Tag: Culture Wars

Civilization vs. Barbarians

The Pursuit Of Happiness

Culture

The problem with “happiness” is not just that it’s a personal issue: it’s largely an unresolved personal issue. As individuals, if asked whether we’re happy, we might just say “Yes” without really thinking about it. Then we think about it — not always a Good Thing, by the way — and might realize that we’re not really happy, because someone else seems happier than we are, therefore we’re not as happy as we could be.

Worse still, we think we’re somehow entitled to happiness. We aren’t. Here’s writer Tom Utley:

“If you think of life as a series of duties — and of happiness as an undeserved blessing, rather than a right — you are likely to be much happier than if you think happiness is yours by right.”

He’s absolutely correct. If we think about it — this time, a Good Thing — we can come to realize that performance of that series of duties brings its own happiness: not the joyous ecstasy kind of happiness (which I think too many people seek, thinking it’s the ideal), but the quiet contentment of a job done to the best of one’s ability.

Raising children is an excellent example of one kind of duty which, when performed properly, brings to the parents not just satisfaction of a job well done, but a profound sense of contentment, nay even joy.

Yet we live in times when almost all the leaders of Western Europe are childless, and have never experienced that joy. When they have never held their own child in their arms, watched them walk unsteadily across the room, or marveled as that child does something remarkable, is it any wonder that such people are beset with inner conflict and ignorance of what most people need to be happy?

I’m not suggesting that bearing children is the sine qua non of happiness, of course; yet it would be foolish to ignore that fact that as procreation and survival of the species are so deeply ingrained in the genetic code, that the individual’s success in the accomplishment of so basic, so elemental a need must surely bring at least a foundation of happiness to a man or woman?

And that’s just one of the “series of duties” of which Utley speaks. There are many more — a man’s duty to provide for his family, a woman’s duty to look after her children, a duty to protect the family from harm, a duty to protect one’s community from harm, a duty to provide support to one’s true friends… the list goes on and on, and the beauty of all these duties is that they are largely self-generated, and the fulfillment thereof creates a different happiness for each individual.

There is no universal definition of happiness. Happiness is how each individual defines it and where he chooses to find it. I would take this even further: that when we are unhappy, it’s often because we have allowed other people to define the terms of our happiness, and allowed them to dictate where we may find it.

To end this little thought, take a look at this picture:

It’s a very old one of a family picnic, taken in a simpler era — sometime in the early 1950s, I think —  but as simple as the activity is portrayed, I defy anyone to deny that at this particular moment, every single person in that picnic is unbearably happy. It may not last, and probably won’t: the father may have problems at work the next day, the wife may have some household accident, one of the little girls may get bullied at school the next day, whatever. But at this particular moment in time, there is happiness. Moreover, it is happiness that hasn’t been mandated or defined by any authority or even by society; it is happiness that didn’t need to be pursued, only found.

May your happiness, may all your happinesses be that simple, and enjoyable.

Here We Go Again

Politics, Two-Minute Hate

Buckle your seatbelts, folks: this one is going to make the Pussification rant seem like a ladies’ tea party.

Over at some website I’ve never heard of, a guy named Spencer Quinn has some nice (and some not-so-nice) things to say about Your Humble Narrator (and you really need to read the whole article before you read any further). I feel I need to respond, and in so doing, I’ll set the record straight and make my position on some of his discussion points perfectly clear.

My problem with the alt-Right is the same problem I have with libertarians: as commenter “Pat Buchanator” once put it at Instapundit: “This is how it always is with libertarians. No matter how appealing that quart of vanilla ice cream looks, there’s always that tablespoon of dog shit mixed in that turns you off.” Thus it is too with the alt-Right and me:  we start off with some common ground — quite a lot, actually — and then the conversation reaches that “Oh, bloody hell! Why did you have to go and spoil it?” moment, when Teh Crazy comes out of its hole.

My common ground with the alt-Right is this: like them, I think that Western civilization and culture is the greatest thing that ever occurred to mankind. It has elevated our society from brutishness and beastliness into civilization, quite possibly to the zenith of thought, achievement and prosperity. Just taking the period from Ancient Greece to the Internet, it is difficult to imagine how life would exist today were it not for Western culture — the sciences, economy, music, arts, literature, morals, manners and mores, the whole damn thing. Western civilization, in other words, is absolutely worth maintaining, prolonging, venerating and all that.

And here’s the first little roadblock that the alt-Right throws in my way: their distaste, and even hatred for Jews.

I have no idea why that is. Pound for pound, the Jews have contributed as much or more to Western civilization than any other group — it’s even called the “Judeo-Christian tradition”, FFS — and to discount this contribution deliberately, to me, shows a shallow intellect at best. (At worst, Hitler, but I’m not going to go there.) Of course, I know that many Jews are socialists, communists, progressives, one-worlders, and all those things that are not only themselves distasteful, but are contradictory to Western thought. Ending slavery in the Western hemisphere (an action performed solely by Western nations, lest we forget) is not the same as allowing Western culture to be perverted or submerged by inferior cultures — and let’s be perfectly honest, when compared to Western culture, all other cultures are in general absolutely inferior to ours. To say otherwise is to be ignorant of history, or to be able to consciously deny the fact of the matter despite all evidence to the contrary. Judaic culture, by the way, is not inferior to, say, Western culture and civilization because in no small part, theirs is almost indistinguishable from that of Western Europe because of their commonality. That Israeli liberals seem perfectly prepared to help bring about the destruction of Eretz Israel was always a mystery to me until it was explained to me (by one of my good friends, an Orthodox Jew) that these liberals hate the state of Israel because it is culturally closer to Western European democracy than it is to Eastern European socialism. And the liberal Israelis have camp-followers all over the world: in Europe, Britain, the United States and anywhere that Jews can be found in any numbers. Does that mean “conspiracy”? Sure, if you’re a moron, because there are many, many Jews who are conservative, too — but somehow, the Conspiracy seems to have passed them by? Not credible.

So: am I pro-Israel? You betcha. I’m even more supportive of Israel when I look at the nations of assholes who want Israel destroyed.

Do I think that a lot of Jews are liberal assholes? You betcha, again. (Don’t even ask me about Jews and their support for gun control, unless we also mention JPFO, who also seem to have missed the memo.)

Am I prepared to become an anti-Semite because of The Great Jewish Conspiracy? Think again, Adolf.

Would I stand aside if some anti-Semitic pricks started playing their little neo-Nazi reindeer games with Jews in the streets? Not only would I not stand aside, but I’d be standing between the two groups, telling the anti-Semites that they’d have to get past me first.

Ich habe Dachau gesehen.

And as long as I have breath in my body, “Never again!” will not be just an empty phrase, even if that seems to be the case with some Jews(!), who think that their tribe’s survival of the Holocaust was somehow irrelevant in today’s world.

So the minute some alt-Rightist starts with that anti-Semitic shit, I turn right off, because I will never be part of that insanity. (It doesn’t even have to be the alt-Right; over at Taki’s Magazine — which I generally love — I’ll be reading something amusing or educational, and then the Great Zionist Conspiracy gets mentioned, and figuratively speaking, I toss the magazine across the room.)

The next thing about the alt-Right that gets up my nose is their little unicorn-rainbow dream of a “White ethnostate”.  Once again, oh FFS. Let me tell you this: I grew up in a wannabe-White ethnostate, I knew White supremacists, and oh my gawd, I was even related to a bunch of them. They were all, to a man, mean-spirited, ugly people, and their system of government — apartheid — was even uglier than they were. Even though their philosophical underpinning made apparent sense — the catastrophe that was (and is) Black Africa showed that Blacks were incapable of self-government — but their prescription to protect themselves against that was horrible and ultimately doomed to failure, as events would prove. Forget that shit; I not only hated it, and them, but I rebelled against it, stopping well short of planting bombs and shooting random White people in the streets, however, because those are what we call today terrorists. Even with the best intentions in the world, I was not going to become a White Nelson Mandela (who was, lest we forget, as much of a terrorist as Yasser Arafat despite, like Arafat, becoming somehow acceptable in his later years as a head of state). As much as I loathed apartheid, I was not going to take that next step, because too many innocent people would be harmed. Remember that, because it will be important later.

Now some people, e.g. the aforementioned Mr. Quinn, have trouble reconciling my position with my somewhat trenchant thoughts set out in Let Africa Sink (I told you I’d need to republish it). They all miss the point. Let Africa Sink was written in a mood of profound sadness, pessimism and despair, and was never meant to be some kind of rallying-cry and blueprint for a bunch of sick racists. FFS: I am an African myself; I was born there, I lived there for a third of a century, and my family first arrived in the Cape in 1692. I have every right to call myself an African, as much or even more than Jesse Jackson can call himself an American. I left Africa because I saw absolutely no hope for the whole continent, not just South Africa (which, by the way, is well on the way to joining Zimbabwe, the Congo and all the other little beauty spots over there). I left because all I could see was a future of bloodshed, hatred, venality and human ruin. I have seen nothing since that has made me want to change my opinion by one iota. Africa, as a place and as a human entity, is fucked beyond words, and there is nothing, nothing that will end or even ameliorate that scenario.

Now stay with me here, because what sets me apart from the alt-Right is that I won’t — can’t — make the leap from Africa being so screwed to “Blacks are therefore inferior to Whites”. You know why I can’t? Because of Ben Carson, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Richard Pryor and Denzel Washington (to name but some). Even an idiot like Maxine Waters, despite being a socialist to her core, has not advocated racial violence and anti-White terrorism (so far). In other words, when Black people aren’t Africans but Americans — Americans who moreover believe profoundly that Western European culture is far better than the alternative and who therefore espouse the principles of Western civilization despite their own ethnic heritage — it is impossible for me to say that in general principle, Black people are inferior to White people. Can’t go there, even if Carson et al. are woefully in the minority in the Black community. I can’t go there even in the face of evidence that Black-run cities (or, to be more correct, Democrat-run cities) are pathetic failures and African-style hellholes of poverty, corruption and homicide. I see little difference, by the way, between the looming disaster that is San Francisco (which is not run by Blacks) and the appalling tragedy of Detroit (which is, and has been for a long time). If a majority of Blacks espouse socialism, the fault is not their ethnicity but their education. (Hell, a sizable number of White people espouse socialism, too; don’t get me started on those idiots.)

If so many Blacks vote Democrat instead of Republican, and end up with failure in consequence, is that a reason to think that Blacks are that inferior to Whites? Let me point out a little-known fact: without the White (Afrikaans- and English-speaking) working-class voters, South Africa’s apartheid would have collapsed decades before it did; but like American Blacks were by Democrats, they were promised jobs, job security and social advancement by the Afrikaner nationalists, which meant that the White working classes bought into the eventual promise of apartheid: separate development. The “dumping grounds” of South African apartheid followed shortly thereafter. White voters, in other words, are just as capable of adopting an evil philosophy (apartheid) as Black voters are drawn towards supporting a different evil philosophy (socialism).

And that’s another part of alt-Right philosophy that pisses me off. If I may use the rhetoric of Albert Jay Nock: suppose that you’re right; suppose that we Whites should create an exclusive White ethnostate that bars (among so many others) Blacks and Jews: how, exactly, are you going to create this little White nationalist Nirvana? How are you going to move this from a unicorn’s wet dream to ugly (and it would be ugly) reality? It sure as hell isn’t going to happen in the United States, no matter how much you want to create the White Man’s Paradise in, say, Utah or Idaho, because there will have to be some rearrangement of peoples for that to happen — and I repeat, that ain’t gonna happen anywhere in the U.S. Good luck trying that elsewhere — well, maybe in South Africa’s Orania, but guess what: you alt-Righters won’t be welcome there because you’re not Afrikaans. See how this ethnic superiority thing works?

I saw at first hand how the South African government went about creating the reality of “separateness” in a multi-racial society, and let me tell you, it was revolting, appalling, and made me want to join Mandela’s Spear Of The Nation organization, albeit only for a short while. I’ll tell that story another time, because if I do so now, it will engender a red-hot anger in me that would make Pussification seem like a scholarly discourse.

Let me tell you all: underneath all the words about “White pride”, “promoting Western European values and culture” and “cultural superiority” are some really, really ugly beliefs, philosophies and plans of action; and I want absolutely no part of them.

I know that my way of supporting Western civilization might seem weak and ineffective to the alt-Right. I prefer to vote for politicians who prefer capitalism to socialism, Western culture over, say, Muslim culture or African culture. I prefer to write about Western civilization and extol it, letting people read my stuff and thereby (I hope) being persuaded to follow my example and in turn persuading others to be likewise. I raised my children in the Western tradition, and have drawn maybe thousands of people to my way of thinking — even if only by reading my stuff, they realize that they aren’t alone in their beliefs, and that our mostly-Anglocentric Western way of life is the right one.

Most of the human condition is dealing with The Pendulum: as our societies develop, the pendulum swings from Right to Left and back again. Often, the reverse swing is overly long, and that leads to all kinds of trouble. (The French Revolution’s Reign of Terror is an excellent example, by the way, albeit an example of showing that even Western civilization can screw things up.) The alt-Right, to me, represents just such an over-correction of The Pendulum’s erstwhile swing to the Left, and frankly, I don’t find much to recommend their fantasies.

I am aware that the alt-Right may turn on me and start with the name-calling, e.g. “race-traitor” (which sounds so much better in the original Afrikaans, volks-verraaier, and which has been used on me before), or their favorite, “cuckservative” (one who is nominally conservative, but actually in thrall to liberals), and all the other cute little epithets they’ve come up with to describe those who, if they aren’t with them, must be against them.

Guess what? I am against you. I’m against your anti-Semitism, your White supremacism, and all the other bullshit that you hide under camouflage phrases and euphemisms. I know exactly who you are, and I’m not one of you.

There is no “paradox” in my philosophy; I just refuse to succumb to the temptation of ascribing societal failures to outside influences such as the “Jewish Conspiracy” or “negroid inferiority”. (Historically, it reminds me too much of Weimar Germany and pre-1917 Bolshevism.) As Quinn noted, I don’t take that extra step in “logic” that will move me over to the alt-Right because quite simply, it’s a step too far. Sorry if that puzzles you. Life isn’t a simple case of black and white, or even Black and White: it’s far more complex than that, and I’m sorry if you can’t see it.

And one last thing: in his essay, Spencer Quinn has many kind words to say about my bravery and “brass balls” (as he puts it). Do not for one moment think that any of that is going to disappear should someone decide to confront me in person. Please remember that as a young man, I once stood up against the guns and sjamboks of Afrikaner apartheid; and I’m prepared, even in my old age, to stand up to you. I am a lot meaner now than I was then, and I have a lot less to lose. That’s not a challenge, by the way; as Quinn noted, I really just want to be left alone — and in the alt-Right’s case, that means not co-opting my writings in support of your foolishness.

Sincerely,

Kim du Toit

Stepping Off The Carousel

Culture

Here’s my admission: I’ve never watched Breaking Bad. I never watched it because the inherent premise of it — a good man forced into crime by circumstance — was abhorrent to me, and because I’ve always been the guy who tried to do what was right regardless of circumstance.

But lately, I’m starting to think I may have been an idiot all these years, because when the system can be so easily gamed by people with fewer scruples and lower morals than mine, what’s the point of being the good guy?

Over at Return of Kings, some guy makes the same point in an article entitled In A Broken America, Only The Dishonorable Are Rewarded. (By the way, I love articles whose titles make reading the thing unnecessary, but you should read it anyway.) In true RoK fashion, he refers to people like me as “dupes”, and in his frame of the situation, he’s probably quite right.

Fortunately, of course, I’m in the majority of the population because up until now, most people can be counted on to do the right thing. I suspect too that this is why Social Security is pretty much untouchable: not because of the greediness of retirees, but because having done the right thing their whole lives and paid into the system (albeit at gunpoint), people are insistent that government also does the right thing and delivers on their promise by supporting retirees.

That government might one day renege on that promise is the stuff of nightmares — and not just for the cheated retirees, either.

What concerns me is that our public morality is becoming frayed by the increasing growth of private immorality. When I stated above that the “majority” of people can be counted on to do the right thing, what happens when that majority becomes a lot less so, and the wrongdoers become ascendant? Which, I think, is Furioso’s underlying point of his article, albeit not enunciated as such. If everybody else is cheating, then why aren’t you? It’s an enticing question, and sadly, a seductive one.

Even worse is that the wrongdoers,  by cheating and abusing the system, make thing intolerable for those who are on the straight and narrow. No better example can be found than in the pain management scenario, where people who are experiencing real and excruciating pain on a daily basis are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain the drugs needed to treat their condition because a jillion fuckups are abusing opiates and government, of course, is applying legislation like a hammer when what’s called for is a scalpel. My late wife was actually fired by two pain management medical practices because the doctors were finding the burden of government intervention and intrusiveness too difficult — and career-threatening — for Connie’s care to be in their best interest. Only when she was diagnosed with cancer did her care improve, because (as the new doctor explained), government doesn’t actually care about terminal patients because their condition is finite.

Imagine my reaction to that little nugget of information. And no, I didn’t load up the old AK-47 and pay a visit to the nearest government office. What I wanted to do was load up the AK and start paying visits to the cockroaches who had created this situation by abusing the drugs which my wife desperately needed. Seriously, had I known the Breaking Bad guy in person, I would have been mightily tempted to slaughter him, his dealers and every single “patient” who used his product. But not even I have enough ammo to make that problem go away because cockroaches seem to be in infinite supply these days.

I worry about this situation, about this waning of public morality. In fact, I worry about this more than I worry about any other aspect of modern society — more than un-Constitutional campus speech codes, more than corrupt IRS officials who target conservatives, and far more than the Russians (who are surely the best example of nationally-degraded public morality) attempting to fiddle with our electoral system.

And I know that our beloved government is worried about it too. How else can you explain the recent huge purchases of guns and ammunition by the Fedgov, and the arming of the thousands of federal agents and bureaucrats who are not even close to being in actual law enforcement?

Never before has W.B. Yeats’s Second Coming been more chilling:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

At the risk of sounding apocalyptic: keep your powder dry and your guns at hand, folks. Because when more than a few decent folks start to break bad, it’s SHTF time.

Snowflake Test

Business

Reader Dave O, in the Comments to my post about job interviews, asks:

What’s your opinion of Kyle Reyes’ “Snowflake Test”?

As I don’t watch TV much, I had no idea that Mr. Reyes had set off a shitstorm by revealing that he used a personality test (his description) to weed out potentially harmful and unproductive applicants from the hiring pool. So I looked the thing up (it’s excellent), and just for fun, I’ll take the test. As I don’t know the scoring metrics Reyes uses, I have no idea whether I’d pass or fail, but here we go:

Outside of standard benefits, what benefits should a company offer employees?
— Other than healthcare, disability, life insurance and pension (to vested employees), I can’t think of any other than perhaps a paid day’s leave for a birthday. Maybe.

What should the national minimum wage be?
— There shouldn’t be a national minimum wage.

How many sick days should be given to employees?
— It depends on the employee. Any condition that may require a regularly-taken sick day should first be vetted by an independent doctor’s opinion. Other than that, maybe half a dozen per annum total, non-accumulative. (Catastrophic injury or illness is obviously a different matter.)

How often should employees get raises?
— Other than CoL adjustments, only after exceptional performance or growth on the job.

How do you feel about guns?
— (Okay, you guys can quit laughing now.) I love guns and have been shooting them for well over fifty years. I love the self-control they demand of me when I’m trying to shoot them accurately, and I love the ability they give me for self-defense and defense of my family and community.

What are your feelings about employees or clients carrying guns?
— Don’t care who carries a gun, as long as they’re careful with them and/or keep them holstered.

What are your feelings about safe spaces in challenging work environments?
— Don’t see the need for them. (Especially if everyone’s carrying a gun.) The whole concept of “safe spaces” makes me irritable, and the people who demand them are childish and not worthy of respect, but of ridicule.

In a creative environment like The Silent Partner Marketing, what do you envision work attire looking like?
— I go to work every day wearing a jacket and tie to show respect for the company and towards my clients. I’m as creative as anyone on the planet, but I don’t think “creative” staff should get a pass to dress like hippies or golfers just because that somehow “helps” their creativity.

Should “trigger warnings” be issued before we release content for clients or the company that might be considered “controversial”?
— Absolutely not. Content should rise or fall on its merits, not whether or not it may hurt someone’s feelings.

How do you feel about police?
— I have to say, I’ve always trusted the police — at least I did twenty or thirty years ago. Of late, however, I’m becoming uneasy at their increased use of “no-knock” raids, warrantless wire-tapping and suchlike. But local cops and cops on the beat? I’ll always have their back, and my local guys know it.

If you owned the company and were to find out that a client is operating unethically but was a high paying client…how would you handle it?
— Fire the client. No amount of revenue is worth it. Lawyers often have to make that compromise; marketing companies should never.

When was the last time you cried and why?
— (My Readers already know when that was and why, so forgive me if I don’t answer this one.)

You arrive at an event for work and there’s a major celebrity you’ve always wanted to meet. What happens next?
— I’m not interested in meeting any celebrity, major or otherwise.

What’s your favorite kind of adult beverage?
— I have many favorites, so it depends on the mood, occasion, company and geography. In Wiltshire UK, Wadworth 6X bitter ale; in Paris, vin rouge; lunch on a a hot day, g&t or screwdriver; late night chatting with friends, single malt or Cape brandy; with Greek food, retsina — and those are just some of the options.

What’s the best way to communicate with clients?
— Face to face.

What’s your favorite thing to do in your free time?
— In no special order: read, write, shoot, or go out to dinner with family or friends.

What are your thoughts on the current college environment as it pertains to a future workforce?
— If we have to rely on the modern college for our workforce, we’re doomed.

What’s your typical breakfast?
— Before work, a cup of coffee, a croissant and maybe a piece of fruit or some yogurt. Over weekends, a cooked breakfast.

What’s your favorite drink when you go to a coffeehouse?
— I don’t normally visit coffeehouses except in Vienna, in which case it’s a Brauner. I normally drink ordinary coffee like Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme Regular, black with sugar.

How do you handle bullies?
— I destroy them.

How do you handle it when your ideas are shot down?
— If the idea is fatally flawed or unworkable, then fine and I’m an idiot. If it’s a good, workable idea but rejected because of NIH or politics, I shrug and walk away, then work to see how I can get it adopted anyway.

What do you do if a coworker comes to the table with an idea and it sucks?
— I tell him that it sucks, and why, then try to improve it with him.

What does the First Amendment mean to you?
— It’s everything. Without freedom of speech, not much else works. And I don’t care if it’s “offensive” — it’s offensive speech that needs both protection and the light of day.

What does faith mean to you?
— Not much, personally, if we’re talking about religion. I always respect it in others, however, as long as they leave me alone.

Who is your role model and why?
— My late grandfather. He taught me about honor, and decency, and duty, and devotion to family. He was a WWI veteran and fought in the trenches on the Western Front, at age 17.

You’re in Starbucks with two friends. Someone runs in and says someone is coming in with a gun in 15 seconds to shoot patrons. They offer you a gun. Do you take it? What do you do next?
— I don’t need someone else’s gun because I always carry my own. Next, I’d tell everyone to get on the floor (so I get a clear field of fire), then find some cover from which to shoot behind, and finally slip the safety catch off the 1911. It’s an unlikely situation per se because I never go to Starbucks, but I understand the general issue you’re addressing.

What does America mean to you?
— Everything. I’m an immigrant, and the proudest day of my life was when I became a U.S. citizen. This is it, this is the best, and we are the last great hope of the civilized world.

You see someone stepping on an American flag. What do you do?
— Shove them away roughly and pick up the flag. After that, it’s up to them what happens next. (And yes I know that contradicts what I said earlier about the First Amendment, but in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia: messing with our flag is “fighting words”.)

What does “privilege” mean to you?
— Something earned, such as Gold Status in an airline’s frequent flier program.

What’s more important? Book smarts or street smarts? Why?
— Street smarts. Book smarts are the foundation; street smarts are the application thereof in real life, suitably modified. We live in real life.

I wonder if I’d get a job offer…

Soort Soek Soort

Culture

I’ve talked about this topic before but it needs repeating, I think, because it’s a serious one.

Sarah Hoyt points me to this article about the difficulties of dating outside one’s political purview. Well, duh. In my parents’ time, it was religion that could be the sticking point. Never mind the big differences (Jews and Christians etc.): there were huge problems within the same religious groups too (Orthodox vs. Reform Jews, Catholic vs. Protestant Christians, and so on). The old saw was: “Never marry outside your faith”, because the schism was regarded as too deep to be overcome by marriage and could prove to be a fatal obstacle to happiness. Of course, that means that there’s a fundamental difference between philosophies: was Christ truly the Son of God, or just a major prophet? Serious stuff.

As the political process has become polarized, of course it wasinevitable that political differences would spill over into the social sphere. The differences were always there, of course: I remember howling with laughter at the 1960s Ann Landers story of the woman whose husband hid her dentures on Voting Day so that she couldn’t go out and vote Democrat. (Nowadays, she’d sue him for violating her civil rights and file for divorce, but that’s a rant for another time.)

Some differences can be ignored, of course; when I first met The Mrs., I used to refer to her as my “Liberal Rubbish Girlfriend” because she was living in Beverley Hills and hated guns. Maybe nowadays the latter would be a sticking-point (it would be for me), but back then it was different — and she was socially- and politically conservative. (Of course, she later came round to my way of thinking on guns and became a proud gun owner but I’ve told that story before.)

But I honestly think that political viewpoints have now sharpened to the point where social interaction has become almost impossible to people of such polarized opinion as progressive-liberal vs. conservative; it’s become a Christian / Muslim-type schism rather than a mild Episcopal / Presbyterian difference, if you will. Now, there is a fundamental and contradictory conflict as to how society should work: the primacy of the individual and minimal government presence vs. the State as the primary societal manager. What hasn’t helped is that the Left has progressively [sic] sharpened the political terminology whereby conservatives are now regarded as absolutely evil (Bush/Romney/Trump = Hitler). (As I’ve said before, the irony is that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, in terms of political action — never mind just philosophy —  are both far closer to Hitler’s statism than any prominent Republican has ever been. But the Left is impervious to irony: Freedom is Slavery, remember?)

Speaking personally, there is absolutely no way I could ever date a liberal woman because frankly, I have always been a man who enjoys to talk to my dates and show them respect (I know, how old-fashioned of me); but at some point, the conversations about neo-Impressionist art or Romantic Classical music would tail off and some kind of social discussion would begin… and soon grind to a halt amidst name-calling and invective.  You see, I can quite accommodate a woman’s opinion that Liszt is a better composer than Chopin (no, but never mind), whereas an opinion that government should enforce “hate speech” regulation is not just flawed but irretrievably wrong, and I can’t even begin to accommodate that. And if we get into a discussion of the welfare state and socialized medical care… well, it’s over.

The title of this piece is an Afrikaans expression for which the English idiom is “Birds of a feather flock together” — but the Afrikaans (lit. “type seeks the same type”) is a much stronger sentiment without the avian allusion. And “opposites attract” only works with magnets, by the way; for humans, opposites may initially attract — but eventually, repulsion sets in.

Choose your partners carefully.

Stop That Shit #2

Culture

Reminder: I was reading some article [no link, it was ages ago] wherein a so-called “style and etiquette” expert was making suggestions for the ages at which one should stop doing certain activities (e.g. wearing a bikini), and while I agreed with some of his statements, I found myself in stark disagreement with others. Here’s his #2 of when to stop doing things:

Women having long hair: age 40

Total bollocks. I don’t know of any actual men (i.e. who are not homosexual hairdressers, pussywhipped husbands, or beta male twerps) who like short hair on a woman. In fact, amongst most men of my acquaintance, short hair is a decided turnoff in that men often associate short hair with feminism, lesbianism or a woman who just doesn’t care about her appearance anymore (and in the last instance, they’re often woefully correct).

If you have beautiful hair, at any age, wear it long, ladies. Leave the cropped hairstyles to the lesbians and grannies. And yes, I know mommies cut their hair into “low-maintenance” styles because of children, which is a lousy excuse and ta-da! might make them look less attractive to their husbands (like anyone cares what those poor bastards think). Of course one can make excuses for women who have unfortunate hair — the thin, wispy Heather Locklear-kind which can’t hold a style or a curl; but apart from that, the longer the better.

No discussion of this topic would be complete without pitchurs, of course, and the most egregious example is the exquisite Anne Hathaway, who cut her wonderful hair short for a movie role (acceptable), then inexplicably kept it short  for well over a year thereafter (ugh).

  

Whoever persuaded her to keep her hair short must really have hated her. You see, she has very exaggerated features (huge eyes, wide mouth and thick lips which admittedly do work in her favor on stage). Longer hair keeps those features in perspective; but unless a woman has petite, regular facial features, the short hairstyle over-emphasizes them and just like Hathaway, will make her look like a caricature of herself.

And finally: bizarre hair colors and Skrillex (“Lisbet-Salander”) hairstyles should be abandoned when one graduates from college and the time for youthful experimentation has passed. Going beyond that, and I start to suspect psychological issues, e.g. Lisbet Salander (I know, she’s a fictional character; fake but accurate).

cc

Frankly, the only men who find such looks attractive are men with similar psychological issues. I should also point out that in the pickup artist (PUA) community, such hairstyles are catnip to guys looking for an easy lay.

Of course, every woman should be able to “express herself” and “choose what works for her” and all that feministical jive. I would politely suggest, however, that from the average man’s perspective he’d probably prefer that she doesn’t arrive at the wedding ceremony with a hairstyle like the above. And yeah, I know that women shouldn’t have to shape their appearance according to what attracts men. But that’s the reality of it. There’s a really good reason why Edwardian women kept their hair up in tight chignons during the day, and let it loose at night: the act of unpinning the hair and letting it fall past their shoulders was — and remains — an incredible aphrodisiac to men.

And finally, here’s an example of a woman who has kept her long hair way past the (“sensible”) age of 40:

I don’t think she looks good; I think she looks sensational.