Friends, you've probably heard of transhumanism, which posits that human beings can transcend their biological limitations and become...something greater and better than what we are, mainly through the magic of technology. Well, that's intriguing, if weird and disturbing, but now there's anti-humanism, which posits that human beings are tawdry, useless, and doomed, and the sooner we all drown ourselves in a lake, the better! Whether that's true, morally, spiritually, or philosophically, you have to concede that this article makes a lot of powerful points: our ability to live as (successful) social animals is waning, and we increasingly discount the value of human life and promote and embrace death. More to the point, our enthusiasm for procreation, which is an essential function of all life, is in what appears to be terminal decline. Now, perhaps in the bright, A.I.-powered transhumanist future that some have imagined, machines will do all the tasks of reproduction for us, including fertilization, gestation, birthing, nursing, and even parenting. Of course, at that stage you might legitimately question what the purpose of human existence would be...but we've been struggling with that conundrum for several centuries regardless, or at least those who've cut the cord with a higher power have. The bottom line: it really is a brave new world out there, and, just like in the book, the implications are both exciting and horrifying. Welcome to the 21st century!
And here's a fine piece of sophistry. Basically, it argues that the Supreme Court's recent ruling on affirmative action doesn't entirely settle the question of whether race preferences are always illegal and unconstitutional. And, it suggests, in any case colleges and universities can continue to explore various inventive means to discriminate in favor of groups they like, and against groups they don't. No kidding! Bias is alive and well in American higher education, and indeed throughout our messed up excuse for a society, and that should surprise no one, given the motley crew we've chosen as our "elite".
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/07/20/what-the-supreme-court-really-did-to-affirmative-action/
Dr.Waddy from Jack: I read the article "qualifying" the affirmative action decision. I suppose law is capable of a very wide range of credible construction but sophistry is freely and unapologetically expressed by the left whenever thought necessary. Its object, the left's EVER object is the permanent acquisition and imposition of unchallengeable totalitarian rule.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack:The article's physical breadth is impressive but. . . Lenin wrote at great and ponderous length. Castro's prolix prerorations were notorious. What did their torturous "reasoning" effect? Only incalculable dysfunction and limitless misery for myriads of millions, NOTHING more!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: DIE is SIMPLY the antiamerican left's latest onerous power play.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The "Oh the humanity "article was too much for me to appreciate in one reading; it looks to be very well thought out and deserves much more than one perusal. My initial reaction though: the rise in doctrine maintaining the obsolescence of thought produced by painful synthesis of the cumulative wisdom of human experience is almost doubtless the cause of much grievous social and psychological dysfunction today.The Enlightenment, in its terrible incipient perversion into Marxism,eventually offered humanity comprehensive"liberation" from the onerous strictures of tradition, including,most ,yes, blasphemous and disastrous, the certainty of the nonexistence of an infinitely superior intelligence who DOES give a "damn" how we use our free will. Why, accordingly, humanity is free to manufacture standards out of whole cloth, frivolity, fiat! The staggering presumptuousness and consequent intellectual indefensibility of this has led humanity to thrash about like a fishtailing vehicle , trying this and that fashionable and arbitrary modus vivendus, with catastrophic results since 1789.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The author's citation of the subhuman contemporary "celebration" of the virtues of unfettered killing of unborn humans( in which the abortionists thereby outdo even w. clinton in obscenity ), exemplifies the inhuman potential of manufactured humanity.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: The human mind is incapable of constructing a workable artificial standard of the good life. Guidance has been available, from a Source the unimaginable power of which is plainly visible any clear night. Humanity's progress in honoring this existential gift is the source of painfully realized civilization.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I'm going to be as presumptuous as to broach this subject here; my experience was very recent and I do not know if this execrable offense is widespread: I met an active duty Marine who told me that he and other Marines had been spat upon by disdainful lowlifes who apparently dismiss the price of freedom! Maybe they were antiamerican leftist slime, antifa types encouraged by nostalgic dems .I thought this detestable practice had become part of a shameful past which yet plays havoc with the emotions of many Vietnam vets. I have been so grateful to see the widespread respect today accorded the military and vets. FROM WHAT ATAVISTIC RATHOLE HAS THIS LATTER DAY VERMINOUS NEW PLAGUE SLITHERED FORTH? Yeah, some of those '60s ingrates are still around but they are getting long in the tooth - not so good at scrambling back in the offal piles anymore. If their ilk is back, the major vet groups need to confront them.My experience during the Vietnam days was that they let these pukes run wild and that devastated many returning combat vets. (Please, if anyone knows of vets groups defending the guys coming back from Vietnam, say so here, thanks)The returnees were often ordered not to react as, I believe, today's service members may also be constrained.
ReplyDeleteJack, the article about the legal status of affirmative action has to be taken seriously. After all, the Left may be planning a strategy on race preferences similar to its strategy on gun rights -- that is, it may simply refuse to take "no" for an answer. Remember, the courts unanimously and consistently slapped down gay marriage...until they didn't.
ReplyDeleteAs for the celebration of abortion, I read a long article on CNN today that couched abortion as mercy killing for infants doomed to die (painfully) anyway. The possibility that any infant might be worth saving literally never occurred to the authors. They were laser focused, to say the least.
Hmm. Are we incapable of "constructing a workable artificial standard of the good life"? I guess it depends on what you consider "workable". I would say, instead, that any concept of virtue and purpose engineered by human artifice is going to reflect the foibles of man himself. Now, is man, by nature, bad? I wouldn't go that far. In fact, most formulations of the good contain, in my view, much goodness -- even Marxism. The problem is that the implementation of these value systems and ideologies need not be grounded, in any meaningful sense, in theory. It's the practical ethics of the people wielding power that counts -- married to their practical ability to translate their priorities into action, which is vastly greater in the modern age (thanks to technology and bureaucracy) than ever before. I guess what I'm saying is that, in my opinion, secular moralizing and philosophizing aren't inherently dangerous, but politicians are, because, to them, ideas are just an excuse for the accumulation of power and privilege -- and a legitimation of their efforts to obliterate their enemies.
I'm sorry to hear that some servicemen face such vulgar forms of hostility. What would be the reason for such contempt, I wonder?
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Your comment on my view of the good life is very well taken. I should have added in my comment "The human mind is incapable of 'independently' constructing a workable 'artificial '(redundant of me to say) standard of the good life. Efforts to do so since 1789 have caused unprecedented catastrophe.Ineffable Guidance on the moral framework for civilized behavior has been ours for over 3 millennia now and has never been beneficially gainsaid. Uhh, who do we think we are anyway? We don't even understand much that we see in our own tiny solar neighborhood!The congruence of the big bang theory with the Book of Genesis is, I think, deliberately ignored by those who dismiss divinity and it's unimaginable power, out of hand.
ReplyDeleteDivinity I should say. . .
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Your reasoning on the fundamental importance of the practical ethics of those who wield power is very plausible. There is much historically and presently proven truth to the axiom "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". It is one of the radical evils of the antiamerican left that it sneers at this tragic reality in its ever accelerating obvious determination to impose it's totalitarian rule on America and then the world.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Too much of the spitting in the '60s was done by terribly naive boomers so very unable to interpret the downside of American history as anything but a fundamental condemnation of America. Goaded to it by cynical old marxists they saw anyone defending America in any way as beneath contempt and deserving any degree of castigation. Subhumans like Mao and good old "Che" were reimagined heroes, in a perverse transformation to the lasting shame of all who embraced it.Coming just two decades after WWII it was
ReplyDeleteall intensely shocking, as it was intended to be. In retrospect it still is so ,as is any reprise of it.Today? Nihilists, amoral dreamers lacking any understanding of the painful historical progress of intolerably imperfect humanity are capable of this abomination. But this is not the '60s; America loves it's military and loathes those who seek to demoralize it. Let all America hasten to demonstrate active resistance to this anathema. These ingrate lowlifes should wise up and step off!
Quite right, Jack! The Left is, bizarrely, highly cognizant of the oppressive power of elites, and yet it blithely assumes that, if leftists are entrusted with social-economic-political dominion, only good can come of it. Gimme a break!!!
ReplyDeleteJack, the Left was once again skeptical of the military when it was Dubya, or Trump, deploying it, but with Biden at the helm? And with wokeness and vaccination increasingly the only critical missions that servicemen are tasked with? It's hard to credit. Maybe, for some lefties, contempt is just a reflex...
Dr. Waddy from Jack: You have cited one of the fundamentals of the antiamerican leftist mind. They conveniently hold all of their principles to be irrefutable and their forceful expression and enforcement to be analogous to involuntary physical reflexes.
ReplyDelete