Skip to main content

Tex in Tex's definitions

monoculture

Uncool, unhip version of cosmopolitanism.
Liberal elitist hipster: That is so horrible that MacDonald's is everywhere in the world. They are breaking down indigenous culture and traditional folkways. Monoculture everywhere. (Moments later) It is so wonderful that we are breaking down these backward ways of life in the South and any other traditional culture. We want to spread cosmopolitanism everywhere. I am a citizen of the world!
by Tex in Tex February 21, 2008
mugGet the monoculture mug.

license

According to the dictionary, one set of definitions of 'license' is
"1. Lack of due restraint; excessive freedom: “When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near” (Will Durant).
2. Heedlessness for the precepts of proper behavior; licentiousness."

The definition of 'license' that is synonymous with 'licentious' evolved from a very different definition:

"1. a. Official or legal permission to do or own a specified thing. See synonyms at permission.
b. A document, plate, or tag that is issued as proof of official or legal permission: a driver's license.
2. Deviation from normal rules, practices, or methods in order to achieve a certain end or effect."
These meanings are derived from "Middle English licence, from Old French, from Medieval Latin licentia, authorization, from Latin, freedom, from licens, licent-, present participle of licere, to be permitted."
License in the context that I want to focus on in related definitions such as libertarian and libertine is the lack of proper restraint or licentiousness.
Defenders of liberty have traditionally gone to great lengths to distance liberty from license. Tragically, modern leftist liberals and modal libertarians have conflated the the two. License is a perversion of liberty that has morphed into its opposite.
Modal libertarian: I love to exercise my liberty by watching some porn while I smoke pot.

Paleo-libertarian: You are confusing liberty and license.
by Tex in Tex July 2, 2008
mugGet the license mug.

Scarlett O'Hara

Katie Scarlett O'Hara is the main character in the novel and movie, *Gone with the Wind.* In the story, Scarlett is the oldest daughter of an Irish/Catholic immigrant and his French aristocratic wife in mid-nineteenth century Georgia. The family builds an opulent plantation they name Tara just south of Atlanta in Jonesboro. Scarlett loves her father and her home but is otherwise completely self-absorbed.

Before the Civil War, Scarlett is the coquettish belle of the ball attending soirees where she flirts with and torments young men who fall in love with her beauty and burning sexual energy. Scarlett is in love with melancholic Ashley who is love with Melanie. At one of these parties, Scarlett throws herself at Ashley as they are alone in a drawing room. Ashely rebuffs her advance and withdraws. Scarlett throws a vase against the wall in a rage only to find Rhett Butler lying on the couch who has overheard the previous exchange between Scarlett and Ashley. Rhett is immediately intrigued by Scarlett's beauty and energy as are most men. The audience, though, immediately recognizes that Rhett is the man for Scarlett. He is the only one who can tame and domesticate her, which is what she needs.

The story unfolds as the tension builds between the two properly matched couples, Ashley/Melanie and Rhett/Scarlett. Scarlett resists Rhett while being intrigued by him as she marries several other men along the way toward finally marrying Rhett. The entire time, she dreams of marrying Ashely who is married to Melanie. Finally, Scarlett wrecks her marriage with Rhett only realizing what the audience saw all along--that she was intended for Rhett, not Ashely.
Scarlett comes to her senses too late as Rhett walks out the door saying to Scarlett in reply to her question what will happen to her if he leaves her, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." The final scene in the story finds Scarlett pulling herself together after crying over Rhett's leaving and her worrying over how to get Rhett back saying, "I can't let him go. I can't. There must be some way to bring him back. Oh I can't think about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll think about it tomorrow. (She closes the door.) But I must think about it. I must think about it. What is there to do? (She falls forward onto the ascending stairs.) What is there that matters?...Tara!...Home. I'll go home, and I'll think of some way to get him back! After all, tomorrow is another day!"

Scarlett represents both the Old South belle and the New South businesswoman. In both settings that change so drastically in the story and in reality, Atlanta moves from a semi-feudalistic society of manners and morals to a raucous business climate in which everything goes. Scarlett uses her beauty, charm, and craftiness in both social climates to attain her ends. Scarlett gains most everything she thinks she wants through sheer willpower and moral compromise with the exception of Ashley only to realize too late that she has lost her integrity and what she really needs. The story unfolds as a mirror to Atlanta as it has sold itself out for money and acceptability. This is why Atlanta's Southern culture is tragically "Gone with the Wind."
Scarlett O'Hara: "Where will I go, what will I do?"

Rhett Butler: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."
by Tex in Tex February 15, 2008
mugGet the Scarlett O'Hara mug.

Pareto's Iron Law

The Italian sociologist living in the early 20th Century observed that the distribution of wealth and income remains roughly the same in modern industrialized societies no matter what governmental policies are pursued. A corollary of the Iron Law is the "circulation of elites" where groups vie to be the dominant group under various guises including equality and social justice, but there is always an elite no matter what.
Liberal elitist humanitarian: Let's pass legislation to make a more equal, fairer society.

Conservative realist: That will get us no where except you leftists will be in power rather than us. There is the brutal fact of Pareto's Iron Law. We cannot escape inequality of result.

Liberal elitist humanitarian: Well, I know, but at least we will be ahead of you conservatives. We hate you because you do not love everyone as we leftists do.
by Tex in Tex February 25, 2008
mugGet the Pareto's Iron Law mug.

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship

An offshoot of the Southern Baptist Convention that is not as committed to defending the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible as the SBC since Evangelicals recaptured the denomination from liberals and moderates. CBF also presents a more egalitarian set of policies on social and political issues along with presenting a hazy view of theology. While most CBF members are not as far to the left as clearly apostate denominational elites such as found in the United Methodist Church, the CBF would be more accurately characterized as part of the mushy middle or moderates.

CBF does not explicitly deny the truth of the Bible, but they emphasize that individual believers can interpret the Bible any way that they choose. This tack on interpreting the Bible can easily provide a liberal Christian with the license to make the Bible into a wax-nose so that one can twist the Bible to justify whatever one wants to read into the text. This loose approach to reading and being instructed in the Bible comes from CBF's so-called "Four Freedoms": (1)Soul Freedom-a direct relationship with God without intermediaries (2)Bible Freedom-each person can interpret the Bible for himself without direction from anyone but God (or who one can easily deceive oneself into believing is God, viz. oneself who wants what he wants and wants it now) (3)Church Freedom-local church autonomy (4)Religious Freedom-as defined by egalitarian leftists at the ACLU. The CBF is affiliated with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which opposes such benign policies as allowing for Ten Commandment displays.
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship member reflecting on Deuteronomy 24 after his wife has burnt the toast: "I see here right in the Bible that I can divorce my wife if she displeases me. So, I shall divorce her and marry my sexier secretary. After she gets some mileage on her, I shall trade her in, too. I am so glad that I read the Bible and follow God's Word."
by Tex in Tex October 4, 2008
mugGet the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship mug.

hipster

A continuation of the Bohemian "tradition" originating in France around the turn of the 20th Century. These folks were anti-bourgeois, anti-Victorian, and anti-traditionalist. They were avant-garde artists who disdained what they considered ordinary but ended up in a futile cycle of radical change for the sake of change soon drifting into silliness and nihilism.

The Beat Generation and then the Hippie movement tried to pick up this stand of thought and way of life in the mid twentieth century. The existential hero who is cool and detached, not caring what anyone else thinks of him is also a mid century fashion that picked up on this theme.

The cool hipster assumes a persona of crass selfishness, irresponsibility, mindless rebellion, cynicism, ironic mocking of anything meaningful or noble, cold reserve, uncaring indifference toward others while paradoxically advocating a politics of compassion toward certain groups favored by leftists, a dull, dumb countenance, and most of all, being constantly out of sorts--a real sour puss. They usually take on a studied disheveled appearance to further the affection of not caring what others think of them. They also prefer to dress in black.

Of course, most of these folks are as phony as you can get. They look as though they are dead on the inside--enthusiasm or being earnest or being genuine are completely missing from their emotional repertoire. They shun kindness,loyalty, spirituality, or empathy as uncool.
"Man, like, I dig myself and fuck you, man, like."--An example of a hipster sentence. Complete sentences, of sorts, are few and far between for these folks who are too cool to talk in coherent language.
by Tex in Tex February 2, 2008
mugGet the hipster mug.

xenophobia

Taken to the extreme, an irrational fear of strangers or more broadly, a fear of those who are different. Taken in a more moderate way, a rational fear of those who are different in some significant way, such as race, ethnicity, culture, politics, religion. Since people live together in families and communities where blood ties and cultural similarities foster cooperation, those who are different undermine this social solidarity. The very presence of people who are different in appearance or belief or language make the majority of people in a community wary of those who do not share a common interest in preserving the dominant group.

This fear is justified since people naturally view those who look, believe, and act in a similar manner as extensions of themselves. Since people are naturally selfish, they will lend aid and befriend those whom they see as similar to themselves. Conversely, since people are naturally selfish and seek to dominate others to enhance their own power, they will naturally first seek to dominate those who are different. People who are different are more likely to be seen as objects rather than fellow humans.

When confronted with these threats to social cooperation based on viewing others as objects, it is rational to foster laws, social and economic policy, and attitudes that preserve one's own kind in power. To do otherwise is to hand power over to those who will destroy one's own way of life, culture, and political system.

Political power as well as cultural and social power are zero-sum games. When one group gains in the same geographical region, other groups must lose.
Campus Leftist: "Oh, those conservatives really show their xenophobia in opposing open immigration. That shows what closed minds they have and how paranoid they are. Of course, we had to shout down a conservative speaker last night at the lecture series, and drive him off campus in order to promote diversity and pluralism. We would never be prejudiced as those conservatives are."
by Tex in Tex February 1, 2008
mugGet the xenophobia mug.

Share this definition

Sign in to vote

We'll email you a link to sign in instantly.

Or

Check your email

We sent a link to

Open your email