← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · neoclassical
Thread ID: 18725 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2005-06-20
2005-06-20 02:40 | User Profile
Egodrama and the Coming Warfare
Humanity generates an absolute infostorm of commentary, figures, "facts" and the like, and ultimately, it hampers our situation: attempting diagnosis of what's gone wrong and fixing it before we let our diseased civilization develop the entire world in its image, guaranteeing that we run out of resources and collapse, never to rise again. We have become so dependent on our stream of data that we often miss the issues staring ourselves in the face, preferring to work our way through an internal dialogue of studies, reports, propaganda and entertainment.
The only people for whom this is convenient are those short-sighted individuals who care about personal profit at the expense of all other things, and therefore, are perfectly willing to sabotage the process of finding an answer because they have a vested interest in selling products which are only relevant while the disaster is ongoing. Those who have lived past age eight in the West are familiar with this behavior, as it is what retards our lives in infinite ways: life-saving drugs blocked by pharmaceutical companies, solutions obstructed by government bureaucracy, smart ways of living obscured by those who make products for the neurotic, dilatory committees that refuse to find an answer because to do so would end the committee and thus, the easy paycheck. Nothing new or unfamiliar there!
Backing up for a moment, when we look at the world with a practical eye that sees outside of the internal dialogue of public humanity, we can see that our human civilization is moving forward without a plan and thus is consuming resources at an out of control rate. The West, being roughly defined as the countries of Europe and North America, are leading this process through their rhetoric, political influence, and economy, including the export of its technology. When we get over the immature and silly desire to point fingers, claim the West and "colonialism" are to blame for all problems, and thus stop working for a practical solution, we can see the West as the first society infected by this disease - being earth's most prosperous society - and therefore a carrier, and not willing agent of, this decline.
Sensible people see four major areas of problems for humanity. These are, in brief:
Ecocide is on the horizon, climate change is closing in, and we've exhausted supplies of open land, natural game including fish, and fresh water. While there is an increase in chatter on this issue, no clear plan that will avert the disaster has been suggested, much less acted upon. Imminent failure awaits.
Our people, conditioned by the values of this society, have become selfish. They are concerned primarily with personal wealth and social importance, and as a result, will fight to their dying breath against anything which restricts their "freedom." However, no greater culture has come from this freedom, nor anything resembling a long-term plan, so it becomes clear that our ego-drama is the source of our bad values regarding actual impetus to fix the situation. It is this condition that is the topic of the article you are reading.
While many object to even considering people in genetic terms, the fact of the matter is that our potential is limited by our innate abilities; someone with an IQ of 85 is not going to become a neurosurgeon. Genetics is more than IQ, however; it includes general health, intelligence, beauty and something barely-definable that we call "character," which reflects the values of our natural impulses. Well-bred people act morally for the whole, while ill-bred people act destructively. Our genetic decline has two major veins: first, through altered natural selection, we are breeding people fit to work jobs and buy products - drones, in short. Second, through racial admixture, we have destroyed the native ethnic-cultural bonds of most countries, and because hybrids do not exhibit a clear tendency in intelligence, strength, beauty and character (until bred exclusively in an in-group composed of the same hybrid), we have created rootless lumpenproletariat who are fit only for jobs and have no adhesion to any form of native culture.
Even more obscure to most people is the concept of our existential decline, which refers to our daily experience and how well what we spend our hours doing is an even swap for our ultimate mortality. People who feel their lives are on the wrong path, or that their time is wasted, experience existential terror. In the modern West, we spend a disproportionate amount of our time at jobs, commuting, shopping, dealing with bureaucracies, paying bills and arguing with irrational people. This contributes to an overall sense of existential dread and a morbid neurosis.
As stated above, the question addressed by this article is ego-drama, or a fascination on the self at the expense of all else. Our problems entirely relate to this. As we see ourselves not only as individuals, but as individual "self-images" within the social group as a whole, the ego-question relates to our behavior (a) individually and (b) as members of a crowd. It is well-known that a mob will do things individuals will not, because as a mob we are not individually accountable; the actions that are taken represent a consensus, and relate to a perceived shared-self interest, often of the form that defends an idealized "average" individual in a way designed to guarantee lack of accountability for all. Mobs like free things, scapegoats, quick solutions and executions, and other than that, have no decision-making capability. Present a mob with the question of how to limit our collective resource utilization so that we do not commit ecocide and you'll get a "duh?," but ask a mob to protect our "right" and "freedom" to own SUVs and they'll enthusiastically kill whomever you indicate is responsible for threatening that "right."
Our crowds are mobs. To make matters worse, these mobs are, as individuals, inclined toward selfishness because they see the entire world through the filter of ego-drama. The question is not what is right to do for humankind and environment alike, but what the individual "desires" - like "freedom" and "right," this is an ambiguous word that serves its user, as anything can be defined as a "desire" and thus escapes any further analysis of its value. Much as a crowd protects the individuals from responsibility, an ambiguous word shields their intentions and values systems from further critique. Ego-drama thrives in such situations, as it is both protected and encouraged, yet has no check or balance on its power. There is no right answer, only individual desires, and even more damagingly, they are not subdivided according to individual, but take the form of one standard for every person.
Anyone who has ever attempted to find an "average" human knows how hopeless that task is. Average (adult) humans have between 80 and 160 IQ points, weight between 90 and 400 pounds, can have any number of skin colors and bone densities and facial structures, and like to eat, sleep, talk and play. However, if we have to set up a single standard for these, we must find an approximation: the average human has 100 IQ points, weights 150 pounds, has dark skin and dark eyes, heavy bone density and a prognathous facial structure. Really? Only a small percentage of our population actually meets this description, but when we calculate our laws and regulations and even prices of goods, we use something along these lines to define that abstraction "the consumer." It's almost as funny as averaging genders, and realizing that the average human is a hermaphrodite.
However, crowds love averages, and they love "rights" and "freedoms," as these are the barriers to further criticism that protect inner desires of which they are secretly ashamed, usually taking the form of greed, envy, excess and fear. If you have no need for a giant truck, but desire one, the best form of society to empower that desire is one that cannot criticize it. Any society with a single culture, or even clear goal, will sooner or later tell you that since you have no need for such a truck, you can't have it - or even worse, that they suspect your motivations. Western history for the past 2,000 years has been a steady progress toward these types of protective systems, mainly because they sell well: fear sells, and nothing sells quite like the fear that one cannot indulge one's hidden but irrational defects.
For this reason, our crowds are defensive, and their primary line of defense is the ego and its self-image counterpart. When this happens, suddenly truth is an endangered species; if it offends, it is bad, as its presence is contrary to the will and morality of the herd. This means that suddenly we exist on another level from reality: the value of a piece of information is determined primarily not by how correct it is, but how politically acceptable it is, causing all things which are true but offend someone - anyone - to be discarded. That is a hefty filter we impose upon reality, and as a consequence of it, many things are entirely off our radar, leaving us to be surprised when the disaster they foretold suddenly comes crashing into our laps.
This blockade of truth is what pushes Western society toward what Nietzsche and Spengler both described as a "final nihilism," or a point in which none of those who think trust what they're told or the official version of truth. This final nihilism is different from the passive nihilism of the "last man," in which people literally care about nothing other than their individualistic comfort and wealth and social status, because it is an active nihilism: it asserts the necessity of believing in nothing other than the real, and by that nature, the tearing down violently of all that is not real. It is one aspect of the warrior-spirit of Indo-Europeans, in that it thrusts them into a state where they have a choice between asserting what is natural and sane, or being dragged down into the quagmire of illusion, pleasant social lies and false public image.
Ultimately, it is sad we come to this final conflict; that we have wasted our resources, covered our world in concrete cities, and destroyed ourselves by breeding humans for conformity and a desire to earn money instead of honor. Yet with this cataclysm comes a clearness of mind, a certainty of decision, that enables us to do whatever is required, no matter how many lives or lands are destroyed. Its urgency enables us to see beyond ourselves, and to be ready for any sacrifice in order to do what is right - not what is popular, or ordained by morality or money or law or social factors. In this transcendence of ego-drama there is a maturity, and while it will be a time of much sorrow, it will also be an age of heroes as we confront this maturation of humanity.
[url]http://www.nazi.org/nazi/policy/egodrama/[/url]