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“Sustainability.” “Free trade.” “Globalism.” Does the very mention of these words set your blood boiling? Why? Are you reacting to the actual meaning of the words, or the way those words have been twisted to serve various political agendas? Do you control your language? If you don’t, then do you control your own thoughts?
Join James in today’s philosophical thought for the day and leave your examples of words and phrases that have been perverted, co-opted and ruined by the powers-that-shouldn’t-be.
SHOW NOTES:
Karl Rove’s infamous quotation about “reality”
Other misnomers:
Anarchy !=* Chaos
Egalitarianism != Destroy _____ social norm in _____ region
Social Justice != ” ” ” ”
Civilization != Arbitrary rule of the many by the few worst (kakistocracy)
Justice != Blind subservience to State enforcers
* != means: Does not equal to
Liberation = We’d like to steal your natural resources and put military bases on your land.
Freedom = Obeying authority
That is one that drives me crazy, the US “humanitarian efforts!” Liberating with bombs and sanctions!
“Humanitarian LOVE Bombs” as Corbett likes to say. Remember when Syria was supposedly gassing their own people and then the US killed some civilians and failed to blow up a military runway as retaliation? The just care so much about the suffering over there! (Probably why they keep causing it, no doubt…)
Anarchy is definitely the first word that comes to mind. But would argue both ‘anarchy’ and ‘chaos’ have both been rewired and strongly associated to well orchestrated, armed, financed, direct and/or proxied attacks by one state on another. What the media calls anarchy and chaos is simply plain old fashion state warfare.
Uncritical thinkers very rarely define the concepts that they use, be it free trade, militarism, terrorism and a whole range of daily terms.
For many, the feeble minded, definitions of the words they use are not even apparent to them. This is because behind every term or concept we use lay our assumptions. And it is the assumptions that we unconsciously and consciously hold that need to be identified and ruthlessly committed to critical scrutiny. This all means we need to start thinking within questions and not just answers, or, best critically think of how to question answers than to rush to answer questions.
But in today’s world where opinion makers and Madison Ave. types define language for the masses, people use words not even knowing that others use the same words or concepts to mean different ideas, different things, different notions.
Learning to think critically is learning to identify the assumptions that people, and ourselves, harbor. For these assumptions are rarely examined and if not, they thus calcify.
Learning to define concepts by use of examples, metaphors or analogies and learning to ask oneself and others what they and we mean by what we say is a critical thinking skill.
Developing an inter-Socratic spirit is what real critical thinking is all about.
Sadly, few even acknowledge the words they use are based on assumptions they often have never even defined let alone examined.
An example: critical thinking.
I think critical thinking is an overused pleonasm. Thinking would be simply enough.
Very well you could usually interchange critical to something like true or mindful or …
I understand why people want to set themselves apart from mindless repetition of phrases, pure babbling, robotic word expression and cognition, pure emotional response etc. and thus choose the word critical before thinking.
I still think thinking would be enough to subsume all necessary features wished for when people talk about critical thinking.
Maybe it’s also a bit like alternative and independent media, comes to mind at the last second.
Could be off base but what about depression. Medicalised as though unhappiness were unnatural. I don’t see any doctors prescribing pills for euphoria. Why is that? Doctor, I’ve been having these annoying feelings of happiness lately… Maybe depression is medicalised because it it is a natural response to the kleptocracy
Mainstream news and addiction to Smart Devices and Social Media is the “cure” for happiness 😉 Now all three services come in one convenient package to maximize misery!
Skepticism
Scientist see: https://imgur.com/sQg1B3N
Heros. As in soldiers.
How about “news” and/or “public service announcements”… also “fallen warriors”? Here’s another: “transparency”.
“If crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part, do they?”
How about, “America”?
Supernatural language saturates our daily communication:
Soul
Spirit
Hope
Faith
Belief
Divine
Miraculous
These magic words can be played at any time like a trump card to stop communication. We shall not question a persons “right” to believe in fairy tales… why not..?
“Science” has become a magic word. “Science” tells us the truth; it has become the new anthropomorphized Supreme Being. Be the first person to utter the magic word and the debate is over before it begins.
More magic words:
Denier
Conspiracy theorist
Energy that can be either “dirty” or “clean”
Green
Democracy
Vote
Left vs. Right
Fake
Awake
The dreaded “Carbon Footprint” which is the new and improved original sin for the religion of the New Millennium
Reform Act of Anything,
Modernization Act of Anything,
Patriot Act.
Such an interesting and important topic. One aspect that I notice, is the way certain words that were once “conspiracy theory” words, that are now being intentionally used in order to redefine their meaning in the minds of the masses, such “The Deep State” or “regime change” or even “independent media.” We all know quite well what these terms mean, in large part due to your work James, but the average person watching MSM, is now being programmed to see them in a different light, most likely because we were having some measure of success in awakening people to their truth.
Here is a perfect example of Trump using the term Deep State, but clearly not in the proper usage. This will make those who do not know of the term, begin to think it simply means only the “intelligence community,” which we know it means much more than that. Rebranding terms! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/935701139198181376
If you follow Media Monarchy you will here James Evan Pilato say “Mainstream Culture ate Conspiracy Culture”; and now they are regurgitating it. The thing about mainstream media (news, Hollywood, corporate music) they have very little creativity so their favorite thing to do is borrow from something better and eventually subvert its original intention. Over and over again.
Interesting thought exercise. If words get co-opted… such as sustainable, meaning a society that just replaces itself and does not draw down on its life support systems over a continuous time span, and becomes a parody of itself when sustainable development becomes almost anything but or becomes a trade off for other issues of value to society then we need new words or phrases to qualify our thoughts. Perhaps ‘sustainable’ as used by “One World Order” adherents should be referred to as ‘sequential’ development to separate its meaning from true sustainable options?
I might choose “reduction-ism” as the name for their life philosophy. Reducing the number of lives, the quality and value of life, and the meaning of life. Reduction of man to an organic machine to be maintained and monitored seems to be the end goal.
“in this case, for the glorification of ego”= Verbal masturbation.
The much used example of how language can be twisted is, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” Other examples are: The Patriot Act (someone who loves their country, a patriot, must also favor being surveiled and having their freedom restricted), The Liberty Act (nothing to do with liberty), Defense budget/spending (nothing to do with defending the U.S. Everything to do with expanding its empire and hegemony over other regions of the world not remotely threatening to the U.S.), Terrorsim (whoever is an enemy of the “civilized” nations. Palestinians are terrorists, not Israel. North Korea is a terrorist state, so is Iran, Syria, so were Iraq and Libya, because it served a political purpose. The United States is not a terrorist state because they drone bomb civilians, support the terrosit state of Saudi Arabia, fund al-Qaeda and ISIS, etc. in the name of freedom. They are right in doing it because they have the moral high ground. They are the civilized ones. This makes it acceptable and justified. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.
Public Education vs. Private Education in America.
According to Stanford (a private university)
“public schools offer free education, which the parents are actually funding through taxes, while private schools provide students with a strict college-preparatory education.”
hmm…so everyone antes up for public education, but those who want to opt out of that system can pay again for something called “private ed” which is not hamstrung by the strictures of capricious (and often malicious) government.
In my community, there are religious private schools (whose education is pretty crappy because the teachers are paid squat) and even more exclusive (more expensive) private schools where teachers are not allowed to give grades less than…well, “A”. Parents have a hissy-fit if any less-than-glowing assessment is awarded. These more exclusive schools have much smaller class-sizes, which makes the acceptance of a pittance salary for teachers more palatable. They are not unionized, while the public teachers are.
But…these private schools are public institutions in the sense that, typically, anyone who ponies up the cash can enroll (except maybe disruptive and/or disabled students) — though some schools have a show of entrance exams, those can be waived if you wave enough cash.
The jargon is further confused by this “college-preparatory” language. In public high schools you are either “college-prep” (CP) or “advanced placement.” The CP category is meant to put a good face on the fact that you probably won’t get into an exclusive university upon graduation. The AP means you will be fed an awful pablum of regurgitant test-prep for ETS or College Board scam tests.
Curiously, these “public” and “private” labels are reversed in England.
Now I suspect anarchism would likely weigh in against taxing the public to provide the public “free” education, but my preference tends to the other side: if there is ever a good use for taxation for the public good, it would be to provide free high-quality education for all. Unfortunately, there’s a third modifier for education: government. “Guvment schools” are what some libertarians call public schools, with a sneer of denunciation. More unfortunately that is more and less true all the time. NCLB (no child left behind) and RTTT (Race To THe Top) and Common Core are all government strictures that have had disasterous effects–but they are government strictures imposed by the uber-uber-powers-that-shouldn’t be, like Bill Gates, and Eli Broad and the Rockefellers and the Carnegies.
There is a deliberate dumbing-down and an over-emphasis on socialization over education in the public schools that have ground American public schools into a morass of nightmarish hazing for our young people. Sad.
Someone else mentioned “progress,” as in “Progressivism,” which was the first thing that came to mind, James.
I’m sure you’ve read (or at least know about) the work of historian Gabriel Kolko, particularly his book The Triumph of Conservatism, in which he argues that the Progressive movement of the early 1900’s was, in reality, an attempt to hamper the (relatively) free market and prevent economic progress. Progressivism was the Orwellian name given to the political movement led by Wall Street bankers and industrialists, aided by their junior partners in government and academia, who wanted to use government power to intervene in the economy in order to cartelize it, restrict trade, and put up barriers to market entry — all in an effort to put down competition and freeze the status quo.
And this was how the Establishment came to establish itself through constant government intervention in the economy.
I don’t think language “determines” reality. I think this kind of linguistic determinism is a post-modernist dead-end. If we don’t have a sense of what’s real or what is true (or how we can go about discovering such things), then how could we ever tell if someone is lying?
Language allows us to express ideas, and it is our ideas that shape our perceptions of reality (or aspects of it), which is very different from determining that reality.
Ideas are tools. We use them to transform raw sensory data into meaningful experiences. (I take it for granted that my experiences are real, and that reality precedes our experience of it.) We do so by telling stories. We explain what happened in terms of cause-and-effect relationships. And in that way we make objective (or intersubjective) our subjective inner life.
We think and act in terms of ideas. So this “hijacking” or co-opting of language is really an attempt to misguide or limit our thoughts and actions (to disarm us intellectually).
Karl Rove’s quote is relevant here because it is by means of our ideas that we can come to know or conceptualize those aspects of reality he intends to change.
We also have an idea that the power elite are hijacking language in order to give us the wrong idea about what they are doing. (The idea of a “power elite,” courtesy of C. Wright Mills, is also a useful concept in the ideological struggle, drawing our attention to an aspect of reality we otherwise may not have been aware of, or may have only dimly sensed without fully articulating.)
So it is important to keep our linguistic tools well defined and sharpened, so we can track those changes accurately and trace the consequences of the actions taken by Rove and his ilk in the name of “progress” or “freedom” or “human rights.” And when they try to deceive us about what they are doing, we’ll spot the lies and expose them.
(I wrote more than I intended, but you say such thought-provoking things, James! Keep up the great work!)
Democracy
Terrorism
The internet
Think-Tanks / research institutes
NGO’s
Foundation (e.g. Bill & Melinda’s, Clintons)
And so we could say, Philanthropy?
Brexit, maybe? I’m pretty sure there’s an agenda behind that whole pointless excercise…though some would argue that the decentralisation of power is a good thing for the UK, I’m not convinced it will make any difference, in or out.
Call me seriously paranoid, but in presenting these lists, are we making it easier for the PR and ‘marketing’ machines to dress-up and sell their agendas?
T.V licence (Uk) No thanks!
Gosh, I could spend all day doing this…!!
Then there’s “settled science.” If you disagree with settled science you are clearly loony tunes.
Anyone notice “Science says” rings nicely with “Simon says”?!!
And who is “Science” anyway?!!
:Science: pronounced “psy-ops” where the second p is soft too, but in a more enigmatic way;-)
This from a dyed in the wool math/sci guy. It’s often just “appeal to authority” rhetoric.
Oh please….”sustainability” has now been hijacked by the Fashion Industry.
Stella McCartney and Ellen MacArthur call for fashion sustainability
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42161846
Say it like you mean it Stella and close all your ridiculously over-priced shops and open a chain of second-hand shops.
Love it!
Exactly. One of my biggest pet peeves that surfaces with each weekly/bi-weekly ‘terrorist’ attack.
New member here, joined today!
Wanted to add HEALTHCARE – little to do with health, better understood as Disease management/ Sickness care – no profit or glory in wellness or health!
John. O – thanks for sharing that link to that young philosopher’s article, perhaps naive but nonetheless precociously wise compared to many a ‘learned men & women’, and naive in this case is good – our students desperately need these types of folks.
Just hope her trifeca of “vaccines, GMOs and painkillers” were stated more in jest than as true examples of the fruits of science as indeed they have contributed to “Healthcare” in true double-speak style!
Great stuff James.
First thing that came to mind was that WTO/Codex Alimentarius related concept of -FOOD SAFETY- Sounds good right, but it actually means that the food is required to have been processed and toxified to such an extend that the food is: best case less nutricious, worst case outright toxic and harmful.
Another concept: -CHILD PROTECTION- The government is able to inflict harm to a child with impunity and offers little recourse to the parents as they are usually the ones the child is being protected from.
Come to think of it, -safety- and -protection- are words that are usually turned up-side-down when they come to us from the powers that be.
If James is taking votes, “child protection” for a hijacked or turned-upside-down phrase would get my vote. Uncounted untold stories there.
In the Netherlands, for a few years now, there is a process ongoing within the government of developing and adding meaning to the concept of “fulfilled life” (voltooid leven). The idea is that when someone considers his or her own life “fulfilled” it should be possible to perform euthanasia with even less strings attached then already is the case. The danger of course, as clearly is already the case, that meaning will be given externally to this concept. Education and peer pressure may make you see at the right moment that you truly believe your life has indeed been fulfilled. The government literally helping you from cradle to grave.
It’s not only birth/life control but also death control (or management instead of control).
I didn’t come to this thought by Brave New World but it immediately comes to mind again, because in this designer baby future people also die early. I believe on a specific age mark, it may be 60 years. Then cremated and the gas used as fertilizer or something along those lines (wasn’t it?)
But fortunately they have left “dislike” alone.
So everyone is still clear about what it means. 🙂
There are many words that spring to mind (many have been mentioned already).
But ‘terrorist’ really shoots straight to the top of the list for me.
I don’t care what the American legal definition is for the word.
For me, anyone who terrorizes the public is a terrorist. Period, end of story.
That could be a ‘lone nut’. It could be a group of thugs.
It could be someone’s granny.
If you feel terrorized then there is a good chance that someone is terrorizing you and they are a terrorist.
And no, they don’t have to be a Muslim to get the job done!
I remember “SPECTRE”. (Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion)
QUOTE
“World domination. Same old dream. It’s name is SPECTRE.”
Video clip – https://youtu.be/eE7nJ9KONN8?t=1m17s
Also, I remember the “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) whose nemesis was T.H.R.U.S.H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity). THRUSH desired to control the world, or at least give you a fungal infection.
Paradoxically, when you listen to the “Intro to U.N.C.L.E.”, it is actually a covert global police force. Kind of like where we are headed.
(About 1964) INTRO video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjmOkqU6Roo
Personally I believe the villains of our day and age are getting more and more ideas from the old school comic book villains. Every time I see the news and our so called rulers I see more and more of the Joker and Lex Luthor. But unlike the comics there’s no Superman poised to stop them….
There are a lot of great comments on this thread!
I enjoyed reading everyone’s.
A term which I like that has not been hijacked is The Powers That Should Not Be (PTSNB).
I believe its derivation (or at least its wide use) originated at the Corbett Report. I have heard James use it and I often see it used in comments.
Full credit: first time I heard it was from Bob Tuskin. Not sure who “invented” it, though.
Another hijacked word: Capital.
In classical political economy (Adam Smith, J S Mill, Henry George), capital is things produced by labor that are used in production of more things. If people lack capital, they can produce it, provided that they have access to land (natural resources). Understanding this distinction leads to a clearer view of the causes of poverty.
Dan Sullivan identifies a number of other hijacked terms in his great essay “Orwellian Economics: How Euphemisms Have Turned Economics from a Science to a Propaganda Device” at http://savingcommunities.org/econ/orwellian.html .
I’m reposting this here again because it’s relevant and everyone should see this:
https://youtu.be/Pc0ZHsoHAlE?t=636
How about “Cold Hard Cash”? “The Right To Work”? “Contributing Member to Society”?
How about the question most “adults” ask eachother when they first meet? “What do you ‘do'”? (As in, how much money do you make?)
I love the websites use of terms like Al-CIAda and banksters. May I suggest ‘GMOcery store’? or the phrase ‘Any time governments talk about a blunder they really mean plunder’?
~”If They can get you asking the wrong questions, They don’t have to worry about the answers”
Also relevant is Michael Hudson’s 2017 book J is for Junk Economics (describes how the economic vocabulary has been turned around in an Orwellian way to mean the opposite of what words used to mean. A free market now means a market free for the landlords to charge whatever they want. Free for the monopolists to charge whatever they want. Free from regulation.)
Advertising language is usually hilarious when written out: “When you can do anything, you can do anything. The Samsung Galaxy S3.”
This post is getting long winded. Bill hicks also had a bit about “The” news.
TLDNR watch the youtube video sorry
ruled a suicide
…with a cannon!
And “Social media” is in itself is a perversion of the meaning of “social”
Can’t get less social than sitting in front of a screen all day.
Whats with “Active Shooter”?
Do we really need to distinguish shooters who just sit on the couch and shoot people as they walk past their window?
Apology = Our research division has determined that people think our new policy sucks, so we will rename it and wait for one of those active shooter days to re-release it.
I don’t know what the ‘official’ definition for ‘Active Shooter’ is, but intuitively, I believe it means a shooter who is still at large, versus one who has been taken into custody.
But I agree, it is a rather strange phrase that is often used these days.
This?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMn1763UROQ
“Fake News” hijacked by MSM to discredit Open Source News.
“Climate Change” used to be a natural process.
Hi John,
Nice of you to comment on that. I’m willing to add to this that I have experienced Child-Protection by the government first-hand in the Netherlands, or only the initial proceedings of it fortunately.
Try to imagine this. As a very concerned parent you go the doctor with your 3 month old baby for a strange swelling/tumour on his shoulder. Doctor refers you to the hospital. Doctor in the hospital cannot find a medical explanation which automatically and by necessity triggers the child-protection protocol in the hospital which notifies the authorities. In the absence of a medical explanation, the suspicion of child abuse is the only item that remains in the medical differential diagnosis. Next day we are interrogated by officials of the government child-protection agency. In Good-cop Bad-cop style we are first talked to very firmly so that we come to appreciate the gravity of our situation as parents. Then another official plays good-cop and tries to demonstrate understanding that even the best of parents do wrong things with their children that they would rather forget and not talk about (as we continued firmly denying the abuse allegations).
The gravity of the situation is this. Children in the Netherlands are “protected” from their caretakers/parents if there is the slightest suspicion of child abuse. There needs to be no proof whatsoever (honestly!). It has been defined in official protocol that the only thing that is required for this process to start is “a feeling of unease with the situation experienced by a professional care worker”. Pending the ongoing investigation the child is placed preventively with a another family who will remain secret to the parents (a judge basically rubber stamps the request that was written by the child protection agency). As long as the investigation continues and continues to find nothing, the child remains with the secret foster care. In many, if not most cases, the completely dormant investigation continuous on for many months on end without any findings. This does not absolve the parents, the suspision simply remains. If you thought this was already bad enough, get ready for the shocker:
When finally and reluctantly the child protection authorities admit they could not find any wrong doing by the parents and the parents request to have their child finally returned to them, they are informed that this is now a completely different matter that has nothing to do with the case at hand.
In the Netherlands when a judge, in the so-called interest of the child, has been placed a child in the care of another family and remains there for more then 6 months for whatever reason, it is not considered to be in the interest of the child anymore to place the child back again with the original parents, and the judge won’t allow the return of the child. Judges have even openly admitted this in court to the completely flabergasted parents, saying that “truth” (whether you abused your child or not) has no relevance at this point in the court for minors, but the “what is in the interest of the child” is the only thing that counts in this decision.
There are many such tragic stories in the Netherlands of families which lives were distroyed by the government in this awful way.
But what is really sickening is that a recent study in the Netherlands has shown that sexual abuse runs rampant in the families that the child-protection agency places children in foster care.
Fortunately we did not have our child taken from us and placed in secret foster care, yet! After about 3 weeks, through the help of another doctor, we discovered that our baby had a rare condition. The doctor apologised for not having been able to diagnose our child properly, and the unfair ordeal we had been put through with the authoroties
In the Netherlands Child-Protection means the government protecting children from their parents so that they can have their way with your child in any way deemed fit, and with total impunity.
No worries John. Thanks for you comments.
Going through this process as we did, you never really get to hear the term “Child Protection”. The term that really works its evil on behalf of “Child Protection”, and that we got to hear countless times from _every_ individual professional involved, was “in the interest of the child”. You really experience in this situation as a parent that the meaning of that term has been hijacked. In such a situation, if you do not agree with everything that is suggested “in the interest of the child”, it is automatically assumed you are not willing to act as a responsible parent and can only worsen the outlook of your situation.
As admitted by the chief physician at that time, the medical condition of the child fully allowed him to return home with us (there were no medical worries as he put it), but unfortunately “in the interest of the child” he had to remain under constant supervision in the hospital. I immedeately had to learn speaking this lingo. What worked best in this situation, as I discovered this way, is repeating exactly what they said (especially the words “in the interest of the child”) as if you agree with them with some minor differences in every sentence that carries you closer to what you want to achieve. And it paid of as he was allowed to return home with us on that very first day, although it was first clearly put to us from the onset in a closed door session with us and all medical staff involved (all of them even nicely lined up, with crossed arms, in front of the door!) that there was no chance that our child would be allowed to leave the premises any day soon. And it was explained it was simply “protocol” that was followed “in the interest of the child”.
I really love this post, and have thought of this many times in the past.
So far my least favorite highjacked word in modern times is:
Right
As in: liberals are left (awkward) and fascists and right (correct)
This clever yet malicious wordplay has been going on since the late Christian era (if not earlier), when the word satan – which in those days meant something akin to a ‘lawyer of the opposition party’ became utterly twisted to mean the ‘prince of darkness’. The list of words contorted by the Roman establishment during the Dark Ages is almost as long as Santa’s naughty list (with the same types of personalities involved…).
Here are a few more examples from as early as the Dark Ages:
Hell (Elphame – the ‘heaven’ of the Elves – or the Tribe of Anu; a group that the Catholic bishops despised more than any other)
Faker (Fakir – a name for Sufi mystics and ascetic Hindu spiritualists)
Harlot (Heiroduli – ancient priestesses of the Tribe of Anu)
Agnostic (anti-gnostic – not knowledgeable)
Weird (Vere – direct descendants of the Tribe of Anu)
Vampire (Uber – super – superintendent or overlord)
Fay (feo/fea – Spanish word for ‘ugly’)
Heresy (hairesis – Greek word for ‘choice’)
This incomplete list fully supports the historical fact that anyone who was opposed to the ancient Church – in any way whatsoever – was deemed by them evil, untruthful, unworthy, filthy, etc. This is especially true of those who were keen enough to see through the Bishops’ massive scam, and made any choice other than the popular one. They were immediately labeled as heretics so they could then be marginalized socially, politically, economically, etc.
The exact same thing is happening today to anyone who is clever enough to see through the smoke-and-mirrors of modern policy-making, and the new labels are exactly as socially and politically useful as those of bygone days.
Teresa, you have my admiration. Calling in to challenge an assumption takes a healthy dose of courage and conviction; you held your own remarkably well. The arena of ideas is a brutal place, and though his bully/shaming tactics moved his fan club to bow down in admiration of their wise leader, I saw at least 2 commenters (in the link mkey provided) who weren’t impressed by his behavior (they, too, were slapped down and shamed). That’s all it takes. Keep up the good fight.
True, john.o, which is why, after nearly 45 tense, bewildering, gas-lighting minutes, he could only toss her aside like a spent tissue and end it. Mommy issues for sure; scary that he has such a following.
“…but at one level almost all of politics and religion can be boiled down to Mommy Issues.”
Yep, from a religious perspective, I understand all too well. Ever read Luther’s quotes on women? And who doesn’t have mommy and/or daddy issues? Good grief, my biological father was absent most of my life; I haven’t heard from him in over a decade, but I don’t go through life blaming and hating men. Contrarily, and if my understanding is correct, Molyneux’s worldview says that my father’s alcoholic, abusive, deadbeat ways (a hellish life I’m lucky to have been spared given his absence) go back to *his* mother. Simply put, the entirety of the world’s woes may be confidently attributed to all the world’s mommies. How can one begin to reason with such a hostile conviction? I don’t believe one can.
But as to this red pill movement, my knowledge is strictly peripheral. I had no idea the extent of it, and find your description frightening. Wow. And with you, I also see how it’s come to this. Thanks feminazis! Divide and conquer.
Kabouit’s insight was astute indeed. No question it’s one that demands greater attention. As I rhetorically asked earlier, who doesn’t have legitimate complaints about the opposite sex? Metaphorically speaking, this movement is like chaff condensed in a grain silo, the potential for a terribly destructive explosion. It promises further violence (emotional and/or physical) in the home. Being foundational to every man, woman, boy and girl, it suggests to me that it ought to be one which Corbetteers take an uncompromising stand against: don’t subscribe to their websites, don’t give airtime to their hosts, don’t attend their conferences, etc. Given James’ educated, diverse readership, I think these fringe groups need him to gain a following more than he needs them to address otherwise common issues.
A no-brainer solution, me thinks.
Teresa is a great genuine gal…a person who anyone would be glad to have as a friend. Someone you would like hang out with. Maybe even talk her out of some home raised chicken eggs.
Stefan Molyneux has never appealed to me. He is a jerk, a conversational ass. I would never want to spend my spare time visiting with him. I had to force myself to listen to this.
What nice words; I hope she sees them.
Add to that, she home schooled her kids! I’m curious to know if she did it when homeschooling wasn’t the trend, and therefore less likely to have the support and resources available now. If so, she’s a true pioneer(I’m currently home schooling mine, so couldn’t help but wonder).
My impression is that she was HomeSchooling prior to it becoming a more popular trend during this current decade. But I don’t really know.
I know about HomeSchool, because in the very early 90’s I helped to establish a private “HomeSchool Academy” when the concept was on the fringe. http://northtexasacademy.com/grades-4-8/
Raising kids in itself is always a stellar endeavor, much less trying to make a living.
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
I have met a Corbetteer Teresa at a local VAXXED event on Sept 18, 2016.
http://www.dogsagainstfluoridation.com/vaxxed-movie
I’m just not sure if this is the same Teresa. Wonderful gal! We also had an email exchange about chickens and a rooster some months back.
Amazing!That would make you a sort of pioneer too! Btw, I’m just down the road from you…north of San Antonio, actually.
Going by what I’ve read from you, you’ve helped bring awareness to so many important issues, ie. 9/11, vaccines, JFK, as well as helping pave the way for us home schoolers to thrive in the state of Texas.
I salute you, sir.
Dang! Pearl! “We’re neighbors”.
There sure are a lot of Texans who are Corbetteers.
My granddaughter is going to college in San Marcus.
Small world, my son is considering Texas State. 🙂
Beautiful!
HRS, thank you for the kind words!
Yes, I am another “Teresa” living in the Lone Star State, and yes, I do have chickens. I enjoy reading all of the comments from the “Corbeteers”, and invariably, I learn something and have a great laugh at the same time.
Thank you, HRS, for encouraging so many posters on this site with your positive Texan perspective! It was great to meet you in Dallas.
It’s also great fun for many of us to hear about your youthful escapades and the great work done in Dallas to make life better for everyone.
Teresa
Well said, “other” Teresa 😉 ! I second that.
Such a lovely picture, Teresa.
Youtube comments rarely venture out of the baby pool. Wait, there was a great one I saw on a Paul McCartney/Wings song sometime back…something like, “If you play this backwards, you get a damn good recipe for chicken stew.”
We love our winter-Texans. So far, it feels like it’ll be a mild one, and that’s how I prefer them, the cold-weather wimp I am.
So glad you let us know about your call with Molyneux. For me, it was not only timely, but necessarily enlightening. I had only first heard of him just a few weeks ago, and so I was in the process of checking him out. The most helpful info I learned about him came from Wikipedia, but I knew that had to be taken with a shovel of salt. Then, you left your comment, and hearing his smooth manipulation and contempt for you confirmed what I had learned. For him, you were an easy target: first, you put him on the defensive by challenging his authority; second, you’re a woman with a strong sense of being. How dare you!
Crazy thing is, given the disgusting majority of huckster “men of gawd” preaching in Christendom, waxing eloquent and getting rich off donations and cheap books, you’d think I’d have recognized Molyneux to be of the same ilk right off the bat after seeing just one of his videos (you know, where there’s nothing but a boring white background behind him): he is so confident that his audience will be so utterly enraptured by his lectures, he’s all they need to see! Narcissist clue number 1, *bigtime*.
This Stefan Molyneux podcast has been sticking my attention, because it is so deviously sick. I woke up this morning thinking about it. It bugged me.
Teresa states things very well with…
Being a master at arguing one’s own meanings to bully others into confusion and victimhood is a common trait of the psychopath.
Stefan Molyneux very well could be a psychopath. He certainly has many of the psychopathic traits and he utilizes manipulative devices in his “pretense for truth” veneer.
While I don’t want to “witch hunt” the term psychopath, I can definitely say that he is not a friend to mankind.
A “friend to man” doesn’t act like this, no matter the justification.
So, technically, I can not call Stefan Molyneux a psychopath.
But I will call him a major asshole. Deluxe size. The Galaxy looks small by comparison.
And I will bad mouth him any chance I get.
To say it’s interesting would be a severe understatement. First thing that came to my mind is that this ought to be all time and much of that bitcoin was converted back when it was 10 bucks a pop.
Timeline gives this https://blockchain.info/charts/balance?address=1Fd8RuZqJNG4v56rPD1v6rgYptwnHeJRWs×pan=all which does not look right, seems off to me.
One thing which irked me in that call was how he kept insisting you hadn’t done a damn thing, made no contribution; you acted independent of the collective, so it mattered not what you had done (and your stated accomplishments are quite impressive!). That most basic characteristic showed him to be the authoritarian he is, and a dangerous one at that with his fevered resentment of women driving his convictions.
All in all, this was a great object lesson for me, and no doubt for many of us. The cost, however, was too great. I’m so sorry you went through what most definitely was a traumatic event.
Thank you for mentioning the book; it’s one I will definitely get. My hope is that I can master the skills, recognize the pitfalls, and do half as well as you did.
“I came across a legal case he and his wife were involved in. His wife is a psychiatrist and she was accused of malpractice for her involvement in the show, specifically around their ‘defoo’ strategy.”
This article is the very first reference in the wikipedia page on Molyneux, but I fail to see why since footnote “[1]” is nowhere to be found therein, nor is the main thrust of the article even cited (maybe I’m completely blind, it’s there and I missed it?!). Anyway, it’s kind of a seriously glaring detail about him allegedly listening in on his wife’s counseling sessions (which she allegedly did nothing to prevent):
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/controversial-podcaster-listened-in-on-therapist-wife-and-clients-lawsuit-alleges/article22158708/?ref=h
James,
I see no reason to try “word-vs-word” with those who got there first. Would you not do better with unworn phrases like these…
… misplaced trust
… …(a root cause, natural as a child, we must outgrow it)
… the conspiracy deniers
… the climate theorists
… we, gardeners (our original role on this planet (Gen2:15))
A longer one to spin a nice story …
… with coins of silver and copper, fake money will quickly die, 10,000,000 ills of society, will then disappear like a sigh.
… …(much other “action” is futile until we succeed in this)
Keep up the great work James.
Bob Dee
on the latter point about coins, a short note further developing ancient history is placed here…
http://www.primeconcord.info/uploads/On-Wealth-Money-and-Taxes-SGT-Report-10Jan2016.pdf
… while the original page on SGT report is no longer active.
John.O
Thanks for your thoughtful notes.
A major point about fake money (Rotschild-style) is their kind do not work and save to attain what they can only then carefully spend. No, to the contrary all of this time. And once the silver was stolen world-wide in the mid-1960’s, we had hyper-inflation like Rome did 2000 years ago when they did the same thing (Oh sure, it was the oil embargo).
Anyway, from the mid-1960’s the ability to “fund” the full-time mini-megalomania-militia of every favoured agenda (eugenics, medical, educational, nutritional, moral, control grid, etc) and funding the bribery machine and part-time thugs became simplicity itself. No possible vector of corruption, deceit and murder seems to have been left without a place at the trough.
Then it was only a matter of how to build a larger capacity to debase more and more of society until they could reach a tipping point. They have been running full-tilt for five decades and have now hit a wall. Splat! All so horribly exposed now … quite predictable, you know. Next?
. with coins of silver and copper,
. fake money will quickly die,
. 10,000,000 ills of society,
. will then disappear like a sigh
That was my meaning. No trough? The scope for mischief goes way down. Will we ever get there? Bloated governments will not choose that path. But by personal choices we all make each day on trades of real value, we shall continue to nudge that bad whirl’d dis-order into the ditch, perhaps even over a cliff.
It is not that I value metals more than I do cinnamon or oats or viable seeds, for surely I do not. But the medium of exchange for what I do value must be restored. Goods for goods. Silver and copper coins will do when we do not have an otherwise mutually agreeable exchange at hand.
As for remaining urban, I suggest you consider the reason God dispersed men from making a city at Bavel … un-naturally over-concentrated cities were perhaps a festering and terminal mess before the Flood … and do consider also Genesis 2:15 … before any problems ever occurred. We were meant to be gardeners. There are great books today on urban gardening and urban community gardens. We learn much by going back, by returning to what life was meant to be for us. You see the value in the sheep more than in metals? But of course! Where one foot has gone, let the other follow…
Happy gardening!
John.0
All that said, I do like metallurgy. You might or might not be aware of the findings concerning Noah’s Ark and the rivets (analyzed at Los Alamos no less) and the ballast further up-slope from the current position across the valley south of Mt. Ararat. Long story short, the rivets had Titanium, Magnesium, and even 8% smelted aluminum. That was our common ancestor Noah’s “naval brass”. It was said that a king and queen of France once ate from plates of newly discovered aluminum while lesser royals had only gold and silver to sup from. Then the bauxite of Vietnam flowed more freely and the king went back to the gold service. The point is, we moderns did not even know aluminum until a few hundred years ago but Noah was an expert at many things including metals, was not of Cain’s line at all, even a great-grandson of Enoch. Nothing at all wrong with metals. The place where Noah’s Ark is located is ancient-metallurgy-central for our post-Flood era.
Sorry to so digress like that, but the “standard” of what is money was always silver in the books of Moses until a mere 50 years ago. As for the standard of what is a Christian, I let God and Jesus judge that one, not men, even those with fancy titles. Best wishes to you.
John.O, I may find some links to help dispel the clouds of myth-myth on the Great Flood, and the associated myth dubbed pre-history.
But back to James’ starting point of hijacked words, and some truthful phrases, I think you have dragged a Very central oldie in from the shadows.
“original innocence” is what we are all born with, just ask any infant. But the establishment wants us to believe we need “them” to do something to “save” each infant … “in the child’s best interest” so to speak. I am not sure if Augustine was involved in the “original sin” propagation, but it would not surprise me in the least. There is some discussion of his support for mortals requiring the establishment in other ways here…
http://www.primeconcord.info/uploads/the_perfectibility_of_men.pdf
… The “first sin” was that of the devil, and was an “original” by that creature, let the establishment become honest about that if it would lead anyone. The two innocents (our ancestors) had no idea that lies and murder existed when they strayed from the simple path. Each person leaves the simple path of their own accord, as did Cain, not by inheritance but by his own free will. We all can and should build mental defenses these days to avoid such wrong turns, even James’ recent calling an “it” a “she” shows that we must be vigilant in these treacherous times.
Original innocence may be a good fresh topic. How do we prosper little ones to retain this as long as possible? How about specific training to identify and outgrow misplaced trust? Incrementally this helps nudge the bad-whirl-disorder (the “bwd”) over a cliff, along with those clinging to the fake money trough as a bonus. Perhaps “the fake money trough” would be a useful handle to discuss those many agglomerations invited by its overseers to sup there.
James’ was seeking the broader list of hijackings here, and your “original sin” was a good addition. Be sure “they” have done so in many other languages too.
Though James was not seeking “new phrases” like some I have raised, we’ll need honest words not already so polluted to move forward more easily on the remedies. Sorry for my long digressions. Good day.
John Ralston Saul’s dictionary is worth revisiting:
https://books.google.ca/books?id=SW3IpVUY-sMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Doubter%27s+Companion:+A+Dictionary+of+Aggressive+Common+Sense&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_sIvqj-nXAhVQ4mMKHWK5AUgQ6AEINDAC#v=onepage&q=The%20Doubter's%20Companion%3A%20A%20Dictionary%20of%20Aggressive%20Common%20Sense&f=false
The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense
can anyone define the “nation” that is being protected in the name of…
… national security … ?
So the Italian Forbes thinks we should stop using bitcoin……..in the name of sustainability!
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/bitcoin-energy-pollution.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
And the show has reached a new low.
“When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom” (Confucius)
Sounds Great. But is this what had actually being said?
Particularly if you know that Chinese didn’t have a word for freedom. https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3865/what-is-a-one-character-translation-of-the-english-word-freedom
And there is also a version “…., people lose their lives”.
I think the first is better representation.
Excerpt from Analects of Confucius, p.66
http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf
“If names are not right then speech does not accord with things;
if speech is not in accord with things, then affairs cannot be successful;
when affairs are not successful, li and music do not flourish;
when li and music do not flourish, then sanctions and punishments miss their mark;
when sanctions and punishments miss their mark, the people have no place to set their hands and feet.”
This is just an excerpt from passage 13.3. It’s better to read the whole passage (Chinese words in translation are explained at the beginning of document).
Essay ‘Freedom and Responsibility in Confucianism and Dewey’ that helped me a lot is comparison of western and eastern views on freedom and also a window to completely different approach in Chinese language, maybe because of the language itself.
http://www.carlsensei.com/docs/essays/freedom-and-confucianism/
Somehow I got the feeling that vaguely defined Chinese language is better equipped to tackle complex ideas, because it forces you to think. Western languages are too precise and you can get easily mislead into believing that you have understanding.
Functional literacy
I would say ability to use language to its full extent.
Well, experts have tons of definitions.
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756797/obo-9780199756797-0032.xml
https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/functional-literacy/36316
This one is hardcore.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5102880/
To summarize, they know something, but pretty much nothing.
“In contrast functional illiterates are unable to use their acquired literacy skills in daily life (UNESCO, 1978), e.g., to read and understand a medicine label or a bank statement, fill out a job application, compare the cost of two items and choose the item that offers the best value (Cree et al., 2012).”
In summary, four different social and cognitive aspects that can lead to the loss of functional literacy are proposed, one of them:
“…loss of competencies in adulthood caused by a decrease of cognitive demands” (bingo)
Let me propose another one: influence of society. Dumb-down consumer automatons are needed.
While digging the topic I stumbled upon article: https://sdg.uis.unesco.org/2017/09/21/new-data-reveal-a-learning-crisis-that-threatens-development-around-the-world/
Commentary from experienced educator nails the thing down:
“….the problem lies in the fact that children do not believe anything anymore. Teachers and seniors have lost all credibility and trust because of the changing patterns of human behavior and trust deficiency.”
My conclusion:
Is it possible that whole concept is a big (un)sustainable crap?
James, you’ve brought up many different topics on the subject of language before. I was wondering if you’ve ever pondered on the complexity of language and its relationships to the complexity of human thoughts and the ability to critically think, and further the complexity in general of human society at large, and thus how complex it is to control a culture through language.
I’ve noticed a historical pattern of dictators unifying and simplifying languages. Examples being the emperor at the start of the Qin (chin) Dynasty in China unified the written language system to the simpler version of the written characters; and then more recent in history the Japanese language adopting the simpler written alphabets Hiragana and katakana writings in place of the entirely written in Kanji scripts. Another example is the simplification of the Chinese spoken language in the start of the 1900’s popularized by the famous writer Lu Xun down to what is now adapted into the official spoken mandarin we know today, used to be called “Bai Hua” in his days, meaning “white talk” (a term for peasant spoken language), which means plain spoken language, and even more recent in their history, the Chinese communist party made its country’s official written language to be the “Simplified Chinese”, a relatively new writing system devised by them, instead of the more complex traditional Chinese. The Chinese culture is arguably one of the most complex among the world, now increasingly westernized and “simplified” in their recent dictatorships.
Do you think this is simply because the powers that shouldn’t be want better standardization of the flow of information, or is there a more insidious systematic dumb down of the generations through simplification of language?
I bring this up, because we all know you can communicate in English in North America with very little vocabulary now. Peers my age no longer are taught or are able to speak in a more complex manner, depleted of more vocabularies, to which I believe is a part of the systematic dumb-down through the uneducation system, as well as the current pop culture teaching bad grammar to the younger generation, popularizing it, and further simplifies the language down to easier spellings of words like “cuz”. And this is not only in North America, this is a universal phenomenon across many languages.
As we know in the more recent IOS and Android updates, they have even been attempting to replace typed words with “Emojis” – not even a word anymore. And this is also popularized further by “The Emojis Movie” now to the youngest of our generations. Have you ever come across good studies and literature on the subject of language relating to the complexity of human thoughts? Logically speaking, I would imagine the more complex a person’s language library, the more neurological connections in the brain, thus equivalent to more critical thinking and tougher to control societies. But I have no data to back such a claim. I think this topic is worthy of some attention.
Yes, as a matter of fact I have discussed that topic before.
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-114-newspeak-is-doubleplusungood/
Ah, terrific, Thank you James.
Hi James,
I have translated and subtitled this video in Italian here: https://giuliarodi.com/sono-un-globalista-sostenibile-e-per-il-libero-scambio/
Thank you for all your work!
Giulia
Puoi trovare questo video tradotto e sottotitolato in italiano qui: https://giuliarodi.com/sono-un-globalista-sostenibile-e-per-il-libero-scambio/