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9/1/1999
EAR PLUGS
DAMN if it ain't a laborious long weekend of music decisions.
Montreaux is IT for you jazzholes out there, you can't swing an empty
Heineken bottle in East Atlanta without smacking into a good show, 9
Lives is having a massive battle of local bands Friday and Saturday,
89.3 has their annual blues barbecue on Monday with an amazing
lineup, and I promised myself I'd take a weekend and do a massive
update to the Ear Plugs site (we have a TON of photos to add and some
new search features and such.)
But then there's the Starlight Drive-Invasion.
Looks like I'll be coated in sunscreen, bug repellant and smiles this
weekend...
BLASPHEMY
Don't know why everyone's so opposed to removing evolution from public school
curricula. I've been in Cobb County, GA for almost a year now, and I have seen
no evidence that any kind of evolution has ever taken place here. degenerate JDP
The Swine Are Barking
If I had known that sucking "the life out of the… media-circus tit that is the
Kansas State Board of Education" was what's required to get degenerate MAC to
show himself, I'd have done it sooner. MAC offered us one long, cool drink of
intelligence - a real commodity out here in the Wasteland. As fine as MAC's
comments were - and they were fine - there was room for a couple of questions,
or at least comments. First, though the "media-circus tit" may appear dry on the
Kansas issue, rest assured that the shriveled paps of superstition are always
leaking and will continue to do so till the end of time. The decision of the
KSBE concerning teaching evolution is only the most recent incident in a battle
that goes back 2,500 years when the first philosopher, Thales of Miletus, argued
that the moon was not a god but a magnificent rock. In doing this, Thales opened
a new avenue for human knowledge, one that would later be called "reason" and,
among other things, focused into "scientific method." Ever since the arrival of
this way of looking at the world, though, there have remained those in the
religio-mythological camp who wish to have their perspective sanctified as being
"science" or "scientific." Not satisfied with religion being religion, they
insist it must be science as well, inevitably offering literalistic and
materialistic interpretations of their own dogma and metaphors. This is probably
because of desire for power, superstition, fear, and intellectual inertia. They
end up with bad religion and no science at all. Now, having said this, we come
to the core of the problem: Is education the means to stop the masses from
imposing their superstitions on the more enlightened minority? MAC says,
resoundingly and democratically, yes. "Critical thinking is the way to go.
Teaching critical thinking is the challenge." I am less sanguine on this topic.
First, critical thinking is an unnatural burden which one must choose to take
upon one's self. And unless one volunteers for it - that is, unless one feels
the NEED for it - one will never attempt to think in a truly rational manner.
Being a matter of effort, critical thinking is an inherently minority affair.
What makes the mass a mass is its very unwillingness to accept the burden of
creativity and self-motivated thinking. If the masses were amenable to accepting
responsibility, they would immediately cease to be mass. We have evidence,
though, that this does not tend to happen. MAC seems to pretend that the Kansas
SBE has never heard of critical thought, general learning, and scientific theory
when, in fact, we all know they have, in some form, been exposed to these things
their whole lives. Even with the benefit of this exposure they have chosen to
reject it as superfluous. Instead, they have taken the easy road of unexamined
opinion and authoritarianism as a substitute for the arduous journey demanded by
history and reason. The very thought of trying to "educate" such people smacks
of tossing the proverbial pearls before the swine. "Does charging the mob with
ignorance impel it to seek enlightenment?" asks MAC. No, it does not. But, then
again, nothing could so impel it because "the mob" isn't interested in
knowledge, no matter how it is addressed. No one looks for what he thinks he
already has and the mass man is certain beyond all doubt that he "knows" all he
needs to know about everything. He is smug and satisfied. What makes our
situation precarious, however, is not that there is a mass of ignorant people
who are content to wallow in their ignorance; these, like the poor, we have
always had with us. Our age is particularly dangerous because THIS mass has no
tolerance for the existence of an educated minority in its midst. Not only is
the minority simply irritating to the mass man - because their existence implies
his inferiority, but they also insist on contradicting his beliefs. So, the
majority, in retaliation, feels it must have its way, even to the point of
absurdity, even to the point of trying to wish away the backbone of biological
thought, for instance. The only thing to do, at the moment, is to protect the
rights of the select minority and to stop mincing words; it is time that the
willfully ignorant receive no more acts of obeisance from their betters. For the
mob is not merely ignorant, but also stupid, and it needs to be reminded of this
every time it rears its idiot head to speak or act. We need to install an
inferiority complex in the masses - mass man must be rendered docile. Of course,
all of this depends on those who are capable of doing so taking up their
peculiar cross and stepping onto the Via Dolorosa of culture. There is no excuse
for the non-mass man to live the carefree, anti-gravitational existence of the
masses. There is no other route to true freedom, no other hope for the Western
way of life. The masses will be led properly - and their social, political, and
cultural function is to be led - only if each person so able takes on the weight
of service and becomes a living example.
degenerate RVI
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