Back in 2011; I published a pessimistic little book about "political correctness" (i.e. mainstream totalitarian leftism) called Thought Prison; and at one point I compared the nations of The West to a city under siege in which the rulers of the city loathed the ordinary people; and therefore always took the side of the invaders.
These rulers covertly aimed at the destruction of the city; opened the doors to the besiegers, gave them privileged status in the city; and confiscated shelter, food and clothing from the natives of the city to support the invaders.
But, in 2011, I was way too optimistic!
Our situation in 2024 is much worse than the besieged city analogy; because I assumed in 2011 that the natives of the city would - at least - notice and understand what was going-on...
But they don't see, and they don't get-it!
The ordinary citizens of 2024 don't even recognize that their rulers - All The Rulers (all who actually or even potentially have power) - despise and hate them, and want them dead and gone!
This failure of recognition is because the citizens hate and despise themselves - and for good reason, since their value-system is short-termist and merely hedonic: the ethics of the barnyard - peace, convenience, comfort, entertainment...
An ideal for animals, not for Men.
And it is a fact of history that such a materialistic value-system never has, and never shall, inspire men to courage and coherent action.
This was recognized by George Orwell in 1941 comparing the sensible, materialistic HG Wells with Adolf Hitler:
What has Wells to set against the ‘screaming little defective in Berlin’? The usual rigmarole about a World State, plus the Sankey Declaration, which is an attempted definition of fundamental human rights, of anti-totalitarian tendency...
What is the use of pointing out that a World State is desirable? What matters is that not one of the five great military powers would think of submitting to such a thing. All sensible men for decades past have been substantially in agreement with what Mr. Wells says; but the sensible men have no power and, in too many cases, no disposition to sacrifice themselves.
Hitler is a criminal lunatic, and Hitler has an army of millions of men, aeroplanes in thousands, tanks in tens of thousands. For his sake a great nation has been willing to overwork itself for six years and then to fight for two years more, whereas for the common-sense, essentially hedonistic world-view which Mr. Wells puts forward, hardly a human creature is willing to shed a pint of blood...
Similarly, why are the Russians fighting like tigers against the German invasion? In part, perhaps, for some half-remembered ideal of Utopian Socialism, but chiefly in defence of Holy Russia (the ‘sacred soil of the Fatherland’, etc. etc.), which Stalin has revived in an only slightly altered from.
The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions — racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war — which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action.
Our situation now is even worse than 1941: much worse; since the West has been gutted even of the "emotions" so that the masses are utterly demotivated.
(Self-destructive - because blind and ignorant - toddler tantrums don't work as a motivation; not when The System is structured against you.)
Meanwhile; the globalist totalitarian leadership class (the modern HG Wellses and their multi-billionaire sugar-daddies) have lost all residual positive desire or pretence genuinely to create peace, convenience, comfort, prosperity...
And instead glory in the sadism of engineered destruction - while deceiving the masses (and their own loyal middle management class of intellectual-workers) with a fantasy, fake, virtual world of sound-bites, pseudo-narratives, media-fuelled distractions, and moralized chaos.
Currently the blood and soil Saxons are rebelling against the Normans but all the money and power and most of the intelligence, as in IQ intelligence, is with the Normans so they will not prevail, and even if they did they wouldn't know how to put things right. The situation is entirely the fault of the corrupt Normans but they will never accept that, seeing themselves in their ignorant complacency as the honourable defenders of peace and harmony - having engineered a situation in which peace and harmony are increasingly impossible.
ReplyDeleteThat was an interesting essay by Orwell. Orwell seems to agree with much of Wells's ideas about the past and future, but thinks his assessment of the present is mistaken. Currently, "The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions", but "[Wells] is probably right in assuming that a ‘reasonable,’ planned form of society, with scientists rather than witch-doctors in control, will prevail sooner or later". In fairness to Orwell, his two most famous books are anti-totalitarian, so I'm sure he didn't forsee how this was going to go.
ReplyDeleteBut the same issue still occurs now. People who deplore the actual state of the world give advice or make predictions that just assume Ahrimanic totalitarianism is going to be in the background. We have to work for something actually good. If patriotism, religion, etc. are just emotions, then they provide short to medium-term motivation, but ultimately what's the point?
And this relates to your earlier posts about enchantment and purpose. We don't know how worldly successful our actions will be nor can we predict the future, but we can't live in accordance with Ahrimanic schemes nor an as-if psychologism. We have to live in accordance with what is both true and good.
Indeed. Everybody in the public discourse is ignorant and lacking discernment, and it is way too late for any good way out of where we are. But somewhere there are those who knew exactly what they were doing and the probable consequences; who engineered the situation, and with very definite evil aims.
ReplyDelete@NLR - Orwell was a very clear writer - but an incoherent thinker - because he hadn't worked things through before overcome by his premature illness and death. Anti-totalitarianism was mainstream in the 60s and 70s - but it led to totalitarianism nonetheless; because it was rooted in nothing deeper than the same "hedonic" values as the pro-totalitarians.
ReplyDeleteI think one can see from Orwell's essay how "racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war" have all been crushed and atomized in the post-war era by the Western intelligentsia who destroyed all such motivations in themselves.
But these would have declined in power anyway (as consciousness has changed, everywhere to become much less groupish); and current motivations are all short-termist, purposeless, and negative - always *against* something or another.
And those who life by short-termist negations are the tools of anyone with a shorter-term and more powerful negation.
What’s happening in the UK is, in effect, a prison riot. Gangs of inmates are attacking each other, but eventually it will run out of steam. In the end, everyone will still be behind bars and will continue being tormented by their sadistic guards.
ReplyDelete@DS - Yes. In a nutshell.
ReplyDelete