Category Archives: Pop-Culture

Israeli Wants to Ape Americans

Ethics, Etiquette, Israel, Morality, Pop-Culture, Terrorism

I grew up in Israel and have never witnessed Israelis throng to Rabin Square (previously “Kings of Israel Square”) to celebrate the death of an enemy, although I’ve seen them a form human chain from Tel-Aviv to Haifa to stop a war.

Yet, such civility is bemoaned in a deeply stupid article on YNetNew.com. Why stupid? The author collapses the distinction between joy on the streets over Israel’s declaration of independence (November 29, 1947), or its winning of the European basketball championship with “public celebrations of battlefield victories.”

The same writer quotes The Book of Proverbs: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,” but asserts, without citation or scholarly substantiation, that this crystal-clear proverb “refers to domestic enemies.”

All in all, the idea of mounting an argument in favor of gloating over the death of an enemy—for bad taste—says it all about the Age of the idiot.

UPDATE II: Pleasure Me, Now!

Debt, Education, Ethics, Federal Reserve Bank, Morality, Pop-Culture, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Zeitgeist

The following is from my new, WND column, “Pleasure Me, Now!”:

“Our society revolves around the pleasure principle. Unless something is pleasurable, it excites suspicion and is deemed unworthy of pursuit. This is one reason so many American youngsters entering the job market are dumb, difficult and will be, ultimately, dispensable. They’ve been taught, by parents and pedagogues — falsely — that learning and work must be jolly fun all the time. If your field of endeavor is no fun, quit it.

Anyone who has studied seriously, or worked to master a craft, knows that nothing worth learning or mastering is easy or enjoyable, at first — unless you’re a genius, a natural, or both. Most of us are not. For proof of the fact of mediocrity, look no further than the normal distribution, the Bell Curve.

With mastery, however, comes enjoyment. And mastery generally means hard work.

‘The value of hard work is overrated. Laziness is the mother of invention’: these were riffs offered up against my case by one of the bloggers at BarelyABlog.com. The writer, a physicist, makes my point for me: He happens to be a relative of Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in physics!

No, not everyone can ‘work smart.’ Whereas graft is within each person’s reach; genius is not.

The pleasure principle is at play in the realm of both personal and public finances. Saving for the future is not fun. It means postponing pleasure for the sake of solvency or other more ambitious future gains.

Tellingly, a survey by the ‘National Foundation for Credit Counseling’ has revealed that … ’26 percent of adults in the U.S. admit that they’re spending more than they did a year ago. And 40 percent of consumers are still battling unpaid credit card debt month to month.'” …

Read the complete column, “Pleasure Me, Now!”, on WND.COM.

UPDATE I (April 22): In the Comments section, Annette makes important points. Running my own tiny enterprise, as I do, I agree with her. When us oldies die-out, the American workforce is close to toast! However, home-schooled kids give me hope. I’m working with one such gentleman (a kid, really) whose work ethic, method of problem solving, and cognitive skills match mine. As my husband would put it, “A normal person.” But the “mature” “professionals” who came before him, all with fancy offices downtown, gave new meaning to the concept of outsourcing.

Let me parrot, once again, “Your Kids: Dumb, Difficult And Dispensable”:

“The hybrid, hi-tech workforce ? comprised as it is of local and outsourced talent ? is manned, generally, by terribly smart older people with advanced engineering degrees. Yes, the people designing gadgets for our grandiose gimps are often Asians, many of whom are older. They beaver away under fewer, also terribly smart, older Americans. The hi-tech endeavor is thus all about (older) Americans and Asians uniting to supply young, twittering twits with the playthings that keep their brainwaves from flatlining.
My source in the industry tells me that the millennial generation will be another nail in the coffin of flailing American productivity. I am told too that for every useless, self-important millennial, a respectful, bright, industrious (East) Asian, with a wicked work ethic, waits in the wings.
Let the lazy American youngster look down at his superiors, and live-off his delusions and his parents. His young Asian counterpart harbors a different sensibility and skill; he is hungrily learning from his higher-ups with a view to displacing artificially fattened geese like Meghan McCain.”

UPDATE II (April 23): Myron, Right you are. My source behind enemy lines—one of the biggest, most prestigious American corporations—is reduced to working in his garage, where he has better lab equipment, solving the company’s technical problems.

UPDATED: When The Pleasure Principle Rules (Graft Vs. Genius)

America, Debt, Economy, Education, Pop-Culture, Psychology & Pop-Psychology

Our society runs on the pleasure principle: unless something is fun, it is discouraged as unworthy of pursuing. This is one reason why the many youngsters now entering the job market are so dumb, difficult ( and “dispensable”). They’ve been taught, falsely, that learning must be fun at all time: Unless you find a field of endeavor fun, don’t pursue it. (So you follow that advice and end up a surfer, a struggling “actor,” etc.)

Anyone who has studied seriously, or worked to master a craft, knows that nothing worth learning or mastering is easy or “fun,” unless you’re a genius (most of us are not), gifted at it, etc. With mastery comes fun. And mastery means hard work.

The principle extends to saving for future financial security. That’s not fun, because it means postponing immediate pleasure for the sake of solvency, or more ambitious future gains.

A survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling reveals that “more than half of all Americans say they don’t use a budget. Also, 26% of adults in the U.S. admit that they’re spending more than they did a year ago. And 40% of consumers are still battling unpaid credit card debt month to month.”

(“The rich,” after all, will be forced to take care of them.]

This “frugal fatigue” [sic: shouldn’t it be “frugality fatigue”?] has financial planner Lynnette Khalfani-Cox tailoring her advice to the pleasure principle: “The real problem is that relatively few of us can live happily — for any sustained period of time — on an overly restrictive financial diet.”

Ms. Khalfani-Cox’s advice is fit for infants: “Make the process of saving fun.”

UPDATE: GRAFT VS. GENIUS. Myron, didn’t I say that my recommendation did not include those who do not need to work hard b/c geniuses? On BAB, everyone knows Myron Pauli is a genius, and comes from a line of similar folks. Someone who is able to work smartly already forms a sub-section, which is a cut above the rest. Not everyone can reach a solution through abstract, creative thinking. Most have to master a method. If you discover your kid can do the former, lucky for you. But for the rest, it’s safe to assume you need to hard work.

UPDATED: The Babes Leading The Blind

English, Free Markets, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Literature, Pop-Culture, Pseudoscience, The Zeitgeist

With apologies in advance to all non-human primates. In the quest for the lowest common denominator, mainstream American publishers will publish the musings of a monkey, or worse: a small boy. Colton Burpo, barely out of short pants, is the “author” of a best seller, “Heaven is for Real.” ALLEGEDLY, this “four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor, during emergency surgery, slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn’t know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.'” Yeah, I kid you not.

The only scientific variable worth noting in this equation is the fact of a father with a vested interest in the belief system. (Hypothesis: Boys whose fathers believe are more likely to develop after-life ideation than boys whose parents don’t believe. Examine whether the difference between the groups is statistically significant.)

The same awe accorded to the Nobel Savage and to the natural world is accorded in American culture to The Child, who is seen as possessing uncanny prescience; a primordial, pristine, un-spoilt wisdom.

Heaven help us! Errant adults elevate infants as philosopher kings.

I love the free market, as was said here, but faith in the free market need not require a nearly equal faith in popular culture. Why does it follow that a product produced and exchanged in the process of making a living must inspire faith? More often than not, the marketplace doesn’t adjudicate the quality of art, pop culture, or literature. The market does no more than offer an aggregate snapshot of the trillions of subjective preferences enacted by consumers.

Aguilera (Christina) sells more than Ashkenazy (Vladimir) ever did. Britney and Burpo outdo Borodin. For some, this will be faith inspiring, for others deeply distressing.

Seriously, that America’s adults are reading this tripe (and bopping in front of a TV screen using Microsoft Kinect) goes a long way to explain a hell of a lot.

UPDATED: Guys, you’re missing the point: the problem here is not the issue of faith in the afterlife; it’s the publishing of this tyke. A nation that looks to kids for spiritual, intellectual, and moral guidance is a nation without any idea of ordered liberty, which demands a certain hierarchy in terms of age, intelligence, experience, knowledge, etc. It’s something the Japanese know about. Adults should not be reading books written by kids.