Decreased Inventiveness — A Symptom
As you sit in your chair and look around and take stock of the mechanical, electrical, and electronic products that you use on a daily basis and take for granted, you might realize that all of these things were a result of someone’s inventiveness. What you might not realize is that these products were invented a long time ago. The automobile, airplane, telephone, telegraph, radio, television, computer, jet propulsion, atomic power, radar, sonar, electric light, and refrigerator were all invented by 1950. In the more than half century that has elapsed since then, what has been invented? I have made a random sampling of people and not one person could name a conceptual invention that postdated 1950. Nor can I.
In the past half-century we have seen a decided drop in the influence of masculine conceptual thinking, with the result that true inventiveness has been replaced by adaptations. Eventually, we will run out of new, and adaptations won’t save the economy. That will be one of the causes of the breakdown of Western society.
Concurrent with the decline in conceptual thinking has been a decline in morality of all sorts, for morality as all else is derived from the unseen. Honor, truth, integrity, reliability, constancy, and standards of all sorts emanate from the conceptual thinking of the masculine gender. The emasculation of the male has resulted in a deterioration of standards with the result that the government has intruded into every facet of our personal lives in order to prevent complete chaos; however, it is losing that battle.
There is a natural way to live and our creator established it. Humankind has essentially two options, to understand the nature of creation and live in harmony with it, or to not understand it and live in disharmony with it. To live in harmony produces health, contentment and spiritual growth. To live in disharmony produces sickness, discontent, and spiritual stagnation. Our society has chosen the latter and devotes an increasing amount of its energies and money in attempts to “fix” the sickness and discontent it has created.
The government is going broke in attempts to “fix” our physical and mental health. According to the AMA the average person over 65 takes six to eight prescription medicines. I think the average person today at any age is on medication, if not for physical reasons then mental reasons inasmuch as the major health issue in America is mental illness. Our prisons are bursting with more waiting to get in as we attempt to “fix” our crime problem. We already have the highest incarceration rate in the world. We are out of tune with the world and universe that we were designed to live in.
This out of tune stems from not adhering to the patriarchal structure that is natural to the universe. Instead of devoting our manhood to the care of the family and the tribe, we no longer have any manhood left to devote to anything. We have legislated away our inherent power and now we are impotent. Powerless. Frustrated. Angry.
The only way we can make change is to remove the coverings, barriers, and inhibitions that prevent us from conducting ourselves in a manly way. We can individually take action to free ourselves from our immediate suppression, but it will take a collective effort to bring about social change. But we have started. At least we now know that we are men. The next step is to realize our inherent power, and then do something with that power. The thing to do is to support this viewpoint and share it with anyone who will listen to you. You might be surprised at the number of people who will listen. You did.
I'm also the Chief of Men's Action to Rebuild Society, an organization that not only addresses the issues confronting you, but takes action to resolve these issues. | More from Elder George
Stumble It!
July 13th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
as the men of the 70’s and 80’s partied and drank themselves into political apathy, the feminist noose kept getting tighter and tighter on each new generation of young men.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
SK can you look forward to move forward?
That is the point in this one.
Plainly we cannot define manhood by the Playboy lifestyle that was recognized for waht it was Playboy, Aristocharcy, materialsim that draw courtesans.
We cannot define manhood by the prior man hood of the 40’s and 50’s that failed to teach the lack of masculinity of the Materialistic Fem Worship Playboy life.
We cannot define Manhood by the generation who could not wait to get back to America and get some industrial products after having nothing in the Depression.
We cannot define manhood by the Generation of Prohibition and the 19th Amendment, for they failed to hold the line against the Marxist Materialists at the gate.
I am not going to cover another generation and have to agree with Elder about Western Aristocracy. They gave it a good shot but the slavish materialist Tories wiped those men out.
So here we are, there is eitehr moving forward or standing still.
I give away Elder’s Books. One guy read it in 12 hours covering the door of a Bar in KV, then the bouncer next door asked him what he was reading. So he read to the guy and he wanted to arm wrestle him for the book right then and there.
On guy returned the book I just gave him, he is suffering from surgical grad roids, spitting up blood from stomach ulcers, now his brother has testicular cancer.
How you think he is handling things being locked into a 50K a year job taking home $1500 a month because he is stashing money in a 401K plan that will cost him more in taxes when he gets it out when he is 68 years old. He plays video games to get to level 50 of 70 in Warcraft while on the job working on people’s computers, and he is all stressed out.
The guy just got the job, he is not even 28 years old and he has diseases of a 58 year old exec.
Which is it going to be SK, are you in?
July 13th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
I wish I could speak freely.
July 13th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Eventually, we will run out of new, and adaptations won’t save the economy.
That is really funny!
Running out of things has been the actual “mother of invention” since cave men could no longer find enough mastodons and saber-toothed tigers to hunt and kill and eat! (For supporting their families …. the Evil Patriarchy’s genesis.)
This is a beyond-silly argument.
Unconfirmed by 40,000 years of homo sapiens history.
I could write more.
It would be futile….
July 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
what the hell are you trying to say thurston?????
and conservation,,,, did I miss the punch line?????
are you guys high or what ????
I know I’m not..
July 13th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
EG said: “I have made a random sampling of people and not one person could name a conceptual invention that postdated 1950. Nor can I.”
What about these: satellites, the internet, web pages, the space shuttle, flash drives, the computer mouse, the laser, the mars rover, the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, magnetic resonance imaging scanner (MRI).
EG, I agree with many of your points. But I still think there is a lot of inventiveness going on.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Yo Big Daddy not eveyone is supposed to get it!
Shuttle is a lifting body designed in the 50’s, flash drives are chips which are teh next stage beyond IC’s IC’s next stage beyond transistors.
Mars rover, remote controlled car.
Mouse outdated crap.
Sats are the 50’s sputnik
Internet humm I have to ask AlGore.
Now the Laser……
July 13th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
EG said: “In the past half-century we have seen a decided drop in the influence of masculine conceptual thinking, with the result that true inventiveness has been replaced by adaptations.”
Between the time of Christ (or even earlier) and the Industrial Revolution there were relatively few inventions. Then, suddenly, there were many inventions. Now, according to EG, since 1950, there have been fewer “conceptual” inventions due to a drop in the influence of masculine thinking.
Are we to believe there was a sudden increase in masculine thinking at the time of the Industrial Revolution?
July 14th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Invention is a funny old thing. They seem to emerge when the conditions are right for them to appear. They come into the mind of a few and spread like crazy. Sometimes they are a bit before their time. All, always, depend on a few minds. Focused ones. Open ones. Intelligent ones. Observant ones. The ones that can connect many things, ideas, concepts, desires and drives together.
When the telephone was invented it was expected that its main function would be to permit people to listen to concerts. Piped music on the telephone took a hundred years to catch on and now every kid has music coming out of his/her phone. Crap mostly.
Where do inventive ideas, or any ideas for that matter, come from? As ‘masculinity’ is a derivative function of sexual reproductivity, it seems an unlikely source. Most male animals don’t invent and they are ‘masculine’ Try telling a male lion he isn’t. Or a bull elephant. Females neither.
Just the human animal. Humans are the only inventors. Maybe its bipedalism? Nah! Some other apes walk upright too. Having hands? Maybe something there. But…hands generate ideas? Nah, not credible. Brains, perhaps. A more likely instrument to me. The human Brain is quite unique in the animal world. Sure there are similarities and parts of it found in lower animals, but not the fully formed super-brain of the human.
But can brains make ideas? Do brains conceive ideas? Or do they receive ideas? Consistent with the times? Or the demands of the times. Maybe. One can see the plausibility of neccessity for conception. But then what of the inventions that were before their time. (Go on, make a list). Unecessary, they came along anyway.
In the quantum particle, before it stands to be seen, all possibilities are said to exist. Its superpositionability ‘collapses’ under specific conditions of containmant revealing one of the many possibles as the momentary ‘real’. All possibilities includes all possible conceptualities too. All possible ideas.
The microtubuals of the axonal shaft in a human brain have a central space just wide enough for a particle and part of that particle’s electromagnetic field. The quantum particle and its field cannot quite fit and remain in a quantum state, so it collapses, constrained and contained.
Ideas popping into mind?
July 14th, 2007 at 1:20 am
The human brain consists of probably billions of neurons. Each neuron is itself highly complex. Unbelievably complex.
Even with all this complexity, we can only think of one thing at a time.
How can a single particle make a new thought pop into our minds, when each thought requires many many neurons working together?
July 14th, 2007 at 3:03 am
Good question infidel. I believe that Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose have an answer to that in their paper, “Orchestrated Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtububles. A Model for Consciousness”. It was presented at the First Tuscon Conference on Consciousness a few years ago.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:52 am
to Infidel,
In order to bring a concept into being the material ability must be available to do so. It was not available at the time of Christ. Hero invented steam power around that time, but there wan’t anything to hook it to. The industrial revolution had a mating of material means with coneptual thinking. That is a coopertive gender effort. Now that masculine thinking has been suppressed we are relying upon adaptation to what has already been developed
Women nurture children, but inorder to have more the male must become involved. We leave in a society that increasingly feel the male is unnecessary. Without males no children, without males no conspetual inventions.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:18 am
to Dadwithe2girls,
One of the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Sunion is that their ability to produce new decreased. They are now a third world country. Necessity creates change only if you have a healthy and viril society capable of making that change. We have lost our proportion in the West. There are those who actually belive men are suerfluous. Their world is crumbling around them and they do not “see” why.
Nothing inthe universe just happens. All assertion comes from the masculine principle, there is no place else for it to come from.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:36 am
to Dadwith2girls,
Silly is a frequently used term by women; real men rarely use it in their discourse.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:30 am
I don’t know about the exact dates, nor could I quote the lineage of a list of inventions someone may post, and I do not see this being THE catalyst of societal collapse, but in general this seems to be correct about adaptations.
However this to me is one of those points without corresponding action available. I’m not sure that we would suddenly begin inventing at a different pace due to a return of masculine thought. This says nothing about the idea of masculine inventiveness but everything about inventive saturation.
Before a new surge or real inventiveness occurs we’d have to see THE new invention. It will be something again revolutionary from which other ideas will spring, because we can only refine so far, and are limited by our current understanding of natural laws.
The chimera of perpetual motion, or perhaps light speed travel, could those be next? What about zero point energy? Is alchemy still a discipline?
BigPapa…I don’t do “high”.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:03 am
To condervativation,
We won’t have to see THE new invention. We will expeience a new awarenes of unseen forces. Once this is experienced there will be an IDEA for the new. Then if there is sufficient virility, the IDEA will be brought into reality.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:35 am
ummmmm yeah fellas…ok,,,
I don’t do high either but this drivel make me wonder if I should.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:45 am
I use the word “silly” all the time when talking to my kids. To suggest that the use of the term ’silly’ is not for ‘real men’ is….well, silly.
Silly, silly, silly. And getting sillier still.
July 14th, 2007 at 9:02 am
I see we are straining at a gnat here.
Well at least it has not evolved into a camel awallowing session, thus the Men are talking here.
Ok, the notion of inventiveness is the notion of an outward manifestaion of healthy masculine thought that no other species can produce. A purely human action.
If masculine thought is gone certainly women do not need men, except to make them feel dominated and out of control in a fantasy of a sexual encounter al la a romance novel they read. For soon they will make sperm from stem cells thus we will not be needed even for procreation.
Even lacking a further need of men for procreation, what does man bring to society?
Elder makes the point without asking the question to get to the principle…the masculine principle.
inventiveness that is Ford forbid! found mostly in males! (what are all of those jokes about Appalachian engineering and duct tape as the solution of necesity (sp) about women? NO they are about men!)
So it is Man who is immediately and naturally masculine in thought…well he once was until media and feminism got a hold of him.
Wait, I know, we should forget about the abubdance of natural masculine resource, get rid of men and wait for the .01 percent of women to invent for humanity.
So what we are committing genocide against the only carriers of the Y chromosome!
July 14th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Elder George said,
to Infidel,
“In order to bring a concept into being the material ability must be available to do so…Now that masculine thinking has been suppressed we are relying upon adaptation to what has already been developed
Women nurture children, but inorder to have more the male must become involved. We leave in a society that increasingly feel the male is unnecessary. Without males no children, without males no conspetual inventions.”
The Islamic/Muslim culture has men at the top and women in subservient roles. The least of men is still more valued than the strongest woman. According to your theory, we should be seeing a deluge of inventiveness from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. Clearly, having males valued at the top of the food chain is not a clear indication of inventiveness.
July 14th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
To EG,
The Muslim culture places men at the forefront in society. According to you we should be seeing inventivenes there because only valued men can invent. Yet, an observer of that culture would not see an aboundance of inventiveness.
Therefore please revise/amend your theory to expand the definition of invention so that it includes beheadings, terrorism, and the inventive use of dynamite and other explosives.
Or perhaps what you are trying to say is that only males who are Christian and Caucasian (white) have the capacity for invention.
July 14th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
wtexas you have an interesting point, but I think by accident. EG never said what your premise is based upon. However, it does beg a different question that likely occurs to most men here who read these articles, that being about “western thought”
I’d have to submit that it has to be masculine thinking combined with western thinking that results in inventiveness.
Don’t offer me Japan…that too is western thought.
EG, is inventiveness a good thing?
July 14th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
To wtexas,
A good point. In my writings I indicate that Asia represents the masculine principle and Europe the feminne principle. The feminine principle materializes and personalizes the concepts of the masculine principle.
It is natural that Euorpe is the source of most inventiveness. However, within each culture, whether Asian, European, or African, the assertive influence will always be the masculine principle. In Europe and the West by extension, the value structure is female, therefore masculine efforts will revolve around the creation of material things. We know the West for the material things it has produced, not for an understanding of patriarchy, or things metaphysical. However, if within that structure the male begins losing his virility, he will no longer be able to initiate the inventiveness.
You have never heard me say that one culture is better than another or that one gender is better than another. The issue in the West and now the world is the imbalance of gender. The actual belef that men have become superflous.
July 14th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Silly is as silly does…
In reference with EG’s article above, DadWith2Girls said (comment 4):
Petulant, petty and defensive as ever, EG responded in comment 14:
Huh.
Let’s review:
1. EG makes a dizzy and demonstrably inaccurate argument regarding the supposed “decreased inventiveness” of the west.
2. DadWith2Girls sums up the article with,”Eventually, we will run out of new, and adaptations won’t save the economy,” and rightly points out that this argument is just plain “silly”. (He could have used a more forceful word like “stupid” or “ignorant”, but – just to soften the blow – he chose a relatively benign word to describe his reaction)
3. Instead of addressing the criticism directly, (eg., “I didn’t say that, I said this.”), EG drops his always thin pretense of reason, and simply bleats that “real men” would not use the word “silly”. Hurrumph.
In my experience, the only people nowadays who use the convenient term “real men” as an elocutionary whipping post are FEMINAZIS and their fellow travelers.
No, EG. You are dead wrong – and I dare say MISANDRIC – to continue the drumbeat of “real men” this and “real men” that in your arguments.
And to deprive an informed critic like DadWith2Girls of his status as a “real man” because he said your argument was “silly” – is out-and-out misandry.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
The following conceptual (?) inventions occurred since 1950:
Warp drive, dilithium crystals, the cloaking device, light sabers, R2D2, Spock’s ears, and the Vulcan salute.
We still need to work out the details on some of these, but the concept is there.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Now that Mike has the Misandry and Misogyny adherents on opposite sides of the room we can begin the discussion.
Mike:
1. Down with EG’s inventiveness or not, I’ve rarely been impressed with an argument that says, “hey you offer no evidence therefore your argument is stupid”.
Now, demonstrably inaccurate is a start, so lets demonstrate. Because I am asking for back-up doesn’t mean that I am taking the extreme other side, it means that your words Mike seem to reflect back upon your words…if that makes sense.
2. See 1.
3. What criticism is there to directly address? In fact I could make a case that attacking the word silly was a direct addressing of the criticism, because that was the depth of the criticism. Come on Mike, cut and paste a sentence then say it is silly and call that criticism that can be addressed? What is your axe looking to grind here?
But the utmost was that you then went on to chide the use of “real men”….immediately following getting defensive about EG’s complaint about the word silly. The difference in those thought processes is?…..
Mike I’ve seen you chime about many posts here, and often well into the depth of comment, but other than sarcastically refering to EG’s ubiquitous calls to action, what exactly is troubling you? It is unlike you to address a debate where one post calls another silly or similar superficial things.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Accusing someone of not being a “real man” because he disagrees with you is an inherently sly and underhanded shaming tactic long used by those who seek power over other men. EG – perhaps owing to his particular generational mindset – seems very at home with this well-worn brand of misandry.
Misandrists – regardless of their sex or age – will receive no quarter from me.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Mike:
Perhaps petty difference, but he didn’t accuse him of not being a real man for disagreement, he did it for saying silly, which is a word I use often as i find it occasionally uniquely descriptive.
Regardless the adjective, what if I simply posted “silly, stupid, ridiculous, etc.” to each post I didn’t like? Is that substantitive? Would you call me on it?
Or better, what about someone becoming completely unhinged and hysterical, calling out references and inferences less credible than 9/11 was an inside job?
Is that better?
Ive no intention of revisiting the debate, but thurston would have been deleted for what Joyanna wrote in her final post. Nearly every man on the forum was included in her ire and there were dots connected where the dots didn’t even exist, let alone the connections. Navy Seals and murder threats? Geez. Where was the itchy finger?
July 14th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
To Mike lasalle,
My comment #13 answered Dadwith2girls question.
My comment #14 had nothing to do with my answer and that is why I made it separate.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
This is not the first time EG has played the “real man” card. It issues from his keyboard with the ease and frequency of an arch misandrist.
Of all the writers and commenters present on this site in almost six years of operation, I have never seen anyone go for the nuts as quickly and as perfunctorily as our own EG.
Itchy finger? Hardly. I have enormous tolerance for a wide variety of views and I rarely butt-in even when I disagree.
But bold misandry pisses me off big time.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I felt more attacked as a man, more misandry if you will, from the snide generalities in Joys counter than I ever have from EG. Do not lump me as some mindless automoton with regard to EG’s writing. He knows better also. But to call it misandry is beyond me.
Are you a navy seal mike?
July 14th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I also completely fail to see E.G.’s ‘misandy’.
What I see is a man acting directly, maybe causing some negative emotions temporarily, but with the ultimate goal of improving!
Consider the negative emotion fear (not so much anxiety) in particular.
It’s there to help you save your life in really serious situations. Think about it!
July 14th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
sc567 Thank you for saying that….the island was getting lonely.
Amazing to me was also Mike calling DW2G an informed critic after having tossed him a few months back.
The Bible talks about doublemindedness.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Wait one minute! DWG used the word “silly”. EG remarked on that word saying real men don’t use that, which angared Mike L.
I’m sorry, I thought this was MENS news daily.
Get off the estrogen, fellas, and grow some thick skin. Not getting your panties tied in a knot over insults/put downs is precisely one of the big differences which seperates the gents from the dames.
July 14th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Wtexas is (almost) on the nail. The discussion is getting bogeed down in He says, She says. WTF! By the way, ’silly’ is a very English dismissal rather than a feminine one. But I guess EG’s retort would be that England is ‘feminine’. The same England that set the standard for inventiveness and drove the whole Industrial Revolution virtually single-landedly. The mind boggles.
Yes, men invent more than women. Men conceptualise more than women. No conclusive stats on the matter, just an ‘intuitive’ ‘know’ about it. “Unseen” and frankly imaginary. To me, at least, the ‘unseen’ as a paradigm in EGs philosophy is very feminine. Much of EG’s mind-product seems feminine to me, but that’s just the way I hear him. Maybe Mike id picking up the same vibes.
It doesn’t help when EG uses ‘Real Men’ as a crutch for his arguement. Gordon friggin’ Bennett.
Unconsidered is the issue of beaurocracy. Most past inventions were concieved by individuals, mostly working quite alone. Now it is huge research labs populated by technically brilliantly educated nonentities who cannot tie their shoe laces without a government grant and three thousand memos.
Today, some – many – would dismiss Newton out of because he was an Alchmist. He also used herbal remedies and horoscopes. Very ‘feminine’. A creative nutter.
July 14th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Over the years I’ve worked in places which were majority males, and other places where it was majority females. I can honestly say that both sexes can be catty, bitchy, and gossipy, with little difference in their application. I presently work with a small group of men in a job with lots of down time and boredom. Do you know what the main pasttime is? Its talking about whoever is not present. Every little detail about each other is grist for the mill. Hours have passed while the men have cackled like hens over the latest “scandel”. I don’t engage in the gossip. My attitude is BFD (big f**king deal). Consequently I am somewhat of an outcast, but I certainly don’t loose any sleep over this. I go to work each day confident that anything I do, anytime I fart or pick my ass, that this will be a topic of discussion by them.
I read EG’s material for a few years now, and I believe the only way for his ideas to work is if he and his followers set up their own private group. Like the Mennonites or the Amish. Men and women are essentially the same: ruled by greed, envy, and above all human psychology. The sexes differ in the way they express and realize themselves, but the central element is power and control. Men usually directly engage control, women are more subtle using verbal coercion (aka nagging).
As for inventiveness diminishing in our society because males have been diminished, well, I’ve used Sauda Arabia as an example to show that maleness might not be a factor. I do believe that inventiveness flourishes during times of war, when facing an enemy, and in times of great national optimism (such as the celebratory atmosphere after winning a war).
July 14th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Amfortas: here’s to England. Cheers, my British friend.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
It’s impossible for a materialistc European mind – especially one which either (a) relies on empirical statistics, or (b) refuses to define gender traits as gender traits, to understand Elder’s message.
wtexas is one such person, because he sees it all as some grand cosmic cause and effect machine, “If men are given higher status, then they should automatically invent. Like…say….the Middle East?”
Amfortas is one such person, because he first insists on a literal translation of “masculininty and femininity” – but then tempers Elder’s masculine thought with his own feminine need for (a) perfection, (b) security – of which a 100% provably perfect argument is one such manifestation, and (c) an uncanny need for attention, “Say Elder. Look at me! I’m amfortas! Look at me! Look at me! I’m using objections which twist your words, so that you’ll pay attention to the greatness with which I make these unnecessary, destructuve demands!” Either that or, “I’d love to have abeer with you. It’s the most clever thing I can say while i twist your ideas. Look at me!”
The end result of amfrotas’ line of reasoning is that no one can do anything new until amfortas gives permission.
Mike LaSalle is also one such person, because he tempers Elder’s masculine message with (d) the deeply rooted sense that there are no such thing as great individuals anymore. “Elder, you have to use common methods!” was Mike’s most memorable quote. But common methods are only perfect for common results! (Those who wish for uncommon, or better-than-common results need not use common methods.)
Elder’s message is very simple: that unfettered masculine thought is the ONLY naturally inventive form of thought which exists. Unfettered by what? by feminine restraint!
Right now, masculine thought is so fettered by feminine ideals that very few men think masculinly. Off the top of my head, I can easily name the five most dangerous feminine fettering considerations
(1) materialism: The foolish feminine assumption that only that which can be statistically measured is worth discussing.
(2) niceness: The foolish feminine notion that all forms of passion are bad. (Think of it as The Inquisition applied to sociopolitical ideas. If you very passionately argue your points, that’s “proof” that your points are wrong, because, if they were right, you wouldn’t be so passionate about them.)
(3) non-competitiveness: Very closely related to niceness, this is the foolish feminine notion that points are non-competitive – that there’s no such things as: worse points and better points, or even the best point. (This is how infidel could post a very nice list of inventive factors, which could’ve been used to help all parents produce more inventive children, yet those who were so focused on proving that “women can invent” repeatedly ignored that list.
(4) emotionalism: The flipside of niceness. This forces people to assume that their ideas ought to be judged for the emotional reactiosn they produce in others, more so than for their creative potential.
(5) compassion for the weak: The corollary of non-competitiveness, this assumes that traditionally weaker ideas and/or groups can never offer inferior points.
For any person to become more inventive, he must free his own mind from the influence of the Five Feminine Fettering Influences. The people who have not done this will always argue against Elder’s message in a highly feminine way, which enables the masculine mind to quickly see these people for who they are. And since the opposite of inventiveness is “maintaining the status quo”, you can also infer which people are still under the grasp of the Feminine Fettering Influences by noticing how their arguments never ever NEVER lead to creative change.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
wtexas – In case you couldn’t follow my points above, The Middle East does not invent, because their men are supposed to provide 100% for their women. When you define women are weak, helpless, and potentially dangerous – and then punish the MEN for their transgressions (loss of honor doesn’t only impact the women, but everyone close to her), then their masculine energy is far from unfettered.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Occam’s Razor
This is what EG is applying. He is stripping away the irrelevant details and whats left is a core issue that is being addressed…..Look at the princepal concepts he is talking about and base arguments on this…..THEN we can have a discussion.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
To #39-39 MMX,
Okay, EG’s message is very simple: that unfettered masculine thought is the ONLY naturally inventive form of thought which exists. Unfettered by what? by feminine restraint!
So please explain in SIMPLE terms why the Muslim culture, which seems to fit the criteria for unfettered masculine thought, does NOT seem to have “naturally inventive form of thought”
Because what I’m hearing is that because men in our society have been feminized they have lost the ability to invent, YET, when I present Saudia Arabia (where men rule and are hardly feminized, but are not inventive) as an example, EG gives me a verbal tap dance.
Question: (a) Since EG claims that we males are feminized, and because of this feminazation we (b) have lost our ability to invent new things, we only adapt existing technology, so then how do you explain (c) a culture where males are not feminized and despite this they also do not invent (Saudi Arabia, Iran etc)?
July 14th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
To EG and MMX: though we live on the same planet, we clearly don’t live in the same world. Everytime I read EG’s pieces I think of him as believing that Mayberry and the Cleaver family actually existed in reality. I’m a little more cynical than you guys.
July 15th, 2007 at 12:27 am
MMX said: “The Middle East does not invent, because … their masculine energy is far from unfettered.”
If so, what is restraining it? It can’t be the women. It has to be the culture. Which, over there, means the religion more than anything else. So isn’t this saying Islam is feminine.
I’m not saying I agree or disagree. I’m just pointing out where this line of reasoning seems to lead.
July 15th, 2007 at 12:32 am
By the way, if you insult the “religion of peace” by calling it feminine, you might have to go into hiding like Salman Rushdie.
July 15th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Amfortas said: “Can brains make ideas? Do brains conceive ideas? Or do they receive ideas? In the quantum particle … all possibilities are said to exist. … All possibilities includes all possible conceptualities too. All possible ideas. … Ideas popping into mind?”
There is no such thing as a disembodied idea/thought. An idea or thought cannot exist outside the mind. So ideas don’t pop into it, like some kind of a disembodied spirit looking for a home.
Anyway, a lot of physicists nowadays are more philosophers than scientists, and they all like to pass their philosophies off as science. Since there is no end to philosophical debates, a lot of these ideas contradict each other, so this approach is not constructive.
July 15th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Look here, MMX; over here; not over there. Here. At MEeee!! This is a Brahma, Hahahahaha:
“Amfortas is one such person, because he first insists on a literal translation of “masculininty and femininity” – but then tempers Elder’s masculine thought with his own feminine need for (a) perfection, (b) security – of which a 100% provably perfect argument is one such manifestation, and (c) an uncanny need for attention, “Say Elder. Look at me! I’m amfortas! Look at me! Look at me! I’m using objections which twist your words, so that you’ll pay attention to the greatness with which I make these unnecessary, destructuve demands!” Either that or, “I’d love to have abeer with you. It’s the most clever thing I can say while i twist your ideas. Look at me!”
The end result of amfrotas’ line of reasoning is that no one can do anything new until amfortas gives permission. ”
MMX, If its my permission you need to be what you are and for what you want to say, you have it, for what it’s worth. I doubt anyone takes a blind bit of notice of what I say (OK maybe some do) but I don’t see a lack of people arguing with me. So I should just chuck the towel in? Do you want that I should just agree with you?
Not a chance, sunshine.
By the way, not only do I not ‘insist’ on a literal translation of masculine and feminine, I have neither offered on not seen anyone else offer one. I have sought from several people just what they mean by the terms, but few have told me. Some like EG seem to ascribe a lot to one or the other.
Perfection and security, eh? Don’t you go inventing anything, now, you are bound to overlook something and fail to copyright it with that attitude.
Beer? Take a powder.
July 15th, 2007 at 3:49 am
To wtexas,
I knew that you would be back, but I had to wait until the storm cleared to answer you. You are closer to understanding than you realize. The following paragraph was taken from a chapter from my manuscript Caesar is Coming.
“The term gender comes from the Latin root meaning to produce; for production or movement to take place in the universe an assertive influence must act upon a receptive entity. An example would be the movement of an object, say a cup sitting upon a table. The cup sits upon the table in a perfectly receptive state and has no will. Unless some assertive influence comes in contact with that cup it will sit upon the table forever. Adding another receptive entity such as a second cup will not produce any movement. Only the application of force by an assertive influence can move the cups. The receptive entity represents the feminine principle and the assertive influence represents the masculine principle. If there were two assertive influences and no cups, no movement would result because there would not be anything to move. In order for anything to happen in the universe an assertive influence must act upon a receptive entity; a union of the masculine and feminine principles must take place, and this union creates a pregnancy. Everything seen in the universe came from a pregnancy.”
Now if we leave cups and go into any form of life, both the masculine and feminine principles are at work, but the masculine principle predominates in the male and the feminine principle predominates in the female. Two roosters cannot produce chicks anymore than two hens can. However, if the flock becomes large, and the hens say, “Look there are so many of us, we don’t need roosters anymore,” the flock will not only diminish in number but in structure—chaos will ensue. That is our present society.
The following was taken from my booklet 20th Century Decadence: 2500 years of Western Materialism:
“The Greeks served as the conduit between the Afro-Asian masculine thinking and the European feminine thinking. The early Greek scholars, such as: Thales, Anaximander, Anaxamenes, Anaxagoras, and Pythagoras, dealt with abstractions and concepts. Topics they addressed were the origin of all things, god is in all things, and mind controls matter. Pythagoras, whom we credit with the formula for determining the length of the sides of a right triangle, was a mystic. He introduced to Europe the knowledge of numerology which be obtained from the Chaldeans, and established a mystery school in Crotona, Italy. The thinking of these men was very abstract and therefore strongly masculine.
The later Greeks whom Western knowledge is more familiar with such as: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolomy, Euclid, Epicures, Archimedes and Hero, dealt less in abstractions and more in material matters as time passed. Those whom we credit with conceptual thinking such as Ptolomy, Euclid, and Epicures, were all students of Afro-Asian learning. Euclid and Ptolomy had their headquarters in Alexandria, and Epicures’ mentor Democritus, traveled extensively in the East.
The Athenian Greeks were more mundane. Aristotle started the scientific approach of gathering materials, classifying and grading them. Archimedes is credited with two famous statements: the first “Eureka” when he discovered that a floating body displaces its weight in water, and the second “give me a fulcrum and a place to stand and I will lift the world,” when he discovered the principle for the operation of levers. By the time of Hero who in the first century invented the steam engine, conceptual masculine thought was gone from the Greeks and their thinking became completely Europeanized.”
There is very little taught in our society about the early Greeks because our society focuses on the material, it is imbalanced. We focus on the material and do not realize the material world that we have came from unseen thinking.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:19 am
To wtexas,
Another of your comments addressed the lack of Muslim inventiveness. I am loath to classify people by religion, because it is so misleading. Sweden and Denmark classify as Christian nations, but only 4% of the people are churched. The fastest growth of Christianity in the last decade occurred in Southern Africa.
Likewise among Muslims, Tunisia and Morocco are more West that the West. The fertility rates of both countries have fallen below what is necessary to sustain them.
You probably mean the patriarchal structure of Asians. Extreme patriarchy does not focus on material invention. As Edith Hamilton wrote in her book, The Greek Way to Western Civilization, The Egyptians and Asians were “other worldly.” Their focus was on matters spiritual. What they needed was provided by God or could come from within. That was the teaching of Jesus; he fed the multitude from a few fish and loaves of bread, he had Peter walking on water, and told us that we could move mountains. All of this was done by the power of the unseen.
Who among us can move a mountain, boulder, rock, stone, pebble, or even a grain of sand? We can however, blow up mountains up can’t we? We have pursued a material direction instead of a spiritual direction, and we equate everything we do materially. We are also paying the price for that thinking.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Before all hell breaks loose again about why spiritual is masculine and material feminine: maybe the drawings in this Dutch article (http://www.xs4all.nl/~hermio/adem/1-3-7.pdf) give some insight. It has helped me a lot.
Why isn’t it the other way around? Which of the two genders here has the ’seed’ which impregnates the ‘egg’ (the seen, the universe)?
Those needing some translations: ask me, I’m a native Dutch resident. Or consult http://babelfish.altavista.com/, I’m away for the day now.
Keep in mind something related: in yin is yang, and in yang is yin. They’re relatives, only applicable if at least two ‘things’ are ‘present’.
And why do we find so much ‘feminine’ characteristics in men nowadays? Consider the social engineering, huh? The concurrent social decline?
If the yin isn’t really yin (want’s to be or is encouraged to be yang), and the yang is forced to be yin…
And finally remember male/female and masculine/feminine aren’t synonymous, but analogous.
Sorry for unstructeredness, instead of unseen/seen, what about unmanifest/manifest, thought/deed.
July 15th, 2007 at 7:24 am
To sc567,
Thanks for your comments. It’s comforting to have a cool hand aboard during rough seas.
Checked out you link and am interested. Please contact me through my website.
Concidentally I received an order from the Netherlands on Friday.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:36 am
wtexas – I hadn’t thought to look to spirituality, not as a “fettering agent”, but as a “difference of focus” to explain the lack of material invention. But Elder’s perspective works.
When masculine authority is largely unchecked within a spiritually-focused society, material luxury is considered dangerous due to its potential to pull people away from all matters spiritual, and towards their own selfish needs for material comfort. (This explains why I wasn’t allowed to play too much Nintendo when I was growing up, for fear that it would pull me away from my studies.)
When you define life as spirit, material comfort is interpretted as running away from life. Alcohol = running away from life, sp ot’s forbidden. Casual, non-commital sex = running away from life, so it’s forbidden.
Those are pretty easy to understand, so very few people disagree with them. But let’s move to the more difficult to understand, less comfortable.
(1) Refusing to allow the public to discuss your wrong-doings = running away from life. If you’re in a position of power, and can squash the dissent, that’s running away from life. But if you’re not in such a position, you can always declare that the dissenter doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is also running away from life.
(2) Refusing to acknowledge the existence of “the best possible approach” = running away from life. When you refuse to acknowledge the best approach, you cut off people who ask you whether your actions were the best possible ones you could take. And when you do this, you’re really giving yourself permission to make mediocre, or even terrible decisions, the vast majority of the time – just without reaping the consequences thereof.
(3) Existing to be noticed and praised = running away from life. We commonly call this attention whoring, but this mindset runs away from life. This is because it’s about 999 times easier to be noticed by focusing on petty truths and parroting them over and over again (and a myriad other petty ways of drawing attention to oneself) than it is to tackle and solve an exceptionally large, far-reaching problem.
Running away from life is feminine, because the basic feminine reproductive strategy is to attach yourself to the man who can do the most work, thereby leeching off of his strength to provide for your own security and comfort. And no man who employs the feminine reproductive strategy of running away from life will ever invent, because he focuses his energy on non-inventive ends.
When a man’s desire for material comfort pulls a way a man’s need to create and prove himself according to the best possible standard, he has traded away his inventiveness for trinkets.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:47 am
sc567 – My favorite masculine/feminine drawing takes the male sign of Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_symbol) and the female sign of Venus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_symbol) and super-imposes them such that their common rings overlap.
How does one interpret this drawing?
Well, the masculine force is always starting at the central world, common to both genders, and saying, “Let’s go over here. I’ll lead. Why? Because the world is better over there.”
While the feminine force, in reaction to this, is always saying, “No. Let’s stay here, in the place where I am comfortable, because I would rather keep known comfort than unknown better comfort, even though that unknown comfort may be better than what I have now!
Do you really want to spot a feminized man? If his arguments and tactics can be reduced to, “We need the status quo, because we know it best!” then he’s too feminized to follow the masculine, inventive principle.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Also, if you want to truly see a masculine man’s core, decide whether his arguments can be reduced to, “Let’s go to a different, better place, simply because it is better. Let’s risk our current materialistic lifestyle in favor of a new way of thinking that is more healthy and balanced.”
That’s the core of masculine leadership.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Mike LaSalle – “Accusing someone of not being a “real man” because he disagrees with you is an inherently sly and underhanded shaming tactic long used by those who seek power over other men. EG – perhaps owing to his particular generational mindset – seems very at home with this well-worn brand of misandry.
Misandrists – regardless of their sex or age – will receive no quarter from me.”
Sorry Mike, but you brought this upon yourself.
Elder has been firmly but consistently telling me to make sure that my arguments and comments stray away from the personal (like my comment #38 towards amfortas). But when you stick your neck out and personally accuse Elder of being misandrist, the ONLY reply is to become personal.
Real man is masculine codespeak for the question, “Did you conduct yourself in the best way possible? To a masculine man, this question is very welcoming, because he usually asks it of himself anyway. But to a less masculine man, this question is offensive, a sort of, “how dare YOU question MY actions?”
(I was watching this show Mind Your Manners on The Learning Channel. In it, were three people who were very coarse and ill-mannered, who were being put through a crash course on etiquette. There was a truck-driver from Brooklyn, a crazy-haired, female wild child from I-Forgot-Where, and a future Harvard Woman’s Studies major wearing a manly t-shirt which read, “This is what afeminist looks like.”
While all three people revealed themselves as having this same trait, the crazy-haired chick exemplified it best in an argument with the male etiquette teacher.
He showed her an interview clip of her friends, explaining why they want her to be more well-mannered. “We don’t feel we can take her to adult places, because her behavior always makes us look bad…”
She replied with, “I want to take my clothes off, spit in your face, and just run away from all this!”
He asked, “But what are you running from?”
She replied, “The judgments!”
He calmly observed, “But you certainly judge other peoples’ behavior, don’t you?”)
Very much like the crazy-haired chick who “runs away from the judgments”, Mike LaSalle accuses Elder of being “misandrist”, simply because Elder has the sense to point out whenever men fail to live up to their highest possible potential.
And very much like the crazy-haired chick, Mike LaSalle cannot accept that, since no one supported Mike LaSalle in his accusations, then those accusations must be wrong. Instead, Mike LaSalle is playing a “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” approach, wherein if everyone called Elder a misandrist, then Mike LaSalle is correct, whereas if no one calls Elder a misandrist, then Mike LaSalle is abrave, heoric figure who understands Elder like nobody else, so why even ask people what they think of Elder anyway?
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose arguments always shake my head and make me think of the universal reaction to a terrible toupee, “My God, does he truly think he’s fooling anybody, let alone everybody?
Mike – Since no one supported your “misandrist” finger-pointing, kindly apologize. You simply don’t understand how masculine men use the phrase “REAL MAN” to remind all men that they have a higher potential which ought to be reached.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Here’s a very concrete example to explain the use of REAL MAN.
Again, the masculine Mars symbol. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_symbol)
And again, the feminine Venus symbol. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_symbol)
Elder told me the following in response to my comment #38. Do not make your responses personal; that is feminine and contrary to what you preach.
The bold is mine, but, do you notice how what he told me could easily have said, “MMX, a real man never uses personal attacks unnecessarily.”
I interpretted his remark using the masculine symbol. The circle represents what I did (using personal arguments), while his advice represents the arrow (Things will be better for you if you instead go here.) When you use the masculine symbol to interpret masculine advice, you can say, “You know what? He’s right!” Then you can easily improve your life.
But Mike LaSalle uses the feminine symbol to interpret Elder’s advice. The circle represents what DadWith2Girls did (using a weak argument to destroy someone else) while the downward-pointing cross represents the stubbornness which Mike LaSalle insists DadWith2Girls should employ. (”How dare Elder declare that your argument wasn’t any good! He’s just trying to gain control over you! Conspiracy!)
What happens when you tell a woman that the skimpy shirt she’s wearing unflatteringly exposes her fat stomach and suggest she wear this other, more flattering shirt? Does she take the masculine approach, compare the two shirts in her mind, and say, “You know what? He’s right!” Or does she take the feminine approach of, “How dare you tell me what to wear?”
With regard to inventivenes, people who take the masculine approach are capable of inventing new solutions, while people who tale the feminine approach will always arrogantly resist new solutions. Happens all the time…
July 15th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Here’s EG’s argument in its simplest form:
“Real men agree with me. If you don’t agree with me, then you are not a real man.”
Here’s the version used by the feminasties and their robotic servants in the divorce industry:
“Real men pay their child support no matter how punitive and unreasonable the judgment. If you don’t pay your child support – even if you’re unemployed or in jail – then you are not a real man.”
The moment you start to play the “real man do X” game, you have already lost.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Mike LaSalle said,
Here’s EG’s argument in its simplest form:
“Real men agree with me. If you don’t agree with me, then you are not a real man.” …..
Maybe a common Christian analogy is in order. You don’t know what an apple is until you taste it.
July 15th, 2007 at 11:46 am
MMX said: “… masculine men use the phrase “REAL MAN” to remind all men that they have a higher potential which ought to be reached.”
Maybe. It depends on how you say it. Lots of men, whether masculine or not, also use expressions like “a real man wouldn’t do that” to insult the person instead of dealing with the argument. Good debates focus on the issues not the personalities, or who is the better man.
Too much testosterone?
July 15th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Infidel – “ Lots of men, whether masculine or not, also use expressions like “a real man wouldn’t do that” to insult the person instead of dealing with the argument. Good debates focus on the issues not the personalities, or who is the better man. ”
The better men have a better grasp of the issues, while the lesser men always twist the arguments BOTH away from the issues but also and especially away from the actions and interpretations of the critics.
It’s a lesser man tactic to say, “Use your brains to personally criticize and assault the character of the proposer / creator of an idea, but don’t you DARE use those brains to criticizte ands assault the character of the critics of that idea.” (Again, look above to the crazy-haired woman. What was she running from? The judgments! But she judges the behavior of others, right?
Who is most visibly playing the, “On the one hand, assault someone’s character, but on the other hand, never assault someone’s character!” game?
Mike LaSalle – “Here’s EG’s argument in its simplest form:
“Real men agree with me. If you don’t agree with me, then you are not a real man.””
Wildly summarizing something you don’t understand is like smearing black paint over a picture and calling it an “improvement”. I could care less whether you agree with Elder. But, like a man wearing a bad toupee, you truly and honestly think you’re “fooling us” with your criticisms.
infidel – “Too much testosterone?”
Nope – not enough!! Most men, because they are raised fatherless, or because they are raised under weak men, have never been exposed tot he “strong, silent type” of man – the man who expresses his love in deeds, not words.
All men are first feminine, because they are raised by their mothers in their earliest years. But not all men have been exposed to the strongest possible form of masculinity, so they have no idea what they can (and ought to!!!) strive towards.
July 15th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
“to Dadwith2girls,
Silly is a frequently used term by women; real men rarely use it in their discourse.”
Crap!
Now I have to re-read the entire thread just to try to discover my rhetorical “sin.”
And figure out why this anonymous wanker used the silly “shame-and-blame” tactic to waste pixels on a screen.
Man, this is getting to seem a lot like W-O-R-K.
Mike L.?
Your neighborhood is changing….
July 15th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
MMX said: “Most men … have never been exposed to the ’strong, silent type’ of man – the man who expresses his love in deeds, not words.”
EG writes books and articles so how can he be called the silent type? MMX is explaining his philosophy with words. That is not being the silent type either.
July 15th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Consider the title of this thread: “Decreased Inventiveness — A Symptom”.
The whole argument here hinges on the idea that there are fewer “conceptual” inventions. Has this term even been explained? Has anyone defined what a “conceptual” invention is?
What is the difference between a conceptual invention and an adaptation? Is the space shuttle merely an adaptation of the wheel? After all the “concept” is the same in each case: transportation. Yet reducing the shuttle to a mere adaptation of the wheel certainly discounts a lot of creativeness.
Once we have a definition, we could perhaps do a scientific survey of inventions and *try* to classify each as either conceptual or an adaptation. But so far no such study has been done. Thus, where is the proof that there are fewer conceptual inventions?
EG has some good points, but some of his weak points detract from the rest of the message.
July 15th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
To Inidel: thats the problem with EG’s group here, they tap dance around the words they write. For instance, its been said here that the masculine and feminine principle does not necessarily correlate to male and female, which means that creativity and inventiveness can come from a man or a woman, depending I guess on whomever has a preponderance of that principle. Yet, EG’s writings seem to indicate that masculine = male and feminine = female. His group trys to have it both ways. I’ve cited male dominated cultures in the Middle East and according to EG’s teachings these male dominated cultures should be prime examples of the masculine principle at work. Instead I am told some story about these cultures not representing the principle at all.
So I ask this question, can EG or his cohorts give me one specific example of a culture, group, or society, anywhere in the world, existing in the present or the past, which would be the closest thing to the society that EG would like us to move toward?
If this is impossible, then EG is inventing a new form of society, therefore, new inventions ( non material based) are still being created.
July 15th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Also, when we try to ask for clarification, or we get technical or specific, we are told we “are missing the point”, and our questions go unanswered or washed away in a 1500 word rebuttal.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I say we could look at the US patent office to define what invention is. Any new improved take on existing technology IS a new invention. We had cathode ray tubes for television, plasma and LCD screens did not exist, some lab created (invented) them and now they exist. BTW, the patent office registers hundreds of new patents a year.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
“I say we could look at the US patent office to define what invention is.”
I think that was covered – 5% new patents for females.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Exactly. And if you dare to ask for a “definition” of any word or phrase that EG uses, we’re told that “definitions” are “seen” and therefore “feminine”.
Around and around we go.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Can you even say the wheel was invented? Most likely some ancient guy noticed that a log rolls, or perhaps noticed that a round rock will roll. This observation was a discovery that rounded things move easily over ground, not an invention. In this same way Isaac Newton noticed that things fall down and he discovered gravity, not invented gravity.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
My dad once said (guessed?) that the wheel was an adaptation of rolling logs placed under heavy objects to move them along.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
One time, I promise its true….I bumped my head.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
To wtexas,
I answered your questions as best I could and so did mmx.
Regarding inventions, the electric light was conceptual and was not a modification of anything. All other forms of light required the burning of wood, candles, oil or gas.
The radio was also conceptual in nature.
Going from vacuum tubes to silicon chips did not change the concept of the computer.
More patents are given out today that ever, but most of them are for adaptations.
We can compare it to the business world, in which there are more registered businesses, but less and less entrepreneurship. Having a franchise for Midas or Ihop is not entrepreneurship. The ones who issue the franchises are the entrepreneurs and their numbers are decreasing as they are bought up by large conglomerates. Fewer and fewer people own more and more of the business world.
Regarding where have I seen patriarchy work, I have seen it in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Southern Italy and the Balkans.
That’s it for now. Tomorrow is another day.
July 15th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
MMX, thumbs up for presenting us these almost-article-comments. You’re getting somewhere. Let it be encouraging!
July 15th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
EG said “Silly is a frequently used term by women; real men rarely use it in their discourse.” Oooh wow. Why is there nitpicking about it? Don’t like it, move on.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:24 am
amanda, thanks for pointing this out!
Regarding the silly is not a ‘real man’s way: I’d rather see the arguments Dadwith2Girls considered futile. Maybe EG and his ‘tap dancers’ (?!) will not agree with you, but in most of these commenting/forum realms, only ~10% really comments. I’ve been doing that for a long time myself.
Just dismissing an argument by calling it names…
July 16th, 2007 at 4:25 am
I do encourage all having problems with all this stuff to read of all E.G.’s stuff here on MND:
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/elder-george/ (or http://mensaction.mensnewsdaily.com/)
and his website: http://mensaction.net/ thorougly and multiple times.
Then (or before) get a feel and understanding of the yin/yang concept from other sources. In EG’s writing (actually all correct writings) yin corresponds with feminine, yang with masculine.
In between I personally have tought/’meditated’ about it like while doing a bike ride out of town. This whole thing doens’t explain itself in just reading a few articles, I’ve been reading along since about February.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:29 am
To Amanda,
Your comment #73 is straightforward and reasonable. But there is an “unseen” reason why they don’t move on.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Quoth an Objectioner, “Yet, EG’s writings seem to indicate that masculine = male and feminine = female. His group trys to have it both ways.”
That’s odd. The Objectioners seem to be making all of the demands, not Elder.
Elder says that the masculine and feminine forces are unseen, so an Objectioner first demands a concrete example (of something seen!) and then says, “Since Elder cannot comply to my demands, then Elder is wrong.”
MMX says that inventiveness is adaptive, flexible, and non-definable. Think MacGyver! Does he know, at minute 10 of any episode, how he’ll escape the situation he’ll find himself in at minute 55? Or does he creatively synthesize the materials that surround him into a unique siolution?
Furthermore, if you ask MacGyver to write down all of the uses for: a paper clip, a wad of chewing gum, a plastic checker, and so on, he’d probably do this. But will his gigantic list of information get you out of a jam? Or would you need his masculine spirit and experience to guide you out?
There’s a difference between knowledge, which Elder preaches, and information, which his Objectioners praise. Knowledge is living, adaptive, and inventive, while information is cold, dead, and unchanging. Information tries to understand MacGyver by writing down everything he has ever done.
This approach clearly works when you find yourself in an identical situation from MacGyver’s past, but it cannot adapt to a never-before-seen situation.
But when you demand that Elder “clearly define” his concepts, you’re making the demands! And you’re positing that, “If Elder cannot meet my demands, then Elder is wrong!”
July 16th, 2007 at 8:07 am
MMX, reality check. Hello. Is that MacGyver’s script writer in your pocket or are you on the happy pills.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:42 am
MMX said: “But when you demand that Elder ‘clearly define’ his concepts, you’re making the demands! And you’re positing that, ‘If Elder cannot meet my demands, then Elder is wrong!’.”
We seek (or demand) proof. If EG cannot provide proof (or at least stronger arguments) for his week points, then we have no reason to believe those points, even if they are correct.
Is EG positing that he is correct, without having to meet the demand for proof?
July 16th, 2007 at 9:02 am
The Biker Lead Guitarist for my band read his book.
Agreed with it immediately.
This is a man who would kill just as fast as he will curse, jsut to make life simpler.
That is a Man of Action.
He get’s it.
I need no more proof.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:23 am
infidel – “We seek (or demand) proof.”
Fine, but certainly not fair. After all, Elder has very consistently warned people that his ideas cannot be understood through materialistic proof. So Elder says, “Materialistic proof won’t work!” Yet you demand it anyway. And then you imply that this is all Elder’s fault? But wait, who demanded what from whom?
Just as he has also said that “clear definitions” won’t work either. Yet the Objectioners demand them anyway, and posit that this is all Elder’s fault. Is it?
infidel – “Is EG positing that he is correct, without having to meet the demand for proof”
Yes….and no. No, because he doesn’t want to be blindly followed. Yes, because he insists that the demand for certain types of proof (like materialistic evidence and clear definitions) will kill the understanding – not foster it.
(It’s even worse that the people who make the message-killing demands take no responsibility for these demands.)
July 16th, 2007 at 10:26 am
MMX said: “…the demand for certain types of proof (like materialistic evidence and clear definitions) will kill the understanding – not foster it.”
Philosophy uses reason. Science relies on materialistic evidence. Both require clear definitions.
In the West, religion is based on revelation from a Greater Power.
Eastern religion, which I don’t know much about, is different from Western religion.
Besides reason (logic), material evidence, and revelation, what other types of proof are there?
Here is a question for EG: Are your beliefs a philosophy, a science, a religion, or a mixture of the three?
July 16th, 2007 at 10:47 am
infidel — “Philosophy uses reason. Science relies on materialistic evidence. Both require clear definitions.”
Is it reasonable to demand materialistic proof from someone who swears that it will not work? Is it reasonable to demand “clear definitions” right after you’re told that they, too, will not work?
“Here is a question for EG: Are your beliefs a philosophy, a science, a religion, or a mixture of the three?”
The oldest religion is Hinduism. Unlike Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, Hinduism isn’t founded on the words of a leading figure. Instead, you’re supposed to find a Yogi, a man who understands the spirit world and isn’t trying to start a major religion from his understanding.
i’ll let elder answer your question, though.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:51 am
To MMX. Well it’s funny then, because I’ve always believed that “clear definations” was along the lines of being a man and having a male mind. Its stereotypical but prevalent enough in society to have merit. Boys play rough, they play with tanks and toy guns, and they play in teams, get into fistfights, and eat bugs. Grown men aspire to be logical, brave, intelligent, are expected to know how to fix home repairs, change the oil in the care, fix the computer, read a map, and face problems directly and head on. What they are NOT expected to do is: cry at sad movies, fall apart during a crises, sit around with their friends over coffee and wax poetic about losing weight and how great everyones hair looks, and they are not expected aspire to have the home decor sense o Martha Stewart.
Now what you are saying is that us men should not question, that we should be satisfied with flowery, vague, nuanced statements, and that we are wrong to apply logic and reason to these matters.
You Sir are the new-age male analog of Martha Stewart. You want us sitting here quietly sipping tea while our heads fill with concepts that, when we need explanation, we are told ” the demand for certain types of proof (like materialistic evidence and clear definitions) will kill the understanding – not foster it.”
What a totally feminine answer. Are you a speech writer for the N.O.W.? Perhaps EG should commission you to draw a Harlequin Romance type cover for his next book.
Oh, and thanks Martha MX for that story about the biker in your band, you sound like a teenage girl with a crush on him.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:51 am
To infidel,
That’s a loaded question because the definition of those three terms varies and are essentially Western concepts.
Have you ever heard the saying, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free?” Truth is not provable infidel, it is understood. I can’t embellish that. You’re looking for proof and I can’t give it to you.
I can keep giving you examples that will massage your consciousness and then you will say to yourself I see it. Or a part of it, or more than EG sees. We all have a glimpse of the truth but no one sees it all. I espouse that portion of the truth that I am able to see.
Whatever truth you understand cannot be effectively challenged by others and cannot make you feel insecure, because you “know” it, not believe it.
Ther are some who now supprot my vews but who thought I was “‘off the wall” six months ago. I didn’t prove anything to them. They reached certain realizations on their own.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:08 am
wtexas — ” Well it’s funny then, because I’ve always believed that “clear definations” was along the lines of being a man and having a male mind.”
If gender is a natural concept, not a socially constructed one, where do definitions fall in? Definitons involve people arguing, while turing away from the natural world, about the nature of what they study. Hence, “clear definitions” of what gender really is, falls under the “socially constructed” method – which doesn’t work.
“Now what you are saying is that us men should not question, that we should be satisfied with flowery, vague, nuanced statements, and that we are wrong to apply logic and reason to these matters.”
Not at all! But I am saying that certain forms of questioning will be 100% ineffective. To rely on these ineffective methods is unreasonable. If it doesn’t work, and will never work, why do it at all?
“You Sir are the new-age male analog of Martha Stewart.”
Wouldn’t it be more honest and reasonable to meet me first, to ask me questions, before you state such inane accusations?
July 16th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Not at all! But I am saying that certain forms of questioning will be 100% ineffective. To rely on these ineffective methods is unreasonable. If it doesn’t work, and will never work, why do it at all?
………………………………………………………………………………….
And how convenient that you decide which questions are deemed “ineffective”.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:24 am
To wtexas and infidel,
Western education believes it can pour knowledge into you. It cannot. It does not deal in knowledge—it deals in information. Information is how to bake a cake or construct a bridge. It is material and provable. Our time is called the “information age,” it is not called the knowledge age or the truth age. It does not even know what truth is.
I make few attempts at pouring information into you; I work at extracting knowledge out of you. The knowledge is already in you; your creator placed it there.
I recommend you read my article Cubists, which can be found on my website under Men’s Action news.
Western man is always developing theories because he does not know the truth, and is always making studies because he has no understanding.
The truth is within you. Look for it.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
EG said: “That’s a loaded question because the definition of those three terms varies and are essentially Western concepts.”
EG, by trying to dodge my question, I think you have answered it. You are promulgating an Eastern philosophy/religion. Your dodge is to reject the “Western” concept that religion, science, and philosophy are distinct and relatively easy to define.
You said: “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free?’ Truth is not provable infidel, it is understood. I can’t embellish that. You’re looking for proof and I can’t give it to you.”
In Christianity, truth *is* provable. You quote Christ, but Christ offered miracles as proof he was the Messiah. Therefore you are misapplying the words of Christ in order to support your competing Eastern approach to “Truth”.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
wtexas — “And how convenient that you decide which questions are deemed “ineffective”"
Not at all! If we’re discussing gender, which is a natural construct, then the use of social constructs will never work. Gender and nature define which methods of investigation are ineffective, not Elder, nor me.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Infidel — “In Christianity, truth *is* provable. You quote Christ, but Christ offered miracles as proof he was the Messiah. Therefore you are misapplying the words of Christ in order to support your competing Eastern approach to “Truth”
Yet Christ also got very frustrated with those people who asked Him to “show us a sign”.
In Christianity, the Truth of every individual’s relationship with God is between God and that Individual. The Church (the social aspect) is considered far secondary.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:30 am
To explain Christianity further: Christ performed miracles to prove he was God. Since he was the Creator, he has superior knowledge of truth. Therefore, he simply told us (revealed) what we can’t otherwise know.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Christ did not perform miracles to prove who he was. He didn’t have to prove anything to anybody. He did what he did to show you what you can do if you had even a little understnding of the unseen.
July 16th, 2007 at 11:52 am
EG said: “Christ did not perform miracles to prove who he was. He didn’t have to prove anything to anybody.”
Wrong.
“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.” (John 10:37).
Anyway, I won’t debate religion because I think that’s a waste of time and is not what this site is all about. I just wanted to know what we were dealing with here. And what EG is offering is Eastern religious philosophy.
His trick is to lure people in by saying they will be more masculine if they take his goofy approach, which he won’t admit is a religion.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Actually, I think Dr Laura explains yin/yang the best. She says that morality and gender roles are spelled out in the Bible. In black and white. We base our moral and ethical system on the Bible and use that as a reference to determine crimes, punishments, etc.
Now if someone wants us to use a system where we use some kind of instinctive knowledge, then what you would have is men acting however they wanted, and you can’t tell them they are wrong because their “inner knowledge” says it is so. Therefore, Joe can beat his wife because his “unseen inner knowledge” says its the right thing to do, and Dan can burn his competitors house for the same reason.
When you base your actions on subjective “unseen inner knowledge” then you’re going to get different behavior at different times by different men under different circumstances because each man will interpret what he feels differently. And, because its SUBJECTIVE, based on what you EEL, nobody can say that anyone is wrong unless you are a mind reader and know that Joe is lying.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
infidel — “His trick is to lure people in by saying they will be more masculine if they take his goofy approach, which he won’t admit is a religion.”
Why is it goofy? Does it fail to make a man more masculine? And why is it a religion?
You seem to be asserting ideas that you have no interest in proving.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
wtexas — “Now if someone wants us to use a system where we use some kind of instinctive knowledge, then what you would have is men acting however they wanted, and you can’t tell them they are wrong because their “inner knowledge” says it is so.”
This makes no sense. If Nature exists to arbitrate between effective and ineffective approaches, then how can people “just do whatever they want”? The only way this makes sense is when you remove Nature’s arbitration from the picture.
“Therefore, Joe can beat his wife because his “unseen inner knowledge” says its the right thing to do, and Dan can burn his competitors house for the same reason.
Okay, so first you tell me that I’m a Martha Stewart clone, and then you say that Elder supports wife-beating and house-burning? And when we point out that, in the absence of ANY evidence,these accusations are childish and weak, who’s being unreasonable?
Why pay lip-service to logic and reason when you’re firing out these highly illogical and unreasonable accusations?
“When you base your actions on subjective “unseen inner knowledge” then you’re going to get different behavior at different times by different men under different circumstances because each man will interpret what he feels differently.”
But Nature will arbitrate which of these “subjective” approaches is most effective. But, if some approaches are clearly superior to others, how subjective can they be?
“Cause it’s SUBJECTIVE, based on what you FEEL, nobody can say that anyone is wrong unless you are a mind reader and know that Joe is lying.”
Saying that Joe is wrong can either be based on the SOCIAL perspective (You’re wrong, because the majority says you’re wrong) or on the NATURAL perspective (You’re wrong, because Nature doesn’t respect your approaches.)
Who removed the Natural approach? Not Elder.
July 16th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I admit I haven’t read every comment up until now (the totality of them is a bit dizzying to me), but I did get about halfway through them before deciding to chime in.
This last weekend I attended the Men’s Equality Conference in Washington, D.C. One presentation was done by Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, authors of Spreading Misandry and Legalizing Misandry. Nathanson began their presentation by talking about the differences between males and females in terms of their “rites of passage” into manhood and womanhood. He pointed out that, historically, males’ rites of passage have been much more rigorous and distinct than those of females. In older cultures, men have been sent off to hunt, have had to endure painful or dangerous rituals and tests, have had to overcome some challenge. Today, men register for military conscription. They put their personal safety on the line in defense of their loved ones. They continue to embrace the provider role (despite female reentry into the workplace). Societal expectation upon males to be protectors (risking their lives) and providers (expending their time and effort) takes the form of a rite of passage, in my opinion. One additional “rite of passage” is the conformity to societal perceptions of what constitutes “maleness.” To fail at that rite of passage (or any other) is perceived as a male “not being a real man.” It’s the failure to conform to an externally-imposed standard that results in the designation of a male as “not being a man.”
I would counter that the only fair “rite of passage” that distinguishes a real man from a boy is a mental state of mind. That state of mind is the one that says, “I refuse to substitute the judgment of others for my own judgment. I have a mind and I will use it, and will not be shamed into suppressing my ability to decide what is best.” To be a real man, then, is to reject anyone else’s prescription for what constitutes “real man,” and instead to pursue that which conforms to your values, your reason, and your independent judgment.
July 16th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
To wtexas & infidel,
I am pleased to explain my viewpoint to anyone who shows interest; however, if they are just interested in poking holes in it I see no purpose in accommodating them. I’m not running for office and don’t need to prove anything. I felt the two of you were interested, as did others, and during the past two days at least a half dozen people have been explaining things to you on this blog site and on the one I posted this morning, yet you have not indicated that you learned anything from anyone. That being the case, why continue?
I don’t visit the blog sites of those whose writings I disagree with except for occasional curiosity. Why waste their time and mine? They do likewise.
I’m not responding to anymore of your questions until I sense a shift in interest.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Honor, truth, integrity, reliability, constancy, and standards of all sorts emanate from the conceptual thinking of the masculine gender.
These concepts, as we know them today, came from protestant Christians. However, the secular, and the humanists, would love them to be some natural part of something. In this case “maleness”, which is very untrue, and all it is what those in the past call a vanity.
Truth got its start as we know it from Plato, and other great philosophers of the past. It died when the modern philosphers, with political agendas built in, killed it with relativism. Its these that we follow now, thanks to the work of the Frankfurt school, and men like adorno, and marcuse.
Reliability can Constancy, even in that order can be quoted in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, these two things are conservative doctrines, and have been extinct since the social revolution. For one cant be constant if one is a trollop, an adventurer, and a selfish get.
These ideas were conceptualized by men, but I will point out that they were conceptualized under religion. That they stem and come whole from the concepts premises in Christian faith, which everyone took up without the source (at least in the west).
The key to our having all around us is not that men were inventive more than women, but that religious men wanted to know god, and had no way to get closer to him than to examine what they presumed to be his work. All of reality.
I will agree that we are becoming blind to abstract and invisible value, but that’s only because the secular can only measure what they believe is real. and they cant come up with the math that can convince them that the way we used to act, polite, helpful, etc, is a benificient way to go about things.
And the nail that closes that coffin is that they cant see that these ideas are for the long term benefit, vs the short term benefit.
The secular, the atheists, and such cant see past their life times. They don’t believe past their lifetimes, despite any lip service they may use. the world is studded with gothic cathedrals, some taking half a millinium to create. Give me one secular enterprise that lasts like that? even the united states, born in the ideals of religion (“endowed by their creator”), is falling apart when that glue is no longer there.
Why should a secular person have children? PROVE that having them is better than not having them. Your arguments will be about everything else except for the person who creates them. So the secular don’t have them in great numbers.
Why should a secular person invent? You might say that if he does the world gets better. but the secular will snap back and say, what about nuclear bombs, what about this, or that, etc. they will not side with you that inventions are needed. They will even push you aside and say that its better to be the person that uses inventions than the person that invents. Just look at the history of those that invented! Here on these pages, you disparaged a womans invention, even though at the time, and around her, the people gave HER credit. Any secular worth his salt will tell you… why should I invent if I am going to get treated the way you treated her!
Even now, as we get more secular, we give less money from the state towards pure science!!! remember, that it was the church that did the early science work. it was the realization of the premise that if the world was created by god, then if you study the world you are studying the product of that force.
It was precisely the concept of creationism that gave birth to its own demise!!!!
And its precisely the death of creationist concepts that the secular look at the world. To make this clear, you can see it in the challenge that the bible is a book made by men. but their argument leaves out that the men, the pages, the ink, and everything that lead up to it was credited to god. In their view the bible is a thing that some claim is made by god that exists in something that is not made. In the view of the religious, the bible and everything is made by that force, and that discovering how everything is made gets you closer to that force. The arguments of creationism and such are really the argument between everything being plopped down in one place as it is, and everything that exists blossoming out from a set of universal premises. This is why the catholic church doesn’t side with the creationists! After all, it was the catholic churches realization that everything is a work of god, and then promoting science to know, over populist philosophical arguments that settled that long ago. The backlash from literal creationists is a backlash against this. against the truth that came after the plop theory of creation, and before the removal of god because he didn’t plop it all down at once!!!
Right now, in the past few months in science and other mags they are asking the question whether pure science should be funded.
And true to form, we have been removing the funding for that, in favor of socialist go good programs.
And you can go to the lemelson area of mit… and their ideas of creating inventions believes that the group think model works best… even a recent science article promoted the idea that a large group think of agents can do the same thing as a creative person (more and more creative ways to make marx right no matter how wrong he was).
Thank someone that the person that wrote the article wasn’t group think oriented… they pointed out that in the battle between the chess god and 50,000 agents, the chess god won… and that it would be much more expensive to have to set up 50,000 plus agents to not reach the same level as the one man!!!!!!!!!!
Ack… go to go… its late, I have to meet my wife…
Sorry…
Durn it!!!
July 16th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
MMX said: “Why is it goofy? …. And why is it a religion?”
It’s goofy for a lot of reasons. I think this whole thread shows that already.
Why is it a religion? See my post above. It’s anti-scientific and it’s irrational (i.e. not a philosophy in the Western tradition). What else is left? Eastern religion.
I think wtexas is right. It’s subjective. That makes it contrary to Western religion, Western science and Western philosophy. In other words, it’s contrary to progress and therefore, if we were to put a gender label on it, it would have to be feminine.
It’s also touchy-feely. I.E. feminine.
EG has some good points, but his dodges are childish.
And Mike was right, it’s silly but it just goes on and on.
At least EG and I agree it’s not worth arguing about.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
infidel — “It’s goofy for a lot of reasons…”
How dodgy is that sort of comment?
How dodgy is it to accuse someone of being a Martha Stewaart clone, without evidence, and refusing to either acknolwedge or apologize for it?
How dodgy is it to say something is SUBJECTIVE (because you SAY it’s subjective), when I’ve stated how one can use Nature to evaluate approaches. If one approach is objectively better than another, then how is that subjective?
“And Mike was right, it’s silly but it just goes on and on.
How dodgy is it to demand something that doesn’t work, and then get mad when the non-working thing isn’t provided? Would you go up to a KKK rally and demand that they start treating minorities better? Would you go up to a feminist and demand that she drop the whole “oppression” thing?
I can understand how you feel Elder and I are guilty, but I don’t understand how the Objectors can believe they’re so utterly innocent?
July 16th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
here is a bit more…
I guess what I am getting to is more a crisis of faith.
Feminism ultimately is born from a crisis in faith of the family, in faith of their husbands, and more.
Inventions are a process in which perseverance is required, and in order to have that one must have faith in oneself, faith in what one knows, faith in the ability to be first, and faith to carry it through.
One has to have faith in the patents… and faith that the system will allow it, or that it will make it to end.
Faith, is not just the cornerstone of religion… it’s a cornerstone of much that we hold and think are natural without help.
Religion gives one practice in faith, which is why those who practice are less likely to divorce. And why, behind every great man is a woman… a woman who was celebrated for having the faith in her husband!
Today… we don’t have faith in much… and so women got on this wheel AFTER faith was destroyed with god, and so they don’t invent. They don’t have faith in their husbands, or themselves, or their abilities.
Those that do, invent, and we don’t hear much about most inventions… those that don’t, don’t invent and we hear even less of that.
the more we lose faith… the practice of faith… the more materialistic we become.
the more we only have faith in what our eyes see, our tongue tastes, and more..
the less faith we have the less we wish to put money down on a bet in which the end result cant be known before you start.
the less faith we have the less we wish to put ourselves down on a bet in which the end result cant be known.
it doesnt matter if its invention, a business, a journey, etc… all fall as soon as the faith of the people involved ends.
and by definition, faith is the belief in somethign in which you have no proof.
faith is the cornerstone of religion AND society…
after all… business on a handshake, is faith…
after all… trusting what someone sells you is faith…
you can see that many chinese dont have faith as they cheat their own and and poision their own, and such.
in the absence of religious and social faith, its the faith in the states punisment that gets us to move… nothing else except maybe selfishness… but even selfishness needs a certain amount of faith, whithout that, you dont even get that motivation.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
artfldgr – Thanks very much for your comments.
Could you also add that, “As one loses faith, the more one requires proof?”
July 17th, 2007 at 7:00 am
“As one loses faith, the more one requires proof?”
I guess thats one way to state it, just as “time preferences shrink towards the immediate over the long term” is another abstraction of the same thing.
it all boils down to what is an acceptable amount of time to put into something.
the religious communes, like the quaking shakers are noted to have lasted much longer than the secular ones. why? because faith increases the acceptable amount of time to put into something.
when waiting, how long do you wait? when working towards something, how long do you keep trying before you move on to something else.
the big question being what goes out of our grasp when we no longer have the faith to proceed long enough to accomplish the goal?
if one were to look through the lens of faith, one could see that many things would be different if we had more faith. both good and bad, as it also matters what you put your faith in.
the socialists put in “blind faith” as few of them have the capacity to understand and work with the arguments, they parrot mostly.
zealots also have “blind faith”, while the jihadis arent so clear cut. we would like to think that they are zealots as that would put them in the crazy bin for most, but they are too consistent to be that. so i suspect for them its a tool, insincere as that tool may be, for them its good. [if one were to analyse the situation they are getting a lot of bang for very little buck and have literally gone toe to toe with vastly superior foe (based on what we consider superior)]
faith needs no proof, for proof undoes faith
in order for one to invent, somewhere, one must make the choice that to sit and toil towards some end without any certainty of solution, in competition with unknowns, and the normal forces of economics and opinion arrayed against you, to continue on through constant failure, till you, if lucky or what ever it may be called, end up succeeding in solving the problem. to which the whole journey only begins!!! for after one solves it, one has to have enough faith in it to swim upstream, a kind of pig headedness of the most useful kind. are you certain because you know, or you dont really know and am wasting your life on a crackpot item?
this is why people steal ideas… they are actually hard to come by in the good way. ideas themselves are a dime a dozen, like flowers… but only saffron is saffron, which is a flower unto itself.