James Ellroy's LA Quartet and his Legacy

Via The AV Club, Short List interviews James Ellroy:

If you've ever seen Ellroy on Conan or elsewhere, the interview is par for the course. The author is a motor-mouth who can't stop throwing offensive opinions in your face.

How do you feel about Obama?
I hate him. I think he’s a coward, incompetent and I find him sinister. He’s the face of cancerous socialism under the guise of benevolence. His wife going on the Academy Awards by remote hook-up made them come across like Soviet apparatchiks. However, I don’t have a TV, cellphone or internet and I find the world untenable. I’m a big Tory. Big. Tory. There’s also a part of me that loves to say, “F*ck you, I’m a Republican.” I’m a Thatcherite and a Reaganite.

Really, Ellroy's conservativism isn't surprising. One of the themes of the LA Quartet is that the purpose of the police is to be a Berlin Wall between the criminal element and the rest of society. A familiarity, or at least an understanding, of the potential ugliness of life is the base of becoming a conservative.

What can you tell us about your new project, the second LA Quartet?
I’m about to finish the first volume, called Perfidia – my biggest book – which will be published in Britain this fall. The new quartet takes characters both fictional and real, major and minor, from the first quartet and the trilogy, but places them in LA during the Second World War. It’s the month of Pearl Harbor, 6-29 December 1941. It seamlessly takes the quartet and trilogy, adds four novels, and makes my oeuvre as a historical novelist one inextricable 11-novel whole. 

I'm not excited by the prospect of a second set of books. Revisiting characters at a younger age is usually a mistake, unless one has already planned it out in advance. That is, unless he's exploring the rise of Dudley Smith, the corrupt policeman whose machinations are at the center of the quartet. Since Smith comes into the series fully formed as a powerful and menacing man, there's room for exploration that won't effect our later understanding of the character.

Even if Ellroy focuses on Smith, I won't be reading the books. He used to be one of my favorite authors and, though I love his books up until the last of the quartet, I can't get through his prose any longer.

The first of his I read was American Tabloid. I was greatly impressed. I didn't realize it at the time, but it ties in with some of the characters in his earlier books, tracking the machinations of the mob, the CIA and the FBI all through characters at the periphery. I advise anyone looking for an example of masterful, complex plotting to seek this one out.

I was so excited that I immediately dove into Ellroy's entire catalog. His first half-dozen books are good reads and he was established as a solid mid-list mystery/detective writer. Then came The Black Dahlia and he became a major American genre writer, even if everyone didn't know it yet.

The transition was a quantum leap. Ellroy was able to pull together a complex plot of secrets and double-crosses with a compelling love triangle and a Laura-style obsession with a dead woman and her life. All this while creating a fascinating picture of mid-century LA and its intersection of wealth, fame, and desperation.

My personal favorite of the quartet (as opposed to what I find the best objectively) is the next book, The Big Nowhere. Here we see Ellroy growing in strength. Where Dahlia followed one character with another being almost a second protagonist, in Nowhere he goes all the way and follows two main characters. They investigate from different angles of the same conspiracy, only occasionally coming into contact until the end. The technique allows Ellroy to create a more complex story while minimizing the reader's confusion and the world of LA he depicts is solidified and expanded.

(A tangent. At the end of Nowhere, one character makes a desperate dash to Mexico with a woman and mob money, hoping to hide out the rest of his days. The book ends on a note of crazy hope. My paperback edition had a "special sneak peek" of the follow-up, LA Confidential, publishing the first chapter of that book. In that chapter, the character who escapes is murdered along with his girl. At the time, I wished I hadn't read it immediately after finishing Nowhere.)

LA Confidential is Ellroy's best book. He ups the ante by using three protagonists. In the previous books, the two main characters are more or less opposites but Confidential's leads are distinct to themselves, less mirror images than complements. The three perspectives increase the complexity as one would expect. (Incidentally, the film version does a remarkable job of telling the story concisely.)

The quartet ends with White Jazz, which I dislike but is necessary to see the end of the series' villain, the aforementioned Dudley Smith. Ellroy makes good moves all around, keeping the story much more simple than the others and ending with realistic semi-successes (Smith's end is particularly appropriate without seeing him exposed and convicted for his crimes).

Good moves except for one element:  Ellroy's prose. In Jazz, he writes in an impressionistic/jazz-influenced style that might be fine in a stand-alone book--though I didn't care for it on its own terms--but is too much of a contrast with the rest of the series.

After reading all of his back catalog, I returned to American Tabloid. I found I couldn't read it through again. Ellroy had abandoned the jazz prose of the previous book and took to writing staccato sentences, one after another with hardly a break.

I was disappointed but I understand. Tabloid was the first of his Underworld USA series and he covers a lot--a lot--of ground. If he wrote the more elaborate prose of, say Nowhere, the books would easily break the thousand-page mark. But it's a turn-off--Ellroy loses flexibility of tone by using only short, declarative sentences. Eventually, it makes everything important and thus nothing important.

You sound like you’re thinking about your legacy…
I’m very much doing that. I want to get my sh*t in line. In case I go to the doctor and he says, “Ellroy, you f*cker, you’ve got six months to live.” I want to leave a great literary legacy. I will leave legal documents so no one can ever co-opt my characters or write an Ellroy knock-off book, like when Robert B Parker finished a Raymond Chandler novel. I came of age when being a writer was a big deal.

I don't think Ellroy has to worry about his legacy. What he achieved with the LA Quartet will be an inspiration to crime writers--and more--for years.

What the Non-Fan Should Know About What We Think of Hulk Hogan

Wrestling fandom is a strange beast. Most fans get really excited about the product as children and then lose interest in their late teens. But many--and more every year--either never stop being fans or return once they've figured out the world of relationships and personal finance.

But wrestling, like superhero comics, is a limited medium. There are only so many stories that can be told when it's necessary to punctuate the arc with fighting. Storylines tend to repeat with minor variations and different characters. Extended fandom requires another level of understanding.

This is where the smarks come in. The old term for the audience, true believers that wrestling was "real," is marks (coming from old carny talk). When an individual learns that the matches are predetermined, it's said that he's been smartened up. Thus, a smark is a smart mark--a fan that thinks he knows what's really going on.

What's going on backstage is usually very interesting. Because wrestling being "fake" used to be a secret, the politics in the locker room were secret as well. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, then darkness is where things get rotten.

And wrestling politics in the kayfabe era (when the feuds were promoted as being real) was definitely rotten. It created a culture of backstabbing, favoritism and industry politics that carries over today. It's this backstage maneuvering that get smarks excited. They scrutinize the product for indications of locker room attitudes. Why did they make this wrestler look like a chump when the crowd loves him? Why is that wrestler always in the running for a belt when he's terrible?

Which brings us to this Buzzfeed article, Hulk Hogan Returning To The WWE Is The Greatest Thing To Ever Happen. Hulk Hogan is the wrestler smarks love to hate.

In a nutshell, the knock against Hogan is that he's only ever in it for himself. Hogan is the one wrestler that nearly every one in the world knows. He's used that power to enhance his own image in the industry (and his paycheck), get jobs for his washed-up cronies, prop up his non-wrestling ventures and squash anyone who's a threat to his self-perception that he is the top guy. Not to mention he's a terrible wrestler.

The fact that he's returning to the WWE is less a coup for the promotion than an indication that the WWE is on an upswing. One of the axioms of the business is that its success is cyclical. The big WWE explosion of the 80s faded until the mid-90s, when competing promotion WCW became hot. The WWE parlayed that heat to develop the "Attitude Era," which was even bigger than Hogan's 80s heyday. Hogan's reputation is that he arrives on the scene just as a promotion is starting to pop, gets a big paycheck and then steals away the moment ratings start to slip. Hogan is nothing if not savvy; this way, he looks as though he's the reason for the success and his absence is the reason for the decline.

If you aren't a wrestling fan, you won't hear any more about his return. You'll see a few shallow, goofy articles like that in Buzzfeed, shrug your shoulders and move on. But, if you want some entertainment, check into the IWC's (Internet Wrestling Community) reactions.

Harold Ramis RIP

I've always been a fan of the utility players, the guys who do a lot of the hard work and always stand outside of the spotlight. People like Rupert Holmes, Brian Doyle-Murray and Harold Ramis.

Film buffs often have a hard time understanding that movies have to conjure their own particular magic. Everything can be right on paper, from casting to the script, but doesn't come alive on screen. At the same time, everything can be wrong and the movie is great nonetheless. To have one great or beloved or influential film is a miracle, no matter how talented the auteurs.

Ramis had five:  National Lampoon's Vacation, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, with Animal House and Ghostbusters (the latter two he co-wrote but did not direct). And some special mentions for screenwriting work on Meatballs and Stripes. This is in addition to the work he did as an integral off-screen part of early SCTV.

What's interesting about his work, though, is that you can't say that he had a particular style. Or rather, his style was so laid-back, like the characters he played, you just remembered the jokes.

Groundhog Day will probably be remembered as the top Ramis work, not just because it pulls off the difficult balance of being very funny and telling a convincing emotional story, but also because it seems like it would have been technically difficult to pull off in the same way Memento or Inception was--it required keeping good notes. His other films probably have the burden of being too successful--so influential that their originality is unrecognizable among all the imitators.

It's maybe not the best thing to think about upon news of his death, but he's a filmmaker who lost his touch rapidly after the heights of Groundhog Day.

There must be some inside-showbiz story why Ramis followed that big hit with Stuart Saves His Family. Al Franken's Stuart Smalley character on SNL was mid-tier at best. Perhaps Ramis was already attached when Groundhog was a success.

His more appropriate follow-up was Multiplicity, which was another go at the technically-difficult, philosophical-thought-experiment niche. I remember it being too excited about its special effects and too reliant on Michael Keaton's crazy man schtick, which had run its course by that time.

Luckily for him, he had another big hit with Analyze This. This was unlucky for DeNiro fans, as it rewarded the star's descent into obvious self-parody. It was also unlucky for me, as I was very happy not having seen Billy Crystal's smirk during the previous years.

Ramis' trajectory through Hollywood is puzzling. Why didn't have a more comfortable position after Groundhog Day? It was a big hit, staying in theaters for months. After his role in some of the most profitable comedies of all time, why was he taking for-hire jobs like Stuart and Bedazzled?

Maybe because, when he did something that interested him, it was The Ice Harvest, which flopped terribly.

But the real shame is that his film career, which began with the launch of the Vacation franchise, ended with the Jack Black-Michael Cera vehicle Year One, which was garbage. Advertised as a romp about two Stone Age tribesman experiencing early civilization, it was instead the two flavors-of-the-month bugging their eyes at Old Testament spoofs. It was completely off; for one, the premise was from Mel Brooks' heyday. For another, Black and Cera work well within their own alt-comedy milieu but you can't just drop them into a studio picture to liven it up.

But let's not end on a down note. When you chart the world of modern comedy, starting back in the improv groups of the late 60s and into the game-changing successes stemming from National Lampoon and SNL, Harold Ramis is right there, every step of the way. His legacy is enormous.

Your Guide to Monarch Mind Control - Introduction

The Illuminati conspiracy theorizing finally crested into the (sub)mainstream over the last five years, primarily due to the latest innovation:  dissecting celebrities for signs of occult symbols.

In some respects, this is an old perspective, but it had always been the work of fundamentalist Christians attacking rock stars--backmasking in "Stairway to Heaven" and the like. 

Contemporary Illuminati theorizing gained its momentum from the black community. Among late 90s hip-hop MCs, for example, more than a few were fixated on the Illuminati, of which Busta Rhymes was the most prominent. The rise of the Internet has allowed the whispers of "You know what's really going on, don't you?," to spread out.

Out in the world of ideas, they connected with the proponents of the mind-control slaves idea. This had its roots in the story of Candy Jones, which surfaced in the mid-70s. Shortly thereafter, it was the revealed that the CIA researched mind-control techniques in the MKULTRA program.

The program itself originated from science-fiction fears of what the Soviets, Chinese and North Korea were capable of doing to the minds of their POWs. For the longest time, the most famous aspect of the research was the use of LSD and the fun-house atmosphere around it, as CIA employees were allowed to dose one another without warning.

It appears that the general goals of the program were using drugs and other techniques to get enemy agents to spill their secrets and using those same options to disrupt the higher workings of enemy governments. Had the program been successful, they hoped they could somehow trigger, say, Castro, into announcing that Cuba was no longer Communist. 

The program was a deep-state project and all indications are that it was an undisciplined waste of resources. Perhaps that was the reason that CIA director Richard Helms had several thousand documents destroyed in 1973. 

That destruction created an enormous gap of knowledge that has been filled by speculation that the research was in fact successful, and successful in some very evil areas. In this view, MKULTRA, expanding upon the research of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, has developed an effective process by which slaves--slaves for assassination, false flag attacks, general disruption and sexual pleasure--can be created, without even the knowledge of the slaves.

The bulk of the mind control theorizing comes from the work of Fritz Springmeier. We'll be looking through the seminal work he wrote with (former mind-control slave) Cisco Wheeler, The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave. It's probably the most-cited book in the mind-control conspiracy world.

There are many dangers to the human race, some real and some imagined. I believe that the trauma-based mind control which this book exposes is the greatest danger to the human race. It gives evil men the power to carry out any evil deed totally undetected. By the time the astute reader finishes this book, they will be as familiar with how to carry out trauma-based mind-control as some of the programmers. Ancient and more recent secrets will no longer be secrets. 

Over the years, I have spent thousands of hours studying the Illuminati, the Intelligence agencies of the world, and the occult world in general. The centerpiece of these organizations is the trauma-based mind control that they carry out. Without the ability to carry out this sophisticated type of mind-control using MPD [Multiple Personality Disorder], drugs, hypnosis and electronics and other control methodologies, these organizations would fail to keep their dark evil deeds secret.

(For the purposes of simplicity, I'll reference the author as Springmeier, as he is the more prolific and prominent writer.)

If one has read The Illuminatus! Trilogy, then one has a good idea of the confusing and chaotic arrangement. Agencies that believe themselves to be independent and at odds with one another are, in fact, being controlled by more powerful, secret agencies. These secret agencies are likewise infiltrated and manipulated. Those that believe they are serving the "real" Illuminati are merely serving a front, which is being manipulated for the ends of the true Illuminati. It all gets very complex but the end result is that the 13 bloodlines--or families--get exactly what they want.

Springmeier walks us through the locations where the classified documents of various agencies are kept.

The basement of CIA HQ is known as "the Pit," In the Pit documents are being shredded and burned on a round the clock basis. The large remains of these secrets are sold for landfill. The Illuminati have developed secrecy to a fine art. They train their people in the art of secrecy from the time they are born. Most everything they do, is done orally. They are trained not to write rituals and other things down. There is very little paper trail left by the Illuminati. 

The creation of slaves with photographic memories facilitates this secrecy. But this book is not about how they have managed to keep their trauma-based Monarch Mind-Control a secret. They have managed only to keep it a secret to the general public. They have not been able to completely cover-up the millions of wasted lives that their programming has ruined. 

For many years, they were able to shut-up and quietly discard their programmed multiples by labeling them Paranoid Schizophrenics. But therapists are now correctly identifying these people as programmed multiples and are not only diagnosing them better but giving them better treatment.

 The Illuminati mind control theory stemmed from the "discovery" of satanic abuse cults through memories recovered in therapy. One of the stated purposes of this book is to assist therapists who don't understand the bizarre ravings of their patients.

When one's beliefs undeniably contradict reality, one has to either become a fanatic or abandon one's beliefs. Recovered memory proponents lost their credibility when many began asserting that America was lousy with satanic covens. Many of those therapists, instead of stepping back and asking if maybe something else could explain their patients' "memories," doubled-down and began attacking those that questioned their assertions.

The inside story about these early FMS [False Memory Syndrome Foundation] doctors of the University of Pennsylvania is that they practiced Satanic Rituals during their work days. What is unusual about this--is that generally satanic rituals are performed at night, but these doctors did their coven work during the day. I know about these men. Now you can see why these men started the FMS! They started it to cover their own sins, because many of them were abusers themselves. In other words many of the FMS people are abusers of trauma-based mind-controlled slaves, or the victims of abuse who are in denial about their own abuse from trauma-based mind-control. Martin T. Orn (the person credited with founding the FMS) had ties to the CIA.

Having established the criminals and their defenders, Springmeier tells us what the book will cover:

This book will provide the step-by-step recipe for making a Monarch Mind-Controlled slave, It is a trauma-based mind control which programs multiple personalities using every known technique of mind-control. Every type of mind-control technique has been combined into a group package which makes the total package almost impossible to break. It is this ability to synthesize all these methods into a group package which is so powerful.

The creation of a mind-control slave is both an art and a science:

The handlers of mind-controlled slaves carry around a black or grey 3 ring notebook or a lap top computer with the access codes and triggers. Some of the programmers and handlers have this all memorized. The deepest parts, core/gems/executive committee, false trinity etc. are charted in esoteric language such as Enochian, Hebrew (which is considered magical), and Druid symbols. 

I have never gotten the opportunity to look at one of these, although a number of the slaves who I’ve talked with have while they were being programmed. These notebooks have color-coded graphs showing the arrangement of alters, the structure of the system, the training of the alters, the history of the alters and other details. All the primary tortures carried out on a slave are coded using dates/no.s so that the memories can be pulled up by the programmers.

Springmeier ends the introduction with a short glossary of terms, which I'll revisit as necessary.

A word of warning. Though I don't believe that the claims Springmeier makes are true, what he discusses is pretty ugly and disturbing. Not for the sensitive, to be sure.

Next: Chapter One - The Selection & Preparation of the Victim

The Smooth Oddness of Rupert Holmes

Proving that there is a reason that I read Dangerous Minds, this post put me on alert to this Tumblr site.

Tumblr lends itself to one-joke premises and this one is good for a giggle. It takes dramatic scenes from well-known films and scores them with Rupert Holmes smash hit "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)."

It's worth a look because Holmes' chorus really does evoke a feeling of "This is what I like to do," so when it's applied to, say, Hannibal Lector beating a guard to death, it's a lot of fun.

The album "Escape" comes from, Partners in Crime, is one of my recent obsessions. It's a snapshot into a part of the music scene that had a lot of momentum in the late 70s but has all but disappeared today.

Take a listen to Holmes' follow-up single, "Him:"

It's all there, isn't it? Holmes has the Jewfro, the tinted glasses, the open shirt. He speaks in the soft and serious tone favored by the 70s "sensitive man" archetype. The song itself has a AM-gold feeling and is almost as catchy as "Escape."

Now, try "Lunch Hour." Notice you have to go to MySpace to hear the damn thing--that's how out of favor Holmes' style is these days. In fact, the only reason Partners in Crime is available is because "Escape" was so big.

"Lunch Hour" is more indicative of the album's style. Squarely in the story-song genre, like the singles, but with the passable melodic structure of "Escape"'s verses.

That's the album in a nutshell. Pretty good melodies, pretty good wordplay, pretty good performance. Holmes is clever enough and he generally substitutes complexity for inspiration. The musicianship is eminently capable but, again, not inspired.

My interest in the also-rans of the 70s centers around the evolution of relationships. Holmes is no slouch in this department. "Escape," of course, is about a man responding to a singles ad only to find out that it was put there by his "lady." "Him" is about a man whose girl has another man in her life. "Lunch Hour" is about people cheating in the middle of the day. The title track is about sub/dom relationships.

Goofiest of the bunch is "Answering Machine:"

I have a lot of fun with this album because the feelings that Holmes evokes aren't part of our modern emotional vocabulary. Light music is probably the most difficult to pull off and is almost absent from the landscape.

Holmes got his start as a songwriter/performer making bubblegum music (another of my favorites):

His biggest hit from that era was "Timothy," a song about cannibalism:

His first album got the notice of Barbra Streisand--at her peak in the mid-70s--and she collaborated with him for a time, using his songs in A Star is Born.

Holmes didn't disappear after his moment in the sun. He went on to regular success in theater, created and wrote AMC's first original series Remember WENN and has lately written some novels. Who wouldn't mind an evening listening to him reminisce?

Polyamory in The Atlantic Part Two-The Politics

From The Atlantic's interview with polyamorous lawyer Diana Adams (also discussed here and here):

I'm working to create alternatives to marriage, because I think that if we could choose marriage affirmatively instead of it being a default, it would make relationships stronger.

Ah, the old "I'm trying to protect tradition" argument. This is the old progressive habit of attacking the consequences of their reforms. The problem with marriage, you see, is that people get married as if it's something that should be done, instead of looking at it as simply one possibility in a smorgasbord of choices.

Progressives believe that our traditions were handed down to us by a handful of frightened, violent old men who enforced their prejudices upon pain of death. Old fashioned marriage--that may be fine for some people but, you know, most people do it just because they think they're supposed to.

The high rate of divorce is offered as proof that traditional marriage isn't a very good option for a lot of people. So, let's add more options! That way, the people who choose traditional marriage are doing so because that's the romantic relationship they want--thus, all traditional marriages will be successful.

Progressives simply don't believe in the concept of sin. They don't believe that people want to do things that are wrong and that those urges need to be managed and suppressed. No, instead, they believe that those urges are right and that restrictions against them are what's wrong.

Traditional marriage is not a cakewalk and is always imperfect. But, historically, it's been effective in minimizing the damage caused by giving in to traditionally-sinful desires. Polyamory represents the effort to create institutions around our desires and not what works best. The political agenda is to make the arrangements of self-indulgence legitimate,  as legitimate as the self-sacrificing arrangement of traditional marriage.

Marriage is an incredibly intense contract. It's a legal-financial contract that you're making, declaring that you're going to be the other person's social welfare state and safety net if they screw up. I mean, you’re signing the most important document you’ll sign in your life and people read it less carefully than a cell phone contract. People have no idea what they’re actually committing to and are horrified a lot of times when they find out.

"I always cry at the signings-of-the-most-important-document."

This is an example of the progressive's materialist view of the world. Traditional marriage is a declaration of oaths, not a legal matter. A man and a woman declare that they are linking their lives together (as the beginning of a family) until their deaths. They are affirming their responsibilities to one another. Should they fail in their attempts, their behavior is considered a reflection of their character--it is dishonorable to backslide on one's oath.

No, to a progressive a marriage is a little government, a personal "social welfare state and safety net."

But we see that, for all of Adams' paradigm-shattering rhetoric, her real work is--like all lawyers--manipulating the legal system to get what her clients want.

Domestic partnership, for example, has tremendous possibility to create a more expansive version of what a relationship can look like. Domestic partnership was originally created as an alternative for gay couples who couldn’t legally get married. But then, all these surprising things started happening where these other kinds of people started using it for their own purposes. For instance, many elderly widow friends have entered into platonic domestic partnerships. It’s a situation like the Golden Girls. These are friends saying, “I live with her, and we watch out for each other, and I want her to be the person I can share my health insurance with.”

This, I like. It's a separate, secular arrangement that establishes non-marital households for legal and tax purposes. I'm curious as to what the limits are--certainly all the adult residents of an apartment building can't register as partners--but it makes sense that we have different versions of household arrangements, much like business are arranged differently.

However, it would be wise for social conservatives--who have been largely silent on America's health care situation--to consider how often health coverage has been used as a wedge for attacking traditional institutions.

I’m helping one polyamorous triad right now set up an LLC so they can share their finances. We’re making them employees of their own three person corporation so that they can be covered under an employee health plan.

Well, that's interesting. Would this kind of maneuvering even be necessary if our health care system was less Byzantine?

There are a lot of things we can do with co-parenting. With the busy lives that we lead, I think that three adults per child is actually a great ratio. So many parents are overburdened. I work a lot with lesbian couples and sperm donors in a three-parent model. They’re basing their relationship around a child. That’s a model that many courts and policymakers can wrap their heads around better than a polyamorous triad. If one woman contributes an egg, the man contributes sperm, and the other woman acts as a gestational surrogate, then all three of them are biologically a parent. We can do a three-parent adoption.

I suppose it's nice that it's all child-centered--Oh, wait. That's just to convince the squares, I guess.

I like how Adams makes it sound necessary that a child have three parents. I say that, if you're all so busy that you need three parents to raise your child, it's time to reexamine your priorities. The policymakers like child-centered models because they like the parents to actually be child-centered. In case you've forgotten---and I don't blame you, with the piles of rhetoric on top of the idea--marriage was always about family formation.

Polyamorist Diana Adams on MTV

Curious as to some in-the-moment behavior from The Atlantic's interviewee, polyamorist and lawyer Diana Adams, I watched her episode of MTV's True Life.

True Life, presented sporadically, is one of MTV's better shows, as least as little as I watch the network. I usually enjoy the program because it's an outpost of a diminishing genre, the cinema verite documentary. A documentary that isn't overloaded with narration and proselytizing is rare anymore.

The episode, like most of the series, revolves around two stories. In the first, a young Southern man is in a "triad," or relationship of three, with two other men. In the course of the show, he attempts to bring in a fourth member.

Diana Adams is a supporting character in the second story as the first lesbian relationship of new poly Kerry. The storyline follows Kerry as she entertains a new man in her life while remaining committed to Adams.

As it's practiced, polyamory seems to be a lot more hierarchical than the philosophy suggests. Adams is obviously the dominant partner over Kerry. Some of this is due to Kerry's youth (she's at least a half-decade younger than Adams at around 21) and being a poly neophyte.

More of it is due to Adams' skill. One short conversation is shown (Kerry reports that "a lot of brilliant feminist talk was cut") which is meant to be an example of the communication process needed. Kerry tells Adams, through giggles, that she's interested in a young man and that she wants to go on a date with him. Adams approves but she wants to meet him before they go out.

That, in itself, is oddly maternal, as it is when she inspects the boy and (half) jokingly says, "You'll have her back at midnight, right?" But she shows something more interesting when it's her turn to bring up an issue.

First she tells her that makes her feel a little jealous. It's striking that she doesn't say, "I'm feeling it but that's something that has to be overcome," or, "That's my problem but you should be aware of it." Instead, her statement sounds almost like a challenge.

It's a similar tactic to the "joke" she plays on the date. She puts something challenging on the table and then steps back to see how the person reacts. I feel this way and I feel this way because you do this. I want you to be aware of that. It's an emotional power-move--sometimes a quirk of personality but sometimes a tactic of dominance.

Adams follows the statement with a directive. Apparently, sometimes Kerry said to her that, if Adams were only a man, then their situation would be perfect. While this is understandably not a great thing to say, Adams then subtly threatens ending the relationship. She says that, since she is Kerry's first lesbian girlfriend, that she accepts that Kerry might not be ready for her. If that's the case, then she's willing to step back and just "be her friend."

It's all couched very nicely but firmly and directly. But I think that it highlights that polyamory seems to encourage a lot of polite teeth-baring. The fetish of communication creates an arena for the verbose to have a feeling-measuring contest.

For those that present their feelings the best--who have the most skill at justifying themselves--, it can be a chance to dominate others. The theory is that everyone shares and thus understands one another's feelings but the reality is that it can be a quiet argument over whose feelings are more legitimate.

Also a little disturbing is the knowledge that, while Kerry, a feminine and soft-spoken young girl, is new to the scene, Adams is not only experienced but entrenched in the poly social world, as well as having a long-term partner. The power difference is large and Adams' school-marm tone enhances this.

Watching polyamory in action reminds me that the reality is much different than the philosophy. In polyamorous thought, we can think of each individual as her own entity, making emotional connections of various intensities at will. The connections one makes need not have any bearing on any other connections--a partner needs to be aware of the others but contact is unimportant.

Over here in the real world, it's not a surprise that some are more dominant than others. But the polys seem to ignore the fact that their situations morph into a dysfunctional-family dynamic.

We see a bit of it with Kerry, but the gay triad shows the power dynamic more clearly. In that arrangement, our focus is Jim, who is frustrated because, even though all three of them live together, he is forced to sleep alone. It's not explicitly stated but Jim is the odd man out in the triad, with one man being the alpha and the other being a sort of pet, or taking a more feminine role.

It strikes me that it must be frustrating to think that one is entering this free, embracing world--a world in which you are liberated to love as many people as you want--and discover that you entering a commune as the least equal member.

Even worse, because you are the least dominant person in the group, your choices are more scrutinized and by more people than if one pursued serial monogamy. Adams insists on meeting Kerry's beau on their first date. Jim wants someone to sleep in the bed with him, so he finds a potential fourth member--over the dominant member's objections--and goes on a date with him secretly.

Bringing in another person seems to be a way for a less-dominant person to gain more power in the arrangement, at the very least by creating a crisis. He likes him better, so I'll bring in someone who likes me better and then our situation will be balanced. A case could be made that Adams attempts to dominate Kerry's date by having the group of them go to the queer club ("The She Dick") together and then join them at a tantric class (which isn't the least bit sexy). If you are interested in pursuing her, you will do it on my turf.

(We get to meet Ed Vessel, the poly-player we discussed yesterday--and, true to the emasculating nature of the philosophy, he spent some time wearing a skirt and enjoying a group hug.)

I don't think that the relationships on this show are anomalous--I think they're the norm. Feminine domination seems to be the name of the game, with their arsenal a stockpile of words and feelings and their defenses a pile of romantic options.

The episode was broadcast in 2009, reportedly after some delay. You can see Adams acting as a spokesman on The View last November. Sadly, she's hit the Wall and no longer comes off as the cool alternative chick she did five years ago. She brings up, again, her partner's relationships with hotter women in order to show how polys handle jealousy.

It seems like jealousy never stops bothering them, no matter how much they wish to "cultivate" compersion. Maybe it's all not as rational as they think...

Polyamory in The Atlantic Part One-The Emotional Life

The decline of The Atlantic continues with Up for Polyamory? Creating Alternatives to Marriage.

Three things always arise when one reads an article about polyamory:  self-regard for being different, men with no dignity and lots of talking.

This interview is no different. The subject is Diana Adams, who practices alternative family law (but really seems to be a feminist divorce lawyer) in Brooklyn.

She's a good example of the left's penchant for credentials. Adams attended Yale as a political science major and got her law degree at Cornell. She has held a hodge-podge of volunteer and pro bono positions, and

When not practicing law, Diana Adams is a self-defense instructor and nationally ranked martial artist, a relationship coach and workshop leader for individuals and couples seeking greater honesty and communication, a freelance writer working on her first book, and is involved in the New York City art community.

The writers of these polyamory articles are usually impressed with the quirky independence of their (typically female) subjects. Almost as impressed as the subjects themselves.

When I was a child...I had a doll house and a rich fantasy life...I was also an amazing mom to all my dolls, but it was always a little mysterious about where they had come from and whether they all had the same father. A little neighbor boy once said to me, "I’ll be the daddy." I thought about that for a moment. I said, "No, you can be my gay lounge singer friend. That’s much more fun." I’ve always liked boys. I just like them better in groups.

Ain't she somethin'?

For all the precociousness, there's an immature emotional interior revealed here. What's important is that the boxes on her checklist are marked off. Not gay and can't carry a tune? That's not important--put on this Hawaiian shirt and start crooning.

It's tough to compel people into the role you have for them, so it's a good thing she's an expert on asking for "what you you want boldly, clearly, and compassionately."

Humans in general have a hard time with monogamy. That’s always been the case. We used to have a sense that it was acceptable for husbands to go out and have other lovers, but with the shift to egalitarianism, rather than to say that woman could do that too, we’ve gone in the other direction.

Because people had difficulty sticking to the traditional rules and sometimes fudged them, the rules need to be thrown out altogether. What's needed is an entirely new set of rules that encompass and excuse every possible act that one can rationalize. That way, we can do whatever we want and never have to feel guilty about it.

Sexual relationships are complex and irrational. Progressives believe you can approach life rationally, that everything can be plotted out on a graph, or in law or in a narrative. They believe they can make sex rational. Good luck.

I think it's interesting to see the way that when people get into a monogamous couple dynamic, they often have to neuter their sexual desires. As the initial intensity of a relationship shifts to feelings of long-term love, you can end up in a sexless marriage, and I think that’s a huge contributor to infidelity and the breakup of a lot of families. 

Should we talk about the best ways to keep the spark alive in long-term relationships? No, we should start telling people that straying is okay.

Sexual desire is not only inherently good, it's the most important thing in the world. "Long-term love?" Worthless--unless one is getting one's rocks off. Living without sex? "That's unpossible!"

"We put so much emphasis on a partner being everything—that this person completes you—and when that doesn’t happen it creates a lot of pressure."

Ms. Adams, this isn't the message of traditional matrimony--this is the message of romantic movies.

If your romantic ideals are too much for one person, just increase the number of people working on the project. All your emotional dreams can come true, polyamorists tell us, but you're going to need a bigger staff.

What do your other lovers give you that your primary partner can’t?
Well, for example, with my female partners, I feel a different kind of power dynamic. I feel a protective impulse toward women I’m involved with. It's a different kind of love feeling. My partner Ed [Vessel] is a wonderful feminist man, though sometimes I’d really like to be out on a date with the kind of man who wants to open car doors for me and treat me like a princess. I don't want that all the time, but I might want that once a month.

Once again, it's about getting a list of things she wants. But it also shows that Adams lives in a flat, colorless world.

Theoretically, in a traditional marriage, the husband takes the hand of his wife and they go off together into the rest of their lives. What joys and pains will they share together? What changes will they undergo? At the end of their lives, how will they feel about it all?

We throw our lot in together. We know that bad things will happen. We know that good things will happen. We know that, whatever happens, we'll have to come to terms with it--what will come and how it will change us is a mystery.

Adams, in contrast, has arranged her life so she can have a man open a car door for her whenever she wants. That and regular orgasms. How rich.

The convenience of an a la carte emotional menu comes with a cost. Most dangerous to the polyamorous ideal is jealousy.

There are different versions of jealousy. One version might be a feeling of scarcity. Another can be insecurity. The way that I discover what version I’m dealing with is that I ask myself, “How old do I feel right now?” And when I'm insecure, I'm feeling like I'm 13.

No matter how many times jealousy is dissected and analyzed, it still finds a way to sneak back in. From a NYT profile of Adams' primary relationship in 2008:

[S]he was less pleased when she noticed the toothbrush that Mr. Vessel had bought for his other steady girlfriend when she slept over. 

That Mr. Vessel had a second girlfriend was not the issue.[...] The problem was that the other woman’s toothbrush was “a really fancy one that says ‘Primo’ on it, and mine is a junky one that says ‘Duane Reade,’ ” said Ms Adams, 29. For about a month, she was a little miffed every single time she brushed her teeth.

You know, it's more difficult to manage feelings of jealousy when your partner is definitely sleeping with someone else.

Jealousy is an emotion that we treat in a really blunt way. We often say somebody’s jealous and then that's an excuse for all sorts of bad behavior: throwing a drink in someone's face, or storming out, or manslaughter. In manslaughter, it's basically a defense: “I walked in on my wife having sex with another man and I killed them.” We treat jealousy almost with this reverence, but we don’t unpack what’s behind it.

Adams and her ilk have a lot of "reverence" for sexual arousal, even trying to resuscitate it when it fades, but jealousy doesn't deserve respect. In fact, her language implies that it's somehow made up, just an excuse for those that are bloodthirsty or like to toss cocktails at people.

In response to the ancient social construct of jealousy, polyamorists have invented a new emotion:  compersion. One definition at Wikipedia tells us that compersion is "the feeling of taking joy in the joy that others you love share among themselves, especially taking joy in the knowledge that your beloveds are expressing their love for one another."

You know, "I walked in on my wife having sex with another man and I just got the biggest smile on my face."

As I've discussed before, intentionally transgressing one's natural instincts is an occult practice. You're told that your sick feeling is not your conscience telling you that something's wrong but your brainwashing being overcome. Don't worry, after a while you'll get used to it.

It must have been necessary for Adams to conquer jealousy--she seems to be incapable of being alone:

I just had my birthday and my partner Ed is off doing amazing work as a scientist. As a consolation, my long-term boyfriend is staying in the house for the week. So, rather than my boyfriend saying, “Wow why's your partner going out of town when it's your birthday?” he’s asking if my partner is okay having to be away for so long, if he needs support. And my partner is saying, “Thanks for taking care of Diana since I can’t be there.”
...
[M]y dad had a massive heart attack and two of the men in my life came together to be with my family at the hospital. They’re both scientists, so they understood what was going on with his body and were able to explain everything that was happening. Both of them had busy jobs, so they actually coordinated with each other so that one of them was there at all times.

Unless her father is regularly in the hospital, she talked about the same situation in the NYT article almost six years before:

A few weekends ago, she had to rush upstate to see her ailing father. But Mr. Vessel had plans to go to the Jersey Shore with his other girlfriend. 

While both found the situation vexing, “the argument is not ‘I want to do that,’ it’s ‘How can I make you feel better about that?’ ” Mr. Vessel said. “ ‘Perhaps I can check in later that night, and give you a call.’ ” (They also arranged for friends to accompany her back home.)

Can you hear the frustration leaking out of these anecdotes?

Someone else might ask, "How can your partner--the most special man in your life--go out of town on your birthday--a very special day for 35-year-olds such as yourself?"  Someone else might ask--but not Adams. No, she knows Ed is doing "amazing work," so it's okay. Besides, she has her long-term boyfriend for "consolation."

If the two versions of the same situation are even more telling.

Adams' father has a "massive heart attack." Adams wants she and Vessel to be with her family during that difficult time. One problem:  Vessel has a sexy weekend at the beach planned with his other girlfriend. It sounds like he was really conflicted about it, being vexed and all. But polyamory prevailed and they came up with a satisfactory solution:  he'd take a break in between penetrations and "check in later that night."

Worse for Adams is the little tweak she made to the semantics of the resolution. In the original telling, she was accompanied by "friends." In the more recent version, they are "the men in my life." Both are true but the new version sounds a little sexier than the old.

Because Vessel's fine with Adams having other partners, he doesn't have to interrupt his rendezvous for a family emergency or open a car door for her or treat her like a princess. I wouldn't want to spend more than thirty seconds with the guy, but I do admire his style.

Dig deep enough into Adams primary relationship and it sounds less like a bold advance of progress than the rationalizations of a "bottom bitch." Consider this, from the NYT profile:

Partners, particularly the so-called primary partners, also carry veto power over their partners’ new prospects. Last year, Ms. Adams exercised them when Mr. Vessel saw a woman who both concluded was trying to pit one against the other. 

Mr. Vessel didn’t want to believe it. “She was hot,” Ms. Adams said in a stage-whisper, a note of jealousy in her voice.

There's one difference between Adams and the average bottom bitch, though:  She attended Yale and Cornell.

Theoretically, a lazy lothario could find a nice niche within the polyamory community. He starts a relationship with a half-dozen or more female polys, choosing only those with long-term partners. It sounds perfect for a guy who wants regular sex from multiple women but doesn't want to spend a lot of time running game.

In order to prevent these vanilla bros from getting in on the action, there's a high opportunity cost:  emasculation.

The men even have a name for themselves. They call themselves “The Man Harem.” Sometimes they’ll play with that. They’ll all show up in matching clothes – wearing all pinstripes, or all red shirts, for example.

Feeling alpha yet, player?

The NYT article points out another obstacle:

In the era of safe sex and cellphones, a life that seems to promise boundless sex in fact involves lots of talking. And talking. And talking.

That's good for Adams, at least, because she loves talking about her progressive and brave lifestyle. In fact, you can even watch her as the main subject's girlfiend in MTV's True Life I'm Polyamorous.

Of course, she leaves out the downside of being an rationalized adolescent. From The Washington Post in 2008:

"People in my generation are recognizing that they have more choices when they're deciding what they want their families to look like," says Diana Adams, 28, a polyamorous lawyer who specializes in alternative family law in New York. "This is an important historical moment because of the gay marriage conversation. We're becoming more accepting of gay parents, of single parents." She hopes to soon start a family with her two male partners.

It's almost exactly eight years since that article was published. Now 35, Adams has turned those two male partners into a "Man Harem."

No children, though.

Maybe she can dig her dolls out of storage.

Part 2--Adams' political agenda

Anissimov and "NRx"

My prediction is that Michael Anissimov will be the first person purged from the neoreactionary inner circle.

Why? Because he is the only one among them who is pointing to a historical form of government--monarchy--and saying, "Hey, that could work." The rest are certain that they can come up with something better and altogether new.

Neoreactionaries are up in arms about "entryism" and are manning the blockades against libertarian participation. They should be worried about ossification and hubris.

Instead, they're conversing in philosophese and congratulating themselves on how smart they all are. "Yes, boys, that genius political structure is right around the corner. What we need to think about right now, though, is how to keep the rubes out of our clubhouse."

What I'm getting at is that I read a lot about how great neoreaction is going to be but not much neoreactionary thought.

I'm starting to think that neoreaction is quickly becoming neo-Objectivism. Both believe themselves to be philosophical revolutions. Both realign our principles of government towards natural winners rather than natural losers. Objectivism was simply the arguments of Marxism turned upside-down. Neoreaction wishes to shade Objectivism with race and aristocrats and "black is black in that 'blackness' qua 'blackness' is..."

It's no wonder the press runs like frightened rabbits at the thought of them--what is neoreaction doing other than trotting out old Social Darwinist arguments and racial taxonomy and dressing it with Mondo 2000 and Wittgenstein Cliff's Notes?

Anissimov is trying to pull neoreaction into reality, emphasizing the "reaction." He wants to reconfigure old, stable structures for our age. The neoreactionary movement in general emphasizes the "neo." They wish to create a new structure from old ideas.

I think Anissimov, like the title of his site, is more right than his compatriots. We have a lot to learn from powerful monarchies. After all, the end of absolute monarchism didn't come because it failed but because eventually the monarchs themselves became liberal democrats. 

Why Vice Now Believes in Mind-Control

As soon as I posted this mind-control piece yesterday, I realized that I had forgotten the most obvious reason that Vice now believes that mind-control is possible.

When something is characterized as men victimizing women, anything's believable.

Vice Now Believes in Mind Control

One of my pieces that gets views long after I published it was my mockery of Vice's analysis of Monarch Mind Control theories. I wrote haphazardly then--I don't consider it a very clear piece. Mainly I was disgusted with the shallowness of the article; the writer seemed to have spent only an afternoon researching and brushed it all off because it didn't fit into her feminist perspective.

Vice returns with a more credulous piece, interviewing a German psychotherapist who has created a shelter for women she considers victims of mind control programming.

All the women who end up with us are victims of organised, sadistic and sexual violence, who have been subjected to mind control. There are also organisations practicing ritual abuse with a kind of spiritual superstructure, where certain ideologies come into play, such as neo-fascist mindsets or different pseudo-religious groups, like Scientology or satanic cults.

---

Clients report that people from all different walks of life and from all occupation groups are part of the networks. They range from the police to the judiciary, people in public administration, university lecturers, medical workers, psychologists, hypnotists, politicians... Certain names come up repeatedly. In exchange with other clients and colleagues across Germany, we are able to cross-validate these names. Some are renowned, award-winning people.

Some discussion has been had on the right about John C. Wright's stages of progressive corruption. It begins with worldliness, a "sophisticated" understanding of the world, followed by ideology. Absent religion, the worldly find a cause to which to devote themselves. This is followed by spiritualism, a retreat from the realities that the worldly wish to incorporate and the ideologues reject. The final stage is nihilism, in which nothing is believed true and in which the only enemies are those which profess to hold a truth.

Most commentaries agree with Wright's contention that we have entered the nihilist stage. Certainly the higher echelons of debate have gotten there but I'm not sure we've seen the full flowering of spiritualism.

I prefer to look at the ground level when discussing these things. Ideology has come into full effect among the philosophical groundlings--take a look at the rantings of Tumblr activists. They have fully accepted a political perspective that encompasses every aspect of their lives. "Microaggressions" are a good example of this, turning tiny inter-personal communications into political statements.

The arguments are getting so ridiculous that the ideologues struggle at times. I mentioned before that the danger for ideology lies in cognitive dissonance. If the ideology is in conflict with reality, then the ideologue has to either abandon the ideology or become a fanatic--that is, believe in the ideology's mystical "truth." Thus we see grace-like conditions like "white privilege," states that cannot be precisely observed but are accepted as existing.

Wright discussed Nazi "blood-and-iron mysticism" and theosophy and New Age theory as evidence of spiritualism in the past. I don't think those were signs of the age of spiritualism as much as precursors. I think that beliefs like those of Gaby Breitenbach, who runs the shelter discussed above, are indications that our spiritualist age has not yet come.

It makes sense that the spiritualism should be influenced by the ideology. The mind control theories revolve around cabals of powerful individuals creating slaves of everyday people. This isn't much different than the class- and racial-warfare theories that underlie modern leftism. Progressivism, for all its utopian promises, centers around enemies like the wealthy or the racist. Its spiritualist extension will naturally be fixated on undetectable monsters lurking among us.

Note that Breitenbach classifies the cabals as "neo-fascist" as well as Scientologist and satanic. The spiritualism we'll see will be reflective of the principles of the Post-Enlightenment era. A techno-futurist version of this spiritualism is Ray Kurzweil's singularity.

The fact is, these kind of reports come from people that are very troubled. Usually, "memories" of ritual abuse arise in therapy, not spontaneously, and usually by therapists whose background is social work rather than medical. The patients and their therapists believe that they've found a single source to the patients' problems:  secret abuse by someone programming their minds.

The fact that this is taken at face value is a sign that we haven't seen the end of the spiritualist age just yet.

Mark Shea is a Progressive Scaremonger--But You Already Knew That

You know, Mark Shea really, really got it wrong in his response to being hoaxed:

But here’s the thing: That doesn’t really matter all that much, because the issue is not whether some local group of DE types goes in for silly rituals or uses goofy code words lifted from Tolkien or has a kinkyboots fascination with inspecting your phenotype. It’s not whether a couple of rich guys have decided to patronize this stuff as their latest boutique cause. It’s that, yes, this stuff really is about racialism and the inculcation of pride.

In other words, yes, I was fooled but I'm still right. This is exactly what the media has said whenever one of their manufactured controversies blows up in their faces. Who's the one with a pride problem?

I understand, really I do. I haven't been blogging long (and no one's reading anyway) so I'm still getting a little buzz every time I post--"What if I've missed something?"

It stings to be proven wrong but, if Shea wants to talk about pride, then the humble thing to do is stop talking and re-examine one's premises.

Shea's not willing to do that because he was too credulous.He was willing to believe that some DE types form Freemason-style sects, with secret rituals and special titles--not to mention the wealthy donors.

Being willing to believe something so outrageous really undermines his authority as a columnist. At the least, he's willing to assume that DE writers are mostly neckbearded youths who have attached themselves to The Matrix and LOTR one night over pizza and Mtn Dew decided to play-act. At the worst, he's willing to believe that there is a white supremacist occult forming in the US.

The former indicates a prima facie dismissal of DE ideas without consideration--thus his criticisms are of no interest. The latter indicates that he has an extremely skewed picture of reality--which makes him a fool with no understanding of the world or of how humans work.

The other day I classified DE criticisms into two tiers, middle-brow and unthinking progressive. Shea falls neatly into the latter. He'd like to smear all DE thought as "racist," and dust off his hands as if that's all the work needed to counter DE claims.

Really, I don't get how people like Shea get only a racialist vibe from DE. Maybe there are many more sites I'm not following that relate to HBD; I'm not interested in statistical analysis and scientific papers. If anything, the focus of DE writers is that we are living in a semantic world of lies, that we've built a society on a foundation of false premises. HBD is disproving just one of the lies.

It's been brought up before that the left is so "pragmatic" that acknowledging differences in the races must mean that the next step is to start eradicating "undesirables." I haven't seen anyone advocating anything of the kind, although the comboxes tend to be less than charitable sometimes. It's the left that believes that everyone not part of the solution is part of the problem--and thus undeserving of a livelihood to support themselves and their families--not anyone within the DE.

If anything, HBD advocates pointedly refrain from any prescriptions. The argument is scientific--racial differences are a fact. We are being told again and again that this isn't true and that to say differently is to be the worst kind of person.

I believe it was Vox Day who pointed out in the last year that we are all brothers in Christ, that we are equal before God. It's only in our devotion to Jesus that we'll be one people. Surely Shea, as a blogging Catholic, has to give this idea some thought. If we can be one people in anything else, then why do we need God?

In every human organization or "social construct," as progressives like to say, our differences matter. They may promote cross-fertilization of ideas or they may create insurmountable divisions. America, from 1850 to the end of WWII, benefited from having European ethnic groups come into the country. There are a lot of reasons for this (not least our former tendency to leave people, organizations and businesses alone) but important here is that, though Italian or German or Scandinavian, the over-arching culture was the same. They were mostly Christian and shared similar touchstones.

"Model minorities" like the Chinese and South Asian Indians do not often share Christianity with European Americans, but they share and come to assimilate American cultural behaviors. Culture is more important than race, I believe, but race forms the seams by which culture can be torn apart.

It's enlightening to read the aggrieved Tumblr "Persons of Color". Their greatest animosity is towards "allies," white leftists who think they are the proper spokespeople for the "oppressed" masses. This is because the PC left believes that, deep down, all races and cultures are really white leftists. It takes only a college education and the elimination of the right wing to create a world of Starbucks and IKEA furniture.

The PC progressive thinks of culture the way the American media portrays Italians making the sign of the cross--a cute bit of style. For all their multi-culti talk, they have trouble understanding that their SWPL values can be greatly different than other values. An Iowa Methodist has evil values, of course, but a Somali Muslim's are endearing. But Christians who have thought about the issue understand that culture only becomes flavoring--cute traits--when one's heart and mind is pointed towards Christ. Until then, we can't assume that we're all pointed in the same direction.

Returning to the racial issue, I hope Shea will take the time to consider his own struggles with being moral. We all have different obstacles. Put a case of beer and a pizza in front of me and I have to consciously control myself. But put me next to a roulette table and I'm left cold.

Every individual has particular vices that they struggle with--why is it so hard to believe that races have their own set of weaknesses they share? Why is it that Europeans systematized science and were driven to venture throughout the globe while the Chinese, with an older and more consistent civilization, didn't? Doesn't it seem that these groups have sets of strengths different from one another?

Shea would have us pretend that there are no predispositions from one race to another. The problem is, PC progressives can't see their own predispositions, so they assume that their traits are everyone else's, the "natural" state of humanity. No wonder those railing against "white privilege" are angry at their allies--the concept whitewashes them. "Oh, you're from Peru? I suppose you must love cayenne pepper sprinkled on your lattes."

The DE has generally stayed away from prescribing "solutions" for racial differences. No matter, people like Shea assume that acknowledging difference--the "diversity" they root for--is the first step in genocide. Shea would look a lot smarter if he would at least play the mental game of, "So, what if this is true? How should we approach our differences morally?"

Instead, he'd rather point and sputter, "Racialist!" In doing so, he can dismiss the Dark Enlightenment. He shouldn't, because I don't see either the Democrats or the Republicans showing any respect to his faith except as a bargaining tool. More than a few over here think it's the most important thing.

Pride in Intelligence?

Via Heartiste, "A gene which may make people more intelligent has been discovered by scientists."

Heartiste rightfully sees this discovery as a major chink in the armor of progressivism. Liberals are wrapped up in the idea that intelligence is somehow formed by one's environment and not one's genes. Much of the reason for this is that so many of their prescriptions rely on this concept--but I think it's important to remember the average liberal's vanity.

It's no high praise to point out that, yes, your typical foot soldier progressive has intelligence above the average. But their folly is parallel to the principle that you can't cheat an honest man:  you can't believe in silly things if you don't think about what you believe in the first place.

This is why counter-intuitive notions like those that come from TED talks and Malcolm Gladwell are so popular. If you believe that one clever thought can completely upturn the way we think and do things, you will be always in pursuit of that mental philosopher's stone. It allows any conman with a rock polisher to gain an audience.

It's a long way from one-point-above-average to certified-genius but that's not the way it looks to the average leftist. Mostly they're looking downward at the less-intelligent around them. Because they're comparing themselves to the stupidest people they know, they take pride in their intelligence.

But one should be no more proud of one's intelligence than, say, being tall or having blue eyes. As with everything genetic, what matters is how one develops and uses one's biological gifts.

Your common leftists are the quintessence of being born on third base and thinking they've hit a triple--they'd like to strut around as if those points on the IQ test were the result of something they've achieved. If that's true, then the smaller number of points others have must be because...well, it depends on what color those people are, but's either because they are lazy or because they have been oppressed.

To take away their pride of intelligence is take away one thing they really value about themselves. Worse, it forces them to do the hard work of thinking--if we want to be good, morally-superior society and over half the population has no hope of being a professor or a lawyer or a policy-maker or even (God forbid) a CEO, then what are we to do with them?

The situation they've created reminds me of a documentary I saw many years ago, Graduating Peter. It's a cinema verite film about a borderline-functional young man with Down Syndrome as he ages out of high school. There's a lot to unpack in the film, but applicable here are the scenes in which Peter's mother harangues him to do one simple task or another, tasks that are just barely within his capacity. It was like yelling at me to derive equations--it ain't gonna be fast or easy.

The progressive agenda is similar, most obviously in the drive to send nearly every teen to college. It does no one any favors to push someone into higher education when they have no capacity to understand or use what they've been taught. No favors to anyone, that is, except those that get the tax money poured into the programs.

Being forced to admit that intelligence is genetic means that leftists will have to think about the population of low-intelligence citizens, people that aren't leaving and won't get any smarter. A moral society would find a place for them; I fear that leftists will instead find them useful as cannon fodder.

"Challenged" or Beaten Up?

Many years ago I was interested in humor writing and trawled pop-culture musings for idiocies to puncture. One subject was based on the New Yorker's description of Duke Ellington eating a pork chop in public that resulted in the destruction of a questioner's entire concept of Western civilization. Another was focused around a Hollywood producer's insistence that Alexander the Great was the rock star of his era.

But Flavorwire reminded me of a piece in my local newsweekly about the film Irreversible. That film, you might recall, was a French feature told in reverse and featuring a nine-and-a-half minute brutal rape scene that was filmed in one take. My local film critic asked us if we were capable of watching a challenging film about adult themes, as if he were Robert Conrad with a battery on his shoulder.

The "adult" theme of the film is that "time destroys everything," which I suppose can't be shown in any way other than an extended rape scene.

As I said before, we're living in a spiritually empty time. Even the audiences who consider themselves intellectual and artistically astute are dragging themselves to be brutalized and desensitized in the name of art. Here's FW's Kenneth Partridge summarizing the adult and challenging themes of that new trend, the NSFW music video:

If Oasis were shooting “Live Forever” tomorrow, he could stay in his flat, get pissed, and let some upstart filmmaker make something like Eagulls’ “Nerve Endings,” a time-lapse look at a human brain decomposing.
...
The Lips’ “Boys in the Wood” video is Deliverance for a generation reared on Jackass and Breaking Bad. It’s a backwoods nightmare filled with crack pipes, vicious beatings, and graphic rape. After three minutes in this sick and depraved world, the face-peeing scene hardly makes you flinch.
...
And then there’s Polica’s grisly “Tiff” — exquisite torture porn but torture porn all the same. It looks fantastic — more David Fincher than James Wan — and it’s utterly unforgettable, but couldn’t directors Nabil and Mike Piscitelli have found a less obvious way to “show a portrait of a woman as her own worst enemy,” as singer Channy Leaneagh describes the video?

Wow, I'm feeling more grown up just thinking about it!

If you're looking for signs of Western degradation, I think the best examples aren't necessarily the biggest names in whatever creative field one is examining. It's in the mob just below the top tier, the wanna-bes and the almost-theres. Pop-star tributes, navel-gazing martyrdom and "exquisite" brutality are the hallmarks of our age.

Statecraft in the Lunchroom

Via Uncouth Reflections, Diagnosing Sochi Media Coverage: Virulent Russophobia by Justin Raimondo:

Any illusions some naïve soul may have had about the objectivity of the US media has been dispelled by their embarrassing performance at the Sochi Olympics: the chorus of whining complaints might as well have been written for them by the US State Department – which, come to think of it, is entirely within the realm of the possible given the imperious tone. The water, the toilets, the hotels – nothing pleases our pampered media divas, whose hatred of all things Russian oozes from between the lines of their "reporting" like pus from an old wound.

The article reminds me of a minor US-Russia dust-up last week:  U.S. and Russian diplomats spar over Pussy Riot.

In the diplomatic dispute, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, apparently initiated the exchange with a Russian counterpart when she tweeted Wednesday about meeting formerly imprisoned [Pussy Riot] band members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, both of whom were released in December. 

Power posted a photograph of herself with the two punk rockers, who "came by to discuss their time in jail," Power tweeted. She also stated: "Met some brave 'troublemakers' today."

Russian UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin responded at a press conference (and I'm assuming to a question from a reporter) that perhaps Power should become a member of the band and play at the National Cathedral in Washington.

Power responded on Twitter: "Ambassador Churkin, I'd be honored to go on tour with #PussyRiot -- a group of girls who speak up & stand for human rights. Will you join us?" 

Power also added: "I can't sing, but if #PussyRiot will have me, Amb Churkin, I say our 1st concert is for Russia's pol. prisoners. #LiveFromMatrosskayaTishina." 

Matrosskaya Tishina is a notorious Moscow prison where opposition activists have been held.

Doesn't this seem girly? Two junior high girls argue and one then becomes BFFs with the other's worst enemy? And sends snapshots and snark over Twitter?

This is the Blue Empire, the progressive takeover of foreign policy that's as petty and impractical as the progressive takeover of domestic policy. The goals are ideological and the PR tactics are pure seventh grade. Russia is America's geopolitical rival--eew, their toilets are weird. It's like they're poor. And they're, like, homophobes or something. And they're not even down with this totally cool all-girl band that " desecrate[d] a Russian Orthodox cathedral by stripping off their clothes, screaming obscenities, and insulting parishioners." Russia is so lame.

There is attacking a state's prestige and there is childish mudslinging. Metternich is rolling in his grave.

A Note on the Upcoming Red Pill Analyses

Most importantly, what I will write will not be a defense of Woody Allen. Most precisely, it will be a defense of his defense.

The loudest arguments have been that it's almost impossible to believe that Farrow accused Allen out of vindictiveness. My argument is that it is not impossible and that the core articles cited in Farrow's defense raise a lot of red flags when interpreted with the red pill in mind.
---
Like everything in the world of ideas, the definition of the "red pill" is constantly being argued. Before I go forward discussing Maureen Orth's articles in support of Mia Farrow, I'd like to establish what I mean by the term.

Most of the community's energy comes from young men. Their definition is that the red pill is about scoring notches in the bed post. The less priapic among them broaden the category to male self-improvement, which includes the ability to score HB8s and 9s.

This makes sense. The red pill community evolved from the seduction and pick-up artist communities. The older groups thought mechanically, trading specific techniques that were effective in attracting female attention. The red pill is more conceptual, triangulating principles from the maneuvers that worked to understand what motivates women.

But generally the term is used to mean an understanding of the truths about women rather than what we are taught or what women themselves say.

First and foremost is the idea that women are different from men. Thus, they use different techniques to get what they want (and what they want is different, too). This is just as true in matters of misbehavior as it is in everyday behavior. It's the former that most interests me.

So, when I use the term "red pill" in my upcoming analyses, I'm talking about the behaviors that women deny and that we aren't allowed to talk about. The behaviors that get shouted down as misogynistic and, when proven, are made out to be anomalies.

The best function of the red pill has been to create a space where all the men of the world can compare notes about the behavior of the women in their lives. To everyone's surprise, we keep seeing the same tricks come up, tricks that we've been taught not to notice and that almost never happens.

Whereas once a husband was confounded by his wife's actions, sexual liberation has opened the data set of the average man. The average man is now comparing notes. The old narrative is shaking loose and its adherents are hysterical about it.

The Nebbish's Rape Culture Problem

A lot of what I write about is in regards to how narrative is used in the media. It's a common concept on the alternative right that the news media in particular tries to fit individual incidents into an accepted framework.

The most obvious recent versions of this are racial. The Duke lacrosse rape case, the Jena Six and, with the most hysteria, the Zimmerman trial have all been square situations that were forced into round holes. They are obvious because they are so ramshackle.

Incidents like those are dangerous for the powers that be. It creates cognitive dissonance, forcing supporters into fanaticism because the choice is to either believe their superiors or believe their own eyes. Each time this happens, it creates an opportunity for a supporter to shake his head, clear his mind, and go with the facts rather than the narrative. By pushing the narrative to the edge of plausibility, they risk losing their support.

But there are many fronts in the culture war. The news media attempted to build some momentum with other stories about white men shooting black people, but all the outrage available for shaky cases was spent. Rather than risk alienating the broader base, the attention shifts to the priorities of a different faction within the Cathedral. Contending for primacy with gay rights is "rape culture" feminism.

Back in the early 90s, it would have been unbelievable that the beliefs--if not the works--of Valerie Solanis and Andrea Dworkin would be ascendant in twenty years. They were simply too extreme, too beyond common sense. Solanis (satirically, it's claimed) advocated violence against men and said that the only place for men was as a "worm," confessing his misogynist sins and accepting punishment. Dworkin re-contextualized biology itself, defining intercourse as violence against women.

These ideas are by no means the dominant messages put forth by mainstream feminists. But they are the beliefs espoused by those that consider themselves "true" feminists, the simmering bottom level of the movement. A parallel would be the difference between a bomb-throwing revolutionary communist and a parliamentary Euro-communist. The ideas of the radical are always prodding the moderate from behind. The moderate, fashioning herself as an ideologically-aware thinker, takes the opinions of the radical into account.

In this manner the concepts on which radicalism is based seep into the mainstream, without the radical prescriptions. The Marxist accepts the concept of class warfare while not having the army march into factories. The feminist left does not propose punitive measures against men but accepts the idea that we live in a rape culture.

The idea that women in America are at perpetual risk for rape is gaining ground. So has the definition of rape in the media's eyes. Coverage of last year's trial in Steubenville continually conflated the details of story--which by themselves were repulsive and shameful--into the narrative of a gang rape, a term which implies forcible intercourse with many men.

This is manipulating the associative elements of the word, taking our understanding of "rape"="horrible trauma" and applying it to a broader set of acts. Take this situation, in which a young woman has announced that the entirety of her sexual activity with her boyfriend of three years was "sexual assault." ("Rape," of course, has a legal definition less broad than "sexual assault," so use of the latter is more flexible in journalese than it is in Tumblr rhetoric.)

The concept that women are always at risk of male sexual violence is better fixed in the media narrative than it has ever been. (The progress runs this way:  women are to be restricted to the family-->women are to be protected--women can and should do anything men do-->women are at constant risk from men) The narrative is ready to reexamine the Woody Allen accusations.

As I've mentioned before, the coverage at the time was not instantly pro-Farrow. Allen's affair with Soon-Yi was the hot topic and I don't remember anyone saying it was a good thing. Farrow, like Allen himself, had a reputation as being strange, particularly for her affinity for adopting children, for adopting foreign children, for adopting disabled children and for adopting children as the single parent though she was in a long-term relationship with Allen (Allen adopted those children later). The accusations came, made headlines, and then faded when no trial occurred.

Allen went back to what he did, churning out a movie a year and his private life became so quiet that the allegations became a softer and softer whisper. He married Soon-Yi and started a family with her. No one else came forward with tales about his sexual behavior.

A generation has passed since the matter was dropped. In that generation, the media has grown more strident as its monopoly on consensus has weakened. The left is more fanatical about its view of the world. The crimes that Allen are accused of are no longer considered the anomalous acts of a depraved individual--the narrative being pushed is that those acts are part of the standard-issue male toolkit, available to every male in the service of a misogynist rape culture. Every man is a potential abuser.

Establishing Some More Nebbish-Related Concepts

I can't stress enough how fundamental Maureen Orth's pieces are to the supporters of the Farrow camp. It's remarkable that these two articles (and the supplement) are taken as literally true because they clearly advocate for Farrow's account of the events.

Perhaps we're seeing another spasm of the death of the mass media. I've mentioned before that the bias is more pronounced than ever. As the authority of the major outlets diminishes, the more fervently they put forth their perspective. The mass media has become histrionic, desperately screeching against alternative outlets putting forth alternative views.

Still, for many the major outlets continue to be Disseminators of Truth. If it's on ABC News, or from the Associated Press, or in the pages of Vanity Fair, then it must be accurate. The audience that sees its views parroted in the mass media is now just as histrionic in asserting their perspective's authority.

I've always enjoyed VF when I've read it. Graydon Carter has taken a bit of his old SPY attitude into the magazine--a healthy suspicion of the rich and powerful and an eye for their grubby peccadilloes. That doesn't mean that I take it as gospel truth.

In addition to true crime books, I'm also a fan of unauthorized biographies in the style of Kitty Kelly. I suspect that the MO in writing these is to find every disgruntled person who has something bad to say about the subject and package all their accusations.

Remember, journalism doesn't have to be true, it just has to be sourced.

My rule of thumb when reading these books is this:  I consider about half of the allegations true and gauge the subject that way. Usually, it's most useful to take the worst offenses out of the equation. Does the subject still look terrible? Does their behavior over the years, taken together, really amount to the horrible monster depicted the book?

In other words, clear away the smoke to see how big the fire is. In His Way, Kelly details a large number of incidents where Frank Sinatra either attacked or threatened to attack someone in a restaurant. I imagine that being on Frank's bad side and seeing him in a semi-public place was probably bad news. Whether he actually struck so-and-so at such-and-such time isn't that important.

I take the same tack when considering profile journalism. Article X says that Joe Blow is a wife beater, a degenerate gambler and a drug addict. Article Y says that he's practically a saint. Now's the time to sit back and wait. Will there be smoke for the good image or the bad? If the guy's a bum, it's only a matter of time before his colors show.

So, thinking in those terms, we've seen a lot of bad smoke around Woody Allen. Since everyone is convinced of whatever they're convinced of, it's time to see where the smoke is coming from. Besides Dylan Farrow's open letter, the smoke is coming from only three sources. And all of them have Maureen Orth's name on them.

Speaking of smoke, it might be wise to mention another red pill concept, the feminine drama generator. We see it in the general discussion of Allen and Farrow and we see hints of it in Orth's pieces.

Feminine drama generation is fanning the flames. Make a problem bigger and more outrageous. Take the mean girl process, where a rumor is repeated and embellished until it's a Known Fact. By the time the population has heard the rumor, it doesn't matter whether it started with a kernel of truth or not. It has snowballed.

Orth's articles have more than a whiff of this dynamic. Much of what she reports is hearsay, things Farrow told her friends that they did not see. It's not hard to imagine Farrow's circle of friends repeating Allen's little outrages that she dropped into the conversation. Once group animosity is established, it's not hard to build on those beliefs and create an us-versus-him environment.

Female aggression is typically social, and we see this in the resurgence of accusations against Allen. Not only is all analysis of the claims shouted down, it's not uncommon to see people raising questions be called pedophiles themselves. We all agree he did it, so any attempt to quiet the roar must be saying that what he did is okay, right?

What all the screaming does is mask the issues at hand. It bullies dissenters into silence. That's a problem whether the accusations are true or not.