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Herostratus Ascendant
So that his name would live forever, Herostratus burned down the Temple of Artemis, which Greeks considered to be the most beautiful building in the world. Destruction as a path to fame is easy, creation is hard. As Paul Graham once said:
Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world.
Our schools and universities have created two generations of incompetent children who are trying to make their marks on the world by destroying it.
Published in General
Excellent point, Richard. So very true!
One and a push. There are those in that generation who are heartily sick of their co-generationalists nonsense.
I’m trying to recall the autobiography of some famous author, who told of a childhood friend who had the habit of carving his initials into anything that would hold still long enough. He seemed to realize that he wouldn’t make much of a mark on the world when he was an adult, so decided to mark it up all he could when he was a child.
Our schools and universities have created two generations of incompetent children who are trying to make their marks on the world by destroying it.
While I agree with Percival that there those in the younger generation that hate what is going on ( I spent the fourth with 7 or 8 people under 30 who were disgusted by recent events) , the vast, vast majority of the younger generation are taught that there are thoughts one must not have. Evil thoughts that were once considered good thoughts like believing we all have inalienable rights.
Our children are not just incompetent – they are taught not to think for themselves and to follow the narrative -always. Thinking for oneself has been cancelled. If one in the younger generation dares to utter something outside the approved narrative, they know they are in for severe bullying and likely ostracization from their friend group.This is what the Cancel Culture has become.
And we must start to understand that the Cancel Culture is thoroughly intertwined into our educational system so that thoughts outside the narrative are not allowed in our schools , creating a situation where our kids are thoroughly and continuously conditioned not to think but to follow the narrative without thinking for oneself.
It’s the matriarchy. Seriously.
Young men naturally rebel against social norms. They tell inappropriate jokes, pass gas in public, etc. When properly socialized by older men, these rebellious juices can be turned to creation and innovation. Women generally don’t know how to deal with young men, and so they’ve (collectively) redefined maleness as an illness to be medicated away (ADHD) and a psycho-social pathology (toxic masculinity). But most perversely, they’ve created a society (women create social norms, almost exclusively) whereby independent thinking is all but forbidden.
But masculinity will not be constrained. If it’s not channeled into productive directions but is instead suppressed and punished, it will come squirting out in unpredictable directions. Hence, Antifa, for example, or the drug gangs of the inner cities.
The matriarchy will be the ruin of this country.
They don’t need a war on little boys when “medicating” them works so well. Oh, and throw in as much gender confusion as you can shoehorn into the curriculum for good measure.
My now-31 year old son was in the thick of that battle. They told us when Brian was in second grade that he had ADD and they wanted him on drugs. We wouldn’t do it. My sainted wife took six months off her job to take him to psychiatric evaluation and group therapy, none of which was covered by our insurance. We wound up with an inch-thick report on Brian that I slapped on the principal’s desk. “He doesn’t have ADD. He has an IQ of 139. YOU’RE BORING HIM.”
I was not popular there.