26 Comments

I thoroughly enjoyed this article for its river of ideas that flowed effortlessly around bends and currents of pop culture.

As you say, "traditions represent something like real-world laboratory settings in which, over a vast period of time, what works is selected and what doesn’t is discarded."

The 3 R's were a tradition. Now curriculum and education is capitalistic, too, and brain rot is indeed a real phenomenon. A society that produces people who cannot read gives power to the elite who can. It worries me how many have no ability nor inclination to even question our contemporaey culture, and the ones who do, the ones who don't buy into it on any level, are the ones most content and most traditional.

Thank you for saying what I always thought about 60's artists...except for Joni Mitchell who sang about the "Circle Game."

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Thank you Cathy! Glad that we can still keep Joni Mitchell in the vinyl collection - even if everybody else gets tossed out!

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Restacked with this: "This sort of post is usually simplistic and so damn earnest, tiresome. Sam solves this problem by being hilarious. Brighten your day, or at least your surfing." Kudos, Sam.

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Thanks so much David! Really appreciate it.

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Thanks so much David! Really appreciate it.

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This feels like a personality test. All of these worldviews resonate with me to some degree: 4 and 1 the most, 2 and 5 the least. Not sure what this says about me.

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Interesting! I haven't figured out to develop, like, a Myers-Briggs scale from this yet!

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This was a lot of fun. Thanks for publishing.

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Thanks Lasagna!

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hahha fun. I'm definitely in mushy elitist camp 3, though I am proud to say that I entered and quickly exited my JBP curious phase long before COVID. That and I'm too cheap to subscribe to the NYT.

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I'm a #3 too! I keep meaning to cancel my Times subscription but somehow have never done it.

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I like this. I feel like I hang with each of these people on a regular basis at a diner on Thursday nights. There might be another archetype: the contemplative.

“I view the changes and conflicts with growing confusion. I see merit and vices woven through every position and have been shaken as I’ve seen my own convictions fail in unintended ways. I’m surrendering more and more to unknowing and seeking consolation in local service opportunities and contemplative practices with a faith community.”

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Beautifully put Sean. Yes, that seems right to me.

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Vonnegut said it best: “And so it goes.” I see little bits of myself in each of these. Really inventive, thanks for taking a crack at this oddball approach, it was pretty cool.

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Thanks Tom! Too bad Vonnegut got all the good lines!

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Sam,

Loved this, but I think i'm too old for many of these categories. I've heard of Florence and the Machine and Radiohead but I've never knowingly listened to their songs. What albums did they come out with in the '70s?

I had to look it up but I gather from google that "Basic" means unoriginal.

I think that's a picture of Kate Beckinsale. "Last Days Of Disco" era? I'm a fan. Maybe all seven categories can agree on being fans of Kate Beckinsale.

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David, this really made me laugh! The photo is from a very mean-spirited College Humor video called, "How to tell if you're a basic bitch," but I love the idea of Kate Beckinsale being the one point in the culture that everybody can agree on. - Sam

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Please find an interesting perspective on the nature of the current and perennial disorder - even psychosis)

The first essay is on the the obsolescence of the old religious tradition - particularly the big three that originated in the what is called the Middle East

http://beezone.com/current/religiousstupiditysciengenius.html

Why the human situation (always) remains sub-human

http://beezone.com/current/stresschemistry.html

http://beezone.com/whats-new

On a different note

http://www.priorunity.org

http://www.dabase.org/not2p1.htm 100 or so summary statements - note the use of the word Tribalism which is used at least 30 times in these statements

http://beezone.com/adida/quandramamashikhara/thelawofpleasuredomeedit.html The Pleasure Dome Principle

Unfortunately the entire world is now rapidly moving in the opposite direction

http://beezone.com/lopezisland/LopezIslanddescription.html

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Great! Thank you for the links.

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I enjoyed this and applaud the idea of imagining other perspectives and mindsets than one's own. The attempt to understand another's world-view is valuable and there's also the temptation to try and fit oneself in. I didn't fit completely in any one but I share bits of almost all. Interesting read, Sam.

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Thanks Kathy! Appreciate it.

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Am satisfied with that last ethical porthole that you h taken the book t Righteous Mind's message to heart. You included more of the reactivity this one half of-the political pop'n has towards a feeling of disgust with "dirty" practices than I when trying to shed light here. This thought train is on iron rails, and Sam has already taken the ride to Utah to see if Bloom was as right abt his "american religions" as he was abt Anxiety of influence and abt "strong misreadings" of lit'e. The best case for Bloom's argument is never explicitly stated in his book. It is that the Mormons retained the bible, used it as an I Ching the same way my tribe of Quakers recommend. Don't know, why wld he fail to prove his point? The point being there are a massive genre of persons who want to spectate the alphas and omegas of religion, and are eager to believe they touched the garment of a human master of the universe. Why not Heman already? Let's walk times square dressed as Gorgeous George, this actually happened to Bob Dylan and he says " talking to George gave me momentum".

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Curious to hear more about your take on Mormonism? I think mine is pretty different.

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Wrote you a John Smith sketch in your DM. Under the chat icon, DM's.

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Joseph!

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Re #4 and a couple others, I was reminded of the Warren Zevon song line “we are only really free in dreams”..

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