“The global climate change debate has gone badly wrong. Many mainstream environmentalists are arguing for the wrong actions and for the wrong reasons, and so long as they continue to do so, they put all our futures in jeopardy. (Political philosopher Thomas Wells)
I ran across the above quotation at a talk given by Dr. Judith Curry at the Global Warming Policy Foundation. I had never heard of Thomas Wells, and so looked him up. I like the idea that he is a philosopher, as his mission in life is to think, possibly even to think better than the rest of us. (Alex Epstein, who is in the links on this blog, is also a philosopher. At the end of this piece I am posting a video exchange he had with former Senator Barbara Boxer, using just a few words to tear her a new one.
I found Wells, a busy scholar who also runs a blog called The Philosopher’s Beard. I read a piece he posted on April 28th called Political Correctness: How the Few Try to Rule Over the Many. I have long understood political correctness, but not like Wells does. He says it has been around throughout the ages.
The recent history of the term ‘political correctness’ and its association with the contemporary left and the tedious culture wars obscures its true character and ubiquity. Political correctness is real, significant, and arguably the dominant mode of politics since before humans could even talk. It is the few trying to rule over the many by persuading the many that they are in the minority.
His writing is well worth anyone’s time, so I will cite and write sparsely, but the upshot is that PC is used to make us afraid to speak up. He uses the example of segregation in the 1960s where only 24% of the public in the South favored segregation, but where 48% believed that a majority did. By far the most extreme number back then was the Pacific Coast, where only 9% favored segregation, but where 42% believed it was a majority belief.
The Emperor’s New Clothes fairy tale is a classic example of this mechanism in action. Each individual can see with their own eyes that there are no clothes. But they are persuaded that they are in the minority because everyone else publicly claims to see them. The reason they each lie is that they believe the con artists’ declaration that only stupid people can’t see the emperor’s clothes. But they only believe this declaration because everyone else acts as if they can see clothes. Of course, once one person does break the silence, the collective epistemic delusion immediately collapses.
Wells does not mention it, perhaps has never used the phrase, but the meme “conspiracy theory” is also a means of intimidating people, suggesting they have mental problems when most likely their views on a host of matters, perhaps even the moon landings or Covid, are a majoritarian outlook, or close to it. But they are intimidated into silence by ridicule and scorn, a classic means to tyrannical control. I suggested to Petra Liverani in a comment yesterday that people who think as we do, maybe me but not her, know to STFU at the dinner gatherings when sitting with relatives. We are intimidated into silence.
But political correctness is also an inherently expansionary mode of politics. This is after all a technique for enabling the rule of minorities, so the key limitation on how far it can go is not the numbers of actual supporters a view has, but the effectiveness of those supporters in preventing those who might disagree from being able to come together in organised opposition.
I wrote recently about being permanently banned from Facebook for things I might have written years ago, saying I violated “community standards.” I quit Facebook four years ago but recently rejoined to be part of a neighborhood movement to stop a campground from being build adjacent to our quiet neighborhood. Understand, if you are on Facebook, everything you write is a permanent record that can and will be used against you if you use that forum to speak out about anything that fringe group behind the scenes does not like.
Yesterday I wrote about how the Climate: The Movie has been banned by YouTube for containing “misinformation.” I would say that the people behind Facebook and YouTube, most likely Intel (a conspiracy theory) are not just in the minority, but are a minority with immense power given them by … us. We are shackled and chained by our own weaknesses, at YouTube to be entertained, at Facebook to be approved of and liked (and to be able to share photos of our lunch).
It is all political correctness, a sinister force used against us and keeping us from thinking properly and speaking out.
Here is the Epstein/Boxer video I mentioned above. Epstein’s words, “It’s to teach you how to think more clearly” laid Boxer out on the canvas, but she is too stupid to shut up. The fun part is over in 45 seconds. And good day to all.
Piece of Mindful 
Thanks Mark
I have decided I want to be a writer. I just off loaded about 35 hours work a week (of my 90-100 hours). In the next month I should be able to catch up and find some time. Any advice? At this stage I dont need to make any money from it, just a hobby.
My interest are the machinations of society.
ps I can’t write or spell, basically don’t use social media or tech at all.
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Your comments are of a degrading sort, as if you’re circling the drain.
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Paul Simon wrote a song about that guy…“you can call me Al”, AL RIMMER. Something about circling the RIMMER of the drain.
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This is misinformation, TM. I fact-checked, and there is no reference to “Rimmer” in that song. Your comment is hereby taken down, and you are banned for a period of 180 days.
You can appeal my decision. It’s a one-step process. You say “I appeal” and I decide again to ban you, this time for life.
That may seem like frontier justice, but that is the way it is done these days, TM. Welcome to our brave new world.
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it appears to be a double-edge sword that cuts just “one way”. If I appeal I’m screwed. If I keep my mouth shut I’m banned for a 180 days. So, I’ll just apologize to Mr.Simon for modifying his lyrics,throw myself on the sword and “let my freak flag fly”.
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I was just mimicking what Facebook did to me based on what I might or might not have written four years ago, before I quit FB. I was never allowed to learn what exactly triggered their banning me, and I was then banned for life. You’re safe.
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at least I got to plead my case. it’s sad that “you didn’t”. But that’s the world we’re living in today. every asshole is offended and we’re all guilty until proven innocent. They’re afraid of people like you who can think for yourself and stand up and have an objective opinion…and there’s nothing to get “hung about”,it’s just a colloquial expression, there is nothing to be overly concerned or upset about<><>and if they don’t like it, fuck ’em, keep doing what you’re doing.
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This might be a stretch, but I find it suspicious that an Epstein is involved in this saga, and he’s given screen time on political panels by people who otherwise are seemingly committed to promote a narrative different from his at any cost, going so far as to not even let him speak at times. To me, it feels like yet another set-up, in much the same way the Fauci hearings were scripted spectacles. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have given him the time of day if he truly posed a threat to their web of lies. I guess that’s why they decided to debate a philosopher over a real scientist on this subject.
And I’d like to add that another reason why they promote these radical climate “activists” and their tripe is to blackwash real environmentalists who are trying to hold the true menaces to our ecosystem to account, as well as to create shock and division on all sides. We see them discredit their opposition in this fashion on different occasions (e.g., the Manson killers, flat earthers, New Age conspiracists, etc.), so they obviously would have no reason not to use that tactic here. It explains why little has been achieved in properly addressing real environmental issues, with much effort instead being wasted on highlighting cow farts or “red meat = bad”, dubious “global warming” predictions, and pushing carbon taxes, which all serve to screw over the people and empower their oppressors and not vice versa.
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I read his book, which is comprised of two books that are virtually identical. He’s got a good mind, a scientific approach (citing facts and referencing them), and places himself in harm’s way, that is, college campuses. I find him a tad repetitive and humorless, but not everyone can satisfy my love of comedy in all things. However, his takedown of the odious Boxer was a classic body slam. We do not get to see many of those. You are far too quick with the scurrilous insinuation that anyone who achieves any notoriety is part of a plan. It ain’t that simple.
“… little has been achieved in properly addressing real environmental issues…” That is a casual generalization, which sounds a lot like a logical fallacy, not even close to truth. You do that too often. Progress since the 1970s in addressing pollution is a credit to humanity, with species of all types either thriving or on the rebound. We’ve miles to go before we sleep, but real scientists, and others far more useful, engineers, have made great strides in cleaning up our air, waterways and lakes. Just as toilets and sewers eliminated most diseases (with credit stolen by the vaccine forces), the air we breathe these days is cleaner than fifty years ago, the water we drink cleaner.
The problems we face have to do to a large part with the art of lying, the notion that we need vaccines and that every disease is caused by a pathogen and can be fixed with a drug. I don’t know where you live, but I suggest you move to a higher altitude where people like me never get sick (at least until we die) and where the population is small enough that police don’t care to enforce mass safety laws on us … no masking, no lockdowns (more “pandemics” are surely on the way) … in other words, live free or die. There are among us many living like this, and, brace yourself Harry, many are Jews!!!!*
*The name “Tokarski” is in the Jewish registry of names, and I wish I could claim Jewish ancestry, but it just ain’t there. It comes down on my father’s side, and they only accept maternal lineage for entry into the club. My ancestors are all Catholic even as all us boys are circumcised.
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Great find on those stats.. something like that is what I would have guessed. The general proportion. Many people, liberals especially, have this idea that everyone from the past – certainly Southern Whites – were Very Horrible People. It’s a “fact” in their minds.
Ironically, just like their forebears thought a majority supported segregation and so went along – now they believe a majority did, and so condemn all their own forebears (if white) and all white people generally.
“Whites must be genetically racist/ segregationist,” they reason “and would still be doing it today if they hadn’t been taught better and restrained.”
But I never had stats to put down those kinds of sweeping broad brush views of the past.
I’m trying to remember, but I think To Kill a Mockingbird reinforces the “blame the majority whites” rather than “blame the divide & conquer ruling elites” narrative.
Sure, Atticus is a great guy, and respectable people respect him.. but he’s mostly a lone voice of reason, crying in the wilderness. The majority are a craven, slavenly (so to speak) mob, who must be led gingerly to a more enlightened view, against their own nature, led out of darkness into some meager degree of humanity. By great eloquence, masterful rhetoric and poetry, made to see their own baseness.
Modern audiences watch it (I saw it in school, maybe twice even in different grades) and it appeals to our natural condescending sense of superiority to people of the past: “oh yes, they probably WERE that way.”
I read some of his other blog posts- good stuff in terms of food for thought, but diametrically opposed to the views of this blog or most here, I would say..
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Which is ironic because if things continue as they are, future generations will probably view today’s society in the same light as most do of the past. People today seldom consider that they too aren’t above the same bad treatment they give their predecessors.
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Yeah, there’s always that looming irony.. although I’m not sure if I know specifically what you’re referring to by things continuing as they are.. if idpol and social engineering continue to reinvent everyone into the next iteration? If predictions come true in the direction of various sci Fi dystopias we’ve been presented? Yes then our current “vanguard” of true believers will be terrible sinners for various things they do or think now.. the current programming will be supplanted lol. It’s a mug’s game. In fairness to them though, they already think they’re sinners and have a lot of guilt over not being “progressive” enough.
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Heck, I already know people in their forties/ fifties who like to consider themselves “good liberals” who feel the ground shifted under their feet. Some furtively conceal their now retrograde views to avoid notice, others try to take a small stand.. and others “get their mind right” with incredible ease.. based on my small sample of three specifically I know, who probably represent the views of millions in their demographic.
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And then there are younger people I only know as “contacts” on fb.. who I connected with based on cartooning interest.. who represent the dogmatic, outspoken enforcers of the new ideas, buttressed by being part of the echo chamber for the Dominant Media Consensus.. the DMC empowers all these foot soldiers of the cause, because they (and everyone) have that false sense of being in the majority, or at least in the majority of “smart, educated professionals”.. and vice versa, other liberals feel cowed to oppose them. Else be labeled a knuckle dragging MAGA racist far right deplorable.
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That’s a really funny statement which I agree with 100%. My best friend and I have a running joke that so many young people are incredibly smug about how “smart” they think we, and they are in this present age. Because we have iPhones, duh? And those people 200 years ago were racist neanderthals by comparison, having never used a “computer”.
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This comment is not necessarily related to the subject at hand, but, did anyone else notice Trumps hush money payment to Stormy Daniels was $130,000? Lol, lol over and over. These Trump in legal trouble stories are the fakest stories ever told, every time I wonder if things really are that fake, you just need to look at the days headlines. I don’t know what they do after Trump for America, the whole damn leadership is complete shiite.
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At least through the Trump presidency they could make a claim that American presidents had “charisma”. I had a theory, until I realized presidential elections were fixed, that the more charismatic candidate always won. Which does actually work with fixed elections too, where the powers that be would prefer a charismatic leader. However they do seem to have run out of options, I mean Biden? Seriously? It’s really awful how charisma deficient modern politicians are.
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I guess they simply couldn’t bother placing more charismatic con artists for the masses to worship anymore, mainly because they know the sheep will just go along with it no matter what. Both Trump and Biden are equally un-charismatic, IMO, or at least they are in old age.
Plus, as I’m sure you know, presidential elections aren’t really popularity contests and never have been. The popular vote was never the final arbiter for who will be POTUS, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if the elected candidate is charismatic or not so long as they were chosen in advance. The same is probably true for state and local elections to a lesser extent.
I think the reason why they used to utilize beguiling political actors more often is because they were more invested in selling the “American Dream” to the masses. Kennedy was one example of this, and so was Obama, who was the last charismatic “leader” planted in the WH in recent history. But as the illusion began to crumble (largely due to the disastrous policies they purposely engineered, such as the dollar going fiat and outsourcing jobs), an increasing segment of the population became disillusioned, so they didn’t bother to give them illusory leaders as often. Since Kennedy, most of them barely inspired awe or hope, save Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.
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it’s like they quit trying. They don’t count votes anyway, so it’s all rubbing our face in it.
”Fiat currency” … MMM – modern monetary theory, offers relief from worry. There are no deficits or national debt, Social Security and Medicare can never go broke. They only have to manage spending and pull enough money out of circulation via taxes to keep inflation in check.
During Covid and all that free money, inflation did kick in, but now seems under control again.
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https://www.politico.com/news/biden-federal-funds-spending-tracking
Yet homeless people and potholes everywhere. Trillion$ but not for us.
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Because there’s no money to be made from actually helping the people. There’s more money to be made selling drugs (vaccines included) and weapons than improving the country in any significant manner. Government is nothing more than the commercialization of public services at taxpayer expense.
That’s why there’s always so much emphasis on wars and outbreaks than on other important issues such as the real economy and infrastructure. Spook George Carlin said it best long ago when talking about cultural issues like homelessness.
The same goes for when they do pretend to tackle those issues you mentioned. You’ll find that even those initiatives aren’t really focused on fixing the problems, but instead exploiting them for profit with little real improvements made. California is one classic example of this with their billion-dollar homeless programs, which are often plagued by corruption and graft. It’s no wonder why their problems have never been adequately resolved.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-audit-california-fails-to-track-homeless-spending-billions-dollars
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I have a philosophical question to ask Marks’ readers here, and it has to do with altruism. Now I am not convinced altruism actually exists, and that individuals really do care about anyone else except themselves. I have strongly felt this way since I was child. In my opinion, most or all altruistic deeds are done to make the person feel good about themselves, with zero regard to the actual long term outcome of the person at hand. For example, the way parents typically raise children is for them to want the children to be famous, or rich, or how they want their children to be perceived, and nothing to do with the actual happiness of the child. Somehow the “superego” has been beautifully exploited, to control the individual into thinking altruism is the ultimate way to happiness. The reason I bring this up is it hijacks the entire political process, and how people see the world, into making most men want to be perceived by their fellow men as “good”, and worst, into thinking “leaders” ultimately want to be viewed as good, and care whether or not they are viewed as good. It is ultimately this little trick that keeps our leaders in the place where they are, and keeping most of humanity in a childlike state, constantly worrying if other people perceive them as “good” people.
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I think that altruism (selfless love/care) does exist, but it’s rare. For instance, whenever the chance arises, I do things for the people in my life out of genuine care and without the intention to feel or look good (helping my parents, for example), although the act of doing so does make me feel nice afterwards. But I do notice that often times, people’s “kindness” to others are feigned, and it shows if one pays close attention. This is especially so with celebrities who like to use philanthropy for PR purposes (as well as money laundering), which seldom is about doing real charity work.
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Is the nature of man good or evil.. it’s an eternal debate with major philosophers in both camps. Different ages and political systems lean one way or the other. Some may even recognize the irresolvable dualism. See Quigley’s discussion of the changing message of literature in the West. Golding’s Lord of the Flies represented the new/ contemporary consensus of the ruling class – men are essentially savages, and must be restrained by society.
Your comment is slanted toward generalizing about the sentiments of those who lean left/ liberal. On the right/ conservative side, “selfishness” is embraced as a productive force for society – while the motive of wealth accumulation may not be inherently virtuous, in this view, it becomes “virtuous” (in theory!) as its pursuit (if lawful) is supposed to accrue benefit to society – goods and services, investment, invention or improvements, etc.
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Hi, I didn’t mean it to come across as an Ayn Rand type argument. I meant it to apply across the spectrum, including religions, and the military, that are always asking people to “sacrifice” for their religion, their people, their nation, again based on some twisted idea of altruism. I do completely believe in altruism in the local sense, with kin, and people who live near you. But extending it beyond those spheres is typically just a method for exploitations.
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Also a lot scientists like to claim what makes humans unique is a our altruism, when it is in fact is our gullibility, and acquisitiveness for excess material objects. As Mark hammers us with the climate change agenda, clearly this is a case of the rich and privileged asking for massive altruism to preserve the privileges of the rich.
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FDR is the perfect example of this type of politician always asking the citizens to sacrifice for a noble cause, meaning extending the depression as long as possible, re-arming Germany and Russia, and forcing the US into war against Japan and Germany. Both of my grandfathers, both working class men, running restaurants and greenhouses, hated FDR deeply. They avoided serving in WW2 by being fathers in their 20s, and they had no allusions to wanting to be war heroes. WW2 is completely misunderstood to have massive public approval, when in fact it was never popular and only happened because America was threatened with further depressions if they didn’t manufacture enough weapons for the next world war.
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Thinking about it some more, yes it applies across the spectrum.. yes it’s a big factor in propaganda. Many or even most men have some impulse toward a “white knight” syndrome, that can be appealed to in rhetoric. To want to sacrifice for a noble cause, and yes to look good in their own eyes and the eyes of others.
But to varying degrees, and balanced with other impulses – rational self-interest, or the interest of kinfolk and local tribe over abstract concepts and groups. It is more of a temporary flare up at the pitch of rhetoric and propaganda, leading them in before more sober reflection causes regret. At which point the die is cast and to back out in front of the group is ignominious.
In the left/ right divide, it’s more commonly in play on the left where there’s more concern with group welfare even if it’s only symbolic, gestures. The right is more individualist in outlook, and with the hard masculine virtues of self sufficiency etc. Their white knight can though be animated by martial calls and sacrifice in war, probably other areas I can’t think of offhand.
Adam Smith though and the conservative tradition (though maybe called liberal at the time) recognized or saw man in his normal day to day state as rationally self-interested, and the market economy was the (in theory) answer to harness his selfishness and channel it to an end that would satisfy his self-interest, while benefitting the group, even if composed of far off strangers and a tribe bound by weak ties of “nationhood” rather than family or tribe.
The feminine valued left has always resisted this unsatisfying arrangement – psychologically unsatisfying – and demands balancing actions that appeal to the white knight in most people. Who have a natural feeling of benevolence toward the welfare of their fellow man (and potentially themselves.) So the system is continually balancing these two sides, and politicians appeal to them in rhetoric..
Wait, what was the question..? 😅
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Good point,Ray…Working class and war heroes. as soon as you’re born they make you feel small.by giving you no time instead of it all,’til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.<>a working class hero is something to be. They hurt you at home and they hit you at school.They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,’til you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their rules.<>a working class hero is something to be.when they’ve tortured and scared you for 20-odd years,then they expect you to pick a career..when you can’t really function,you’re so full of fear<>a working class hero is something to be. They keep you doped with religion and sex and T.V. Then you think you’re so clever and classless and free..But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see<>a working class hero is something to be. There is “room at the top” they are telling you still, But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,if you want to be like the folks on the hill<>a working class hero is something to be..a working class hero is something to be<>Well if you want to be a hero then just follow me...LENNON
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