THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

I wish that, when you read my stuff, you would think of me as trying to lead you through tangled undergrowth. Normally, in he important ones, I go over the usual "two sides" you have been presented with all your life, and then make a point that, if you follow ME closely.

The problem is that, as I go through the usual clutter of ideas you are used to, I hit every hot button you have had inserted in you over your whole lifetime. But Bob's Blog is useless if it is just a discussion of what you are used to.

One person wrote the usual point about how we have to control the national media. I don't think he is a regular reader, or he would have gotten one of my major points: That if we accept that some people are after money, some fame, some offices, and we are after POWER. He is simply going back over the same old ground he is trained to go over. I teach that owning things is not the key to POWER.

In the last piece, "The Hook, I went through the history of the ianity that has substituted itself for Christ. But the point was that this is an example of how we confuse Christianity in the West, either with all that the West is, or, on the other extreme, as the cause of all our troubles.

I am glad to have the comments, and I was the one who says that I often don't answer your questions but make the points you make me think of. Pain got my point best.

One commenter was offended by my using 'hook-nosed." I am with him.

I am desperately tired of statements about The Evil Jew. But in this case, it was just another example of the fact that, if I have to choose between good taste and a good pun, I will choose the pun, boredom is a reader's worst enemy.

Come on, now, how could I be writing about The Hook, then the Jews, and not throw "hook-nose" in there?

All of this distracts from what Bob's Underground Seminar IS.

If you were able to go through my writings and extract the usual hot point "both sides" out of it, you would have a long series of critical observations.

"Both sides," in the end, have nothing to do with what I am teaching here.

I started "The Hook" talking, not about Christianity, but about Communism. There is a hook in EVERY side of EVERY issue you are exposed to. The institution you love most has a hook in it. The institution you hate most has a hook in it.

You have to see THE HOOKS to see the truth.

Randian total freedom and Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" is the same thing from my point of view.

But you are trained to regard them as "both sides."

To me, the Catholic priesthood and the Calvinist priesthood and the Politically Correct priesthood are the same thing, though they regard themselves as complete opposites, and everyone is trained to do that.

You are expected to have your own world-view. But you are in THIS class to get what the Professor has to TEACH you, not to agree with every example he gives.

I want YOUR comments, but I want you to read the piece and say, "What is BOB saying here?"

My short summations are more important than all the lead-in to it. The lead-ins you can get ANYWHERE.

My theology you can get anywhere. My prejudices you can get anywhere.

You are HERE for a reason, and what makes my job so difficult is that this is the ONLY place where the aim is NOT indoctrination.

The point here is to go over the familiar and then cut through the bullshit and give you a rational approach. That means REPEATING the bullshit. But if you get wrapped up in THAT, you lost the path completely.

I will often say, "This is the conservative viewpoint." "This is the antireligious viewpoint." I oversimplify both because I would bore you to death if I went into all I know abut both and made it exact.

By the time I get to MY point, which is the only that makes this reading worthwhile to you, most readers are lost back in my descriptions of where we are.

Back Bay Grouch and Elizabeth are analyzing my comments about priests about how they get along with THEIR priests. By the time I get to MY point, I am almost alone.

So when I wrote abut the Masturbation Generation and how they, like Catholic bishops, are ashamed of how they let the sergeants molest them or their comrades, all I got was a discussion of the military or the Catholic Church as homosexual outfits.

I had to repeat over and over and over and over that this had nothing to do with what I was saying.

I describe what we usually think about on any given issue and you are still correcting me about THAT, since that is what you know about already.

So while I am describing how Rand and Marx are similar, you are welcome to give me information abut Rand and Marx, but you should also be looking for what ***I*** am saying here.

A good example of this is that Back Bay Grouch will think I just criticized his talking his relationship with his own priest. I am NOT.

I read it several times and I NEED it. That is what you are USED to hearing about. That is NOT what I am saying.

When I describe Rand and Marx or respectable conservatism and liberalism or Toynbee versus Yockey, I am concentrating on telling you that, while your eyes have been fixed on the battle between THEM, you are so obsessed with that, THAT you cannot see that is NOT where the truth lies.

They are both arguing about nonessentials that are important to THEM, and they are in full agreement that the truth is not where it REALLY is.

I am trying to get you to raise your eyes and see the truth.