Norway needs skilled immigrants...why? Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, it has a highly educated population, a first class infrastructure, abundant natural resources and a population that is commensurate with these resources.
With regard to "skilled migrants", if we take the case (as someone raised) of the Indian doctor, India has 276 million people living on less than $1.25 per day, to deprive these people of doctors, to asset strip such a desperate country of its most qualified people, is immoral and racist.
Why do many Westerners support mass immigration? Western populations are not monolithic, mass-immigration is cultural and ethnic suicide in the long term, and economically detrimental to the majority even in the short term, however a minority of culturally powerful interest groups benefit from mass immigration. Mass immigration enriches many people by lowering wages, makes labour more tractable and increase the value of property and rents. It also expands the service sector which means bourgeois liberals benefit from a proliferation of cheap cafes, restaurants, bars and retail opportunities: cheap au pairs, cleaners, gardeners, decorators, plumbers and electricians.
In the case of politicians, mass immigration increases the power of bureaucratic institutions by expanding its client base. Expansion of the bureaucratic client base is also the reason for the creation of gender politics and policies of non-assimilative ethnic identification. Since almost everyone who works in the media belongs to the socio-economic niche that benefits from mass-immigration the narrative of mass immigration is solely in the control of a Western minority who benefit from its positive portrayal. This is enhanced by the fact that this strata of society also hates and looks down upon the social demographic that is directly and immediately disenfranchised by mass-immigration.
Friday 26 June 2015
It's Not Terrorism If You are White
The latest liberal meme. If you are black or brown you're a terrorist; if you are white you're mentally ill...unless you are 25 year old, Nick Salvadore, a black Muslim who beheaded 82 year old, white, Palmira Silva. According to the Daily Telegraph...
"Some residents claimed last night that the suspect was a local man who had converted to Islam last year, but those claims could not be verified. Detectives said they had ruled out terrorism"
Or Thomas Evans, the White Beast. The white Muslim Al Shabaab terrorist killed in Kenya recently.
Or white Norwegian, Anders Breivik who is, according to Wikipedia, "a far-right Norwegian Terrorist".
Nick Salvadore was a black Muslim, he was also clearly mental, and quite rightly (albeit with haste that indicates that the Police could not possibly have known this before they dismissed the speculation) no one appended a race hate/terrorist attribution to this tragic crime.
So the liberals get everything right except their basic facts, but who needs facts when you have a narrative?
The most prominent and successful terrorist groups in the world today are Muslim, and most Muslims are brown skinned. No one has any compunction about calling these brown skinned terrorist, terrorists, which is probably welcome news to the surviving relatives of their victims, who are overwhelmingly also brown skinned Muslims.
"Some residents claimed last night that the suspect was a local man who had converted to Islam last year, but those claims could not be verified. Detectives said they had ruled out terrorism"
Or Thomas Evans, the White Beast. The white Muslim Al Shabaab terrorist killed in Kenya recently.
Or white Norwegian, Anders Breivik who is, according to Wikipedia, "a far-right Norwegian Terrorist".
Nick Salvadore was a black Muslim, he was also clearly mental, and quite rightly (albeit with haste that indicates that the Police could not possibly have known this before they dismissed the speculation) no one appended a race hate/terrorist attribution to this tragic crime.
So the liberals get everything right except their basic facts, but who needs facts when you have a narrative?
The most prominent and successful terrorist groups in the world today are Muslim, and most Muslims are brown skinned. No one has any compunction about calling these brown skinned terrorist, terrorists, which is probably welcome news to the surviving relatives of their victims, who are overwhelmingly also brown skinned Muslims.
Immigrants Make A Net Contribution...So What?
If you trust government statistics, and they might even be true, immigrants make a net overall contribution to the economy. This positive contribution is cited variously as being between one and three percent. This is good news and a vindication of unregulated, open door immigration, right? Wrong.
Whatever the overall effect of mass-immigration it is self evidentially true that by no means all, and very probably only a small minority of migrants, are making a positive economic contribution. Most of the immigrants that you encounter on a daily basis are employed in bars, shops, restaurants and hotels. A great number who do not fall into this category are employed in low skilled agricultural and factory work. Given that the estimated financial threshold that allows an individual citizen with no dependents to make a positive net contribution to the national finances is around £25,000 per annum, it's pretty clear that most of these migrants that we encounter in our daily are not making a net contribution, and many who are obviously not meeting this criteria do also have dependents. It is vanishingly unlikely that the majority of migrants we encounter in our day to day lives do not constitute the actual majority of migrants in the UK; it is also vanishingly unlikely that the majority of bar workers and baristas are earning 25K, so it is absurd to claim that anything other than a small minority of migrants are making any contribution whatsoever.
The obvious question naturally is, how come the positive balance then? Almost certainly it comes from the same category of high value migrants who were always present as part of the UK working population, city financial high fliers, CEOs, engineers, professors and health care experts and other highly paid professionals; these are people who do not need open borders, asylum laws, or EU treaty obligations to travel to, reside in and settle in countries of their choice.
What we have is the usual liberal logic of finding the right answers whilst failing to ask the right questions. The question is not whether or not the contribution of migrants is of net benefit, or results in a net deficit, it is whether or not the current immigration policy is it the best policy we can have, and is it superior or inferior to the policy it replaced. The present immigration policy is vastly inferior to the previous quality based regulated immigration policy. Having a "nose just above the rising financial tide" immigration policy is not the same as have an optimized and healthy immigration policy. Since the job of the government is to do the best for the people of the country that it serves, it is unconscionable that successive British governments have imposed possibly the most disadvantageous immigration policies imaginable an an unwilling British people. Perhaps the government should place the same restrictions on migrants that it does on invalidity benefit claimants?
Whatever the overall effect of mass-immigration it is self evidentially true that by no means all, and very probably only a small minority of migrants, are making a positive economic contribution. Most of the immigrants that you encounter on a daily basis are employed in bars, shops, restaurants and hotels. A great number who do not fall into this category are employed in low skilled agricultural and factory work. Given that the estimated financial threshold that allows an individual citizen with no dependents to make a positive net contribution to the national finances is around £25,000 per annum, it's pretty clear that most of these migrants that we encounter in our daily are not making a net contribution, and many who are obviously not meeting this criteria do also have dependents. It is vanishingly unlikely that the majority of migrants we encounter in our day to day lives do not constitute the actual majority of migrants in the UK; it is also vanishingly unlikely that the majority of bar workers and baristas are earning 25K, so it is absurd to claim that anything other than a small minority of migrants are making any contribution whatsoever.
The obvious question naturally is, how come the positive balance then? Almost certainly it comes from the same category of high value migrants who were always present as part of the UK working population, city financial high fliers, CEOs, engineers, professors and health care experts and other highly paid professionals; these are people who do not need open borders, asylum laws, or EU treaty obligations to travel to, reside in and settle in countries of their choice.
What we have is the usual liberal logic of finding the right answers whilst failing to ask the right questions. The question is not whether or not the contribution of migrants is of net benefit, or results in a net deficit, it is whether or not the current immigration policy is it the best policy we can have, and is it superior or inferior to the policy it replaced. The present immigration policy is vastly inferior to the previous quality based regulated immigration policy. Having a "nose just above the rising financial tide" immigration policy is not the same as have an optimized and healthy immigration policy. Since the job of the government is to do the best for the people of the country that it serves, it is unconscionable that successive British governments have imposed possibly the most disadvantageous immigration policies imaginable an an unwilling British people. Perhaps the government should place the same restrictions on migrants that it does on invalidity benefit claimants?
More Europeans Emigrate So...
Another stupid argument that attempts to justify mass-immigration; more Italians/Britons/insert target nation of choice, are emigrating than migrants are arriving. The implied conclusion is that immigration is both a necessary measure to replace an outgoing population, and also that those who are concerned about mass-immigration and the social and cultural transformation of European nations are hypocrites.
This is a near perfect example of the apples and oranges fallacy. European emigrants who are not simply part of the circulation of labour within the European economic zone, who are emigrating to Australia or the US for example, are subject to restrictive qualification criteria designed to ensure that they have sufficient funds to support themselves, have a job/sponsor, have relevant qualifications, have no criminal record and are of good character, are of sound health, have no dependents whom their earning capacity will not allow them to support, and are linguistically fluent. The intention behind these qualifications is that immigrants will be high value, solvent, economic contributors employed in areas of the labour market which are undermanned.
Mass-immigration is unregulated migration in which the subjects gain right of residence based on supranational legal obligations and claimed refugee status. It is the job of the host nation to disprove, rather than the migrant to prove their status. The European migrant must first prove his case to gain entry to his desired future country, the non-European has a right of residence unless his case is specifically disproved, so we have two diametrically opposed categories of migration yoked together into a false equivalence by liberal ideologues.
Populations cannot simply be exchanged with no effect without regard to qualitative differences between the subject groups anymore than any random eleven men can be signed up to take part in a first division football match. Unregulated immigration systems will by their very nature contain a far higher percentage of unsuitable, unworthy and unqualified persons, more criminals, more uneducated people, more people with dependents, more of the sick, more of the dishonest and more incapable people. This in turn creates a paradigm in which those with suitable qualifications (high value members of society) have more incentive to emigrate; what the liberal elite cite as a justification for immigration is in fact a major cause of mass-emigration. Indigenous people are fleeing from a country which has fewer opportunities, is less safe, has a housing shortage an overburdened health sector and failing schools. The tragedy is that it is the best of our population that has the required skills and finances to resettle in more opportune lands.We have a situation, if effect, in which we are paying with golden sovereigns and being repaid in brass buttons.
This is a near perfect example of the apples and oranges fallacy. European emigrants who are not simply part of the circulation of labour within the European economic zone, who are emigrating to Australia or the US for example, are subject to restrictive qualification criteria designed to ensure that they have sufficient funds to support themselves, have a job/sponsor, have relevant qualifications, have no criminal record and are of good character, are of sound health, have no dependents whom their earning capacity will not allow them to support, and are linguistically fluent. The intention behind these qualifications is that immigrants will be high value, solvent, economic contributors employed in areas of the labour market which are undermanned.
Mass-immigration is unregulated migration in which the subjects gain right of residence based on supranational legal obligations and claimed refugee status. It is the job of the host nation to disprove, rather than the migrant to prove their status. The European migrant must first prove his case to gain entry to his desired future country, the non-European has a right of residence unless his case is specifically disproved, so we have two diametrically opposed categories of migration yoked together into a false equivalence by liberal ideologues.
Populations cannot simply be exchanged with no effect without regard to qualitative differences between the subject groups anymore than any random eleven men can be signed up to take part in a first division football match. Unregulated immigration systems will by their very nature contain a far higher percentage of unsuitable, unworthy and unqualified persons, more criminals, more uneducated people, more people with dependents, more of the sick, more of the dishonest and more incapable people. This in turn creates a paradigm in which those with suitable qualifications (high value members of society) have more incentive to emigrate; what the liberal elite cite as a justification for immigration is in fact a major cause of mass-emigration. Indigenous people are fleeing from a country which has fewer opportunities, is less safe, has a housing shortage an overburdened health sector and failing schools. The tragedy is that it is the best of our population that has the required skills and finances to resettle in more opportune lands.We have a situation, if effect, in which we are paying with golden sovereigns and being repaid in brass buttons.
Tuesday 23 June 2015
Immigration and the NHS
Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association, has defended mass immigration claiming that the NHS would be on its "last legs" without migrant workers.
Porter, whose (no doubt fat) salary isn't revealed on his bio-page, has responded to the revelation that migrants cost the NHS £300 million a year by saying,
"We were told immigrants are filling up our GP surgeries and hospitals. Well, they are. They’re called doctors. And nurses. And porters, and cleaners, and clinical scientists. And without them, the NHS would be on its knees."
Let's examine this quote; the quote makes a number of implicit claims that vectors to a conclusive "truth". The validity of Porter's conclusive assertion is based on the validity of his implicit claims; let's look at them.
All immigrants in GP's surgeries and hospitals are doctors, nurses, cleaners and cleaners.
1. The NHS is not in crisis.
2. None of the immigrants in GP's surgeries and hospitals are patients.
3. The NHS cannot function without mass-immigration.
Let's examine the first assertion, that the NHS is not in crisis using statistics from 2014.
Waiting times for non-emergency tests and surgeries at worst since 2008
Monday 15 June 2015
Women And The Left
Something I've always considered to be true, that (Western) women are more supportive of mass-immigration, multiculturalism and a generally consensus based (rather than rationally based) interpretation of reality, is vindicated by InsideMAN:
http://www.inside-man.co.uk/2014/10/17/are-men-more-right-wing-and-women-more-left-wing/
"This wasn’t a one off result. Men and women in the U.S.A have been voting for the “masculine” Republicans and the “feminine” Democrats along gender lines for 50 years now. Obama won the 2008 election by one percentage point amongst men and 12 points amongst women, while Clinton’s lead amongst women in 1996 was event bigger at 18 per cent"
The multiculturalization of Sweden is a prime example of the hand in glove relationship between feminization and multiculturalism.
I propose that the reasons for this gender dichotomy are rooted in our stone age heritage and the tens of thousands of years of selective pressure based around task demarcation. In the world of the hunter gatherer man was the principal hunter and woman the principal gatherer*. This is attributable to women's child bearing role; hunting in the stone age was a very dangerous occupation for a pregnant woman.
Hunting is a multi skilled occupation that is most effectively accomplished by specialization and a command structure based on skill, experience and knowledge. Even the most primitive hunting method, the persistence hunt, requires a tracker, a runner and one or several strong men to transport the prey. The realities of hunting (and its cousin warfare) mean that men learned to accept a hierarchical system of social organization based on merit, and became comfortable within an inclusive hierarchy that simply recognizes the value of their specific contribution. The essentiality of a cohesive team strategy in hunting accords value to every level of contribution and makes men more likely to admire group members than to envy them. This may be the reason for the seemingly more obvious veneration of great athletes, sportsmen, and actors among modern men than among modern women. What this vectors to is that men gravitate toward hierarchical, unegalitarian, forms of social organization in which exceptional skill and ability brings higher status.
Gathering is a mono skilled occupation, once the basics of the tasks involved are mastered there is little significant differential ability in skills involved in gathering. Gathering, because of the dangers posed to lone females by wild animals is a collective activity, probably engaged in by most of the available female labour force. Women would also talk whilst working; hunting is largely conducted in silence. The selection of traits favourable to this type of labour probably explains much of modern female behaviour. Gossip in popular culture is accepted as a mostly female proclivity. Despite the fact that there is in gathering, by its very nature, unlikely to be any great contributory difference between individual members of the collective, human nature being what it is, each member of the collective secretly suspects that their individual contribution is greater than their peer's. in hunting these suspicions are reality tested and are unsustainable, in gatherer bands the underlying tensions caused by this fundamental human overvaluation of one's own contribution and undervaluation of one's comrades, demands a group cohesion strategy. This strategy is scapegoating. This is purely anecdotal, but I have noticed that when any group of women are employed in any collective occupation they very often select an individual to be the scapegoat for the anxieties caused by the underlying frictions within the group. The victim will be selected on entirely superficial grounds, but most often simply on the basis of a passive nature. If the victim seems to be less adept they will be "holding back the team", if the victim is obviously highly capable they will be a "suck up". The contribution of the victim is essentially irrelevant, if the scapegoat leaves, a new scapegoat will emerge.
Interestingly, this is also a universal strategy of collectivist, left-wing regimes. A lack of success in left wing utopias is never attributed to bad planning, bad strategy, or bad luck, it is blamed on invented victim groups, kulaks, the bourgeoisie, saboteurs, reactionaries and revisionists. Collectivist regimes are essentially feminine in nature.
Despite the historical )prehistorical) occupational dichotomy between men and women, the human species (both genders) is fundamentally a status seeking species, however, the gender role dichotomy means that men and women employ different strategies to seek and display status. Male status is derived from superior ability, skills and knowledge. Female status is derived from association with alpha males and is displayed by possessions and decorations conferred upon her by these alpha males. Women admire and value beauty and possessions, this explains why 80% of consumption is driven by women, and a large percentage of consumption consists of beautification products like clothes, makeup and and such ephemera as shoes and handbags.
The functionality of the system depends upon the best men, the superior hunter, being rewarded with the most beautiful (women of the highest genetic fitness), in this model the man is the creator and the woman is the client, this creates a favourable and healthy selective bias. The problem in modern societies that, under the fraudulent pretext of "equality" the state has gradually subverted this healthy gender relationship and replaced man as the client. As women throng into the workplace the very nature of work has been transformed. Work is no longer a place in which one individual's skills, aptitudes and talents are pitted against another's in a search for excellence, but has become "inclusive" collective enterprise full of "team players", working to fulfil trite corporate "mission statements". In order to conform to these collectivist strictures men are being ritually emasculated and marginalized. The male drive for excellence is a threat to the primacy of the state collective which governs through the manipulation of a collective of client groups identified by gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and culture, each one being suckled on the teet of the state. Under this new, neo-Marxist system of social control it's becoming increasingly obvious that the he newly assigned role of men in general and white men specifically is as the scapegoat of the collective.
http://www.inside-man.co.uk/2014/10/17/are-men-more-right-wing-and-women-more-left-wing/
"This wasn’t a one off result. Men and women in the U.S.A have been voting for the “masculine” Republicans and the “feminine” Democrats along gender lines for 50 years now. Obama won the 2008 election by one percentage point amongst men and 12 points amongst women, while Clinton’s lead amongst women in 1996 was event bigger at 18 per cent"
The multiculturalization of Sweden is a prime example of the hand in glove relationship between feminization and multiculturalism.
I propose that the reasons for this gender dichotomy are rooted in our stone age heritage and the tens of thousands of years of selective pressure based around task demarcation. In the world of the hunter gatherer man was the principal hunter and woman the principal gatherer*. This is attributable to women's child bearing role; hunting in the stone age was a very dangerous occupation for a pregnant woman.
Hunting is a multi skilled occupation that is most effectively accomplished by specialization and a command structure based on skill, experience and knowledge. Even the most primitive hunting method, the persistence hunt, requires a tracker, a runner and one or several strong men to transport the prey. The realities of hunting (and its cousin warfare) mean that men learned to accept a hierarchical system of social organization based on merit, and became comfortable within an inclusive hierarchy that simply recognizes the value of their specific contribution. The essentiality of a cohesive team strategy in hunting accords value to every level of contribution and makes men more likely to admire group members than to envy them. This may be the reason for the seemingly more obvious veneration of great athletes, sportsmen, and actors among modern men than among modern women. What this vectors to is that men gravitate toward hierarchical, unegalitarian, forms of social organization in which exceptional skill and ability brings higher status.
Gathering is a mono skilled occupation, once the basics of the tasks involved are mastered there is little significant differential ability in skills involved in gathering. Gathering, because of the dangers posed to lone females by wild animals is a collective activity, probably engaged in by most of the available female labour force. Women would also talk whilst working; hunting is largely conducted in silence. The selection of traits favourable to this type of labour probably explains much of modern female behaviour. Gossip in popular culture is accepted as a mostly female proclivity. Despite the fact that there is in gathering, by its very nature, unlikely to be any great contributory difference between individual members of the collective, human nature being what it is, each member of the collective secretly suspects that their individual contribution is greater than their peer's. in hunting these suspicions are reality tested and are unsustainable, in gatherer bands the underlying tensions caused by this fundamental human overvaluation of one's own contribution and undervaluation of one's comrades, demands a group cohesion strategy. This strategy is scapegoating. This is purely anecdotal, but I have noticed that when any group of women are employed in any collective occupation they very often select an individual to be the scapegoat for the anxieties caused by the underlying frictions within the group. The victim will be selected on entirely superficial grounds, but most often simply on the basis of a passive nature. If the victim seems to be less adept they will be "holding back the team", if the victim is obviously highly capable they will be a "suck up". The contribution of the victim is essentially irrelevant, if the scapegoat leaves, a new scapegoat will emerge.
Interestingly, this is also a universal strategy of collectivist, left-wing regimes. A lack of success in left wing utopias is never attributed to bad planning, bad strategy, or bad luck, it is blamed on invented victim groups, kulaks, the bourgeoisie, saboteurs, reactionaries and revisionists. Collectivist regimes are essentially feminine in nature.
Despite the historical )prehistorical) occupational dichotomy between men and women, the human species (both genders) is fundamentally a status seeking species, however, the gender role dichotomy means that men and women employ different strategies to seek and display status. Male status is derived from superior ability, skills and knowledge. Female status is derived from association with alpha males and is displayed by possessions and decorations conferred upon her by these alpha males. Women admire and value beauty and possessions, this explains why 80% of consumption is driven by women, and a large percentage of consumption consists of beautification products like clothes, makeup and and such ephemera as shoes and handbags.
The functionality of the system depends upon the best men, the superior hunter, being rewarded with the most beautiful (women of the highest genetic fitness), in this model the man is the creator and the woman is the client, this creates a favourable and healthy selective bias. The problem in modern societies that, under the fraudulent pretext of "equality" the state has gradually subverted this healthy gender relationship and replaced man as the client. As women throng into the workplace the very nature of work has been transformed. Work is no longer a place in which one individual's skills, aptitudes and talents are pitted against another's in a search for excellence, but has become "inclusive" collective enterprise full of "team players", working to fulfil trite corporate "mission statements". In order to conform to these collectivist strictures men are being ritually emasculated and marginalized. The male drive for excellence is a threat to the primacy of the state collective which governs through the manipulation of a collective of client groups identified by gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and culture, each one being suckled on the teet of the state. Under this new, neo-Marxist system of social control it's becoming increasingly obvious that the he newly assigned role of men in general and white men specifically is as the scapegoat of the collective.
Thursday 11 June 2015
Immigration as Conspicuous Consumption
Why are Western people largely indifferent to mass immigration and the decline of cultural hegemony in western countries? The most obvious reason is that western societies are not monolithic and that many specific sub-groups within these societies benefit from a system of resource transfer, patronage and market manipulation that is in general detrimental to social well being, however, it is also noticeable that many sub-groups specifically disadvantaged by imposed multiculturalism, including women, homosexuals, feminist, atheists and working-class people seem to be mostly in favour of a social revolution that increases competition for employment, lowers wages, increases theocratic influence, endangers women and endorses misogyny. Obviously propaganda plays a massive role in this phenomenon; objectors are relentlessly portrayed in popular culture and by the media as racists, and migrants are portrayed as paragons; despite this there are still many people who are astute and smart enough to recognize propaganda who still support cultural extinction. Why is this?
Conspicuous consumption is a phenomenon first recognized by the great American economist, Thorstein Veblen. Conspicuous consumption is a means of displaying status and prestige through ostentatiously wasteful modes of consumption, wherein the goods and services "consumed" have a value that is far beyond the actual utility of the goods and services in question. Goods that fall into this category are described as "Veblen goods" , specific examples of Veblen goods are Rolex watches, Rolls Royce motorcars "designer" clothing and accessories (every man made object is, in fact, designed, there is no such thing as a non-designer pair of jeans, shoes or handbag), "fine" wine and "fine" art. Items that fall into this category do not have no utility and are not indeed in many cases, admirably engineered and manufactured, but essentially their nominal value is massively in excess of their actual performance, usefulness and cost of production.
Examples of conspicuous consumption in ornithology are demonstrated by such things as elaborate plumage, birdsong and extravagant nest building rituals; the ostentatious peacock's tail being the most commonly cited example. A further highly relevant (mostly) ornithological phenomenon is "lekking". In "lek mating", males congregate in a group and participate in aggressive dominance rituals in order to demonstrate genetic fitness and mate worthiness. Lekking is demonstrated within the human species in bars, clubs and nightclubs and in risk taking behaviour as diverse as bungee jumping, excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and the bizarre recent Russian cult of free climbing urban structures and uploading heart stopping videos of the act on youtube.
Essentially conspicuous consumption is an assertion of status made by a reckless disregard for resources and personal safety.
In the UK the scope of social welfare is comprehensive to the extent that the average citizen must earn something in the region of £25,000 a year as a single person with no dependents in order to make a positive contribution to the economy of the state. The vast majority of migrants do not fall into this income bracket and a large percentage of migrants fall below this income bracket. Events such as the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, the English asian rape scandal, the Paris riots, Bradford riots, the London bombings, etc, denote multiculturalism as presenting specific, palpable danger.
In the former case shrugging off the economic impact of mass-immigration is a means of displaying economic status, security and confidence, it may affect some incompetent people, but it will not affect me. In the latter case insouciant bravura in the face of obvious risk is a way of demonstrating physical prowess, courage and fearlessness. In both cases immediate status imperatives trump long term security imperatives. The popular reaction to the dissolution of western hegemony has been the formation of a societal lek in which, paradoxically, positive levels of economic and social dangers are critical to demonstrations of enhanced status. This explains the reason for the existence in our newly multicultural societies of "Islamophobia" and the absence of "Sinophobia". The Chinese are self-sufficient, adaptive and non-confrontational; Muslims are...less so.
There is a difference between demonstrating status by displaying purchased assets and by disposing of social assets. The difference is that you can ultimately control personal economic stupidity, but you cannot control the consequences of disposing of social assets. The first case is like checking into an expensive hotel; you can ultimately checkout. The second case is like boarding a plane, you "checkout" when the plane lands, and where the plane lands isn't decided by you, it's decided by whoever has control of the cockpit.
Conspicuous consumption is a phenomenon first recognized by the great American economist, Thorstein Veblen. Conspicuous consumption is a means of displaying status and prestige through ostentatiously wasteful modes of consumption, wherein the goods and services "consumed" have a value that is far beyond the actual utility of the goods and services in question. Goods that fall into this category are described as "Veblen goods" , specific examples of Veblen goods are Rolex watches, Rolls Royce motorcars "designer" clothing and accessories (every man made object is, in fact, designed, there is no such thing as a non-designer pair of jeans, shoes or handbag), "fine" wine and "fine" art. Items that fall into this category do not have no utility and are not indeed in many cases, admirably engineered and manufactured, but essentially their nominal value is massively in excess of their actual performance, usefulness and cost of production.
Examples of conspicuous consumption in ornithology are demonstrated by such things as elaborate plumage, birdsong and extravagant nest building rituals; the ostentatious peacock's tail being the most commonly cited example. A further highly relevant (mostly) ornithological phenomenon is "lekking". In "lek mating", males congregate in a group and participate in aggressive dominance rituals in order to demonstrate genetic fitness and mate worthiness. Lekking is demonstrated within the human species in bars, clubs and nightclubs and in risk taking behaviour as diverse as bungee jumping, excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and the bizarre recent Russian cult of free climbing urban structures and uploading heart stopping videos of the act on youtube.
Essentially conspicuous consumption is an assertion of status made by a reckless disregard for resources and personal safety.
In the UK the scope of social welfare is comprehensive to the extent that the average citizen must earn something in the region of £25,000 a year as a single person with no dependents in order to make a positive contribution to the economy of the state. The vast majority of migrants do not fall into this income bracket and a large percentage of migrants fall below this income bracket. Events such as the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, the English asian rape scandal, the Paris riots, Bradford riots, the London bombings, etc, denote multiculturalism as presenting specific, palpable danger.
In the former case shrugging off the economic impact of mass-immigration is a means of displaying economic status, security and confidence, it may affect some incompetent people, but it will not affect me. In the latter case insouciant bravura in the face of obvious risk is a way of demonstrating physical prowess, courage and fearlessness. In both cases immediate status imperatives trump long term security imperatives. The popular reaction to the dissolution of western hegemony has been the formation of a societal lek in which, paradoxically, positive levels of economic and social dangers are critical to demonstrations of enhanced status. This explains the reason for the existence in our newly multicultural societies of "Islamophobia" and the absence of "Sinophobia". The Chinese are self-sufficient, adaptive and non-confrontational; Muslims are...less so.
There is a difference between demonstrating status by displaying purchased assets and by disposing of social assets. The difference is that you can ultimately control personal economic stupidity, but you cannot control the consequences of disposing of social assets. The first case is like checking into an expensive hotel; you can ultimately checkout. The second case is like boarding a plane, you "checkout" when the plane lands, and where the plane lands isn't decided by you, it's decided by whoever has control of the cockpit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)