The cargo cult is going down hard

I suspect Jordan Peterson’s cargo cult is going to react very, very angrily once they understand how badly they’ve been played by their psycho-charlatan false prophet:

You spoke of people thinking you were egotistical, they may have been right. Your whole speech is depressing, and you are unable and just plainly unwilling to say anything genuinely positive about him. You throw out certain things just so people think your being objective but these are not honest. The difference is that Jordan Peterson is honest and people follow him because of that—he is not trying to pull a fast one on anybody. We know he is trying to find truth and is passing those truths he has found. Evidence is him sticking his neck out when defending freedom of speech. He was unwilling to fold although many would have. That’s why the things you say are not believable and honesty it is boring. Difficult to watch. 

I note that this is how Jordan Peterson sticks out his neck “defending” freedom of speech.

QUESTION: I understand that Faith Goldy was removed from the original August panel because of her podcast with the controversial Daily Stormer after Charlottesville…. This strategy appears to parallel the SJWs, who wish to deny platforms to conservative speakers. I want to understand why Faithy Goldy was removed from the event simply for associating with identitarians, and if each of the panelists agree with that decision.

JORDAN PETERSON: That’s an excellent question. So, the first thing I should say is that it’s not like we’re unaware of the irony. Number one. So, [unintelligible] cancelled a panel about the cancellation of panels about free speech. That’s irony number one. And then irony number two, the panelists removed a speaker for arguably engaging in the act of free speech. Okay, we got that, believe me.

All right, so why did we come to this decision? I sat down personally – the other people can say what they have to say – I sat down with my son and we went through Faith’s interview. I know Faith, I don’t believe that she is a reprehensible person. I think that Charlottesville was very shocking to her and I think that she put herself in a very difficult position. And I think some of that was brave, that she went down there to cover it.

However, I listened very carefully to her podcast, the one that got her in trouble. And my sense was that she wasn’t, she didn’t, she was associating with people whose views she should have questioned. It was her journalistic, um, responsibility to question them. She had to ask at least one hard question. At least one. Three would have been better. You know, and I understand she had to toe a careful line. She was on the podcast, they had invited her on, it’s much more difficult than you might think when you’re facing people, even when you don’t believe them, to be rude enough to challenge them, right? That’s not so easy, especially if you’re an agreeable person and she is a rather agreeable person.

But I believe she, she failed in her journalistic responsibility. And as a consequence of that, she became too hot a property for us. And not just for us. And, well, that was, that was the reason for the decision. That was, that was my reasoning. So….

This is manifestly not the correct behavior of a principled man or even an honest one. Peterson did something he clearly knew to be wrong, but instead of simply owning up to his obvious failure, he attempted to concoct a ridiculous ex post facto justification to excuse it. He had to know this question was inevitable – he appears to have prepared for it – and yet this was the best that he could manage. If you watch the video, you can even see that Peterson has, he has, a reliable tell that warns you when he’s about to say something that he knows is not true, as well as another tell that indicates when he is going to very carefully attempt to cover up the weakness of one of his assertions or rationalizations.

My question is this: according to what theory of human rights or journalism does one’s right to free speech rely upon one’s correct performance of nonexistent journalistic responsibilities?

This is an excellent example of the incoherence of Jordanetics, where dishonesty, hypocrisy, and moral failure is hidden behind bafflegab and straight-up bullshit.

Why do the whole video talks about what jordan peterson IS rather than what he SAYS??? And things you “learned” are all things you already “knew” but that jordan peterson “should understand”. Everything in this video is judging him on the bases of your beliefs, and not an open-minded view of what he thinks. You’ve learned nothing, you’ve judged. Also, unsubscribed. You’re a narcissist. I don’t care if Jordan acts… very intensely. That’s called passion and intensity, something voxday clearly doesn’t have, this guy makes 1 point every 10 minutes. But anyway, that’s not the point. You too judge jordan on superficial details, “how he acts”, not the entierty of what he says. Jordan makes so many points, and he says so many things, based mostly on SCIENCE and a lifetime of exprience and practice in psychology, and this guy “destroyed” him based on his beliefs (christianity, what is evil, chaos and hell… in HIS opinion).

I directly and accurately quoted Peterson’s book to substantiate each of the 12 things I learned about him. I don’t know what more I am supposed to do to speak precisely about the man and his philosophy. Peterson does make lots of points and says lots of things, it is the inherently contradictory and incoherent nature of those points and those statements that illustrates the problem with Peterson’s charlatanry.

Bafflegab and bullshit

Keep in mind that this purports to be a DEFENSE of Jordan Peterson’s self-unmasking in his interview on the subject of truth with Sam Harris. Which is amusing, as it reads a lot more like an indictment.

For Harris, ideas are propositions about what really exists, independently of one’s mind, and science is an attempt to identify facts (i.e., ideas) about reality.  However, to a pragmatist such as Peterson, reality – i.e. the world around oneself – is not the thing under consideration because one cannot  obtain any knowledge at all of what causes one’s sensations: what exists outside of one’s own mind is not knowable.  For Peterson, there are no “facts” about reality.  For Peterson an “idea” is not a proposition about reality.  Instead, for Peterson, every “idea” is a plan of action.  The meaning of an idea is the effect of acting upon the idea. Thus, for a pragmatist, the meaning of “grizzly bear” is not “man-eating beast” but something like “run away!” or “throw a stone at it!”.

On this view, the truth of an idea is determined by its efficacy in achieving some goal (different pragmatists have differing ideas about what sorts of goals should be achieved). For example, if the goal is to remain unbitten, “run away” is a plan of action that is sufficiently true to act upon if running away is an effective way to remain unbitten, but “run away” is not a sufficiently true plan of action to act upon if running away is not an effective way to remain bitten. Likewise, “throw a stone at it!” is sufficiently true to act upon if throwing a stone at the grizzly bear is effective in preventing one from being bitten, but “throw a stone at it!” is not sufficiently true to act upon if throwing a stone at the grizzly bear is ineffective in preventing one from being bitten.

It follows that, for Peterson, science is not an attempt to discover ideas about, or “facts” about, reality.  Rather, science is an attempt to discover plans of action that, given the other ideas we hold, appear to be sufficiently true to act upon in order to attain one’s ethical purpose.  Hence Peterson’s statement that:

“I think of science as a tool, rather than as a description of reality.  And, well, that’s where we differ.”

Peterson’s Pragmatist Ethics/Purpose

For pragmatism, it is not enough for an idea (i.e., a plan of action) to “work” or to be “effective”.  Pragmatism requires the idea to be effective in achieving an ethically good end.  Thus, one might invent a weapon that is extremely effective in doing one thing: turning the Earth and every living thing on it to lifeless ash in milliseconds.  However, such a weapon does not “work” – is not “efficacious” – by the pragmatic standard, because it does not achieve an ethically good purpose.  Hence Peterson’s assertion that the sufficiency of an idea’s truth depends upon the idea being ethically good.

Different pragmatists hold differing versions of what constitutes a proper ethical purpose.  Peterson’s clearly was: survival; survival of the individual or of humanity as a whole.  Thus, for Peterson, an idea (i.e., a plan of action) is good if it is efficacious in achieving survival of the individual or of humanity as a whole.  Staying with the grizzly bear example, if a given idea – e.g., “run away!” – is an effective plan of action for surviving, then the idea “grizzly bear” (meaning “run away”) is a sufficiently true idea because it is a good idea.

Contrast this with Harris’ perspective on truth.   For Harris, “grizzly bear” is not a plan of action.  It is instead a concept of a large, hairy, man-eating mammal.  For Harris, it is true that a grizzly bear is a large, hairy, man-eating mammal because a grizzly bear can be observed to be exactly that, in reality.  In other words, on the Correspondence theory of truth to which Harris subscribes, the concept of a grizzly bear being a large, hairy, man-eating mammal is true if the concept corresponds to the facts of reality.  If grizzly bears – independently of what anyone thinks of them – really are large, hairy, man-eating mammals, then the concept in one’s head (i.e., large, hairy, man-eating mammal) is true because it Corresponds to the facts of reality.  And, on the Correspondence theory of truth, the concept is true whether or not running from a grizzly bear would be effective in avoiding a grizzly bite.

What Harris Seemed to be Missing

At this point, it should be clear to the reader that Harris seemed unaware of the foundations of pragmatism, his talk about arguing with Richard Rorty in undergraduate courses notwithstanding.

Harris wrongly thought Peterson to believe that there are facts of reality that exist independently of ones senses.  Peterson rejects the very idea that one can even consider any reality other than the experiences in one’s own head.

Harris wrongly thought that Peterson views ideas and propositions as ideas and propositions about reality; about the world around one.  Peterson views ideas not as claims about what exists in reality, but as plans of action.

Harris wrongly thought that Peterson views the role of science as the endeavour to discover the facts of reality.  Peterson views the role of science as the discovery of plans of action that are effective in achieving the ethical purpose of surviving.

Harris could not understand Peterson’s refusal to admit the truth of propositions independently of moral considerations because pragmatism is founded upon a whole lot of premises that Harris apparently is unaware of, and that were not discussed explicitly during the Harris-Peterson conversation.

Translation: Sam Harris, for all his various shortcomings, generally uses words as they are commonly understood. These Corresponding Truthy Pragmatists or whatever they happen to call themselves, are utilizing the old charlatan’s trick of calling a spoon a fork in order to prove that one can eat soup with a fork.

Of course, we have no idea if Jordan Peterson’s specific non-truth “truth” is actually pragmatic correspondence truth or not, because this is only one of the FOUR different definitions presently on offer from members of Peterson’s crazy cargo cult.

By the way, I finished 12 Rules of Life today. I’ll do a Darkstream later to discuss my initial impressions, then will start writing my review of the book for Monday, but I really do have to retract my earlier statement that Jordan Peterson is the bastard spawn of Bill Kristol and Deeprak Chopra. He’s actually more akin to the tragic love child of Bill Kristol and Stuart Smalley. And he is most definitely a Gamma male as well as a physical coward who quite literally ran from a fight as a sixth-grader.

He’s also had a tremendous amount of tragedy in and around his life, which I expect accounts for his bizarre equation of both life and evil with suffering.

Anyhow, I’ll read Maps of Meaning next, at which point I will have read more of Jordan Peterson’s work than 99.9 percent of his fans currently complaining that I know nothing about him. Apparently they are also unfamiliar with the concept of “hypothesis” and “calling your shot”. A sample of the cargo cult’s responses.

  • Wow…never realized how incredibly insecure Vox was untill now
  • don’t waste your time… this is the lunatic.  JP is awesome!!!
  • You’re arrogant, puffed up and bitterly jealous. You’re also extremely boring, rambling, and no matter how many books you stand in front of, and no matter how long you ramble on for, you’re never going to convince me that you’re intelligent enough to pass comment on other people’s intelligence. I presume that you got your IQ score from one of those ads at the bottom of a web page for a gutter tabloid. Neither are you fit to tie Jordan Peterson’s shoelaces. He’s clear, you’re muddled. He’s gripping, you’re boring. Incredibly monotonous. He’s funny and witty. You’re painfully and excruciatingly robotic and clearly have no emotional intelligence. Your droning barely conceals your desperate whimper, “Please buy my books too!” My answer to that is NO! get off the screen of my iPad, you sad, pathetic little gnome!
Jordan Peterson is “clear”, while I am “muddled”? That must be more of that incoherent truth in action.

12 things I learned from 12 Rules of Life

So, I finished the book and took a reasonable amount of notes, although considerably fewer than I would have anticipated. This is not my review, which I’ll probably post on Monday, merely a list of things I noted directly from the book rather than from interviews, videos, or statements by his fans or detractors.

12 Things I learned from reading 12 Rules for Life: A Darkstream

  1. Jordan Peterson is doing philosophy and religion, not psychology or science.
  2. Jordan Peterson is a gamma male and a physical coward
  3. Jordan Peterson is a man who is psychologically scarred by tragedy. This is probably why he believes both life and evil are primarily defined by suffering. He has really suffered and he genuinely merits an amount of pity.
  4. Jordan Peterson is not a man of the Right
  5. Jordan Peterson is not a Christian
  6. Jordan Peterson does not understand evil
  7. Jordan Peterson doesn’t entirely believe in individual responsibility.
  8. Jordan Peterson does not know what chaos is.
  9. Jordan Peterson does not follow his own advice.
  10. Jordan Peterson does not have a good grasp of either science or history.
  11. Jordan Peterson’s perspective is shaped by Holocaustianity.
  12. Jordan Peterson is a moderate who worships balance.
UPDATE: Link to video added.

The costs of a Code of Conduct

It will probably not surprise anyone who has read SJWAL or SJWADD to learn that Codes of Conduct chase off the evil male programmers who built the project.

Rafael Avila de Espindola is the fifth most active contributor to LLVM with more than 4,300 commits since 2006, but now he has decided to part ways with the project. Rafael posted a rather lengthy mailing list message to fellow LLVM developers today entitled I am leaving llvm.

He says the reason for abandoning LLVM development after 12 years is due to changes in the community. In particular, the “social injustice” brought on the organization’s new LLVM Code of Conduct and its decision to participate in this year’s Outreachy program to encourage women and other minority groups to get involved with free software development.

The reason for me leaving are the changes in the community. The current license change discussions unfortunately bring to memory the fsf politics when I was working on gcc. That would still not be sufficient reason to leave. As with the code, llvm will still have the best license and if the only community change was the handling of the license change I would probably keep going.

The community change I cannot take is how the social injustice movement has permeated it. When I joined llvm no one asked or cared about my religion or political view. We all seemed committed to just writing a good compiler framework.

Espindola was one of the most prolific LLVM contributors.

What a lot of people still don’t understand is that the Code of Conduct is working as designed when it chases off the productive members of the project.

Back with a vengeance

You may recall that a few weeks ago I mentioned that I’d gotten a bit banged up and played a disappointingly bad game. Since then, I’ve been amping up my effort in practice on the theory “you play like you practice”, and it’s been having positive results. Two weeks ago, my side practiced a man down for the entire two hours – our captain’s basic theory of practice is to scrimmage until someone literally collapses, then play another 15 minutes or so – and still managed to come out on top. My shot was off, as I hit four posts or crossbars and failed to put anything in, but I made up for it on the defensive side.

In the league game, we crushed our former archrivals 10-3; we were up 7-0 before some of the defenders started getting careless and lazy. I had two assists, including one 30-meter pass that put the attacker beyond the defense just inside the box, one-on-one with the goalie. He ran on to it, hit it, and scored. I also had one decent chance from the left corner of the box, but hooked it wide.

The funny thing about the goal is that the guy who scored it hadn’t played with us this year, but had been serving as the ref at our home games. Ergo my complete thought process, as follows:

  • open man long clear lane through THERE
  • wait, is that M?
  • isn’t he the ref?
  • can’t be, we’re not at home
  • KICK don’t fade don’t fade YES!

But practice this week was the best I’ve played in years. I scored six of our 13 goals, including one header, which practically never happens. I earned my third start in a row, which would have been more meaningful if we’d had more than 12 players on hand. We’ve lost four in the last three weeks to injury, which poses a problem because I simply cannot effectively cover a wing for 90 minutes at my age.

Fortunately, we got off to a fast start, which let me concentrate on controlling the defensive two-thirds of the left wing and leaving the front one-third to the attackers. I played for 20 minutes, took a 5-minute breather, then was switched to the right side, and started the attack that led to our second goal. I also made the dumbest possible clearance pass into the center instead of simply kicking the ball out of bounds when my first two passing options were blocked, but fortunately, our goalie bailed me out with a good save. It was the sort of mistake I would have benched my kiddy players for making, but our captain settled for a brief and well-deserved “WTF-FWT?” monologue in my direction at halftime and promptly put me back in on the right wing.

Note to players – don’t ever let in-game comments from other players who are not the captain influence your subsequent actions. My decision was stupid, but it only came up because I had just previously been warned by another midfielder about the danger of bringing the ball up myself out of the box instead of passing it. The thing is, I KNEW I could safely beat the opposing wing, no problem, which I had just done, and which I could have easily done again. But with that admonition freshly in my mind, I looked to pass it instead of simply blowing past the guy, and this time, both pass options were completely blocked. So, with the thought “must pass the ball” on my mind rather than “in deep, play safe”, I looked inside, saw the right color, and made the stupid and dangerous pass into the middle, where my teammate received the ball, and was promptly knocked off it by an opposing player. I should have simply done what I did the previous time, take the ball outside, beat the opposing wing, then look up before looking in.

We didn’t score again, but we kept control of the ball and the game despite being unable to substitute after one of our attackers was taken down hard early in the second half and banged up too much to run. We won 2-0 and moved up to second place, with a game against the first-place team next week. Despite the injuries, we’re 3-1 in our last four games and we should be getting our best defender back in a week or two.

A restructuring seems in order

This is an informative article on the unique structure of the IDF, which explains both the apparent indiscipline of the IDF with regards to the Gaza protests as well as the underperformance of the IDF in the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

There are no career ground force sergeants except as technicians. Unless the system has changed very recently, the IDF ground forces typically do not have career NCOs in the LINE of the combat arms. This is a structural tradition that derives originally from the Russian tsar’s army and which came to Palestine through Russian and Polish Zionist immigrants. This tradition of organization passed through the Hagenah into the IDF. The IDF “line” conscripts what amount to yearly classes of recruits and selects from them more promising soldiers who are given NCO level command responsibilities as; infantry leaders, tank commanders, artillery gun captains, etc. The IDF does have career NCOs but they are typically found in jobs of a more technical nature rather than junior combat command at the squad or platoon (section) level.

As a result, junior officers (company grade) are required to perform duties that in more traditionally organized armies would be performed by sergeants. Leading a small combat or reconnaissance patrol would be an example. As a result, a non-reserve infantry or tank company in the field consists of people who are all about the same age (19-22) and commanded by a captain in his mid-20s. What is missing in this scene is the voice of grown up counsel provided by sergeants in their 30s and 40s telling these young people what it is that would be wise to do based on real experience and mature judgment. In contrast a 22 year old American platoon leader would have a mature platoon sergeant as his assistant and counselor.

As a result of this system of manning, the IDF’s ground force is more unpredictable and volatile at the tactical (company) level than might be the case otherwise. The national government has a hard time knowing whether or not specific policies will be followed in the field.

To put this problem into perspective, if you’ve seen Band of Brothers, then you have some idea of the importance of the role that sergeants play in an infantry company. It was the sergeants’ revolt that led to Easy Company being led into battle by Dick Winters instead of Herbert Sobel, and it was Sgt. Carwood Lipton (played by Donnie Wahlberg) who was credited by Winters’s eventual replacement, Ronald Speirs, for holding Easy Company together.

If I were an IDF strategist, I would look very long and hard at figuring out how to get some seasoned veterans salting the smaller tactical units. The principle of having experienced veterans advising young officers has been a fundamental one of successful military organizations since Rome’s battle-hardened centurions were advising young patrician tribunes embarking upon the cursum honorum.

Better late than never?

Hollywood finally excommunicates Roman Polanski:

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expelled Bill Cosby and Roman Polanski from its membership, the organization said Thursday. The Academy’s board of governors, following its new procedure for enforcing Standards of Conduct that it adopted in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, voted to expel the comedian and the director at its most recent meeting on Tuesday.

“The Board continues to encourage ethical standards that require members to uphold the Academy’s values of respect for human dignity,” the Academy said in a statement announcing their expulsion.

A five-time Oscar nominee, Polanski will keep the Oscar he was awarded in 2003 for directing The Pianist, an honor he couldn’t accept in person because he fled the U.S. in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. Cosby was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand in 2004 by a Pennsylvania jury last Thursday after 14 hours of deliberation.

Of course, they did nominate him three times for an Oscar during those four decades, and even gave him one 15 years ago. As Spacebunny commented, they’re only kicking out Polanski because they are under pressure to expel Cosby, and they can’t do so without being called racist if they don’t give Polanski the boot as well.

Ah, Hollywood values. The fact that they see fit to posture about their “ethical standards” and lecture the rest of the world would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating.

A Red Swan

With apologies to NN Taleb. A Red Swan is a neologism describing an event that literally everyone, except the idiot left-wingers responsible for its occurrence, saw coming:

Regional police statistics show that 56.9 per cent of crime in the German town Sigmaringen was committed by asylum seekers last year. The figures reflect ‘real crimes’ as offences of breaking migration laws were excluded, newspaper Schwäbische reports.

Crime, especially drug-related crimes (+69.6{c765cef31248bdf9727e0d9ed37c3833bec162074a6cb2d3654476e6b63f536e}) and shoplifting (+44.8{c765cef31248bdf9727e0d9ed37c3833bec162074a6cb2d3654476e6b63f536e}), has risen sharply due to migrant criminality. But other more serious crimes increased significantly, as well, such as street crimes (+33.5{c765cef31248bdf9727e0d9ed37c3833bec162074a6cb2d3654476e6b63f536e}), assault (+39.5{c765cef31248bdf9727e0d9ed37c3833bec162074a6cb2d3654476e6b63f536e}) and sexual offences (+14.7{c765cef31248bdf9727e0d9ed37c3833bec162074a6cb2d3654476e6b63f536e}).

Therefore the region’s Ministry of the Interior has now developed a security plan for Sigmaringen, a special group of investigators. The group recently arrested 21 multiple offenders among the asylum seekers.

Gratulieren, Sigmaringenen! Your reward for your do-goodery is the more-than-doubling of your crime rate. Please to enjoy the additional shopliftings and rapes.

A bureaucratic approach to literature

One of the central challenges George R. R. Martin always faced as a writer is that he approaches some significant philosophical questions with the mind of a bureaucrat. This Rolling Stone interview with Martin from 2014 is rather enlightening in that regard:

It’s a shockingly brutal story that you tell. The first major jolt comes when the knight Jaime Lannister pushes a child, Bran Stark, through a window because the child witnessed Jaime and Jaime’s sister, Cersei – the wife of Westeros’ King Robert – having sex. That moment grabs you by the throat. 

I’ve had a million people tell me that was the moment that hooked them, where they said, “Well, this is just not the same story I read a million times before.” Bran is the first viewpoint character. In the back of their heads, people are thinking Bran is the hero of the story. He’s young King Arthur. We’re going to follow this young boy – and then, boom: You don’t expect something like that to happen to him. So that was successful [laughs].

Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime. 

One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? You see it all around in our society, in constant debates. Should we forgive Michael Vick? I have friends who are dog-lovers who will never forgive Michael Vick. Michael Vick has served years in prison; he’s apologized. Has he apologized sufficiently? Woody Allen: Is Woody Allen someone that we should laud, or someone that we should despise? Or Roman Polanski, Paula Deen. Our society is full of people who have fallen in one way or another, and what do we do with these people? How many good acts make up for a bad act? If you’re a Nazi war criminal and then spend the next 40 years doing good deeds and feeding the hungry, does that make up for being a concentration-camp guard? I don’t know the answer, but these are questions worth thinking about. I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then? [Martin pauses for a moment.] You’ve read the books?

Yes. 

Who kills Joffrey? In the books – and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal – the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa’s hairnet, so that if anyone did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.

The reason I bring this up is because that’s an interesting question of redemption. That’s more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Is it a case where the end justifies the means? I don’t know.

The problem, of course, is how do you seek forgiveness without repentance? And how can you repent without an objective moral standard that clearly states: with this act you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?

Man cannot find redemption without God, which is why some crazy and godless men make maps of meaning filled with bizarre and imaginary creatures and warnings of nonexistent dragons, while others, less crazy, but still godless, write meandering rapefests addressing the hard questions of tax policy and population demographics.

A major concern in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones is power. Almost everybody – except maybe Daenerys, across the waters with her dragons – wields power badly.

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

In real life, real-life kings had real-life problems to deal with. Just being a good guy was not the answer. You had to make hard, hard decisions. Sometimes what seemed to be a good decision turned around and bit you in the ass; it was the law of unintended consequences. I’ve tried to get at some of these in my books. My people who are trying to rule don’t have an easy time of it. Just having good intentions doesn’t make you a wise king.

Some readers have been kind enough to say that my own AODAL falls in between ASOIAF and LOTR in terms of literary quality. But one could, not unreasonably, say that is true of our literary approaches as well.

And yes, I am working on the final edition of A Sea of Skulls. And yes, I expect it will be out, in around 900 pages of print, in time for Christmas. The 40-hour audiobook version of A Throne of Bones should also be available by then. I just finished re-reading it to refresh my memory preparatory to the final push on ASOS.

No safe havens

(((David Brooks))) is alarmed by the fact that the Left is becoming as unlikely to provide safe haven for his particular form of globalism as the Right

Tribalism is in the air, on the left as well as on the right. It is based on a scarcity mentality, the idea that life is a zero-sum war between us and them. It emphasizes division and conflict, not solidarity and cohesion. It draws out the authoritarian tendencies in any movement. On the right, tribalism brings us the ethnic authoritarianism of Donald Trump. On the left, it seems likely to bring us the economic authoritarianism of a North American version of Hugo Chávez.

You can see authoritarianism entering the left through two avenues. The first is nationalism. Not long ago, most of the American left tended to think transnationally — partly because problems like climate change are global, partly because it’s hard to regulate a global economy nation by nation, partly because progressives used to be psychologically averse to nationalism.

But national sovereignty is not withering away. Left-wing hostility toward European Union-type multilateral organizations is at record highs. Now a lot of progressive economic thinking is nakedly nationalistic. Bernie Sanders in 2015 derided a more open immigration policy as a “Koch brothers proposal.” It’s the old xenophobia — us or them, screw or be screwed. On trade, the left-wing populists sound like Trump.

The second stream fueling economic authoritarianism is identity politics. It used to be that big political divides were defined by economic interests; now, the cultural dog wags the economic tail. Identity politics defines the core political divides. When many progressives talk about economics these days, they take the habits of mind they developed when talking about identity groups and apply them to economic groups.

Translation: David Brooks’s (((identity group))) is fast running out of political wiggle room. When one very small identity group becomes massively overrepresented among the economically dominant, then obviously the economic redistributionism of the Left is going to merge with identity politics. How can it not?

The Left sees the One Percent as the primary problem. The Right sees the demographic change and economic decline of the nation as the primary problem. And if the One Percent are responsible for the the demographic change and economic decline of the nation, well, then both sides have more than a scapegoat, they have successfully identified the responsible parties.

This, of course, is why Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro, and Jennifer Rubin are all calling for a third party. But it’s going to be a very, very small one of virtually no appeal to anyone who is of the nationalist Right or the economic Left. There is not much of a market for a party of warmongering globalists whose primary domestic priority is the economic strip-mining of the lower, middle, and upper-middle classes.

The same situation is developing in the UK, as the media-generated “anti-semitism” of the Labour Party is causing the traditional Labour-supporting Jews there to rapidly migrate to the Conservative Party, where their globalist priorities are unlikely to remain popular or influential for long.

A defeated Labour councillor, Adam Langleben, said it was a source of ‘shame’ for the party that Jewish people had felt obliged to vote based on ‘their safety’.

‘Thanks to all those who voted for myself, Humayune and Agnes today. It was the greatest honour of my life to serve West Hendon,’ he tweeted.  ‘We must NEVER have another election like this. No community group should have their vote dictated by their safety. That should shame us @UKLabour.’

Mr Langelben told the Guardian: ‘Every Jewish Labour household we visited, people said, “not this time.” Activists were being told, “this is a racist party, an anti-Semitic party”, doors were slammed in their faces.

It’s not exactly hard to figure out how that’s going to play out over the next decade. And it occurs to me that the so-called White British population now already had their vote dictated by their safety. That’s why they voted for Brexit.