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the bourgeois kids…...
I do not know if I’m committing a sacrilegious act by using the image above. It was painted by Gottfried Helwein (Born in Vienna, 1948)…. The violent betrayal of childhood innocence has been the central theme of his work since his very first paintings. Four decades later, his acerbic portrayals of human brutality still challenge viewers to reflect on the most unspeakable side of our nature.
As he explains, “The long shadows of the Third Reich were still cast over the city and the smell of death was in the air.” Horror, war and genocide inform Helnwein’s works, many of which cast children as the principal characters in scenes of violence and suffering.
For Helwein, and many of his contemporaries, the dreariness of post-war Austria was alleviated by one character alone: Donald Duck. He describes opening his first comic book as “an epiphany, a religious experience,” which revealed a new world of fantasy and colour. Helwein’s present-day take on Disney is much darker, a malevolent Mickey Mouse sneering at us from his paintings.
The awakening of Gottfried Helwein has now turned into a nightmare….
Most of the young people today are unawares about the greater political dynamics at play. These young people's intentions and behaviour are mostly manipulated on an emotional level, by peer pressure, suffer from a lack of investigative skills and are herded by a bunch of hypocritical media that never spell the intellectual and philosophical status of the greater human relations — except on a very shallow one-sided view. Why bother about the greater picture anyway?
As well, most young people search for their own identity and comfort, including creating their own style of bourgeoisie. Following influencers like the Kardashians or the adventures of Fluffy-the-Pussycat on YouTube are not intellectual pursuits, but fall into the black hole of perfect ignorance, while looking pretty for girls. If you are a boy, you play nonsensical warcraft videos till you drop... Many jobs have shifted from the primary production of goods, including farming, to the tertiary sector that sustains the bourgeois purpose: arts, restaurants, creativity, sales, public services (or now “consulting” if you can wring it), private services, real estate. Even construction and trade, now fall into the tertiary sector, as workers are contractors...
We’re comfortable with this bourgeois status. We don’t need to know how our strings are pulled, even if we are more ignorant than nine and a half Pinocchios. The Western youth, especially in America, are only adventurous in the smoke and mirrors allowed by the “media”, even if it means some stylistically outrageous behaviour, which in themselves are far from rebellious attitudes but conformed to a general non-inventive fluffy mad creativity.
At the centre of this is the cult of the self, which in itself is not a problem, until it becomes an addiction that rules a format of knowledge which is highly vacuous and ignorant of our external conflicts. Our external conflict are stage-managed and colour reported by the biased media. We see hurt and misery we know the culprit of but we don’t know the real culprit is us. Our media point the finger at the “terrorists, Putin and other animals”… We are told to accept this information as truths and we do not fossick for the real origin of these international traumas. We’re happy about the sins being others'...
This is the role of “social media”: render the kids (including the adults with no intellectual brains) to a systemic entertainment or shock value of “news” with an enormous bias that cannot be seen, unless one looks behind the thick steel-trap curtains of deliberate western disinformation. This theatre of “news” can take many forms, from “serious news” like the ABC and the BBC — that are slanted nonetheless by the lack of original introspection — to simple distractions with news-show like “The Project” on channel 10, Australia. 10 is owned by Ten Network Holdings, which in-turn is owned by Paramount Networks UK & Australia. On The Project, alternating serious and lightweight news-segments mixed with comedy is said to encourage the young people to “watch the news”. This is a FALLACY as the serious news is still highly lacking proper inspection of facts and is formulae brainwashing...
And this is why the Russian News networks have been banned from many countries. Not because the Russian networks promote fake news, but they present another point of view which is contrary to the formulation of Western ersatz thinking — a shallow thinking, presently controlled by the America Straussian Jews… beforehand this narrative was controlled by the Catholic Church and its morality splattered on stained-glass windows.
As well, through relentless “fake freedom”, the Western nations like to cultivate individual traumas in the youth — from eugenics and racism abuse to uncertain sexuality… This is where the woke comes in trying to fight, but in some ways the woke deliberately multiplies the problems with a distorting looking glass…
Individualism also removes the spirit of cooperation in favour of competition with each other while being ignorant of the greater game of “conquests” of other nations by our Western rulers.
In the end, through the many information platforms, including schooling, history is distilled to "them bad, us good.” And that’s about it… “kill Putin, long live the Nazis” become the new social milk of Facebook.
It should be obvious that this is a crock — a fabrication of propaganda — but we accept it because we don’t know better than the apple juice of delusion — a delusion that started a long time ago with the apple of Adam and Eve… And now “our enemies” are not a devilish snake, but the Russians and the Chinese. We live in fear. This makes our masters happy.
The witches of our fairy tales speak Russian and Chinese… Our lack of sophisticated political and diplomatic informations of the masses leads to barbarism and decadence. The west is entering the dark ages again… This is what our masters want: a docile ignorance amongst the plebs who are distracted from the fear, with multiple facets of amusements.
We are nearly there.
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Epiphanie III (Darstellung im Tempel), 1998
SEE ALSO: alice, without malice?.....straussian full-spectrum dominance...
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killing the thoughts...
The Australian National University officially announced the suspension of all ties and activities with Russian institutions on March 3.
Working with Russian academics and institutions. The attack upon Ukraine by Russia. These are two features playing out heavily in university discussions. As typifies such chitchat, nuance features rather less than cant and sanctimony. As writer and lecturer Paolo Nori of Milano-Bicocca University stated after discovering that his course on Fyodor Dostoevsky would be cancelled in response to the war, “Not only is it a fault to be a living Russian in Italy today, but also to be a dead Russian.” (Dostoevsky has since been reprieved; the course will now run.)
Throughout history, academic cooperation between universities and academic institutions, despite the political differences of states, has taken place. Even at the height of the Cold War, exchanges across several intellectual fields were regular occurrences. The cynic could see these as culture wars in the service of propaganda, but work was still done, projects started and completed.
The times have tilted, and now universities, notably in Western states, find themselves rushing with virtuous glee to divesting and banning contacts and links with the Russian academy. Russian President Vladimir Putin is deemed a monster of unsurpassed dimension; the Russian attack on Ukraine emptied of historical rationale or basis. There is simply no room for academic debate, in of itself a risible irony.
In Freedom’s Land, some US institutions have snipped and severed cooperation. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has ended its long-standing association with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Skoltech. The reasoning strikes an odd note: we will exclude you and ostracise you out of respect for your achievements. “We take it with deep regret,” MIT explained in a statement, “because of our great respect for the Russian people and our profound appreciation for the contributions of the many extraordinary Russian colleagues we have worked with.”
The university also makes it clear that the “step is a rejection of the actions of the Russian government in Ukraine.” It’s all well and good to reject those actions, but how logical is it to then make those profoundly respected Russian colleagues suffer exclusion?
Behind every virtuous condemnation is the encumbrance of self-interest. MIT may have severed ties with Skoltech, but that did not mean that MIT principal investigators, or students, would be affected. “The Institute is in close communication with the PIs to offer guidance and to make sure that the students involved can complete their research and academic work without interruption.”
Russian students have also been singled out for special mistreatment, notably by Californian Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell. “I think closing [the Russian] embassy in the United States, kicking every Russian student out of the United States, those should all be on the table, and Putin needs to know that every day that he is in Ukraine, there are more severe options that could come.”
To his credit, President Samuel Stanley, Michigan State University’s president, has sought to distinguish between individual and political decisions made by governments. The distinction is trite, but the Ukraine War has made it exceptional. “In times of crises and conflict,” he writes in a public letter, “it is important that we decouple individuals from adverse actions of their home countries and governments.” Emphasis should instead be placed on unity in “supporting one another with dignity, empathy and mutual respect.”
In Australia, a country with few ties to Russian or Ukrainian institutions, universities have been issuing statements of condemnation against, not merely the Russian state but Russian institutions and figures. The last thing on the minds of these academic bureaucrats is adopting something along Stanley’s lines.
The Australian National University has gone one step further, having officially announced the suspension of all ties and activities with Russian institutions on March 3. “We identify with those brave Russian academics and students who oppose President Putin’s unprovoked aggression.” Curiously enough, the decision was made as the Russian attack “threatens the peace, freedom and democracy on which freedom of inquiry and academic collaboration is based.”
Proceeding to show no inclination to follow those cherished principles of free inquiry, the authors of the statement explicitly note that only those Russian academics and students who opposed Putin’s “unprovoked aggression” would be taken seriously. For Ukraine, the support was unqualified, whatever its actions. “We stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people in their defence of sovereignty and freedom and offer our support for the universities of Ukraine.”
The ANU statement has little time for ethnic Russians, preferring to acknowledge “that this is a very difficult time for our Ukrainian staff and students and for those who have family members, friends and colleagues in Ukraine.”
The statement from La Trobe University is not much more nuanced either, though it openly promotes the work of one academic, Robert Horvath, given the task of demystifying Russian aggression and chewing over Putin’s numbered days. (Horvath’s referenced opinion, it should be said, distinguishes between Putin the ruler and Russia itself, something his university is less inclined to do.)
Having been approached by “a number of staff” as to whether La Trobe had “any active connections with Russian institutions”, management expressed a deep sigh of relief. “We can confirm that La Trobe does not have any formal education partnerships or partnerships with Russian research institutions.”
The university’s investment portfolio was also fairly liberated of Russian investment, a mere $20,000 in value. “We are liaising with our Investment Fund about divestment options for this exposure.”
Singling out Russia has a note of self-indulgence to it. In the case of Australian universities in particular, outrage expressed against Russia seems at odds with, say, the relationships with Chinese institutions. The reasons, in the end, are financial rather than principled: excoriating the Russian Bear only harms intellectual merit, not the budget. The same cannot be said about students and academics from the Middle Kingdom.
To that end Vice Chancellors and members of academic boards have been less forthright in their condemnation of Chinese foreign policy and the country’s human rights record. Money often wins out in the moral dilemma, a point that activist Drew Pavlou found to his cost at the University of Queensland. Suspended on disciplinary grounds, Pavlou was adamant about the reason. “It’s a calculated move to silence me. It’s because the University of Queensland wants to do everything possible to avoid offending its Chinese allies.”
In discriminating on the political and ideological standing of academics and students, a slippery slope presents itself. Putting all your institution’s eggs into one basket and cause is never a good thing, however meretriciously popular and virtuous it might be at the time. But the Academy, and the modern university, work in contradictory, self-defeating ways. Wars do not merely make truth a casualty but kill off intellectual inquiry.
READ MORE:
https://johnmenadue.com/wars-do-not-merely-make-truth-a-casualty-but-kill-off-intellectual-inquiry/
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