0 comment Saturday, August 9, 2014 | admin
I am not quite sure what to make of this piece from VDare. It appears on the surface to be addressing the 'Jewish question' but it becomes something else, seemingly.
The writer, who identifies herself as Jew who grew up in New York City, seems at first to be assenting to the idea among many pro-Whites that Jews are inordinately powerful in many areas of life. She grants that Jews are prone to be critical of America:
The Jews of my world felt morally superior to others. This narcissism gave them the right to critique America, a country that was profoundly generous and welcoming to them, merely because it wasn�t morally perfect. Jewish verbal assaults were rarely matched by deeds that required physical sacrifice or courage. Within the safety of a great country, they felt the freedom to attack viciously and intrusively those with whom they did not agree. If things didn�t work out, they could always move.''
She then mentions that some Jews have begun to turn towards 'conservatism', yet they haven't abandoned the mistaken belief in egalitarian dogma. Her own awakening on this subject, she says, came from her reading Nietzsche. She quotes this passage from Nietzsche:
"The Jews, that priestly people, who in opposing their enemies and conquerors were ultimately satisfied with nothing less than a radical revaluation of their enemies� values, that is to say, an act of the most spiritual revenge�It was the Jews who, with awe-inspiring consistency, dared to invert the aristocratic value-equation (good=noble=powerful=beautiful=happy=beloved of God) and to hang on to this inversion with their teeth�saying the wretched alone are good; the poor, impotent, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone are blessed by God, blessedness is for them alone�and you, the powerful and noble, are on the contrary the evil, the cruel, �the godless to all eternity; and you shall be in all eternity the unblessed, accursed and damned!" [On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, Section 7, 1887]
That this kind of thought has also pervaded today's Christianity is part of the problem with the West is obvious. Personally I think it is a perversion of Christianity, not inherent in the historic Christian faith. But Nietzsche's admirers are usually openly opposed to the Christian faith as a 'slave morality', and thus reject Christianity on that basis. For that reason, though I admit that there is some truth in his writings, I cannot say I admire Nietzsche.
Nietzsche did have a point, and I've mentioned it in passing many times. We can see how the left has made much of the notion that the 'wretched of the earth' are somehow the moral betters of the successful peoples. Add to this thinking the Rousseauian idea of the 'noble savage' and you have much of the left's belief system about nonwhites as being perpetual noble victims and martyrs.
This is, as I've noted, an inversion of the natural order of things. Instead of the competent, able, and successful being hailed for their achievements, the downtrodden and the basket-cases of the world are granted sainthood. Though the Bible enjoins us to be charitable, it does not encourage us to exalt the low just because they are low, nor to punish those who succeed, as is the case today.
But where is the origin for this belief system? Though the writer does not say it outright, it seems likely that the Jewish self-image as classic victims became the prototype of all the idealized suffering minority groups, starting with blacks, and now increasingly including immigrants, especially illegal immigrants. The liberalized church has embraced this viewpoint, and now even the 'conservative' churches are doing so, and it's worth noting here that the churches have become increasingly Judaized in our lifetime.
But how is it possible to maintain the Jewish image as a put-upon, wrongly victimized people, when Jews are in fact, as Green says in her piece, highly successful in terms of wealth and influence out of all proportion to their numbers? It makes little sense, but it somehow works; the majority of people buy the image.
Green, in her emphasis on the falsity of egalitarian beliefs, speaks of the Jews as one of the 'higher' peoples, which would seem to imply that she believes her people to be superior in many ways, hence their inordinate power and success. She does not seem to credit the obvious nepotism and the covert, or not-so-covert networks of influence which facilitate and solidify Jewish dominance in certain areas.
It seems she is trying to have it both ways. Yes, she grants, Jews are more successful and more influential, but she implies that it is not because of nepotism or collusion within the group; it just because of their inherent abilities, which evidently put them far in advance of the rest of us, even above the fabled 'WASP elites' who have been deposed from their high status in this country.
Ultimately, she pleads that
''Jews are a tiny portion of mankind. Despite the important role Jews have played in fomenting this disaster, it is inaccurate and intellectually lazy to blame the Jews alone for our current problems.''
In other words, the blame rests at least in part on our people. I agree to a limited extent; there are many among our own people who have been indoctrinated into these pernicious ideas, and who, wittingly or not, share some of the blame. But would these ideas even have taken root among us, without outside 'help'?
We've heard quite enough talk of how the West is 'suicidal.' We will never know for certain, I suppose, how much of this is attributable to the changes wrought by earlier waves of immigration, and the original 'sin' of opting for a 'melting pot' version of America, rather than the English-derived people and civilization which was the basis for original America.
The writer, who identifies herself as Jew who grew up in New York City, seems at first to be assenting to the idea among many pro-Whites that Jews are inordinately powerful in many areas of life. She grants that Jews are prone to be critical of America:
The Jews of my world felt morally superior to others. This narcissism gave them the right to critique America, a country that was profoundly generous and welcoming to them, merely because it wasn�t morally perfect. Jewish verbal assaults were rarely matched by deeds that required physical sacrifice or courage. Within the safety of a great country, they felt the freedom to attack viciously and intrusively those with whom they did not agree. If things didn�t work out, they could always move.''
She then mentions that some Jews have begun to turn towards 'conservatism', yet they haven't abandoned the mistaken belief in egalitarian dogma. Her own awakening on this subject, she says, came from her reading Nietzsche. She quotes this passage from Nietzsche:
"The Jews, that priestly people, who in opposing their enemies and conquerors were ultimately satisfied with nothing less than a radical revaluation of their enemies� values, that is to say, an act of the most spiritual revenge�It was the Jews who, with awe-inspiring consistency, dared to invert the aristocratic value-equation (good=noble=powerful=beautiful=happy=beloved of God) and to hang on to this inversion with their teeth�saying the wretched alone are good; the poor, impotent, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick, ugly alone are pious, alone are blessed by God, blessedness is for them alone�and you, the powerful and noble, are on the contrary the evil, the cruel, �the godless to all eternity; and you shall be in all eternity the unblessed, accursed and damned!" [On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, Section 7, 1887]
That this kind of thought has also pervaded today's Christianity is part of the problem with the West is obvious. Personally I think it is a perversion of Christianity, not inherent in the historic Christian faith. But Nietzsche's admirers are usually openly opposed to the Christian faith as a 'slave morality', and thus reject Christianity on that basis. For that reason, though I admit that there is some truth in his writings, I cannot say I admire Nietzsche.
Nietzsche did have a point, and I've mentioned it in passing many times. We can see how the left has made much of the notion that the 'wretched of the earth' are somehow the moral betters of the successful peoples. Add to this thinking the Rousseauian idea of the 'noble savage' and you have much of the left's belief system about nonwhites as being perpetual noble victims and martyrs.
This is, as I've noted, an inversion of the natural order of things. Instead of the competent, able, and successful being hailed for their achievements, the downtrodden and the basket-cases of the world are granted sainthood. Though the Bible enjoins us to be charitable, it does not encourage us to exalt the low just because they are low, nor to punish those who succeed, as is the case today.
But where is the origin for this belief system? Though the writer does not say it outright, it seems likely that the Jewish self-image as classic victims became the prototype of all the idealized suffering minority groups, starting with blacks, and now increasingly including immigrants, especially illegal immigrants. The liberalized church has embraced this viewpoint, and now even the 'conservative' churches are doing so, and it's worth noting here that the churches have become increasingly Judaized in our lifetime.
But how is it possible to maintain the Jewish image as a put-upon, wrongly victimized people, when Jews are in fact, as Green says in her piece, highly successful in terms of wealth and influence out of all proportion to their numbers? It makes little sense, but it somehow works; the majority of people buy the image.
Green, in her emphasis on the falsity of egalitarian beliefs, speaks of the Jews as one of the 'higher' peoples, which would seem to imply that she believes her people to be superior in many ways, hence their inordinate power and success. She does not seem to credit the obvious nepotism and the covert, or not-so-covert networks of influence which facilitate and solidify Jewish dominance in certain areas.
It seems she is trying to have it both ways. Yes, she grants, Jews are more successful and more influential, but she implies that it is not because of nepotism or collusion within the group; it just because of their inherent abilities, which evidently put them far in advance of the rest of us, even above the fabled 'WASP elites' who have been deposed from their high status in this country.
Ultimately, she pleads that
''Jews are a tiny portion of mankind. Despite the important role Jews have played in fomenting this disaster, it is inaccurate and intellectually lazy to blame the Jews alone for our current problems.''
In other words, the blame rests at least in part on our people. I agree to a limited extent; there are many among our own people who have been indoctrinated into these pernicious ideas, and who, wittingly or not, share some of the blame. But would these ideas even have taken root among us, without outside 'help'?
We've heard quite enough talk of how the West is 'suicidal.' We will never know for certain, I suppose, how much of this is attributable to the changes wrought by earlier waves of immigration, and the original 'sin' of opting for a 'melting pot' version of America, rather than the English-derived people and civilization which was the basis for original America.
Labels: Christian Liberalism, Cult Of Victimhood, Egalitarianism, Leftism
0 comment Thursday, July 17, 2014 | admin
Several years ago, when I first began blogging, there was a 'border blogger' who wrote about the effects of illegal immigration on his area. His blog doesn't exist now, but at one point, in a post about the do-gooders who set up 'water stations' for the illegals or otherwise aided and abetted them, he likened the do-gooders to animal hoarders. He referred, of course, to the people you hear about in your local news: those people -- often women -- who take in unwanted pets. Then the animals continue to multiply from a few to a few hundred, until things get hopelessly out of hand, and start to affect the neighborhood.
At TOQ Online, Matt Parrot uses the 'cat lady' analogy to good effect in this piece on illegal immigration. There is no doubt an element of misplaced or perverted altruism among the people who want to take in all the hard-luck cases who can find their way into our country. These people, in addition to misguided altruism, also suffer from an inability to see down the road to the long-term consequences of their need to do good deeds.
I suppose the most charitable analysis of why the immigration enthusiasts do what they do is that they have an unfulfilled do-gooding impulse. But there seems to be more to it than that. I can only wonder why they do not satisfy their urge to do good by helping neighbors and people in their own community. I was talking about this with a friend, and discussing the way that most if not all local churches divert their charity monies to the perpetually helpless third world. Wells have been dug and re-dug in Africa umpteen times, and yet there is a constant solicitation for money to dig wells in Africa. Lately, there is money being collected for Haiti, and for people to go to Haiti and bring home children, or to Africa or Guatemala.
Yet nobody seems to want to pour their time and energy into funds for local people. There are many unemployed people down to the last of their savings, and people who can't afford urgent dental work, and other such needs. Meanwhile, everybody is focusing on immigrants and on 'outreach' to them, and of course the Third World.
Is there a way that people's charitable impulses can be turned towards their own people? Do people just think that doing for 'Others' has more cachet and prestige than helping our own, what with all the celebrities making pilgrimages to the Third World? Is it possible to even bring this up in one's church without being called 'racist' and 'hateful'?
Is this all just a sort of overreaction to the race card, a way of demonstrating emphatically that one is not 'racist'? It seems we've gone towards xenophilia in reaction to the fear of being 'xenophobic'. Will the pendulum ever swing back?
At TOQ Online, Matt Parrot uses the 'cat lady' analogy to good effect in this piece on illegal immigration. There is no doubt an element of misplaced or perverted altruism among the people who want to take in all the hard-luck cases who can find their way into our country. These people, in addition to misguided altruism, also suffer from an inability to see down the road to the long-term consequences of their need to do good deeds.
I suppose the most charitable analysis of why the immigration enthusiasts do what they do is that they have an unfulfilled do-gooding impulse. But there seems to be more to it than that. I can only wonder why they do not satisfy their urge to do good by helping neighbors and people in their own community. I was talking about this with a friend, and discussing the way that most if not all local churches divert their charity monies to the perpetually helpless third world. Wells have been dug and re-dug in Africa umpteen times, and yet there is a constant solicitation for money to dig wells in Africa. Lately, there is money being collected for Haiti, and for people to go to Haiti and bring home children, or to Africa or Guatemala.
Yet nobody seems to want to pour their time and energy into funds for local people. There are many unemployed people down to the last of their savings, and people who can't afford urgent dental work, and other such needs. Meanwhile, everybody is focusing on immigrants and on 'outreach' to them, and of course the Third World.
Is there a way that people's charitable impulses can be turned towards their own people? Do people just think that doing for 'Others' has more cachet and prestige than helping our own, what with all the celebrities making pilgrimages to the Third World? Is it possible to even bring this up in one's church without being called 'racist' and 'hateful'?
Is this all just a sort of overreaction to the race card, a way of demonstrating emphatically that one is not 'racist'? It seems we've gone towards xenophilia in reaction to the fear of being 'xenophobic'. Will the pendulum ever swing back?
Labels: Christian Liberalism, Do-Gooderism, Mass Immigration, Xenomania, Xenophilia