Nihilism Unleashed
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Brendan O'Neill of The Australian writes a very perceptive piece about the senseless rioting that has swallowed up London, correctly noting the role of the welfare state in shaping the minds of the rioters:
What we have on the streets of London and elsewhere are welfare-state mobs. The youth who are shattering their own communities represent a generation that has been suckled by the state more than any generation before it. They live in urban territories where the sharp-elbowed intrusion of the welfare state during the past 30 years has pushed aside older ideals of self-reliance and community spirit. The march of the welfare state into every aspect of urban, less well-off people's existences, from their financial wellbeing to their child-rearing habits and even into their emotional lives, with the rise of therapeutic welfarism designed to ensure that the poor remain "mentally fit", has undermined individual resourcefulness and social bonding. The antisocial youthful rioters are the end-product of this antisocial system of state intervention.Much later, O'Neill succinctly, if indelicately, characterizes the rioters as, "a generation happy to shit on its own doorstep," after "the tentacle-like spread of the welfare state into every area of people's lives has utterly zapped old social bonds." To the rioters' minds, why shouldn't they behave like this, when the adults will clean up after them, as they always have? And, what sorts of meaningful bonds can someone form, who knows how to want, but not how to value things, in the sense of having to work to obtain them? The agony of the store owner who loses everything in a fire set on a lark won't be real to such savages.
-- CAV
--- In Other News ---
For a really depressing example of bad premises driving out good, consider the following Alan Greenspan quote in light of what he knows, but has decided to ignore, about inflation (scroll down): "The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default."
The following good question comes from the end of a conservative commentator's analysis of the mentality of Paul Krugman and his leftist ilk: "How can they plume themselves on their 'scientific' thoughtfulness and rationality, when they haven't done the basic work of sitting down and figuring out how to make a convincing argument?"
Via Instapundit is an executive summary of the proximate cause of London's Welfare State Riots, given the irrationality of the rioters: "What’s the cause of the riot? I’m guessing lack of incoming fire."
9 comments:
Gus,
There is a racial component to the London riots as there is a racial component to the legions of flash mobs of "youths" across American cities the past two summers who have been engaging in terrifying violence. Those American "youths" or "teens" are all black as are the majority of the London rioters.
If you Google up "Mahogany Mob" you will find that savage black gangs have been attacking white people *explicitly* in these flash mob attacks. Just recently in Milwaukee savage black "youths" went on a rampage *pulling white people out of their cars* throwing them to the ground and beating them ruthlessly. This is a typical black behavior pattern. In the Milwaukee riot, the black attackers did not pull black people out of their cars; only whites.
Yes, this does represent the failure of the welfare state. But it is more than that. Blacks have never fully been assimilated in America (just the way Muslims and North Africans have never and will never be assimilated in Europe). There is a tremendous amount of black rage directed at white people. Blacks are the most race conscious people on earth. We are seeing a growing race war in the West (complicated in Europe by the presence of 60 million Muslims) which has the potential to explode when the economic situation finally collapses which it must.
I must admit, I often wonder if given the differences that exist at the population level; ie intelligence, sexual temperament, personality, etc, if a multi-racial society is even feasible given human nature. It very well might not be. Multi-racial America may very well end up discrediting the very concept of the multi-ethnic society. Perhaps, I don't know.
Madmax,
There is not a racial component to the American incidents so much as a racist one, which is accentuated by the fact that multiculturalist ideology has systematically excused such behavior in principle AND directed heaps of propaganda against nonwhite youths (and, in particular, blacks) to the effect that white people are evil/deserving of such treatment no matter what.
I take exception to your characterizing this (or any) behavior as a "typical black behavior pattern," the last time I checked, skin color did not predestine anyone to any particular type of behavior.
As my brother's first grade teacher, a nun, would say to each class at the beginning of each year, "There are good white people and bad white people; and there are good black people and bad black people."
Racial determinism (which is false) aside, the fact that a given culture, be it lower-class black culture or "white trash" redneck culture, has a hugely negative influence on anyone subjected to it, is no excuse for saying something like "typical black behavior" or "typical white behavior." Both are offensive because both are unjust towards anyone who has overcome a bad upbringing.
Gus
Gus is right, Madmax, I'd be careful to be more precise with your language on this. To describe the behavior as "typical black behavior" does ascribe the behavior to the racial group. Might I suggest something along the lines of the phrase, "typical black-racist behavior," so that the blame is correctly put on the poisonous ideology of racism which caused the behavior.
(Really, it should just be "racist behavior," but there is a distinct brand of racism in play that you're identifying with the phrase which is specifically fed to black people in America.)
I mostly agree with that, although, depending on context, labeling it as "black racist" is over-precise.
here is another good link on the same subject Gus:
http://winstonsmith33.blogspot.com/2011/08/riots-in-london-are-culmination-of.html
Thanks. I'll post a couple of quotes from that here:
(1) "This is a rainbow coalition of the underclass, all shades and colours are present on the streets."
(2) "These riots are purely criminal and materialistic in nature and it is the state and its failed social policies that have bred the savage and feral mentality of the perpetrators as well as tieing the hands of the police from taking the kind of swift and robust action to deal with the situation. When wetting criminals and louts is seen as a step too far on behalf of those charged with protecting us is at any wonder we fear another night of chaos?"
Yo, Gus, you write, "The following good question comes from the end of a conservative commentator's analysis..." Heh.
What's more, it's his own term.
Gus,
Yes I am rather loathe to even have to consider having to be specific about that. It's *all* racism no matter who is being racist to whom. If only more people knew that, the problem in question wouldn't exist.
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