We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Of all the many consequences of the 9/11 atrocities, I have noticed one that has hitherto gone unheralded and probably unnoticed. Amidst the long periods I have spent reading and scrutinizing the many voices of America that are broadcast over the internet, I have noticed with mounting bemusement a highly prevalent use of the term ‘Britney’
At first, I must confess that I was at a loss to grasp the meaning or significance of this term but, upon examining the context in which it is most frequently used its true meaning soon made istelf abundantly clear; the term ‘Britney’ is, of course, one of affection and endearment for us, the British
How could it be anything but, when used with such visceral relish by so many of our American cousins when they say things like:
Oh man, I really wanna rock with Britney
Or
Me and Britney gonna paaarteeeeee
Or
Wow, I dreamt about Britney last night and woke up with, like, a major woody
Hot salty tears of pride and gratitude roll down my cheeks as realise that our ‘special relationship’ has not only been undiminshed by time and circumstance but rather has deepened and solidified. How my heart swells with pride when I think of all those Americans in bars from Boston to Philadelphia and Chicago raising a glass of Pabst Blue Riband to toast the memory of Winston Churchill, a truly great Britney
This is nothing short of an inestimable gift, for, while the French are Frogs, the Germans are Krauts, the Canadians are Kanuks and the Russians are still Commies, we British are ‘Britneys’; the donees of a idiomatic expression that carries within its pithy cadence all those qualities that Americans have come to expect from us; steadfast and redoubtable, yet chirpy and easy-going
I exhort all my fellow countrymen and women to embrace and celebrate this term and make it our own and I urge our American allies to go forward and conquer their enemies for us ‘Britneys’ are with you
A personal and long standing view of Lord of the Rings
[Boromir speaks]
“I do not understand all this,” he said. “Saruman is a traitor, but did he not have a glimpse of wisdom? Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need? Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy. That is what he most fears, I deem. The Men of Gondor are valiant, and they will never submit; but they may be beaten down. Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon. Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!”
The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter Two, The Council of Elrond
[…]
[Sam Speaks]
“But if you’ll pardon my speaking out, I think my master was right. I wish you’d take his Ring. You’d put things to rights. You’d stop them digging up the gaffer and turning him adrift. You’d make some folks pay for their dirty work.”
[Galadriel replies]
“I would” she said. “That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas! We will not speak more of it. Let us go!”
The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter Seven, The Mirror of Galadriel
For me, the Lord of the Rings works on every level, and I refer to both the magnificent new motion picture and the trilogy of books, which I first read in the early 1970’s as a child and have re-read many times since. It works on the most basic level as a glorious epic, rich with its own mythic cycle that borrows from Celtic, Nordic and Saxon traditions. Simply put, it is a bloody good read and the motion picture captures that most effectively, editing and abridging where needed without doing a fatal violence to the source.
Yet The Lord of the Rings can be read in many other ways as well. It also works extraordinarily well as a series of quite deep allegories. Certainly many people have subjected J. R. R. Tolkien’s remarkable epic to the Bunsen burner of allegorical analysis before, particularly those looking to divine a racist subtext. I have only ever read a couple such works and to be honest was unimpressed. I have read a few summaries of others but it has always struck me that the arguments of this or that critique of his work usually skirt around the core issue, for there are really only two facets of the story that truly matter: Frodo and the Ring itself.
I have always thought the allegorical meaning of The Lord of the Rings is starkly obvious and quite profound. Mankind in all its varied forms and mythic archetypes can be found with the story, yet in truth the reader is presented with a single representation of themselves: Frodo Baggins, the Hobbit. Frodo is us.
The entire story is about Frodo and his relationship with the Ring. Everything else is the supporting artifice. Frodo is Everyman, who does not choose the world in which he lives, rather the world is thrust upon him by forces at first seemingly outside his power to influence or even understand fully. It is Frodo, more than any other character, who dwells most upon the issue not just of dynamic reaction to events, but of moral choice. Although surrounded by mythic heroic characters of every shape and form, Frodo is physically puny, banal by predisposition and would be hard pressed to intimidate an irritable rabbit. Yet he is indeed strong, in that his strength is entirely moral strength… and because he chooses to exercise that moral strength, in the end he has no equal. We are shown that it is from personal moral courage that all other strengths derive and that all the weapons in the world count for little without that.
So if the Hobbit is us, then what is the Ring?
The Ring is everything that Frodo is not. He is a weak little man, vulnerable and multifaceted. The Ring is strong, almost indestructible and pure in its single minded malevolence. It tries to corrupt all who touch it or are ever associated with it and it is about absolute pitiless control of others. Frodo deals not through agents or proxies, but directly, face to face, whereas the Ring makes its wearer invisible and extends its power terribly through its influence over the other Rings. It is the antithesis of interpersonal morality. No matter how pure of heart the person who wields it is, no matter how just their motivation for taking that power upon themselves, the end result is always corruption. Yet the lure of such power is so overwhelming that only the most truly moral can resist it when it is dangled in front of them: Gandalf and Galadriel are both offered the Ring but refuse it. Elrond too sees it for what it is and will have none of it.
We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now know all too well. It’s strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an even deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear.
Powerful, corrupting and impersonal. The Ring is of course an allegory for the modern state.
I am slowly catching up with articles posted in my absence, and I really have to add my 2p about Kevin Holtsberry’s opinions on that lad in Australia. In two short words: They Suck. Any man who would deny a 15 year old his last chance to experience the joys of sex before his premature demise is simply sick minded. If people like this were in a position to have actually prevented it, I would go further and simply call them Evil, on a par with the Communists with whom Natalja also compares them.
Personally, I found this one of the more touching stories of a year that had all too much evil in it. I am very glad that in at least one case love and humanity prevailed. This is at the heart of why we want a libertarian society. Without State power men of evil intent will not have the power to prevent acts of compassion and kindness.
And in any case… there is always Las Vegas. 😉
I’ve stayed aloof from the flying fur up to this point, mostly because I’ve been preoccupied with critically important holiday activities. So many pubs, so little time! But the holiday season is now past and I find myself in stable condition and on the road to full recovery… so it is time to roll up the sleeves and get blogging.
Everyone seems to recognize that Ruby Ridge and Waco were important. I think some writers have skirted the edge of just why that is so without actually stating it: they were liberty’s canaries.
No one who has read about the Branch Davidians will argue David Kouresh was other than a wacko. He was a religious nut. He was at the outer limits of American society, His death showed us precisely where that limit sat and was a clarion call to those of more moderate beliefs. It showed them they had better join in holding the line or else soon find themselves on the wrong side of it:
First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I’m not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I’m not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I’m not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.
Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)
I am not saying that the government actions were equivalent to the full blown horror of Nazism. They were not. They were however equivalent to the earliest, most tentative steps of it. Americans are not quite as sanguine about their governments’ motives and actions as Father Niemoller, nor are they disarmed or unwilling to fight if push comes to shove.
We need armed nuts; they serve a valuable purpose. To quote myself from a discussion on the politics of space over a decade ago and why we needed our own unreasonable extremists in that endeavour:
The ends define the middle
David Khoresh provided us a warning. He showed each of us exactly how far from the edge we stood and left us to decide what to do about it. The fact that American citizenry are armed means there is a very real set of checks and balances between citizen and government. The founders and the framers of the Constitution intended this to be so and that is why there is a Second Amendment in the hallowed Bill of Rights.
This is why I do not believe the United States is even remotely near a revolutionary situation. There are no problems there which cannot be dealt with in a civil and civilized Constitutional manner. I would go so far as to say no sane person should wish the line be crossed. Revolutionary results are unpredictable. Once a society has broken down into factions that solve all problems by weight of arms rather than by law, it can be beastly difficult to recover civil society.
James Lileks goes some creditable way to restoring my faith in journalism with this cracking piece
Our new mystery contributor is actually a well known blogger in his own right by the name of… well, that would be telling.
For reasons that will probably become apparent after he has posted more of his frustrations of being a libertarian and critical thinker in an environment which encourages neither, he wishes to remain behind the pixilated burqa of on-line anonymity.
Well, well, well! It appears that all is not quite so rosy in the Garden of EUden after all. Seems that an attack of healthy self-preservation has broken out in Italy
Strangely enough though, the situation there appears to be the converse of the situation in the UK. In Italy support for the EU among the grassroots is high and it is the political elite that are growing uneasy.
Still, let’s keep our eyes and ears open on this one, people. It could get interesting
Ah yes, the glory days of school have begun again. I always love to return to school after the winter break. The crisp chill in the air fits with new smell of text books always gets me excited to learn again.
However, this bliss fades as soon as I encounter that which really irks me: the whining and moaning of the first week back. “I can’t find my class room”, “I didn’t want to buy my text books, they’re too expensive”, “I don’t want to do this”, “I don’t want this homework”, “I don’t know the answer to that question”. How nice: people trying to find other people to take care of their problems. If others fail to take care of their problems, they let you know that too. What this comes down to is an inability to handle their own affairs, or in other words a level of dependency that grows worse daily.
Now I sympathize with them, because finding the classroom can be hard, after all you may have to look at one of the 50 maps located in the classroom building. Throwing over $500 for textbooks is not easy, but you obviously want to go to school, so you do it. Students need to learn that level of biting the bullet and not sharing their problems. In other words, reach a level of independency; take care of your own problems. College is a darn good time to start that.
But most students fail to learn that lesson, instead they continue to want more dependency, more help, and in short, they cry “I want my Mommy”. So each time I return to school I am tortured by the same question: Why are they so dependent?
After two years of college, I think I figured it out: the professors want it this way. Not just the college professors but also the high school teachers. In high school, I was yelled at for being too judgmental; they wanted people to consider all options and not to make any decisions or conclusions. There is no right and wrong – people who think so (like T. Jefferson?) are full of bunk. They encouraged mental dependence: encourage explaining other people’s thoughts, but do not dare to express your thoughts. Mental independence, don’t dare – how nice.
Getting so used to this in high school, it followed most students to college. When asked a question, most students answer it with “well these people say x and these people say y”. If the professor even dares to ask “Which one do you agree with?” the student is left floundering and sputters out “well x is good for a, b, c and y is good for d, e, f.” Because of this lack of requirement for judgmental thoughts, students are unable to think independently. They cannot even tell you what they think because they get trapped in telling you what others think. This lack of mental independence has spread like a cancer to all of their other activities, including finding class rooms and purchasing textbooks. Why does it stay this way? It is in the teacher’s best interest to keep their student’s mind dependent, that way they seem really smart. However this only leads to ruin and distress in the futures of those students. Boy I love returning to school…
I hope that if evil days should come upon our own country, and the last army which a collapsing Empire could interpose between London and the invader were dissolving in rout and ruin, that there would be some, even in these modern days, who would not care to accustom themselves to a new order of things and tamely survive the disaster
– Winston Churchill
Those of you who are Unix users will be familiar with the fortune cookie program. I am uncertain when it was first written, but it is rather ancient as such things go. That is why some of its’ many thousand quotes hark to a different era of computing, political thought and even humour. Although it does nothing “useful” it is fun and one of the items I consider mandatory for any computer I work with. If you include the non-politically correct ones there are some truly fine old bawdy limericks and the occasional ROFL (Roll On The Floor Laughing) stories that take the piss of any imaginable group or subgroup of humanity.
There are also many thought provoking quotes. Some make you just sit back and think. The following is one of those.
By the middle 1880’s, practically all the roads except those in the South, were of the present standard gauge. The southern roads were still five feet between rails.
It was decided to change the gauge of all southern roads to standard, in one day. This remarkable piece of work was carried out on a Sunday in May of 1886. For weeks beforehand, shops had been busy pressing wheels in on the axles to the new and narrower gauge, to have a supply of rolling stock which could run on the new track as soon as it was ready. Finally, on the day set, great numbers of gangs of track layers went to work at dawn. Everywhere one rail was loosened, moved in three and one-half inches, and spiked down in its new position. By dark, trains from anywhere in the United States could operate over the tracks in the South, and a free interchange of freight cars everywhere was possible.
– Robert Henry, “Trains”, 1957
I wonder how long the study would take today? Not to mention the environmental impact statement, the regulatory battles, the labour negotiations…
Sometimes one has to admit we have not advanced ourselves. We have only made complex what was once deemed simple.
I spent yesterday evening watching a recording of an excellent two-part four-hour TV dramatisation of the exploits of Sir Ernest Shackleton. As World War I was about to tear Europe apart, Shackleton raised the money to lead an expedition to the South Pole. He never reached it. He and his 28 men, by rights, should’ve died from the intolerable cold, exhaustion, hunger, frostbite, gangrene and madness. But they didn’t. Not a single man jack of them died because Shackleton, by dint of his sheer indomitable courage, ingenuity, determination and sheer force of will managed to bring them home to Britain where Shackleton himself was hailed as a national hero
God, it was all so British and stirring, damn you!!
Well, I say, ‘British’ but that was back when Britain was full to the gunnels with square jaws, stiff upper lips, steely eyes, straight backs, iron resolve and not even the women were in touch with their feminine side. Mountains were there to be climbed, oceans were there to be plumbed and there was not a single square inch of this wild and windswept planet that could not be trampled all over and conquered by stout, horny British feet
Would Sir Ernest still be a national hero if he’d lived today? No, I rather think not. I rather think he’d be denounced as irresponsible and an environmental vandal. He’d be reviled in the media as a danger to health and safety, for setting a bad example for our children and for failing to provide diversity training. He’d be sued by his crew for emotional trauma and be forced into bankruptcy as a result. He would lose his home, his wife would dessert him and his kids would be taken into care. On top of that he would be ruthlessly persecuted by the government who would pass laws (retrospectively) to enable them to throw him into prison and ban any further expeditions to anywhere more risky than Hyde Park
God, it’s all so British and depressing, isn’t it
Ooooo, I do love Switzerland. The place reeks with old money, refinement and smooth, rich chocolate: an oasis of sanity, an island of serene, efficient and discrete capitalism amidst the swirling adhesive gunk of Euro-scleroses.
In all of Switzerland I have always liked Zürich the best. Across the river things are quite decadent and tinged with counter-culture, in that not very threatening Swiss sort of way. Lurking amidst the sex shows and ‘clubs’ there are several quite fun bars and student filled coffee houses when one is in the mood for that sort of place. Around where I am staying, on Kirchgasse, it is all great shops, nice hotels, comfortable cafés and fairly good restaurants. Storchengasse is my favourite part of all and that is where I arranged to meet my business acquaintance for dinner tonight after he offered to take me out. Other than the fact I nearly froze to death looking in the shop windows on the way to see him, everything here is wonderful.
We talk business mostly, speaking in English, discussing how business must be conducted in Italy and how this must be done with that lawyer because of EU law and that must be done with this lawyer because of Italian law and then there must be a permit to do that and then we must register this and set up an account there and then we must wait for that to be approved…so on and so on and so on… and then I ask what must we do when we meet in his office on Monday for this business here in Switzerland?
“Oh, that”, he says… “when you told me you were coming, I had everything drawn up, agreements, plans, everything. I will just drop them off at your hotel tomorrow. If everything is okay, sign the agreements and give them back over lunch on Monday.” Clean direct Swiss-German accented efficiency and simplicity.
Oh Switzerland. I do love Switzerland. Why can’t everywhere be Switzerland?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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