Anglosphere

Reflections on Victimhood becoming Entitlement – The Tenth Commandment

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I like both Haidt and Foster’s remarks. This is a comment that got out of hand.

I would observe that it isn’t like we didn’t know that we hadn’t been warned. Victimization is of course, more common in a culture of feelings than of thought, of sentimentality than sense. It is old in close knit communities where others can be expected to sympathize (think of the power of the younger, weaker child over an older, stronger sibling in making a case to a parent). I suspect that in the past it has more often characterized a small, closely knit group and the wielders of the power were probably more often women (think especially mothers). The boldness with which women project the claim today probably comes from an assurance that counters the value of the claim itself; we are out of the closet in terms of competitive will but we’ve lost the skill to wield it subtly. As a comment observes, this 21st century feminization of American culture enriches Oprah. But on the founders’ ships, embarking on an adventure in itself signaling virtue, it might have been more powerful if the leaders hadn’t been so aware of human nature and condemned it so clearly.

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Cannon Fodder

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An archaic term, in general; according to the wildly variable and sometimes suspect Wikipedia, it is a term taken from an even more archaic term for food for livestock. “Soldiers are the metaphorical food for enemy cannon fire.” Wikipedia defines the expression further as, “…an informal, derogatory term for combatants who are regarded … as expendable in the face of enemy fire … or to distinguish expendable low-grade or inexperienced combatants from supposedly more valuable veterans.”

Expendable is the operative word, and expendable without much regret on the part of the credentialed elite the political, social or military elite because the expected goal is considered worth the sacrifice, especially if the sacrifice is borne by others. Reading this week about the sexual violence reported reluctantly in many cases by German media as being perpetrated on a grand scale by recent Middle Eastern migrants masquerading as war refugees on women in German cities on this last New Years Eve gave me a sickening new understanding of the concept.

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“Miscellaneous Americana for the New Year”

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A new, brief and most interesting post from Seth Barrett Tillman:

[Wilkes] was expelled from the Commons in 1764, and also expelled 3 times in 1769. After the last expulsion in 1769, he ran for election yet again, and although he had more votes than his opponent, the Commons seated his opponent. He was elected again in 1774 and took his seat. Arguably, Wilkes’ taking his seat in 1774 established the principle that each member of the House of Commons is chosen by the voters, and that the voters’ choice cannot be second-guessed, rejected, or overturned merely because a majority of the House finds a particular member’s political principles and morals objectionable.

Read the whole thing, as the bloggers say.

Once Again and With Feeling

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Add me to a relatively short list of people on social media who are not making any particular gesture of sympathy and solidarity with the people of France who have been whammed for the second time in a year by the bloody-minded foot-soldiers of Islam. It’s not that I don’t care, and that I don’t feel the least shred of human sympathy for those people who went out for a drink and a good meal at a popular restaurant, a raucous rock concert, a soccer game, and then had their lives changed forever if not ended entirely. It’s just that at this particular point in time, I am a bit tired of making easy feel-good, symbolic gestures about Islamic terrorism. Once you’ve made them … then, what for a follow-up?

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