Comments on: UPDATED: The ‘Moronizing’ Of Modern Culture

By: Don

Don — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:51:04 +0000

An angry American’s song

“Don’t Be Fooled America”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2jWjUGU-mQ

By: Mark Humphrey

Mark Humphrey — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 23:07:22 +0000

I agree that one of the markers of our time is reckless self-indulgence, dressed up as “self-discovery”. This nihilism is self-defeating, because there are no shortcuts to achieving a good life (which includes authentic self-discovery).

What people really need is not unconditional love and “equality”, but objective moral principles to guide their choices. Unfortunately, they’ve been taught by the Left that moral principles do not exist, except the principle of group solidarity; and by religion that morality requires giving up “selfish” happiness and sinful understanding.

Quite a few people today live as though they believe what they’ve been taught.

By: Myron Pauli

Myron Pauli — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:04:58 +0000

“O’Keeffe: You are entirely right to emphasize the cult of self-love as one of the worst flaws of modernity in the free societies. You are right that experience, character and the imperative of hierarchy are denigrated or neglected. Modernity has spawned a CULT OF THE SELF [my emphasis], of which Rousseau, especially, was a founding club member.”

So – where would (Saint Ayn) Rand fall in – Burkian, Rousseaunian (sp?), neither…?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtue_of_Selfishness

To the extent that I have a “philosophy”, I would have to include the FAMILY unit and the raising of Children as an essential component [in the propagation of “human civilization”] – which does not make me either a Rousseaunian (sp?) or Randian.

Philosophy aside, I enjoyed meeting you and Sean at the Mencken club. I found you to be surprisingly very soft spoken for a woman whose writings consist of (intellectual) thunderbolts.