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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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I don’t know how to amuse you into taking your future seriously

By David McElroy · October 6, 2021

My face is contorted in terror and my mouth is wide open. I’m ready to scream that you’re in danger. That you’re on a speeding train which is about to go off a cliff. But no words come out, because I know you won’t understand my warning.

Imagine you desperately needed and wanted to warn someone that something terrible was about to happen, but the two of you spoke different languages. That’s what this feels like.

My words of warning can coming pouring out of my mouth, but almost nobody will hear. Those who do hear will shrug. Even the ones who find my words interesting — or who might suspect I might be right — will go right about their business. The show must go on.

No matter what I do, the grand entertainment of modern American culture will roll right on without me. This dysfunctional culture has no time to listen to something which can’t be presented in the form of entertainment.

And I’ve discovered that I don’t know how to entertain you while I beg you to learn an intellectual and cultural context which is more terrifying than entertaining.

I tried. I really did. But it just doesn’t work.

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Objective reality has now become offensive in dysfunctional culture

By David McElroy · September 30, 2021

Evan Bialosuknia is a 17-year-old boy who’s a senior at Olympia High School in Orlando, Fla. Those are objective facts.

But Evan has decided he’s really a girl, so you’ll be called a bigot if you point out he’s a guy. This is the insanity of the philosophy behind the far left in this culture today. Objective truth has become offensive to the shrieking banshees who control what you’re allowed to say.

Evan has been elected homecoming queen for his high school. Who you read the flood of media accounts, this is being celebrated as a historic milestone for “transgender” students. All the stories even refer to Evan as “she” and “her.”

This isn’t because it represents reality. It’s because intellectual bullies have made up bizarre new rules for others to follow — and those who don’t agree are accused of hate and bigotry.

Our culture is so dysfunctional that simple objective facts are considered hate.

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For a culture where God is dead, spiritual emergence is madness

By David McElroy · September 29, 2021

I finally have a name for what’s been going on inside me for close to 15 years. I’ve been having a “spiritual emergency.”

I’ve been struggling to be who I really am in a postmodern culture that says material reality is the only reality.

We have the trappings of spiritual life, but very little of its substance. Politicians talk about God and appeal to his name and authority. Preachers build empires that cater to the social needs of middle-class families.

Families participate in religious groups — churches, synagogues, whatever — to provide structure and values for children. Singles show up to find dates and mates. And various other people who feel the need for something spiritual missing in their lives show up in hopes of touching some unseen wisp of something they can’t name.

But if you take it too seriously, we’ll send you to see a shrink. If you have spiritual experiences of the sort that have been common to people of every human culture, we’ll say you have a mental illness. If you talk of the spirit living after this body has died, we will call you superstitious.

If you take anything spiritual very seriously, we’ll call you crazy. We’ll look down on your primitive superstition and tell you to trust science.

I’ve been in rebellion against all this. I wanted more than the feel-good experiences of a religious life. I needed to take Truth seriously. That’s brought me into conflict with my culture. It’s been a spiritual emergency — because spiritual emergence was going on.

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My Instagram

This is the face of a man who’s thrilled that the This is the face of a man who’s thrilled that the weekend is finally here. It was a very long (and productive) week, but the time has finally come that I have time to write and read and think. Late Friday night, I’m at the McDonald’s near my house with a Diet Dr Pepper and a MacBook. For me, it’s like Cheers without the booze.
Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the the D.C. Reflecting Pool turning green. The dastardly deed was carried out by a specially trained squad of Antifa cats trained by the Far Left. It’s not his fault. Arrest all the cats! #satire #parody
This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmar This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmart near my house just a few minutes ago. It was a beautiful light show for just a few minutes.
Here’s proof that reality and satire are indisting Here’s proof that reality and satire are indistinguishable these days.
This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot out This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot outside of the Walmart near my house just after the sun went down Friday evening.
This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy gas a little while ago. Even at a no-name brand, the price was $4.09. If I remember correctly, it was $2.29 a gallon at the same station on the day the war started. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winning. 🤣
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
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Critter Instagram

Oliver woke up when I came home just now, but he d Oliver woke up when I came home just now, but he didn’t seem inclined to get out of the hanging basket. When I changed clothes and sat down in the bedroom, though, he was jumping up into my lap.
From the CritterCam: I’m not home, but it appears From the CritterCam: I’m not home, but it appears that Alex tried to wake up and even get out of his bed, but the effort was too great, so he gave up halfway and went back to sleep.
When I came home at midnight, Alex didn’t think th When I came home at midnight, Alex didn’t think the event was worth getting up for, but he did hang his head over the edge of the castle’s top level to make sure I hadn’t brought anything for him.
Just before sunset, Sam is on Neighborhood Watch i Just before sunset, Sam is on Neighborhood Watch in an office window. A family across the street has gone to the beach for the week, so Sam feels extra pressure to keep the neighborhood safe while they’re away.
This is what happens when Oliver wants to get into This is what happens when Oliver wants to get into my lap when I’m working on my MacBook. If you can’t tell, that black thing underneath him is my torso and my head is just behind his head. He often looks as though he’s trying to see what’s so interesting on that screen that I spend so much time looking at. As you might have guessed, he was purring for the entire time he was settling into his spot.
I asked Alex whether he was awake as I left the ho I asked Alex whether he was awake as I left the house Wednesday afternoon — and he wasn’t quite sure.
After they had a late dinner, the cats are staying After they had a late dinner, the cats are staying up late for a chess tournament. Alex and Sam are playing first and they’ll switch up for the next games. Alex is the house champion, but Sam is giving him a run for his money tonight. 😺
The longer Sam is with us, the more often I see hi The longer Sam is with us, the more often I see him in confident poses such as this one. For a long time, he typically kept his tail a bit lowered and didn’t make eye contact very much (with the other cats or me). At this point, his tail is up and his eyes seem far more confident. That’s the way I see him Tuesday evening just before sunset — and it makes me happy.
I found a low-quality image Monday night of baby O I found a low-quality image Monday night of baby Oliver and Lucy on the bed together two and a half years ago. I loved the easy comfort they had with one another even back then, when Oliver was new to the household, so I did a lot of editing to turn it into an image worth sharing. Seeing this really makes me miss Lucy even more. The second photo of Oliver and Lucy is from May 24, 2025, about five months before her death.
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David likes email, but can’t reply to every message. I get a surprisingly large number of requests for relationship advice — seriously — but time doesn’t permit a response to all of them. (Sorry.)

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It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

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