I need to talk a bit abt narratives, but b4 I do let me say that I regard Meghan and Harry as the two most vapid buffoons on the entire planet. Why are they constantly in the news? Cd it be because the MSM largely consists of vapid buffoons as well? Wafers are encouraged to air their views on this vital subject.
As for narratives: as some of u might know, I have written a fair amt on this subject: how people cling fiercely to their particular narratives (versions of reality), and how the cause of world peace might be served if we cd all just step back 2 millimeters from our narratives, and recognize first, that we are not = to our narratives, and second, that they are only narratives; wh/is to say, opinions. I've been fascinated by the zeal of all this, and the inability of people to see their narratives from the outside; to see them *as* narratives, in other words. In this regard, I often like to cite the bk by Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer."
Recently I ran across something called terror-management theory, an idea advanced by some psychologists in 1986, and based on the famous bk by Ernest Becker, "The Denial of Death." Becker argues that fear of death is the mainspring of human activity (my own belief is that most people fear life--real living, in other words--much more than they fear death). In any case, the theory--I'm quoting here from the description provided of it in the June 29th issue of the New Yorker--"posits that civilization itself is largely a response to mortality--an elaborate system of distraction and repudiation. Because humans have a sophisticated and symbolic awareness of death, we invest aggressively in shared cultural beliefs, wh/provide the universe w/order, meaning, value, and the possibility of either literal or symbolic immortality." The key word here, of course, is *aggressively* (just look around!).
A couple of observations. To take just one notorious example, Israel has been, since 1948, desperate to hang on to its narrative of what it, its history, and the events of 1948 amt to, and to suppress the Palestinian narrative of the Nakba, and of Palestinian history before that. They torture the Pals, they murder them in droves (the children especially), destroy their villages, and even try to suppress Palestinian poetry. Until the genocide of Gaza, it had been very successful in doing this, but as we all can see, things are shifting: the Palestinian narrative is slowly gaining ground. Many people are not looking at Israel in quite the same way anymore; its "halo" seems to be rather tarnished. In fact, the Zionist narrative is heavily built on lies; it's pretty much a mythology, even given the fact that the movement was, for a time, necessary, in the wake of the Holocaust, pogroms in Russia, and etc. But now, it wd seem that the story of the Palestinians is clearly much closer to the truth, and millions are starting to realize this. But this is just one example, among many, of a war of competing narratives.
The other thing (check out my bk "Wandering God") is that this terror-management theory wd seem to have some validity. After all, the human race existed in a hunter-gatherer state for many millennia. This state was "homeostatic," i.e., sustainable. There was no rise and fall of hunter-gatherer societies, whereas once we entered civilization, roughly 10,000 yrs ago, rise and fall has been the rule, w/o exception. Civs don't last; that's just the way it is. Arnold Toynbee devoted his life to studying this phenomenon, and had some very incisive things to say abt it. The American empire, along w/capitalism, is now coming to an end, part of the tectonic shifts I have written abt over the last few yrs. This shd come as no surprise, as it is the rhythm of civilizations. We had our day in the sun; now, the sun is setting on us, and rising elsewhere (China in particular). My suggestion: sit back and enjoy the show.
I didn't equate you with the IDF or even send you a private message. Someone must have hacked my account, or created an account that looks exactly like mine! I suspect it's the latter, since I didn't even receive your reply on any of my accounts anywhere online, let alone this one. This isn't the first time something like this has happened to me. I recently posted on someone else's Substack, and suddenly, there was an advertisement for the IDF there. I had to delete it. I know this very prominent anti-Israel guy on Substack, and his account was also recently hacked and trashed, and it took him quite a while to get it up and running again. In the future, if I appear to have sent you something inflammatory and offensive, please assume it is a hacker or someone pretending to be me, because I wouldn't do such a thing. I suspect Hasbara is behind this hacking, and doing it to create infighting within the online spaces that are anti-Israel. I can't prove it, but I can't think of a more likely suspect.
Check out profile of Juergen Habermas by Alex Ross in June 22 issue of the New Yorker. Here are some quotes:
-The leading figures of the Frankfurt Schl, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, "saw capitalist society not as the antithesis of totalitarianism but as its more affable, aw-shucks twin."
-The Schl argued that "war and barbarism were no 'workplace accident' of bourgeois ociety but instead the result of its intrinsic logic."
-"The internet has enabled a mass regression to adolescent bullying and narcissism. Furthermore, tech companies designed their platforms to heighten conflict and thereby prolong engagement."
-"Horkheimer and Adorno had concluded that advanced capitalism, far from being a technocratic monolith, had an inherent tendency toward chaos and madness. AI is...a new level of cultish delirium...[It] annihilates communicative action in the name of hallucinatory conversations w/sycophantic machines."
-"[There is now] a recognition that our national pursuit of material happiness has immiserated much of the rest of the world and is now devouring itself."
They need to be slapped, then beaten to w/in an inch of their lives, and then thrown on a dunghill. Talk about nonpersons! Here's an example of what I'm talking about: Why shd anyone care where these two imbeciles live?:
The only woman emptier than Meghan is Melania, I'm guessing. And Harry is no prize either. From every direction, we are bombarded by buffoonage. And the confirmation of our famous slogan, "The elite are trash." No kidding. I just wish I cd get a private session w/Meghan and Harry and pee on their shoes.
I agree, Doctor. They almost are annoying as those terms artificial intelligence ( Oops. I meant to say “AI”) and “body language” incessantly being thrown at us from the media.
If you want to see sky-high buffoonery, just click this link. Taylor Swift, a celebrity "musician" whose songs are insufferably bland and auto-tuned, and who only has a music career because her rich financier father bought her one, recently got married. People collected garbage from places near the wedding venue and sold it online. The garbage sold out within 24 hours. This is probably one of the most pathetic events in human history. Only the dumbest people would buy garbage, and only the emptiest and most desperate among them would buy it because it was within 500 feet of a famous person. Onward and downward!
There is something about gary Snyder so like the alleged middle path that I wld give more of my behavior over to the appearance of Nobody Here(appearances are reality too). Like in the Mary Oliver, only to mention the geese is to say something. Here in north Ohio they achieve these summer territories that have everything. City land next to the Ottowa Ri. Downstream from the jeep chrysler plant too polluted for swimming. And yet they seem really to remember the quiet of their winter nesting grounds with sometimes impatience. Now I need to find out where these glide and flap to? But about Gary S I strongly believe him among the most reliably to be found in libraries' couple-of-hundred books of poetry. If you recall, about anyone else, you would not walk into any random american library and expect to find say AE Housman or Pound or just anyone, not necessarily. But Snyder you should...
Actually, I predicted the election of a fascist in 1989. As for China, they do authoritarianism fairly smoothly. We do it extremely stupidly. They do economics in terms of 50 yrs; we, in terms of 1-2 yrs at most. Their population is smart; ours consists of clueless morons. Etc. And speaking of clueless morons, here is an example of how unbelievably stupid Americans are:
Regarding your note on Buddhist meditation principles, Dr. B.,
Last year, I was rereading The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche and was surprised to find something I missed in earlier readings: His respect for aspects of Eastern philosophy and religion. While this greatly simplifies his broader argument, one line especially stood out to me:
"Europe is not yet ripe for it."
He did believe that Buddhism's core was one of radical honesty. While his prescription for dealing with existence was the polar opposite of Buddhism, he respected the fact that Buddhism doesn't ask the individual to engage in self-deception.
Please don't read this as an endorsement of Tiananmen Square, but I'm just old enough to remember that story.
I remember the mood of America at the time. America believed China needed to 'get with the program' and adopt American values.
Imagine being able to travel back to 1989 and telling the average American: "By 2026, America will have elected a fascist. Twice. And China will be 4 years away from dominating the globe."
I need to talk a bit abt narratives, but b4 I do let me say that I regard Meghan and Harry as the two most vapid buffoons on the entire planet. Why are they constantly in the news? Cd it be because the MSM largely consists of vapid buffoons as well? Wafers are encouraged to air their views on this vital subject.
As for narratives: as some of u might know, I have written a fair amt on this subject: how people cling fiercely to their particular narratives (versions of reality), and how the cause of world peace might be served if we cd all just step back 2 millimeters from our narratives, and recognize first, that we are not = to our narratives, and second, that they are only narratives; wh/is to say, opinions. I've been fascinated by the zeal of all this, and the inability of people to see their narratives from the outside; to see them *as* narratives, in other words. In this regard, I often like to cite the bk by Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer."
Recently I ran across something called terror-management theory, an idea advanced by some psychologists in 1986, and based on the famous bk by Ernest Becker, "The Denial of Death." Becker argues that fear of death is the mainspring of human activity (my own belief is that most people fear life--real living, in other words--much more than they fear death). In any case, the theory--I'm quoting here from the description provided of it in the June 29th issue of the New Yorker--"posits that civilization itself is largely a response to mortality--an elaborate system of distraction and repudiation. Because humans have a sophisticated and symbolic awareness of death, we invest aggressively in shared cultural beliefs, wh/provide the universe w/order, meaning, value, and the possibility of either literal or symbolic immortality." The key word here, of course, is *aggressively* (just look around!).
A couple of observations. To take just one notorious example, Israel has been, since 1948, desperate to hang on to its narrative of what it, its history, and the events of 1948 amt to, and to suppress the Palestinian narrative of the Nakba, and of Palestinian history before that. They torture the Pals, they murder them in droves (the children especially), destroy their villages, and even try to suppress Palestinian poetry. Until the genocide of Gaza, it had been very successful in doing this, but as we all can see, things are shifting: the Palestinian narrative is slowly gaining ground. Many people are not looking at Israel in quite the same way anymore; its "halo" seems to be rather tarnished. In fact, the Zionist narrative is heavily built on lies; it's pretty much a mythology, even given the fact that the movement was, for a time, necessary, in the wake of the Holocaust, pogroms in Russia, and etc. But now, it wd seem that the story of the Palestinians is clearly much closer to the truth, and millions are starting to realize this. But this is just one example, among many, of a war of competing narratives.
The other thing (check out my bk "Wandering God") is that this terror-management theory wd seem to have some validity. After all, the human race existed in a hunter-gatherer state for many millennia. This state was "homeostatic," i.e., sustainable. There was no rise and fall of hunter-gatherer societies, whereas once we entered civilization, roughly 10,000 yrs ago, rise and fall has been the rule, w/o exception. Civs don't last; that's just the way it is. Arnold Toynbee devoted his life to studying this phenomenon, and had some very incisive things to say abt it. The American empire, along w/capitalism, is now coming to an end, part of the tectonic shifts I have written abt over the last few yrs. This shd come as no surprise, as it is the rhythm of civilizations. We had our day in the sun; now, the sun is setting on us, and rising elsewhere (China in particular). My suggestion: sit back and enjoy the show.
-mb
Dave-
It was an email from a different Dave. Sorry about that. Let's hope we can ward off the hackers. Cyberfucking = big headache.
-mb
Dr. B,
I didn't equate you with the IDF or even send you a private message. Someone must have hacked my account, or created an account that looks exactly like mine! I suspect it's the latter, since I didn't even receive your reply on any of my accounts anywhere online, let alone this one. This isn't the first time something like this has happened to me. I recently posted on someone else's Substack, and suddenly, there was an advertisement for the IDF there. I had to delete it. I know this very prominent anti-Israel guy on Substack, and his account was also recently hacked and trashed, and it took him quite a while to get it up and running again. In the future, if I appear to have sent you something inflammatory and offensive, please assume it is a hacker or someone pretending to be me, because I wouldn't do such a thing. I suspect Hasbara is behind this hacking, and doing it to create infighting within the online spaces that are anti-Israel. I can't prove it, but I can't think of a more likely suspect.
Wafers-
Check out profile of Juergen Habermas by Alex Ross in June 22 issue of the New Yorker. Here are some quotes:
-The leading figures of the Frankfurt Schl, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, "saw capitalist society not as the antithesis of totalitarianism but as its more affable, aw-shucks twin."
-The Schl argued that "war and barbarism were no 'workplace accident' of bourgeois ociety but instead the result of its intrinsic logic."
-"The internet has enabled a mass regression to adolescent bullying and narcissism. Furthermore, tech companies designed their platforms to heighten conflict and thereby prolong engagement."
-"Horkheimer and Adorno had concluded that advanced capitalism, far from being a technocratic monolith, had an inherent tendency toward chaos and madness. AI is...a new level of cultish delirium...[It] annihilates communicative action in the name of hallucinatory conversations w/sycophantic machines."
-"[There is now] a recognition that our national pursuit of material happiness has immiserated much of the rest of the world and is now devouring itself."
Tectonic shift, amigos: Yes, it really is happening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8i0j0N7dn4
Meanwhile, this is gd:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8FVToS1Nrs
Maher, Seinfeld: rich Jews supporting genocide.
They need to be slapped, then beaten to w/in an inch of their lives, and then thrown on a dunghill. Talk about nonpersons! Here's an example of what I'm talking about: Why shd anyone care where these two imbeciles live?:
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/insight/reports-suggest-sussexes-consider-partial-uk-return-after-reunion/gm-GM9AC266C2?gemSnapshotKey=GM9AC266C2-snapshot-2&uxmode=ruby&ctsrc=dgst&ocid=edgdhpruby&pc=ACTS&cvid=6a5ad07136af4c24a714b8452202947a&ei=45
Joe-
The only woman emptier than Meghan is Melania, I'm guessing. And Harry is no prize either. From every direction, we are bombarded by buffoonage. And the confirmation of our famous slogan, "The elite are trash." No kidding. I just wish I cd get a private session w/Meghan and Harry and pee on their shoes.
-mb
Who cares abt these turkeys? Why are they endlessly in the news?
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/meghan-markle-feels-a-lot-of-sadness-following-uk-visit-with-harry-and-children/ar-AA288g4D?uxmode=ruby&ocid=edgdhpruby&pc=ACTS&cvid=6a5a916c6a1e496283c090b4452d52e9&ei=88
I vomit on them.
I agree, Doctor. They almost are annoying as those terms artificial intelligence ( Oops. I meant to say “AI”) and “body language” incessantly being thrown at us from the media.
David-
Pretty sick, but then Americans are. Meanwhile, Trumpalumpi is a rancid bag of douche fluid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p45G9hvdoZ8
Also relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehz9FPcUzkc&t=8s
Self-destruction: full steam ahead!
-mb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MEgyDCT08A
If you want to see sky-high buffoonery, just click this link. Taylor Swift, a celebrity "musician" whose songs are insufferably bland and auto-tuned, and who only has a music career because her rich financier father bought her one, recently got married. People collected garbage from places near the wedding venue and sold it online. The garbage sold out within 24 hours. This is probably one of the most pathetic events in human history. Only the dumbest people would buy garbage, and only the emptiest and most desperate among them would buy it because it was within 500 feet of a famous person. Onward and downward!
I mentioned Nietzsche briefly in a previous comment.
There's another thing he got right: The loss of 'God' would create a spiritual void within people.
A void people would replace with something else.
In the case of the early 20th century, it became politics.
In the late 20th century, I think it became 'celebrity'.
There is something about gary Snyder so like the alleged middle path that I wld give more of my behavior over to the appearance of Nobody Here(appearances are reality too). Like in the Mary Oliver, only to mention the geese is to say something. Here in north Ohio they achieve these summer territories that have everything. City land next to the Ottowa Ri. Downstream from the jeep chrysler plant too polluted for swimming. And yet they seem really to remember the quiet of their winter nesting grounds with sometimes impatience. Now I need to find out where these glide and flap to? But about Gary S I strongly believe him among the most reliably to be found in libraries' couple-of-hundred books of poetry. If you recall, about anyone else, you would not walk into any random american library and expect to find say AE Housman or Pound or just anyone, not necessarily. But Snyder you should...
Ron, Laurence, James-
Many thanks. Just food for thought, I guess.
Black-
Actually, I predicted the election of a fascist in 1989. As for China, they do authoritarianism fairly smoothly. We do it extremely stupidly. They do economics in terms of 50 yrs; we, in terms of 1-2 yrs at most. Their population is smart; ours consists of clueless morons. Etc. And speaking of clueless morons, here is an example of how unbelievably stupid Americans are:
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/goose-stepping-police-worker-fired-after-stunt-at-high-school-ceremony/ar-AA27ZGiR?uxmode=ruby&ocid=edgdhpruby&pc=ACTS&cvid=6a58c10ee4794100ba4d15a69e2ea070&ei=67
Oh surely the US isn't participating in the genocide of Gaza!:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/house-democrats-israel-aid
Scumbags.
-mb
Regarding your note on Buddhist meditation principles, Dr. B.,
Last year, I was rereading The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche and was surprised to find something I missed in earlier readings: His respect for aspects of Eastern philosophy and religion. While this greatly simplifies his broader argument, one line especially stood out to me:
"Europe is not yet ripe for it."
He did believe that Buddhism's core was one of radical honesty. While his prescription for dealing with existence was the polar opposite of Buddhism, he respected the fact that Buddhism doesn't ask the individual to engage in self-deception.
It blew my mind.
Beautiful essay. Thank you!
China has become more popular than U.S. in much of world, Pew finds - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/07/15/china-has-become-more-popular-than-us-much-world-pew-finds/
^^The Chinese Century...
Please don't read this as an endorsement of Tiananmen Square, but I'm just old enough to remember that story.
I remember the mood of America at the time. America believed China needed to 'get with the program' and adopt American values.
Imagine being able to travel back to 1989 and telling the average American: "By 2026, America will have elected a fascist. Twice. And China will be 4 years away from dominating the globe."