Author: Brand Smit

Week 29, 2020

MONDAY, 13 JULY 2020

There is a fascinating trend in public discourse. Something is true and correct. Then someone who is classified as on the political “right” points out that the thing is true and correct. Then it becomes a “right-wing talking point” that this something is true and correct. Is the thing then true and correct or not?

Or, something is a good idea, such as drinking enough water, or not consuming too much sugar. Then someone labelled as “conservative” expresses agreement with the idea. Then it becomes a “conservative point of view” that the idea is good. Is the idea now good or not?

TUESDAY, 14 JULY 2020

Telling blacks in poverty that they are victims of capitalism and racism makes it more likely that they remain in poverty.

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) July 12, 2020

(In case the tweet disappears, click here for a snapshot.)

Suppose a young adult man has been a victim of capitalism – say the guy worked for a business where the owner decided labour costs were too high and his profits were too low to make the business worthwhile for him, and he let some workers go. One could argue then that the man was a victim of capitalism. But will it help him to tell him that? Will it help him to put food on the table by hammering it into him and letting the sense of injustice simmer in him until it reaches boiling point? Or would it be better to teach him how to improve himself, how to expand and sharpen his skills, and how he too can thrive in a free-market capitalist system?

A similar argument can be made about a young adult man who has experienced prejudice over an aspect of his person over which he had no choice, such as skin colour or ethnicity. Would it be constructive to cultivate a sense of grievance in him? Would it help him to be successful? Would it help his children to thrive on their own as adults if this grievance is also programmed into them? Or would it be better if he taught his children that some people treat other people badly, but that they are in the minority, and that there are many more people in the world – of all races and ethnicities, and of different cultures and beliefs – who want to see them succeed?

* * *

And this:

KKK: Whites are the superior race, and we pride ourselves in accepting it.

CRT: Whites are the superior race, and we hate ourselves for accepting it.

— James Lindsay, knows kung fu (@ConceptualJames) July 14, 2020

(In case the tweet disappears, click here for a snapshot.)

Isn’t there some truth in this? After all, disciples of Critical Race Theory believe that regardless of the talent, intelligence, entrepreneurial ability, creativity, and support of friends and family, no black person in a society where they are in the minority can ever rise above a certain level of success. Why not? According to CRT disciples, because white people are simply too powerful, and all who are not white are oppressed in a white-dominated system because … Why exactly? Because it’s somehow bad if everyone hustles and makes money and finds happiness and success?

WEDNESDAY, 15 JULY 2020

The central idea of Mark Douglas’ book, Trading in the Zone, is that powerful thoughts, including beliefs and phobias, are like bundles of electricity are in your brain – almost like charged batteries. Every time a certain thing happens, or when someone says something, it’s as if someone connects the wires to the battery, and it then “shocks” you into a particular response or behaviour.

Everyone gets programmed from an early age with certain beliefs, or it is made clear to you that you have to react in a certain way to certain stimuli, or you are exposed to things that scare you, which drives home the association that this particular thing is dangerous and wants to harm you. All of these beliefs, fears, and behavioural associations are, according to Mark Douglas, like bundles of electricity in your brain.

Here’s the important thing: It is possible to deactivate these bundles of electricity, to flatten the “battery”, as it were. It will always be in your brain, but as with any flat battery, if you reconnect the wires, the shock will become lighter and lighter, until you finally don’t even feel it anymore. This is how fears become tame. This is how beliefs become less important. And this is how bad behaviour that has become a habit can be changed, with the expected positive results.

What used to be a bad influence on you is still there, but the effect is virtually zero.

THURSDAY, 16 JULY 2020

According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and a PDF linked to from their website, these are some “Common characteristics of most U.S. White people most of the time”:

• Rugged individualism

• The nuclear family

• Emphasis on scientific method

• Hard work is key to success

• Planning for the future

• Delayed gratification

• Action orientation

• Decision-making

• Written tradition

• Politeness

I came across a similar list some months ago, and I was reluctant to believe it was an actual document used by people hoping to be taken seriously. When a nicely done infographic started doing the rounds on social media this week, I again found myself wondering: Can this possibly be for real?

I followed a link … and there it was: a full explanation with the infamous graphic on the page, at the website for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

It has some other items that I would honestly consider too ridiculous to post on a public forum – that “most white people believe most of the time” things like the wife is subordinate to the husband; that white people have a preference for steak and potatoes because “bland is best”; that white people’s sense of female beauty is “Barbie” – blond and thin; that emotion shouldn’t be shown, and that personal life shouldn’t be discussed. And most white people display “aggressiveness and extroversion”? Seriously?

Then there are the things where you would say, “So what?” before remembering that “whiteness” is supposed to be bad, and that people are expected to distance themselves from these things:

• White people’s holidays are based on the Christian religion … Why wouldn’t it? White people originated from Europe, where this religion held sway for two thousand years!

• Individuals are assumed to be in control of their environment. Aren’t we to a large extent? Is it politically wrong to think a clean, tidy environment might be conducive to better performance? I mean, nobody controls weather systems or earthquakes, but are you not at least in control of the kitchen, the fridge, the living room, and your bedroom?

• Apparently most white people believe they must always “do something” about a situation. Some people – of all races, colours, and creeds – certainly have this tendency, but most white people? How the heck did they establish this? This is, after all, a very particular personality trait!

• Justice is based on English common law, and aesthetics is based on European culture? Why wouldn’t justice in societies developed originally by European people, specifically from England, not be based on English common law, and why wouldn’t their aesthetics be based on European culture?

I have been living in Northeast Asia for half my life, and many of the characteristics ascribed to white people I recognise in the Taiwanese people I work with, and socialise with, and that I converse with for hours at a time in my job. The people who write this asinine propaganda for a cultural revolution that has zero chance of succeeding on the long-term must really look beyond their tiny little worlds!

UPDATE:

It seems someone at the National Museum of African American History and Culture was alerted that people outside their inner circle have been looking at the infographic, and that the consensus was not positive. The above-mentioned link to the PDF has also been removed (the PDF is still available at the website of Cascadia College). One Twitter user posted a copy of the graphic, and if that is eventually removed, I’m sure more copies can be found in other corners of the Internet.

We have listened to public sentiment and have removed a chart that does not contribute to the productive discussion we had intended.

The site’s intent and purpose are to foster and cultivate conversations that are respectful and constructive and provide increased understanding.

— Smithsonian NMAAHC (@NMAAHC) July 16, 2020

FRIDAY, 17 JULY 2020

I am considering suspending this project I started thirteen weeks ago. Reasons include the following:

• I thought I was going to write about a variety of topics, but since the beginning of June I’ve been writing almost exclusively about politics – important to be sure, but it’s becoming monotonous.

• The political opinions I express are seen by short-sighted commentators as “conservative” or “right-wing”, despite the fact that one of the high priests of Woke, Don Lemon of CNN, expressed exactly the same type of sentiments seven years ago, with his characteristic “Listen to me, I know …” attitude. Was it wrong then, or has the view of “left” and “right” dramatically shifted over the past few years? In any case, I prefer a position above political divides. In the current electrified atmosphere, I’m being grouped into a political tribe by people who seemingly cannot see past tribes.

• I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on short pieces. I’d like to again write a piece of longer than three paragraphs. Not only the subject of my writing these days, but also the format is becoming monotonous.

• I have other projects I want to work on – probably still have a dozen or more pieces from last year and early this year I still have to edit. And then there are two more volumes in my series from three years ago that I have to finish.

• The experience of forcing myself to write something every day was enlightening. I’d be curious to see what I would conjure up if I could spend an hour a day on something that is not so limited in format or topic.

What have I learned in the last thirteen weeks?

• I didn’t know how long I would be able to sustain such a project. I now have the answer.

• If you force yourself to publish something every day, you think of stuff to write about. Time and time again, I found myself threading a few thoughts together for my own entertainment on the way to buy dinner, or on the way back from the supermarket, only to remember that I was still looking for something to write about that day. Like the idea of coming up with ten things to be thankful for every day that focuses your brain on noticing exactly such things, so your brain grasps for topics if you need to write something.

What am I going to do now?

I’m going to make sure all the pieces of Bundle 8: On writing and the writer have had a last read through, then I’m going to put together the documents that will become the physical and digital books. Then there are a few more paragraphs I want to review in Thirteen Minutes – Notes, half-truths and a few incidents – which I already published in 2013 (still struggling to let things go). And who knows, maybe I’ll write a little more about politics.

Here are links to all the pieces in the project that will end today:

New project, taking risks, Chinese identity, rhymes and dreams

Groceries, annoying characters, books, being slow, and a model of an old town

Too dumb or too smart, arguments, old cities, heavy lyrics, and the virus reading list

Simulation, things change, two brothers, self-confidence, and a peasant war

Funny people, life in Taiwan, full version of yourself, dream scenes, and old photos of my neighbourhood

Favourite shop, the Ngo brothers, war documentaries, and some other thoughts

Protests and riots, dutiful adults, Taiwanese independence, buying and selling

Fashion, nonsense, groceries, facts and science, and skills

Submission, ideological viruses, and programming of the psyche

Racist movements, identity, questions, and reasons

Important days, modern anti-racism, promised lunch, and a visit to Taipei

Helplessness – avoid the plague – be a good person

______________________

Week 28, 2020

MONDAY, 6 JULY 2020

Learned helplessness is when a person or animal is repeatedly exposed to a stimulus they are unable to escape at that moment. Ultimately, the thought settles in the subconscious of the human or animal that they have no control over the situation. Their behaviour manifests an acceptance that there is nothing they can do to get away from the discomfort or to improve their situation.

Even when there is an opportunity later to escape the source of their discomfort, or a way to improve their situation, this learned helplessness prevents them from seizing the opportunity.

Because they expect something bad to happen and because they believe they are powerless to do something about it, they do nothing. They simply endure the pain and discomfort. This is despite their ability to at least reduce the pain and discomfort, or even to escape from their situation.

The fact that they do not have to endure pain and discomfort, even that they can create an environment and situation where they can be mostly happy and satisfied, does not permeate the haze of helplessness.

The person who had the potential to be happy and content, and even help other people to deactivate their learned helplessness and be happy and content, remains helpless, unhappy and dissatisfied. The potential remains unfulfilled.

TUESDAY, 7 JULY 2020

A father tells his children, “Don’t bother. You won’t make it anyway.” Considering the enormous negative effect this could have on the children’s lives, one could argue that the father is a wicked person.

If someone – especially someone in a position of authority – tells people that positive self-esteem and a good degree of confidence are problematic, that they should rather knock their self-esteem a few ticks down and lower their self-confidence, an argument can be made that this person has a toxic influence over others, and that he or she should be avoided like the plague.

By the way, individuals commit crimes, not communities or groups. Individuals study hard and get good grades, not communities or groups. Individuals work hard, and get good jobs, not communities or groups.

Here, then, is today’s educational lesson, compliments of Twitter (click on the tweet to read the thread):

The City of Seattle held a training session for white employees called “Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness.”

So I did a public records request to find out exactly what this means. Let’s go through it together in this thread. 👇

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) July 6, 2020

WEDNESDAY, 8 JULY 2020

Any reasonable person knows crying wolf is a bad idea. You want to save your warnings for real danger.

A warning is certainly what James M. Masnov gives in the introductory paragraph of his article, “History Killers: The Academic Fraudulence of the 1619 Project”. He speaks of the beginning of a new dark age, in which people who believe in liberal values wage an existential struggle with dark powers.

In the remainder of the article, he discusses the controversial 1619 Project, in which the author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, argues that slavery lies at the real foundation of the United States; that 1776 was not the beginning of the United States, but rather 1619, when the first slaves arrived, and that the American War of Independence was waged against Britain to protect the institution of slavery.

Masnov explains why the central idea behind the 1619 Project is historically false. He also argues how liberalism provides better answers to what is still wrong with America than what the so-called Social Justice movement and organisations like Black Lives Matter can offer.

But the first paragraph definitely hits the hardest. And unless you have buried your head in the sand, you should be able to see the outline of the wolf he warns about.

“History Killers: The Academic Fraudulence of the 1619 Project”

THURSDAY, 9 JULY 2020

A significant proportion of Western political, educational, intellectual and cultural figures in dominant positions want non-black people to think of themselves as racists. To me, thinking of myself that way is simply not valuable. Such a way of thinking holds no practical value for me.

What is of practical value to me, however, is to think of myself as someone who does not judge someone on his or her skin colour or ethnicity, but rather on the content of their character. From years of experience I have learned that people respond well to this, and that it leads to positive and constructive social and professional relationships.

Also from first-hand experience, and from what I can gather from other people’s experiences, it seems to be an approach that works for many other people on both sides of the social interaction. So it makes sense for me to keep doing what works.

FRIDAY, 10 JULY 2020

At one point in my life, I was idealistic and held on to romantic ideas of a more ideal world. I also believed that I would never abandon my idealism.

Disenchantment struck when I learned that the German Nazis were also seen as romantic in their belief in a pure Aryan Germany, without Jews or other nasty non-Germans. Same reaction when I read that the Taliban in Afghanistan, and later ISIS in Iraq and Syria, were similarly viewed as idealists who believed in a romantic ideal of men with beards and women who obeyed their men, in a society that looked like eighth-century Arabia, and governed by similar laws and regulations.

Obviously, romantic and idealistic had meanings other than giving flowers to your girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, or cherishing dreams of becoming a writer.

There was also a time when I believed “left” meant to be interested in justice for all, especially for society’s underdogs, and that leftists cared more about their fellow human beings; also that “conservative” was applied to people who wanted to push religion down people’s throats, and who believed big corporations should have a bigger say in how society is governed than the ordinary man or woman on the street.

I also had naive ideas about revolutions, and about socialism. A few books on Mao and Stalin, and on Red China and the Soviet Union, did manage to spell out the reality of communist states quite clearly. I was also aware that I was attracted to socialism because I was bad at hustling for more money in a free market system.

Finally, it should be mentioned that at one point I was impressed with the idea that philosophers, and other academics, should not only study the world, but change it. People want their lives and their work to matter. Who would be happy analysing the world if they can do so much more? The idea that academics cannot be activists and still be faithful to the objective study of their subject was not so clear to me at the time. After all, if you are an activist, how can you look at numbers and names and other clues and go where they take you if you’ve already decided where you want to go? The same goes for journalists.

That’s all I wanted to say. Good day.

______________________

Week 27, 2020

MONDAY, 29 JUNE 2020

On Saturday, 29 June 1613, the Globe Theatre in London, built by William Shakespeare’s drama company and where many of his plays had been performed, burned down.

Three hundred and sixty-one years later, on Saturday, 29 June 1974, Vice President of Argentina Isabel Perón took over from her dying husband, President Juan Perón. On the same day Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union to Canada.

One year later, on Sunday, 29 June 1975, Steve Wozniak tested the first prototype of his Apple I computer.

Four years earlier, on Tuesday, 29 June 1971, one who would later type sentences was born.

TUESDAY, 30 JUNE 2020

Educational video of the day: “How Anti-Racism Hurts Black People” – John McWhorter (Professor of English, Columbia University)

Notes:

• There are cases of police killings of black people by police, but there are very similar incidents involving white people. The cases involving black victims make national news. The cases involving white victims mostly don’t.

• We are told of “quiet biases” of cops that lead to them killing black people but that has not held up to scrutiny.

• What is the issue? Why would I say anti-racism is a problem? The debate is not about racism. Of course you don’t want to be a racist. Racism is bad – we all know that. But one of the more complex issues is that anti-racism as currently configured has gone a long way from what would be considered an intelligent and sincere civil rights activism. Today it’s a religion. It’s what any anthropologist would recognise as a faith.

• Examples: The responsible white person is supposed to attest to their “white privilege” and realise it can never go away, and feel eternally guilty about it – that’s Original Sin. The idea that there could be a day when America comes to terms with race – corresponds with the idea of Judgement Day. When we use the term “problematic”, what we really mean is blasphemous.

• The suspension of disbelief is a characteristic of religious faith. There’s an extent to which logic is considered no longer to apply – that’s how we talk about racism.

• Why do we focus on the occasional rogue cop who kills a black man when that black man is in much more danger of being killed in his own neighbourhood by another black man?

• If you ask about it – well, you’re not supposed to; eyes roll; you’re given an answer that doesn’t completely make sense, and there’s an etiquette that you’re supposed to stop there.

• It’s like certain questions you gently ask a priest. You know if you don’t get a real answer you’re supposed to just move on. That is the way racism is treated these days.

• Some would argue that it is a better religion that many others. It does some good things, but it does some bad things, too. For example, if you’re a good anti-racist you think about the cops killing black men, but you’re not supposed to think about so much more murder that happens to men like that in their own neighbourhoods. You’re supposed to think it may be connected to racism in some abstract way, but you’re not supposed to think about it as homicides where black teenage boys kill one another in their hundreds over nothing. That is somehow less important that what the occasional rogue cop does. That is modern anti-racism.

• To be an anti-racist is to pay attention to the idea that universities must foster diversity. Often, this diversity is fostered as a result of creating a different evaluation system for black and often Latino students in terms of grades and test scores. There are various studies that show this is often not a positive thing. One paper showed, contrary to the expectations of its authors, when students are mismatched to a university, the experience discourages them from pursuing PHDs. People are told to ignore such studies.

• Whites are expected to undergo some massive psychological revolution before any kind of black success can occur beyond the current degree. Why is somebody talking about their white privilege important when we’re talking about making black schools better? Why is it important for Black Lives Matter activists to probe Hillary Clinton’s heart as opposed to thinking about what policy she will take in terms of criminal sentencing or housing policy or on-the-ground sorts of things that we ought to be thinking about if we want to help black people?

• There are some good things about anti-racism but there are just as many things that are wrong that hold us back from helping black people who need help.

• We’re taught to think of certain things rather than other things. In particular, we’re taught to think less about the real work of helping people who need help on the ground through socio-political action. Instead, we end up thinking about inner psychology. We end up thinking about what is problematic. All of these things are ultimately idle.

• Anti-racism as currently configured – not anti-racism in itself but modern anti-racism – turns a blind eye to most black homicide. Anti-racism as currently configured turns a blind eye to black young people’s upward mobility. It turns a blind eye to doing the kinds of things that Civil Rights leaders fifty years ago considered ordinary in favour of what is ultimately an inwardly focused quest for moral absolution that has at best a diagonal relationship to helping people who’ve been left behind.

• The issue is not whether racism exists. We know it does. The issue is whether modern anti-racism is the best way of combating the effects of that racism. It isn’t.

WEDNESDAY, 1 JULY 2020

A few things have become clear in the last few weeks:

1. You don’t have to submit to, or be a follower of, Black Lives Matter (BLM) to be antiracist. BLM is a political organisation. They are not the first political organisation to claim they are working against racism, and they are certainly not the only one. Although you may agree with some of their policies, they have other policies that many of the people and companies who so eagerly salute them now may not be so keen on if they were better informed.

2. BLM and the Social Justice movement are not the only way to fight bigotry and racism. Liberalism (“a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law”), libertarianism (“maximum political freedom and autonomy, with an emphasis on individualism, freedom of choice and voluntary association”), and Christian ethics that holds the dignity of all human beings as sacred, with a focus on love and compassion for fellow human beings, are all examples of alternative options to fight against racism and racial oppression.

3. Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory, the ideological foundation of the broad Social Justice movement has become a belief system, with belief required in concepts like “white fragility”, “white privilege”, “systemic racism”, “implicit bias”, and “whiteness”. Question any of these concepts, and you might find yourself being accused of racism. In many businesses across America, employees are currently expected to attend workshops where they have to mouth obeisance to this ideology. What would be the response if the CEO of any company converts to Evangelical Christianity and suddenly expected all his employees to learn and accept the basic tenets of his new faith? What would be the response if the CEO converts to Wahhabi Islam and employees are greeted with prayer mats on Monday morning, and women are told they need not come back to work the next day? If employees being told to accept any other belief system at the risk of being fired is totally unacceptable, why should it be okay to request their acceptance of Woke Belief? It is against the law – and should be – in all secular democracies. It is also immoral, illiberal, and authoritarian.

THURSDAY, 2 JULY 2020

In the Shilin District of Taipei lie the estate and residence of the former President of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-Ling (or Madame Chiang).

During the Japanese colonial era, the area housed the Shilin Horticultural Experimental Station. After the Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War, the station was requisitioned by the government to create a home for the Chiangs. Especially in the early days of the Chinese Republic of Taiwan, the estate was militarised like a fort, and public access was strictly forbidden.

Guests between 1950 and 1976, when Chiang died, included US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and later President Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California.

The estate, with Chinese and Western-style gardens, was opened to the public in 1996. A few years later, an agreement was reached on the opening of the residence, after Madame Chiang, then already in her late nineties and living in New York, initially opposed the idea.

And there, under a tree, in the garden of a former dictator, I’m going to eat a sandwich on Saturday afternoon, drink tea, and read my book.

FRIDAY, 3 JULY 2020

Some pictures of our visit to Taipei …

______________________

Week 26, 2020

MONDAY, 22 JUNE 2020

Like selling cigarettes as “sore throat remedies”. Or selling hard sweets as “apples – that’re good for your teeth”. Or selling caffeine pills as “sleeping pills”. Or like the local Mafia who sell themselves as house-sitters. This is the so-called Social Justice Movement that sells itself as the latest incarnation of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties, and as the leading activists fighting racism.

Think twice before following, “liking” or donating money.

* * *

“But it says ‘Apples!’ on the pack,” the swindler will argue. Or, “Doesn’t this spell out ‘t-h-r-o-a-t m-e-d-i-c-i-n-e’?” the person with the packet of cigarettes in their hand will ask. Or the member of the local Mafia will say, with mock indignation, “But look at my business card – it says ‘House-sitter’!”

Just because a follower says the organisation’s name means they’re “anti-fascist” doesn’t mean they have the faintest clue what fascism means. Chances are also good that they don’t appreciate just how much their actions and weapons and uniform outfits and their tendency to attack single individuals in groups are reminiscent of the storm troops of the real fascists in the 1920s and ’30s.

And just because they claim their attacks on people and their efforts to get them fired, or to destroy their lives in other ways are motivated by antiracism, is not to say they’re making the smallest contribution to the creation of a better world. On the contrary, don’t be surprised if their obsession with race and insistence that everyone be aware of their racial identity lead to more racism in the future.

Look at the results of the action before believing the words on the poster or the T-shirt.

* * *

People you know – friends, acquaintances, old schoolmates – show their support on social media to organisations that endorse certain ideologies. Many – perhaps most – of these people mean well. They may feel guilty about enjoying what they consider to be unearned privileges. They want to show they are not like other white people. They want to signal that they are “good” white people – who want to confess their unconscious racism, in public if possible, and who want to make a financial contribution to black people (whether they are struggling with something or not) or then to the Dominant Organisation of the Day.

People want to be relevant. People want to be on the right side of history. The intention is good. And who has time to research everything they support?

* * *

Read more about the Social Justice movement in Western countries in particular over the past two decades, their storm troops, Antifa, their ideological foundation called Critical Theory, and the latest dominant organisation of the day, Black Lives Matter. If you have the opportunity to talk with believers in the underlying ideology or with followers, ask critical questions to find out more. In particular, ask, “What exactly does ___________ mean?” and “What exactly is your plan with __________?”

A few links to kick off the process:

Critical Theory – Wikipedia

The BLM Manifesto: What they believe in

The Movement For Black Lives manifesto … And a piece (one of the first to come up in a Google search), written by a black writer, about why he rejects BLM (of course you don’t have to agree with all his sentiments or beliefs).

TUESDAY 23 JUNE 2020

Do people protest, burn down buildings and loot stores when an unarmed white or Asian person is killed by the police? If not, police brutality is not their cause.

Do people protest when thousands of black Americans die violently at the hands of other black Americans? If not, black lives apparently don’t always matter.

Is it systemic racism when racial crimes and oppression happen in cities controlled by black and/or Democratic mayors, black and/or Democratic-majority city councils, black education leaders, and black police chiefs? Is it white supremacy even in these cases?

If wider black representation is their cause, why not celebrate black conservative politicians or conservative black intellectuals? Why is it okay when even a white person of the “correct” ideological persuasion maligns these black conservatives?

If black empowerment is their cause, why not celebrate it when black thinkers, writers, or artists have thoughts that differ from ideology accepted and endorsed by mainstream media and the political establishment in America? Is freedom of speech and thought and belief only the right of white and other Americans, but not of black Americans?

If people are sincere about identifying the causes of black poverty, higher crime rates in black-majority neighbourhoods, and lower than average school results, why dismiss out of hand data that suggest the powerful role lack of fathers play in the lives of especially young men? Why not seriously and objectively look at the effect welfare policies have had on black communities since the 1960s? If people are sincere about solving problems in black communities in America, why not consider all possible causes?

WEDNESDAY, 24 JUNE 2020

How do I know I am not the one sucked into a cult movement? If everyone’s brains see what they want to see, and constantly look for confirmation of what they already believe, how do I know I’m not being led by the nose?

If thinking of myself as Liberal or Progressive (a supporter of the Labour Party in the UK, or a Democrat in America) were a central part of my identity, I would become uncomfortable when I see or hear something from of a conservative that made sense. Cognitive dissonance would kick in. I would probably suddenly become busy with something else in an attempt to forget about it.

If thinking of myself as Conservative (Conservative Party in Britain, and Republican in America) were a central part of my identity, I would become uncomfortable if a member of ANTIFA or BLM, or someone closer to a Centre-Left position said something which made sense, or that sounded logical, or if they quoted statistics that undermined one of my beliefs.

Here’s the thing: Labels like Liberal-Progressive or Conservative aren’t central parts of my identity. That I am a Critical Thinker Who Thinks What I Want is, however, a key part of how I see myself. If BLM or ANTIFA say something that makes sense, my identity is not going to be threatened because I’m apparently swinging more to the conservative side these days. My brain is not going to flash warning lights. I am going to get a reminder from my subconscious that I’m a Critical Thinker who listens to all arguments. So, if I thought something that BLM or ANTIFA says makes sense, it would confirm rather than threaten a central aspect of my identity.

THURSDAY, 25 JUNE 2020

Questions to Black Lives Matter activists:

1. Someone said BLM activists don’t care about facts. If I say they do, am I right?

2. Someone else defended BLM protestors and people looting and burning, saying the end – what they see as racial justice – justify the means. Are there precedents in history where eager revolutionaries claimed the end justified the means, and ended up terrorising the population and killing thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people? Does even a noble end justify any means?

3. Are there precedents in history where revolutionaries claimed to be fighting for what sounded like noble causes – liberty, equality, fraternity, justice for the landless peasant, fairness for the oppressed proletariat, the unshackling from old oppressive customs – but who ended up mostly monopolising political power, with not much liberty, equality, justice, or fairness for the individual not connected to the new elite?

FRIDAY, 26 JUNE 2020

Reasons I don’t support the organisation called Black Lives Matter, even though I regard myself as an open-minded, tolerant person who does not discriminate against people based on their race:

1. The BLM narrative of widescale repression and deliberate killing of black Americans is not supported by facts.

2. Public displays, including on social media, of submission or loyalty to BLM has been very popular the past few weeks. BLM is a political organisation. Bending the knee, or displaying any other submission to any political organisation, is anathema to me.

3. Constant reminders to black people that they are victims undermine the mental well-being and autonomy of black individuals. Labelling of this kind would harm the members of any group of people who share an immutable characteristic like race or ethnicity, especially young people. I believe this undermining of black people is racist. One must wonder who benefits from this.

4. White liberals can only support this ideology if they discount and marginalise (even malign) the writings and opinions of conservative black intellectuals. I believe it is racist to expect all members of a certain racial group to think alike.

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Week 25, 2020

MONDAY, 15 JUNE 2020

In the Soviet Union, especially in the 1920s or 1930s, people were pressured by the Dominant Organisation of the Day to submit to their political worldview and policies. In Maoist China especially in the sixties and early 1970s, the Dominant Organisation also forced people to submit to their radical understanding of things.

In reality, fear, and the possibility of being tortured or executed for some imagined crime against the state compelled many people to submit. But at least in theory people could have argued they weren’t that hung up on class warfare or being accused of being a running dog of the capitalist West.

People who lived during those historical eras could claim later they only submitted because they feared for their lives. They would not later have been criticised for not wholeheartedly submitting to the Bolshevik or the Maoist worldview.

During the Middle Ages, people were pressured to submit to the Spanish Inquisition and their radical understanding of Christianity. Again, these people could later claim they only submitted out of fear, and not because they truly agreed with the Inquisition’s theology.

But what if the Dominant Organisation of the Current Day accused you of racism or white supremacist tendencies if you refused to submit to their demands, if you refused to bend the knee, if you refused to ritually wash their feet, or if you refused to donate money to their organisation? Very few people are racist these days, and even fewer hold white supremacist views – in the ways these concepts have been understood by mainstream society for the last seventy or eighty years.

Most people – dare I say especially white people – have a genuine fear of being called racist. Racists tend to be shunned by co-workers, neighbours, and even family. And it’s even worse to be called a white supremacist. These are double-barrelled shotgun accusations. If you are a white supremacist or if you are comfortable with racism, you deserve pushback for following stupid ideologies. But if you are not racist or white supremacist, and you do not want to be suspected of these things, being thus accused is incredibly powerful. Powerful enough to force you to bend the knee and to promise obeisance to the Dominant Organisation whose leaders or followers point their fingers at you.

Would you submit, with bended knee, to a political organisation that called you an Enemy of the Working Class, or Counter-revolutionary? How would you feel if wild-eyed youths called you a Running Dog of Capitalism? Would you start kissing the bejewelled fingers of the local cardinal with tears in your eyes if he called you a Sinner Against the Blood of Christ? I bet you wouldn’t take their demands or accusations seriously. Again: What if they accused you of racism instead?

Most of us alive today would probably have submitted in past eras to powerful political or religious organisations if we feared for our lives or limbs. We might have done so without true regard to political or religious ideology. But in the third decade of the twenty-first century most people are primed to not be racists, or white supremacists.

The time, therefore, is ripe for an organisation to exploit this situation: Submit to us, bend the knee before our banners, wash the feet of our leaders, support us financially, or you are racist, and probably white supremacist too.

People in their thousands are submitting and swearing allegiance to a radical political organisation claiming to be the guardians of civil rights and advocates of antiracism. Why are these people not secure in what they know about themselves to simply declare they are not racist, and leave it at that? Why do so many people need the assurance of a radical political organisation that they are not racist – or then anti-racist, as the terminology goes these days? Or do they actually consider themselves non-racist, but they need to signal to friends and family, or co-workers or fellow students, how committed they are to not being racist? And how many people are bending the knee and licking the boots of members of the Dominant Organisation of the Day out of fear for their lives, or fear for their livelihoods?

TUESDAY, 16 JUNE 2020

It is true that countries like Taiwan, Japan and Korea have for decades been home to newly graduated Westerners who have to start earning money, but who don’t want to exchange the freedom they knew as students for the stiff culture of the office or company.

I found a home in Northeast Asia. I have been able to earn enough money to pay off my student loans, travel from time to time, and spend hours every day on creative projects.

Eccentric people don’t bother me. People with strange ideas are not a threat to me. And while I won’t dye my remaining strands of hair blue, shoot my face full of metal and paint my arms full of dragons or flowers, I don’t have a problem if that’s what you want to do.

What does make me sit up is a threat to the values I consider sacred. The freedom to think, say, and write what I want, as long as it doesn’t impede your right to think, say, and write what you want. The freedom to refuse to bow to a political organisation – any political organisation, left or right. Then there is the Truth: Pure water boils at sea level at 100 degrees Celsius. One of the results you get when you mix baking soda and vinegar is carbon dioxide. Throw an ordinary coffee mug hard enough against a rock, and chances are that it will burst into pieces. Put two apples with two other apples, and you have four apples. The coffee mug will not react differently with the rock because a white or black person throws it. Baking soda and vinegar are not going to turn into sea sand because a trans woman of colour has mixed it together. Pure water is not going to suddenly boil at sea level at 37 degrees Celsius because a Fourth Wave Feminist has done the boiling. And just because a member of the Dominant Organisation of the Day says two apples plus two apples are seven bananas is not to say it’s suddenly true.

Political organisations and movements that force the individual to bend the knee and lick the boot, and ideologies that reject verified and verifiable facts as useless or even harmful have the same effect on the mind and well-being that a biological virus has on the lungs, or other organs.

* * *

Summer is a good time for a cultural revolution. But in a few months, it’s going to be colder, and there is at least a chance that political leaders in the West will crawl out of their bomb shelters and start clearing up what has been devastated in the past few weeks. The parents of revolutionary white graduates now marching through the streets and burning down shops and spraying statues full of graffiti are also going to be less enthusiastic about maintaining their offspring for another year, and at the same time being shouted at across the dining room table about how racist they are for asking for law and order.

“Get yourself a job!” the parent will tell his or her 30-year-old child.

Of course, jobs will no longer be so widely available in the local economy – partly because too many businesses have been burned down, and partly because thousands of revolutionary recent graduates have no skill other than marching angrily through the streets and torching other people’s businesses.

This is where countries like Taiwan, Japan and Korea come in, where young graduates who aren’t able to find work in their own countries, or who don’t want to do the work that is available, find a home as English teachers. A good thing, in principle – just like entrepreneurs, businesspeople and artists from Taiwan, Japan and Korea find opportunities in North America or Europe or Australia that they might not enjoy in their own countries.

It’s at the end of the day how culture and ideas spread, and how people learn from each other. Unfortunately, it is also how cultural and political viruses spread.

WEDNESDAY, 17 JUNE 2020

What is your worldview? What are you? How do you function? What do you need to live optimally? Do you want to live optimally, or is it okay to wander around lost in the sea of hours and days and weeks and years that make up your life?

Ask yourself: Are the ideas in the following video valuable on a practical level? Can I use these ideas in my daily life to improve the quality of my life? Can I use it to improve my habitat – the rooms where I spend my days, and other environments where I spend time? Can I use this understanding of things to improve the lives of people who matter to me?

How to REPROGRAM your mind – Bruce Lipton

THURSDAY, 18 JUNE 2020

Yesterday’s lessons on subconscious programming are useful, but if this is your first acquaintance with the ideas, it may sound like nonsense. Watch the video again, and consider the possibility of a different way of thinking. Also read Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief. For someone like me who hated Biology in high school, it was a surprisingly interesting and extremely educational book.

To make the video even easier to follow, I’ve highlighted some ideas:

For the record:

subconscious: [adjective] Existing in the mind but not immediately available to consciousness.

unconscious: [adjective] Occurring in the absence of conscious awareness or thought.

Each person is an energy field vibrating at a different frequency to the person next to them.

Receptors on your cells respond to different environmental signals that the receptors on someone else’s cells.

Each of us is receiving something like a broadcast that is running our consciousness. This consciousness is not physical; it’s an energy.

Human beings create. If you create things in the right way, you get “heaven on earth”. Create things the wrong way, you struggle.

If you don’t know your creations are being controlled, you become a victim of a world out of control.

If we give in to other people’s beliefs, we are creating not with our wishes and desires but with a program written by other people.

Where’s the program taking us right now? Fear, shutdown, loss of community, breakdown of the system.

You can take your power back.

* * *

The brain of a child under seven is in a lower vibrational frequency.

Before you can become conscious, you need programming. If your mind is not programmed, what are you going to be conscious of?

To survive on this planet, and to be a functional member of a family and a community the young child have to learn countless rules. To learn these rules, they observe their parents, siblings and other members of the community. Both positive and negative actions, views and beliefs are taken in (or “downloaded”).

Example: You come from a poor family chances are you would struggle your whole life to try and get rich but you probably won’t succeed. You come from a rich family you can be stupid your whole life and make it because of unconscious behaviour that was downloaded from your family. Kids from rich parents unconsciously make the right moves. Same thing with poor people. Poor people downloaded destructive beliefs from the family that would not support financial success: “You can’t make it,” “Life’s a struggle,” “Things are hard,” “Who do you think you are?”

If that’s the program you get then you will sabotage yourself whenever you try to improve your life beyond a certain point. That’s why poor people often stay poor and rich people often stay rich – because of subconscious programming.

A significant part of our lives results from programs in the subconscious versus a much smaller portion of our lives where we are using our conscious, creative minds.

You may think you’re living your life exactly like you want but you don’t see that your life is to a large extent a printout of your subconscious programming.

Take a look at your life. The things you like that come into your life come in because you have a program that supports them. Anything you struggle with and put a lot of effort into making it happen is because you have a program in your subconscious that doesn’t support that conclusion. You’re trying to override the program.

The conscious mind is creative and can learn in a number of ways: reading a self-help book; going to a lecture; listening to audio recordings. The conscious mind will end up getting some awareness of things. But the subconscious mind doesn’t learn that way.

The subconscious mind learns in two fundamental ways: natural hypnosis which happens in the first seven years; after that you have to put new programs in through repetition and practice.

“Fake it ‘till you make it” – if you’re not a happy person and you repeat all the time to yourself that you are a happy person you are talking to the subconscious. Eventually there will be a point where the subconscious gets it: “I am happy.” You don’t have to keep repeating it.

People do affirmations and gratitude journals because if you do that daily you reprogram the subconscious. Things like putting sticky notes on the refrigerator are more like suggestions. So these actions don’t work as well as repetition.

* * *

When your conscious mind is focused on a task you’re in absolute control – wishes and desires, everything you want. But when your conscious mind go off into thinking about other things, it let’s go of the wheel and the autopilot takes over.

When you’re in love, it keeps you mindful. You stop playing the program in your subconscious mind. You’re operating from your conscious mind which is creative, which by definition is wishes and desires.

The honeymoon doesn’t last because you still have to think about your job, your chores, things you have to do at some point. Once you start thinking about other things, the conscious mind is shut off and all those negative behaviours in the subconscious mind show up. You stop being mindful.

Keep the honeymoon alive by changing the subconscious program.

If you took your wishes and desires and turned them into subconscious programs, you won’t have to consciously think about them. You would automatically be playing behaviours for significant parts of the day that would manifest your wishes and desires.

When you fall in love, the cocktail of chemicals coming out of your brain makes you healthier and happier. But if you open your eyes and see something that scares you, stress hormones and inflammatory agents are going to be released instead of those love chemicals.

In experiments with cells, the composition of the culture medium controls the fate of the cells. In the same way, the composition of your blood controls the fate of your cells. And the composition of your blood is based on the picture in your mind. Change the picture and you change the chemistry.

* * *

Almost everybody has the same wishes and desires – to be in love, to be happy, to be healthy, to live peacefully.

If we all lived with those wishes and desires, our world would experience a transformation. We would have harmony, peace, community, and a clean environment.

Until we change destructive, negative subconscious programs, we are victims of the programs and not creators of our life. (The primary question: Do you want to be a creator of your life, or is it okay to be the victim of how other people programmed you?)

People need to understand they have a choice to either play the programs that lead to negative results or rewrite those programs and take their power back.

“I am not what happened to me,” Carl Jung said. “I am what I choose to become.”

* * *

Knowledge is power but more importantly a lack of knowledge is a lack of power. Science is revealing a whole new understanding of who we are. We’ve been programmed to be victims and yet science and quantum physics and the new science of epigenetics especially reveal that we are not victims but creators.

FRIDAY, 19 JUNE 2020

If it is true that we are programmed with beliefs from childhood, and with rules on how to behave in a wide range of situations, and with what to expect from life, and with a worldview that explains how things work, isn’t the broad, so-called Social Justice movement right to force people to undergo reprogramming? After all, it will be for the people’s own good if their subconscious bad coding is modified.

There are two problems with things like Mandatory Implicit Bias Training, and other training that people in many companies and businesses in the West currently have to undergo:

1. The ideology behind the training is toxic and immoral, despite being sold as antiracist, and as a mere attempt to get people to get along better – two values with which no civilised person has any problem. Read the literature behind the Social Justice Movement, and you will see that white people (not sure how they are going to classify people as white or black or brown – are they going to run pencils through people’s hair like in Apartheid South Africa?) are considered racists, who cannot help to be racist and biased towards people with other skin colours. (Again: White? Black? Brown? What about millions of people on the colour spectrum who don’t fit into one of the categories? “Uhm, yes, I just want to say I identify as brown from today. As you can see, I have more of a natural tan than my older sister.”) According to White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, the standard white person is either racist and they know it and admit it, or they are racist, and they are too fragile to admit it. There is no way for a white person not to be racist. You were born guilty, and you will die guilty. All you can do is actively participate in the fight against “racism”. In short, the white person must be treated as guilty because he or she is white.

2. It takes away from the individual the right to define him- or herself as they wish. If you are black and you want to see yourself as strong and independent, with the ability to reach incredible heights, you are likely to be accused of believing in white supremacy. If you furthermore believe that every person should take responsibility for their own actions, and not be criticised or punished for things over which you have no control (such as race or gender), or for something you didn’t do yourself, you will be called an “Uncle Tom”. The only acceptable classification for the black person is that he or she is a victim under the thumb of the powerful white person, and that the white person owes the black person happiness and well-being. Is there a possibility that this gifted black person with his own abilities and talent and willpower and personality can succeed? Probably not, says the ideology. The white man and woman are too strong. They are going to hamper the efforts of the poor black person. Better for the black person to see him- or herself as a victim, and to merge with the group so that the group can extract power and resources from the white person … Who is powerful and has far too many resources – because he is white. No matter how poor or stupid or talentless he actually is.

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