Acorns for the cultural war......be a squirrel.....not a villager.
"Governor DeSantis will never own the libs—they are already owned."
M. Moldbug
There is an ancient Lithuanian proverb about a village whose central square was long shaded by a great oak tree. Late one Saturday night, a madman went mad with an axe and cut down the tree.
That night, as was his wont, the wise man of the village was deeply in his cups. When, on Sunday afternoon he painfully arose and looked out his window over the plaza, he exclaimed to see the great oak cut down—then exclaimed again to see the villagers, with rope and crane and shovel, replanting the tree.
They had dug the stump out to a pit, where they were planting the hacked-off trunk. Of course the oak’s leaves were already starting to wither. Still in his pajamas, quite careless of his pounding head and the sun’s savage glare, the wise man rushed down the stairs and into the square. He began to gather acorns and bury them in little holes. Everyone thought the wise man, too, had gone mad. Didn’t he want the tree back? What was he, a squirrel?
Do you want to win the culture war? I bet you do. Do you have the resources to do your part? I bet some of you do. Wat do?
The oak
Do you want to replant the great oak? Then send a big pile of money to Florida, where Governor DeSantis, with rope and crane and shovel, is trying to (win higher office) replant a state educational system that will give young Florida men and women the virtuous and humanistic education they deserve, not the candy-flavored intellectual dung they are currently getting.
It cost $200 million to elect the Governor—a young and vigorous man, with the finest academic and military pedigrees. It might cost a billion dollars to elect him President. What, objectively, is all this money buying? Another Southern statesman, a few years ago, gave away the game:
Conservatism is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation.
What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.
American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted?
Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance:
The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.
150 years later, the objective function of publicity-stunt conservatism is unchanged. When Governor DeSantis spends a million dollars to fly fifty Venezuelans from Texas via Florida to Martha’s Vineyard, what is the objective impact of this action?
As a fundraising and general lead-generation media-op for the Governor: fine work. Perhaps it raised him ten million dollars. The most impactful impact, however, is on the “progressive party”—which is in power, so impacts on it are the most powerful.
This impact is wholly positive. Governor DeSantis will never own the libs—they are already owned. They are owned by the “progressive party.” These institutions, which claim political ownership of the richest and smartest people in America, have their own fundraising needs. Everyone, even the rich thin beautiful people, has to eat. The NYT needs subscribers. The ACLU needs donors. Etc, etc.
All these institutions need to exercise their supporters. They need a basically harmless fake enemy to posture at them, maybe even roughhouse a little, so that little old ladies who wouldn’t hurt a fly keep taking fright and sending them checks. They need a heel, and DeSantis politics is kayfabe politics. That said—hard to do a shoot in just Florida…
An education show
The DeSantis administration realized that the Governor got to appoint a majority on the board of a shit-tier Florida public hippie college, New College. He promptly did so. You can read about it in the New Yorker—which also needs subscribers, btw.
What does the new board intend to do with this trembling fresh-caught bird, still reeking of patchouli? The New Yorker asks the question in its headline, and does not get an answer. The only reasonable suggestion was crazy, and was instantly shot down:
The following week, Speir would propose that the new Board of Trustees summarily fire every single faculty member—most of them unionized and most of them with tenure—by asking the Florida legislature to authorize a “financial emergency” as rationale. His idea was not formally presented to the board.
No word on getting rid of the students—who surely make the faculty look like gems.
The idea of the well-meaning new board seems to be that Governor DeSantis’s New Florida will need a higher-education flagship—a pillar of authentic Eurocentric learning—a state-sponsored Hillsdale College, with more and bigger alligators.
Suppose such an institution is truly needed. Imagine you wanted to start it. The last thing you would want on your campus is a bunch of old hippie professors and shaggy midwit stoner “students.” If you had to start with New College, you instantly realize, all you would keep is the land and buildings.
Perhaps, if Harvard is the Stanford of the East Coast, New College is the Reed College of Florida. Is this bug important enough to step on? Is it important to take their land and buildings? Does Florida have some shortage of land, or of builders? How hard is it to pour a little concrete, hire a bunch of nerdy classics victims and STEM postdocs, and put up a quirky viral application site? Start now and really hustle—by September, you’ll be teaching Virgil to homeschooled virgins on occupied Seminole land.
However, if your actual strategy was to get exposure by tussling with the libs, you would do exactly what is being done—constantly irritate them in a way that (a) gives them the oxygen they need, (b) makes you look like Ferris Bueller’s principal, (c) cannot in any way cause more than negligible damage to liberalism as a whole.
For this, millions of human beings pour out their hearts, or at least their votes—for this, nine and ten figures change hands. The poor donors. They are being skinned.
Even my proposed Homeschooled Virgil Academy is in a way replanting the trunk. Not only would it already exist in a society that needed it—it does. Hillsdale exists. Hillsdale exists, but it is not bulging at the gills with students hot-bunking in shifts. What we need is not the right college—it is the society that needs the right college.
....continued in the link.....
M. Moldbug
There is an ancient Lithuanian proverb about a village whose central square was long shaded by a great oak tree. Late one Saturday night, a madman went mad with an axe and cut down the tree.
That night, as was his wont, the wise man of the village was deeply in his cups. When, on Sunday afternoon he painfully arose and looked out his window over the plaza, he exclaimed to see the great oak cut down—then exclaimed again to see the villagers, with rope and crane and shovel, replanting the tree.
They had dug the stump out to a pit, where they were planting the hacked-off trunk. Of course the oak’s leaves were already starting to wither. Still in his pajamas, quite careless of his pounding head and the sun’s savage glare, the wise man rushed down the stairs and into the square. He began to gather acorns and bury them in little holes. Everyone thought the wise man, too, had gone mad. Didn’t he want the tree back? What was he, a squirrel?
Do you want to win the culture war? I bet you do. Do you have the resources to do your part? I bet some of you do. Wat do?
The oak
Do you want to replant the great oak? Then send a big pile of money to Florida, where Governor DeSantis, with rope and crane and shovel, is trying to (win higher office) replant a state educational system that will give young Florida men and women the virtuous and humanistic education they deserve, not the candy-flavored intellectual dung they are currently getting.
It cost $200 million to elect the Governor—a young and vigorous man, with the finest academic and military pedigrees. It might cost a billion dollars to elect him President. What, objectively, is all this money buying? Another Southern statesman, a few years ago, gave away the game:
Conservatism is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation.
What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.
American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted?
Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance:
The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip.
150 years later, the objective function of publicity-stunt conservatism is unchanged. When Governor DeSantis spends a million dollars to fly fifty Venezuelans from Texas via Florida to Martha’s Vineyard, what is the objective impact of this action?
As a fundraising and general lead-generation media-op for the Governor: fine work. Perhaps it raised him ten million dollars. The most impactful impact, however, is on the “progressive party”—which is in power, so impacts on it are the most powerful.
This impact is wholly positive. Governor DeSantis will never own the libs—they are already owned. They are owned by the “progressive party.” These institutions, which claim political ownership of the richest and smartest people in America, have their own fundraising needs. Everyone, even the rich thin beautiful people, has to eat. The NYT needs subscribers. The ACLU needs donors. Etc, etc.
All these institutions need to exercise their supporters. They need a basically harmless fake enemy to posture at them, maybe even roughhouse a little, so that little old ladies who wouldn’t hurt a fly keep taking fright and sending them checks. They need a heel, and DeSantis politics is kayfabe politics. That said—hard to do a shoot in just Florida…
An education show
The DeSantis administration realized that the Governor got to appoint a majority on the board of a shit-tier Florida public hippie college, New College. He promptly did so. You can read about it in the New Yorker—which also needs subscribers, btw.
What does the new board intend to do with this trembling fresh-caught bird, still reeking of patchouli? The New Yorker asks the question in its headline, and does not get an answer. The only reasonable suggestion was crazy, and was instantly shot down:
The following week, Speir would propose that the new Board of Trustees summarily fire every single faculty member—most of them unionized and most of them with tenure—by asking the Florida legislature to authorize a “financial emergency” as rationale. His idea was not formally presented to the board.
No word on getting rid of the students—who surely make the faculty look like gems.
The idea of the well-meaning new board seems to be that Governor DeSantis’s New Florida will need a higher-education flagship—a pillar of authentic Eurocentric learning—a state-sponsored Hillsdale College, with more and bigger alligators.
Suppose such an institution is truly needed. Imagine you wanted to start it. The last thing you would want on your campus is a bunch of old hippie professors and shaggy midwit stoner “students.” If you had to start with New College, you instantly realize, all you would keep is the land and buildings.
Perhaps, if Harvard is the Stanford of the East Coast, New College is the Reed College of Florida. Is this bug important enough to step on? Is it important to take their land and buildings? Does Florida have some shortage of land, or of builders? How hard is it to pour a little concrete, hire a bunch of nerdy classics victims and STEM postdocs, and put up a quirky viral application site? Start now and really hustle—by September, you’ll be teaching Virgil to homeschooled virgins on occupied Seminole land.
However, if your actual strategy was to get exposure by tussling with the libs, you would do exactly what is being done—constantly irritate them in a way that (a) gives them the oxygen they need, (b) makes you look like Ferris Bueller’s principal, (c) cannot in any way cause more than negligible damage to liberalism as a whole.
For this, millions of human beings pour out their hearts, or at least their votes—for this, nine and ten figures change hands. The poor donors. They are being skinned.
Even my proposed Homeschooled Virgil Academy is in a way replanting the trunk. Not only would it already exist in a society that needed it—it does. Hillsdale exists. Hillsdale exists, but it is not bulging at the gills with students hot-bunking in shifts. What we need is not the right college—it is the society that needs the right college.
....continued in the link.....
The problem is not cleaning up the mess Biden created.
The problem is cleaning up the mess that created Biden.
You know why the, dirty, nose picking, sticks in their hair, couch surfing communists have been so successful?
They never gave a shit about the money. Or how they got it.
Only converting it into power.
We are playing two different games. With different sets of rules. But on the same playing field.
I think it’s already game set match according to their rules.
Blast Off and NIFO. It’s the only way to be sure.
and a 100% lack of consequences