Category Archives: Christianity

UPDATE III: The New Wholesome In America (Duck Dynasty & Religiosity)

Christianity, libertarianism, Morality, Paleolibertarianism, Pop-Culture, Relatives, Religion, The Zeitgeist

So the off-putting stars of the reality show Duck Dynasty are the new wholesome in America? Apparently so. Anything these vulgar, immensely popular people say or do is deemed worthy of contemplating and commenting on.

I watched 10 torturous minutes of Duck Dynasty. The participants were unsharpened pencils all–dull, not particularly witty and rather crude.

For example, his abhorrence of homosexuality, the ostensibly devout and educated (because a college graduate) Phil Robertson phrased thus:

‘It seems like, to me, a vagina – as a man – would be more desirable than a man’s anus.
‘That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying?

Yeah. both profound and refined. Yet 12 million Americans watch hours packed with dumb Duck-Dynasty vignettes.

These personalities are associated with religiosity in America! This is what being devout looks like in the USA??

From what I could see in ten minutes—which was way too much—the phoniest, most contrived character of all is Si Robertson. This lewd old man is of course a … preacher too. Lovely.

As for the Ducksters’ occupation. I’ll leave you with this from Proverbs 12:10:

Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.

UPDATE I (12/24): FACEBOOK THREAD & LITE LIBERTARIANS AGAIN:

Of course I love capitalism. Once again, the reader makes the error of the “lite-libertarian” reductionism. If someone is a capitalist (good) and makes money off his fellow Americans’ uncouth stupidity (good) and voyeurism, lite libertarains think that one cannot criticize aspects of this production. Duck detritus should make money however they wish to, but do I have to like their product b/c they make money? You gotta be kidding. It’s crap.

UPDATE II: As for the claim, on Facebook, that Duck Detritus represents the best of America. I have nothing against this lot. They are, however, part of a debased culture. Duck Dynasty is the right-wing answer to Kim Kardashian—whose deformed figure, elephant man upside down—you can ogle here:

Southerners, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, were drained of their best blood by the War of Northern Aggression. Although vestiges of good breeding, charm and civility remain in many a Southern man, the uncouth Duck hunters are not it.

UPDATE III: DUCK DYNASTY & RELIGIOSITY IN THE US. Steven LaTulippe writes:

I think you’re missing an important point, Ilana. They were selected for the show because they are how you describe them. Duck Dynasty was meant to be a redneck minstrel show. They were supposed to be objects of ridicule for cosmopolitan America. They are what blue state America imagines religiosity to be.

REPLY: Judging from my encounters with Christian America, with few exceptions, it is no longer doctrinaire or demanding. Christianity in the US is exactly what Duck Dynasty professES. This mishmash of pop-religion that is practiced in American churches is an extension of the therapeutic culture: big on feelings, mostly misdirected, light on Godly theology or knowledge of scriptures.

WASPocracy Replaced By An Idiocracy

America, Christianity, Education, Etiquette, History, The Zeitgeist

Now that America’s “unofficial but nonetheless genuine ruling class” has been destroyed, Joseph Epstein reminisces longingly about the lost and great benefits to society of this untitled aristocracy’s sense of noblesse oblige.

Epstein, however, wrongly suggests America’s “WASP establishment” has been replaced with a “meritocracy—presumably an aristocracy of sheer intelligence, men and women trained in the nation’s most prestigious schools.”

The WASPocracy was replaced by an Idiocracy.

The prevailing wisdom until now has been that the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) “stood for all that was uptight and generally repressive in American culture.” But those who could not wait for their demise are suddenly bewailing it:

… the WASP elite had dignity and an impressive sense of social responsibility. In a 1990 book called “The Way of the Wasp,” Richard Brookhiser held that the chief WASP qualities were “success depending on industry; use giving industry its task; civic-mindedness placing obligations on success, and antisensuality setting limits to the enjoyment of it; conscience watching over everything.”
Under WASP hegemony, corruption, scandal and incompetence in high places weren’t, as now, regular features of public life. Under WASP rule, stability, solidity, gravity and a certain weight and aura of seriousness suffused public life. As a ruling class, today’s new meritocracy has failed to provide the positive qualities that older generations of WASPs provided.

I like this. I’ve always said that IQ is in the math-intense fields of inquiry and study:

Apart from mathematics, which demands a high IQ, and science, which requires a distinct aptitude, the only thing that normal undergraduate schooling prepares a person for is… more schooling. Having been a good student, in other words, means nothing more than that one was good at school: One had the discipline to do as one was told, learned the skill of quick response to oral and written questions, figured out what professors wanted and gave it to them.


MORE.

UPDATED: The Megyn Kelly Production: So Far, So Good (Of Course Saint Nicholas Was White)

Celebrity, Christianity, Journalism, Media, Objectivism, Racism, The West

This Washington-Post expose of Megyn Kelly, host of “The Kelly File,” is followed by awful comments from readers, mostly on the left. A lot of libertarians are like that–unwilling or incapable of applying objective analysis to material that isn’t aligned with their imbibed ideology. In a manner, this is a closing of the mind.

Kelly, whose TV program airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on the Fox News Channel, is providing a good news show. The Hannity and O’Reilly segments are intolerable, largely because of the pig-ignorant panelists and guests entertained. Hannity, especially, fills hours on end with shrill ciphers in short skirts, screaming their worthless opinions. A zero-information exercise.

So far, Kelly has not resorted to Fox News’ regular conga-line of cretins—“analysts,” party “strategists,” and other loudmouths, although the appearance of late of Jedediah Bila bodes badly for the File’s future.

Kelly, on the facts, is very quick, super smart and tough. Men will tune in for her elfin, cute looks. I like her voice. It’s hard not to admire a woman who commands a salary of $6 million a year!

Deeply corrupting, however, is the cult of personality in news and the cultivation of news celebrities. But that’s for another day.

UPDATE (12/14): Of course Santa, aka Saint Nicholas, is a western tradition, hence white. What a sub-intelligent argument to even have. Imagine if westerners carved out a white MLK or some other white version of a black icon! They’d be lynched. Fact: by default, whites are not allowed to cling to any cultural artifact.

A Bum’s Rush To Pope Francis

Capitalism, Christianity, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Private Property, The State, Uncategorized

In his 1998 encyclical, “Faith and Reason,” Pope John Paul spoke with unhectoring clarity about the errors of relativism in modern thought. While Karol Wojtyla’s role in the fall of communism is likely exaggerated, he was no communist. Pope Benedict XVI was—still is— a great intellect, who took a risk in attempting to explain why “Islam may be a closed and irrational system, impermeable to reform.”

Pope Francis, the new Holy See, is no match to his predecessors. In fact, Jorge Bergoglio is shaping up to be more of a bumpkin than expected.

Courtesy of conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh comes Pope Francis’ “latest papal offering”:

Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as ‘a new tyranny’ and beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality, in a document on Tuesday setting out a platform for his papacy and calling for a renewal of the Catholic Church. … In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the ‘idolatry of money.'” … “Pope Francis said that trickle-down policy…” We hear about trickle-down policies? “Pope Francis said that trickle-down policies have not proven to work.”

Preached Pope Francis: “I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: `Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs,’ said Francis, quoting the fifth-century St. John Chrysostom.”

In other words, the livelihood for which a successful man labors belongs not to him, but to the poor and their benevolent proxy: the government. Some doctrine that is.

Rightly, Rush rails against the Pope. Read on.