Tuesday, November 11, 2008

It's All About "Feelings"

This is a great essay posted as a comment at another website. I couldn't link directly to it, so I offer it in its entirety:

RickG Wrote:


Agreed that the mass media is both a symptom and a cause of our dizzying decline from within. The mass media gives the mass what it wants and in the process makes both mass and mass media worse. There seems to be an iron law at work. What sells is what makes people worse; the worse people become the more they buy what makes them worse still. Here is the dark side of capitalism and democracy. It is hard to see how this could be prevented or overcome much less reversed. When a critical mass(!) is attained the machine runs of itself: More people with low tastes means more items of low taste for sale etc.etc. etc. How could it be otherwise?

Another term for the depravity of modern mass culture is hedonism. It seems to me that at the very root of all these branches of folly and wickedness we complain about is nothing else than If it feels good, do it! and the reverse, i.e."If it feels bad, don't do it!"

Every aspect of contemporary "liberalism" is explicable by reference to the Pleasure Principle. Wherever choice exists the default is always to what is easier and feels better at once. Deferred gratification is out, immediate gratification is in. Difficulty and pain are definitely out.

Mr. Obama won the election because his talking made people feel good and it felt good for them to vote for him. It makes them FEEL GOOD for him to be President. I think that is all there is to it and that those who search for deeper ideological significance are complicating matters unnecessarily. Ideological hedonism means that you go for what makes you feel good and avoid what makes you feel bad.

Of course this is the path to collectivism and tyranny and herd societies watched over by masters and shepherds who know how to wield carrot and stick.

Education is corrupted at the outset because the principal thing now is that students feel good about themselves and learn to think and behave in ways that will cause others to feel good about themselves as well. The important thing is not to feel bad about oneself or to cause anyone else to feel bad about themselves.

Hard subjects are avoided because some people find them too difficult and feel bad about themselves if they do not succeed. Subjects are selected and taught in such a way as to avoid offense, i.e. making anybody feel bad, and whenever possible to assist them in feeling good about themselves. Language is prescribed and proscribed not according to clarity or simplicity but instead with an eye to its salutary or other effects on how people FEEL about themselves.

Liberal ideology is essentially hedonic and aims to produce good feelings and avoid bad feelings - except, of course, in the case of those who insist upon adhering to the Reality Principle, which causes others to feel BAD about themselves and their lives. It is OK to attack and demean enemies who cling to the Reality Principle and to make THEM feel bad - because their stubborn attachment to something that makes others FEEL bad is wrong, evil, callous and cruel.

The Reality Principle is oppressive, uncaring, even fascist. The Reality Principle and those who swear allegiance to it are the enemy. The enemy is anything and everything and everbody that causes people to FEEL bad. The friends and right thinkers are those who cause people to FEEL good.

The common denominator of corrupted morals, education, mass media and now politics is nothing but hedonism.

If it feels good, do it!

5 comments:

  1. GS

    Your are correct, it is a great essay. It begs the question... What are the "real" non sheeple to do when faced with 70% of the "others" pulling the strings and voting?

    How do we get them to change their hearts and minds? Do we go all John Galt on them? Do we go underground with the fruits of our labors? Or do we swim upstream the rest of our lives and leave our children to cope with the mess?

    My only answer is this... I am teaching my children self sufficiency, teaching them real skills, and teaching them how to hide the fruits of their labors in plain sight.

    Bill Henry

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  2. GS,

    A tangential note...

    I had a conversation with a good friend yesterday regarding the outcome of the election. My friend is the head of a multi=million dollar web business he built from the ground up. He is eternally optimistic and always tempers his forecasts with small doses of pragmatism. This said, his view of an Obama presidency is that we need to give him a "chance" before we jump all over him. He feels that he might actually turn out alright.

    I was looking at him .. then looking around his office trying to find the pod this impostor sprang from .. then I had a slight epiphany.. He thinks we are all fundamentally on the same side... ie.. we are all Americans..

    I told him.. "friend" I appreciate your sunny outlook on life, and I love you for it, but you don't get it... they actually don't like us.. you might even say they hate us and what we stand for... He said "who are you talking about???"

    I just shrugged and said later...

    BHenry

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  3. I know the Atlas Shrugged reference, but what exactly do you mean by "going John Galt"?

    And how does one "hide the fruits of their labors in plain sight?

    email me at imxio@yahoo.com if you don't want to comment publicly.

    ...

    Yes, I used to think Liberals and Conservatives wanted the same thing, but just thought their way was the better way to get it.

    "Regular people" Democrats do, but you can't convince them that professional Democrats want something evil...that no sane person could want.

    All we are left with is fighting the evil, while the "regular-people" Democrats get in our way, refuse to believe, and drag us further into the pit, blindly.

    So frustrating!

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  4. GS,

    Actually working at hiding fruits of labor this weekend..lol I will email you first part of next week with clarification.

    And going John Galt is the retreat of the producers into their own society where they make their own money (like .. bartering and such)and they stop carrying the load. They make the parasites suffer instead of being leeched check this link out...

    http://asecondhandconjecture.com/index.php/2008/10/30/going-john-galt-quietly/

    The Bishop link is here.. this guy who runs the blog has alot of street cred... http://www.faithfreedom.org/index.htm

    Its the first link on the page..

    God Bless,

    BillH

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  5. Looking forward to it!
    Thanks for the links.

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