The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Maslow And The Conversation On Race

Posted on | April 13, 2012 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

I’ve been busier than a fringe candidate trying to figure out how to stay in the Presidential race lately, and blogging has suffered. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading blogs and thinking. There is a crucial point to be made if we cast the recent Derbyshire article, as well as less recent sackings like Jaun Williams into a Maslow context. I’d like to show that, once again, the Progressives are taking a Postmodern wrecking ball to the Enlightenment, and destroying rational debate. And I’ll conclude that racism is what you do, not what you feel.

Maslow
Physiology and safety form the base of the pyramid.

If someone is unwilling to admit even an occasional bit of uneasiness when outside of their comfort zone, irrespective of personal resemblence to a surrounding crowd of strangers, well: OK. It’s your story, tell it any way you like. Williams:

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

A Personal Note
My experience with a xenophobic physiological reaction came at a bar in Albany, Australia. In a bar, I turned to see a woman who was barely five feet tall, dark skinned and had a single, massive supraorbital ridge that hung over eyes befitting a wolf. I nearly jumped out of my skin. But this was just base instincts talking; once the reaction rolled up to Maslow’s esteem level, where respect for others comes in, I understood, and tried to master, my response. Probably some of it showed on my face. I’m sure that, given time (this was the only time I ever saw her) I would have discovered a typical person, with the usual five level Maslowian hierarchy of needs. But am I a
raaaaacist, according to the modern Lefty definition, as a result of this?

A Certain Carpenter Of Old
A couple millenia back, a certain peasant made an observation:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

Matt 15:11

And I submit that this is precisely what we’re talking about here. Racism is not a physical reaction to a person whose heritage is at variance with one’s own. If that were the case, racism would be tantamount to temptation, which Jesus himself dealt with in Matthew 4. Look more closely at 8 and 9:

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Is this where our Ruling Class have strayed? Perhaps so. As I was mentioning a couple weeks back, viewing the population as a plane of Maslowian pyramids:

So that plane of pyramids, as the society reproduces, must be trained to halt their growth at the lowest, fleshy level.
The spiritual and intellectual levels must be attacked and leveled, so that humans can be reduced to child-like contentedness.

And when those sheep refuse to be content with their chocolate ration, they must be beaten down with any emotional tool at hand: fear, guilt, shame, envy.

Summary
This race card is indeed powerful, beacuse it bulldozes the intellectual and spiritual layers off of Maslow’s hierarchy. The Left cheerfully bemoans the need for a “conversation about race”, and, when any sort of response to Holder’s Nation of Cowards charge comes up, the speaker is beaten down.
Say what you want, for or against Derbyshire’s article. I haven’t given it more than a skim. However, if there was shred #1 of leadership, of any follow-through whatsoever from #OccupyResoluteDesk using his purported racial healing powers, BHO would’ve say words to the effect that “Well, Derbyshire’s opinion is what it is, and we will now leverage our American Exceptionalism to belie his statements.”
Yet here again, we see Barack doubling down on the side of wrong, tempting his followers to connect the dots between him and Trayvon Martin. This is nothing but an anti-intellectual appeal to emotion, and a shameful tearing at the Rule of Law in the process. Lord have mercy on you, Barack Obama, in such an exalted leadership position, and playing the thug.
And so, resist we much. For my part, I don’t imaging how the Left can continue to flog this dead horse of racism. They’re getting thrown back as badly on the Trayvon propaganda as they were on Sandra Fluke.
The internet is proving too strong for the necessary air brushing. Even though, as Bill Whittle points out, we’ve a couple of generations of dunces that have to burn through what I’ll call “Fogress”, the Commie Fog of Progress, we will get ‘er done, or rather famously die trying, I expect.
Lesson 1: anything these Lefty jackwagons tell you, e.g. “You’re a racist if you get creeped out by an unfamiliar, potentially unsafe situation” is just wrong. Lefties are not merely at variance with truth due to simple human error. Rather, it seems likely they are deliberately twisting facts, possibly because they are bent on reducing you to animal-like slavery.
Sounds a trifle heavy, but there it is.

For the Christian Readers
The Left deploys the race card in ways that are unabashedly Satanic; we’ve witnessed deliberate falsification of almost every aspect of the Trayvon Martin tragedy. But the pattern goes much further back. I am dumbfounded that anyone can claim Christianity and be on the Left. As far as I can tell, the Whore of Babylon mentioned in Revelation meets the criteria for Progressivism. Let her return to Hell, and take the race card with her.

Update: linked by Dyspepsia Generation

Category: Racism

Comments

13 Responses to “Maslow And The Conversation On Race”

  1. Anamika
    April 13th, 2012 @ 8:31 am

    Knowing Jesus, not in the Biblical sense, is just about the last thing on the Christian’s mind, especially given the fact that he or she, for the most part, doesn’t even have the slightest clue as to what knowing Jesus truly means.

    What they are chiefly concerned with is making sure they go to Heaven when they die, without any inconvenient stop-overs or long term stays in either Purgatory (if they are Catholics) or Hell (if they belong to a different Christian sect).

    And for this (getting to go to Heaven) a real knowing of Jesus is neither required nor even recommended.

    The only thing required and desired, from the Christian’s point of view, is confessing Jesus as your “personal” Lord and Savior, and believing, however irrationally, that he died, somehow, for your sins.

    Crazy, perhaps, but true nevertheless.

  2. Adjoran
    April 13th, 2012 @ 8:35 am

    When I studied Maslow – granted it was 40 years ago, but under James Payne, one of the original designers of the Head Start program (so he was knee deep in the psychobabble) and a practicing mentalist – there were, I recall, seven levels:

    1. Animalistic – concerned mainly with food and shelter and procreation.

    2. Tribalistic-ritualistic – organized by omens and talismans, very superstitious

    3.  Egotistic – self-centered, seeking instant gratification of all desires

    4.  Saintly – self-sacrificing, spiritual, putting others before self

    5. Materialistic – devoted to physical well-being, possessions

    6.  Humanistic – acting in terms of humanity, compassionate

    7. Self-actualized:  able to relate to any lower level on its terms, free of limitations of mindsets.  Explained also as a “recycled” level 1 – who had been through the stages of development.

    The levels weren’t a hierarchy of worth at all, a person’s or society’s level only spoke to how they related to their lives, surroundings, and beliefs.  Some of history’s great geniuses and artists were judged in retrospect to have been level 3 or 4 on this scale.  So the “development” through the stages should not be considered as “improvement,” any more than “change” is necessarily “progress.”

     The Left of course never bothers with such analysis, since they have preordained that whatever they want to do must be Good, and opposing it therefore must be Evil.  The “racism” charge has long since been divorced from any sense of actual racism, and used as a political bludgeon to silence opponents. 

  3. Lisa Graas
    April 13th, 2012 @ 8:55 am

    The Left drives wedges between groups by latching onto identities (gays, blacks, women) and by driving resentments. It’s called “identity politics.” They do this in order to gain/maintain power. America is about E Pluribus Unum. It’s not about driving resentments. It’s about getting along with each other.  Religions have doctrines. I cannot vote for “Candidate X” who supports abortion because my religious doctrine prohibits it. It’s about opposing the idea, not about the candidate’s skin color, gender, etc. But the Left has doctrines that are based not on religious identity, but on things like skin color and gender. They drive hate, and when we play that game with them, we become them. We need to be talking about freedom, not whether the left or the right hates women more.

  4. Anamika
    April 13th, 2012 @ 8:56 am

    Maslow was wrong. There IS always flow among the levels.

    Without desire means it doesn’t matter ultimately whether or not the material desire is fulfilled, not that it is wrong to have and act on them.

    Love,

    Anamika

    lovewisdom

    PS. the truly prejudiced and bigoted … [unconscious of their addiction] are always the last to see it.

  5. Adobe_Walls
    April 13th, 2012 @ 9:59 am

    I think we’re having a perfectly lovely conversation about
    race in this country. Sharpton et al are shrieking, the “new (and
    improved?) black panthers are putting bounties on white (?) folks heads. Eric Holder is looking out for “his people” in naked disregard for the rule of law or any objective measure of “justice”. The black racialists are busy deeming hispanics and now American indians as white and therefore enemies (this strategy will have proved brilliant if they get the race war they seek) and perhaps most edifying the white guiltalist left is screaming that we are racists as well as warring on our sisters, wives and mothers. All of the above nitwits and dingbats are hollering that we must have a conversation about race NOW. They don’t actually want to talk with anyone else about this but rather talk (yell, scream, and shriek) at us. Therein lays the solution. The content or context of their “conversation” is of no
    import, the only thing that matters is the volume, as anyone who has witnessed a child’s tantrum can attest the tantrumer becomes utterly exhausted. This is
    the solution, we must prod and goad them into rage and outrage at every
    opportunity and in any and every way we can. We must induce them to shriek and scream constantly 24/7 for as many days, weeks or even years as required. When we can step over their exhausted bodies as they lay on the sidewalk, their vocal cords strained, cracked and bleeding (hopefully irreparably damaged) as they can barely croak “raaaaacists” too weak to even stand then and only then will we have solved the “race problem” in this country.

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    April 13th, 2012 @ 10:23 am

    Great post Smitty.  Well done.  

    I have a story that complements it.  I am trying to operate at the top of the pyramid here.  

    Salon is pointing out the case of John McNeil, a home owner who shot a violent contractor at his home.  Anyone who has done home construction knows that shooting a contractor should arguably not be a crime.  But in this case the Contractor had a violent temper, was threatening and had a knife (although it was not be brandished at the time of the shooting).  

    McNeil got life.  http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/04/george-zimmerman-have-you-heard-of-john.html

    Salon is running this story to show the hypocrisy of the Zimmerman case in comparison.  But if anything, I find the McNeil case even more offensive and want to help the guy.  What good is a second amendment if you can’t use a gun at your home without being thrown in prison for life?

  7. Adobe_Walls
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:40 am

    The answer is no good at all that appears to be the plan.

  8. Ford Prefect
    April 13th, 2012 @ 12:42 pm

    Smitty, I like seeing that someone of courage is pointing out the obvious regarding Christian ? liberal and WILL never be compatible with liberalism.

    Jesus (the first fundamentalist BTW) would no more recommend that the Roman government point a spear at someone’s heart to force them to give money to the poor than he would suggest that you can go to heaven by being a pagan.

    At its core, Liberalism is about two things:

    • threat of violence to force productive citizens to give their hard-earned income to the unproductive, the statists,  and the crony capitalists of the world.

    • lying about their enemies (and we ARE their enemies).

    Now, I know some liberals who claim to be Christians. I know that it is possible that, at one time they may have accepted Jesus as their Savior.  However, just like the adulterer who makes a faith profession but keeps on sleeping around, the liberal who doesn’t set aside their participation in the two bullet points above (either actively or tacitly), I would say that their profession of faith was insincere.  You can’t simultaneously follow Jesus and condone violence and lying. In fact, as Jesus would say, it would be better if you’re going to willfully sin like that, to not claim to be a follower of Christ.  He doesn’t appreciate those kind of “followers”.

  9. DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Maslow and the Conversation on Race
    April 13th, 2012 @ 3:15 pm

    […] Smitty at The Other McCain has some useful thoughts. I’d like to show that, once again, the Progressives are taking a Postmodern wrecking ball to the Enlightenment, and destroying rational debate. And I’ll conclude that racism is what you do, not what you feel. […]

  10. smitty
    April 13th, 2012 @ 5:21 pm

    Anamika, you have underscored the distorted body-only (Maslow-level 1 & 2) distortion of Christianity that is afoot.

    If you knew Christ to any degree, you’d understand that Christianity is about maximizing the area of the entire pyramid: body, mind, and soul.

  11. smitty
    April 13th, 2012 @ 5:31 pm

    Everyone operates on all levels in parallel.

  12. smitty
    April 13th, 2012 @ 5:33 pm

    My contention about your second bullet point is that the deceits are meant to attack rationality, and level the pyramid above layer two, for better mallability of the populace.

  13. FMJRA 2.0: Picking Up The Signal : The Other McCain
    April 21st, 2012 @ 12:02 pm

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