The Movement You Need…

There’s a serious kerfuffle in the Absolut brand thanks to a really bad marketing decision. It all centers on this advertisement:

These days, there is a substantial segment of America, perhaps a significant majority, for whom such imagery will be a cause for offense. This is now an official “crisis” and the mode of communication coming from the company should reflect that. Heck, Americans make up 40% of the market for their product. The folks at Absolut needed to take some serious steps to alleviate this situation. First, they needed to apologize profusely. Then they needed to find ways to make amends. There simply is no way to make this pig in a poke any more palatable. In this instance, with so much at stake, the only defense is surrender.

Instead, Absolut’s in-house shill machine went on the defensive. (Continued)

Tags: communications, crisis communications, immigration

The video below is stunning. Thank you, Jill Bolte Taylor!

I cannot recall the last time… if there ever was a last time… I gained so much insight or experienced such an incredible multiplicity of revelation from witnessing a single presentation. I may have attended a sermon or two that came close to having its impact, but I doubt that any experience has ever educed from deep within so much insight about the human condition.

The following video will take up about 18 minutes of your life. It may change the way you look at the rest of it.

I’ve heard and read much about left-brain vs. right-brain thinking processes and how they may relate to individual learning processes. Jill’s talk made me realize far more clearly how human communication is a primarily left-brain affair. It now appears to me that, in fact, the human condition results from how much clarity people might find behind the veil brought down upon reality by left-brain noise. Jill makes it clear, at least for me, that people must get to know their right-brains a whole lot better; perhaps I can help some people do this. (Continued)

Tags: communications

I’m a fan of the Gates of Vienna blog, which focuses on all of the various threats to Western Civilization from a rational traditionalist point of view. It’s authors are well-read, conservative, pithy and wickedly politically incorrect in a calculative manner: They’re my kind of people.

A frequent contributor there, a Scandinavian blogger by the name of Fjordman, used to maintain his own blog but gave it up and now makes his presence known as prolific commenter in other blogs and by contributing longer essays to other blogs that hold his interest and share his concerns for the West’s cultural legacy.

I’m particularly fond of his sardonism:

Gates of Vienna: The Rise of Glossocracy

In the 19th century, Britain was threatened with subjugation by Napoleon. The British people rose to the occasion and defeated the threat. In the 20th century, Britain was threatened with subjugation by Adolf Hitler. The British people rose to the occasion and defeated the threat. In the 21st century, Britain was threatened with subjugation by the combined forces of Islamic Jihad and a pan-European superstate. The British people didn’t notice the threat, as they were too busy watching semi-naked people do obscene things on TV. I bet even George Orwell didn’t see that one coming, but maybe Huxley did.

(Continued)

Tags: Conservatism, fjordman, gates of vienna, Political Correctness, western civilization, western traditions

I consider my personal brand of Conservatism to be descended from that of Edmund Burke and informed in large part by Russell Kirk. Like James Madison, I have a rather dim view of my fellow man when his actions are not voluntarily shackled by moral imperative backed by law.

What is government but the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on the government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. — James Madison, The Federalist No. 51

For quite some time I’ve been wondering how post-Reagan Revolution Conservatism has morphed into “big government Conservatism.” Yesterday, a column by George will pointed to a potential answer that I need to think on a bit.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: George Will :: Yes, Reagan was great, but it’s time to move on

If the defining doctrine of the Republican Party is limited government, the party must move up from nostalgia and leaven its reverence for Reagan with respect for Madison. As Diggins says, Reaganism tells people comforting and flattering things that they want to hear; the Madisonian persuasion tells them sobering truths that they need to know.

I think it is important to note that at Reagan’s time, this nation was suffering from dual malignancies brought on by the corruptions of Watergate and destruction of faith in American exceptionalism fomented by Jimmy Carter’s milquetoast platitudes that projected his personal malaise upon us all. Carter proved not only to be a literal peanut farmer but an idealogical one, too. This nation needed Reagan’s optimism in 1980. Perhaps his place, his time and his ideology was Providential; but, we are not at that time and place today. A different set of guiding principles are probably needed for today’s Conservatism: Older ones.

If there was ever a time in which we need a reality check about who we are and who they are, it is today. My distrust in the core of my fellow man is, I think, most prudent considering the threats that confront us. It is becoming my political dogma that multiculturalism, diversity and political correctness endanger us because they all blind us to the more base potentialities of human nature.

I was doing a bit of Googling on these topics and ran across this:

We need to learn some lessons from the tolerance-fomented decline of Lebanon. I wonder whether or not our current PC indoctrination will let us. Will we break free from socially-Marxist constraints in time to save ourselves from the fate that looms?

My pessimism about human nature conflicts with my optimism about Americanism on this.

Tags: american exceptionalism, Conservatism, russell kirk

Things I don’t tell my wife

My wife, Shelley, is a kind person - perhaps the kindest soul I’ve ever gotten to know intimately. Frankly, we are very different people and she’s far more consistently pleasant than I am. I’m outgoing, gregarious and less even-tempered; she’s a reserved, consistent and calming influence on me. She’ll never be the one quick to shake the hand of every person in the room, but she’ll always be very observant and perceive a lot of things that I’ll miss. Her counsel is priceless to me, and as I write this I feel a bit guilty for not thanking her for it more often. Knowing her, being with her and growing with her has, I believe, made me a far better person than the one she met seven years ago.

I think it is our contrasting basic natures that feeds a lot of what I put into my writings in this blog and various other written forums in which I participate: She simply would rather not know about or discuss what we call current events in great detail. Too many of the reported artifacts and results of human nature we call “news” are off-putting to her. If the terrorist is in our neighborhood she wants to know about it, but if it involves clashes of civilizations in some distant sand-pit that have been going on since Abraham begat Ishmael and Isaac, I know to spare her the details.

Our commitment to each other, building our lives together and raising our daughter gives us plenty to talk about and work on as a couple and a family. We each bring our unique strengths to bear in rearing our daughter. For instance: Very soon, my wife will be the one most intimately informed about the daily details of our four-year-old’s school days; I’m already trying to make sure that Federal intrusions like the insipid “No Child Left Behind Act” don’t render her part of a generation in which all public school children are molded into equally inept imbeciles.

We’ll both be working toward the same ends by different means while sharing equally in Katie’s successes and disappointments. (Continued)

Tags: communications, current events, human nature, no child left behind act, Political Correctness