When I grew up, leftism was certainly present, but after the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s were a time of relative sanity. The world economy was booming and people were apparently too busy making money hand-over-fist to be concerned with the human rights of people who believe that they really are hermaphrodite pink dragons and insist that they deserve universal basic income, and not receiving free money is a crime against humanity. Fast forward a mere two decades and you wonder why there isn’t a giant clown nose circling the Earth instead of the Moon. So much bullshit has been shoved down our collective throats by the mainstream that you have every right to wonder if the Western world has been turned into a giant open-air insane asylum. Well, quite frankly, it has.
Yet, where do its inhabitants come from? It’s not that there are just a few lunatics around. Instead, an entire swath of society, namely a good chunk of the well-fed middle and upper-middle classes have collectively lost their mind. I think this is all due to increased insulation. Admittedly, I grew up in a rather sheltered environment. I remember feeling as if I stepped into a strange world when I visited someone for the first time who lived in an apartment. Everyone I knew lived in a nice house with a big garden in the German equivalent of a reasonably well-off U.S. suburbia. Only when I began going out and banging a lot of women did I learn about the reality of life in different social strata, which was quite an eye-opening experience as I encountered women both from more or less all strata of society, except the very bottom. Once I even pulled the daughter of a billionaire and I only found out accidentally because her last name sounded vaguely familiar and I looked her up online.
I think my circumstances were rather unusual inasmuch as I actively exposed myself to people form much different walks of life. I also had run-ins with elements of society I would rather not associate myself with. Among others, I heard gunshots a few block away from where I was, that was when was in NYC and thought that I should explore nightlife outside of Manhattan. I once gave a wide berth to a group of people who had just stabbed some poor fellow who was lying in a puddle of blood; that was in London, South of the Thames. I’ve seen fights break up next to me that started with someone getting smashed in the head with a broken bottle. That particular event happened in a nightclub in Camden in London. When I think back of it, recalling those experiences one after the other, it sounds almost unreal.
Seeing someone in close vicinity to you getting sucker-punched and dog-piled on is a really valuable lesson as it will teach you to keep your fucking guard up, all the time, lest you get dragged into some bullshit. It’s sometimes enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Then there are people who are in the wrong place, actively working towards having a really bad time due to their naivety. I have witnessed quite a few soy-boy faggots ending up having a really bad day because reality didn’t quite work the way they imagined it to. For instance, once I noticed a man and a woman having a really loud argument in public. The guy was built like a tank, and some lefty who believed in some kind of just world interfered. The moment after opening his mouth, the other dude turned towards him and shouted him down, in a really threatening manner, and the lefty was frozen and shitting bricks. I would have liked to watch this interaction to the very end, but I had enough street-smarts not to.
Another very good lesson was when I, after a long night out, was waiting for a cab. Some really aggressive body-builder, probably experiencing roid rage, ignored that others had been waiting for a cab as well. I saw him and I knew that I had to get out of the way. He probably didn’t even realize that there were other people around, presumably only thinking of how he’s going to fuck the hot chick he had just pulled. So, a cab rolls up and he walks up to it right away. If you’re street-smart, you just don’t get in his way. Yet, this scrawny, puny excuse of a man jumped in front of him, puts his hand on the bodybuilder’s hand, determinedly, and says, “Excuse me, …”. That was it. The buff dude turned around and punched that manlet out. It was one punch and the dude just dropped. I think this was simply instinctive. That guy immediately lost consciousness and fell to the ground with a thud. Then the bodybuilder got into the cab together with his chick, and was off. Some chicks outside the club shrieked and squealed their “oh my gods” and “holy fucks” and “I can’t believe its”, and that was it. Experiences like that tell you all you need to know that your idea of “standing up” to people you shouldn’t fuck with is a really bad idea.
One of the best lessons out there in the real world is that some people have no interest in your sophisticated arguments. I laugh when I hear some faggot esteemed public intellectual like Jordan Peterson talk about how important it is to work on your speaking and writing skills because that will get you far in life. This is even more surprising given how much he boasts about his supposedly rough upbringing because he once shadowed a prison psychologist or something along those lines. If you get into trouble in real life, your galaxy-brain verbal skills most likely amount for nothing. In fact, they will probably get you into even more trouble if the person you’ve just upset thinks you’re making fun of him.
The world can be a pretty dangerous place. However, I have the impression that the average lefty never experienced any danger in their life, neither directly nor indirectly. You have white, “liberal” Western women hiking in hot pants in the mountains of North Africa, only return dead, with their heads cut off after having gotten raped. We have emasculated soy-boys and soy-gals inviting in people who come from vastly different cultures, yet if you point this out, you’re called a bigoted racist. It’s all fun and games until you get race riots and rapes. Even some decent exposure to lower-class whites would cure those people from their moronic ideas.
One of the smartest one-liners floating around is Mike Tyson saying, “Everyone has a plan — until they get punched in the mouth.” That’s indeed the problem with the modern left. They believe there is no danger in anything because they have lived in such great comfort. Even their violent, pardon, “largely peaceful protests” are just some kind of LARPing. If a business goes up in flames, it means nothing because you can just build a new one, or something like that, and even if we burn a city to the ground, there will always be running water, electricity, and food, or so they think. They even belief they can abolish the police and still be protected from crime. To the modern lefty, bad things only ever happen to others and if your store gets ransacked, you probably deserved it because of systemic racism. Yet, you can’t run society like that and you will invariably get to a point where even the modern sheltered high-verbal-IQ lefty who thinks that he’ll be safe no matter what will be affected. Then it will probably be too late and we’ll only have a few more liberal lefties who get raped and killed and nobody gives a fuck anymore because there have been too many such cases. It’s poetic justice.
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What does “a wide berth” mean in this context?
Great post. Comfort has indeed obscured the truth.
It’s almost as if they can’t just be thankful for the comfort we enjoy thanks to the sacrifices of our ancestors. Rather than simply be thankful for it, they seem to have this innate desire to “stand for something”. Well, standing for something requires courage, and that which requires courage has been obscured by comfort. This results in this bizarre “people need to be held accountable for what they say” rhetoric as if ascertaining what some poor working class average joe said on the internet and threatening his livelihood is courageous. Truly bizarre.
It means that I distanced myself from that group, i.e. once I realized what was going on, I did my best to get away from that scene.
From my experience, women get turned on if they know that their boyfriends can fight well. My friend’s moto is “If you are a guy, you must know how to fight.”
Correction: Some women. There are even women out there who psychologically manipulate their male partner to get into fights, e.g. by flirting with some dude and pretending that they themselves are innocent.
Really? I thought women in general are weaker than men so they appreciate the fact that their men can defend themselves. But what do I know, I am still a virgin
This works only in an environment in which there is a sense of physical danger.
But wouldn’t you say that physicsal aggression has a detergent effect? Like you could kick butts of guys who are trying to flirt with your wife? If you are trained in MMA, the chance that someone wants to steal your girlfriend reduces drastically? What do you think? Maybe I am wrong?
You don’t describe a realistic scenario. If some other dude wants to “steal” your girlfriend, it’s because she has encouraged him to make a move. So, blame your girflfriend and not the other guy.
Ok I see now. Thanks
“You don’t describe a realistic scenario. If some other dude wants to “steal” your girlfriend, it’s because she has encouraged him to make a move. So, blame your girflfriend and not the other guy.”
After thinking about this issue, I would like to ask you this.
In Shanghai, I have met many Kazakhs and Mongolians. They hail from very martial societies that place high emphasis on fighting and wrestling each other. They are very hot-headed and are very good fighters. I have seen one Kazakh guy pull a truck in 2 meters, I have always felt intimidated by these guys.
They date a lot of Mongolians and even Chinese.
There is another member on your other blog that states something about Chechens. I have no knowledge of this peoples, but I think they are probably also very martial.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-Chechen-men-like
“If they are not aggressive, ill-tempered and overly jealous, Chechen men possess the ideal male-characteristics most women would ask for. Even if they don’t all have the best-looking face, aren’t tall and other things which usually catch a woman’s eye at first glance, most of them take care of themselves and “look good”. A great deal of Chechen men do sports, usually martial arts, and thus have a strong physique and know how to fight. I.e. they have that masculine look. Their mindset is also very “masculine”, if it can be put that way. They are fearless, protective of their loved ones, stick to their traditions and so on. They respect their elders, and you probably will not get to see a person from any other nation who shows as much respect for his/her elders – it goes for both Chechen men and women. A Chechen man who does not respect his elders is an unattractive one (as in REALLY unattractive), in my personal view.
This answer was written with the assumption that the person who asked the question is a female with an interest in Chechen men.”
I have witnessed with my own eyes that one Kazakh guy beat down 5 bouncers in a Chinese clubs. After having a conversation with him, I knew that he went to boxing clubs since he was 7.
I have a feeling that the ability to fight and be aggressive is something very primal, it makes women feel rather safe around those guys.
Do you think I am wrong?
“laugh when I hear some faggot esteemed public intellectual like Jordan Peterson talk about how important it is to work on your speaking and writing skills because that will get you far in life. This is even more surprising given how much he boasts about his supposedly rough upbringing because he once shadowed a prison psychologist or something along those lines. If you get into trouble in real life, your galaxy-brain verbal skills most likely amount for nothing. In fact, they will probably get you into even more trouble if the person you’ve just upset thinks you’re making fun of him.”
You seem to have a radical disdain for people who has strong ability in Humanities and Liberal Arts. You make many problematic statements that a History major would not make if he took his courses seriously.
Sure, you earn much less with a Humanities degree, but that doesn’t mean the skills these degrees teach are useless.
If Math is the Queen of Science, then History is the king of Humanities
Humanities are a joke. All you have to do is loudly echo in the echo chanber to get by. It also helps if you are disenfranchised in some way (read: not a heterosexual white male).
Joke? Can you reconstruct a dead language like Jurchens?
Grammar is one thing, phonology is another beast.
If you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about, then don’t say anything.
I don’t know who that guy is but if his books are written with any kind of authority, they are likely worth very little, and a little bit of Calculus can be used to prove it. It’s relatively straightforward to prove that if you are given c points then there are infinitely many polynomials of degree c + 1 or higher that go through all those points. Similarly, Jurchens constructed his theories based on rather limited evidence. There are infinitely many ways to use the existing evidence of a dead language and construct a coherent theory of what that language must have been like.
Also on the subject of Math vs History, I would say that Math is very much harder than History in terms of methodology, but if you want your name to still shine in the eyes of posterity, then you have to be fluent and achieve high mastery in a dozen of languages.
One of the greatest of the Chinese historians in the early 20th century, Chen Yinke, was able to master 20 languages, including dead ones. His mastery of Pali and Sanskrits, 2 extremely complex Indian languages, is very well-known and highly praised. I would rank him to be Euler of History.
Even though I can speak 3 languages, have functional knowledge in Classical Chinese, and am studying Russian, I still rank myself as a little above average when being compared to such a giant.
And for some, studying a new language is almost an impossible task.
@CQV
You know exactly what I am talking about. Stop trying to pass off your obscure notion of humanities as what is the mainstream.
“You know exactly what I am talking about. Stop trying to pass off your obscure notion of humanities as what is the mainstream.”
No, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Maybe a few more lines will be better?
Just look up what the humanities produce nowadays with their focus on ethnic studies and grievance studies. You could shut down all humanities departments and nothing of value would be lost. I’m not saying this to be provocative as a look into the past shows that a lot of truly groundbreaking work in the humanities, by genuine scholars, was done by men outside of academia. Today, the average academic in the humanities is a far-left political activist with little regard for scholarship.
“I’m not saying this to be provocative as a look into the past shows that a lot of truly groundbreaking work in the humanities, by genuine scholars, was done by men outside of academia.”
I tend to see this change rather positively and negatively. The positive side is that many aspects neglected or simple unable to be researched into due to contemporary political climate can be brought to forth. For example, no historians would probably want to write about the history of Black people before the Civil Right Movement.
The downside to this is that you have to comply to the current climate and write History against your will.
No doubt that among Humanities, History is the most contaminated subject because it is crucial to see the past in various perspectives and dimensions. The job of a historian is quite dangerous. It is much more dangerous than that of a mathematician. Stalin spared the brilliant mathematician Nikolai Luzin, yet many Russian historians lost their lives during the great Terror. Pure Math is too harmless to be a threat.
“I’m not saying this to be provocative as a look into the past shows that a lot of truly groundbreaking work in the humanities, by genuine scholars, was done by men outside of academia. ”
I actually think that institutions and societies are very important to the conductivity and productivity of a historian. They provide them resources for their research and a medium to interact with their colleagues.
What matters is the political regime that is in charge. If it is heavily repressive, then no great works can be produced.
Let’s Chen Yinke, a genius, speaks for us historians:
“Mao, the top political authority, and Liu, the top party leader, should have consensus with me on the matter, otherwise academic research would be out of the question.”
And you know how brutal Communist regime wad to historians.
Chen was later persecuted and died not long after.
Oh, I forgot to mention another historian that I deeply respect. That is Vasily Bartold. His book “Turkestan down to the Mongolian invasion” is a magnum opus that is still widely cited today. I have tried to learn Russian by reading his works side by side with the English version. His style is very elegant.
Another man who displayed astounding talent is Edwards Pulleyblank. He was good in both Math and Languages. His work on the phonology of Middle Chinese has a widespread influence.
@CQV
Are you on the autism spectrum? I’m not being malicious. Your deep knowledge of niche fields, coupled with your bizarre beliefs and inquiries about how the world works, leads me to conclude that you are mildly autistic.
“Are you on the autism spectrum? I’m not being malicious. Your deep knowledge of niche fields, coupled with your bizarre beliefs and inquiries about how the world works, leads me to conclude that you are mildly autistic.”
I don’t think I am autistic. I have talked to 2 qualified psychiatrists and they say no you are not autistic.
I do suffer from another mental disorder, but allow me to not talk about it.
Also, you have to take into account the fact that what you read in text is very different from what you communicate in real life.
Nevertheless, I apologize for being rude. I tend to be rude if I perceive the person I am reading is rude to me.
“I don’t know who that guy is but if his books are written with any kind of authority, they are likely worth very little”
Jurchen (sorry I add a “s” in there) is a dead language of the Jurchen people, who found the Jin dynasty in northern China, which replaced the Liao dynasty which ruled Northern China.
In linguistics, we study their later descendance in order to make some assumption about an earlier language. So, in this case, we base our reconstruction on the Manchu language. The Manchus who found the Qing dynasty were direct descendants of the Jurchens (only a different tribe). Since Manchu is still spoken by a small population in China, we can study phonological changes of the Jurchen language.
There are primary documents that can assist us to study these changes. The 华夷译语 (Translation of the languages of the barbarians) written during the early Ming dynasty supplies us ample examples of Jurchen language in the XV century. Based on the transcriptions of the Jurchen language into Middle Chinese, we can still delineate the sounds of vowels, consonants, diphthongs, etc. This can achieve a high accuracy. Furthermore, we are assisted by the fact that Jurchen language, even though belonging to the Tungusic language family, is still highly related to Middle Mongolian and Korean. We can compare loanwords from Jurchen to these languages, and from these languages to Jurchen.
We also have a some inscriptions, especially tomb inscriptions, that we can make use of (most important is the tomb inscriptions of Jin Taizu, the founder emperor of the Jin dynasty (the first emperor).
Apart from all these, we have Jurchen names that are recorded in the official history of Jin dynasty ( 金史）, one of the 24 official histories of China. These occurs in similar fashion to the sources we mention above.
Finally, we still have folk songs, folk poems and folklore in Manchu language. These are very rich sources to study Jurchen, since through textual analysis, it is revealed that many songs and poems are dated back to the time before the establishment of the Jin dynasty.
If linguistical reconstruction is full of shits, we will never be able to read such a document as the “Secret History of the Mongols”. This epic poem was written in Middle Mongolian. This text only exists in Chinese transcription. Yet through the magic hands of prominent scholars such as Paul Pelliot (French), , Igor de Rachewiltz (Italian), Edouard Chavannes, etc, we can not only recover the Mongol version of this text, but translate it into English with full annotations (see Igor de Rachewiltz volumnous translation on amazon). We can further check with a later Mongolian source called the Altan Tobcin (the Golden Book), which is the continuation of the Secret, and it copies almost verbatim the Secrets for the part that mentions the rise of Cingis Q’an.
I have personally recovered 3 Mongolian names from Chinese transcriptions, and have had a chance to verify them to the Mongolist Christopher Atwood at Upenn. After minor corrections, these names are essentially correct. These 3 names are names of generals who led a Mongol invasion into my native country, Vietnam. I know nothing about Middle Mongolian, but I utilizes the method of reconstruction of Vietnamese scholar Ha Van Tan, who had a working knowledge of Mongolian, Persian and Arabic.
Another example where linguistic reconstruction achieves startling results is the translation of the Orkhon Inscription of the Kok-Turuk Empire (or Gokturk). Through many generations of historians, we are able to recover it with astounding precision. Scholars like Gumilev (Soviet Union) studied carefully and reconstructed it based on the phonology of modern Turkish, Kazakh, Mongolian, Turkmenistan language. His achievement is groundbreaking not just in the USSR, but also in China and Turkey.
But, yes, some languages are truly dead and there are not much we can do to reconstruct them, for example Tangut language of Tanguts who found the Xi Xia kingdom, a contemporary of the Liao and Jin dynasty as mentioned above.
“Similarly, Jurchens constructed his theories based on rather limited evidence.”
I have written on the similarity and difference between Math and History here:
http://dammenghiencuulichsu.blogspot.com/2020/03/su-va-toan.html
But it is not in English. To sum up, there indisputable facts in History just like in Math. But there are also grey or completely dark areas. The task of a true great historian is not to try to do the impossible, but to record all possible interpretation that he could find, and have readers decide for themselves.
I misunderstood you. I interpreted your statement to mean that there was an academic called Jurchen who reconstructed a dead language. Anyway, it doesn’t change my argument. I don’t want to diminish the work the people you mention have done but it is nonetheless the case that you ever will have certainty. History, as it is taught in the West, is an excellent example as it is standard procedure nowadays to simply rewrite history, often with a blatant disregard for facts.
“Once I even pulled the daughter of a billionaire and I only found out accidentally because her last name sounded vaguely familiar and I looked her up online.”
By pulling, do you mean you had sex with her.
I must say after reading your blog, I am a little self-conscious of my height. I am only 5’9, quite short in the States. I have a feeling you have to be at least 6’2 to do well in America.
“I misunderstood you. I interpreted your statement to mean that there was an academic called Jurchen who reconstructed a dead language. Anyway, it doesn’t change my argument. I don’t want to diminish the work the people you mention have done but it is nonetheless the case that you ever will have certainty. History, as it is taught in the West, is an excellent example as it is standard procedure nowadays to simply rewrite history, often with a blatant disregard for facts.”
As I wrote on my blog, absolute certainty does exist in History, but it usually takes a rather simple form. For example, Hitler did exist, Stalin did exist, there was Holocaust, there was Holodomor, etc. But when it comes to number of death, we can only estimate. This is why in History, there are tons of hypotheses that will remain to be unsolved unless there are new documents or archaelogical artefacts. Some hypotheses are refuted when new discovery of materials are made. But what important is the existence of this multitude of hypotheses. Diversity is what keeps good History debate lively and interesting.
That is the imperfection of History as a major. I actually thought of changing my major to STEM for this very reason, but was persuaded not to because I am no longer young and I need yo work on my strength.
“I don’t want to diminish the work the people you mention have done but it is nonetheless the case that you ever will have certainty.”
Almost accurate is a very good measure. In case of Middle Mongolian, with some helps on pronunciation, you can recite it and make a modern Mongolian understand, despite some significant changes that have occured to that language due to close contact with Russian during the communist era of Mongolia.
Similarly, a short text on ritual performance in reconstructed Jurchen can still be understood by modern Manchus today.
If phonological construction is so inaccurate like you said, then such an effect can never be achieved.
I find these recoveries an admirable achievement of astounding Mongolists, Turkologists, Sinologists and Jurchen scholars.
“History, as it is taught in the West, is an excellent example as it is standard procedure nowadays to simply rewrite history, often with a blatant disregard for facts.”
This is why it is of utmost important that you try to preserve as much materials as you can, because we can later study them to see the shift of points of view from one generation to the next. It is not a big problem for me if people try to rewrite History, but matters is that the existence of earlier materials is ensured.
Loss of historical materials due to various reasons like natural calamities, deliberate attempts to destroy them, lack of copyists to pass down a book, etc is the major reasons for the aforementioned imperfection of History.
Dude, you’re quite a pain in my Graeco-Roman ass! You’d better keep your posts sweet and simple and refrain from any unnecessary spread out questikns/argumentation… just my 2ct.
What if I don’t, what are you gonna do about it?