A social Darwinist dangles a preposition in defense of materialism against feminism, with a dash of Freudianism thrown in

Some choice! Would you like the bullet in your head, madam, or in your heart?

Here:

[M]ediocrities never lack admirers among the Second Sex, who, having very little judgment, are naturally taken with the vulgar world’s appearances. Women are by nature very willing and eager status whores, although certainly this ugly truth is not something that any man wants to believe, least of all the conservative Christian, who is happy to make “a victim” out of a shameless whore-on-the-payroll like Holly Madison. In women the ordinary man is looking for a mother figure whom, however, he shall also sleep with. From a moral point of view, man has throughout his savage history been an essentially evil being. Shaped in response, woman finds that the proverbial “nice guy” is the last thing she craves. In the face of evil, woman thinks, “He is worthy.” “Nice guy,” in her subtle vocabulary, is code for wealth, and, God willing, a way to philistinism.

When there is no God to inform reality, your only choice is servitude to the distortions of full-throated ideologies.

When God is dead to others, the good in you which comes from God is dead to them too

As an atheist himself says, here:

Social life is a theater. Behind the curtains, beasts reign. Fear is the primary check on the underlying self-assertion. Just as justice, at bottom, is usually no more than a desire to inflict pain, so the law and the state itself are possible only at gunpoint. The main reason people pay taxes, resist from harming one another (when they do), and obey the law is not that they are good moral agents, but that they are deterred by the prospect of painful consequences. ...

To a significant extent, civilization is nothing but a rationalist illusion. Conflict is the natural state of all animals, and man is the only cruel animal only because other animals are not thus advanced. Intrinsically competitive, the world is forever torn by incompatible interests. If we had knowledge of our collective motives and intentions, we’d see that human life is not meant to be peaceful and orderly. No wonder we all live in and by conflict, with ourselves, with family, with friends, with colleagues and co-workers, and on and on.

A Calvinist narcissist at Takimag demonizes Michelangelo, Milton and Wagner but dares to speak of "my art"

My fart is more like it.

Here:

And yet, without this inner monstrousness, this will to affirm the self at any cost, art and science and civilization itself would not be the splendors that they are. Many great artists—Michelangelo, Milton, Wagner—have been very disagreeable personalities; it is a good question whether their achievements would exist as they do without the demonic will to glory those men exemplified.

A Roman Catholic demonstrates his indifference to his Bible and his god, preferring the wiggle room of the Aristotelian lukewarm middle

You might almost call it hatred.

The top commenter here:

As we all know, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference and Boris is, as in so many things, extremely indifferent to the race-thingy and a lot of other cause-célèbre-thingies which seem to motivate the congenitally hateful left or the Compassion Inc. crowd or the old school Slob.

And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. -- Genesis 37:4

Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone. -- 2 Samuel 13:15

And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD. -- 2 Chronicles 19:2

Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. -- Psalm 97:10

SAMECH. I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love. ... I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love. -- Psalm 119:113, 163

How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? -- Proverbs 1:22

But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death. -- Proverbs 8:36

Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. -- Proverbs 9:8

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. -- Ecclesiastes 3:8

For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. -- Isaiah 61:8 

Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness. -- Ezekiel 16:37

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. -- Amos 5:15

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; -- Micah 3:1f.

And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD. -- Zechariah 8:17

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; -- Matthew 5:43f.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. -- Matthew 6:24

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, -- Luke 6:27

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. -- Luke 16:13

As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. -- Romans 9:13

Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. -- Hebrews 1:9

But it never occurs to Theodore Dalrymple that you have to become hollow before you can be stuffed

 

 

 

 From Theodore Dalrymple, here:

From thinking about the number of taxidermists a society needs, it was a short step to wondering about the nature of human need itself. It may be that I dearly want a stuffed owl or fox in a glass case, as so many Victorians appear to have wanted (for hardly any bric-a-brac shop is complete without a moth-eaten owl in a glass case), but could I be said really to need one? ...

 

But then again, I don’t need the vast majority of what I want, and therefore all the activity of the people required to supply me with it (and all that billions of people want but don’t need) is unnecessary. In other words, the vast majority of human effort is futile, and Ecclesiastes got it right: All is indeed vanity. Nothing is more vital to the continuation of our system, therefore, than the willing acceptance of triviality and futility. They are what make the world go round. There is no getting off the treadmill, and taxidermy is a metaphor for our existence. To put it in contemporary British vernacular, mankind is stuffed.


T. S. Eliot (The Hollow Men, 1925):

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.