As a corollary to Jeff’s recent posts on our assuredly illiberal progressives, I offer a piece from the City Journal exploring the material outcome of the Enlightenment. No, it wasn’t just internet porn.
Give it a read and consider one basic effect from an intellectual movement that classical liberals consider worthy of conserving and progressives consider… not at all.
Of course, the Enlightenment did murder Western Civilization. Which, that just sounds bad, doesn’t it?
1. Oh, I forgot to hat tip sdferr for the Davies lecture. Sorry. Tip o’ the hat, sir.
2. Yeah, I know the guy references the dreaded Global Warming at the end.
I suspect that, by the end of this century, Western “Civilization” will have risen from the grave. It’ll be the modern era — everything from the beginning of the Enlightenment through Dunham being driven from office in disgrace — that’ll be burked, the newer the more thoroughly.
I suspect that, by the end of the week, Jo will be voted out of Big Brother UK.
the revenge of the civil war – the plantation owners take over
is very much to read
we’re doing it wrong
well give us the right cupcake then
tomorrow’s cupcakes are include coconut mango and southern honey bbq which is a lot enlightened I think personally
– What, you don’t see the magnificence of cap and trade feets?
cap & trade is gayer than if you made the wall street journal wear crocs and put in the cast of Gossip Girl
I’m fairly convinced the progressives don’t really support internal trade anymore, let alone free international trade.
Moratorium!
This is the essential part. Knowledge spread to more minds causes the increase of new knowledge to be exponential. The critical idea which led to it all was the printing press.
Today the ubiquity of computers and the interconnection through the internet is causing another leap. Everyman now has a great library instantly accessible at the twitch of an index finger. Perhaps we can destroy Western Civilization again.
put *it* in the cast I mean
Funny you should mention the internet, Geoff. That was one of the illiberal assaults Jeff posted on that I was referring to.
(“To which I was referring” just sounds weird to me. I shall end on prepositions!)
including cupcake recipes
I shall also forget to italicize publications and shall capitalize non-proper nouns!
Outlaw!
Brain lesion!
“For those who doubt the federal government’s resolve in the enforcement of immigration law, let me say this: We are committed to strong, effective immigration enforcement, and the facts speak for themselves…” ICE Director John Morton
– Oh hell yes, and it only took 12 states suing your asses in court to get you moving on it.
– I feel so much better now.
– BTW, Florida’s Atty. General has tweaked the Arizona law to box out all of the bullshit Fed arguments, and is filing in court soon. The MFM will need to get busy with lots of Fed CYA puff pieces.
Sure, sure, blame the Enlightenment’s failures on its never having met Phineas Gage.
free press has a soviet era cupcake cookbook on it’s website
not in english maybe in some stupid russian language
– I would have though delicious ??????? would be your specialty feets.
<
It is well to carefully and judiciously split an infinitive, and a preposition is a fine thing to end a phrase with.
Regards,
Ric
Ugh. HMTL fail on aisle 25…
I shall go read a book. My computer skills are failing.
Bookburning must advance into the new digital age or be left to molder in the subbasement card catalog of forgotten, outmoded passions. A horrible fate for the “Vanguard” to succumb to.
I can preposition quite too, to.
What makes a tasty Enlightenment Sandwich?
A nice big greasy slab of David Hume between two slices of Descartes and Kant.
BBH, that is the hardest damned font to read Cyrillic in I ever saw.
Regards,
Ric
speaking of enlightenments I’m gonna get these thingers for Christmas peasants I think but i’m not sure which ones exactly yet here’s some pictures for to see
pw newsbuster. who’s got time for cupcakes when “transformational change” tastes better than cupcakes?
I never did find a place here yet to buy ramadan lanterns I decided I wanted to see them in person instead of buying online
I should try again this year
*chuckles* – Sorry mine Droog.
– ??????? = cupcakes in Cyrillic
– So feets doesn’t stay up half the night worrying that I called him a wookie.
if you stare at it just so you can tell it says cupcake
amish hex signs
in honor of ramadumb i’m having a ham sandwich with sprinkles
cool mr. newrouter… here’s a tiffany one
The people who live in a golden age complain about how yellow everything looks.
yes the light you need to throw a rock at a woman
Diwali diyas.*
A meme.
What has it done for us lately? How about taught us to slag on Muslims? Fuck yeah, that’s the ticket.
– I still think someone should sponsor a pig roast at ground zero every summer. Muslims would get all the pork they could eat.
– Call it cultural sensitivity training for the “other” guys.
bookmarked
who is a worthy figure morally: jesus vs. mohammed?
Jesus drinks better scotch
let us debate the ideas of marxism, christianity, and islam
well the mayan calendar is
coming up on 2012.. and we’re all about to get our
asses seriously enlightened
not the kind of ass enlightment where u put
a match down there and fart
but the other kind
A sudden disgusting thought. Maybe that Ground Zero center will be built in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Maybe, at the vigils that will be sure to be held there, the imam and his congregation will join in–in all sincerity, let’s say. Imagine his flock mumbling prayers in arabic during the Moment Of Reflection….allahu akbar, allahu akbar…the same prayers the hijackers screamed as they slit the flight crews’ throats, as they stabbed the passengers who tried to resist, as they revved up the engines and slammed into the buildings. The same prayers that the muslims worldwide cheered, dancing in the streets, exulting over the infidel victims’ deaths.
Fuck that.
1 & 3 look similar
well the mayan calendar is
coming up on 2012
Not to worry: They stopped at 2012 because their was no more space on the big stone disk.
the daily kos will be or be square
there
– I’m still not convinced the Mayan score keeper didn’t simply run out of symbols to put up on the calendar when he got to 2012.
– Sort of like in “The History of the World”, when Moses drop’s 10 of the 20 commandments.
I can read it, BBH. “piroshkiy” — what kind of language needs a single letter for “shk”?! It’s what you get when you try to invent tacos in a frozen-north climate. But I don’t read Cyrillic often enough to pick up on it the way I do Romani, and the miserable font helps not at all.
Regards,
Ric
to hell with cupcakes. the tomatoes are arriving: gazpacho recipes.
if u took 72 virgins..
and sang the song from the musicman
“76 trombones for a hit parade”
and passed out them all trombones..
what would happen to the other four trombones?
enlighten me
According to Wiki, a couple loanwords from Romani are pal and shiv.
Now you know.
led the big parade/ sorry
im having a little trouble here in river city
thad allen is a fucking joke this little bitch couldn’t lead a response to a busted disposal I don’t think
link
Better yet pd, why did Willson choose 76, and not some other number, 78 say, or 74?
1776, I’m guessing.
to hell with cupcakes
who fucking talks likes this?
– Yeh, piroshkiy is sort of a catchall word for any kind of small cake based pastry, similar to perogie covers any small pies with filling, meat, or sweet.
– But then what kind of language is so twisted it translates USSR to CCCP. (HU-ES-ES-AR)
according to the gulfer
Pdbuttons, you have to account for five extra trombones, not four. The virgin (ahem!) in use at the moment is probably too distracted to maintain the embouchure.
Regards,
Ric
pierogies with sour cream ,fresh basil and tomatoes
I’ve forgotten what the first “C” is for. The other three letters map directly, and why not? — they’re loan-words anyway. Almost anything in Russian that doesn’t sound like beating peasants with a stick is a loan-word.
Regards,
Ric
Heh.
72 virgins
playing 76 trombones..
with all the blowing
and elbow movements..
would be a sight to see..
oh /i wish i was in the land of cotton…
Cotton deriving from the Arabic al qutn, eh pd?
i think willson chose 76 for the consonance of the
way 6 just sounds as it leaves the lippys..
but/ hell..
what am i?
a theater critic?
and if u call me one again i’ll take my dress off
and come over and give u a what for!
– The P started out as an R, but the leg kept falling off in the state run factory, so the central committee manager, who was near retirement, decided to call it perfect and leave it that way.
– Sound familiar?
I like that pd, so we could say he had an alliteration lesion plus an ear for euphonia plus a sense of the ringing in Americas ears.
maybe he chose 76 cuz
it was a common formation at the time?
it was one more number than mean joe greene wore?
he couldn’t count anymore higher cuz he ran outta freak toes?
that’s a good question
why did he pick 76?
Now, now, BBH, St. Cyril never came near a state enterprise. I reckon he must’ve been greeking, though.
Regards,
Ric
So then what to make of “a hundred and ten cornets” and “fifty mounted cannon”?
Having begun this angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin controversy, I think I will choose to step aside from any further inquiries into what the angels were wearing at the time they took to dancing.
http://musicblips.dailyradar.com/video/justin-bieber-feat-ludacris-baby/
Someone should be shot for creating this …
did they make a musical
with a song about one hundred ten cornets
and fifty mounted cannons?
i’m unaware…
call battlecreek michigan asap/
we need more virgins!
for a musical…
we’ll call it
give a toot/don’t pollute..
or..
bang bang for justice bang toot bang
Hubris Walk[er]ing?
So how is the construction of the offices for the Archdiocese of Mecca coming along?
Ridiculous it took eight months to patch up, Ixtoc, they really force anyone in their employ to lose their
self respect don’t they
Speaking of Hubris, there was a cool fellow that used to comment under the name Hubris. Plus, he was pretty funny. Wonder how he is.
um its at lower manhatten these days
#83 – He must have decided his maneuvers, in and of themselves, would be enough to grant a emergency stay hearing by an appellate judge, since he caved today and granted the defense 8 more days to appeal.
They’d become cat-serenading hilljacks.
Thinking about Western Civilization, the Enlightenment, combined with beer and after the witching hour seems to bring this to mind.
Bernard Lewis: What went wrong?
NOT internet porn?…
if i blew up myself
and went to heaven/or disneybarn/ or la la land and saw 72 virgins
laying around on 72 comfy beds..
polishing their trombones;;
and then i spotted four crappy unshiny trumpets laying on the floor..
i’d think something was up…
that maybe i had made a big mistake..
allah trombone-a-lla!
May I take your trident, sir?
when gabriel plays that trombone muff fluckers..
u better dance..
like u got ants in ur pants!
trombones for inner city school kids is
a good project
cuz trombones are good at deflecting incoming bullets..
and it lets the kids know how much u kinda care about them
What struck me in the Lewis piece from 2002 is how much of what he talks about happening in Islam could also be applied, in a more compressed time scale, to the socialist-progressive left too.
#91 – Reading that, you’re struck with some of the words in the final few paragraphs with the idea that in a lot of ways he could just as easily be referring to us, if not to the degree, at least in the analogs of the root causes he enumerates.
I’m struck that you two were so similarly struck.
Western Civilization is not dead, but it does have a DNR notation on its chart.
ever play a trombone up a chickens ass?
i know u’ve thought about it..
but have u ever done it?
frank perdue taught me…
i’ll teach u too!
ask urself
where do chicken mcnuggets come from?
– Three strikes and we’re out.
I’m still working on “where do 7/11 coffee beans come from.”
getting struck by a trombone..
it strikes me..
as better than being struck by lightning..
but just barely…
i struck my baby on our first date with a trombone
upside her head!
now we’re married and she’s shackled me with this tuba..
but i’m a plottin!
i think piccoloes would be a good revenge
The book form, which I don’t have, is available at Amazon used for a penny + shipping. I imagine, but don’t know, that Lewis delves in greater detail as to why Muslim lands failed to follow or participate in the Enlightenment project Mokyr sketches.
I do strongly recommend that Davies lecture, btw. I phrased the linking sentence as provocatively as possible. Since sdferr first brought it to my attention, it’s been something that my mind keeps stumbling back towards. Maybe it’s the very same connection that Geoff and BBH both made with the Lewis piece.
buttons – What kind of sound would a trombone make if it was stuck in a parched flat headed web fingered crippled prison kid?
– Actually he leaves out one example that could argue with some of his conclusions, but it is, no doubt, the exception. That doesn’t mean it isn’t applicable in the general formulation, but since he doesn’t mention it, at least not in the section posted, I’d wonder where he see’s them fit in.
– I’m referring to the United Arab Emirates.
Here’s a link to a conversation Lewis had with Brian Lamb back when the book came out, with a choice of video or transcript. Nice.
Still working on the Lilla book with “The Old Regime and the French Revolution” on the way so even at a penny I’ll pass.
Just watched the No Reservations episode in Dubai. Weird beyond weird, so dry as to command me to a gin and tonic.
sdferr, is that a new season one? I get the show by way of DVD.
Yes, I think it was the latest episode and one of the worst, imo. It’s odd too that it followed last weeks’ which was one of the best of the lot, looking back at a short film made at the time Kitchen Confidential came out.
Finally found what I set out looking for in the first instance. From the transcript:
He goes on at some length thereafter, but it was really the bit about the ships that caught my interest.
* From the HuffPo: (Lawrence Lessig)
“White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been slapped around silly by commentator after commentator, decrying his anti-Lefty rage. But as I read the battle, it seems to miss a pretty fundamental point:
It’s certainly not fair to criticize Obama for not being a Lefty. He wasn’t ever a Lefty. He didn’t promise to be a Lefty. And there’s no reason to expect that he would ever become a Lefty.
But Lefties (like me) who criticize Obama are not criticizing him for failing our Lefty test. Our criticism is that Obama is failing the Obama test: that he is not delivering the presidency that he promised.
When Candidate Obama took on Hilary Clinton, he was quite clear about what he thought about the way Washington works. And he was quite clear about why he was running for President.” As he said:
“[U]nless we’re willing to challenge the broken system in Washington, and stop letting lobbyists use their clout to get their way, nothing else is going to change. And the reason I’m running for president is to challenge that system.”
– So lets see if we understand the Lefts “current” goalpost location.
– They aren’t mad at Bumbblefuck because he turned out not to be the Marxist of their dreams, they’re just mad at him because he lied like a good Marxist always does.
= Do these morons have any idea how infantile they’re whining pussy-asses sound when they argue this way?
– I know. Rhetorical.
– So Sherrod calls ~O~ an inauthentic black, the Left is now calling him an inauthentic Leftist, how long before they find some tortured logic way to accuse him of being a racist clinger NeoCon.
– But then, we’re not even half way through the Emperor’s rein, so there’s still plenty of time.
– With Democratic candidates up for re-election leaving him like roaches spilling out of a dipsy dumpster on pickup day, and the Left turning on him like a pack of snarling dogs, it’s going to get mighty lonely soon in the oval office.
Southern honey bbq cupcakes sound nastier than anything JD or alpuccino have dredged up at the Urban Dictionary.
Do people really put those things in their mouths?
Enlightenment can be defined as the elevated spiritual state an individual or group rises to upon discovering that they have a right/duty/moral obligation to tell another individual or group what to to. The reader will note that only subscribers to Marxist dogma, and those who seek to “work together in a bi-partisan fashion” with them, are capable of receiving enlightenment.
Examples:
a) The New black Panthers, being enlightened enough to know that the polling place should be segregated, split some cracker-ass wigs with their night sticks.
b) Charles Rangel was enlightened enough to know that the tax regulations he was writing did not apply to him.
c) Bill Clinton, being an enlightened liberal, knew that having a 21 year old intern blow him would not raise the sexual harrassment ire of feminists.
d) Over the course of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright gradually enlightened Barry about how awful America was.
– I try hard not to think about some of the things people put in their mouths Moe.
– The next move that might be interesting to watch for, as the Left abandons Bumbblefuck, is if they also start to reinvent Hillery, particularly if Palin gains traction in the next 6 months.
flat headed cripple web toed farm ‘cher” look a like
parched greasy confused “fresh out the box” midgets
will put absolutely anything..
anything!
in their mouths
hey/ wanna play a game of russian roulette?
Actually these BBQ cupcakes don’t look to bad, in a late night, sloppy drunk, redneck face stuffing kind of way.
But I don’t think that is what hf was talking about.
speaking of enlightenments I’m gonna get these thingers for Christmas peasants I think but i’m not sure which ones exactly yet here’s some pictures for to see
I got my sister some of that salt for Christmas last year. It’s more of a slab – you cook on. I thought it would be great for searing a piece of yummy tuna or such.
– Carin, how would you get a seer if the salt slab is between the tuna and the pan?
– They aren’t mad at Bumbblefuck because he turned out not to be the Marxist of their dreams, they’re just mad at him because he lied like a good Marxist always does.
He most certainly did run as a progressive. He may not have admitted it flat out, but I would think only the very far left would have been unhappy with his plans for change. And some of them must have admitted that the type of change they want would have to occur slowly, so the Obama method of social transformation would be the most likely path.
I imagine that the faint you see here is an admission of that. They see Obama as on the right path in that manner. But, they’re flummoxed that the dear leader hasn’t been able to lead the way for the rest of us. He was supposed to use his hopenchangem magic so that the new social order would have more support.
it breaks my heart
my achy brakey heart..
to see confused half breed crippled flat headed
cher impersonators farm prison webbed parched midgets
in the hospitals with tubes in thems twisted mouths..
cuz i hope they can get better/ or i pray for a refund..
i need a smoke..
i’ll be outside
You heat up the salt – right on the flame. When it’s good and hot, you through the fish on. No pan.
Viola.
throw
ever take a flat headed parched “fresh outta the box”
half crippled prison confused farm baby deep water fishing?
that’s ok..
don’t take ’em fresh water fishin’ tho
cuz when they pull out their trombones and honk
they tend to scare the fish
K – I can see that. The salt slab would heat and cool much faster than a pan surface, for reasons we don’t need to go into. Could be a more dependable way to a good seer once you got the hang of it.
Cooking on a salt slab…wouldn’t that be a one-shot use of the salt slab? I’ve grilled fish on wooden planks; although the planks are said to be usable more than once, they aren’t. Unless you want fishy fish smells lingering for days in your plank storage bins.
Nope, it says you can reuse it over and over and over. I remember there is a way to “clean” it but not water.
The left is not mad at Obama for not being a good Marxist, he has been a most excellent Marxist.
The left is mad at the stupid conservative 80% of the American public that does not seem capable of the enlightened thought required to understand that killing America is a necessary first step on the road to utopia.
What little anger they have towards Obama is due to his apparent inability to generate the obsequiously fawning media coverage he used to. They think he’s lost an ability that he never really possessed and it makes them stamp their little feets.
You have not seen real rage though; the tsunami of acid that will wash outwards from DC after November’s votes are counted will astound even seasoned observers of the Ruling Class.
Here. If you’re interested. You don’t soak in water I mean.
It tells you about cooking too.
– Some of the salt would carmelize into the seer. That’s the whole ide, but the slab should last for awhile if you’re careful with it.
…..In other news:
* Kicinich hits back at Gibbs…* Lefties saying they’re not going to back Obama in 2012….Gibbs stands by his “professional Liberals” comments….Commentators call White House “amateur Liberals”….Rep Greyson unleases on Gibbs, calling him “Bozo spokesman”…
– The odor of seering Lefturds in the morning….
– It’s not unheard of, but it would be hard to believe that Gibb doesn’t reflect the current mood in the WH, including the Golden one himself.
– If this (Gibb’s comments) were the One sending the hive a message, it doesn’t seem to be resonating the way he may have thought it would.
VDH has a good read today.
BBH – The message and the messenger and those receiving the message are all imbeciles.
– Thnx for the link Carin, but I’d have to say “yuppism” is the least of the Ones problems right now.
– Yeh JD. But isn’t it enjoyable to watch.
Bbh- if one ever wondered what one of pdbuttons’ parched flat headed web fingered crippled prison farm kids in a box looks like, watch Gibbs lie to the press one day.
You know, with a just little bit of polishing, that’d be a perfectly viable alternate verse to “Come Together”…
And will no one rid us of these filthy Italics?
Thnx for the link Carin, but I’d have to say “yuppism” is the least of the Ones problems right now.
Certainly. It’s merely one more explanation.
Did that end the italics?
”
Almost anything in Russian that doesn’t sound like beating peasants with a stick is a loan-word.”
Good God, if that did not make me laugh and laugh and laugh…
I guess not…
I had a roommate who was a Russian translator that would say ”
I don’ t ????? ?? ? ????? ?????? ????” in response to any question.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100050412/the-stunning-decline-of-barack-obama-10-key-reasons-why-the-obama-presidency-is-in-meltdown/
What say you, William the plagiarizing racist hilljack Yelverton, or whatever name you pick today?
The Gibbs imbroglio is a scripted disagreement. Talking points journolisted around. Like the howls of despair over family Christmas time ruined by the government shutdown when Clinton was working to bring the ’94 Republican Congress to heel. The leaders tell them what/who is to be the object of the three minutes of hate today. Tomorrow it can switch 180 degrees as has been done many times past.
Theatrics, a verbal triangulation which unlike Clinton’s of the nineties involves giving up nothing real. Just words. Words which can and will be forgotten when their effect is no longer needed or they are shown to be ineffective. The idea is to make Obama appear to be opposing the crazy left and being centrist while not having to do any such thing.
Absolutely, geoffb. This is their kabuki theatre where they get to claim to be centrist by painting themselves as a reasonable moderate centrist between the Left and Really Left.
Oh, yeah? Well, I have a link to a poll that shows you Teabaggers are only three times more popular than Congress! So there!
Anyone Volunteer to teabag Will.I.Am Yelverton?
Besides Patches, the paella-eating cat, that is.
Darth and alopuccino – I will be over your way on Sep. 11th, I think that is the date, for the Ohio State vs. Miami football game.
“Of course, the Enlightenment did murder Western Civilization.”
One thing I wonder though bh, did you feel the dead hand of Hegel on your shoulder as you typed that? heh
I always feel his dead hand, sdferr.
It’s creepy and… oftentimes inappropriate.