TGIF reading

For the Feelies:




All You Need Is... A Slap

James Heitz Jackson
28 January, 2010

“Make a child smile—kill a counselor.”

A passable joke and an admirable sentiment. Face it, a kid cannot even fart these days without being offered counseling or Ritalin. We are enfeebled by prevailing victim culture, brought low by its burgeoning support industry of hand-holders and quack fixes; we are considered remarkable—borderline freakish—should we actually manage to cope.

The price paid for the bullshit peddled is high. Dignity is replaced by dependency, reserve by emotional incontinence; humor has given over to grim earnestness, stoicism and grit to flaccid self-pity. To ‘have issues’ is to be interesting (it used to be called flakey), to be ‘troubled’ is now the default excuse for any who intend to behave like an asshole. And happiness and contentment are nowhere.

[ . . . ]

People are no longer told it is their fault, their actions that cause the effects. Their flaws and failings, their weakness and absurdity, even their criminality, can be excused and explained. The liberal-left and its psycho-twaddle franchise hold out the apparent answer. Everything is a condition or disorder, an illness or syndrome, an addiction or compulsion; everything can be blamed on someone or something else, on the system or situation, on society, on discrimination, on your vulnerabilities, on your not being breast-fed, on your mother preferring your sister, on your being undervalued and a third sibling or having attention-deficit or low self-esteem. Hell, it might even be ME. Blah, blah, blah. Grow a spine.

Our sense of wellbeing and our very souls—our capacity to accept reality and see the truth—are corrupted by this bullshit. Individual responsibility is abrogated and elsewhere, proportion and perspective are dropped. Look at those who wailed and screamed along the funeral route of Princess Diana—a woman they did not know—while her own young sons walked behind the cortege and showed heroic self-control. It should be obvious which form of behavior was the more laudable. Yet by her own deeds, Diana reflected and legitimized an approach to life that says it is okay not to think or to know anything just so long as you Feel. A popular belief and one that infects all walks of life. Consider the contemporary art scene. Forget skill and draftsmanship—simply vomit out your inner angst. It is all so self-indulgent.

They now teach ‘happiness’ classes at my old school. God help us (or at least preserve us from this faux-empowerment claptrap). I’m beautiful, I’m special, I’m talented, I’m worth it, I’m unique…They are in for a rude shock. What should be taught is expectation management, that success and disappointment are part of the whole, that rigor and toil and excellence are the stuff of fulfillment, that no one escapes pain and loss and setback (and nor should they). We develop best when we push against adversity or resistance. Conversely, we collapse fastest when things become too easy and we grow too soft. Crap happens and happiness is not a right. That is the human condition and what our youngsters are not told.

Ultimately—however much we believe ourselves special—we are still each of us the ant pushing uphill a grain of salt before the boiling water of eternity washes us away. Accept it. At that fateful hour, the fripperies and foibles, the neuroses, hang-ups, envy and pride, the hours spent blaming and complaining, will mean nothing. Family, friends, flowers and a little faith are all that count. So be grateful and be joyous. Take life on the chin, stare death in the eye, and laugh. For you are blessed. And get up off your knees.



Survival of the Fattest

James Heitz Jackson
15 February, 2010

A process of reverse evolution is in train. It is no longer the fittest or the brightest, the fastest or the best, who survive and thrive in our contemporary jungle. It is the moronic and the bovine, the fattest and the least productive, who are cosseted and subsidized and excused their behavior. Because of it, they breed. After all, sex is free and the State will ever pick up the pieces.

[ . . . ]

Look closer and you will find that poverty is more often than not a matter of prioritization for those apparently caught in its maw. I long to hear a politician ask the question: If you have so little money, what on earth persuaded you to have five children? Why at Christmas do you purchase the latest consumer durables, computer-games and plasma-screen televisions and yet baulk at spending on private health insurance? How come you are so fat when fruit and vegetables are cheaply available? It will not happen. For we have infantilized the populace, stripping the underclass of pride, motivation, and personal responsibility and instead awarding it rights and benefits.

In the liberal-left world of the welfare state, everything is a condition, an illness, a fault of someone else. Even obesity is to be blamed on rogue genes, thyroid-malfunction or the antics of food manufacturers rather than on the sloth and greed of individuals. People forget the mouth is generally larger than the anus and thus cram it with more food. They have been allowed to forget.