’s point is made either way.

And as for an absurd example of an inferiority-complex driven insult he offers this:

When Obama and Vice President Biden made a surprise lunch stop at a burger joint in Virginia this week, the President reportedly asked for a burger with “spicy” or “Dijon mustard.”

Right-wing talk show host Laura Ingraham weighed in: “What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard?”

Fox News’ Sean Hannity invoked the Grey Poupon commercial. “I hope you enjoyed that fancy burger, Mr. President,” Hannity said.

So when Sanchez writes, “The secret shame of the conservative base is that they’ve internalized the enemy’s secular cosmopolitan value set and status hierarchy,” Friedersdorf can only agree with him.

But it gets strange:

With regard to status hierarchy, consider the term “the mainstream media” as used on the right – it is telling that hosts on Fox News, whose books make the New York Times bestseller list and whose ratings are higher than anyone on CNN, un-ironically denigrate that network as part of “The MSM,” as if they’re somehow outside of mainstream infotainment. There is also the “Fair and Balanced” slogan. Taken literally – without the baggage journalism produced by Roger Ails and company has given it – those words express values that the average Columbia Journalism Review staffer would champion. Despite the pose, however, what Fox News has done isn’t to improve upon the biased journalism so often denigrated by the conservative base – it has instead self-consciously created its own version of that bias. Imitation, flattery, yada yada yada.

That is one perverse tragedy of the present political moment. The left has its flaws, as all political coalitions do, and the right has offered valid critiques of these blind spots and excesses over the years, but rather than creating an improvement on CNN, or identity politics, or Medicare scare-mongering, or Bush Derangement Syndrome, the present leaders of Conservative Inc. regard these as tactics that worked for the left, and are thus worth emulating.

They’re not serious about policy, or if they ever get back on top, serious about governing. The animating force is ressentiment – hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one’s frustration, an assignation of blame for one’s frustration. Yes, the ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability, or responsibility. So they don’t need ideas, or what follows from ideas, policy, and, should they win power again, they scorn governance. None of that was ever the point. So there’s no point in asking what they’d do instead of what is being proposed. But you know the response. You’ve seen it – You think we’re dumb? We’ll show you dumb, and you’ll be damned sorry.

It’s an odd cycle. They’re not exactly the Party of No. It’s a bit more complicated than that. And it seems the French have a word for it.

But there’s another way to look at this. George Scialabba is the author of What Are Intellectuals Good For? He misses the days when there was such a thing as public intellectuals. And he was probably the right guy to review the new John Kampfner book, Freedom for Sale: How We Made Money and Lost Our Liberty.

What he says of the book:

In this fiercely brilliant essay on the global political landscape at the beginning of the new millennium, John Kampfner – a longtime foreign correspondent, the former editor of the New Statesman, and now the head of Index on Censorship – chronicles what he calls “corrupted democracy”, “authoritarian democracy” or “controlled democracy”.

Many, perhaps most, advanced societies today, Kampfner argues, operate on the basis of a “pact,” an implicit bargain between government and society. In exchange for consumer goods and private freedoms – to travel; to marry whomever, live wherever, and read whatever they wish; to do business without interference from government regulations or labor unions; and to pay few or no taxes – the rich and the middle class have agreed to abdicate politics. The government keeps opposition parties, the mass media, and academic or journalistic muckrakers on a very short leash. Surveillance waxes; civil liberties wane. Transparency, accountability, and citizen initiative are sacrificed to order, security and prosperity.

The argument seems to be that while there may be mutual fear and loathing between the elite policy wonks and those who professionally resent them, no one cares:

The key to this development is the emergence of a cautious, disenchanted middle class. Political theorists in the West have generally assumed that democratic freedoms grow in tandem with a middle class strong enough to hold the state to account and diverse enough to require political competition, which in turn requires freedom of speech. But democracy has been getting a bad name among its purported bearers, taking the rap for political chaos and economic stagnation. In China, the Communist Party has largely succeeded in convincing the country’s middle class that the freedoms demanded by students and dissident intellectuals at Tiananmen Square would have led to a welter of factional conflict, scaring away foreign investment and spiking economic growth. In Russia, democracy is associated with the Wild West atmosphere of the Yeltsin years, when market reforms created a cohort of billionaires as well as mass unemployment and a collapse of social services. India’s middle class, revolted by the corruption and demagoguery of mass politics (though apparently not by the horrifying deprivations of the masses), has largely forsworn political engagement (apart from bribing politicians), hoping for a strongman who will maintain public order through a combination of patronage and Hindu nationalism – bread and circuses.

The West too is undergoing what Kampfner calls a “democratic recession”. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi’s persistent popularity is due partly to his ownership of much of the country’s mass media and his influence over the rest. But it’s also partly an expression of public disillusionment with politics and a desire to be left alone by the state – above all by the tax collector. Britain under Thatcher and Blair has seen an exponential increase in technological surveillance and a steady decline in Parliamentary and judicial control of the executive branch, especially the police and intelligence agencies. Here the pretext was not growth but security: terrorist threats, first from the IRA and then from al Qaeda. But London’s centrality to international finance and its hospitality to rich foreigners with shady pasts have also helped to erode Britain’s already weak traditions of free speech, journalistic muckraking, and official whistle-blowing. …

As for the United States, the Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties and the signal failure of Congress, the media or the judiciary to resist it are already well-known.

So there seems to be an unwritten pact between the middle and upper classes of most countries and their governments – “the freedom to make, keep and spend money is granted in exchange for renouncing the freedom to question authority.”

That complicates matters. There are the well-educated elite policy wonks, and the lefty populists, and economists and scientists and other big thinkers, considering what the government should do, and what it can do, and all the alternatives to everything. And there are those who have decided they feel no one properly respects them and have no clue what the government should do, and what it can do, and are bored with alternatives – they assign blame and have their rallies and love Glenn and Sarah, and now there’s that fancy new French word for all of that.

And then there’s everyone else, which is most everyone, who have tacitly agreed to shut up and to ignore it all, on the condition they can just go and get their Christmas shopping done now. And that’s a pretty good idea. Sometimes it’s best just to walk away.

I have an assignment to write, so I’m going to quickly jot down some thoughts I have on this article, on Scheler’s idea of ressentiment:

- Scheler’s idea of ressentiment is relevant to the modern day, perhaps even more than Nietzsche’s. For example he says that moral value does not come from utility, but from the spiritual flourishing of the individual, with flourishing being marked by a maximum of love in the individual. This is relevant to a modern, ‘rational’ society so unfortunately consumed by the consequentialist and deontological mindsets, that measure the goodness or rightness of actions in terms either of utility or the adherence to a rule. That moral value comes from the presence of love, security, and inner health/cleanliness, and not from utility or conformity to a rule, is not only a correct message, but one that is desperately needed in this modern era. Think of its implications for welfare, among other things.

- Scheler’s distinction between true Christianity as coming from the positive value inherent in individual spiritual flourishing (or the maximizing of love among men, as he put it) rather than as an ‘institution of charity’ is a truth forgotten by Christians for most of history, including by hippies and ‘Jesus Freaks’. The earliest disciples sold their goods and gave the money to the poor, not because that was the morally correct thing to do, but because they thought the world was going to end any day then.

What is gained, spiritually, by merely spreading things and money? Something may be gained from a utilitarian point of view, or some variant of a virtue ethical pov, but I cannot for the life of me understand why a spiritual philosophy that talks of closeness to God should be socially ‘progressive’. Is it because we are told to love our neighbour as ourselves? Or that generosity takes us to the Kingdom of God? As for the latter, I do not in fact believe that is correct, and though I am not a theologian, I do not believe it is a dictate of Christianity either (I am not Christian, it should be noted). As for the former, there is value in that idea, but to pretend to love by merely engaging in a generous act is no better than to be honest about your lack of love and refuse to engage in the act. At the end of the day nobody can be commanded to love anyone or anything: love is spontaneous, it comes from within, and neither social engineering nor the Bible can produce love where there is none.

There is no spiritual benefit to ‘justice’, which is in any event only a human mental invention. There is no spiritual benefit even to charity. There is spiritual benefit only to one’s own ascension or emergence, which has the consequence of making us love everything more. From a more spiritually advanced perspective wrong will simply not be committed, nor will anybody be allowed to experience hunger or poverty. It is not because alleviating poverty is inherently spiritually good, but because it is the inevitable consequence of the accomplishment of something else that is inherently spiritually good.

This is what Scheler was trying to convey, and it amazes me that Nicolas Birns couldn’t appreciate such an obvious point. His views are remarkably applicable to this day and age, but Birns is too thick to realize it. Based on what I’ve read so far of his article, I see a complete lack of substance, and the presence only of pretentious name-dropping.

Ok gotta go take out the cat litter and start that assignment.

  Confronta:

Da: Corriere della sera 30 novembre

La Svizzera dice no ai minareti. A sorpresa, l’iniziativa per il bando dei simboli religiosi musulmani è stata accettata al referendum con il 57% dei voti. In base ai risultati ufficiali, solo quattro dei 26 cantoni che formano la Confederazione hanno respinto la proposta avanzata dal partito della destra populista dell’Udc e della destra cristiana dell’Udf. Data la maggioranza sia degli elettori che dei cantoni, il voto comporterà quindi la modifica dell’articolo 72 della Costituzione, che regola i rapporti fra lo Stato e le confessioni religiose: il divieto della costruzione dei minareti vi verrà inserito come una misura «atta a mantenere la pace fra i membri delle diverse comunità religiose». Il risultato viene considerato dagli analisti come una grande sorpresa, giacché contraddice i sondaggi che davano il «no» al 53%; inoltre, sia il governo che l’opposizione – come le principali comunità religiose – si erano espressi contro l’approvazione del referendum. I musulmani, che sono il 5% della popolazione elvetica, dispongono di circa 200 luoghi di preghiera in Svizzera, ma solo quattro minareti, che non sono usati per il richiamo alla preghiera. Un secondo referendum in votazione chiedeva di bandire le esportazioni di materiale bellico: questa iniziativa è stata però bocciata.

   Immagine da: Wikipedia

Testo da: Wikipedia

Nel marzo 2001 i talebani ordinarono la distruzione delle due statue del Buddha scolpite sulle pareti di roccia nella valle di Bamiyan, una alta 38 m e vecchia di 1800 anni, l’altra alta 53 m e vecchia di 1500. L’azione fu condannata dall’UNESCO e da molte nazioni di tutto il mondo, compreso l’Iran.

Lo so che in Svizzera non hanno ordinato di distruggere i minareti esistenti. Non ancora. Aspetto che la Lega lo proponga in Italia.

Noto soltanto che la guerra dei simboli si fa sempre più feroce. E che ogni ferocia ne richiama un’altra.

La ferocia, nei combattimenti, può essere segno di debolezza. Il più forte e nobile è magnanimo e generalmente non umilia l’avversario dopo che lo ha sconfitto. Ma qui le sorti non sono ancora decise.

Vittorio Messori oggi scrive sul Corriere (titolo: “Così si riscoprono le radici cristiane e la nostra cultura”): “Le bianche montagne, le verdi vallate, i laghi azzurri non hanno nulla a che fare con i deserti e le steppe da cui spuntarono i maomettani, tante volte contenuti a suon di spada (e le milizie elvetiche fecero la loro parte) e che ora muovono silenziosamente ma implacabilmente a una nuova conquista, varcando le frontiere spesso in modo abusivo“.

E’ l’essenza della tesi leghista in bocca a un cristiano (ma i leghisti non erano devoti al culto pagano delle divinità celtiche? Vedi una breve cronistoria qui)

Poco più avanti Messori – per non farsi mancare nulla – cita anche Ratzinger (da cardinale), che criticava “l’inspiegabile odio di sé che caratterizza da tempo l’Occidente”. Ecco il tassello che mancava: abbiamo dimenticato, anzi ostracizzato le nostre “radici”, torniamo all’antico! (Quale? I templi romani? Che c’entrano le cattedrali gotiche con le chiese romaniche, per non dire delle chiese arabeggianti di Spagna o della Sagrada Familia a Barcellona? Sono segni di un imbastardimento del culto cristiano? Andrebbero abbattute? Ah, la purezza della religione!).

C’è un gran ressentiment in quest’idea della minaccia esterna. Lo scontro di civiltà e l’orgoglio cristiano-occidentale come riflessi condizionati di una paura atavica. E poco importa che l’Occidente, anche grazie al Cristianesimo, abbia come cifra essenziale proprio la capacità di metabolizzare le differenze, di orientarle al progresso, di operare sintesi vincenti che le altre civiltà (Islam in testa) non sono in grado nemmeno di immaginare. Questa superiore capacità di sintesi dovrebbe essere il nostro orgoglio. La chiusura nelle false sicurezze del proprio passato è piuttosto tipica di chi teme il cambiamento, il divenire, e non ha la forza di dar forma alla novità della propria immagine del mondo. Guardarsi intorno con quella terrorizzata circospezione di chi è aggredito dai lupi non ci fa onore. Dovremmo preferire (come spesso abbiamo fatto) le battaglie in campo aperto ed è per questo che l’integralismo (come il terrorismo) è l’arma dei paria, dei codardi, dei mezzuomini. E’ proprio questo terrore che scatena la guerra fra i popoli. Che si vietino nuovi minareti è esattamente ciò che sperano coloro che hanno organizzato l’attacco alle Torri (forse il più grande esempio di viltà della storia). Non è forse così, amatissimi cugini d’Oltralpe? (fra l’altro: in Canton Ticino hanno votato sì il 68% degli aventi diritto, contro il 57% della media nazionale. Perché?).

À la fin du troisième trimestre, le nombre de maisons aux États-Unis qui valent moins que le prêt hypothécaire qui les couvre a atteint près de 10,7 millions, soit 23% de toutes les propriétés hypothéquées, d’après un rapport de First American CoreLogic.

Par ailleurs, 2,3 millions d’hypothèques s’approchent d’une situation de «valeur nette négative» tandis que les défaillances sur prêts hypothécaires augmentent à l’échelle nationale aux États-Unis, indiquait hier First American CoreLogic, une entreprise de recherches dans le domaine immobilier de Santa Ana, en Californie.

«Nous ne nous attendons pas à ce que les prix augmentent considérablement», a précisé Mark Fleming, économiste en chef de First American CoreLogic. «Cela constituera un problème pendant des années, a-t-il ajouté. Cela réduit la mobilité et augmente les risques quant aux hypothèques si les propriétaires perdent leur emploi.»

Le chômage et la baisse de valeur des propriétés ont fait gonfler les défaillances sur les prêts hypothécaires au cours des trois dernières années. Ainsi, Freddie Mac, la compagnie de financement hypothécaire sous contrôle gouvernemental américain, a précisé hier que les défaillances sur ses prêts avaient augmenté au niveau record de 3,54% le mois dernier, tandis que son portefeuille d’actifs résidentiels a chuté à une cadence annualisée de 21,6%.

First American CoreLogic a précisé que ses données du troisième trimestre ne peuvent pas se comparer à celles de trimestres précédents à cause d’un récent changement dans sa méthodologie. Les données comprennent maintenant uniquement la dette réellement encourue par les emprunteurs par rapport à leurs lignes de crédit basées sur la valeur nette de leur maison plutôt que sur la valeur totale des lignes de crédit.

La plupart des emprunteurs dont la propriété vaut moins que leur hypothèque ont financé leurs propriétés entre 2005 et 2008, a précisé First American CoreLogic. Pas moins de 40% de ces propriétaires qui ont emprunté en 2006 sont dans cette situation, a ajouté l’entreprise. Parmi ceux qui ont obtenu une hypothèque en 2009, 11% possèdent une maison dont la valeur nette est négative alors que 5% s’approchent de cette situation.

Au Nevada, 65% des propriétaires sont dans une situation de valeur nette négative, soit le taux le plus haut aux États-Unis, selon le rapport. L’Arizona vient au deuxième rang, avec 48%, suivi de la Floride, du Michigan et de la Californie.

MISES EN CHANTIER, MAISONS INDIVIDUELLES*

MONTRÉAL -28%

SAGUENAY -23%

QUÉBEC -16%

SHERBROOKE -9%

TROIS-RIVIÈRES -7%

*De janvier à septembre 2009 par rapport à la même période l’an dernier.

Source : Desjardins Études économiques
la presse affaire

Sérieusement, vous vous rendez compte du cauchemar pour ces gens, entre ceux qui perdront de l’argent si ils vendent, ceux qui remboursent un crédit plus élevé que le prix de la maison, laissez tomber l’ambiance !

Les américains sont laminés, je me souviens d’un documentaire d’arte sur les subprimes, à un moment on y voit une carte d’une la ville, une sorte de cadastre, avec énormément de carré noir et rouge le maire expliquant que ce sont les maisons déja saisies et celles qui vont l’être, et il dit un truc qui m’a marqué ” on dirait un bombardement ” , c’est exactement ça.On dirait un bombardement invisible, mais pourtant bien réel, comme si ces maisons n’étaient détruites qu’aux yeux de leurs propriétaires.

Payer un crédit supérieur au prix réel de la maison, il y a de quoi devenir littéralement fou.
Le rêve américain se transforme en cauchemar, c’est le drame du surendettement.Pauvres gens, ils ont été bernés, on leurs a fait miroiter de l’enrichissement rapide et sans rien faire, il fallait juste acheter une maison et attendre 2 ou 3 ans,.Je sais que ces gens ont été stupides, mais ce sont avant tout des victimes, victimes d’une arnaque bien ficellée.En fait les acheteurs étaient les seuls à ne pas savoir ce qui ce tramait réellement, peut être certains agents immobiliers aussi, mais sinon les courtiers, les banques, les assurances, tout le monde savait.Je me souviens de Paul Jorion expliquer qu’au moment de son passage à Contrywide, ses collègues et lui même étaient parfaitement au courant qu’ils allaient dans le mur et que cela ne pouvait plus continuer ainsi.

Les élites détruisent les classes moyennes et finissent d’appauvrir les pauvres, et bientôt même les classes aisées vont souffir.Des sortes de subprimes pour riche existent également,et ils se feront sentir en 2010-2011.Seuls ceux qui ont des informations serieuses sur le calendrier exacte de l’effondrement économique et sur la bio attaque virus/vaccins sur le peuple pourront se protéger.

Une maison sur quatre vaut moins que son hypothèque c’est ahurissant, un bon nombre d’américains vont passer un noël tristounet, la rage montante en voyant le train de vie des politiciens, du gouvernement et des bankster.
J’ai lu que les ventes d’armes et de munitions explosent, la peur d’une possible limitation ou d’une tracabilité de toutes les munitions ainsi que le sentiment diffus que quelque chose ne va pas poussent les gens à s’armer et à stocker des munitions.Pas besoin d’avoir fait une grande école pour comprendre ce qui va se passer, je pense qu’un paquet d’américains ont compris.Je suis un relativement septique quand j’entends que le nombre de milice augmente, même si c’est probable, je suis méfiant, le fbi et la cia sont capables du pire, Oklahoma city nous l’a démontré.Un nouvel attentat de cette intensité et la loi martiale serait déclarée.

Bref, pauvreté, chomage, instauration de la loi martiale, qui sait peut être une révolution.

* The Stanley Aronowitz talk from this weekend’s conference will hopefully be up soon, but until then here are the two recent pieces from which it was primarily drawn: “Facing the Economic Crisis” and “Reflections on Seattle 1999.”

* A torture session in Iran took a strange turn when an elite policeman told his captive, a Newsweek reporter, that he believed New Jersey must be heaven on earth.

* Al Gore’s plan to out-crazy the crazy.

* And a must-read post from Matt Taibi on Sarah Palin and what has happened to the culture wars.

„Der neue Faschismus wird nicht sagen: Ich bin der Faschismus. Er wird sagen: Ich bin der Antifaschismus.“ Dieses berühmte Zitat des italienischen Schriftstellers Ignazio Silone trifft den Nagel auf den Kopf: Es gibt historische Traditionen, die bereits totgeglaubt sind, während sie sich lediglich in einem neuen Kostüm präsentieren. So auch der Antisemitismus.

Es wäre ein riesiger Irrtum zu glauben, die regelmäßigen Kostümaufmärsche der unverbesserlichen Rechten in Deutschland stellten eine echte Gefahr dar. Dies sind lediglich nette Einlagen für die „Tagesthemen“, nicht mehr, nicht weniger.

Das Problem liegt vielmehr darin, dass der Antisemitismus sich immer mehr, wenn auch schleichend, in der Mitte der Gesellschaft ausbreitet. Unter Gutmenschen, von denen geglaubt wird, dass sie, nur weil sie links und progressiv sind und sich mit den Armen aller Welt solidarisieren, weiß Gott keine Antisemiten sein können.

Sicher, als Antisemit wird sich heutzutage niemand mehr bezeichnen. Da dieses Ressentiment jedoch existiert und nach einem Ventil sucht, heisst das Schlagwort heute nicht mehr Antisemitismus, sondern schlichtweg Antizionismus. Poltisch korrekt verkleidet also. Und damit ist mit Sicherheit keine berechtigte Kritik am Verhalten Israels gemeint, die es zweifellos gibt.

Nein, diesen heimlichen Groll gibt es wirklich, und er charakterisiert sich dadurch, dass er – wie der klassische Antisemitismus – ein entscheidendes Merkmal besitzt, das ihn von reiner Kritik unterscheidet: Es ist die Spezialität, den Juden stets die klassische Wahl zwischen „falsch“ und „verkehrt“ zu geben.

Betrachtet man den gesellschaftlichen Status der Juden zur Zeit der klassischen Verfolgung, stellt man schnell fest, dass es der Jude niemandem recht machen konnte: War er reich, so wurde er als überheblicher Ausbeuter bezeichnet. War er arm, so galt er als Schnorrer und Schmarotzer, eine Belastung für die Gesellschaft eben.

Wenn man heute die Israel-Kritik genauer unter die Lupe nimmt, stellt man fest, dass viele Parallelen erkennbar sind: Zieht sich Israel weiter aus Gaza zurück und sich dadurch für die Palästinenser die Möglichkeit ergibt, seinen Feind mit Raketen zu beschießen, ist Israel selbst daran schuld. Zieht sich Israel nicht zurück, so redet man von einer Besatzungsmacht. Israel hat in ganz vielen Fällen die gleiche „no win“- Situation wie damals. Das ist Ressentiment.

Klar, letztendlich ist nichts dagegen einzuwenden, Israel in aller Härte zu kritisieren, doch das Bemerkenswerte ist die seltsame Fixierung, die die nahezu romantischen Verklärung der Palästinenser in letzter Zeit erfahren hat. Wieso sieht man nicht die Unterdrückung im Kongo, in Nigeria oder gar die Progrome gegen Christen in einigen muslimischen Staaten, sondern lediglich das Schicksal der Palästinenser? Das Attraktive am Leid der Palästinenser ist, dass es von Juden verursacht wurde.

Anm.: Grundlage dieses Artikels ist ein Gespräch zwischen Henryk M. Broder und Peter Voß.

Anbei eines jener demagogischer Bilder, die zahlreich im Netz zu finden sind:

While I’ve been thinking about ressentiment and its application to the many political movements and subcultures that exist today (such as the anarchist subculture, the majority of the Left, etc.), I’ve been wondering whether I can construct another explanation behind the same attitudes, behaviours and vital perversions.

The most plausible one I can think of right now is the urge for death or negation, as an explanation behind such ressentiment tendencies as oppositionism, nihilism etc. This urge is satisfied variously through any of the following techniques:

• Seeking an end to one’s participation in the ‘world of becoming’, for example through Nirvana or suicide.
• Seeking an end to one’s existence as an individual, by becoming obscured or lost in somebody else, nature or the herd.
• Masochism.
• A certain kind of asceticism, e.g. Gandhi.

What, then, explains the urge to negation to begin with? If one considers this an automatic response to being born, then what explains the difference in the level of this urge in different adults, with some of them being entirely free from it? This is the main question I’m trying to answer these days, and any suggestions are welcome. This is what I have so far:

• Pure horizontality of vision, i.e. no verticality. The ‘horizontal’ refers to the material, entropic world around us, in other words to nature. The ‘vertical’ refers to the transcendental world above us. This is not to say that horizontality is a sufficient condition for the death urge, as many people who are ‘vertically blind’ are more-or-less free from it. I am merely suggesting that when the two things are present, i.e., the death urge and horizontality, the latter is a good explanation for the former. Here are possible ’links’, if this explanation is true:
  •  A vertical vision imputes life with meaning, and the lack of it can result in a non-teleological view of reality. Without teleology, perhaps all the fluxiness or impermenance of the Universe seems daunting and empty.
  • Lack of trust or faith in the Divine.
  • There is a yearning that all human beings are naturally endowed with, which has been implanted in us by God, as a yearning that will ultimately lead us to Him. The state we yearn for is, among other things, non-egoistic. However, until we reach it, that yearning might express itself distortedly as one for any erasure of the ego, regardless of whether it is through ascension to Heaven, or a nihilistic merging with the Earth. 
  • Since the Universe is perceived as a contained, natural system, there enters the apparent reality of entropy, and its psychological consequences. What I mean by this is that a naturalist — or I should say ‘horizontalist’ – is likely to consider his own life as being a trajectory that is winding down, since there is no infinite source of energy to power him. Nietzsche pretended that mere will could produce such powering, but he was wrong (and indeed, his wrongness was made clear by the way his life ended; and also by the fact that from a purely secular perspective, there is no way to justify the idea of an Infinite source of power, whether it be will to power/vitality or whatever, since such natural forces are limited and finite anyway). The Christian explanation, however, takes the Kingdom of Heaven to be the source of such powering, so a person’s movement can be infinitely forward/upward, with no winding down.

  This is more consistent with common sense than ressentiment as an explanation behind the unhealthy tendencies we see in certain modern groups. It is more parsimonious too.

Before I say anything let me mention that I know a few individuals who are good examples of ressentiment, and am taking them as case studies when I talk about the phenomenon.

All emphasis in bold is mine. When I create a paragraph break that was not in the original, I’ll put ‘//’ in front of it. This chapter in Scheler’s Ressentiment is the most exciting so far, so exciting I almost started running around school like a madwoman. But I restrained myself. Anyway, here is the amazing Scheler, always right about everything… well ok, he’s mostly right, not always:

‘Love in Jesus’ sense helps energetically. But it does not consist in the desire to help, or even in “benevolence.” Such love is, as it were, immersed in positive value, and helping and benevolence are only its consequences. The fake love of ressentiment man offers no real help, since for his perverted sense of values, evils like “sickness” and “poverty” have become goods. He believes, after all, that “God giveth grace to the humble” (I Peter, 5:5), so that raising the small or curing the sick would mean removing them from their salvation.

//’… the value of love in the genuine Christian sense [does not lie] in the usefulness of its helping deed. The usefulness may be great with little love or none at all, and it may be small while love is great. The widow’s mites (Mark 12:42-4) are more to God than the gifts of the rich — not because they are only “mites” or because the giver is only a “poor widow,” but because her action reveals more love. Thus the original increase in value always lies on the side of him who loves, not on the side of him who is helped. Love is not a spiritual “institution of charity” and is not in contrast to one’s own bliss… Love is not valuable and does not bestow distinction on the lover because it is just one of the countless forces which further human or social welfare. No, the value is love itself… The important thing is not the amount of welfare, it is that there should be a maximum of love among men… Therefore nothing can be further removed from this genuine concept of Christian love than all kinds of “socialism,” “social feeling,” “altruism,” and other subaltern modern things.

[...]

‘But there is a completely different way [compared to Christian love] of stooping to the small, the lowly, and the common, even though it may seem almost the same. Here love does not spring from an abundance of vital power, from firmness and security. Here it is only a euphemism for escape*, for the inability to “remain at home” with oneself. Turning toward others is but the secondary consequence of this urge to flee from oneself… “Love” of the second [ressentiment] variety is inspired by self-hatred, by hatred of one’s own weakness and misery. The mind is always on the point of departing for distant places. Afraid of seeing itself and its inferiority, it is driven to give itself to the other — not because of his worth, but merely for the sake of his “otherness.” Modern philosophical jargon has found a revealing term for this phenomenon, one of the many modern substitutes for love: “altruism.” This love is not directed at a previously discovered positive value, nor does any such value flash up in the act of loving: there is nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people’s business. We all know a certain type of man frequently found among socialists, suffragettes, and all people with an ever-ready “social conscience” — the kind of person whose social activity is quite clearly prompted by inability to keep his attention focussed on himself, on his own tasks and problems.

[...]

‘Thus the “altruistic” urge is really a form of hatred, of self-hatred, posing as its opposite (“Love”) in the false perspective of consciousness. In the same way, in ressentiment morality, love for the “small,” the “poor,” the “weak,” and the “oppressed” is really disguised hatred, repressed envy, and impulse to detract, etc., directed against the opposite phenomena: “wealth,” “strength,” “power,” “largesse.“‘

* It would thus be expected that ressentiment people are also attracted to Buddhism and other ascetic philosophies, as the escaping urge is strong in them. Using one case study, I have found this to be the case, which gives further support to Scheler’s account of altruism.

What I have found in ressentiment people is that the urge to negation is so strong in them it is almost overwhelming, manifesting ultimately in self-destructive practices of asceticism, but more mildly in political oppositionism and counterculture. It is a violent, lower-vital (i.e. animal-like, ignoble and undisciplined affect) spewing, a sort of churning of the intestines. It is, at its heart, perpetual neurosis.

Note: I came up with neologisms for neurosis, sort of casually and in conversation. They are: ’stomach-churny’, aka ’stomach squeezy’, sometimes ’squeezy squeezy’, and other times just ’squeezy’. Haha, this is so funny now that I’m reading it .

Anyway, I found the above a mindblowingly astute analysis of modern Pharisaism, i.e. of the modern malaise of pseudo-morality. Nietzsche smelled it but analyzed it so badly he couldn’t even bet his own sanity on it. Scheler, however, is much closer to the truth. Where I disagree, however, is that I don’t believe all socialism is driven by ressentiment. There is a set of things that are neither ressentiment-driven, nor Christian. Getting a job, for example (unless it’s a ’spiritual job’ of some sort), filling tax returns and paying car insurance, etc. Social work can be part of that set of things, provided that one maintains a certain inner ‘cleanliness’ in the face of the slough of negative influences one will come across in such work.

Sometimes helping others can step out of that neutral territory of ‘just work’ into spiritual territory. I thought, for example, that the Fistula Foundation shown in A Walk to Beautiful was heartwarming and deeply spiritual. If I could initiate or play a major role in a project like that, I would certainly love to. To nurture others is a wonderful experience and only adds to a person’s bliss, and this can become the centerpiece of certain types of charity and social work. For your average activist, on the other hand, the landscape is nothing but swamps, which he loves to wade through being the masochist and pervert that he is.

But if socialism or social democratic feeling could become more nurturant and less bog-wading, more loving and less ‘revolutionary’, I don’t see how it’s dangerous or problematic. In Michael Moore’s Sicko, the Cuban doctors appear to be spontaneously generous and kind, and do not appear to have any sense of hatred or escapism, or any emotional burdens greater than your average citizen.

Thus, I am still open to the possibility of a working socialism or social democracy, and simultaneously wary of ressentiment and other pathologies that have afflicted the Left.

This is Nietzsche’s idea of ressentiment, however, not Scheler’s. I’ve been saying for a while now that anarchism is a backward-pulling force, a nocturnal and Earthly (and therefore pagan) movement that crawls out of the subconscient and pulls the individual downward to the mud.

Thinking/introspecting further about the issue of values and hierarchy, I came to the realization that the reason hierarchies are so important in the current state of the world (i.e. un-spiritually transformed) is that they create values, and that the absence of those hierarchies leads to nihilism. I realized this intuitively, as a higher mental realization that was not inferential (something like a Platonic intuition), but trying to explain why hierarchies are so important to values is something I’m having trouble with. One can certainly imagine social equality without nihilism, but such an image is disconnected from reality and not reflected in any actual social arrangement. So, supposing for now that my intuition was not distorted afterward by mentalizing or prejudice (in other words supposing it is true), what could explain the relationship between hierarchies and values?

1. Nietzsche’s explanation, according to the article I linked to above:
   

   ‘Anarchism is for Nietzsche the most extreme heir to democratic values — the most rabid expression of the herd instinct. It seeks to level the differences between individuals, to abolish class distinctions, to raze hierarchies to the ground, and to equalize the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor, the master and the slave. To Nietzsche this is bringing everything down to level of the lowest common denominator — to erase the pathos of distance between the master and slave, the sense of difference and superiority through which great values are created. Nietzsche sees this as the worst excess of European nihilism — the death of values and creativity.’ (emphasis mine)

   The bolded sentence is the part I am skeptical of, and yet it is a key ‘joint’ in the argument. My own experience of ‘value-ness’, meaningfulness, upward looking and creativity is that it does not come from anything egoistic. It transcends the ego and is a reality unto itself, a luminous reality that our minds can ascend into and that can descend into us. Doubtlessly the herding instinct or primitive/animistic collectivism, as well as paganism, are great hindrances to spiritual ascension. And, also, spiritual descent leads to a more intense sense of individualism and not less, but an individualism that is not egoistic and is acutely empathic and sympathetic toward others (the soul is the source of Divine Love, which is undiscriminating, unconditional and undying).

   But it does not follow from either of those two facts that an egoistic sense of difference is either the source of or necessary to values, creativity or spirituality. However, it is a possibility, and would explain how the Jews had so many of these insights (they believed they were different and special, the ‘chosen people’).

2. Perhaps the social hierarchy is an embodied value hierarchy, being the original motivator to aim upwards. Seeing the possibility of greatness itself — even a material greatness, though there is more to aristocracy than mere wealth — might arouse in people a sense of the heavenly or grand, even if it is a distorted sense. This would especially apply to those hierarchies that are supposed to be based on spiritual differences in the first place.
3. It is possible that the individuals who had vision needed to have the leisure time to pursue that vision, and so the hierarchy came to be as a way of creating the right environment for spiritual or philosophical contemplation. It was, perhaps, a way of avoiding those with less ‘pure’ minds.

If anyone can think of other explanations, or refutations of the thesis (hierarchies are necessary for values in our current state of consciousness), I’d like to hear them. Thanks.

In the ideal state — which is coming, I feel — there will be no social hierarchies. I do have a sense, often intense, of the misery of oppression, but I have an equally acute sense of the dark somnolence of anarchism and some strains of socialist thought. There will be a final reconciliation of individualism and equality, and I want there to be, but we are not there yet I’m afraid.

PVV-aanhangers hebben vaak een huisdier, zo blijkt uit een enquête die NRC Weekblad uitvoerde. Ook worden ze vaker uitgescholden dan de gemiddelde kiezer. Of het een met het ander samenhangt, is niet duidelijk. Of een asielzoeker met een plezierig ogende lapjeskat in de ogen van een PVV-aanhanger meer kans zou moeten maken op een verblijfstatus is ook onbekend.

Wie heeft er nog echt zin om PVV-aanhangers serieus te nemen? Filosoof Rob Wijnberg argumenteert in een mooi, strak artikel in De Groene dat dit toch echt van belang is om te doen.  Ridiculiseren, negeren of juist het spiegelen van de verontwaardiging werken uiteindelijk allemaal averechts.

PVV-ers redeneren vanuit de onderbuik. PVV-ers zijn ‘de ‘verliezers’ van de globaliserende economie: mensen die hun baan naar lagelonenlanden zagen afvloeien, terwijl hun baas een miljoenenbonus opstreek. Mensen die hun buren naar huizen aan de gracht zagen verhuizen, terwijl zij achterbleven met de nieuwe bewoners – laagopgeleide immigranten. Mensen die hun belastinggeld naar omvallende banken zagen gaan, terwijl de verantwoordelijke managers werden beloond met een jaarsalaris waar zij slechts van kunnen dromen. Mensen die zich jarenlang gehoord noch vertegenwoordigd hebben gevoeld door bestuurders die deze ‘marktwerking’ als onvermijdelijk propageerden. Het resultaat: een wrok die zich uit in structurele verontwaardiging.’

PVV-aanhangers vinden in Wilders iemand die hun verontwaardiging deelt; aanhangers identificeren zich in de eerste plaats met de emotie en pas in tweede instantie met de inhoud, aldus Wijnberg.  Het ressentiment geeft aanleiding om de huidige invulling van waarden als gelijkheid, tolerantie en vrijheid als zwakheden te zien, een invulling die volgens PVV-ers tekort schiet en de deur open heeft gezet voor cultureel en economisch verval.

De houding van PVV-ers maakt geen doordachte indruk, maar oogt door het overwegend ressentiment vooral instinctief, dierlijk wellicht. ‘Emancipatie’ en ‘diversiteit’ zijn begrippen waar een PVV-er niet veel mee kan. Nee, uit naam van gelijkheid zou het juist verboden moeten worden om je anders te kleden, om je eigen religie te belijden etc. Wijnberg vindt dat politici niettemin hun best moeten doen om te luisteren naar deze toch grote groep in onze samenleving. Juist negeren zal het ressentiment versterken en doen groeien.

This is part of a series of posts I’ll be doing on the possibility of a Leftism that is free of ressentiment, envy, wrath, spite, hatred (yes, even of the oppressor), animistic collectivism and nihilism.

Good:

1. Creating jobs for people for their sake, perhaps in part through the Government.

2. Investing in infrastructure, definitely through the Government.

3. Being willing to help someone who has gone astray, or to redirect them to someone else who can help them where possible. This with the patient, persistent and gentle care seen in A Walk to Beautiful.

4. Inclusiveness, as the actual solution to elitism.

Bad:

1. Handing people cash indefinitely, thus encouraging laziness and dependence.

2. Expecting that infrastructure will just build/maintain/clean itself through private investment, which it will not. In fact you’d have to pretty deluded to think it will. Third world countries rely on private infrastructure development, and this means that there are great roads and bridges in front of giant mansions, but no roads and bridges where the poor people are (only garbage and toilet water, since there are no sewage or trash collection services either. Such services are normally provided by the state, but with a minimalist state you have to take care of such matters yourself, which of course you can’t. Yes, not even you, invincible White male who descended from the heavens).

Even the U.S., an extremely wealthy society in terms of GDP, has extremely poor places where there is terrible infrastructure, comparable to third world countries (certain parts of Brooklyn and the deep South, for example). Canada, by comparison, does not have so many extremely poor places, even in far out rural and forested areas, and this despite being a poorer country overall. This is in part because of equilization payments.

3. Patronizing people and forcing them to take treatments that are degrading or against their will. Institutionalizing them against their will, or treating them like a problem that needs to be fixed. The mental hospital and its treatment of the mentally ill is the most barbaric and disgusting stain on Western civilization.

There is a certain vicious intolerance that runs through the West, that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s this tendency to see certain people as not being human, a cutting off of one’s empathy with them. To deal with this mass psychopathy, I think an extremely reactionary ‘anarchist’ Left has come into being, one that is itself pathological and walks around carrying the burden of its spite, guilt and ressentiment. I can’t decide who is worse, the reactionary who reverts to paganism (I consider this ‘anarchist’ Left to be essentially pagan) and starts idolatizing The Community™ out of desperate self-medication and as a wish-fulfillment fantasy, or the psychopathic White male doctor who straps you to a bed because you’re too crazy and worthless to be considered human anymore. I honestly can’t decide .

This same vicious strain is visible in the way families interact over here. White families tend to be alienated, i.e. the members alienated from each other. I see young people moving out at aged 20 (too young an age to move out, IMO), and parents not being willing to take care of their own children beyond the minimum necessary. I suspect this is not the case with Jewish and Black families, and I know it isn’t with South Asian families. This isn’t merely a lack of family values, however, as it appears to be something deeper and more essential to the West, with the family indifference being perhaps a symptom of some other underlying problem.

Maybe this comes with class privilege. Something similar exists in Pakistan as well, among the upper and middle classes (even in me when I was not ‘democratized’), a similar tendency to dehumanization. The West has overall class privilege because it is the upper class of the Earth, and then the upper class of the West has even more privilege added to that original baseline. Add being White and male to that and you can imagine how twisted your psyche must become.

4. Nihilism, as the perceived solution to elitism. It’s one thing to believe in social equality, but another thing to believe in value equality. Value equality is a contradiction in terms, as when you have values you automatically see some things as better than others. Some things are better than others. Kindness is better than indifference, humility better than pride. Happiness is better than suffering, and making yourself happy is good even when others are suffering (if you call that selfish, then it is the grandest and most virtuous selfishness I can think of). Celibacy is better than sexual activity, monogamy better than promiscuity, drug-abstinence better than intoxication, vegetarianism better than omnivority, and faith better than atheism. Etc.

These values should be upheld without the exclusionariness of Country Clubs and other elitist hellholes. This is not cultural elitism, nor is it Pharisee-ism. It is Christianity at its truest: simultaneous inclusiveness of people and intolerance of bad things. I guess you have to see it in action to really appreciate it.

Cross-posted to Bazm-e-RindaaN.

Zwei Damen, jede mit einer Französischen Bulldogge versehen, kommen mir beim Joggen entgegen. Da der Weg hart ist, laufe ich auf dem Rasenstreifen neben ihm. So werden die Gelenke geschont. Ich komme näher und lächle die beiden Damen an. Beider Augenpaare funkeln wütend zurück. Auch ein freundlicher Blick auf die beiden angeleinten Hunde hilft da nicht. Ich renne weiter. Sagt die eine zur anderen, so laut, dass ich es garantiert höre:
“Manche Leute muss man nicht verstehen.”
Was habe ich falsch gemacht? Ich habe durch die Wahl meiner Laufstrecke abseits des eigentlichen Schotterweges maximalen Abstand zu den Hunden gehalten. Das aber darf man wohl keinem Hundebesitzer antun. Man darf nicht nur keine Angst vor riesigen Schäferhunden haben, die auf einen zugaloppiert kommen, man muss auch offensiv an den immer ungefährlichen Liebling heran treten. Obwohl ich mich überhaupt nicht despektierlich gezeigt habe und ja diese Rasse auch kein so rasend gefährliches Äußeres hat, findet Herrchen, das sonst alle naselang Entspanntheit einfordert, etwas an mir auszusetzen. Nun ja:
“Manche Leute muss man nicht verstehen.”

So last night, Kanye proved once and for all that he has no class through a single action which demonstrated an unbelievable lack of grace.  Taylor Swift looked so demoralized and her speech had been all about feelings of being surprised to be accepted by this particular voting bloc, when he insulted her by implying plainly that she didn’t deserve the award.  It was remarkably cruel of him to do this to her. I really thought he learned his lesson from this, when he wrote this, but apparently not.

UPDATE:  In the comments section, Jim agrees with me (and I imagine most of America) when I say that what Kanye West did last night was disgraceful.  But he worries from perusing the internet so far that racism will make the condemnation against Kanye more severe and wider spread than the condemnation of the comparably rude Congressman Joe Wilson last week:

I’m saying that the disdain towards Kanye is 1000 fold what it was for Wilson. Just as you can attest here, it’s turned into a race thing. While I don’t have solid evidence of such, I’d bet that many of the same people that are asking for Kanye’s head and shouting for boycott are the same people that stand up in support of Wilson’s loud mouth. Show me any good press that Kanye gets out of this and compare it to the good press that Wilson has had since then. I bet that you will not find a single good word about Kanye – not one.

I agree that racism will be a factor in the assessment of Kanye West from racists. And obviously the same racists who hold President Obama in contempt will viscerally support Wilson and hate on Kanye out of their own predisposition to see blacks disgraced and humiliated whether it be through their being unjustly called a liar (Obama) or justly called a miserable, self-absorbed, petty, petulant, cruel narcissist megalomaniac (West).

But, nonetheless, Wilson’s support will come from the fact that he’s on a team with much more at stake. Republicans stick by Republicans just like Democrats stick by Democrats. Not that it makes anything any better but Wilson’s support will be from those invested already in defeating the health care proposals in Congress right now. And they will support him because they’d rather not throw overboard someone on their side who was standing up for their opposition.

In other words, if there weren’t larger public policy and party stakes or even if supporting Wilson obstructed their larger public policy and party stakes, they’d hang him out to dry in a heartbeat. In other words, right wing support for Wilson isn’t (for the most part) just double standard racism or sympathy for him individually—it’s political alliance. To the extent that Wilson got inflamed and out of order precisely on Obama’s attempt to dispel hate-sewing xenophobic rumors, then yes, those who support him may be a little more racially motivated.  And, yes, there is a dark, disquietingly sizable, ugly portion of the Republican core that seethes with deep racial hatred and sees everything through that lens. But for the most part, Wilson’s support is political.

But Kanye also will have his own defenders, I assure you. I have already read just among my Facebook friends support for Kanye. One of them (a white friend, if it matters) took Taylor Swift’s victory or career success in general as in some way signifying white privilege and Kanye’s snub as a wonderful rejection of that. And I imagine it’s likely that much of the hip hop world will support Kanye over the country girl—again, not out of racism, but out of loyalty to alliances within the music world.

I think the litmus test of Kanye denouncers’ motives will be whether they are equally as uplifted by Beyonce’s class (as evidenced in the video below) and Barack Obama’s class as they are by Kanye’s lack of it. Because I know I sure am and for those of us judging these events by the content of the characters of the people involved, that’s all that matters.

My own thoughts on Joe Wilson and Barack Obama were strong and I was waiting for a chance to address the issue, so what the hell, why not now?

During the 2008 presidential run as I obsessively watched speech after speech from all the 16 “major” candidates, including numerous from the most prominent ones, I was amazed when they paused campaigning a night for the State of the Union. And I remember watching Obama listen as George W. Bush had the floor. And I was struck with the nobility of it all as he sat silent. Here was someone I was watching give impassioned speech after impassioned speech against the man he was listening to. He commanded the enthusiasm and support of millions of people, including thousands at single events.

And, yet, this night he sat silent as one senator among 100, one congressman among 535, one citizen among 300,000,000. Because this was a democracy and his challenge to the man in the speaker’s podium that night was still the elected leader. And Obama’s campaign was not any illegal insurgency. The millions he was rallying to his cause were not to lay siege on the existing powers. This was a free and open struggle for power through debate and speech and non-violent mobilization of voters rather than troops. And he could nobly sit by and watch the duly elected leader he sought to replace and defer for the evening. He would have his own podiums, he would have his own turn to speak and he would be heard. But in a democracy, you have to respect your opponent’s turn.

And then I remembered almost exactly a year later, watching now former president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney sit peacefully behind Barack Obama as he addressed billions worldwide and countless thousands in front of him. And as Obama denounced Bush’s president, here Bush sat silent, respectful, deferring to his successor and deferring to law. (If only he had respected the law so much while in office, but that’s another gruesome story of course).

This all embodied to me the noble sense of democracy as an arena of contests of ideas and persuasion, rather than one of force and obliteration. In democracy you recognize your opponent’s right to be your opponent, his right to speak and to challenge you and to mobilize his own peaceful resistance to you. And you get your turn too. What is noble about our democracy, for all its crass machinations and appalling demagogic manipulations is that it is an arena in which opponents are not destroyed but where they are free to continue to challenge us and to continue to force us to be our best.

They are fearful people who are threatened by their enemies so much that they think they must be utterly eradicated and if they cannot be eradicated they must be shouted into silence.  Noble, powerful people appreciate their enemies as those who motivate them to overcome themselves and become more powerful through their perpetual contest.

And so when Joe Wilson spoke out of turn a few nights ago, I heard the voice of petulance and ignobility. He was dishonest, crude, and vulgar. He had no respect for the decorum that makes the contest so noble. He showed the heart of a crass and petty little man who does not respect his enemies and who does not deserve the respect of his enemies. And the same goes for Kanye. They’re a pair of petty pusillanimous people in realms of power and influence and honor where only the magnanimous who know how to win and lose honorably and how to honor their worthy rivals as such belong.

But not all is lost for our culture when for every pusillanimous Joe Wilson, there is a far more esteemed, clearly and famously gracious, dignified and magnanimous Barack Obama, who makes his vanquished rival his secretary of state; and when for every pusillanimous Kanye West, there is a magnanimous Beyonce Knowles, who wins the highest prize of a contest and gives the floor to her unjustly insulted runner up to give a speech instead.  Let’s hope the Obamas and Beyonces are the ones who inspire the character of our future generations rather than those wound-nursing, rancorous cry babies represented by the likes of Joe Wilson and Kanye West.

Your Thoughts?

The bolding is all mine, but the italicized words are all original.

“In the development of the labour movement, the conviction that the very existence and fate of the proletariat ‘cries for revenge’ also became a mighty dynamic factor. The more a permanent social pressure is felt to be a ‘fatality’, the less it can free forces for the practical transformation of these conditions, and the more it will lead to indiscriminate criticism without any positive aims. This peculiar kind of ‘ressentiment criticism’ is characterized by the fact that improvements in the conditions criticized cause no satisfaction — they merely cause discontent, for they destroy the growing pleasure afforded by invective and negation.

[...]

The most powerless envy is also the most terrible. Therefore, existential envy, which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: ‘I can forgive everything, but not that you are — that you are what you are — that I am not what you are — indeed that I am not you.’”

This is the most interesting thing I have read in a long time. I intend to do much contemplation and research on this, and if my spiritual sight returns to me hopefully will have some intuitive guidance on it too.

“Max Scheler attempted to reconcile Nietzsche’s ideas of master-slave morality and ressentiment with the Christian ideals of love and humility. Nietzsche saw Christian morality as a kind of slave morality, while Greek and Roman culture was characterized as a master morality. Scheler disagrees. He begins with a comparison of Greek love and Christian love. Greek love is described as a movement from lower value to higher value. The weaker love the stronger, the less perfect love the more perfect. The perfect do not love the imperfect because that would diminish their value or corrupt their existence. Greek love is rooted in need and want. This is clearly indicated by the Aristotelian concept of God as the “Unmoved Mover”. The unmoved mover is self-sufficient being completely immersed in its own existence. The highest object of contemplation, and who moves others through the force of attraction because efficient causality would degrade its nature. In Christian love, there is a reversal in the movement of love. The strong bend to the weak, the healthy help the sick, the noble help the vulgar. This movement is a consequence of the Christian understanding of the nature of God as fullness of being. God’s love is an expression of His superabundance. The motive for love is not charity nor the neediness of the lover, but it is rooted in a deeply felt confidence that through loving I become more personalized and most real to myself. The motive for the world is not need or lack (à la Schopenhauer), but a creative urge to express the infinite fullness of being. Poverty and sickness are not values to be celebrated in order to spite those who are rich and healthy, but they simply provide the opportunity for a person to express their love. Rich people are harder to love because they are less in need of your generosity. Fear of death is a sign of a declining, sick, and broken life (Ressent 60). St. Francis’ love and care for the lepers would have mortified the Greek mind, but for St. Francis, the threats to well-being are inconsequential because at the core of his being there is the awareness that his existence is firmly rooted in and sustained by the ground of ultimate being. In genuine, Christian love, the lower values that are relative to life are renounced not because they are bad, but simply because they are obstacles to those absolute values which allow a person to enter into a relationship with God. It is through loving like God that we are deified. This is why Scheler sees the Christian saint as a manifestation of strength and nobility and not manifesting ressentiment.”

– Wikipedia article on ressentiment

Though I consider this a fascinating and fairly accurate comparison between Christian and Greek love, and a wonderful reclaiming of the idea of ressentiment, I do neverthless worry about this line: “Rich people are harder to love because they are less in need of your generosity.” The soul loves unconditionally, as God does. It does not love more because the object of love is better, or because it is worse. To love what is pathetic because it is pathetic is just as bad as avoiding what is pathetic for that reason.

In high school I witnessed the dynamic of an insecure masses elevating a handful of viceful individuals who possessed what, through insecure eyes, was seen as value. Just as insecure people uphold hierarchies based on their own lacking, (humanly) sympathetic people (those ‘Christian-minded’ individuals who act as ‘nurses’ in the Nietzschian sense, i.e. those who want to heal the pathetic ones) create their own hierarchies based on pity. They reverse the values and end up hating those who are better, simply because they are better.

It is not spiritual to indulge one’s need to be needed, or even to have such a need. The ideal Christian should love those who are wealthy just as much as he loves those who are poor, regardless of whether the wealthy ‘need’ his generosity or not. Making love contingent upon need is antithetical to the idea of unconditional love, which is by definition not contingent upon anything.

When genuine bhakti and spiritual sympathy become corrupted into ‘Judeo-Christian morality’, you end up with the Left as we see it today. The Left: those ‘sympathetic ones’ who dip their arms in dirt out of pity and guilt, and despise all the ‘privileged’ who are not living in dirt. It takes a sea to take in a polluted river without itself becoming polluted, as Nietzsche surprisingly said (surprising because it’s such a Christian thing to say), and all members of the Left are certainly not as vast as seas. It follows that most or all of them are becoming polluted in the process of their ‘activism’, and in fact my observations confirm precisely this.

I must admit that I am surprised by the great praise and memorializing that has been bestowed to Ted Kennedy on the event of his death. I always thought of Mayor Quimby from the Simpson’s, whenever I listened to Ted Kennedy.

Nevertheless, upon a second look at the congressional record and achievements of Ted Kennedy’s distinguished career, I admit that he was a principled politician characterized by concern with universal human rights and civil liberties.

So, the public rancor of hyper-partisianship has been toned down for the time being. Nonetheless, I do want to point out a couple exceptions or slips that are instructive of a point I want to make about Sen. Ted Kennedy.

This is a clip from Michael Savage’s show where he plays the Dead Kennedys’ “punk rock” shortly after it was disclosed that Ted Kennedy had brain cancer earlier this year:

Also, Andrew Breitbart (self described as “Matt Drudge’s bitch”), has declared “No-surrender, No-retreat!,” so to speak, in spite of the mourning of the left’s loss of a fallen hero, as noted by Politico:

[Breitbart] called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.”

Breitbart further tweeted:

“I’ll shut my mouth for Carter. That’s just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement,”

If I may associate Breitbart with Drudge, there seems to be a real populist resentment of the northeastern, liberal and funny-accented Kennedy dynasty. This dynasty was labeled as “Camelot” by Jacqueline Kennedy O’Nassis as if any political opponent of the dynasty were a blackguard or dragon.

Very briefly, I just want to say that the Kennedy family is the political equivalent of the most tabloid Hollywood celebrities (Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, etc.) As such, the Kennedy’s were known as demigods in their fame, fortune, and frailty. Their exploits with sex, drugs and alcoholism only made them more endearing and human. They lived and breathed risk, and this enabled them to dare what would become great accomplishments.

Celebrities function as the Greek Gods did for Greek society. We look upon them with awe, admiration and repulsion, but above all, desire. We want to be immortal with an infinite number of second chances, and then risk everything with hubris and/or heroism. The gods have the most to offer and the most to risk, and gods are the most human of any human in their flaws and tragedies.

Anyhow, populist resentment of greatness (as displayed by Breitbart’s twittered snipes against a great, fallen man) must be acknowledged for its ugly pettiness. Nonetheless, is all populism a resentment of greatness? Can’t populism be a vehicle for the very change that the Kennedy’s championed? How can there be heroes at all without the populist support of a mass of people endeared by the hero’s charisma?

I’m not trying to defend populism . . . ok, I am trying to defend populism, but perhaps we can only say that populism is dual-edged in the same way that the gods inspire genuinely conflicted ambivalence.

An dem Tag, an dem ich aus Tel Aviv nach Deutschland abflog, passierte das hier.

Bislang ist noch unklar, ob der Schwulenhass islamistisch Verblödeter oder der Schwulenhass jüdisch ultra-orthodox Verblödeter zu dem Anschlag geführt hat.

Spontan fällt mir da der Kommentar eines Leserbriefschreibers in der Jerusalem Post zu einer anderen Angelegenheit ein: Schenkt ihnen doch Mea Shearim! Den anti-zionistischen Palästinensern und den anti-zionistischen Ultra-Orthodoxen. Baut eine dicke Mauer drum herum, damit kein gschamig-züchtiger Hanswurst sich fürderhin mehr gestört fühlt. Hinzu kommt: Dort können alle von Herzen gegen Israel hetzen. Und regelmäßig dürfen sie ihren heiß geliebten Ahmadinejad einladen, damit er mit ihnen Kongresse gegen das “zionistische Gebilde der Schande” abhält. Was für eine saubere Bagage! Geht kacken!