Fluffisms Revised

1. Fluffy is not just charting the course of lesser resistance, but charting the course of lesser resistance is part of the recipe.

2. Fluffy is not synonymous with pseudo-intellectualism, but pseudo-intellectualism is part of the recipe.

3. Fluffy is not synonymous with pseudo-sophistication, but pseudo-sophistication is part of the recipe.

4. Fluffy is not synonymous with moral superiority, but moral superiority is part of the recipe.

5. Fluffy is not merely superficiality over substance, but superficiality over substance is part of the recipe.

6. Humans generally balance sentiment and reason. The fluffy mind automatically rejects reason for sentiment.

7. Fluffy per se is not trendy, it is a long-term pattern. Fluffmeisters are however, reflexively trendy.

8. Before Hitler conquered Europe through brute force, he conquered the hearts and minds of his countrymen with a steady barrage of fluff.

3. A certain amount of self-delusion is part of the human condition. Mothers must believe their child is special and we must believe to one degree or another, that our experience is singular. When one  adopts self-delusion as a preferred lifestyle however, another fluffy mind is baptized.

4. My first crisis of perspective hit in late adolescence when I realized that not everyone shared my passion for truth. Soon I would learn that veriphiles are a distinct minority. Years later, that discovery still frustrates me.

5. Forget all those fancy personality tests. Do you really have to answer 20 questions to find out if you are introverted? The only important variable is comfort vs. truth and yes, the fluffy will cluster at the comfort pole.

6. Fluff follows fear, most often fear of disapproval.

7. The difference between simple and simplistic is the difference between wisdom and folly.

8. Observers tend to underestimate the convictions of fluffmeisters......

9. Fluffy is not always (characterized by) reason deferring to sentiment but it is often part of the recipe. Equation.

10. The problem with rooting for the underdog is that usually the underdog has attained his status from sloth, inactivity and failure to prepare.

11. Celebrities.

12. Laziness is a universal news media bias.

13. Bias against complexity--usually resulting in simplism rather than simplicity--is a universal   media bias.

14. Bias against resistance is a universal media bias.

15. Bias for consensus is a universal media bias.

16. Most parents would blanch at the idea that they are emphasizing the quest for popularity above all else in their children. Substitute the term "social development" for popularity and you will find them in agreement. (More concise: Social development is a fancy term for popularity.)

17. Like v. respect.

18. Capitalism is humanity's greatest social institutions. Capitalism abolishes famine. It allows its poorest citizens to live more comfortably than yesterday's kings and queens. For that matter it allows house pets to eat gourmet foods and receive better health care than foregone aristocracies. It makes poor nations rich so long as they stay the course. No other system, organization or institution does a better job of helping more people most of the time than capitalism.

Unfortunately, capitalism has one glaring weakness, one oversized  (elephantine)Achilles Heel. Capitalism cannot render itself fluffy. Thus, capitalism will never be embraced by fluffy minds.

19. An oversized heart does not compensate for an atrophied (lazy) brain.

20. A politician ignorant of the rudiments of economics is as dangerous as a jet pilot unaware of the law of gravity.

21. Eclecticism is the only enemy of religion. Persecution, discrimination, oppression, illiteracy, war and famine served to make religion stronger. Even the much-vaulted secularism could never empty the churches. But when people work and mingle with people of many faiths or zero faith or sporadic faith and they do not necessarily find virtue correlating with certain spiritual brand names...religion as we once knew it is forever diminished.

22. The bias against corporal punishment is not rational and it is not high minded or morally superior but it is fluffy.

23. The silliest proclamation in this age of nonsense is "I don't judge anyone." From the time we look up from our crib until the time we look out from our deathbed, we are assessing, evaluating, comparing and contrasting everyone we see and hear. Only the dead have stopped judging.

25. She said with no hint of irony that gay people have high rates of depression, drug abuse and suicide. I said that was unfortunate and probably avoidable but I challenged the idea of referring to suicidal depressives as "gay." It was a frustrating evening. I was called intolerant, old fashioned and a person whose name you would recognize, flat out called me a bigot.  I might have won the semantic battle but I lost the room in the process.

24. Semantics cannot be fluffy. Thus, semantics is a woefully unpopular subject.

26. If you want to learn psychology, study economics.

27. Fluffy eclipses matters great and small, universal and parochial, abstract and concrete. Politicians love monetary inflation because it makes citizens feel rich even as their wealth shrinks. Yes, the fluffy mind endorses fiat currency even if they don't understand it.

28. As surely as capitalism will be rejected by fluffy minds, collectivism in all its myriad labels, will be embraced by fluffmeisters.

29. Collectivism is collectivism is collectivism. Communism, Nazism, Fascism, Socialism, et al, are brand names of suicide pills with a common active ingredient.

30. Madison Avenue is not fluffy but they peddle fluff like a Goldstein peddling hams at Easter.

31. Fluff never sleeps.

32. Should you want to assemble an army of thugs, bullies, tyrants and larcenists, recruit people who frequently use the words 'fair' and 'fairness.'

33. The founding of The Peace Corps was JFK's one homage to fluff in what was otherwise an excellent presidency.

34. Creating EPA, DEA, OSHA, wage and price controls, 55 mile per hour speed limit, suspending the production of chemical and biological weapons, removal from the gold standard...Richard Nixon was America's fluffiest president.

35. Bureaucracy is inherently fluffy in its inception, its implementation and its evolution.

36. Richard Nixon was America's first opinion poll president.

37. If through some tweak of fate, America starting worshiping Greek gods, Zeus and Aphrodite and Apollo would be upstaged by Mallow, the goddess of fluff.

38. Socially-sanctioned cliches are the lifeblood of fluff.

38 A. The inventive fluffmeister can transform cliches into chants and chants into slogans.

39. When a message is rejected or discredited, the fluffy mind does not alter the message but rather, it changes the message's label.

40. Journalists are the seraphim of fluff.

41. Never, ever underestimate the zeal of the fluffy.

42. Fluff enhances ardor by silencing doubt.

42. It is perfecter than perfect that Orwell selected the fluffiest animals in the barnyard--sheep--to represent students. "Four legs good, two legs bad" would get updated to "Four legs good, two legs better." Orwell's sheep would fit right in today with most American college students.

43. Given their youth, college students were always vulnerable to fluff but their professors were not so easily sold. That has changed. They might look moth-eaten and haggard but today's academics are fluffy to the core.

44. Before Hitler conquered Europe through brute force, he conquered the hearts and minds of his countrymen with a steady barrage of fluff.

45. Favoritism is the grandfather of all isms.

46. Capitalism's grossest failure is the journalistic industry. The profession is premised on integrity, courage and pertinence. Despite show biz salaries, the industry fails to deliver any of these things.

47. Fluffy people curse the candles.