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I Wish I Could Laugh
The recent thread on ecosexuals really disturbed me. I know from the comments that the topic amused many Ricochetti, since, on its face, it is ridiculous that women have intercourse with dirt or snow or trees. Nutjobs are nutjobs, right? Well … no. Not at all. Not even a little. And here’s why:
Ecosexuality is merely the next step in the devolution of society, back to the basic pagan idol worship of the ancient world, back when people sought to live in harmony with nature, finding meaning in worshipping natural forces through rituals that, though they may start with words, sooner or later devolve to promoting baal peor celebration of defecation and animalistic/Dionysian sexual rituals, and then, eventually, end up with human sacrifice. And that is not all, of course. Pagan societies are inherently different from free societies, from Judeo-Christian ideas about morality and private ownership of property and personal and societal growth and change.
Pagan societies see the entire world as cyclical, all things as cycles. Only Judaism and Christianity chart an arc, believe in and are positive actors for the idea of historical progress. A society that worships nature necessarily condemns anything that improves upon nature. And it is thus a society that craves returning to the natural human-as-animal in every sense.
The signs are all around us if we just take a step back and view things with a little historical perspective. Human life only has inherent value to Judaism and Christianity because our holy books tell us that we are made in the image of G-d, that each and every person contains within them a divine spark, unique to people, and in sole contradistinction from the rest of nature. Without the Torah’s illogical and counter-empirical assertion that all human life is valuable, eugenics is a perfectly rational way to order society. What started with abortion leads to euthanasia, and then the ability — nay, the virtue — of culling the herd just as nature does.
You might think that I am being a bit dramatic. Sure, there are pagan nature worshippers out there. But nobody really believes the sun or the earth is a deity, right?
Right?
Before you are quick to conclude that nut jobs really can be safely ignored, remember that even as Greeks made fun of their gods, and were not sure whether they really existed; they still killed and sacrificed people in the names of these deities. Remember that believing in a Star Wars-like “life force” is what drives so many within Asian cultures toward eating or drinking parts of animals so as to obtain their essences, or at least their sexual vigor. To this day, native tribes like Inuit prize still-beating caribou hearts as the ideal spiritual feast and physical delicacy. This is precisely why most native peoples ate parts of their conquered enemies: to absorb their spiritual energies along with their blood or other organs.
And look at the open and massive death festivals, on the rise across cultures around the world, orgiastic celebrations of everything that is dead. More cycles; the cycle of life, even especially death itself. This stuff is not harmless fun.
It is all creeping back. And I wish I could really find it funny. Paganism is dangerous and evil and against everything that Judaism and Christianity have spent millennia fighting against. Left unchecked, it threatens progress and civilization.
Here’s the thing: there is no simple way to fix the world. But I can share what I do personally to fight back against this creeping unholy spiritual revolution, and I mean this in all seriousness:
1: I treat animals like animals. Not people. Thinking that there is a soul in an animal (when in fact any animal is nothing more than whatever spiritual energy we invest in it) makes people crazy. When people care more about pets than humans, the world is in danger. I know people who have mortgaged their homes for a kidney transplant for a 14-year-old cat. It is more than eccentric: this kind of behavior tells us that something is very, very wrong.
2: I deliberately and publicly throw trash in the recycling and vice-versa. Recycling is nothing more than a religious ritual, and I only have One G-d. I buy plastic straws on principle. I avoid all “natural,” “non-GMO,” and “organic” products. I generate as much CO2 as I can (CO2 is plant food, and I am in favor of more life).
2b: In keeping with promoting life, I absolutely adore children, and revere mothers. I am writing this from an airplane seat, sitting next to a five-month-old babe in arms whom I stole from her mother under the pretext that I could make her stop crying. I could, and did: but I really just love kids, and I was glad for the excuse.
3: That Rico-thread on ecosexuality got one thing very right: we must use ridicule as well as logic when we want to defeat stupid ideas. We must laugh at everything that deserves our derision, and we must do it in a way that attracts more laughter and fun. Anyone who cannot take a joke needs to be smothered in them.
4: I treat every new idea, especially things like health scares, natural diets and “new discoveries” with deep suspicion. Society is being swept by popular idiocies, and it is only a matter of time before the villagers with pitchforks start re-enacting classics like the Salem Witch Trials, Edward Scissorhands, and pogroms. “Smear the Queer” is the most popular social game in human history, and all it needs right now is one spin of the bottle. Every new idea is a fad until it passes the test of time. Don’t owl or plank or selfie. Get off my lawn!
Most people do not do something because they think it is the right thing to do: they do it because someone else is doing it. This is because most people are followers, and both crave and need the security of believing that the Right Path resides in the safety of numbers or of authority figures or experts. It is human nature to follow the herd. But seeking holiness requires us to figure out what is right, to understand that we, not our herds, are responsible for our own actions.
It would be a terrible shame to throw away this incredible civilization by letting it be pulled, gripped by humanity’s instinctive need to find meaning in all things, back into pagan earth-worship, back into cyclical conformity with the natural world. Ecosexuality is not just silly – though it is that – it is another step toward child sacrifice and open barbarism.
Published in General
Perhaps. I don’t know enough to get that specific.
Hey, there’s gotta be one in the Christian tradition who thinks something like that, right?
Hm. George Berkeley, perhaps?
I just finished two weeks of enduring/reading Robert Reilly’s The Closing of the Muslim Mind, so Al-Ghazali is easily-retrievable. :-) Informative, but depressing, as Zafar warned me…
I’m too slow to read the source himself! But at the end of the day I’m likely to be much less hard on Al-G.
To my mind they complement each other nicely: All Saints Day triumphs over All Hallows Eve, and for Christians who know how the story ends, the terrors of death and ghosts are tamed and reduced to the mere light and playful children’s holiday of Halloween.
Except that “recycling” is not doing any of that. Metal, some paper and occasionally glass are the only materials that you can recycle profitably. On everything else, you’re wasting time, energy, materials, man hours, wear and tear on vehicles and streets and generating pollution to make unproductive jobs and signal virtue. If you got rid of every municipal recycling program, the market would absorb all of the profitable materials and the rest would go in landfills. Net result: No noticeable change in the environment and fewer expenses for the taxpayers.
Does the Calvinist thread reflect him at all? Predestination, etc. Emphasis on God as pure will?….Faith life as jurisprudence, etc.?
Faith life isn’t jurisprudence. Forgiveness is a judicial matter, that’s all.
And I don’t know that there’s much emphasis on G-d as pure will in Calvinism, for that matter. Even on G-d’s will as fundamental to other divine attributes. (This URL seems to concur.) There are Protestants (me included) who accept divine simplicity.
In any case, a strong voluntarism (the theory that’s G-d’s will is primary and underlies other divine attributes) is difficult with the problem of evil. A robust theory of divine simplicity handles the Euthyphro question better.
Anyway, back to the actual question: I’m not aware of any influence of Al-G on Calvinism.
Except that you don’t have to pay a lot of attention to “notice” the landfills, and they are definitely not of low expense in any sense of the term. We aren’t going to eliminate the need for them any time soon, but it’s good to minimize their use.
The voluntism/voluntarism “bordering on quietism”, as Reilly put it, made me think of a determinism that I have heard expressed in a way that keeps them from *acting*/*initiating* very much…Curious…Anyway, didn’t mean to take us so far afield from iWe’s discussion. Thanks for the response!
I don’t think Al Ghazali would have had anything to do with something like this:
A din toyre mit Got [A lawsuit against G-d]
Kaddish of R. Levi-Yitzhok Barditshever
Gut morgn dir, riboynoy shel oylom, Good morning, Master of the Universe,
Ikh, Leyvi Yitskhok ben Sore Sashe mi-Berditshev I, Levi Yitschak son of Sara from Berditshev,
bin tsu dir gekumen mit a din toyre have come to You in a law-suit
far dayn folk Yisroel. on behalf of Your people Israel.
Vos hostu tsu dayn folk Yisroel? What have You against Your people Israel?
Un vos hostu zikh ongezetst oyf dayn folk Yisroel? And why do You oppress Your people Israel?
Az vos nor a zakh, iz: “Tsav es Bney Yisroel”, No matter what happens, it is: “Command the Children of Israel.”
Un vos nor a zakh, iz: “Eymoyr livney Yisroel,” No matter what happens, it is: “Say to the Children of Israel.”
Un vos nor a zakh, iz: “Daber el Bney Yisroel!” No matter what happens, it is: “Speak to the Children of Israel.”
Tatenyu ziser: Father dear!
Kamo umoys bo’oylom? How many other peoples are there in the world?
Bavlayim, Parsayim, Edomayim! Babylonians, Persians, Edomites!
Di Ruslener vos zogn? “Unzer keyser iz a keyser!” What do the Russians say? “Our csar is a csar!”
Un di Daytshlender vos zogn? “Unzer keynig iz a keynig!” And what do the Germans say? “Our king is a king!”
Un di Englender vos zogn zey? “Unzer malkhus is a malkhus!” And what do the English say? “Our sovereign is a sovereign!”
Un ikh, Leyvi Yitskhok ben Sore m’Berditshev, zog: And I, Levi Yitskhak son of Sara from Berditshev, say:
“Hamelekh hayoyshev al kisey rom veniso” “O King who sits exalted on his throne.”
Un ikh, Leyvi Yitschok ben Sore Sashe m’Berditshev, zog: And I, Levi Yitskhok son of Sara from Berditshev, say:
“Lo ozuz mimkoymi! “I will not move from my place” [Hebrew] –
Ikh vel zikh fun mayn ort nit rirn! I will not stir from my place! [Yiddish]
Un a sof zol dos zayn! An end there must be [to this suffering]
Un an ek zol dos nemen! It must all stop!
Yisgadal v’yiskadash shmey rabo!” Hallowed and magnified be the name of God.”
See notes on the text at the link.
Writing in a time of tremendous suffering and danger to the Jewish people, the Kedushas Levi, in his thoughts on the 9th of Av (the fast day which recounts the destruction of both Temples and recalls many other catastrophes from Jewish history,) repeatedly admonishes the King, the King of all Kings:
There is no King without a People!
I also don’t think Al Ghazali would have said that either.
Exactly what I was attempting to say, not too clearly, I’m afraid…Thank you!
An interesting view, seeing the positive spiritual aspect in Halloween.
@AndrewKlavan talks about that aspect of ghost stories rather a lot.
Actually, iWe, I had vendors offering to pay for OCC (Old Corrugated Cardboard / Containers) from our loading dock, white office paper from the admin building, and aluminum cans. It was too difficult to go with them due to government regulations on receiving payments, so I went with a Single Stream program with different collection containers for paper and containers.
Also, you are ignoring the primary reason I used to promote recycling, namely landfill space and landfill disposal costs. Recycling saved my employer money! (By extension, we saved the taxpayer money, but I suppose spending more tax dollar would have been worth it to show we hate nature or something) If you were suggesting incineration or gasification, I might buy this, but landfills are a massive pain to deal with. People do not like living next to garbage dumps, they take up large amounts of land that people could use for farming/housing, and they can contaminate the groundwater that people drink if not properly constructed and maintained. My argument was based on people and money, because my audience was not in the mood for worshiping the Earth.
I suppose you will be outraged over sewage treatment next, as obviously it is a prayer to the river gods.
If so, I’m glad you did it.
The trouble with this argument is that recycling has costs as well. Here are just a few:
You mentioned that recycling saved your company money, but you don’t say how. All you mentioned is extra costs for storage and sorting. You also point out that the government has very cleverly put regulations in place so that it maintains the monopoly; thus keeping non-politically-connected businesses from profiting from recycling. This, in turn, reduces innovation that can actually make recycling better.
That being said, large businesses are the prime candidates for recycling due to economies of scale and concentration. If you produce as much waste paper as 1000 households, that is a much more valuable resource. It takes less equipment and man-hours to collect and sort, it is less likely to be spoiled, and it is likely more uniform than an equivalent weight of household paper.
The thing is, most materials that can be recycled do not add to the “noticeability” of landfills. The majority of the material recycled by households is paper, which is stable in landfills. Plastics make up about 10% of the recycled waste by volume and much less by weight, and are also very stable (in landfills). Ditto for glass. Metals are more likely to cause problems, but they are also the only materials that are uniformly profitable to be recycled.
I worked for a state university. Despite being strapped for cash, we were often forced into more expensive measures because of the regulations. Getting money for something you sell is very, very hard. If I seem a bit passionate about this, it is because it was literally my job and the reason I was hired, even more that my safety expertise.
I never got over to our vendor’s sorting facility. I have gone by garbage collection points, and they definitely reek. There is always a transfer point for the dump trucks.
Oh, I am aware of the costs of recycling. The entire recycling program was designed to minimize these costs – I had to win a grant to get the program going. Recycling was picked up from dumpsters once a week. We used separate recycling bins for containers and paper, but single-stream pickup. This reduced contamination and made sorting easier, while not significantly increasing man-hours for the janitors. Our bins were Clearstream recycling bins with clear bags.
As for how it save us money – recycling costs much less to have hauled off than garbage. I’m guessing the fact that you can extract useful materials from recycling causes it cost less money. This was the same as recycling motor oil and crushed fluorescent bulbs – in the latter case, I paid for the bulb crusher in three years of reduced disposal costs.
Residential recycling is plagued with contamination, and the programs generally work best if they are more selective in what they pick up and use larger bins for less frequent pickups. I still had the most problems with the residential recycling program, because the director of housing refused to promote the program out of laziness or iWe syndrome.
The goalposts are moving.
I argued that recycling is a net loss for homes – economically, environmentally, and in any other measurable way.
You argued that it made sense for your company. And it might have done. But did it do it in a way that did not come at the expense of taxpayers? Governments who are poor do not recycle – suggesting that recycling is a net loser in economic terms. Businesses that create a substantial amount of a certain kind of garbage DO recycle, and it pays them do do so – tons of any sorted material in scrap form are valuable.
But landfills? Entirely different argument – and one I am glad to have. Landfills can be a very profitable business – when governments don’t do it. Privatized landfills can be VERY effective. And there is lots of space.
Thanks for the link. But it’s advertising for a private landfill company. It doesn’t provide data to make your case, or anyone else’s.
I dug a little deeper on the web site and came across this page promoting the recycling of plastic. Thanks!
I’ll make the case from general statements: Virtually every function is provided by the market better than it is provided by government – especially operating facilities that actually provide a service. Landfills are no exception – and neither should be recycling.
As and where private industry, without government subsidies or other market distortions, pay for scrap materials to recycle them, and people choose to sell those materials, then recycling, by definition, pays.
Municipalities should privatize everything they can anyway. And as and where recycling beats disposing/incinerating/etc., then recycling should occur. That is a straightforward business transaction. And if cities, to save money offer the same $$/ton as subsidies for recycling that they offer to dispose of trash, then that also seems reasonable.
But where recycling costs cities more than landfills do – then recycling is not economically defensible.
In all cases, private companies should have the opportunities to bid for providing the services.
Nice that your employer saved money, but you only saved the taxpayer money if the relevant levels of government received more revenue from the recycled waste stream plus the savings in disposal expenses was greater than the sum of all tax breaks and other subsidies given to the various entities involved in the recycling process.
I’ve tossed out a lot of likes around here. Is there any substantive disagreement on recycling? If there is I’m having trouble seeing it.
Moving goalposts? You stated that you went out of your way to sabotage any recycling program you run across. Not just domestic recycling, anywhere. That’s what got under my skin, along with the accusation of paganism. I worship Jesus Christ, not nature, thank you very much. I recall you were the person hoping that people could not see the solar eclipse because it was a form of sun worship (I got excellent shots of the eclipse, by the way – it was spectacular!), and the man praising the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.
All the waste was hauled by a private contractor to either a private sorting facility or private landfill. The taxpayer savings was because I was working for a government entity who generated waste. This included a multi-unit residential building.
Yeah, most of the landfills around here are private. Some of them were poorly constructed and polluted the groundwater, but hey, they made a profit! The owners fled with the cash and left a giant mess for people to clean up. Also, around here the empty land is used for farming or new subdivisions. Good luck getting a space for a landfill that is actually within a reasonable distance of your waste source. Profit is not the consideration for the local government giving out permits – it is focused on public nuisance by protecting the interests of the people in the area. You could also replace that with a class action lawsuit if you want to keep this away from government.
I was working for the government, getting a contract with a private vendor.
I don’t have info on any tax breaks my vendor received. We had a pretty long payback period for the recycling equipment, unlike my hazwaste recycling / waste reduction ventures. Those helped justify my salary.
Or suggesting that wealthy governments can afford to (but do not always choose to) plan for longer term needs and expenses than less wealthy governments. As to private industry, how a government chooses to structure its financial regulations heavily influences whether the business plans ahead much farther than share prices when its next quarterly reporting period closes. Of course those regulations can set in cement whatever specious ideas were popular when the enabling law was passed.
Most businesses expect to see 2-3 year break-evens. Some businesses go out to 7-8 years, but almost never beyond that. How long was the payback period?
The new trailer for Iron Fist Season 2 has one character giving a memorable line: History doesn’t decide what will happen; we do.
Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to be conservative and to get things right, though I’m not at all sure they meant to.