We’re the Bad Guys?

René Magritte, Golconda, 1953.

2,173 words

The twofold crises of the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic are perfect opportunities for modern nihilists and culture-destroyers of every stripe to let off all the brakes. It is not often that world events align so cleanly with the rhetoric and goals of our enemies, which presents some troubling developments for us to contend with on the one hand: obviously, watching our cities burn while being told to shelter in place is a bit of a slap in the face. But these events present a useful opportunity to evaluate the actual efficacy of our enemies’ broadly unsustainable strategies in a way that likely has not been observed in any of our lifetimes.

The hot-button political issues of the past decade often steered well clear of genuine questions about race or liberalism through being couched in distracting, often euphemistic dialogue. Americans did not actually talk about race for a long time, able to hide behind the useful cope of colorblindness [1] that held the nation together long enough to withstand about three post-WW2 generations convinced of the ideals of neoliberalism.

The major political turning points of the past half-century have mostly pertained to reconciliations of modern liberal individualism with questions of race, sexuality, and religion, affording a veneer of moral unity amongst the populace. The 60s civil rights revolutions were generally discussed in terms of individual liberty and broader human decency, which were useful appeals at a time in which most Americans generally agreed upon a common set of social principles, most of which were derived from post-Enlightenment political theory and generally Protestant attitudes towards social order. It was mostly universally understood among Americans by what it meant to be a good person, in both the public and private sphere — the questions of the decades had more to do with whether these morals would be extended (and theoretically, reciprocated) to a previously segregated segment of the nation. Rather than a rejection of the American ideal, the civil rights revolution sought (at least nominally) for this ideal to apply to the entire population.

The Floyd crisis has exposed this charade for what it is, of course. The ideals of individual liberty cannot be reciprocated in the public sphere by people who still behave tribally, hence the destruction we have seen on a mass scale following the spark of insurrection that flew from a career criminal shuffling off the mortal coil underneath a white cop. What makes these events different in their implications is in who is now determining the course of political discourse in the nation; where once WASP politicians would appeal to the common framework of individual liberalism, we are now listening to a glob of institutions that ultimately have no common goal beyond advancing interests that run contrary to those of the general public. The people we are dealing with now profess no interest in maintaining the American system. They hold explicit grudges against us, or if it is a corporate mouthpiece, they seek enough subjugation against us to make us better consumers. There is no common ground to appeal to, yet despite this, appeals to morality are still made: either support us, or you are a bad person.

This phenomenon is not unique to the Floyd boogaloo, but can also be applied to the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Either follow the rules, or you are a bad person, responsible for literal death; even criticism of policy to contain the disease, much of which has no historical precedent or possibly even scientific value, is enough for the accusation of evil to be leveled at those who dare to speak out. One has to wonder, though; what exactly do these people mean by being a “good person?” We can understand well enough that it’s important to be respectful of other human beings. But what is not understood is what we stand to gain from this interaction. White people developed our codes of conduct and our philosophies because we can reasonably expect people to behave around us. American whites are hardcoded to be “good people,” hence the usefulness of the appeal.

The pressure of social ostracization is enough to make individuals behave in predictable ways, and when applied for the purpose of social cohesion, this often has good outcomes. But what about when people with no interest in being amicable or respectful back towards you demand that you be a “good person”? Do our enemies have an actual moral framework to cite from, or are they expecting us to rely upon our own and not ask any questions about their end game?

The worldview of neoliberalism in the West is broadly nihilistic. The highest good is either that of profit or spiteful rejection of previously-existing social norms, generally derided as being arbitrary or antiquated in form. The people who espouse or live this moral code don’t have a moral code at all; they do what makes them feel good or what makes them feel powerful, whether that is though terrorizing other people or by self-aggrandizing through these aforementioned appeals to righteousness. (“If people I do not like are bad people, this must make me a good person.”)

More important than these attitudes, however, is this the attitude of skepticism prevalent among neoliberals today; by eyeing their surroundings with an innate disdain or suspicion, they can profess that they are somehow progressive by constantly attacking institutions despite lacking a useful description of what their ideal world would look like. We see this among Floyd riot-enablers in their description of a police-free world, with nebulous descriptions of more funding going towards social services to strike at the so-called causes of crime, rather than in enforcing the law. [2]

Hungarian-British philosopher Michael Polanyi described a concept he calls “moral inversion,” a “condition in which a high moral purpose operates only as the hidden force of an openly declared inhumanity.” [3] When the central principle of the ruling class and its street thugs — the lumpenproles persuaded either by personal gain or the promise of power — is that of simple destruction, there can be no other description of their aims than an “openly declared inhumanity.” The misanthropy of the Left is disguised in two ways, whether that is in the blindness of their targets due to their own sense of upright social behavior (“they are protesting for equality”) or in the Left’s own cries of injustice or victimization (“we seek only redress for crimes committed against us”).

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Some of these people genuinely believe their fight to be true and good, which is likely the case for high-minded whites joining blacks on the streets in the demand for. . . something. Others, of course, have no real skin in the game beyond the advancement of their potential agendas, as is likely the case in corporations pitching money into the Black Lives Matter struggle. [4] But the fact remains that there exists no actual end goal in sight for any of these groups. Mouthing off about “justice” is deliberately vague. Even calls for reparations carry with them dangerous implications; would economic reparations to blacks represent an end game, an achieved goal in the fight for racial equality? Or would they merely set a precedent? [5] The same is true for COVID-19 smarminess. Will the insane double standards of who is allowed to gather in public and who is not end once there is a vaccine, a specific therapy, or when the virus dies out entirely? Or will this episode in social control encourage leaders in the future to play with our lives at will?

I will also hazard a guess that part of the reason there is any serious anti-mask movement in the United States is because of the sheer sanctimoniousness of the people telling Americans to put one on. It’s not unreasonable to dismiss the medical advice of people known to be regularly dishonest. Those guiding the nation’s policy on virus containment have combined a heady brew of “moral skepticism [of the general public’s own morals]” with “moral indignation,” [6] resulting in a headier brew of moral inversion that doesn’t even pass the sniff test of the nation’s hopelessly idealistic (or in some cases, just stupid) body politic.

There is, therefore, some cause for optimism.

Polanyi believes that those engaged in such trickery eventually “recoil from the demands of their version and seek to re-establish truth and human ideals in their own right,” [7] which led to the tumultuous upheavals seen in Eastern and Central Europe prior to the dissolution of the USSR. [8] There is a crucial difference between old Communist regimes and the present social order in the United States, however; where these aforementioned regimes were dependent upon the success of an ideology, American social order is held together almost entirely by the profit incentive. One could reasonably wax poetic about an ideology, then eventually grow sick of your mantras and reject the whole thing upon recognizing its innate anti-humanity. But when the diktats of the system offer you a path towards a handsome profit, and the means of securing it from the consequences of your actions, men can be driven to even further extremes than fanaticism could bring them to. The hideous irony of this is the fact that these extremes are made generally invisible — American society is mostly one of peace, and men seldom fight any more. Far greater a humiliation it is to work in an office building for a company shoveling money into a color revolution than it is to be gutted in combat.

Rather, the rejection of this constructed pseudo-moral code will come from the underclass. We have seen the beginnings of this with Black Lives Matter leaders decrying corporate hands in what they thought was their war game. [9] A reaction against the Black Lives Matter movement — or in a less clear-cut example, coronavirus lockdowns — from the white underclass, despite its general impotence, led to heavy resistance. It will take quite some time for American whites to realize that a BLM thug will not respond to his appeals towards a common good or common philosophy, but the process is certainly underway. The most perverse, and likely counterproductive, example of this would be the rejection of the idea of the commons when it comes to mask-wearing. Behind pseudoscientism or half-hearted musings on individual liberty, the underlying motivation behind rejecting a lockdown or a dishrag around one’s face is that one feels there isn’t even a society to protect anymore. [10]

All of these reactions could simply be further applications of dull-minded individualism as Americans know it, and for the average Joe, they likely are. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that these feeble protests, ultimately harmless as they are, will eventually be met with true violence. It’s only then that white Americans will recognize that there’s a problem. I regret only that it had to come to this, though I can’t say we didn’t warn them.

I think of the age-old wisdom: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” The Left cannot keep up their game of playing the moral high ground while expecting that the moral values of the society they live in be destroyed, as it’s beginning to irk even the simplest-minded. If I may be grand, I believe that the universe does value truth. Let enough time pass, and our enemies will become inundated in their own contradictions.

We simply must be ready to take up the mantle when their machinations collapse, lest political power falls into the hands of the individualists once more. I can’t bear watching history repeat itself.

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Notes

[1] Of course, this era has long since passed.

[2] This is, of course, a convenient talking point when any crime committed by a non-white could theoretically be explained away by social causes, while any crime committed by a white could be attributed to hate in their hearts. The political consequences of this worldview are self-explanatory. We are beginning to see inklings of this applied in the real-world with generally performative gestures like the CAREN Act in San Francisco.

[3] Michael Polanyi, Knowing and Being. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969. p. 16.

[4] I would be remiss not to mention the obvious: this behavior fits the pattern of a certain group of people that may have taken control of these same institutions.

[5] We know the answer to this question.

[6] Polanyi, 44.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Polanyi specifically cites Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, page 22.

[9] Or is this just another example of the gibsmedat mentality being enabled, leading to petulant behavior and an inability to form workable alliances? History shall tell.

[10] A moral inversion itself?