S.R. Piccoli's Blog, page 4

Western Suicide

 

Gerardo Dottori, "Incendio sulla città" (1926, olio su tela)

My latest on American Thinker:

On September 19, 2019, accepting the Defender of Western Civilization award from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute at the fourteenth annual Gala for Western Civilization, Sir Roger Scruton gave a splendid address, his last one before he left this world after battling cancer.  The core message of the speech was that if Western civilization is under attack, this is happening precisely because it's Western, and "the word Western has been taken to be a standard term of abuse by so many people in the world today."  Yet, he explained, Western civilization is not even close to what its detractors think it is — namely, some narrow, small-minded thing called Western.  It is instead "an inheritance, constantly expanding, constantly including new things.  It is something which has given us the knowledge of the human heart, which has enabled us to produce not just wonderful economies and the wonderful ways of living in the world that are ours, but also the great works of art, the religions, the systems of law and government, all the other things which make it actually possible for us to recognize that we live in this world, insofar as possible, successfully."  That's why "we shouldn't despair of Western civilization."  We're talking about, he concluded, "an open, generous, and creative thing called civilization."

Sir Roger's remarks came to my mind as soon as I read the first pages of Suicidio occidentale  (Western Suicide), the new book by Federico Rampini, a prominent Italian journalist who lives in the U.S. and holds Italian and American citizenship.  If an attack in the heart of Europe caught us unprepared, he argues with reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is because we were engaged in our own cultural disarmament and self-destruction.  The dominant ideology spread by elites in universities and in the media requires us to demolish self-esteem and blame ourselves for almost everything that goes wrong in the world.  According to this ideological dictatorship, he says, we Western countries no longer have values to offer the world and the new generations; we only have sins to expiate and lessons to learn.

This is the suicide of the West.  In many U.S. universities, Rampini notes, it is impossible for non-extremists on issues of sex and gender to have freedom of speech.  The New York Times in particular, says Rampini, bears heavy responsibility in this regard for playing a central role in the creation of Critical Race Theory.  Putin's aggression on Ukraine, backed by Xi Jinping, he concludes, is a consequence of the fact that the two major autocracies know we are sabotaging ourselves.

Well, that makes perfect sense, does it not?  After all, isn't it true that Putin wouldn't have dared to attack Ukraine if the 45th president had gotten a second term?  And this not only because of Trump's personal charisma, but also — if not mainly — because of his philosophy and anti–politically correct narrative.  From this point of view, too, the change at the White House was a disaster: Joe Biden's "woke" presidency is a luxury the West couldn't and can't afford. [...]

Read more: Western Suicide

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The Big Lie of Woke Capitalism

 My latest on American Thinker:

"There are at least three terms to describe the concept of stakeholder capitalism -- corporate wokeness, woke corporatism and woke capitalism. The last of the three was coined in 2015 by Ross Douthat when writing a piece for the New York Times. He defined it as how companies signal their support for progressive causes in order to maintain their influence in society. Since then the concept has become very popular in the U.S. and worldwide, corporations have gone political and seek, or at least profess to seek, change in the world.

On January 24, for one thing, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman wrote in a piece for the Financial Times that “Today, staff and customers believe you should... speak out on big, touchstone issues, from race to fake news and climate change.” In a historic moment of multiple and converging global challenges, he thinks, we have no other option but to embrace so-called stakeholder capitalism. After all, evidence is stacking up to show the “financial benefits to companies that consistently apply their principles and actively work to solve societal problems,” he argues. “Not everyone agrees, however,” he sadly but honestly acknowledges. In fact, if there is a big support for stakeholder capitalism among corporations, there’s also been a backlash from conservative voices, as we will see below. But let us dwell a little more on the supporters of stakeholder capitalism.

In his annual letter to BlackRock shareholders a few days ago, CEO Larry Fink argued that expectations of business leaders have changed dramatically in the last few years. Increased profits, happy shareholders, and more jobs are no longer what a chief executive is expected to deliver. For instance, most stakeholders -- from shareholders, to employees, to customers, to communities, and regulators -- “now expect companies to play a role in decarbonizing the global economy.” And “few things will impact capital allocation decisions -- and thereby the long-term value of your company -- more than how effectively you navigate the global energy transition in the years ahead.” This illustrates perfectly what stakeholder capitalism -- the new mantra of the Business Round Table as announced in August 2019 and endorsed by almost 200 CEOs of the largest corporations -- is all about..."

Read more:  The Big Lie of Woke Capitalism

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The American Medical Association Falls to CRT

 

My latest on American Thinker:

"The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.” This well-known quote is a liberal translation of Antonio Gramsci popularized by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, which renders “In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear” as “Now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Communist leader and theoretician who is considered the forefather of Critical Race Theory, had probably no idea that, a century later, such an accurate insight into his time would prove to be incredibly prophetic of our own here and now. Today the monsters -- or morbid symptoms -- are among us as neighbors, colleagues, and friends accept and embrace the Critical Race Theory and its ramifications in the many fields of human life and scientific research.

One of these fields -- perhaps the most unthinkable -- is that of medical science and practice. Things have meaningfully changed since on June 25, 2021, White Coats for Black Lives (WC4BL), a national organization led by medical students, published its statement of “vision and values.” The organization, which boasts 75 chapters at medical schools across the country and was called to action by the Black Lives Matter movement, “aims to dismantle racism in medicine and fight for the health of Black people and other people of color […]. Our job is two-fold: 1) dismantling dominant, exploitative systems in the United States, which are largely reliant on anti-Black racism, colonialism, cisheteropatriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism; and 2) rebuilding a future that supports the health and well-being of marginalized communities.” WC4BL also focuses on “dismantling fatphobia,” embracing “Black queer feminist praxis (theory and practice),” “unlearning toxic medical knowledge and relearning medical care that centers the needs of Black people and communities.” [...]

On top of that, the Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) recent guide to anti-racism planning suggests that universities develop a scorecard “similar to the White Coats for Black Lives’ Racial Justice Report Card.” A very important endorsement! Similarly, the October 30, 2021 “Guide to Language, Narrative, and Concepts,” a collaboration between the American Medical Association (AMA) and the AAMC Center for Health Justice, offers “a guidance on language for promoting health equity, contrasting traditional/outdated terms with equity-focused alternatives,” explores “how narratives (the power behind words) matter,” and provides “a glossary of key terms, defining key concepts, and whenever possible acknowledging debates over definitions and usage.” Terms such as “Caucasian,” for instance, should be avoided. Conventional phrases such as “Low-income people have the highest level of coronary artery disease in the United States” and “Native Americans have the highest mortality rates in the United States” should be changed respectively into..."

Read more: The American Medical Association Falls to CRT

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The Covid fear factory is trembling

 

My latest on American Thinker: 

"Hard times are coming for vaccine fanatics and fear-mongering lockdown enthusiasts, or at least that’s what we can reasonably expect after reading the news coming out of South Africa and the U.K. about the Omicron variant. As a matter of fact, the data out of South Africa after five weeks of Omicron spread and out of the U.K. in the first full week after Omicron hit the country suggest that the new Covid-19 variant should be a cause for celebration and relief, not fear and alarm—yet that’s not the direction in which the American media and many politicians are heading..." READ THE RESTCOPYRIGHT NOTICE:

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Will American Wokeness Destroy the Rest of the West?

It definitely seems that there's a sickness emanating from the United States that seeks to contaminate all of Western civilization. France in particular, believe it or not, is alarmed... My latest on American Thinker. COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

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The Left and the Control of Meaning

 

"If this isn’t a fight to the death, I don’t know what it is." 

My latest on American Thinker.

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The Woke Are Coming to Britain

As a result of the rise of wokism, faith in the principles of economic freedom and meritocracy is at an all-time low in the UK... My latest on American Thinker. 

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Critical Race Theory and Its Offspring, BLM, Have Struck Again.

American Thinker – one of my favorite online magazines! – just published a piece I wrote about how Critical Race Theory seems to have become the EU’s equivalent of China’s Cultural Revolution, and BLM’s agenda is the most crucial social problem facing the old continent.

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Blessed Are the Free in Spirit: a Review by Walter Bernardone

Once upon a time, I was a blogger. Now I’m someone who has a blog somewhere but has no time to update it anymore. But once a blogger, always a blogger… yeah, as Samuel Robert Piccoli has brilliantly (albeit indirectly) shown throughout his new book, blogging is much more than simply writing, it’s a way of life. Most people think blogging is a Web site on which people publish periodic entries in reverse chronological order and allow readers to leave comments.

This is only partially true, however. As a matter of fact, blogging is defined more by a personal and opinionated writing style. The over-40’s know that blogs went largely unchallenged until Facebook reshaped consumer behavior with its all-purpose hub for posting everything social. Twitter also contributed to the upheaval. No longer did Internet users need a blog to connect with the rest of the world. They could instead post quick updates to link to articles that infuriated them, comment on news events, share photos or promote some cause, all the things a blog was intended to do. Yet the change is real, but not essential.

What I loved most about Blessed Are the Free in Spirit is that it is the quintessence of blogging, an example of blogging at its best.

Rob – as the author is best known in the blogosphere and social media – is also a philosopher and a man of letters, and this makes his writing even more fascinating. He can write about almost everything, as his book shows, without boring the reader. In short, he’s a great writer.

Walter Bernardone (GoodReads, March 16, 2021)

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Blessed Are the Free in Spirit: a Review by Helen Butler

Rarely have I come across such an inspirational and enlightening book. Though simply and pleasantly written, Blessed Are the Free in Spirit: A Journal in Complicated times displays a critical spirit that is rare for our time of politically correct madness. This book challenges the reader without appearing to and without ever trying to preach to them, letting them make their own minds up about the many issues and topics the author touches upon, ranging from philosophy to literature, from politics to social media, from songs to seasons and places…

At the same time the book shows the importance to have a strong inner compass, and in so doing the author takes the reader’s consciousness to the highest level.

With that being said, if there is a flaw with this book, it is that it is not for everyone: it is not for small-minded people. It is not for people who cannot bear the freedom to be themselves and to take risks rather than just follow convention.

Politically speaking I’d say that this is a book for open-minded Conservatives and common-sense Liberals, or vice versa. Religiously speaking, in turn, this is a book for open-minded Christians and open-hearted secularists. And so on. Not by chance, as the author himself suggests in the Introduction, Blessed Are the Free in Spirit was conceived under the sign of Michel de Montaigne, who excelled in the art of looking at the things of this world without blinkers, prejudices, and preconceived notions. As S.R. Piccoli puts it, “the Lord of Montaigne was a skeptic, but of a very different sort from the one we are familiar with. He was not the kind of skeptic who basically believes in nothing, who refuses to take anything on faith, who takes issue with organized religion, and things like these. Yes, he was a man who doubted almost everything, but at the same time, he was a good Catholic, one who believed without reservation all that the church taught and prescribed. Strange enough, isn’t it? But strange as it might seem, to be honest that’s what I have always liked the most about him.”

To say that I like this book is an understatement, I love Blessed Are the Free in Spirit and strongly recommend it!

Helen Butler (GoodReads, March 13, 2021)

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