Gordon Pine's Blog, page 3

Designation Degradation

Recently the progressive term “climate change” really did change — into a new term: climate disruption. Remember back in the day when they used to call it global warming?

designation degradation n : the process by which progressive terms get discredited and replaced by new ones

Language is a prime arena of progressive deception. Progressives use words like others use Kleenex. They use them, discard them, and move onto new ones. People may start seeing the inherent falsehood of a term, so “global warming” must be replaced with “climate change” or the latest iteration, “climate disruption.” Or the offensive nature of a progressive concept becomes clear, so “affirmative action” becomes “social justice.” Or a term may simply be sullied by being associated with progressive policies for too long; early 20th century progressives changed into “liberals” as their policies were discredited, then when the word’s associations had faded in the late 20th century, liberals went back to being “progressives.” It’s easy to predict that the word “progressive” will soon lose favor due to its association with progressives (or whatever they’ll be calling themselves next). The pattern of designation degradation is clear: as a term gets discredited, progressives simply make up a new one to take its place.

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Global warming: fits left’s social justice agenda. #Geoengineering makes left-wingers question AGW science, freed-market supporters less skeptical
It’s not “climate change” anymore. It was “global cooling” – until they realized they couldn’t squeeze money out of that. Then “global warming”, until they realized the globe wasn’t warming. Then it was “climate change” And now it’s “climate disruption.”
A Climate Call To Action

Hollywood’s Crusade: Undermine Religion, Fight Capitalism and Defame America While Coarsening the Culture and Promoting Violent Nihilism – Profitability is Optional

The entertainment industry – movies, music and television – is also used to spread newthink’s values and principles. Volumes could be written on this subject, but Hollywood’s bias toward cultural coarsening, anti-religion, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism, and its addiction to violent nihilism, must be touched on.

The argument that popular music has become gutterized barely needs to be made, it’s so obvious. The music industry sells promiscuity as much as music. The road from the Beach Boys singing “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” to Guns n’ Roses singing about panties around knees to the unquotable hip-hop lyrics of today is a long, strange trip indeed. Progressive musicians, who believe that privacy and modesty are unnatural anyway, have it all: they can tick off their parents, get the girl(s), and go for fame and fortune all in one fell swoop.

Hollywood Sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In its early days, the American movie industry celebrated the major religions. Its annual top box office hit – Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsehba, The Robe, The Ten Commandments, and Ben Hur – was often based on the Bible.* The movies of that time, starring Bing Crosby, Pat O’Brien, Spencer Tracey and others were highly sympathetic to clergymen. But since the 1970s, Hollywood’s anti-religious bias has resulted in films too numerous to mention bashing Catholicism (Monsignor, The Godfather, Part III), Protestantism (Children of the Corn, The Handmaid’s Tale) and Judaism (Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Naked Tango). Most of Hollywood’s anti-religious films failed at the box office. As Michael Medved says in his book Hollywood vs. America, Hollywood’s apologists often argue that they are only creating these anti-religious films to give the American public what it wants. But this contention falls apart in the face of the financial Armageddon these flops have created for their backers. Yet still they are made. The hostility toward organized religion among Hollywood’s movers and shakers is so powerful that they must express it, even if it costs them millions.** Progressive Hollywood’s anger toward an absent God and contempt for organized religion, a pillar of traditional America, overcomes even their eye for profit.

Most of Hollywood’s anti-religious films failed at the box office… Yet still they are made.

Despite a Los Angeles entertainment culture of big-money deals and conspicuous opulence, Hollywood loves to bash business. A common theme in television has been corruption vs. honesty in business: 81% of the scripts dealing with this treated business as corrupt.*** Sleazy criminal-capitalists appear on screen ever more frequently: only 11% of feature films depicted businessmen negatively from 1945 to 1965, but in the two following decades, the rate zoomed to 67%.****

Hollywood’s anti-American public opinion management extends to a rewrite of the popular conception of American history. This is important, since many more Americans watch Hollywood movies than read history books. As Michael Medved says, Hollywood history nearly always indicts America, from our treatment of Native Americans (Dances with Wolves), our involvement in Latin America (Salvador), to the McCarthy era (The House on Carroll Street).†

The entertainment industry seems to be addicted to the depiction of violence. Prime-time television is much more violent than real life. The murder rate among television characters since 1955 is 1,000 times higher than among real-world victims.††  Hollywood’s newthink artists derive a great thrill from exploring violence and nihilism because they can jab their finger in the eye of traditional America and the Christian and Jewish heritages they’ve rejected. They can simultaneously be acclaimed by their peers as courageous, creative and edgy for work which is in reality easy-moneyed, predictable and sheep-like. Hollywood’s nihilism is essentially an angry gesture to their perception of God the absent father accompanied by an ego boost, a paycheck and a career enhancement.

The entertainment industry, as well as the educational system and the news media, reeducate the ignorant progressively unvirtuous in newthink beliefs, attitudes and conventions. Newthinkers view these benighted people just as members of western civilization viewed those from uncivilized cultures. Like many westerners of the 18th and 19th centuries, newthinkers possess a missionary zeal and an unquestioning certainty that their morality and virtue assignment are superior to that of any other culture.

Hollywood rejects traditional America — even more than profit or entertainment, that is its highest purpose.

In light of this, it’s clear that progressives don’t really believe in multiculturalism except in its superficial aspects or as a stratagem to undermine traditional culture. No foreign worldview is allowed to enter and threaten the heart and mind of newthink. Only trivial aspects of non-progressive cultures are tolerated in progressive culture, and they are remade to fit the progressive mold. All other cultures’ moralities, including traditional America’s, are rejected and replaced with political correctness and progressive virtue.  Hollywood rejects traditional America — even more than profit or entertainment, that is its highest purpose.

* Michael Medved, Hollywood vs. America, (HarperPerennial, 1993), pp. 50-51.

** Ibid., pp. 63-64.

*** S. Robert Lichter, Linda Lichter and Stanley Rothman, Watching America, (Prentice Hall Press, 1991), p. 146.

**** Michael Medved, Hollywood vs. America, (HarperPerennial, 1993), p. 222.

† Ibid., p. 225.

†† S. Robert Lichter, Linda Lichter and Stanley Rothman, Watching America, (Prentice Hall Press, 1991), p. 185.

Tagged: Godless Universe metaphor, Progressive Crusaders, Progressive Missionaries

From Reporters to Public Opinion Managers

The news media’s transformation from news reporters to public opinion managers is, like progressive education, part of the progressive mission to reeducate the progressively unvirtuous into newthink’s belief system. Have no doubt that journalists are overwhelmingly progressive: a study back in 1992, whose general conclusions have been replicated repeatedly, found that 89 percent of them voted for Bill Clinton, compared to 43 percent of the general population; only 7 percent voted for George H. W. Bush versus 37 percent of the general population.*

An example of the media’s public opinion management is the 1980s homeless crisis. In the 1980s, the nation’s homeless were estimated by network journalists to number as much as five million people* even though the best studies estimated the number to be between 230,000 and 600,000. Stories about homelessness were ubiquitous in the 1980s, and the media consistently laid responsibility at the White House door rather than on the behavior of the homeless themselves.** Robert Lichter of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs analyzed the media’s handling of the homeless story and concluded that 96% of the sources blamed political or social conditions for homelessness; only 4% blamed other factors, like substance abuse, mental illness, lack of skills or low motivation.*** But in the 1990s, the homeless seemed to magically disappear. In 1988, the New York Times ran 50 stories on the homeless, including five on page one; by 1998, they ran only 10 homeless stories, none of them on the front page.**** As Bernard Goldberg comments in his book Bias, homelessness seemed to begin when Reagan took the oath of office and end when Clinton took over.† Newthinkers believe that most antisocial behavior is caused by society, and they propagated that belief throughout America with their stories about the homeless. Associating the root causes of homelessness with a conservative president was just a bonus.

…in the 1990s, the homeless seemed to magically disappear.

But it’s not just what the media talk about; it’s also what they don’t talk about. Bernard Goldberg points out in his book Arrogance how the media often focuses on race; they continuously point out racial discrimination – as they should when it exists. But they don’t like to discuss other explanations for ethnic inequality and subcultural dysfunction – such as the connection between the lack of fathers and violent behavior in children††, or the link between poverty and personal behavior. William Galston, an assistant to President Clinton, pointed out that to avert poverty, one need only do three things: graduate from high school, get married before having a child, and wait until age 20 before having that child. Incredibly, those who do those three things end up in poverty only 8% of the time; those who don’t wind up poor 79% of the time. A high percentage of African-Americans are poor, and the media prefer to ascribe that to racial discrimination rather than discuss family factors.†††

* Bernard Goldberg, Bias, (Perennial, 2003), p.  72.
** Ibid., p. 75.
*** Ibid., p. 75.
**** Ibid., p. 79.
† Ibid., pp. 78-79.
†† Wade F. Horn, Father Facts, (National Fatherhood Institute, 2002), p. 109.
††† Bernard Goldberg, Arrogance, (Warner Books, 2003), pp. 14-15.

Tagged: public opinion management

Bringing the Benighted into the Light of Progressive Virtue with Progressive Education

Devout progressives believe that the benighted must be brought into the light of progressive virtue; those ignorant of political correctness must be reeducated.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• Our motives are inherently noble.

• We are progressively virtuous.

• Progressive virtue is supremely important.

• Those who do not agree with us – the progressively unvirtuous – are either ignorant or purposely unvirtuous.

• The ignorant progressively unvirtuous must be reeducated.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• It is our mission to educate the young about the principles of progressive virtue.

• It is our mission to educate the ignorant from other cultures about the principles of progressive virtue.

• It is our mission to reeducate ignorant or misinformed adults about the principles of progressive virtue.

 

The newthink takeover of education wasn’t motivated by a need to improve a failing American educational system. Along with the news media and the entertainment industry, it was part of the Progressive Crusaders’ mission to reeducate the benighted in progressively-virtuous principles.

As Mona Charen points out in her book Do-Gooders, American children have for centuries attended religious schools, private schools and local public schools. These children grew up and built the U.S. into the richest economy and most powerful military the world has known. But in 1979, the Democrats felt that wasn’t good enough; the U.S. Government must have a Department of Education. The Department of Education, created under Jimmy Carter’s administration, centralized American education and enabled the domination of progressively-virtuous teaching curricula. Since then, progressives have promoted new math, whole language, bilingual education, and now, common core. These and all the other progressive educational improvements aren’t free. The U.S. spends more than almost any of its peers on K-12 schooling, yet our high-schoolers performance is only middling, and our high school completion rate is plunging. Despite many progressive educational innovations and massive spending, the longer a student is in our educational system, the worse he compares to his international peers.*

American children have for centuries attended religious schools, private schools and local public schools. These children grew up and built the U.S. into the richest economy and most powerful military the world has known. But in 1979, the Democrats felt that wasn’t good enough; the U.S. Government must have a Department of Education.

So, progressive educators have taken over American education, instituted lots of new progressive teaching methods, spent truckloads of money, and as the result our children’s educational level has plummeted and is now circling the drain. If the main purpose of progressive education were to educate children, it would be a disastrous failure. But forget that. Progressive education has actually succeeded in its actual, primary and largely unconscious mission: the indoctrination of children in politically correct opinions based on progressively-virtuous principles. C. Sheldon Thorne, a professor of history at Golden West University, says that after a dozen years of public school, his college students in U.S. History are exquisitely aware of every subtlety of racism, sexism, and imperialism throughout America’s history, but unable to write as much as a paragraph coherently about any of them. According to Thorne, they have it all figured out: the constitution – a racist document from rich white men; westward migration – fueled by greed and distinguished by genocide; slavery – a practice which occurred only in America. To them, America is bad to the bone.**

* Mona Charen, Do-Gooders, (New York: Sentinel, 2004)

** C. Sheldon Thorne, from Mona Charen, Do-Gooders, (New York: Sentinel, 2004), pp. 233-4.

Tagged: political correctness, Progressive Missionaries, progressive virtue

The Ignorant Unvirtuous, the Purposely Unvirtuous and the Culture War

Just as traditional Americans thought that those who didn’t believe in the ultimate morality of right-and-wrong were either barbaric or evil, newthinkers think that those who don’t believe in the morality of political correctness are either ignorant or purposely unvirtuous.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief is as follows, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• Our motives are inherently noble.

• We are progressively virtuous.

• Progressive virtue is supremely important.

• Those who do not agree with us – the progressively unvirtuous – are either ignorant or purposely unvirtuous.

 

Newthinkers group non-progressives into two types: the ignorant progressively unvirtuous and the purposely progressively unvirtuous. To newthinkers, the former are equivalent to barbarians and the latter are tantamount to evildoers. Because, to newthinkers, progressive virtue is supremely important, these unenlightened folk must be dealt with.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• The ignorant progressively unvirtuous must be reeducated.

• The purposely progressively unvirtuous must be fought.

 

Progressive Missionaries (a character archetype discussed earlier) are similar to those Mona Charen calls “do-gooders.” Their mission is to spread progressivism through education and reeducation. They – mostly unconsciously – make progressive virtue a social reality by “doing good.” Youth are indoctrinated into the newthink worldview from the start. Those who are ignorant of but amenable to political correctness and progressive virtue are reeducated by Progressive Missionaries to incorporate them into progressive culture.

In traditional America, those who purposely ignored or clashed with Americanism’s morality were thought of as evil. Similarly, those who purposely clash with political correctness are considered wicked by devout newthinkers.

While Progressive Missionaries focus on those ignorant of progressive morality, Progressive Crusaders fight the purposely progressively unvirtuous in order to vanquish them and establish the supremacy of progressive culture.

Progressive Crusaders:

Newthinkers who actively seek battle with the purposely progressively unvirtuous so as to wrest power from them and create a virtuous future.

The “culture war” is aptly named. We are in the midst of a progressive mission and crusade – equivalent to those in pre-twentieth century Western civilization which shouldered what they called the “white man’s burden” to civilize the planet. They spread Christianity and Western civilization through reeducation and – when necessary – force of arms. Similarly, Progressive Missionaries are reeducating and Progressive Crusaders are proactively battling the progressively unvirtuous in order to spread newthink.

Progressive Missionaries are reeducating and Progressive Crusaders are proactively battling the progressively unvirtuous in order to spread newthink.

Progressives aggressively pursue the culture war; traditional Americans must therefore defend their culture on multiple fronts.

Tagged: culture war, Progressive Crusaders, Progressive Missionaries

Public Opinion Management

The Enlightened — the progressive elite — believe that their virtue and wisdom give them the responsibility to shape our culture like a good mother shapes her child. One way the Enlightened shape public opinion is through public opinion management (POM) by the media.

public opinion management (POM) n : low-intensity but constant propaganda that surreptitiously shapes public opinion by highlighting events or opinions that illustrate politically correct positions; by ignoring events or opinions that contradict progressive beliefs; by framing issues as exploiter vs. exploited; by attaching virtue to politically correct positions and people; by implicitly reinforcing politically correct assumptions

pom vb pommed, pomming : to manage public opinion

On the national and international scale, what we used to call news is now mostly public opinion management. The progressive bias of the national media is well-documented and acknowledged by all objective self-shoe-tiers. But it’s more than a bias: it’s a constant, partly unconscious, and surreptitious process of shaping public opinion in a progressively-virtuous direction. I suspect that the higher one goes up the ranks of the Enlightened, the more clear-eyed and conscious they are of the nature of their POM.

On the national and international scale, what we used to call news is now mostly public opinion management.

Perhaps in every society some are called to be priests. Under newthink, membership in the Enlightened is the form priesthood takes. But the Enlightened are not motivated solely by their progressive virtue. The power progressive priesthood entails is enticing – the power to shape public institutions, shape law, shape thought, shape the next generation.

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Tagged: public opinion management, The Enlightened

A Progressive Belief: Progressive Virtue Trumps Human Law

Traditional Americans believed that good and evil ultimately trump human law. Many of them believed that in extreme circumstances they were obliged to follow the higher good even if it violated the law. Our Declaration of Independence says as much:

English: This is a high-resolution image of the United States Declaration of Independence (article (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it [my italics], and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

In the same way, progressives believe that society has no ultimate right to dictate to them and that their virtue system ultimately supersedes human law.

The unconscious logic supporting this belief goes like this, starting from the “Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble” branch of the newthink worldview tree:

• Human beings are inherently and transcendentally noble.

• Our motives are inherently noble.

• We are progressively virtuous.

• Progressive virtue is supremely important.

• Society has no ultimate right to dictate to us because progressive virtue and progressive unvirtue ultimately trump human law.

The unconscious logic branching out of this belief is:

• It is our responsibility as the most virtuous and best-informed in a godless world to steer and shape the culture.

 

The Enlightened believe that, because of their enlightened minds and progressively-virtuous emotions, traditional standards don’t apply to them. Furthermore, they believe that their virtue and enlightenment give them the responsibility to steer and shape our culture in the same way a good mother steers and shapes her child.

Tagged: progressive virtue, The Enlightened

The Shield of Progressive Virtue

Luckily for wrongdoers, progressive society has a default attitude of forgiveness toward anyone who publicly avows progressive views. It is believed that they must have worldlove and therefore would be highly unlikely to commit traditionally evil acts.

This shield of progressive virtue even extends to foreign terrorists. They need not express progressive views or display worldlove; merely having the same enemies as progressives is sufficient. For instance, at a 2002 Socialist Scholars Conference, a large crowd applauded an Egyptian novelist’s defense of a young Palestinian woman’s recent suicide/murder.   As David Horowitz writes in Unholy Alliance, even the socialist writer who witnessed this event was surprised that such a pathological movement was embraced by the progressive utopians attending the conference.  But both the radical Islamist and the devout progressive believe in a coming utopia. The radical Islamist’s faith compels him to attempt to dominate all non-believing societies in order to institute sharia for Allah; the socialist’s faith compels him to eliminate private property through state power, including violence, and bring on the millennium.  Newthinkers don’t take radical Islam’s pathology seriously because they think that religion itself is just an expression of the wretchedness caused by capitalist oppression.*

[Progressives] see Islamists through the filter of their own worldview’s unconscious beliefs. They note their common enemies and incorrectly infer that Islamists are therefore progressively virtuous.

Just as traditional Americans do not understand or often even recognize newthink, progressives do not understand or often even recognize Islamism. They see Islamists through the filter of their own worldview’s unconscious beliefs. They note their common enemies and incorrectly infer that Islamists are therefore progressively virtuous. As for the Islamists, they see the manifestations of worldlove among their enemies as weakness and an opening for attack.

* David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, (Regnery Publishing, 2004), p. 129.

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Tagged: progressive virtue, worldlove

Secular Saints: The Public Display of Progressive Virtue Under Newthink

In progressive society, social advantages adhere to those who seem to possess worldlove. They gain popularity; they are shielded by the fierce protectiveness of other newthinkers; they are granted a default attitude of forgiveness for any transgressions; they walk in the glow of secular sainthood. These secular saints’ great progressive piety is derived not from actions but from the public display of their politically-correct, progressively-virtuous thoughts, and their worldlove.

English: Al Gore’s Hearing on Global Warming (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Politicians, to whom popularity is always important, strive for it under newthink through the appearance of progressive virtue. Aging celebrities, anxious to hang on to their adoring public, often publicly exhibit worldlove late in their careers. Large corporations spend millions in advertising dollars seeking to wrap themselves in the glowing mantle of PV. The environmental movement is in large part a corporate public relations effort to achieve progressive virtue. This isn’t always just conscious cynicism; people continuously and unconsciously seek the appearance of virtue as it exists within their worldview, whether it be goodness under Americanism or progressive virtue under newthink.

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Tagged: progressive virtue, worldlove

Progressive Empathy

As Dennis Prager often says, empathy trumps standards in progressive society. Devout progressives are motivated by their worldlove. (Worldlove is a bundle of emotions which are typically dominant in progressives, including sensitivity, empathy, righteousness and love.) Thus, for example, it is considered progressively virtuous – sensitive and loving – to accommodate foreign speakers with their native language in the public square rather than insist that all Americans speak a common tongue. That those foreigners are then disadvantaged throughout their lifetimes by their lack of fluency in standard English is irrelevant to the empathic newthinkers.

Another example: it is more progressively virtuous to pass failing students to the next grade than to insist that they be able to meet the academic standards necessary for promotion. That those students are then unable to cope with the even more stringent standards of higher classes and are primed to fail throughout their lives is, again, not relevant to the sensitive and loving newthinkers.

…worldlove initially seems all warm and fuzzy to those in its embrace. But the lucky recipients of that hug would be better off snuggling with a boa constrictor. When standards are replaced by worldlove, the results are almost universally disastrous.

Progressives filled with worldlove are able to bask in their own progressive virtue. And worldlove initially seems all warm and fuzzy to those in its embrace. But the lucky recipients of that hug would be better off snuggling with a boa constrictor. When standards are replaced by worldlove, the results are almost universally disastrous.

 

Tagged: worldlove