The takeaway from Hunger Games was the danger of an excessively powerful central government. You would think Jennifer Lawrence would have gotten a clue.
Sasha, you are so great at your trade. Your work is like a lifeline to what’s true and important. You bring tears to my eyes at times, and these are good tears, grateful tears. Thank you so much.
As a child of the 70s and 80s it is painful for me to witness how far we have fallen in almost every way. It is as if the ghost of Nikita Kruschev is grinning in triumph: “We will bury you!” Indeed, the neo-Marxists almost have
1. The rule of simplification - reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
2. The rule of disfiguration - discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
3. The rule of transfusion - manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
4. The rule of unanimity - presenting one's viewpoint as if it were unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure , and by 'psychological contagion'.
5. The rule of orchestration - endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
I just saw Guy Ritchie’s “The Covenant”, and it made me feel more hopeful that at least SOME movies will buck the woke trend (because it really did). Also, the British film “Living” almost made me think it was the 1980s again; it was just a good story, well acted and directed, about life.
OTOH, the trailer for “Barbie” sucked all my hope away, and these overtired, overhyped franchise films like “Indiana Jones and the Old Folks’ Home” (Hollywood archeologically digging themselves further into a hole!) really water down the hope levels.
Thanks for the “dishonorable mention” of the trans character in “Women Talking”, where, despite all semblance of reality, they expected us to believe that an Amish community would be fully on-board with gender theory. Sigh.
"What they need is absolution from their sins of wealth and privilege."
Ideally without having to actually pay any price. They have a great idea: achieving "social justice" by raising poor non-Whites above poor Whites, while leaving their own wealth unaffected. "The more I have right belief, the more I can keep wrong wealth." But the poorer poor Whites are, the easier it is to raise non-Whites above them. And so it is that poor Whites must be kept poor. But keeping poor people poor is obviously a hostile act, requiring a suitable demonizing pretext: "White Supremacists!"
I sincerely appreciate the positive feedback you give me.
The main problem, the one driving the rest, is that the concept of White Guilt has won such wide acceptance. This is odd, because even a small amount of Critical Thinking should be enough to reveal that CRT is complete nonsense, founded on a veritable library of all known fallacies. I was taught critical thinking, which is largely (or perhaps entirely) about recognizing fallacies, back in high school. But my wife, who is about ten years younger, was not. So it seems that (as I have read) Critical Thinking was at some point removed from the list of skills to be imparted by "a liberal education". The question is why. I do not like to be cynical, but the only answer I can come up with is that getting rid of Critical Thinking is very much in the interest of would-be indoctrinators, who of course do not want their indoctrination attempts to be subjected to any Critical Thinking. I am afraid we are all going to pay the price for this.
Agree! I was educated by Jesuits and they focus on insightful questioning and logic to further the Catholic faith. I found this book very helpful and fun in recognizing fallacies; The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi. I encourage you to keep posting because you and others here add great value to the conversations that the Substack authors tee up for us.
Here’s a good article from Quillette about why. Basically a flaw in human nature which causes many to be susceptible to what Elon called “a mind virus.” They are Woke which means possessed by the irrational. A mass psychosis.
“Our condition is forever precarious; even basic human decency can shatter and vanish in an instant.”
“Maoism had unique traits but Leys nonetheless always saw it as a member of what he called the “great totalitarian family”—ideologies produced by patterns of thought found across human societies, from tiny shipwrecked pre-Enlightenment microcosms to vast 20th century nations.”
“History does not repeat itself, but ideas do.”
“Analyst of Totalitarianism-Reading Simon Leys Today.”
I will have a look at that sometime later. I am aware that all "moralistic/demonizing" ideologies are the same except for the terms and labels, which are secondary to the overall mentality. It is not coincidental that, as spiritual religions have faded, a non-spiritual religion was grown.
Upon further reflection, I think that the whole "Goodbye to Critical Thinking" thing is just a result Post-Modernism, which might as well be called "Rejectionism". If there is no such thing as objective truth, which is to say that every proposition is "just an opinion" (almost invariably self-righteous when coming from Leftists), then there is no point in teaching about fallacies.
The disengagement from the narrative continues. Hollywood, Bud Light, Target -- they are losing on all fronts and, most importantly, the people in charge of the government are losing even worse than the corporate world.
When a government has lost credibility with more than half the populace, what does it really have? They might say they don't care and keep digging the hole deeper, but in their gut they know their claim on power is coming to an end.
Well said, Sasha. It is intentional, in my opinion. This is part of the psychological warfare against western civilization and HOPE...demoralize and degrade. Our implosion from moral rot is being 'helped along' and the Asian Giant is smiling all along the way.
Yes, 💯. Sasha gets it, but she hasn’t yet connected the dots to reveal the Bigger Picture. Hollywood is run by elites pushing an agenda, and predictive programming has been a part of it for decades. The late Jordan Maxwell had a lot to say about this...
I'm more interested to know if Lawrence's father and family have forgiven her for voting for Hillary. Did they ever shun her for doing that, as she shunned them? She sounds like a privileged brat.
Hollywood is rotting but we can at least avoid that. We simply cannot avoid the ever worsening social breakdown caused by our open southern border and the out of control black wilding, crime and carjacking in cities like Chicago which are rapidly becoming unlivable. As for Hollywood, the video about Terrence Malick and his movies is very good. I saw “Days of Heaven” and “A Hidden Life.” Both were excellent. I just have the feeling though that our society is disintegrating and we have pretty much run out of time.
“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” This is also what happens to countries as their internal cohesion dissolves which eliminates their foundation and glue that holds them together. We no longer have the luxury of time on our side. We are well past “gradually” and now very much in the time of “suddenly.” I don’t say this to be Mr Doom and Gloom. I say this because this is what I see every day.
“Terrence Malick and How To Save Christian Films.” (10 min)
I read a review of Days of Heaven that simply said “Smart idea to make a movie in which every shot is the most beautiful image ever committed to film.” I love that movie, even if it was filmed in Alberta yet set in Texas.
I saw it when it first came out I think in 1978. Long time ago but very good. “A Hidden Life” is also very good as is “Downfall” about Hitler. Why was he such a wreck at the end of the war? Because of all the years he functioned high on meth which gave him great energy and self confidence but eventually destroyed his health. The book “Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich” by Norman Ohler is superb history about how meth fueled early German victories in WW2 and made them seem invincible.
Sasha, I've enjoyed many movies featuring strong female leads (Alien, Hunger Games), and I've enjoyed films focusing on persons of color (Malcom X, The Color Purple).
The problem with woke theater is that it's not about acceptance. It's about extermination. They aren't writing new stories. They're taking traditional roles and themes and twisting them into wokism. They're wiping out traditional culture.
When I was a young man, The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed to pass, not because Americans were against women being treated fairly, but rather because Americans resented all the baggage radical feminists attached to the ERA. Nobody was sure what they would be voting for.
This is why the left always wears out their welcome. They're totalitarians at heart--always have been, always will be. Acceptance is how they get their foot in the door. Overreach is how they get kicked out, again.
Don't worry, Hollywood will be saved by Barbie and Oppenheimer. I just can't believe Hollywood missed the opportunity for crossover merchandizing. Who wouldn't want a Barbie bomb shelter or a J Robert Oppenheimer action figure in a cute skirt?
What more can you say about Hollywood during a weekend with the top movie is the 5th installment of the exhausted "Insidious" franchise. It flies against the films you quoted because it will make a good deal of money thanks to the insatiable desire for horror franchise films and thanks to Blumhouse which runs tight budgets. By all accounts Insidious: The Red Door is aggressively mediocre but has already grossed over $60M worldwide on a skinny budget of $16M.
The other success story is the aforementioned "Sound of Freedom" which, being make by a faith-based studio, has been crapped on by the legacy leftist media. How dare they run the pay forward scam, to give people the opportunity to see a film based on a subject they care about, but would be otherwise unable to afford? If there were a film about a topic the progressive left virtue signals, the same media would be ready to deify the filmmakers for the brilliant and heart warming pay forward strategy.
I’m glad it’s not just me. Seems like half the movies I see now start out fine and then 20 minutes in out pops the transgender person as victim and the compassionate protector becomes the hero. Just tell me at the beginning if this movie is going to be a woke sermon so I don’t have to waste my evening.
I can't understand how the shareholders allowed this to happen.
I have to say though, that The Covenant gave me hope. It was a classic movie about honor, with no woke, very little CGI and the stars have no superhero powers. I watched it twice in 12 hours and two more times since.
Here is the problem. The shareholders are institutional investors and they follow the recommendations if Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) which advises that they vote along ESG guidelines.
So, if you have your 401k professionally managed by mutual funds and index funds, they probably vote the way ISS recommends. Since it isn't the mutual fund's money, or ISS's money, its no skin off their nose.
That is the "cost" of these super-low management fees.
Vivek hates ESG and is determined to stop it if he becomes president. I think he’d be a superb president but I also believe America has become ungovernable and beyond repair. I think we need to focus on saving ourselves and as much as we can before the coming deluge. This is also what Dave Rubin and Tulsi say. Probably many others like them feel that way. I remember seeing video of Kari Lake calling the democrats “evil bastards.” She certainly does not think of them as her “fellow Americans.”
Well, I suspect that active management (picking good stocks) is going to outperform passive management going forward. So invest with fund managers who don't care about ESG and only care about making your pile of money bigger.
And the democrats haven't considered Republicans fellow Americans since the 1980s, so I have zero sympathy for them.
Those three are shareholders in virtually every US and EU stock though. I don’t know how to avoid woke companies and still take advantage of ETFs like the various Fidelity ETFs for different industries.
You don't. I suspect you won't want to anyway. ESG ultimately forces companies to take their eye off the ball and those companies will inevitably underperform. I suspect we are heading into a period where active management outperforms passive strategies.
The takeaway from Hunger Games was the danger of an excessively powerful central government. You would think Jennifer Lawrence would have gotten a clue.
She thinks she's fighting The System. Ironic.
She's convinced that if it were real, she would be a member of the royal clan in the Capital District.
Sasha, you are so great at your trade. Your work is like a lifeline to what’s true and important. You bring tears to my eyes at times, and these are good tears, grateful tears. Thank you so much.
"They don’t need unity only a universal story can provide."
"What they need is absolution from their sins of wealth and privilege."
You always seem to capture important points with clarity.
As a child of the 70s and 80s it is painful for me to witness how far we have fallen in almost every way. It is as if the ghost of Nikita Kruschev is grinning in triumph: “We will bury you!” Indeed, the neo-Marxists almost have
https://drp314.substack.com/p/the-45-communist-goals-for-the-destruction
The Five Rules of Propaganda
1. The rule of simplification - reducing all data to a simple confrontation between 'Good and Bad', 'Friend and Foe'.
2. The rule of disfiguration - discrediting the opposition by crude smears and parodies.
3. The rule of transfusion - manipulating the consensus values of the target audience for one's own ends.
4. The rule of unanimity - presenting one's viewpoint as if it were unanimous opinion of all right-thinking people: draining the doubting individual into agreement by the appeal of star-performers, by social pressure , and by 'psychological contagion'.
5. The rule of orchestration - endlessly repeating the same messages in different variations and combinations.
Every point listed here can be traced back to Cluster B personality disorder thinking.
Interesting. Had to look it it.
I just saw Guy Ritchie’s “The Covenant”, and it made me feel more hopeful that at least SOME movies will buck the woke trend (because it really did). Also, the British film “Living” almost made me think it was the 1980s again; it was just a good story, well acted and directed, about life.
OTOH, the trailer for “Barbie” sucked all my hope away, and these overtired, overhyped franchise films like “Indiana Jones and the Old Folks’ Home” (Hollywood archeologically digging themselves further into a hole!) really water down the hope levels.
Thanks for the “dishonorable mention” of the trans character in “Women Talking”, where, despite all semblance of reality, they expected us to believe that an Amish community would be fully on-board with gender theory. Sigh.
The following statements resonated with me:
"Hollywood can’t make movies for an America they do not understand. They certainly can’t make movies for people they detest"
"What they need is absolution from their sins of wealth and privilege."
Ideally without having to actually pay any price. They have a great idea: achieving "social justice" by raising poor non-Whites above poor Whites, while leaving their own wealth unaffected. "The more I have right belief, the more I can keep wrong wealth." But the poorer poor Whites are, the easier it is to raise non-Whites above them. And so it is that poor Whites must be kept poor. But keeping poor people poor is obviously a hostile act, requiring a suitable demonizing pretext: "White Supremacists!"
The wokies absolutely detest working people.
I sincerely appreciate the insightful comments you post, David.
I sincerely appreciate the positive feedback you give me.
The main problem, the one driving the rest, is that the concept of White Guilt has won such wide acceptance. This is odd, because even a small amount of Critical Thinking should be enough to reveal that CRT is complete nonsense, founded on a veritable library of all known fallacies. I was taught critical thinking, which is largely (or perhaps entirely) about recognizing fallacies, back in high school. But my wife, who is about ten years younger, was not. So it seems that (as I have read) Critical Thinking was at some point removed from the list of skills to be imparted by "a liberal education". The question is why. I do not like to be cynical, but the only answer I can come up with is that getting rid of Critical Thinking is very much in the interest of would-be indoctrinators, who of course do not want their indoctrination attempts to be subjected to any Critical Thinking. I am afraid we are all going to pay the price for this.
Agree! I was educated by Jesuits and they focus on insightful questioning and logic to further the Catholic faith. I found this book very helpful and fun in recognizing fallacies; The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi. I encourage you to keep posting because you and others here add great value to the conversations that the Substack authors tee up for us.
“The question is why.”
Here’s a good article from Quillette about why. Basically a flaw in human nature which causes many to be susceptible to what Elon called “a mind virus.” They are Woke which means possessed by the irrational. A mass psychosis.
“Our condition is forever precarious; even basic human decency can shatter and vanish in an instant.”
“Maoism had unique traits but Leys nonetheless always saw it as a member of what he called the “great totalitarian family”—ideologies produced by patterns of thought found across human societies, from tiny shipwrecked pre-Enlightenment microcosms to vast 20th century nations.”
“History does not repeat itself, but ideas do.”
“Analyst of Totalitarianism-Reading Simon Leys Today.”
https://quillette.com/2020/09/28/analyst-of-totalitarianism-reading-simon-leys-today/
I will have a look at that sometime later. I am aware that all "moralistic/demonizing" ideologies are the same except for the terms and labels, which are secondary to the overall mentality. It is not coincidental that, as spiritual religions have faded, a non-spiritual religion was grown.
Upon further reflection, I think that the whole "Goodbye to Critical Thinking" thing is just a result Post-Modernism, which might as well be called "Rejectionism". If there is no such thing as objective truth, which is to say that every proposition is "just an opinion" (almost invariably self-righteous when coming from Leftists), then there is no point in teaching about fallacies.
The disengagement from the narrative continues. Hollywood, Bud Light, Target -- they are losing on all fronts and, most importantly, the people in charge of the government are losing even worse than the corporate world.
When a government has lost credibility with more than half the populace, what does it really have? They might say they don't care and keep digging the hole deeper, but in their gut they know their claim on power is coming to an end.
Well said, Sasha. It is intentional, in my opinion. This is part of the psychological warfare against western civilization and HOPE...demoralize and degrade. Our implosion from moral rot is being 'helped along' and the Asian Giant is smiling all along the way.
Yes, 💯. Sasha gets it, but she hasn’t yet connected the dots to reveal the Bigger Picture. Hollywood is run by elites pushing an agenda, and predictive programming has been a part of it for decades. The late Jordan Maxwell had a lot to say about this...
I'm more interested to know if Lawrence's father and family have forgiven her for voting for Hillary. Did they ever shun her for doing that, as she shunned them? She sounds like a privileged brat.
“Privileged brat” is truly generous.
Hollywood is rotting but we can at least avoid that. We simply cannot avoid the ever worsening social breakdown caused by our open southern border and the out of control black wilding, crime and carjacking in cities like Chicago which are rapidly becoming unlivable. As for Hollywood, the video about Terrence Malick and his movies is very good. I saw “Days of Heaven” and “A Hidden Life.” Both were excellent. I just have the feeling though that our society is disintegrating and we have pretty much run out of time.
“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” This is also what happens to countries as their internal cohesion dissolves which eliminates their foundation and glue that holds them together. We no longer have the luxury of time on our side. We are well past “gradually” and now very much in the time of “suddenly.” I don’t say this to be Mr Doom and Gloom. I say this because this is what I see every day.
“Terrence Malick and How To Save Christian Films.” (10 min)
Why It’s Great. July 2021
https://youtu.be/tI4ABfGGLQ0
I read a review of Days of Heaven that simply said “Smart idea to make a movie in which every shot is the most beautiful image ever committed to film.” I love that movie, even if it was filmed in Alberta yet set in Texas.
I saw it when it first came out I think in 1978. Long time ago but very good. “A Hidden Life” is also very good as is “Downfall” about Hitler. Why was he such a wreck at the end of the war? Because of all the years he functioned high on meth which gave him great energy and self confidence but eventually destroyed his health. The book “Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich” by Norman Ohler is superb history about how meth fueled early German victories in WW2 and made them seem invincible.
Fascinating; thanks for the recommendation!
Sasha, I've enjoyed many movies featuring strong female leads (Alien, Hunger Games), and I've enjoyed films focusing on persons of color (Malcom X, The Color Purple).
The problem with woke theater is that it's not about acceptance. It's about extermination. They aren't writing new stories. They're taking traditional roles and themes and twisting them into wokism. They're wiping out traditional culture.
When I was a young man, The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed to pass, not because Americans were against women being treated fairly, but rather because Americans resented all the baggage radical feminists attached to the ERA. Nobody was sure what they would be voting for.
This is why the left always wears out their welcome. They're totalitarians at heart--always have been, always will be. Acceptance is how they get their foot in the door. Overreach is how they get kicked out, again.
Don't worry, Hollywood will be saved by Barbie and Oppenheimer. I just can't believe Hollywood missed the opportunity for crossover merchandizing. Who wouldn't want a Barbie bomb shelter or a J Robert Oppenheimer action figure in a cute skirt?
What more can you say about Hollywood during a weekend with the top movie is the 5th installment of the exhausted "Insidious" franchise. It flies against the films you quoted because it will make a good deal of money thanks to the insatiable desire for horror franchise films and thanks to Blumhouse which runs tight budgets. By all accounts Insidious: The Red Door is aggressively mediocre but has already grossed over $60M worldwide on a skinny budget of $16M.
The other success story is the aforementioned "Sound of Freedom" which, being make by a faith-based studio, has been crapped on by the legacy leftist media. How dare they run the pay forward scam, to give people the opportunity to see a film based on a subject they care about, but would be otherwise unable to afford? If there were a film about a topic the progressive left virtue signals, the same media would be ready to deify the filmmakers for the brilliant and heart warming pay forward strategy.
😆
I’m glad it’s not just me. Seems like half the movies I see now start out fine and then 20 minutes in out pops the transgender person as victim and the compassionate protector becomes the hero. Just tell me at the beginning if this movie is going to be a woke sermon so I don’t have to waste my evening.
To get what they want from you, they have to lie. Quit trusting them.
Well said Sasha!
I can't understand how the shareholders allowed this to happen.
I have to say though, that The Covenant gave me hope. It was a classic movie about honor, with no woke, very little CGI and the stars have no superhero powers. I watched it twice in 12 hours and two more times since.
Here is the problem. The shareholders are institutional investors and they follow the recommendations if Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) which advises that they vote along ESG guidelines.
So, if you have your 401k professionally managed by mutual funds and index funds, they probably vote the way ISS recommends. Since it isn't the mutual fund's money, or ISS's money, its no skin off their nose.
That is the "cost" of these super-low management fees.
Vivek hates ESG and is determined to stop it if he becomes president. I think he’d be a superb president but I also believe America has become ungovernable and beyond repair. I think we need to focus on saving ourselves and as much as we can before the coming deluge. This is also what Dave Rubin and Tulsi say. Probably many others like them feel that way. I remember seeing video of Kari Lake calling the democrats “evil bastards.” She certainly does not think of them as her “fellow Americans.”
Well, I suspect that active management (picking good stocks) is going to outperform passive management going forward. So invest with fund managers who don't care about ESG and only care about making your pile of money bigger.
And the democrats haven't considered Republicans fellow Americans since the 1980s, so I have zero sympathy for them.
Thank you for that. That explains why Disney has seemingly destroyed their brand.
Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street are shareholders.
Those three are shareholders in virtually every US and EU stock though. I don’t know how to avoid woke companies and still take advantage of ETFs like the various Fidelity ETFs for different industries.
You don't. I suspect you won't want to anyway. ESG ultimately forces companies to take their eye off the ball and those companies will inevitably underperform. I suspect we are heading into a period where active management outperforms passive strategies.