tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post7642231501567708264..comments2024-03-29T03:41:12.499+13:00Comments on Bowalley Road: Strange And Disturbing Times 2.0Chris Trotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-22185222457837290842021-09-18T21:28:19.502+12:002021-09-18T21:28:19.502+12:00Meng Foon says Taranaki Whanui prisoners built the...Meng Foon says Taranaki Whanui prisoners built the Otago University clock tower. Who advises him?<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wltoBKiT2J8&lc=Ugy9HKOTge7yr-Zo47Z4AaABAgJohn Hurleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-39745830760169450282021-09-13T17:19:29.378+12:002021-09-13T17:19:29.378+12:00I see The NZ Herald have refused to publish the pr...I see The NZ Herald have refused to publish the pre-booked ads from Speak Up for Women that featured the dictionary definition of women (adult human female) because "we considered that these were potentially inflammatory"<br />The advertising standards authority had already cleared the ads - was there ever any serious question that a straightforward dictionary definition could be "offensive". Will our dictionaries have to be purged as well, a national book burning session perhaps. <br />Strange and disturbing times.David Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04883628159193125307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-58454244262225172842021-09-13T10:20:10.520+12:002021-09-13T10:20:10.520+12:00CCC has a draft strategy, but what could you say i...CCC has a draft strategy, but what could you say in any submission. I just hurled abuse at them<br />https://www.ccc.govt.nz/the-council/haveyoursay/show/353#startsubmissionJohn Hurleynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-79346941356105460702021-09-13T06:10:34.322+12:002021-09-13T06:10:34.322+12:00The beginning of a 2nd Reformation? no! Where the ...The beginning of a 2nd Reformation? no! Where the West is heading right now if we don't stop it, is towards a 2nd Dark Age!<br /><br />The cancerous cancel culture espoused by mindless woke zombie automations is now being aimed at the sciences (was only ever a matter of time before they did so).<br />Today they de-platform, tomorrow they'll be burning people at the stake... IF we don't stop them.thesorrow&thepitynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-5986932816433565612021-09-12T15:03:47.519+12:002021-09-12T15:03:47.519+12:00Interesting as always. I will raise a few counter ...Interesting as always. I will raise a few counter points, however.<br /><br />Martin Luther was an extreme anti-Semite. The time of the reformation is juxtaposed with the Spanish reconquista, which included with it new theories of racial identity. No loner were Moors and Jews in Iberia a religious category, but it became one of inherited status. Whereas previous Jews could convert and become Spanish Catholics, now they could be expelled or brutalised because of ancestry. This new categorization of people through ancestry allowed New World slavery to be racialized. The racialization led to 'race' perception based on colour and geographical origin.<br /><br />As the West saw new lands, they saw new people. All with differing values and cultures. Many had traditions regarding sexuality and gender identity that were against the accepted public gaze of the Westerners (recognizing Europe had hidden subcultures). Colonisation repressed many of these identities and practices.<br /><br />Medieval women had made some gains post-Plague, but the reformation had both sides evangelizing women's place in society, most noticeable the Puritans.<br /><br />Revolutions in the American colonies, France and Saint Domingue pushed the enlightenment concept of the 'Rights of Man' and universal rights. The suppression by all western powers of Saint Domingue made the idea of 'universal' rights into a far more narrow view.<br /><br />The point is, that identity politics was highlighted through the reformation and enlightenment. However, the identity rights were oppressed - theologically, legally, economically and socially. Identity politics, like all other social movements come from historical positions of disadvantage.<br /><br />The current movements are not creating identity politics, but a realignment of the place of women, ethnic minorities, sexual and gender identity and practice, disability and religion (or lack of) within the rights inherent in the post-colonial world of universal rights.<br /><br />Identities were forged by the repression of the reformation on some groups, by enlightenment exclusion and 19th Century European categorization for legislative suppression. All we are seeing now is the inevitable claim to be included within universal human rights. The Barronnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-21585753873941367212021-09-12T13:15:29.101+12:002021-09-12T13:15:29.101+12:00Yes Chris, "strange and disturbing" scar...Yes Chris, "strange and disturbing" scarcely begins to describe it.<br />Take this gender identity bill being considered. A women, far from being a definable being, a fundamental and axiomatic aspect of humanity is to be diminished to the status of an idea. Less than an idea perhaps, a vague feeling, an undefinable emotion, a pretense, a delusion that requires us all to pander to the vanishingly small cohort of the self diagnosed gender dysphoric.<br /><br />It gets worse; laws are being developed to criminalise the questioning of this insanity. <br /><br />BTW. there are still a couple of days left to make a submission on the bill. The Speak up for Women organisation have links and suggestions to help.<br /><br /> Note: When you've finished selecting and editing using the website, copy your text, then click through Parliament's website. They haven't made it easy as their website doesn't accept 'right click paste' but you can paste by holding down the 'Control' key together with the letter 'V' key. Alternatively, you can paste your text into a word document and upload that directly. https://speakupforwomen.nz/David Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04883628159193125307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-15763513287131632542021-09-12T11:02:16.816+12:002021-09-12T11:02:16.816+12:00Thanks Kimbo 7.51
That reminds me of Radionz Media...Thanks Kimbo 7.51<br />That reminds me of Radionz Media Watch this morning talking about Peter Williams retiring as talk host - a leader in obfuscation and suspicion. His followers got no clarity of understanding it appears - follow to the ditch!greywarblernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-80067764742524683662021-09-12T10:19:41.351+12:002021-09-12T10:19:41.351+12:00It's worth having a look at Irving Kristol'...It's worth having a look at Irving Kristol's "Two Cheers for Capitalism" wherein<br />Kristol not only attacks the limitations of Friedman et al, but also identifies the reduction of meaning in capitalist society (capitalism has no transcendence he says); and this meaning is exactly what progressive neoliberalism seems to offer via identity politics<br />There's also some interesting work coming out of Foucault's turn to the agency and 'meaning' offered by neo-liberalism...which is why neo-leftists are not immune to neo-liberalism either<br /><br />So, to consider your historical analogy, what we have is not Luther’s reformation but rather Calvin’s theocratic Geneva; identitarian politics is a secular theocracy of the progressive neoliberal.<br />Mike Grimshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01806767454101371478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-52038408458047516042021-09-12T09:21:32.886+12:002021-09-12T09:21:32.886+12:00Kat what time frame are you talking about when you...Kat what time frame are you talking about when you say humans moving from predominantly hunter gatherers to agriculture. Certainly not in the last 2000 years. So I am really struggling once again to understand what you are meaning.Simon Cohennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-21476435135195128122021-09-12T08:16:05.627+12:002021-09-12T08:16:05.627+12:00Well said
Well said<br />Ancient Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10636493033052831876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-69441122858633943032021-09-12T07:51:47.972+12:002021-09-12T07:51:47.972+12:00@ greywarbler
Yes, they are all blind. Is inspir...@ greywarbler <br /><br />Yes, they are all blind. Is inspired by Christ’s command to forsake mistaken spiritual leaders and teachers: <br /><br />“Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind they will both fall into a ditch”. (Matthew 15:14). Kimbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05491494806624322554noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-83806569252673912172021-09-12T07:38:49.538+12:002021-09-12T07:38:49.538+12:00Honestly none of you have any idea. It's about...Honestly none of you have any idea. It's about the OGP.Matthew Wagnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-69914577592662386772021-09-11T22:02:50.760+12:002021-09-11T22:02:50.760+12:00Interesting. But I see the identarian elite as mor...Interesting. But I see the identarian elite as more Catholic. Rather than the Lutheran assertion of a direct line to epistemic authority, the identity elite shroud knowledge as truth revealed on the basis of ascriptive identity or induction into a cadre of knowledge-makers. Look at the way the education system nowprescribes acceptable opinions and attitudes. And the courts and independent agencies stuffed with lawyers are given/allowedto take more decision-making authority away from parliament. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-30233153562300455432021-09-11T20:05:33.167+12:002021-09-11T20:05:33.167+12:00What is happening is going to lead to unimaginable...What is happening is going to lead to unimaginable evil, Chris. If you don't work harder to get a grip on things all your past warnings about authoritarianism may as well have come from Ken Ring for how hollow they will sound.Kirknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-69298646875398944922021-09-11T13:17:35.087+12:002021-09-11T13:17:35.087+12:00I think that this idea has legs, Chris. Obviously ...I think that this idea has legs, Chris. Obviously the parallels are not exact, but various people have remarked on the quasi-religious nature of the woke belief system (and of other contemporary Western belief systems, such as the Trump heresy).<br /><br />A few off-the-cuff thoughts:<br /><br />First, this is essentially a Western phenomenon. There is no apparent equivalent in Iran or China, where the heretical ideas are mainstream Western liberal ideas developed over the last several centuries.<br /><br />Second, the Protestant Reformation is ongoing. Once it was accepted that there could be more than one branch of Christianity, there was nothing to prevent an indefinite number of new ones. The fragmentation has been the most extreme in the US, but it happens everywhere. There are several Maori branches, and even today Brian Tamaki can call himself a bishop and set up a new branch, and people will join him.<br /><br />Third, the violence of the Protestant Reformation was justified by the need to preserve the true faith (that is, all of them) against enemies, but it was energised by the concurrent power struggles. Luther would not have survived more than a few months without the protection of local rulers trying to maintain some independence against both Rome and Vienna. And a succession of wars between major kingdoms (England-Spain most obviously) were given religious justification, even though the real motives were largely about control of resources. It is a worrying thought that the energy behind the woke movement is about power: some issues are trivialities like who has the power to define place names (not Maori, but Maori elites) and whose statues are acceptable, but more seriously as the basis for claims to real control of our society and its resources. Regardless of the merits of these claims, it is not obvious that they can end well.PaulVDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-37644991376518285212021-09-11T10:59:29.117+12:002021-09-11T10:59:29.117+12:00Can you explain the painting? Are they all blind...Can you explain the painting? Are they all blind - they seem to be holding long poles keeping two men together or are grasping each other's shoulders?greywarblernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-59901380075981752252021-09-11T10:21:58.194+12:002021-09-11T10:21:58.194+12:00It's the 20th anniversary of the September 11t...It's the 20th anniversary of the September 11th raids and I'm still trying to make sense of it all, the suicide of the terrorists on the one hand and the civilisational suicide of the West on the other. <br />Twenty Years On. Excerpt:<br /><br />"This loss of cultural self-belief had many causes. Secularism had eroded the biblical foundations of the west. The carnage of World War I destroyed the belief in dying for your country.<br /><br />Most devastatingly of all, the Holocaust passed a shattering judgment against modernity. So in the repudiation of its foundational beliefs, the west arrived at precisely the same point as the Islamic jihadists.<br /><br />Of course, westerners never saw any similarity between themselves and Islamists locked into the seventh century and whom it dismissed as incomprehensible, crazy and worthless.<br /><br />But in a mirror image, the west was busily severing the connection with its own historic values. This was compounded by an arrogant assumption that western attitudes were universal.<br /><br />The west therefore tried to impose its utopian, post-modern belief in negotiation and compromise upon a Middle East and Islamic world that saw conflict solely in terms of victory and defeat, strength and weakness.<br /><br />And so the west has continued to repeat its fiascos by indulging in the same fantasies that it will end the “forever wars” — whether through the Israel-Palestine “peace process,” the Iran nuclear deal or abandoning Afghanistan, where both British and American governments are now spinning themselves the fantasy that Taliban “realists” will keep the Taliban jihadists in check.<br /><br /><br />And military strength matters less than belief. The 9/11 attackers didn’t use sophisticated military hardware. They hijacked civilian aircraft and turned them into flying human bombs of enormous destructive potential.<br /><br />What fuels the jihad is the power of an idea. That idea is the cult of death.<br /><br />To overcome a cult of death, the west needs a belief in life. Its own life. That is the way to draw the necessary courage and resolve from this most sombre anniversary; but alas, it seems the most difficult of lessons to learn."<br /><br />https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/twenty-years-on-the-cultural-fault<br />David Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04883628159193125307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-49158138394549174432021-09-11T10:15:02.221+12:002021-09-11T10:15:02.221+12:00I don't think it's a revolution or a refor...I don't think it's a revolution or a reformation, there's something more, something existential about what's going on. <br /><br />"What, then, is the real significance of the orgy of cultural self-immolation sweeping through the nations of the West? Is it the clearing of the ground for a new way of seeing, a new ideology, a new culture? Maybe. But there is another possibility: that the culture war marks not the birth of a new value system but a last desperate gasp of the old one. It could be that the incoherent semi-ideology of ‘social justice’ will turn out not to be a successor culture at all, but the instrument of our final dismemberment: the flickering of the last thin flames of the Faustian fire."<br /><br />https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/spengler<br /><br /><br />David Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04883628159193125307noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-88980801293881167682021-09-11T08:24:21.007+12:002021-09-11T08:24:21.007+12:00Earlier this week I had a telephone call from the ...Earlier this week I had a telephone call from the Fortune Company who wanted to talk to me about astrology! I could hardly believe my ears, but I guess if there's money to be made out of it…Guillaumenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-53536777612878846342021-09-11T06:43:25.026+12:002021-09-11T06:43:25.026+12:00Our current zeitgeist seems to me a repetition of ...Our current zeitgeist seems to me a repetition of Puritan events. The common theme is a prohibition by the pure on long established norms, newly transformed into vices.<br /><br />Civil war England resulted in military control of England by the New Model Army, largely manned and commanded by Puritans. You can see parallels to the Taliban in their imposition of a dogma based morality. Dancing and drinking banned, churches cleared of painting and ornaments, no festivals.<br /><br />"Dull dull dull" said the people, "bring back the King so we can go to the Pub. And send those bloody Puritans off to join their mates in America."<br /><br />That is todays wokesters, clearing up their prohibitions upon just being ourselves will be a delight. Nick Jhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12609312325425361413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-52690368512384892192021-09-10T22:14:18.259+12:002021-09-10T22:14:18.259+12:00The old is dying and the new cannot be born and in...The old is dying and the new cannot be born and in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear. What rough beast...Kit Slaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09442343410371307800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-14169451475240623162021-09-10T21:12:17.676+12:002021-09-10T21:12:17.676+12:00The 30s times the pretty much extinction of the sp...The 30s times the pretty much extinction of the species is good enough for me as per parallels. <br /><br />But it is the greatest fun seeing us think our present comfort matters half a shit. Every one from the the least to the 'greatest'. I howl.sumsuchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03133092096534660472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-91176249023725811022021-09-10T19:09:12.822+12:002021-09-10T19:09:12.822+12:00Interestingly historian Niall Ferguson argues that...Interestingly historian Niall Ferguson argues that the 130 odd years of upheaval from the pamphleteering of the era of the Reformation to the Peace of Westphalia is the best analogy for the current free movement of (for want of a better phrase) "information" challenging the established status quo of the ruling priesthood. Kimbohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10324275695186744830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-45681651693601216742021-09-10T16:09:41.808+12:002021-09-10T16:09:41.808+12:00If Martin Luther (who nailed his '95 Theses...If Martin Luther (who nailed his '95 Theses' to a church door in 1517) ushered in more personal dealing with God, was the Holocaust the end of that, an acceptance of mass edict again?<br /><br />Have the Anabaptists anything to tell us? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnster_rebellion<br />...<i>After the German Peasants' War (1524–1525), a forceful attempt to establish theocracy was made at Münster, in Westphalia (1532–1535).<br /><br />Here the group had gained considerable influence, through the adhesion of Bernhard Rothmann, the Lutheran pastor, and several prominent citizens; and the leaders, Jan Matthys (also spelled Matthijs, Mathijsz, Matthyssen, Mathyszoon), a baker from Haarlem, and Jan Bockelson (or Beukelszoon), a tailor from Leiden. Bernhard Rothmann was a tireless and vitriolic opponent of Catholicism and a writer of pamphlets that were published by his ally and wealthy wool merchant Bernhard Knipperdolling. The pamphlets at first denounced Catholicism from a radical Lutheran perspective, but soon started to proclaim that the Bible called for the absolute equality of man in all matters including the distribution of wealth.</i><br /><br />and<br />https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/luther_martin.shtml<br /><br /><br />greywarblernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-43059392948591155112021-09-10T15:51:29.799+12:002021-09-10T15:51:29.799+12:00If the atom bomb succeeds in disciplining our c...If the atom bomb succeeds in disciplining our current "Catholics and Protestants" to agree on disagreement and allow each other to carry on in their own ways, -<br /><br />then I think ultimately the party which achieves 100% of direct citizen participation in individual wealth ownership creation and management will prevail over only partial or totally absent citizen participation in capitalism, as e.e under slavery.<br /><br />Jens Mederhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17304734497662325275noreply@blogger.com