What Ever Happened To Calvinism?

Do you remember when Calvinism was cool?

There was a brief window in the Post-9/11 world, say from the mid 2000s to mid 2010s, where Reformed theology was, for lack of a better term, a thing.

I grew up in the deeply Baptist South, in a place where Presbyterians were about as common and accepted as Zoroastrians. When I was a child, the only reason the locals would beat down the doors to a Presbyterian church was to let us know we were going to Hell for following Calvin.

So as a teenager, seeing these New Calvinists show up to my family's small Presbyterian church surprised me as much as if they had emerged from the communion wine. People were 'converting' to Reformed theology, and what's more, they were doing it because it was 'cool.'

Now 'cool' is, at best, a greased-up eel in a tub of butter when it comes to definitions, but one thing always involved is rebellion. Whether it's Flower Children putting daises in gun barrels or Metalheads decked out in skulls, spikes and chains, a sense of defiance is an eternal part of cool.

In the case of the New Calvinists, the defiance angle came from disagreeing with the doctrines of their parents and neighbors, whether those parents/neighbors were Baptists or Agnostics. Hell, I was a bad boy of theology at my Baptist school, in the sense that arguing constantly gave me a sense of power and purpose.

Checkmate, Bap-tards.

So you can imagine how weird it was when my classmates started admiring my dogged persistence in sticking to my guns and, dare I say, started treating me more like an actual bad-boy. I suspect this had less to do with my charm winning them over and more to do with the emergence of attention-grabbing Calvinist mini-Celebrities.

I'm not going to go into the doctrines of Calvinism or the extent that New Calvinism was actually Calvinist. The point is, it was an obscure subject that had the right mixture of density and edginess that pseudo-intellectuals congregate around in the Man Caves of the mind. Add in historical acceptance of beards, alcohol, and extreme quibbling over doctrine, and you've got a subculture a man with no sense of purpose in life can get behind.

But as always happens in subcultures, nothing can stay in the limelight forever. In recent years, I'm hard-pressed to find a Calvinist thought-leader in any area other than Christianized alcoholism or turning quisling for the LGBTQP2P crowd. Turns out that a vague sense of intellectual and consumerist superiority isn't enough to keep a movement interesting.

I suspect that a lot of the Calvin crowd has turned to Eastern Orthodoxy in recent years, as the "OrthoProt" meme suggests. After all, Orthodoxy is even more obscure in America, and thus easier to be smug about. It's just as compatible with Beer, Beards, and Bacon, with the bonus of candles and incense. Now instead of imagining yourself as a Great Protestant Writer, casting down the Catholic scum with your mighty pen, you can pretend to be a Great Orthodox Monk, living humbly in an obscurity that makes you better than everyone else. You can be right about everything without interacting with anyone!

I don't say any of this because of inherent problems with Orthodoxy (we can discuss those separately), but rather to say that we all know where this is going. There's gonna be another next thing to get excited about, to argue about the details of, to obsess over while ignoring the real problems of the human heart. My guess is that OrthoProts are going to dig up old heresies in their reading and weaponize one or another as the "One True Version of Christianity."

I'm not worried about the continuing coolness of Calvinism, but watching it spiral into another religious arm of Sodom and Egypt is disturbing. Maybe that's what really happened to Calvinism - the slow creeping in of the same bullshit that destroyed the mainline denominations. Can any subculture survive being cool? Not because of cycles of interest, but because every organization that can be used to push the Narrative will eventually be infiltrated and turned.

Depression Impressions

I've been thinking about depression lately - not because I am currently depressed, but because I can't seem to get away from people talking about it.

You see a few different threads of thought about depression floating around on the internet. And while a full taxonomy of every opinion would be both boring and useless, there are two trends that I keep seeing pop up and want to address.

The first is depression as a lifestlye, and it's something that seems to pop up a lot in the memesphere. Now, I like memes. Dank memes, normie memes, overused memes, whatever. Taking five minutes to binge on meme dumps on imgur used to be one of my favorite daily rituals. It was a great way to shut off my brain and chuckle at some funny pictures. Kind of like how the comics page of the newspaper used to be.

I say "used to be" because over the last few years, memes about depression as a lifestyle are taking up more and more of the memespace (at least on imgur). I see traces of this on other platforms as well - Facebook and Twitter friends talking incessantly about how they don't have the will to live, Tumblerinas joking about suicide, and so on.

Now the "why" of all this would be an interesting topic - many people claim it's because Boomers destroyed the economy for Millenials or because CIA bots are spreading demoralizing memes as a psy-op, or because depressed people spend a disproportionate amount of time on the internet. But that's not what we're going to talk about today.

What interests me is that people are curating their collections of memes around a topic like depression. Living with depression, dealing with depression, being depressed, etc. It seems less like a disease that they are forced to live with (the memes about cancer I see are more about "kicking cancer's ass" or otherwise supporting cancer patients) than a lifestyle they identify with.

This is nothing new - anyone who lived through the '90s and '00s internet had a few friends who whined about depression. But even in that context, the depression was claimed more as a super special thing that meant other people should give them attention. It was a bad, yet super-special important thing that you should pay attention to.

The latter day wave of internet depressives treat it less as a disease or attention-grabbing device and more as a part of their core identity. It's treated as part of a joke - sometimes as punchline, sometimes as setup, but only rarely as something unusual.

On the polar opposite end of this is a thread you see in self-help/positive thinking/mindset and related circles. This one doesn't require as much space to describe, since it can be summed up in one sentence: depression doesn't really exist. "Depression" is a fake disease that people use to excuse their failures and self-hatred.

Now, I was one of those depressed internet kids in the 90s and 00s. While I did display my mental damage on the internet for sympathy points, I wasn't faking it. I really was deeply mentally fucked up.

There was a performative aspect to my depression and related fuckeduppednesses, writing poetry for Teen Open Diary and setting Linkin Park lyrics as my AIM away message. Once I learned that I could get sympathy and other forms of positive attention by being open about my damage, it encouraged me to express it in new and increasingly dramatic ways.

However, thinking and writing about my depression had a secondary effect: I started to learn about it. I figured out that a bout of depression could start without any particular reason and then end without any particular reason. I could experience depression when in the middle of the most fun and fulfilling times of my life and not experience it when watching 14 hours of TV a day instead of interacting with humans.

Bit by bit, all of the time spent recording and analyzing my depression taught me something: depression is a lie that your brain tells you. Depression is your brain telling you to feel bad even when there is no objective reason to. Something is causing it - just not anything rational. It's a chemical fuck up in your brain that can be triggered at any time for no particular reason. It will last for some period of time and then goes away for no particular reason.

Having this realization had two effects. First, my depressive episodes started getting shorter and further apart. Knowing that these emotions were being caused by my brain fucking up made it easier and easier to ignore what my brain was telling me.

Second, it killed my interest in depression. I stopped enjoying entertainment (music, movies, etc) that glorified in depression. Most emo songs are now as stimulating to me as songs bitching about allergies.

Many people with depression complain about people who say depression isn't "a thing" or that it "doesn't really exist." And they're right to do so. Depression is definitely "a thing," and a different thing than simply being sad or disappointed in life. Denying its existence is dangerous because it must be managed differently than negative emotions that arise as a response to negative life experiences.

But there is also a danger in glorifying depression, making it into part of your identity. It is simply a condition to be managed and, when possible, overcome. When I spent a lot of time thinking about depression, I would also get a perverse sense of pleasure from depressive episodes. It would "prove" that my depression was real, validating my emotional experiences. Getting validation from depression, basing your identity on a mental condition can encourage you to cling to your sickness instead of managing it.

I haven't had a major depressive episode in years (though I have struggled with anxiety) - or at least I don't think I have. The last few I can remember were more like an annoyance than an existential crisis; a migraine, not a brain tumor.

Name Change

I'm changing the name of my blog because I don't really blog about video games or Hegel or any of that any more. I don't blog much in general for that matter.

My hope is that changing the name will help reorient this venture towards something useful. If it doesn't, I'll retire it. In that event, I'll leave the old posts up but put up a notice that it's retired.

I'm making another career change in March that will either leave more time for blogging or destroy any desire to blog.

Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part Four

Through this series, I've ranted and rambled about my personal history. Hopefully, this gives non-Jews some perspective on why Jews see themselves (ourselves?) as both White and Non-White. It's because sometimes we're treated as White and sometimes as Non-White.

Yes, it's gross when you see a Jew on Twitter apologizing for being (((White))) one minute and then castigating all Whites the next. But it's not just a strategic issue, it's a dual identity issue.

After all, I'm Jewish enough for Auschwitz but not Jewish enough for Israel. Who does someone like me sympathize with? Anti-Semitic rhetoric makes me nervous, but so does Anti-White rhetoric. If the Revolution comes, I have no disillusions about where I'll stand. The Radical Left might not have the engineering competence to build gas chambers, but do you really think they'll hesitate to shoot you for your side-curls and tassels?

So, I know which side I'm on. Whites may have had trouble understanding who I am, but they've also treated me fairly, with only the rarest of exceptions. While I grew up rubbing elbows with legitimately racist Whites, they've always been (lol) the minority.

So while I get the (((White Person))) problem, I don't sympathize with (((White Person))) politics. Do you really think that the fraction of a percent of White People that want to gas Jews are more threatening than the Muslim world? Do you really think that the civilization that has done more to defend and uplift Jews than any other since Cyrus the Great is a threat?

Look, if this was still pre-WWII times, I might get it to an extent. But as you're so fond of reminding us, it's the current year. America and Europe want to like us. Like, to an embarrassing degree, especially when it comes to Protestants. Certainly more than we deserve, given the extent to which prominent Jews have been complicit in undermining Western Civilization.

Again, I get it. I'm not a neutral witness. As a Christian with Jewish blood in my veins, the average Jew probably finds me more hateful than David Duke. I'm less welcome in the ethnostate than Osama Ford Hitler. But really, in your heart of hearts, are you really so angry at the Blond Goy Jocks at your High School that you want to destroy your Greatest/Only Ally?

I'm not even certain who I'm ranting to at this point. I don't know if there is a point. What I'm trying to say is that when liberal Jews vacillate between being Jewish and (((White))), it's not a deceit. Well, it's not purely a deceit. They know that they'll never be White, but they also know that they'll never be not-White. They know that they'll never be accepted into the WASP club, but they also know they'll never be truly trusted as part of the Rainbow Coalition.

Too White for the Non-Whites. Too Non-White for the Whites. Perhaps driven mad by our inability to escape the politics of race. Thus, (((White))).

But then, I'll never really know what it is to be (((White))). And maybe that's who I'm trying to speak out for. For the Jews who want nothing to do with the lemming-march to destruction. Because maybe we have the slightest chance to help turn this bitch around before it implodes in race war.

Anyway, that's the end of my foray into talking about EGS. Here's hoping it'll be a long time before it comes up again.

Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part Three

I still remember my Grandmother's funeral. For a variety of deeply personal reasons. But one thing I remember is finding out that I could never be buried in a Jewish cemetery because I was a Christian. For that matter, my Father could never be buried with his parents because he had accepted Jesus as the Messiah.

That wasn't the end of my experiences with being Jewish but not-Jewish. But frankly, it would have been enough. My Gentile friends back in West Virginia might joke about me being a Jew, but they accepted me for who I was. To be frank, they loved me. Outside of my immediate family (who I must stress, never gave me anything but love), the Jewish community had nothing but contempt for me.

I don't want to single out the Jews. The other parts of my extended family also viewed me and my siblings as different. But they also never threw me out of my goddamn Grandparents' apartment while my Grandfather was grieving. They also never told me I could never be buried with my family.

Now, I'm venting this part of my personal history because it's something I want to get off my chest. But I'm also venting it because it touches on why Jews sometimes view themselves as White and sometimes as Non-White.

When I was in High School, I was the most ethnically diverse person in my class. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not that unusual of a situation for a Jew. There are times when all of the people around you look at you and say, "You're different because you're not White."

At the same time, when I was in University, I got the same lambasting about how I was an Evil White Male from my Professors that the most Scotch-Irish motherfucker in West Virginia ever got. There are times when all of the people around you look at you and say, "You're 110% White."

I've lived in Japan for over five years, and in the entire time I've been here, no one has seen me as anything other than White. I've even been called Blond on multiple occasions, which is something that could really only happen in Asia. I'm about as Blond as Adolph Hitler, although according to your local Rabbi, I'm also just as welcome to sit shiva.

So what I'm saying is, I kind of get it when my fellow Jews (who 100% do not accept me as Jewish) sometimes refer to themselves as White and sometimes as Not-White. That's just part of growing up Jewish. To a White Supremacist, you're not White. To the Black, Asian, or Hispanic neighbors across the street, you're completely White. And to the State of Israel, it kind of depends on whether or not you accept Jesus as the Messiah.

Okay, we'll finish this up next time.

Different This Time, Baby

I know everyone's seen this train wreck already:

Peterson pulled the "It's just a social experiment, Bro!" card and claimed he was trying to think of a way to reduce tensions between the Left and Right. It was a transparent walk away from the backlash, naturally. It was amusing he thought he could fill the roll of the "genius healer" we apparently all need.

But it was more interesting to see that excuse followed up by this:

Is this the next narrative pitch coming down at us from the Left? "If you just start losing again, things can go back to normal. We'll totally start being civil, nice, and reasonable if you stop all of this nasty winning. Can't you see you're forcing us to be mean?"Apparently they think we're tired of winning, or at least tired of fighting.

It's probably projection on their part. They are absolutely getting tired of having an actual fight and so is everyone they know. Even the RINO quislings they rub shoulders with are tired of readjusting their bowties. And since that's the only Right they know personally, they assume we're all feeling drained instead of invigorated.

They're emotionally exhausted and battered by loss after loss after loss. Even by cranking up the crazy and throwing larger and larger tantrums, they're not getting their way. So of course they want to deescalate - or rather, they want us to deescalate so they can go back to a quiet war where no one fights back.

I can see how this pitch might work on Centrists, RINOs, and the most cowardly Civ-Nats. "Listen guys, the Left has totally learned their lesson and they'll never be mean or try to destroy the lives of innocent men again." Maybe there are a few Boomers hoping for a peaceful Thanksgiving with their psychotic daughters-in-law that'll go for it.

I'm not sure how hard or long the Usual Suspects are going to push this meme. I hope it's a big part of their new strategy for the Midterms now that Kavanaugh is confirmed. It's a wonderful mixture of childish ("You owe us a win! It's our turn to win!") and a transparent lie ("It'll be different this time, baby!") that not even the Republicans can lose to it.

Now, there also seems to be a strong current of "Now that Kavanaugh is in, we are justified in being as violent as we want" going around. My guess is that we're in A/B testing for now while the Left sees which message has legs. Of course, it's possible they'll target one message outwards ("We'll be nice this time") and one message inwards ("We can be as violent as we want"), which is the best case scenario.

Dear Fellow (((White People))) Part Two

I grew up in West Virginia, but my parents grew up in New York, New York. Brooklyn, to be specific.

It was a summertime tradition when my siblings and I were growing up to take a pilgrimage back to the Motherland for a week or so. We would stay in Grandma's house in Brooklyn, walk the mean streets, and eat the best pizza on planet Earth.

Driving over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Old Country was always something special back then. While I was culturally Southern and West Virginian (I still have a touch of that back-country accent to this day), I also grew up never meeting a person who looked like me who wasn't a blood relative. But that was different in New York. In New York, I could look out the window of our minivan and see people who looked like me walking the streets.

Of course, there were also Blacks and Russians and Chinese walking the streets, but the point was it wasn't 99.8% Scotch-Irish. It was a window into another world much different from the world I spent 99.9% of my life in. In West Virginia, I was a minority beyond reckoning. In New York, I was still out of place, but culturally instead of ethnically.

Now, I want to be very clear about something. My Jewish extended family never made me feel like an outsider or inferior in any way. This is something I can't say about my non-Jewish extended family. So it wasn't until I was relatively older that I started to understand that I wasn't "really" Jewish.

When I was about 10 years old (11? 12?) my Grandmother died. She was one of the sweetest, most loving women that I have ever known. Her family was Jewish, from Poland. Amusingly, they were kicked out of the country a few years before World War II because Great-Grandpa was a horse thief. So the only reason that branch of the family survived the Holocaust was because they were running from the law.

Now, until my Grandmother died, the only Jews I had had contact with were blood relatives. And again, they never showed me or my siblings anything but love, despite the fact that my Father had converted to Christianity and raised us as Christians. So I never had any sense of antipathy towards my Jewish heritage. If anything, in the Fundamentalist Protestant Wonderland of West Virginia, it made me something closer to a local celebrity than an outcast.

And then my Grandmother died.

My Grandfather was not born Jewish, but converted in order to marry my Grandmother. And when my Grandmother died, we piled into the mini-van and drove up to Brooklyn for the funeral.

Now you need to understand, while I grew up knowing that I was Jewish, my exposure to Jewish culture was strictly limited to matzah and Manischewitz. Hell, I have to rely on spellcheck to type those two right. My Grandparents were fond of making Hypocrite Stuffing for Thanksgiving, a turkey stuffing rich with pork products and irony. So ceremonial cleanliness was not something I was used to.

So imagine this. It's my Grandparents' small apartment in the Brooklyn projects. My Grandmother, one of the best people I have ever known, has just died. My Father is comforting my Grandfather as we kids are doing our best to hold it together. The front door opens. Grim-faced men in black hats and side-curls come into the apartment, men who I have never met before in my life, come into my Grandparents' apartment and demand that we leave.

As a preteen, I have no frame of reference for this. Who are these strange men to come into my Grandparents' apartment, where I have spent every summer of my life, and demand that we leave? In my Grandfather's moment of grief? In my Father's moment of grief? In my moment of grief? And yet, my Father ushers us kids out. On the way to my mother's family's house, he explains. These men are here to sit shiva for my Grandmother, and as Christian half-breeds, our presence would defile the apartment.

Now, I had read enough of the Old Testament as a child to kind of get the general idea. But I had also grown up my entire life being looked at as different for being a Jew. In West Virginia, being 1/4 Jewish made me an outsider, marked out as different and strange. And now, for the first time, being 3/4 Gentile made me the same thing.

What was I? Who was I? Who the fuck were these Rabbi-looking mother fuckers to kick me out of my Grandparent's apartment? I was used to getting strange looks for not being White. I was not used to being treated like trash for not being Jewish enough.