Indifference

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The ancient Greeks looked up at the sky in search of first principles. In fact, this is the root of Western ontological thought. In the beginning, there are principles, what mathematics calls axioms. The Reflexive Axiom, for instance, states that every number is equal to itself. This is true at all times and all places since the beginning of time. A proof in math always rests upon at least one axiom.

The root of Jewish thought is looking into the silence of the Cosmos expecting to hear a voice, a revelation of something beyond the world. That revelation cannot be discovered with passive indifference. Silence must be broken as it was in the beginning, when God said “Let there be…” To grossly simplify things, silence, indifference and neutrality are the hell of a cosmos without the word of God.

This being a short blog post, the above is a grossly simplified bit of comparative philosophy, but the takeaway here is to understand the two different ways to confront the world. More specifically, the two different ways to confront the unpleasant parts of the world, namely other people. The Christian seeks to bring the immoral back into line with first principles. The Jew will present them with indifference.

The former has a history of running around looking for monsters to slay. Even today, when our rulers have abandoned anything resembling Christianity, they run around looking for sinners to torment. Having run out of sinners worth tormenting, they invented new sins so they could create new sinners. That’s why you suddenly find yourself in trouble because you think men should not wear dresses.

The Jewish approach is to exile those who cannot reconcile themselves to God and the faith. It’s not just a physical separation; it is an emotional and spiritual one. The Yiddish expression “meh” that is usually interpreted as a shoulder shrug is a very serious insult, or at least intended as one. To be indifferent to someone’s point of view, to not even be willing to speak to their arguments, is to relegate them to the hell of silence.

Reading this tantrum on National Review this morning, it occurred to me that the Jews have it right on this score. Ted Nugent is a fool, a horse’s ass, who makes a mockery of himself on TV for money. I don’t know if he is an anti-Semite, but my hunch is he is not because he is too stupid to know the meaning of the term. For the same reason we don’t condemn the retarded to the gallows, we should not call guys like Nugent anti-Semitic.

The writer of that piece is just a hipster dufus with a mullet and a British accent so he added nothing to my thoughts on the subject. His purpose is virtue signaling. “Look at me, I’m a good thinker. The proof is I’m hollering at a bad thinker. See?” This is popular on the Left, but increasingly so on the modern Right, thus proving that there is very little space between the two.

Regardless, the right answer here is to simply ignore people like Nugent, if you are striving for a more thoughtful dialogue about topics under public consideration. If you and a buddy are having beers, deciding on your next hat, maybe Nugent has something to offer on head gear. Anything else, the response should be “meh” and leave it at that. Idiots are the background noise of the cosmos. You’ll never hear the call if you spend all your time listening to idiots.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

27 Comments

Red Fred #8864 February 13, 2016 1:32 pm 2
Well I loved the first half of this piece, but I don’t think I can go more than about halfway with you regarding Ted Nugent. He is a wild man, a loose cannon, and that picture is rough. It could *be taken* as anti-Jew, and whoever made it might have intended it to be, but I don’t think he meant to use it that way. I read his reply that Cooke linked to, and I accept that. He’s just vociferously defending the 2nd Amendment, and trying to point out that Jews should want it defended more than anyone, and that those who don’t a betraying their own tribe in (to him) on especially disgusting way.Does that make him a fool? Mmmm… I guess you could say so. He sure could have have thought about his actual message before he blurted it out. Just my impression.I also agree that if someone could help Cooke un-twist his knickers, his blood pressure might go down about 10 points.
thezman #8866 February 13, 2016 1:43 pm 0
I’d place Nugent in the category of harmless weirdo. I actually went to a Nugent concert in the 70’s, back when he was truly a mad man. I just think you ignore guys like that when they step on their dicks trying to comment upon important stuff. I’m a 2A guy to the core, but I don’t think he helps the cause. Probably does more harm than good.
Severian #8868 February 13, 2016 1:51 pm 3
That’s where I am with it too. “Airhead celebrity says something dumb — film at 11.” Ted, like all celebrities, should just shut up and sing… but if he doesn’t, I’m going to ignore him like I ignore the deep thoughts of every other celebrity.
whatever #8881 February 13, 2016 5:41 pm 1
I thought Ted’s post was sort of funny in a mocking sort of way. And it did underline the fact that a great many Jews in this country are left-wing, and despite the history of their own race have no problems taking away people’s ability to defend themselves.In fact, the vast majority of Jews voted for Obama in both elections, and in the second election it was quite clear that the administration was openly hostile to Israel. And Jews would vote for Obama in overwhelming numbers if he ran a third time despite the Iranian “treaty”. In addition, the vast majority of Jews on college campuses support the sort of antics and left-wing agitation that is now turned against them with the Israel boycott movements, and, in fact, you will find quite a number of Jews supporting Palestinian causes, mass Muslin immigration (and mass immigration of all kind), and other things that don’t make a lot of sense, unless you sit down and think about it a while.Also, in the history of this planet a great many, many people have been systematically killed. Ukraine under Stalin comes to mind. They call it the Holodomor, their world for their Holocaust. Ever heard of it? You haven’t because all you hear about is Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, with three Holocaust films elected each year for Academy awards. It’s like Pol Pot, Mao or other institutional mass murders never existed. Probably because Ukrainians, Cambodians and Chinese aren’t around in any great numbers in Hollywood, and the Jews don’t particularly care about mass killing except of their own kind. Which is why Jewish democrats are against “intervention” – they are okay standing by and watching as long as it isn’t Jews being slaughtered.I grew up with a large number of Jews and supported Israel all my life as a democratic island within a sea of Muslim treachery, but to be quite honest if Jews in this country don’t support Israel why should I? And if the vast number of Jews support hard left causes, anti-speech codes, and gun control, why should I support them at all?
alzaebo #8882 February 13, 2016 8:05 pm 0
Yes, but if you do happen to notice that they tend to identity vote en bloc, as do, say, La Raza or the New Panthers or the Ummah, then you must be a badthinker. It’s OK for a Jewish commenter to notice that Israeli government is filled with socialists who undermine their own nation. If anyone else notices it, it seems like media Jews rise up as one to shout them down. Strange.
Ripple #8877 February 13, 2016 3:46 pm 1
To look at Ted’s post and conclude that he is not a Jew-hater — I hate the stupid term “Anti-Semite” — is sophistry of the first order. If pinning Israeli flags on American Jews, referring to Jew York City, claiming that a Jewish conspiracy is behind every anti-2A movement, isn’t Jew hatred, I don’t know what else would qualify. In the past I would want to defend Ted against his leftist detractors, but no more. He is an unhinged idiot.
el_baboso #8873 February 13, 2016 2:50 pm 1
I think that the post-WWII Zionists (the real ones running Israel, not the imaginary ones haunting the fever swamps of the anti-semites) would tell you that there are only so many times you can say “meh” before hitting back, else you run the risk of never being able to say “meh” again.The Jewish paradox informs our own predicament. How many times can we turn the other cheek before our own position becomes untenable? I went out with a friend (an outer party type but with close contact with inner party blokes) Friday night. He is an impressionable sort and had absorbed the militant atheism of his bosses. I don’t think they have good things planned for us. If my friend’s views are reliable (and I was able to pin down through questioning that he was repeating his bosses’ beliefs), then the segment of the of the elites he has contact with has completely dehumanized us in their thinking… to the point where they see us much in the same light as the Nazi inner circle saw the Slavs and Jews.Just one data point… not the end of the world, but not good news either.
Johnny Wendigo #8871 February 13, 2016 2:31 pm 1
You cannot ignore this guy…he is not alone…That is pure Kremlin’s agit prop…All the neo-nazi sites have Putin on equal footing with their semi-god Adolf Hitler…Vladimir Stalinovitch Pooty Poot is stirring maximum trouble worldwide in the hope of keeping the stolen Donbass and the Crimea peninsula without looking at a very near bankruptcy…He has given the French Front National Marine Lepen 40 millions Euros to push exactly the same agenda as Ted Nugent, so she fired Chauprade, her only Euro deputy, for badmouthing the muslim invaders of Europe….Zeuros are truly screwed…everybody is a Ted Nugent over there…at least, we got the Donald!Beside, the Donbass is now a smoking ruin now just like everywhere in the Levant and as for the Crimea, that is the most useless piece of dirt on earth…no drinking water, no electricity…all have to be supplied by…Ukraine!Those two places plus the war in Syria are the perfect poisoned gift…They prevent the mudak moskalsto see the coming collapse…We will then see if you can eat a SU-36…Think of the giant soviet Ekranoplans rotting away in the Caspian sea…The sinkers of the US navy…
etcetera #8870 February 13, 2016 2:08 pm 1
“The former has a history of running around looking for monsters to slay. Even today, when our rulers have abandoned anything resembling Christianity, they run around looking for sinners to torment. Having run out of sinners worth tormenting, they invented new sins so they could create new sinners. That’s why you suddenly find yourself in trouble because you think men should not wear dresses.”I have to disagree. I’ve been reading a modern biography of Jesus, and the above paragraph is a pretty apt description of the attitude of the Pharisees, the people Jesus kept arguing with. Judaism eventually, after some twists and turns, grew out of the Pharisees. The position you ascribe to Judaism maybe fits the outlook of the Saduccees (who didn’t argue with Jesus, they got the Romans to execute him), who literally ceased being relevant to Judaism with the destruction of the second Temple.You might be confused because Mencken used the same language to describe “Puritans”. But this is just a term of abuse for Mencken. It has no theological or historical significance, and is not even a good description of what the 17th century Puritans were like. The thing is that the attitude of the Pharisees, basically an obsession with getting everyone to follow the Rules and have good personal hygiene (the latter is not snark, this was literally true for the historical Pharisees), is something that didn’t originate with the historical Pharisees but is a facet of human nature. It keeps appearing under all sorts of guises, even in Christianity, which was really founded with something approaching the polar opposite attitude.
thezman #8872 February 13, 2016 2:49 pm 0
I think it is perfectly reasonable to say “Germany has a history of invading France.” That does not mean Germany only invades France or that every German is in favor of invading France. The purpose of these head faints in my posts are to setup points later in the post.
pancho #8855 February 13, 2016 11:04 am 1
Great wordsmithing today, especially “the background noise of the cosmos.” You may, of course, meet my evaluation with indifference.
mtnforge #8849 February 13, 2016 8:42 am 1
A keen and practical observation.
indifference #52038 January 20, 2018 10:48 pm 0
indifference Your website will mount if you sense
Dan Kurt #8880 February 13, 2016 5:16 pm 0
Just read the article. My response is WTF. I went to school for near ten years with at least 50% Jews; yes at an Ivy. This was in the 60s and early 70s. Don’t remember many “meh” moments as my experiences were that the Jews were the activists in the classroom and in the protests. The Jews I knew then were not wallflowers.As to Ted Nugent, I have never followed popular music so I don’t know much of him but he sure showed a cognizant graphic of the Anti-Gun Crowd. Looks effective to me–I think it will resonate with the bulk of Whites in Fly-Over-Country. I can also see why the ad hominems are in evidence.Dan Kurt
Dutch #8867 February 13, 2016 1:46 pm 0
This can be looked at on the left-right scale, the one that is actually circular, with the hard left and the hard right meeting at the same place–which is where the need to remake people and shout about their shortcomings prevails. The “indifference” area is at the other end of the spectrum, the “middle” in the old linear version of the left-right scale.Before the Internet, it was easier to be indifferent, out of sight and out of mind, and all that. Now all the shaming and virtue signaling is really a series of taunts, as words are the most potent weapons of the Internet. Our culture has weaponized words, as the ability to hide behind one’s computer screen eliminates the physical punch in the nose as a response to an affront.
CaptDMO #8862 February 13, 2016 1:29 pm 0
“The proof is I’m hollering at a bad thinker. See?” This is popular on the Left, but increasingly so on the modern Right”How much of this is folks on “the right”, simply quoting, and mocking with the “unintended” consequences of their own “bad think”, those on the left?Of course, with only….say….140 characters, it’s tough to assume the original “new think” signaling (dog whistle, code speak, challenge/countersign…) being mocked will be recognized, or apparent, ironically… out of context.
Severian #8852 February 13, 2016 10:02 am 0
I’d argue that most anti-Semites aren’t actually anti-Semites— as in, they’ve never met a “Semite,” and their “proof” of the Jews’ perfidy is some easily debunked nonsense like “there were no Jews in New York on 9/11!” Historically, every major change in European living standards sparked a pogrom…. until there were no more Jews to target, as in England, so they started targeting “witches.” You can’t burn things like “the printing press,” “freedom of expression,” and “double-entry accounting” — i.e the REAL cause of massive cultural and economic shifts — at the stake, but you can burn people… especially easily-identified outsiders. Or, modern version: Luddites smashing machines. You can’t fight “industrialism,” but you can wreck a power loom. The only thing you need in a scapegoat is some easy-to-spot marker, and the only thing you need in a perpetrator is frustration.
thezman #8854 February 13, 2016 10:31 am 2
Honestly, I’ve never really understood antisemitism or anti-Antisemitism. Jews are interesting for biological and anthropological reasons. A small homogeneous group operating as a guest population teaches us a lot about the intersection of biology and culture. Obviously, if you are a Christian, you need an appreciation of Judaism. Otherwise, I don’t have more or less interest in Jews than I do Italians. I’ve known a lot of Jews and the idea of them operating a worldwide conspiracy is laughable.That said, if you don’t want to be around Jews or Greeks or Italians, I don’t care. Humans have prejudices. It is an essential part of our biology.
alzaebo #8858 February 13, 2016 12:05 pm 0
I think it’s because, as a distinct group in the human ecology, their entire history is based upon exploiting a distinct niche in the human ecology.They work for the government. Their culture selects for the administrative layer.You may not be able to reach the king, but you can get his chamberlains.When the king falls, his administrators will suffer.Look at the minority Tutsis in Rwanda. Few know of the genocide by Idi Amin of the Indian manager class in Uganda. The 10% of Tligani rule Ethiopia in a tribal dictatorship, soon their turn will come.The Spanish Inquisition was political, not religious; after driving out the Moors, Queen Isabel felt the Jewish managerial class wanted their high positions back under their old bosses. Jewish administration under Islam was so common, Hebrew was replaced by Arabic, and remained a dead language only preserved in religious song until the modern restoration of Israel.
Severian #8860 February 13, 2016 1:26 pm 0
I find antisemitism fascinating, as it’s one of those cognitive kill switches — otherwiseverybright guys like Steve Sailer just can’t get their underpants untwisted about the perfidious Jooos!, and I’d love to know why. Look: If it can’t be falsified, it’s dogma. I can’t prove that the Rand Corporation and the reverse vampiresaren’treading my thoughts…. but if that’s the standard I’m gonna use, I can’t hardly complain when I hear that the majority of Millennials prefer socialism to capitalism (or whatever). If you don’t want to hang around Jews, fine. Israel is a nation like any other, and can be criticized on the same grounds. But a vast shadowy conspiracy that everyone on the internet somehow knows every single detail of? Riiiiiight.
james wilson #8875 February 13, 2016 2:54 pm 0
You may as well say there is no vast shadowy conspiracy of virtue signaling. But there is, and it comes easily, without a handbook or meetings. If I belonged to an ethnic group (I don’t) and they were prone to representing my mental universe I would be happy to conspire with them.
Severian #8878 February 13, 2016 3:55 pm 1
A conspiracy to dowhat,exactly? That’s the part which is never defined. The purpose of virtue-signalling is to pump yourself up in the eyes of your peers. What does the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy aim to achieve? Saying “Jews tend to share similar attitudes” isn’t evidence of a conspiracy, any more than saying “Cowboys fans tend to like the Cowboys” is a vast, shadowy, pro-Jerry Jones conspiracy.
james wilson #8891 February 13, 2016 11:31 pm 0
The conspiracy is Universalism. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a universal state, from the Romans, to the Khans, to the present–socialism or Islam, two side of the same bad coin. But it is the “socialist” brand that crosses borders most easily, and the attraction of socialist ideology rises with IQ. Very intelligent people tend to over value intelligence, and believe they can understand everything and direct everything. All experience supports this being a Jewish sandbox that lets anybody play. Intellectual capital is everything because results don’t matter.
Johnny Wendigo #8874 February 13, 2016 2:50 pm 0
Anti-semitism is a true mental disease…These guys actually blame JOO for every ill possible…They actually check under their bed in the morning to see how many are there!The Chinese have a minority that get very close to the Zeuros’ imaginary jews, and it is the HAKKAS…A Han people that escaped the northern frontier’ wars with the Mongols…once in the coastal areas, of course, all the good land was taken and in town, all the bureaucratic jobs were also occupied…So, they did like the Jews and worked in financial matters and industrial trades. But the Emperors always persecuted them harshly with heavy taxes and pogroms, so Hakkas always kept their customs and solidarity….Mao, in his long march, is said to have gone from one hakka town to another and his general staff consisted mostly of Hakka people…Also, most of the chinese expat in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore are said to be Hakka. But recently, there have been no systematic Hakka persecution in China…Many hakka are said to be close to Xi Jinping…There is, however many Chinamen with the Hakka “Anti-semitic syndrome”…but no one have died of it yet…not recently, anyway by reading Falung Gong’shttp://www.theepochtimes.com/
Fred Z #8851 February 13, 2016 9:38 am 0
Twain: “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.”
Alexandros HoMegas #8876 February 13, 2016 3:02 pm -2
The Tribe isn’t indifferent and never was, they have their doctrine of “Chnage the World” (tikkum olam), and the rest of the Gentiles have always felt their power and wrath. Isn’t no accident that the two world biggest religions are inspired by Jews, like the modern day political movements (Marxism to Neocomservatism) and the whole Freudian psycho-babble, Hollywood sets the agenda, the Tribe is in full control of the narrative and they will not only take our guns but our very soul
Thud #8879 February 13, 2016 4:45 pm 0
Naughty boys, they need time on the time out step.


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