Unqualified Offerings

In Which I Am Only the Beginning of the Problem

31 Responses to “In Which I Am Only the Beginning of the Problem”

1. Comment by TGGP —
   September 15, 2007 @ 7:42 pm

   Mencius is the only one who has a problem with you, and that might partially be because your blog has a similar name. I hope you like my blog though and encourage you to list the ways in which MM is an ignoramus there. Sure, you could do that at Unqualified Reservations but I’m competing with it for content and readers.

2. Comment by Gary Farber —
   September 15, 2007 @ 8:45 pm

   “The problem is that Henley seems to conceive the center of gravity of the State as the old military-corporate-colonial-nationalist complex, the way a good Times reader should. Whereas in fact its power has been declining for 100 years, and real power is in the hands of the journalism-education-diplomatic-transnationalist complex – the Polygon.”

   You betcha.

   I take this as suggesting that this tripe is being peddled around somewhere; it has the smell of warmed-over den Beste.

   It’s good to see the classics are always in vogue: “There was a certain amount of very fast footwork required to go from this to invading and subjugating the South.”

   “The problem with the taxonomy is that it kind of assumes you believe in democracy, which I don’t….”

   Big shock.

3. Comment by Walt —
   September 15, 2007 @ 9:59 pm

   I couldn’t read past the part Gary excerpts up above. I just couldn’t. I’m not strong enough anymore.

4. Comment by Mona —
   September 15, 2007 @ 10:20 pm

   After a bit could only scan that stuff — way too long and dense (in multiple senses). But anyone who has not heard of Tom Hayden until 9/12/07 and yet thinks they can intelligently comment on the topics in that post is a moron.

5. Comment by Nell —
   September 16, 2007 @ 9:38 am

   Like other commenters, I found myself unable to plow on past the “Polygon” part. But I was wistful about having to miss how Tom Hayden comes into it…

6. Comment by monkey.dave —
   September 16, 2007 @ 10:10 am

   Whereas in fact its power has been declining for 100 years, and real power is in the hands of the journalism-education-diplomatic-transnationalist complex – the Polygon.
   A good rule of thumb is that whenever you write something that could be dialog in one of the Poor Man’s Keyboard Kommando Komics, you should press Delete and start over.

7. Comment by Noumenon —
   September 16, 2007 @ 10:11 am

   I have read plenty of Mencius when he was linked to from 2blowhards.com, it’s a neat alternate worldview. For more on not supporting democracy, see here.

   Unfortunately, I’ve never come across a post where he justifies his crazy insistence that colleges have tremendous political power, despite their lack of lawyers, guns, or money.

   I’ve never heard of Tom Hayden either, nor most of these people, even though Mencius says they were “permanently lionized.” His wife Jane Fonda I have heard of, permanently demonized, which is what I think happened to the figures of the left from Vietnam. Mencius’ thinking is exciting, but his reality is not too recognizable.

8. Comment by Bill —
   September 16, 2007 @ 11:07 am

   It is very, very difficult for an intelligent and
   educated person to come to the conclusion that Bush,
   Fox News and the Pentagon are the Rebellion, and
   MIT, the Times and the State Department are the
   Empire.

   Wamed over den Beste, indeed. It sounds like regurgitated Instapundit with a smidgeon of the justly ignored TM Lutas.

9. Comment by TGGP —
   September 16, 2007 @ 1:41 pm

   If you’re interested on the discussion he had on the Carnation Revolution, it can be found here.

   All I know about Steven den Beste I learned from this.

10. Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
    September 16, 2007 @ 4:05 pm

    What’s with the reference to Tom Hayden?

11. Comment by buermann —
    September 16, 2007 @ 6:43 pm

    “All the figures of the left in the domestic Vietnam conflict, for example, wound up permanently lionized. All the figures of the right wound up discredited and forgotten.”

    Indeed, that’s why Kissinger is never ever invited to the Whitehouse.

    WTF, Polygon? That’s disappointing. Why not, uh, a particular four sided polygon with no right angles, like a trapezoid. That way SDS could reach it’s skeletal hand from the 60s and control the Trapezoid.

12. Comment by mencius —
    September 16, 2007 @ 10:13 pm

    Dear UO readers,

    I apologize for the tone of my remarks in the “Moldbug transcripts.”

    They were sent as email to TGGP’s friend SP, and were certainly never intended for publication. I absolve TGGP and SP completely, however, because SP asked if he could share them and I didn’t understand what he meant. Or rather, I thought he meant “share them with my small, but militant, Mencius Moldbug Thought study group and direct action cell.” In retrospect, of course, this was dumb of me.

    That said, while I am not exactly a “wingnut” per se, I’m certainly learning to see what they mean about their hereditary enemies, the Lunachiropteridae.

    Your average lunachiropterid rants all day long about all kinds of incredible Moon-based conspiracy theories. Amazing stuff, just wild. And then when you try to hint to them that the people who obviously actually run the actual world actually do run the world, they look at you as if you were some kind of crazed schizophrenic homeless person, who has been assigned to write a blog as part of his medication withdrawal program.

    There is also a sort of twittering sound they make as they try to emit what, to their fellow lunachiropterids, is clearly intended as thoughtful conversation. In this they remind me more than anything of the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, who, in case you don’t live in SF, you may not know became quite prosperous after their bout with celebrity, and now infest the entire city. They sound like nothing so much as an enormous flock of twelve-year-old girls. Their mouths are open, but all they can think to tell you is how hard it is to actually think.

    And I’ll bet none of you have ever even heard of the Inquiry.

    buermann: where the heck do you think Kissinger came from, anyway? The John Birch Society? Do you even know who John Birch was? Have you ever read Freda Utley, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, John Burgess, John T. Flynn, Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, Frederick Oliver, John S. Wise, Raymond Moley, or Albert Beveridge? Have you ever even heard of any of these people?

    In case you ever want to know how completely you’ve been pwned, I recommend one of two books: Authoritarian Socialism in America, by Arthur Lipow, and The Dark Side of the Left, by Richard Ellis. These books are especially wonderful and special because they are both written by people who still consider themselves socialists, who have not in any way, shape or form done the Horowitz or Hitchens thing. Lipow, for example, was a student of Michael Harrington.

    Lipow is better if you want to know about Bellamy, Donnelly, Greeley, and other people whose names end in “y.” And Ellis is better if you want to know about Tom Hayden.

    Let me also add that I will debate your host, Mr. Henley, on any subject, at any time, and for any reason. I will ride him, I will make him my pwny. For example, I stand beside everything I said in the “Moldbug transcripts,” and, in case anyone has any actual questions, I will answer them.

    Of course, if all you want to know is all you read in the New York Times, I have no reason at all to bother you. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled twittering.

13. Comment by monkey.dave —
    September 16, 2007 @ 11:10 pm

    It is very, very difficult for an intelligent and
    educated person to come to the conclusion that Bush,
    Fox News and the Pentagon are the Rebellion, and
    MIT, the Times and the State Department are the
    Empire.

    This quote has been stuck in my mind all day. I’m imagining Bush, Cheney, and Rupert Murdoch in their undisclosed secure location beneath the ice planet Hoth, fighting for their lives as Punch Sulzburger launches waves of TIE fighters against them.

14. Comment by monkey.dave —
    September 16, 2007 @ 11:14 pm

    Also, I demand that Jim start making his conspiracy theories more Moon-based.

15. Comment by Bill —
    September 16, 2007 @ 11:14 pm

    Let me also add that I will debate your host, Mr. Henley, on any subject, at any time, and for any reason. I will ride him, I will make him my pwny.

    It seems the gauntlet has been dropped.

    I know who I’m betting on.

16. Comment by TGGP —
    September 17, 2007 @ 12:50 am

    I have an uncle who served in Vietnam (and still claims they were winning until LBJ hadn’t changed the rules of engagement) and can’t be described as anything but well-to-the-political-right and he hated Kissinger’s guts. Insisted he should have been shot. When I read the right of today most of them don’t think much of Kissinger either. They talk about how lousy his realpolitik was before Reagan came and gave the nation an ideal of defeating the Evil Empire and upholding freedom. That’s largely a neocon view, so I don’t know what realists think, but according to Larison they aren’t all that different. People on the left seem to despise Kissinger as a war-criminal for his meddling with Cambodia and find his Nobel Prize as repulsive as neocons find Arafat’s. That being said, I don’t think those on the left during Vietnam have been lionized. Sure, there’s MLK and RFK, but they’re remembered for being shot and stuff other than Vietnam.

    I hereby pre-empt claims that I’m too ignorant to comment by citing Robert Lindsay in my defense.

17. Comment by Noumenon —
    September 17, 2007 @ 7:23 am

    I read Mencius’ Iron Polygon article before. I really liked the part about dividing the U.S. continuity government into five more or less illegitimate regimes. I never read any followups on the vertices of the Polygon, but that would have been an interesting series since most of them do hold unscrutinized political power that merits discussion. Not the universities though.

    I’d rather see a synthesis of Henley and Mencius than a debate… those who can see outside the system got to stick together.

18. Comment by buermann —
    September 17, 2007 @ 10:47 am

    Everyone, of course, recalls how Kissinger was burning LBJ in effigy on the Whitehouse lawn in 1967.

    “Have you ever read [peole who had nothing to do with Vietnam, as most of them were dead]?”

    Some of them, I can relate to their shrillness.

    I am vaguely curious how Albert “the Phillipines are ours forever” Beveridge made it into that list of Old Dealers, but I’m not feeling very pwned.

    Lipow, Ellis:

    I think I’d rather watch Kossacks throw themselves under the heels of the Democratic establishment. Did you know the American left is totally responsible for Nazism? They invented the salute and everything!

19. Comment by mencius —
    September 17, 2007 @ 1:01 pm

    Noumenon,

    I should answer your question about how the American university system controls the universe.

    One, public opinion controls the American government.

    Two, intellectual fashion is a leading indicator of public opinion. Except when the former deviates utterly from any semblance of reason or sanity – and it takes a lot – there is no evidence of any sustainable divergence. If intellectuals believe in gay marriage now, all sane and normal people will believe in gay marriage in 50 years. This is just how it works. The principle probably cannot be extended to actual human sacrifice, but you never know.

    Three, the American university system controls intellectual fashion. I think this goes pretty much without saying. You might have noticed, for example, that there is no longer any distinctively British, French, German, or even European intellectual tradition. There is one academic system, and its most prestigious institutions are in North America.

    Four, the American government controls the universe. Or at least those parts of it which it can decide either to bomb or not to bomb. Certainly including the entire surface of Planet Three. Certainly at all times since the end of the European balance of power in 1918.

    Ergo, the American university system controls the universe.

20. Comment by mencius —
    September 17, 2007 @ 1:14 pm

    buermann:

    Ooh! Old Dealers! I can see the little gleam in your eye. This heretic is praising Old Dealers. Witchcraft! We have him now. He’ll burn tonight, for sure.

    Somehow, whenever one hints that one is not utterly confident of the absolute and total sanctity of the New Deal, its unquestionable legitimacy and quasipapal holiness – “perhaps he even thinks of FDR as a sort of American Peron or Putin; the ingrate wretch! And I bet his mortgage is owned by Fannie Mae” – he evokes this fascinating ad hitlerum, or more properly ad hooverium, response. I mean, goodness gracious, Herbert Hoover actually wrote his own books and speeches! Just like Hitler. You see the problem.

    But no, the Old Deal is discredited. Gee, I wonder how that happened. Maybe it was Bayesian inference? Was some kind of a mathematical proof presented, something really stunning, like general relativity or Church-Turing equivalence? What was this devastating hypothesis?

    Oh, wait. I remember. They stabbed us in the back! We were winning the war, we had it basically done, and they stabbed – oh, wait. Sorry. Wrong country.

    Once you can come up with a convincing explanation of why all legitimate political and intellectual opinion in America and the world today derives from the New Dealers, and none from the Old Dealers, you are entitled to sneer at the latter. Until then, I’ll continue to assume that a man like John T. Flynn wouldn’t let you brush his boots. Try his As We Go Marching, report back, and tell us what he said wrong. Or do the same with Freda Utley’s The China Story.

    As for Beveridge, try his Lincoln biography.

21. Comment by mencius —
    September 17, 2007 @ 1:24 pm

    Oh, and as for Kissinger: does the phrase Council on Foreign Relations mean anything to you? What about the name Nelson Rockefeller? Can you articulate any substantive difference between the positions of a Kennedy New Frontiersman and a Rockefeller Republican?

    In fact, Kissinger became seen as a “rightist” because he failed to move to the left when everyone else did. By the standards of, say, 1952, there was not much difference between his substantive positions and those of, say, Dean Acheson.

    There are a few actual post-WWII rightists. But they tend to be either doomed figures, such as McCarthy, MacArthur, Goldwater or Wallace, or politicians who succeeded by compromising most of their original positions, such as Nixon or Reagan. You have to realize what people thought they were voting for when they voted for Nixon in ‘68. They thought they were voting for the Nixon of the ’50s, the Nixon of HUAC and the Hiss tapes. What they got was a sort of bulked-up, embalmed version of the New Frontier. With figures like Kissinger.

22. Comment by mencius —
    September 17, 2007 @ 1:27 pm

    Of course I meant “Hiss letters.” Though it’d be pretty cool if we had Hiss on tape, just like Nixon. But…

23. Comment by mencius —
    September 17, 2007 @ 1:33 pm

    monkey.dave,

    Think about it this way.

    Suppose you were a Sith Lord. You were bent entirely on evil and destruction. And you had a device that would let you take over the mind of one, only one, person on Earth.

    Your goal in choosing this person would be to make bad things happen. To not just cause local disasters, but to really screw up Planet Earth as much as possible for as long as possible.

    Which of the following individuals would you choose to infect with your evil mind virus: George W. Bush, Rupert Murdoch, or “Punch” Sulzberger?

24. Comment by monkey.dave —
    September 17, 2007 @ 2:19 pm

    I’d guess that the banal answer would be the guy with control of enough nuclear weapons to kill everybody on the planet forty times over.

    However, I suspect that’s not where you’re going with this.

25. Comment by dirge —
    September 17, 2007 @ 4:39 pm

    Which of the following individuals would you choose to infect with your evil mind virus: George W. Bush, Rupert Murdoch, or “Punch” Sulzberger?

    Guess I’d have to go with Sulzberger, but only because he’s the only one of those three that’s deviating, albeit only slightly, from my agenda of evil and destruction.

    Tangentially, I’ve noticed that analogies involving fictional alien mind-control devices sometimes fail to illuminate real-world power dynamics. I mean, Star Trek does a pretty good job with that stuff, and I certainly understand why one might write in James T. Kirk at the ballot box, but it’s still worth pausing to ask yourself if it’s really a worthwhile contribution to the discussion.

26. Comment by buermann —
    September 17, 2007 @ 5:40 pm

    OK, so: Old Dealer is some sort of insult in your universe; Kissinger was on the side of “the left” in the domestic conflict over Vietnam, along with Kennedy; Barry Goldwater, founder of the modern conservative movement and a senator into the late 80s, was a “doomed figure”; and “public opinion controls the American government.” Fascinating.

27. Comment by Hogan (not matthew) —
    September 18, 2007 @ 9:29 am

    He had me at “Tom Hayden is an elder statesman.”

28. Comment by mencius —
    September 18, 2007 @ 6:17 pm

    It’s been a while since I wrote these messages, but I’m struggling to remember where I argued that Tom Hayden rules the world from his secret bunker under Malibu, the Fondadrome.

    Yes, Tom Hayden is an elder statesman. He was a member of the California state legislature for almost 20 years, and nor did he retire as the result of any scandal, gaffe, arrest, etc. Most important, he was the author of the Port Huron Statement, the most significant political manifesto of the last 50 years, and one whose principles are generally respected by all mainstream politicians today.

    More to the point, Hayden is a legitimate public figure in America today. Whereas Bo Gritz, Anita Bryant, and David Duke are not.

    This is not to say who is right and who is wrong. It’s to say who won and who lost. And for a bunch of folks who claim to despise the State, y’all seem to spend quite a bit of your time siding with the overdog.

29. Comment by Noumenon —
    September 19, 2007 @ 10:38 am

    You had me excited there, I was hoping to find out, “Wow, David Duke was an activist in Vietnam?” But neither he nor Anita Bryant seems to have had anything to do with Vietnam, so I don’t see how their outcast status determines that the left won Vietnam.

    I never heard of the Port Huron Statement before either. Don’t see why I would have via Wikipedia. If it was a big deal, was it because people in power (say, at Time Magazine) seized on it, rather than it being a big deal in itself?

    I guess for the universities, I’d say public opinion “constrains” rather than controls the U.S. government. Not even that at times; see Politicians Don’t Pander.

    If I knew some stories about how universities’ political power actually gets used, it would be easier. Like, when you look into think tanks, it’s like, “Individual X funded Organization Y, and 1,000 editorials were published across the nation the next week.” Or when you look at how corporations shape opinion, you can go, “Americans regarded bananas as a luxury snack food. Then Chiquita launched a new branding campaign. Soon Americans regarded bananas as a cheap but healthy commodity.” So if there were some stories like, “Person X wanted opinion Y. So they set up College Z, and many Ph.D.’s were produced and wrote books popularizing opinion Y.” I guess Liberty University has that story, but it’s the only one I know of.

    Or maybe if there were times I could imagine someone saying, “We want that, but the Ivy League would block it.” I just can’t see political power consisting in the ability to influence opinion 50 years down the road when so many other sources of political power (the military, especially) let you take over public opinion now.

30. Comment by mencius —
    September 19, 2007 @ 3:46 pm

    Noumenon,

    The entire right was systematically discredited, which is always what happens to it. I would be very surprised if the opinions of Bryant and Duke on Vietnam differ from those of Gritz, or of TGGP’s uncle for that matter. If you’re interested in the war in specific, try Mark Moyar’s new revisionist history – it’s excellent.

    I think Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922), whose full text is online, is the best explanation of how the system works. Essentially, the universities and the press determine the path of intellectual fashion, which is why it’s more fashionable to agree with Tom Hayden than with Bo Gritz on almost any subject you can name.

    Americans today, while they sort of vaguely understand that their grandparents were much less “progressive” than they are today, have simply no conception of how and why this happened. They think of these changes as sort of inevitable in a strange, quasidivine, automatic way. Karl Popper called this “historicism,” and it is certainly an adequate substitute for religion.

    In reality, there is no magic force causing certain ideas to win or lose the battle for popularity. It is a battle, and victory or defeat for either side is a result of specific actions taken by specific people. Since we know that, today, Hayden is legitimate and Gritz is not, we know that in 1967, the path of an intelligent and amoral person should have been to side with the former rather than the latter.

    Just because the Port Huron Statement isn’t well-remembered doesn’t mean it wasn’t important. In fact, the extent to which the SDS has been airbrushed out of history is quite fascinating. I really really really recommend the Ellis book.

31. Comment by Noumenon —
    September 27, 2007 @ 8:47 am

    Consider this a manually added trackback: IOZ comments. Although it could rightfully be accused of being just that twittering sound.

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