While this is generally true, there are a fair number of places where bumpers or guardrails have been removed. The biggest one is sex and relationships. But perhaps also things like career choice or the accumulation of debt. Or even general behaviour, for example manners. In a lot of ways, the social opprobrium for negative behaviour that is not illegal has disappeared. Now everything is okay right up until it becomes very illegal, and then the heavy hand of the state punishes you.
Was gonna go 20 miles on my bike, but then I got high.
Now I'm schizoid & paranoid, and I know why.
Because I got high, Because I got high, Because I got high.
Fewer guardrails on drugs, or sex. Tho still about the same on rock 'n roll.
Far too many illegal rails on Free Speech.
Many comfy, if not quite rich, folk DO prefer more security (against harm or loss) than a desire for more freedom to do stuff they've never done, or stopped doing.
There's also a group of folk who can't stop themselves from their own bad habits but don't oppose making those habits illegal so as to be forced, by others, to stop.
Child freedom - from responsiblity.
Adult freedom - to act, but pay for bad results. Folk want to be free from payment more than freedom to act.
I occassionally get to work with relatively young people, and my impression is that they seem to favor the term "bubble wrapped life". They use it to describe the kind of ubiquitous jihad by institutional bureauracies to eradicate all sources of physical, mental, and emotional harm, risk, threat, 'unsafety', and discomfort, to make all of existence 'safe' and effectively child-proof for those who are -and remain- effectively children, even infantile: fragile, naive, and dependent.
The real tragedy is that only half of this is the Ratcheds doing it -to- the McMurphys. The other half is the latter-day McMurphys -clamoring- for it and demanding the Ratcheds use their power to make all the McMurphys ever more safe, Safe, SAFE! The real McMurphys out there are a minority among their fellow mental patients, and it is that majority, not the nurses, who are the real enemy.
That’s an extremely important point. When people talk about conflicting propriety what they mean is conflicting senses of what is proper. The majority of people, the mental patients running the ward, want and demand protection from everything, including themselves. Only some consider it proper that people grow up and actually be adults responsible for themselves, and all that implies about the discomforts of youth they must engage with.
Ah, if only life in our Western civilisation could be like a Western (but without the guns or genocide).
Silent and strong individuals, ready to do anything that must be done, cautious and circumspect about risk but not quailing before it..... and taking a philosophical, personal responsibility for how your fate turns out. And with that Ma'am I tip my hat and ride out of this here Substack.
You don't get one without the others. This is why the ancients tended to disdain luxury, seeing it as a font of corruption for the body and soul. The frontier settlers were the way they were because of their enemies and because of what they had to do to survive. A Western without the struggle for survival exists within Disney theme parks, but it's just an imitation.
You mistake me. I meant the real thing, privation, hard struggle and all. I just left out the guns and the killing. I guess some would say that's naive too.
I wasn't intending to bust your chops in particular. For more material in support of this argument about why the violence of the frontier made it the way it was, I would recommend Teddy Roosevelt's books on the topic: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11941
What a sad mistake those brave men made in attempting to protect the innocent from even the memory of the horrors and controlled idiocy of War.
Let the cycle repeat........
Most of the people that circumventing this current madness are not descendants of " Hitler's" war or the 'USA' eternal wars. They are descended from people that survived the Gulags. Their parents and grandparents shared the horrors with the children because they knew the price of ignorance; which is stupidity and madness ( repeating the same behaviour expecting different results)
'Crawford also points out that what I am calling the bumper bowling culture reflects feminine personality characteristics.'
This opens up quite the can of worms- women have been doing the majority of child rearing for a long time so why are we seeing these pathological outcomes now? Is it the instututionalization of feminine traits, or the lack of love to moderate them in this setting or something else? Are women just wildly worse at raising other people's children than their own?
I recall Dostoyevsky writing ‘nothing as easy to hate the responsibility of freedom’.
Also, Clerk Maxwell told the college students at his address ‘no one wants to think for themselves’. I’m planning to teach thinking , not learning physics rule.
Maxwell and faraday overturned Newton. By seeking understanding not acceptance.
These two provided basis of radio, electrical motors, Einstein and quantums.
Where are these types now?
They were trained to reject popular acclaim since they were unorthodox Christians.
While this is generally true, there are a fair number of places where bumpers or guardrails have been removed. The biggest one is sex and relationships. But perhaps also things like career choice or the accumulation of debt. Or even general behaviour, for example manners. In a lot of ways, the social opprobrium for negative behaviour that is not illegal has disappeared. Now everything is okay right up until it becomes very illegal, and then the heavy hand of the state punishes you.
I was gonna roll a strike, but then I got high.
Was gonna go 20 miles on my bike, but then I got high.
Now I'm schizoid & paranoid, and I know why.
Because I got high, Because I got high, Because I got high.
Fewer guardrails on drugs, or sex. Tho still about the same on rock 'n roll.
Far too many illegal rails on Free Speech.
Many comfy, if not quite rich, folk DO prefer more security (against harm or loss) than a desire for more freedom to do stuff they've never done, or stopped doing.
There's also a group of folk who can't stop themselves from their own bad habits but don't oppose making those habits illegal so as to be forced, by others, to stop.
Child freedom - from responsiblity.
Adult freedom - to act, but pay for bad results. Folk want to be free from payment more than freedom to act.
I occassionally get to work with relatively young people, and my impression is that they seem to favor the term "bubble wrapped life". They use it to describe the kind of ubiquitous jihad by institutional bureauracies to eradicate all sources of physical, mental, and emotional harm, risk, threat, 'unsafety', and discomfort, to make all of existence 'safe' and effectively child-proof for those who are -and remain- effectively children, even infantile: fragile, naive, and dependent.
The real tragedy is that only half of this is the Ratcheds doing it -to- the McMurphys. The other half is the latter-day McMurphys -clamoring- for it and demanding the Ratcheds use their power to make all the McMurphys ever more safe, Safe, SAFE! The real McMurphys out there are a minority among their fellow mental patients, and it is that majority, not the nurses, who are the real enemy.
That’s an extremely important point. When people talk about conflicting propriety what they mean is conflicting senses of what is proper. The majority of people, the mental patients running the ward, want and demand protection from everything, including themselves. Only some consider it proper that people grow up and actually be adults responsible for themselves, and all that implies about the discomforts of youth they must engage with.
(Ok to be fair, many people are just using propriety incorrectly.)
Ah, if only life in our Western civilisation could be like a Western (but without the guns or genocide).
Silent and strong individuals, ready to do anything that must be done, cautious and circumspect about risk but not quailing before it..... and taking a philosophical, personal responsibility for how your fate turns out. And with that Ma'am I tip my hat and ride out of this here Substack.
You don't get one without the others. This is why the ancients tended to disdain luxury, seeing it as a font of corruption for the body and soul. The frontier settlers were the way they were because of their enemies and because of what they had to do to survive. A Western without the struggle for survival exists within Disney theme parks, but it's just an imitation.
You mistake me. I meant the real thing, privation, hard struggle and all. I just left out the guns and the killing. I guess some would say that's naive too.
I wasn't intending to bust your chops in particular. For more material in support of this argument about why the violence of the frontier made it the way it was, I would recommend Teddy Roosevelt's books on the topic: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11941
You still mistook me. My musings were about the virtues of self reliance, stoicism, fortitude and personal responsibility.
Your replies have been on your own different track. Interesting too no doubt but largely non sequitur to mine.
"we don't talk about The War."
What a sad mistake those brave men made in attempting to protect the innocent from even the memory of the horrors and controlled idiocy of War.
Let the cycle repeat........
Most of the people that circumventing this current madness are not descendants of " Hitler's" war or the 'USA' eternal wars. They are descended from people that survived the Gulags. Their parents and grandparents shared the horrors with the children because they knew the price of ignorance; which is stupidity and madness ( repeating the same behaviour expecting different results)
'Crawford also points out that what I am calling the bumper bowling culture reflects feminine personality characteristics.'
This opens up quite the can of worms- women have been doing the majority of child rearing for a long time so why are we seeing these pathological outcomes now? Is it the instututionalization of feminine traits, or the lack of love to moderate them in this setting or something else? Are women just wildly worse at raising other people's children than their own?
With so much liability around, most who professionally raise "other" kids are far, far, more careful with the others than with their own.
Boomers discover the long house
Arnold
I recall Dostoyevsky writing ‘nothing as easy to hate the responsibility of freedom’.
Also, Clerk Maxwell told the college students at his address ‘no one wants to think for themselves’. I’m planning to teach thinking , not learning physics rule.
Maxwell and faraday overturned Newton. By seeking understanding not acceptance.
These two provided basis of radio, electrical motors, Einstein and quantums.
Where are these types now?
They were trained to reject popular acclaim since they were unorthodox Christians.
Thanks
Clay
While he doesn’t use the term ‘propriety’ to go with dominance and prestige, that status has three modes I got from Will Storr’s excellent book.
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780008354633/the-status-game/