Category Archives: Logic

Performative Contradiction: Pipsqueak Declares Pat Buchanan ‘Not A Great Writer’

Argument, Conservatism, Critique, Culture, English, Intellectualism, Logic, Reason

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‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’ ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is rich! (In-hysterics emoji)

Against the backdrop of the retirement of the superb Patrick J. Buchanan, some cipher—that’s a melodic word for a zero, a nobody—at The American Conservative, which I recommend avoiding like spam for penis extensions, one Declan Leary declares that Pat Buchanan “was not a great writer.”

Mr. Buchanan is a very fine writer! Spare and strong, easily great.

Let’s see: A nullity, Declan Leary, implies Buchanan was a mediocre writer, and does so while writing—nay embodying—mediocre, nondescript prose. I’m in stitches here.

Leary is still a pipsqueak, but you don’t grow talent. You either have it or you don’t. It is self-evident that Leary’s prose is never going to be anything but nondescript. (Experience Declan for yourself in “Against ‘Buchananism.’”)

I do declare that Declan Leary is engaged in something of a performative contradiction.

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” said Ludwig Wittgenstein, a great analytic philosopher.

*Lawrence Auster and I were first to denounce the American Conservative.

* Screen picture credit

Mental Maladies: Tucker And Mainstream Discover What Thomas Szasz Explained In 1960

Argument, Logic, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Science, The Therapuetic State

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About the lack of empirical evidence for so-called organic nature of “mental disease,” Tucker Carlson said TODAY, , (well, almost) what this column wrote first in 2002 and countless times since, in titles archived under Psychiatry and The Therapeutic State category:

“Cruise And The Psychiatric Shamans,” (2005) “EVIL, NOT ILL” (4/2007), “Conservatives For Abolishing The Fact Of Evil (2015),” “School Shootings: A Moral-Health, Not Mental-Health, Problem” (2018).

Tucker discovers what we wrote in “Broken Brains?” (January 16, 2002):

“… Consider also that there is no credible, scientific, peer-reviewed evidence for the organic basis of aberrant behavior, and you grasp the chicanery that surrounds the claim that strange or bad conduct is caused by ‘chemical imbalances’ in the brain. …”

The more rigorous and honest clinicians will concede that drawing causal relationships between “mental illness” and “chemical imbalances” is impossible. That prescription medication often helps misbehaved or unhappy individuals is no proof that strange behavior is an organic disease. One can chemically castrate a pedophile. But does this demonstrate that molesting kids is an organic disease? Never. It proves only that chemical castration can at times reduce recidivism in people who have chosen to victimize children.

Clear analytical thinking is at the root of solid science, it precedes empiricism.

Roughly 75 percent of the value of “antidepressant” drugs is due to the placebo effect. And talk therapies—cognitive-behavioral therapy in particular—can have equal or better results. Veracity permits only that we limit our causal conclusions to saying that assorted treatment modalities sometimes help people with behavioral problems, nothing more.

MORE.

My mentor, the great Dr. Thomas Szasz, wrote and proved all this analytically in the Myth of Mental illness, 1961. His books I studied at university, back when thought was taught. Both Tom Szasz and I lauded Tom Cruise when the actor attacked psychiatry so very cogently.

See “Cruise And The Psychiatric Shamans” (2005):

The psychiatric peanut gallery has blasted actor Tom Cruise for insisting correctly that there’s more voodoo to the profession than veracity. Cruise’s instincts are good: “Psychiatrists don’t have a test that can prove that a so-called mental illness is actually organic in origin, I wrote. Rigorous clinician —members of the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology come to mind —concede that drawing causal connections between “mental illness” and “chemical imbalances” is impossible. That prescription medication often helps misbehaved or unhappy individuals is no proof that strange behavior is an organic disease —placebos or cognitive-behavioral therapy, for example, are as effective.

Tucker Carlson had summoned some limey, a quick-fix popularizer, to speak to these issues.

Tucker Carlson Gets Into Tiktok Mode, Blames China For Pervasive American Decadence

China, Communism, Conservatism, Logic, Pop-Culture, Reason, Sex, The Zeitgeist

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Notice the theme on the Tucker Carlson Show today, July 18?

Tucker mindlessly blames China for, among other things, America’s gutter culture, as acted out on Tiktok. Accordingly, the Chinese made Americans worship hip hop and rap and twerk. The Chinese made American hos disrobe and simulate sex on TikTok. The Chinese made American Tiktokers privilege Ebonics over English.

Heavily into non sequitur mode, for the cultural trends Tucker blamed on China are mainstream American culture (Laura Ingraham loves rap by admission)–Tucker presented the proof to his blame-China thesis: Chinese Tiktokers are seen practicing piano, manners and magic cube mental skills, whereas Americans are seen doing what they do on TV, in movies, on reality shows, and on political panels.

Say no more. I’ve proved my point. QED.

China’s culture until communism was Confucianism, which is high-minded and genteel. And, contra ConOink, China is reactionary, returning to Confucianism; not Communism:

CNN’s Sinophobic Zakaria Is Clueless: China Is Reactionary, Returning To Confucianism; Not Communism

Enabled by indulgent and permissive parents and pedagogues, America’s youth have become increasingly licentious, lippy and libertine. Most are ignorant and lousy at writing, reasoning, and conversing coherently about anything other than raaaaaacism. They have also become un-moored from their finest traditions. The Chinese—who seem to know what’s good—are returning to things classical, traditional and eternally and universally beautiful.

Having banned corrupt hip-hop culture, China has a new export: Western classical music. “Once, classical music generally traveled from the West to the rest,” marvels the Economist. “Now China is reversing the exchange, not merely performing Western classical music in China, but exporting it. …

 

The Feminized Society Is Silly, Loose, Libertine, Institutionally Rotten & Ungrateful

Affirmative Action, Culture, Feminism, Gender, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Logic, Science

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The better responses on Facebook to this indubitably crass indictment of the feminized society harped on the mistake of collectivism in reasoning.

In aggregate, however, this seemingly obnoxious statement attributed to one Bob Wallace (?) is still largely true. For, from the fact that vast individual differences exist between people—and that there are many magnificent women—it doesn’t follow that one cannot make accurate aggregate statements about groups of individuals.

This is, very plainly, the basis of science: deductions about the aggregate characteristics of representative samples. Maybe not the most comprehensive definition, but you get my gist.

A priceless excerpt from Norah Vincent’s book comes to mind. Its title is self explanatory: Self-Made Man: My year Disguised as a Man.

Vincent, a lesbian in her regular life, describes dating women while disguised as Ned:

“I listened to [the women] talk literally for hours about the most minute, mind-numbing details of their personal lives; men they were still in love with; men they had divorced, roommates and co-worker they hated…. Listening to them was like undergoing a slow frontal lobotomy. I sat there stunned by the social ineptitude of people to whom it never seemed to occur that no one, much less a first date, would have any interest in enduring this ordeal …”

Seconded in my VDARE.com article, “The Silly Sex?”:

Over the last five decades women, who make up roughly 50 percent of the world’s population, have claimed only 2 percent of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences. In literature, women have claimed only 8 percent. No woman has won a Nobel in economics. During that period Jews, who comprise less than 0.5 percent the world’s population, have claimed 32 percent of the Nobel Prizes for medicine, 32 percent for physics, 39 percent for economics and 29 percent of all science awards.

UPDATE: A man’s work: Corralling logs with a boom boat. How can one fail to be impressed by the strength, skill, calm and staying power this job takes? To do all this competently and single-handedly? Mike Row’s show is genius in what it shows.

The MeToo ingrates should take note, too. Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 are currently prohibited from leaving the country. Drafted. This is what men have been doing stoically and dutifully for centuries: defending the women folk. (Who gets drafted is another matter. Read “Support The Drafts.…”)