Wednesday 27 October 2010

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" - true, but how?

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I am thinking, here, about the Western elites.

That they are mad is clear, that they are en route to utter destruction I believe.

That is where the 'madness' comes in.

That 'the gods' wish to extirpate the Western elites seems obvious, and the reasons why are also obvious; but for the requisite irreversible annihilation certainly to happen requires that the elites become insane - not merely in losing their spontaneous sense of self-preservation, but actively willing self-annihilation.

Otherwise, sans lunacy, a sane elite would pull-back just enough to avert nemesis, and survive to wreak further havoc.

Since the gods want to ensure this does not happen, they first ensure that the elite are mad.

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6 comments:

a Finn said...

After the French revolution, members of the new elite could vote in a way, which they knew and sensed, would soon lead to their own decapitation in guillotine. They voted that way anyway, group after group, and they were executed in guillotine.

The decline and serious problems could be seen in Rome long before it's downfall. Elites still continued their policies until the bitter end.

Etc.

Self preservation instinct in elites? No, or at least surge of other things drown it easily. And then there are almost automatic young man's strides towards destruction.

The dividing line between good and evil/ bad, sanity and insanity, reason and stupidity is drawn in our souls too. What was I thinking and feeling when I was a naive and stupid, and yes, pseudoreligious, atheist? What was Charlton thinking and feeling when he wrote in Modernization Imperative about evolutionary liberal democracy, which will produce an excess of alternatives, of which the best (or at least sufficiently good) are selected in the long run. This process is helped by the present and future science and technology, so the result is (almost?) automatically good in the long run, we don't have to plan or prepare very much for the future. Could an observer notice that evolution of human societies can in numerous ways equally well lead to mass murders; genocides; brutal tyrannies; wars; destruction; famines; replacement, displacement and vanishing of the original people and culture, etc.? What are the masses thinking when they swim in the sea of liberalism every day, in every way; live, breathe and eat liberalism, and then "resist" and complain about liberalism. Could they do at least some things differently, free at least their little finger from liberalism, give it to the good, so that it would save their whole hand?

These are the questions we should ask first from ourselves, learn, discuss it with others, combine our knowledge, develop enduring solutions, and then radiate change to the environment.

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The most genuine conservatives seem to be those, whose somatic marker mechanism very subtly, but reasonably, marks all kinds of microproblems and potential problems long before they become serious problems, compels them to think about them comprehensively, and to develop solutions to them, and to prepare to them; who have disposition to religiosity; and who have spontaneous and clear preference to their own people, but conditional on reciprocity and compatibility.

These people are at maximum about 20% of our people. They can form enduring groups, and these could form more durable cores of new societies after destruction/ devastating change. We should gather as large percentage as possible of these people together in small networked groups. Some of them are uneasy liberals now, some various conservatives.

Prototypical liberals are people with opposite or lacking predispositions in relation to these. They are very optimistic, they have tendency to avoid dealing with potential problems or problems unless problems fall on them concretely. They don't notice potential problems easily and if they happen to notice them, they have a tendency to ignore or bypass them. Their rationalizations support this tendency. They are obsessed more with constant expansion; status connected to this; present moment; quantity; indiscriminate flux and change; than with quality; endurance; discerning differences and compatibilities; long term; understanding reasonable limits and borders of abilities, resources, niches and areas; authority; holy things; etc.

a Finn said...

Addition: I listed individual propensity differences between liberals and conservatives, and I ignored deliberately the strong social influences on actions, feelings and thinking.

a Finn said...

Second addition.

The purpose of dealing with some negative past things of ours is not to wallow in those negative things or distribute blame. We just have the most concrete knowledge about those, despite the fact that people fairly often can't explain their reasons or all reasons for doing something, feeling something, thinking something or choosing something, in a way that is congruent with outside and inside influences (e.g. problem solving experiments involving tying of ropes and researchers either giving or not giving subconscious solution hints).

Brandon said...

The "god's" are demons. The human mind is open to the spirit world and is controlled by it. They who reject truth are given a lie.

Truth rejectors are mainly in the highminded/high educated category (present company excluded) These have their intelligence taken from them, for they are using it for their own benefit and to oppress and shut up others.
It is they and they only, and their followers who are infected in this way.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Brandon - that is pretty much my understanding of this as well; except that 'controlled' is too strong, probably. Maybe it is more like the idea that vampires must be invited-in, there must be an embrace - or at least surrender? Which, of course, there has been.

bRANDON said...

Yes. The rejection of truth is the "invitation".