Every rationalist is a disappointed lover. The rationalist becomes a rationalist because he has one simple dream: he wants the world to be ruled by reason. This dream always lets him down and always will.These clowns always have no conception of the sins/virtues and how they just so happen to line up on emotion/reason. It's always the same old fight by the clueless.
Itβs easy to fault the rationalists for the semiotic arrogance of their self-selected label. As if no one in history had ever thought of being rational! This is uber cringe.
The disappointed lover keeps being disappointed. And he keeps coming back: like the dolphin, he enjoys his rest in motion. The dissident is trying to get out of Platoβs cave. The rationalist is trying to furnish it. Tough when the trees are so drippy, and the sun is so weakβthe upholstery gets moldy so fastβ¦
Late in any empire, there is an air of dismal futility to all these efforts at reform. Since talking about what should be done is a pastime, a profession, a pretense that will never cease before they stop having Super Bowls, the discourse continues. Everyone really knows the real answer: nothing can be done. Nothing will be done.
What seems clear is that Bidenβs inauguration marks the hegemony of an American oligarchy that sees its relationship with China as a shield and sword against their own countrymen. Like Athensβ Thirty Tyrants, they are not simply contemptuous of a political system that recognizes the natural rights of all its citizens that are endowed by our creator; they despise in particular the notion that those they rule have the same rights they do. Witness their newfound respect for the idea that speech should only be free for the enlightened few who know how to use it properly. Like Critias and the pro-Sparta faction, the new American oligarchy believes that democracyβs failures are proof of their own exclusive right to powerβand they are happy to rule in partnership with a foreign power that will help them destroy their own countrymen.I suspect things will get far, far bloodier.
What does history teach us about this moment? The bad news is that the Thirty Tyrants exiled notable Athenian democrats and confiscated their property while murdering an estimated 5% of the Athenian population. The good news is that their rule lasted less than a year.
If the USA is so powerful, how is it that it failed to crush Russia? What about Iran? Or, in extremis, Venezuela? Yet, even the the last case, the βbestβ this supposed World Hegemon did was send a few clueless ex-special ops to get caught and give case of hysterical laughter to the entire Latin American continent!The inability of the empire to yanno...be imperial is a slow poison, much like the factions I speak of in the previous post.