Note: I wrote a draft of this post on Sunday, planning to put it up Monday, but got to wondering if I was too harsh. So I held off and looked at it again Monday.
No, events of the last week convince me I was probably not harsh enough, if anything.
So, here we go:
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I take my impressions from the section of the culture in which I toil the most -- books. As a youth I would have found it difficult to believe that people could be both smart and stupid at the same time, but modern books have me convinced this is not only possible, but exactly what is going on now.
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Don't get me wrong -- a lot of the books I'm thinking of are well written, with great command of the language, deft use of literary themes, and great craft in metaphor, character, and sometimes even plot. But there is a willful stupidity that contaminates many of them, and I hope to make the case for some of the reasons why.
1) Gullibility.
I probably do not need to say that these writers believe every single solitary word printed in the New York Times, which is why apostates like Senator Cotton must not be allowed to appear in that holy writ. I'm not kidding -- Biblical scholars are much more aware of and understanding of contradictions and conflicts in the Holy Book than Times fans are of their word of god. Times true believers are willing to argue that the Times is always right, even when the paper itself reports that it was wrong (as in Walter Duranty's famous coverage of the Holodomor, let alone more recent scandals -- the Hunter Biden laptop, or so-called Russian collusion, or Fauci and Cuomo as heroes of the pandemic, just to name a few). Not that the paper ever admits error; it just runs the new information as if it was never their fault for screwing up.
Being wrong when you're Times means never having to give back your Pulitzer.
2) Obsession with factoids.
Another side of this gullibility is a love of factoids. Not that there's anything wrong with enjoying and amassing information, but the "facts" must be entirely Times approved. Mostly, though, the facts must contain some supposed insight that makes the intellectual look smarter, more worldly, and that will be the golden ticket to success. This is how we get lying books like Three Cups of Tea, which supposedly held the magic to dealing successfully with the intractable Taliban and became a huge seller. Our stupid Department of State could not buy enough copies, the morons.
Remove all the garbage books like that from our publishing houses and there'd be a lot fewer trees giving their lives for book paper.
3) Dead hearts.
Modern celebrated writers hate everyone, especially their own Western countries. The hate for them is pristine. There's never an understanding or excuse for why this or that Western nation did something in the past. Pure evil is the only explanation. Every statement must be phrased in a way that makes the people involved look as selfish, craven, and cruel as possible, even if the historical evidence actually shows beneficence. Such kneejerk hatred, for persons and populations, is the sign of a dead heart.
On that note, every character in their novels is dead inside as well; some may put on a good face, but they really love no one. It reflects the feelings of the loveless readers. If you found yourself transported into one of these novels, you'd think you'd gone into some kind of hell. Because dead hearts lead to...
4) Empty souls.
They believe nothing but the worst. They cannot write a genuine book about a character of faith, because they don't know what that's like. They think it's a kind of mental failing. And I don't mean religion so much as real ideals, the kind people will willingly die for.
I've found no heroes of genuine selfless nobility in any novel celebrated by the intelligentsia written this century. I haven't read them all, of course. Prove me wrong!
5) Racism, sexism, and all the other -isms.
Advancing the wrong people for the right reasons, the right people for the wrong reasons, and of course, the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The "right people for the wrong reasons" suffer for being stuck with the same affirmative action label.
Is this payback for discrimination of the past? Fair point. Do two wrongs make a right? Try reading some of this stuff and tell me what you think.
6) Lack of focus.
No one can just do the job anymore; they have to do the messaging about the thing. In fact, that's what they truly want to do. They want to talk it all to death. Life as an endless undergrad bull session.
This is way beyond just books. If your company has to release an operations manual, for example, and hires some former English majors to do the job, watch for the opening sections to be about diversity, equity, and inclusion, before suddenly turning into serious data and instructions. The English majors really just want to do the DEI stuff. It'd be like buying a coffeemaker and finding the first three pages dedicated to the company's policies of inclusion. WHO CARES? I JUST WANT COFFEE.
But the folly is not limited to virtue signaling. Companies that ought to be run by people who know how to do the things (cough, Boeing) are instead run by stock market weasels who sacrifice quality and even lives to increase stock value. Anyone could see that it's a short-sighted policy -- anyone but our crop of intellectual morons. Companies are unfocused; workers are self-indulgent; fortunes are being squandered because no one is really working on the actual job.
7) Inadequate punishments for stupidity.
Only dissent gets punished in this universe, not stupid actions centered in foolish criteria. There seems to be no comeuppance for the dumdums ruining our society. They just fail upward.
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The only corrective that works in these cases is one that comes from those the perpetrators fear. It doesn't matter how much value the company loses, how disastrous the policy is, how lousy the books are; unless people who can make a difference get angry and start throwing bums out, nothing will change. Certainly I can be of no help. Nobody is afraid of me.
McClane said it best- "Welcome to the party, pal!"
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