Competing In This Economy

Update: Seth Barron from City Journal makes an interesting observation on the reversal of roles here.

Civil disobedience is supposed to mean that, in the face of the state’s overwhelming monopoly on force, the protester responds with passive, nonviolent resistance. But today’s radical Left leaders, like AOC, have inverted that logic: in the face of mob violence, police should go limp, de-escalate the conflict, and hope that they don’t get burned to death.

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I don't know who Antifa are, entirely, but I know who the violent left has been over the decades, and the few interview statements of the last few years fit with that.  These are people who cannot compete in the current economy, neither social nor monetary, to the level of success they believe they deserve, and so conclude that the system is unfair.  Focusing on it being unfair to African-Americans is merely a pose. It is their own prospects that they are concerned with. Sometimes this is because their abilities are somewhat lacking, but is more often a personality difficulty.  Their abilities are sufficient to make a life, but they are narcissists who believe they deserve more.  After the nonsense of the 70's and 80's that bullies were people who had low self-esteem (which we must therefore artificially inflate to get them to like themselves and stop bullying), we learned they are actually people with too much self-esteem.  They believe themselves to be in the top 10% of the class when they are about in the middle.  They believe they are among the most popular children when they are actually below average in that.  Reality does not support their estimation of where they should be, and so they become enraged.

Update II:  This is older, from Germany, about who the activists are.  It may apply.

I suppose some of those are black, but I am not seeing them in especial prominence in that side of the protests.  The white leftists are clever enough to recognise that they have to have some people of color, but those have historically been put out in front for show but ignored in the leadership. Democratic strategy groups are all-white affairs.) The New Neo has an interesting piece on how the hard left is increasingly well trained in tactics, which is worth noting.  But mostly, it's not that hard.  You just have to be a committed activist with a few stock responses, waiting for the next excuse.  We saw some things on the internet that said white supremacists were going to be there, so we had to go and be ready to fight. Hehehe. You don't have to have any evidence for that.  You can manufacture it easily.  Enough people are so reflexive about the phrase "white supremacist" that they'll overlook just about anything you do or say in response, whether there is anything to it or not.  Examination is unnecessary, and in fact, suggests you might not be entirely reliable that you would question such a thing. This time around, some of the "white supremacists" have turned out to be people who showed up to protect the right to protest. Yeah, gee.  Can't have any of that.

Next, just refuse to let any discussion take place. Always change the subject to vague, emotional things (400 years of oppression!) from concrete current issues.  When you get a chance to speak to those in power, make demands that result in a small group of people getting paid in money or positions with prestige. Secondly, demand punishment for people who are your political opponents, or for people you can paint as being from "the other side." It intimidates the opposition into silence, no reasoning required. It's first-chapter Alinsky stuff.  It works because the media manipulation is performed on people who want to be manipulated in exactly this way, and will even give you hints if you aren't getting it right.

No one protested, let alone set buildings on fire, when Justine Diamond was killed by the Minneapolis PD.  Memory hole. People always have mixed motives, and I am sure there are folks who do care about police training in general , or who believe that if somehow the black point-of-view could only be heard this would all improve, but that is not what drives people into the streets. The sermon this morning included a fair bit at the end about listening in humility to the stories of people of color.  I like our pastor very much, but this is just wrong.  Insofar as this is about racism at all, it is not about listening, but taking actions against people who do things wrong (as the officer apparently had done in the past), so that accountability becomes the norm.  My entire congregation, down to the highschoolers, could describe with good accuracy what the black people who are upset are upset about. I'll bet our highschoolers could describe the opinions of black highschoolers from Minneapolis far better than Antifa could articulate the opinions of white church people in New Hampshire, frankly.

The hand-wringing message is "with all our efforts over the last century, there are still horrible individual incidents which somehow (wave hands vaguely here) proves that there is a lot of general racism." So, what we have done hasn't worked, so let's do even more of what hasn't worked, this time with a serious expression on our faces. Sure.  Knock yourself out.

The political solution is mostly different.  The spiritual solutions are very different. Different enough that the former may preclude you hearing the latter. I have commented more on the cultural/personality/political, because frankly, it's a lot easier - I get both intellectually and spiritually lazy.  It's pretty easy for me to keep saying "No, 1960's liberalism was very effective in gathering in the low-hanging fruit of racism/sexism/poverty awareness, but it has done almost nothing since then." I could train all of you do do that in 30 minutes and send you out with your own blogs, just checking in on you once a week to notice how often you are doing that.

I have touched on spiritual topics about 10% of the posts over the years on this blog, especially in three focused times over a period of 1-2 months each. I have more expertise in the realm of cultural observation and noticing bad reasoning in political and social affairs.  I can be entertaining there as well.  But maybe I need to focus on spiritual insights more, not because I'm especially good at it, but because the times require it. We'll see.  It's much more fun to post ABBA videos and point out overlooked but important aspects of current events.

My eyes glaze over when other blogs go into spiritual topics, though I often force myself through it because these are people I respect and I know the topics are important.  They just aren't fun, and I'm big into entertainment. There may be a way.  I'm going to clear out some of my usual stuff that I have in my notes first.  Post 7000 is coming up soon.  Maybe it's a break point.