Andrew Breitbart describes the rise and fall of “Perez Hilton”, AKA Mario Lavandeira, a person who readers may recall had derogatory words for the former Miss California and who recently had a dust-up with Will I. Am of the Black Eyed Peas, who readers may also recall authored that paean to Barack Obama, Yes We Can. Mr. Lavandeira is a man whose profession fits no known description, so I shall not attempt to characterize what he does. Breitbart however does. “What Mr. Lavandeira does on his Web site goes beyond satire or biting criticism. It is cruelty of the worst kind. No taunt or insult is too low. Using primitive drawing skills, he and his crew even scrawl vulgar pictures on the faces of their victims.” So you can draw your own conclusions from that.
The morality tale which Breitbart describes begins when Lavandeira attends a party presumably to suck up grist for his rumor mill, only to find that recent object of his derision, Mr. Will I. Am of the Black Eyed Peas, in attendance. Mr. Am’s inquiries provoked, according to Lavandeira’s own re-enactment of the scene, an urge to flee the club. But the Black Eyed Peas party followed him out and gave him, appropriately enough, a black eye. Breibart seems almost thankful for the bizarre circumstances which allowed a kind of rough justice to take place. He argues that, in politically correct America, no one else could punch out Lavandeira’s lights except a black man. Breitbart writes:
Mr. Lavandeira was not satisfied with simply making sure Miss Prejean lost the Miss USA pageant. He needed to humiliate and destroy her publicly. He not only called her a term used to describe a female dog but also used a word that, by comparison, is akin to a nuclear attack. Yet no media outrage followed.
Which takes us back to the rules: Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.
The general public has taken note and, in showing solidarity with the Black Eyed Peas, has retroactively displayed displeasure with Mr. Lavandeira’s reprehensible actions toward the beauty contestant as well as his countless other offenses.
In the aftermath of incident, Lavandeira produced a hysterical YouTube video, featuring himself in a “Khalid Sheik Mohammed” low cut t-shirt, which you can watch if you can stand it, in which he alternately rants and sobs before the camera. It is morbidly fascinating, in the way that spectacles of sword-swallowing and men being shot out of a cannon are fascinating; and instead of exciting pity, Lavandeira only manages to excite disgust. But the disgust, I think, can hardly be confined to Perez Hilton. My first reactions to Andrew Breitbart’s article were a) that the lines between the serious and bizarre in modern culture have drawn dangerously near each other; and b) who heck makes up rules like “Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.” I’m sure that Breitbart is right in perceiving them – in fact we should call them Breitbart’s Laws — but where did they come from? Who made them up? In an earlier age, Percy Bysshe Shelley attempted to describe the relationship between art and wider culture. In his “Defense of Poetry” Shelley wrote argued that artists set the tone for the spirit of the age. They pick up and amplify the trends in society. They give them voice.
It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
If Poets were the unacknowledged legislators of Shelley’s world, then who are unacknowledged legislators of ours? If Shelley’s commentary remains valid then the true authors of Breitbart’s Laws are the Carnival of Grotesques collectively referred to as popular culture. They make the rules to which we subconsciously conform. Its members are household names. And the measure of its quality can be deduced from the fact that Lavandeira occupies an honored position in this assembly. And that’s why Andrew Breitbart can write seriously about this creature, and the reason why anyone, in spite of himself should read it. Perez Hilton is about us. He is a measure of the circumference to which our outlook has shrunk. And therefore never send to know for whom Lavandeira shrieks; he shrieks for thee.
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66 Comments
1. Anodyne:“My first reactions to Andrew Breitbart’s article were a) that the lines between the serious and bizarre in modern culture have drawn dangerously near each other; and b) who heck makes up rules like “Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.” I’m sure that Breitbart is right in perceiving them – in fact we should call them Breitbart’s Laws — but where did they come from? Who made them up.”
Think back to Clarence Thomas. Only a black woman could take down a black man (maybe Breitbart’s “zeroeth” law) and damn if one wasn’t found. Happily it didn’t quite work. Kind of makes one wonder who would have been trotted out to trip up a conservative black female Supreme Court nominee.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:07 pm 2. Alexis:Until the spat with Miss California, I was utterly unaware of the existence of “Perez Hilton”. I do regard the entire idea that such an oddity should be a notable part of popular culture as utterly bizarre. My tastes are more normal, the kind you may expect to find in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. Cheese may be annoying, but I would rather vote Mario Lavandeira off the island.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:26 pm 3. Tcobb:Those who belong to the Cult of the Victim don’t seem to understand that when things get really ugly, the members of the cult may actually be victimized on a level that is beyond their current level of understanding. By proclaiming yourselves VICTIMS, you are thereby absolved of moral blame for the same practices by which YOU attained to victim status.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:28 pm 4. Leo Linbeck III:So black must beat gay which beats white
And Will.I.Am gave Perez quite a fright
If they all went to jail
Or the bowels of a whale
I would find it a great source of delight.
— —
Percy’s poets secretly promulgate laws?
That explains why they’re so filled with flaws
See, I’d vote for some aardvarks
Before arrogant HARVarques
Who play the press corps for applause.
— —
As I watch Perez rant like a loon
On this twenty-ninth evening of June
I am struck almost mute
By the difference minute
Between him and a feral baboon.
— —
L3
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:35 pm 5. Robohobo:From Scipio – “Bruised Fruit”:http://www.thereturnofscipio.com/?p=2253
(Heh! I read that again and lol’ed!)
Money quote: “The dirtiest man alive—well, he is not really a man, but stay with me here—just met his match, so to speak. Professional sodomite and gad about town socialite Perez Hilton got punched a few times in his pudgy, soft face.”
“Perez Hilton is about us. He is a measure of the circumference to which our outlook has shrunk.”
And THAT wretchard is why we must rearrange the furniture in this culture right now. Multiculturalism must die a quick, ugly and public death. ‘Liberals’ are not, they are quite illiberal. We are told that this kind of debased creature is a bell weather of ‘our’ culture but I will insist they are not. Not in the world most of us inhabit. It is long past time for conservatives/libertarians to stand up and argue, loudly, when faced with the illiberalism of this deabsement.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:45 pm 6. Doug:Breitbart, hosting Miller’s show explained:
After 9-11, Jackson wanted to do a “We are the World Video”
Sony would not let him, giving the reason that the King of Gay Porn Videos was at Michael’s side when he was around young boys.
Jackson then claimed innocence, saying he had no idea that was this Mark guy’s business, and he would henceforth have nothing to do with him.
A year later, he was still involved with him.
Glad I have not had a TV for 30 years, glad I’ve never seen MTV (except a few minutes in a Pizza Parlor)
Glad I never gave a dime to MJ, Madonna, et al.
Grow up people! Real life is passing us by.
Breitbart’s Troopathon raised 1.5 Million last year, $600 k this year on the day that MJ died.
Can anyone really justify spending any more time and money on this sickness that is “our” Pop Culture?
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:46 pm 7. Thrasymachus:What is at all different about Perez Hilton? How does he differ from David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, or any other feces thrower of the liberal sort? They are all the same, they are all in exactly the same business. Liberals invented the Breitbart rule in the early 70’s as gay liberation got cranked up. Certain points are unclear- does woman beat gay, or vice versa? I’m pretty sure it’s gay beats woman as long as the woman is a conservative. Otherwise for affirmative action gays are men so woman beats gay.
Jews think Jew beats everything else but the truth is black almost always beats Jew, except in grotesque cases of anti-semitism and Holocaust denial.
Jun 29, 2009 - 8:49 pm 8. Tcobb:—For whatever reason my comment at @3 was chopped in half. In essence though, when the Sanctified Victims are found to be guilty of creating victims themselves, the Moral Shield of Victimization crumbles. The Fall can be ugly.
The prodigal son steals off in the night
He done it before and it worked out all right
He took a wrong turning, wound up in a ditch
He could have done worse, though, and ended up rich
His songs were cut open and found to be clay
The hope of the future served up on a tray
I mean, who do you think is gonna believe it
When you tell them you got the keys to living?
You caught me and held me and called me your own
Then kicked in my teeth and left with my bone
Now I know you ain’t little, but I ain’t that small
And you had surprise on your side, after all
So I’m making a wish, I never done that before
This is the first time and I hope there ain’t more
But just who do you think is gonna believe it
When you tell them you got the keys to living?
The just and the crippled both push up the flowers
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:00 pm 9. Promethea:And nothing remains but the song of the hours
I hope you can dig it I know that you will
But please don’t run and hide when I come with my bill
And before you get trying this noose on for size
It’s so quick to fall, yes, and so slow to rise
And who do you think you’ll get to believe you
When you tell them you got the keys to living?
Yeah, who do you think you’re gonna get to believe it
When you tell them you got the keys to living?
—by Robert Hunter
I think the worm is turning. The so-called intellectuals have proven themselves to be money grubbers who will say anything for a dollar.
Universities? Down the toilet. Will sell their science for the highest bidder. Art? Few take “modern” artists seriously anymore; the art market’s way down. The gay community? No longer cutting edge–they’re overexposed and boring. Global warming and green stuff? Boring, commonplace, and part of the “establishment.”
Now that the counterculture has beaten the “Man,” it’s time for the grown-ups to take charge.
We can do it!
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:11 pm 10. E. Nigma:“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Hunter S. Thompson
Welcome to weird times. There is no hard rain to wash this away or New Renaisance in the offing that will restore reason and beauty to our lives. There is too much money to be made in being….weird.
Yes, they did! Ugh!
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:13 pm 11. Marie Claude:breaking news
one more Airbus crash, 147 deads around the Comores
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:14 pm 12. Mike Sylwester:Carrie Prejean was slandered when she was fired. If she eventually sues, she will win a lot of money. Read this letter that her lawyer sent to Miss California USA Pageant co-directors Keith Lewis and Shana Moakler, and K2 Productions, Inc.:
bighollywood.breitbart.com/cprejean/2009/06/18/prejean-attorney-to-miss-california-usa-pageant-directors-last-chance-to-retract-defamatory-statements/
With regard to Perez, see also
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:26 pm 13. buddy larsen:http://www.wwtdd.com/tag/william/
Anodyne/1; no need to wonder, just look at Condi Rice, who was upon confirmation as secretaty of state suddenly ‘not black’ anymore. Being a classic conservative with an old-fashioned attitude about the culture (classical piano) she became pop culture’s white black woman.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:26 pm 14. Alexis:Actually, the “popular culture” of the 1920’s, especially on college campuses, was just as trashy as the “popular culture” from the last twenty years. The bias then wasn’t exactly “liberal” either.
In the 1920’s, racial bigotry was fashionable. Back in those days, it would have been socially acceptable for Perez Hilton, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, and Keith Olbermann to make aggressive anti-black jokes and rants that would make any civilized person’s skin crawl, as opposed to the modern custom of misogynist jokes and rants that would make any civilized person’s skin crawl.
I don’t think the mainstream media in the 1920’s was any better or worse than the mainstream media now. It was biased then, too. The bias was different, but it was a strong bias.
By the way, there has been an epidemic of lynching recently in Kenya. I haven’t heard any word of rebuke by President Obama against this particular African custom.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:29 pm 15. wretchard:In the 1920’s, racial bigotry was fashionable. Back in those days, it would have been socially acceptable for Perez Hilton, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, and Keith Olbermann to make aggressive anti-black jokes and rants that would make any civilized person’s skin crawl, as opposed to the modern custom of misogynist jokes and rants that would make any civilized person’s skin crawl.
So is it the case that society needs a set of outcasts with which to boost its self-esteem by contrast? The name of the outcast group can vary: Gypsies, Jews, Blacks, Straight White Men — it doesn’t matter so long as someone fits the bill? In that scenario Perez Hilton fills in as a kind of Witch Pricker who roots around looking for people with the Devil’s Mark while the crowd hoots in delight. If so the current insanity will pass, to be replaced by another kind of craziness. That’s not so far-fetched as one would think. If al-Qaeda like forces win power, they will bring in with them another form of political correctness, one in which Perez Hilton will have no standing.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:42 pm 16. The Wobbly Guy:Wow, the rules mean a lesbian black woman is invincible in the diversity sweepstakes!
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:44 pm 17. buddy larsen:Alexis/14; Woodrow Wilson, the father of progressivism, publicized the first megahit movie, “Birth of a Nation” as ‘truer than true’ tho about a third of it was a paen to the KKK; he also segregated the US military, where it remained until the 1950s.
MC, it was a Yemeni airliner, down in the Indian Ocean. Jeez –the Euro is gonna have a bad day tomorrow.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:45 pm 18. ForNow:“Art never saved anybody from anything.” — Gilbert Sorrentino. In the absolute, that is demonstrably false, as by the case of the pirates who spared the poet when they killed the crew. But, slightly qualified, it’s true. Anyway the laws of glamour are no longer in the hands of poets or artists. That was in a specialized world in a garden, about which see Jane Austen.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:48 pm 19. PA Cat:Perez Hilton must be auditioning for the lead in a remake of Freaks (a 1932 horror movie about carnival sideshow performers who mutilate and otherwise take revenge on two “normal” people who try to murder one of them).
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:51 pm 20. Marcus Aurelius:We are close to rocks, papers, scissors, but we one player in the game loses twice and one not at all.
A slight variation in the players and appropriate hand gestures and we have a new game. Well, not new one but a variation that would really catch people’s ears.
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:56 pm 21. Leo Linbeck III:So is it the case that society needs a set of outcasts with which to boost its self-esteem by contrast?
Perez Hilton = Father Coughlin
L3
Jun 29, 2009 - 9:57 pm 22. geoffb:Progressive is the word for both then and now. Liberal was a disguise donned by the Progressive left in the late sixties as they made their successful coup on the leadership of the Democrats.
The street events in Chicago 1968 were a theater to distract from the internal coup happening in the committiees inside during the convention. What remained of “liberalism” in that Party died then. What we saw from then on was a “Bernie” propped up for viewing as needed. That disguise is now considered to be no longer needed since Obama was elected and Congress is theirs. Many old veils are lifting.
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:11 pm 23. Marcus Aurelius:@Geoffb,
I have for a long time refused to use the term “liberal” as a tag for the likes of Pretzel Hilton and his ilk. The likes of Hilton, Sean Penn et. al are anything but liberal with their intolerance of dissent from their beliefs (not just disagreement but hot intolerance) and their worship of dictators.
What is funny, how many of them bemoan the epithetization of word “liberal” too, they act as if their adoption of the term to describe their silly ideas & illiberal policy preferences have nothing to do with that.
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:20 pm 24. Tcobb:So is it the case that society needs a set of outcasts with which to boost its self-esteem by contrast?
I have often wondered if humankind is not genetically hardwired towards finding an enemy to destroy. For most of human history we had them–big carnivores, other human tribes, whatever. Those who didn’t have the urge to destroy the tribe’s enemies would die out over time, either through genetics or culture that promoted such an attitude.
But what happens when you have attained a civilization in which there are no real enemies? How does the genetic imperative manifest itself then?
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:26 pm 25. trangbang68:Is it subject to the Hate Crime legislation that Holder and Obama are pushing when a cool black musician beats down a prissy venal little poofter? Or does that only apply to Wyoming meth freaks propositioned by Matthew Shepherd?
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:27 pm 26. Dave the Kapampangan:I remember in my crazy days reading the sordid novel “Last Exit to Brooklyn” by Hubert Selby Jr. In it, one depraved character commits an atrocity against a child in the streets of Harlem. The folks in the neighborhood open up a serious can of Whupass on the perp.This incident with child Perez reminds me of the passage.
Don’t know this Perez Hilton, but I gather he’s some kind of gay ACORN-like thug, only he uses his media podium instead of fists to intimidate and rage and smash people into conformity. That this rabid enforcer gets to be a judge of a beauty contest says a lot about the beauty contest’s “impartiality.”
Breitbart’s rules? Nothing but a lunch money pecking order. Let’s see here. So, if you’re a member of an “aggrieved group” you get awarded Nazi Goon Squad special status to shake down “less aggrieved” people? And they in turn get to shake down even less aggrieved people, with the bottom of the barrel being people who never complain?
It’s just sad to see the “intelligent” cream of the crop of university academics of America advocating something as corny as a multi culti “lunch money pecking order” based on the pseudo science of “victimology.”
Just pathetic. No, I reject that these folks and their mentality represent me. I think that the “circumference of their outlook” is zero because they never actually looked out.
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:32 pm 27. ForNow:I suspect that Tcobb is right and that we’re genetically wired to look for a snake in the grass. Factionalism may be explained by power issues but there seems a little something extra to spark it. So I guess the Fiendish Foil will always be with us, especially when someone like Perez Hilton makes it his deliberate gig.
Hubert Selby was a great writer, as W knew at Merde in France. How would Selby have put it? Perez Hilton just hadda do it, just then, just there.
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:39 pm 28. Langley:What does it mean when the endangered species start to eat one another?
Jun 29, 2009 - 10:58 pm 29. buddy larsen:it means one of ‘em better quit funding ACORN and start funding NASA.
Jun 29, 2009 - 11:06 pm 30. RCM:Wretchard: “…who heck makes up rules like “Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.”
Why of course, the ones who want to put themselves in a place where they cannot be criticized, but can be instrumental in directing another group’s angst elsewhere. It is a skill where those who value only political power are able to “triangulate” oneself to a place where none of the other groups can attack them or their friends. All one has to do is stake out positions just like the Democrats (and some Republicans) have. There are many others who attempt to do the same thing.
The “place” they go to is obvious; if you’re white, you’re for Gay Rights, reparations, and you spend lots of time lamenting the history of the United States where we have made mistakes and strike the pose of pseudo (or real) self-hatred. Then you’re in like Flynn even if you don’t really believe the validity of such positions. They’re “smart,” not naïve.
If you’re any color, love your country, worship God, or feel like the laws that have served this country for years and years ought to be obeyed, well, BOHICA. All those values immediately put you at odds with those for whom those considerations are secondary. Many people of color are instantly wary of you because the race baiters beat the drum that anyone who values the law over rote and kneejerk “compassion,” is a “hater.” That’s how some people of color diminish members of their own race who “don’t think right.” Fill in the ethnic or religious minority that then defines you as “enemy.”
Traditional values, morality, respect for authority, personal responsibility, intelligence, ability, a strong work ethic, etc., of course, are all subservient to the multi-cultural vision of egalitarian equality.
Those who worship at the altar of power have no use for such foolishness as the Golden Rule. They conjure their agenda and press their actions only in places where their distorted sense of reality find “gain.”
Jun 29, 2009 - 11:08 pm 31. heathermc:Back in the day of ‘the movement’ (ie, the 70s), it became a parlour game as to who were the leaders of ‘the revolution’.
So, it was so obvious: true Revolutionary Leadership would comprise poor, black, lesbian, 3rd world, crippled women. The trick was, to get the characteristics in the correct order.
Breitbart Law is a good start, but what to do about women and the 3rd world???
Jun 29, 2009 - 11:11 pm 32. heathermc:for some unexplainable reason, I have been looking at gossip sites on a regular basis. Incredible. They specialize in photos of groins of ‘famous’ people. Every now and then Hugh Grant tries to beat one of the photographers up. Hugh Grant is now a hero of mine.
Jun 29, 2009 - 11:22 pm 33. john lynch:And so, he is asked “have you no decency?”
Only in the 21st century that means being knocked out in an alley.
Jun 30, 2009 - 12:22 am 34. ledger:@Doug
“Glad I have not had a TV for 30 years”
I tossed by Boob Tube awhile back and my family and I are happier and more productive.
As for MJ, 5 will get you 10, that his manager will have wall-to-wall coverage by some network like CBS and then all ‘MJ memorabilia’ will go on the market and probably make a lot of people rich.
But, I will not give MJ’s and his gang a dime.
Jun 30, 2009 - 12:48 am 35. dtmack:Wretchard. “Mr. Am”. You’re killing me!
Jun 30, 2009 - 1:32 am 36. Chiral:Rest assured that Mario is not so very tolerated. Behind his back half of his friends and allies secretly despise and pity him.
We are a country of millions and a world of billions. Give people some credit. You can’t just fixate on stamping out the small number of freak shows (all centered in LA) that feed tabloids and gossip columns. There is plenty of great and civil culture in every city. It’s not all Beethoven, but there is enough good stuff to satisfy if you look.
Mario is one freak out of – how many can you honestly name? A few. A hundred? The freaks DO pay socially for their behavior. That they aren’t frequently beaten may be surprising or unfortunate, but our social tolerance for them simply reflects healthy freedom.
Jun 30, 2009 - 2:43 am 37. Undertoad:Breitbart: “‘Perez Hilton’” is suffering the delayed effects of what he did last month to former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean.”
Not really; otherwise, Breitbart wouldn’t be the first person to try to make this connection, a week after the event.
He’s also the first that I know of to put this into identity politics terms. In reality, celebrity war beats culture war, and Will I. Am gets away with it because he’s a bigger star than Perez Hilton. If Sean Penn socks the guy, he gets away with it too.
People who see identity politics everywhere are starting to bug me. It seems like a tired way to think.
Jun 30, 2009 - 3:44 am 38. Doug:Michael Jackson will not be cremated.
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:22 am 39. Mongoose:Since he’s mostly plastic he will instead be melted down and molded into Legos.
This so that kids can play with him for a change…
Only slightly OT:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Sotomayor-may-sue-SCOTUS-for-overturning-New-Haven-ruling-7899575.html
(Too funny)
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:46 am 40. Rurik:Robohobo: “Multiculturalism must die a quick, ugly and public death. ‘Liberals’ are not, they are quite illiberal. We are told that this kind of debased creature is a bell weather of ‘our’ culture but I will insist they are not.”
“Ugly and public”, I agree, but why “quick”? Since “Perez Hilton”, aspires to be tawdry royalty, a manque queen of sorts, he should be given the fate of Edward II. The sooner the better.
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:22 am 41. tomw:16. The Wobbly Guy:
Wow, the rules mean a lesbian black woman is invincible in the diversity sweepstakes!
….
Whoopee G. With a Semitic last name, no less.
Talk about winning the lottery…..
tom
Jun 30, 2009 - 5:31 am 42. plumpplumber:Ahem….I’m sorry to point out that Hilton didn’t suffer any injuries. In my violent, mispent youth, I can remember when an assault actually looked like one. You know, knocked out teeth, wired up jaw and all. I see what they mean by drama queen. All of this behavior reminds me of Berlin before the Nazis took over. Perhaps public disgust helped Hitler into power?
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:00 am 43. RWE:The most successful approach to success without competence, fame without intelligence, and wealth without achievement is Topicality. Stay in tune with the Popular Culture, ensure your statements as presented to the MSM result in a kind of an self-congratulatory ear-splitting feedback, and you is MADE.
Back in the early 80’s there was a piece on NPR about it being a decade since the Summer of Love. They interviewed a famous hippie of the time and asked him how his philosophy had changed things.
Apparently he was not too proud of the actions of his people in times past because his response was “Look, we did not set out to do anything in particular. We were not the people with all the power. We didn’t have a fleet of AWACS.”
Now, at the time a topic of interest in the news was the Reagan Admin proposal to sell AWACS aircraft to the Saudis. This was opposed by supporters of Israel. But the AWACS was a radar equipped surveillance airplane, useful only for tracking other aircraft. It dropped no bombs and had no guns. Threatening a person with an AWACS was like threatening them with a TV set. Threatening someone who did not have an air force with an AWACS was like threatening a raccoon with a TV set.
But AWACS was all over the news then, so the old hippie could toss out that term, sound Topical, and be idiotic with almost no one the wiser.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:13 am 44. buddy larsen:Perez Hilton; Bunfire of the Vanities
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:18 am 45. buddy larsen:Two Progressives On The Beach
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:29 am 46. El_Heffe:So is it the case that society needs a set of outcasts with which to boost its self-esteem by contrast?
This idea goes way back. Im thinking spartans and helots… and The carnival of grotesques (Perez Hilton, ACORN, whoever) = Krypteia.
I’m sure this can be taken back even further historically but one of the biggest strengths of this example is that the Helots were the “producers” in their society, not some fringe group of “outcasts”… the parallels to our time are … thought provoking.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:13 am 47. El_Heffe:OT: comment editor seems to be broken this morning … either that or its my browser.
EDIT: never mind… must have been something local… it seems to be working now.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:16 am 48. LarryD:Ans: The Left.
See Dr. Pat Sanity’s The Socialist Food Chain
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:27 am 49. Caligula:If that mob had but one throat, I’d cut it.
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:39 am 50. Ashen:#16
Jun 30, 2009 - 7:40 am 51. buckets:lawlz
Where’s Whiskey on this one?!?!
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:02 am 52. always right:Wretcchard,
Where do you find time reading all these stuff? I am just simply amazed at the broad scope of topics you covered.
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:06 am 53. Mark:T Cobb writes: “But what happens when you have attained a civilization in which there are no real enemies? How does the genetic imperative manifest itself then?”
Rene Girard explains the anthropological mechanism, e.g., in “Things Hidden From the Foundation of the World” or “I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, which is a short version of the argument.
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:26 am 54. J Charles:I have often thought, particularly when observing the behaviour of people in their cars, in traffic, that we suffer as a society and culture because no one runs the risk of being punched in the face anymore. There should be immediate, direct consequences to anti-social behaviour. As a child who had to cut the instrument of my own punishment from the cherry tree in the back yard, corporal punishment works with an immediacy and a lasting effect that no social approbation can possibly approach.
Jun 30, 2009 - 9:46 am 55. RCM:As a child and for the most of my adult life, I was never “punished” or forced to suffer consequences unfairly.
There were times, of course, when that punishment earned was excessive, or escaped entirely, but I cannot remember a time when I was punished for something I didn’t actually do.
It seems that’s one thing that’s flipped in the culture – today the attitude is exactly the opposite in that most folks seem to blanch at being held accountable for anything.
I think what we as a people today are missing is a true sense of humility.
Perez Hilton seems to be very “proud” of every aspect of his “self” that would have been anathema not so long ago.
Jun 30, 2009 - 10:17 am 56. Subotai Bahadur:#40 Rurik
Ah, my friend, this harkens back to our discussion of Vlad Tepes over at the Rottweiler yesterday. However, no set of sanctions functions perfectly in all cases.
Sadly for society, Tovarisch Lavandeira would not be discommoded at all by such tactics, and might regard either as a reward.
Oh, it might be an interesting project to quantify and extend Breitbart’s Laws, as kind of a societal equivalent of Newton’s Laws.
Subotai Bahadur
Jun 30, 2009 - 11:11 am 57. Roderick Reilly:“”"”"”Wow, the rules mean a lesbian black woman is invincible in the diversity sweepstakes!”"”"”"
Oh God, that would be Wanda Sykes!
Jun 30, 2009 - 1:10 pm 58. Robohobo:wretchard @ 15: “So is it the case that society needs a set of outcasts with which to boost its self-esteem by contrast?”
See the Hierarchy of Alienness: http://tmereport.blogspot.com/2008/10/marcus-tullius-tiro-common-ground-or.html
Money quote: “The difference between ramen and varelse is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have.” —Demosthenes, Letter to the Framlings
Of course Card is talking about us largely. Every society must have the ‘framling’.
Rurik @ 40: “…but why “quick”?”
Because I do have a small shred of mercy still in my soul. If they beg for mercy then perhaps their ends could be quick. Maybe not for much longer, but….
Jun 30, 2009 - 1:12 pm 59. Boghie:Gee, thanks Richard…
That last line makes me feel so good about myself, my culture, and my generation.
Hopefully, the twerp is older or younger than me.
But, here we are. All together now!!!
Jun 30, 2009 - 3:42 pm 60. whiskey:Who creates and enforces the PC chain of hierarchy? Why, women of course. Women created Perez Hilton (his site is a gay gossip site that draws in millions of women each day) just like they created Entertainment Tonight, Tina Fey, Katie Couric, and of course Barack Hussein Obama.
Women face competition from Straight White men at work, and unwanted sexual desire from them all the time (women are hard wired for hypergamy, and are the social equals to superiors of most men). No wonder they hate them. Just as Blacks presented labor-force threats to Whites, along with Eastern European immigrants, during the go-go 1920’s, who’s precarious nature everyone understood (prior decades had been in turmoil with frequent recessions and upheavals).
The basic problem with the West is that White Women are aligned in a caste system with Blacks, Hispanics, and Gays against Straight White Men as the enemy. With a few Big Men like Clinton or Gore as allies. It’s the ultimate anti-populist, elite arrangement. Including the caste system. Which women just love, like Princess fairy tales come true. Men of course prefer “flat” hierarchies where Joe Average can prosper, because most men are Joe Average (if they are being honest).
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:09 pm 61. wws:Wow, whiskey, that divorce must have been a rough one.
“I don’t think I’ll get married again. I’ll just find a woman I don’t like and give her a house.” – Lewis Grizzard
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:25 pm 62. Chiral:@61 He has never been married, and never will be.
Jun 30, 2009 - 4:55 pm 63. wws:Chiral – ah, I’m thinking that’s a good thing.
Jun 30, 2009 - 6:15 pm 64. RCM:61 through 63:
You guys ought to start your own blog and you can speak ill, together, 24/7/365 about Whiskey…or anyone else. Your three posts bring to mind…Perez Hilton!
How timely.
Jul 1, 2009 - 8:17 am 65. Chris F:I’m surprised no one seems to know about the very relevant game of VICTIMHOOD POKER! See an explanation here: http://dicklist.blogspot.com/2006/07/tdl-gaming-world-series-of-victimhood.html
Jul 1, 2009 - 8:25 am 66. Bob Murphy:Perez Hilton needs to get hit more often. Much more often.
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