Amerika

Furthest Right

Periscope (May 1, 2020)

by Brett Stevens on May 1, 2020

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9vSBazmJ4

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines nihilism as a complex belief beginning with these basics:

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.

The “impulse to destroy” bit never made any sense, since someone who is actually skeptical of existence would probably be entirely neutral toward it, viewing it as a strange incomprehensible random picture show. Sage observers will note that no “pure” nihilist can exist if “all values are baseless” is interpreted in a universal context, since at that point the nihilist will probably forget to eat. A more sensible definition separates nihilism and fatalism, seeing the former as:

A rejection of universal values
A rejection of universal knowledge
A rejection of universal communication

A nihilist would regard his hunger as “true,” but probably only to himself. He might be skeptical of hunger even but biological impulse would drive him, and so he would consider his hunger an actual need, at least after a few days. However, he would not see hunger as a truth of which others were expected to know, or to which they were expected to attend. It would merely be a condition of the nihilist himself, much as others might have hunger but he would not necessarily believe in them in their assertions of such. People have lied since the dawn of time for free food without needing it; if nothing else, they can re-sell it, and we are industrious little monkeys, are we not?

Fatalism, on the other hand, means a lack of belief in efficacy of the individual within reality. That is, no matter what one does, the results will either be preordained or, worse, about the same as doing nothing. Fatalism is depression and self-pity. This may be the root of evil, a type of error based in considering what the self perceives as being absolute and universal on the basis of the self perceiving it. When Milton’s Satan says that it is “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven,” he is rejecting the order of reality as a whole in preference to his own desires, a condition the ancient Greeks knew as hubris, or acting above one’s station such that one considers personal values, knowledge, and communications to be more important than that which can be verified as consistent with the whole of external reality. This hubris generally arises from fatalism: a lack of belief that life can be good, engendering a need for control by the individual who rationalizes himself as the only good; modern fatalism emerges from the instability of civilization, which fell apart because it refused to unite around a higher goal after succeeding in its material goals, and instead — bloated by the excess fatalistic low-performers created by its wealth — settled for fighting endlessly over how to divide the wealth, power, and social importance that already exists.

A nihilist views reality as objective, meaning existing independently of himself, even if he recognizes that he can influence it. He also refuses any universal truths, values, or communications, which means that he realizes that he may be able to see things that others cannot, but only if those are consistent with the whole of reality. By being freed from such things, he realizes that he does not need to become infected with the fatalism of others, but can view reality as infinite (which it appears to be, although not visually or in material senses) and therefore, he can always create more wealth, power, and social importance if such things are needed. Instinct would lead this nihilist to reject social importance as a goal, seeing it only as a means to power, which is only useful for asserting that which is actual against the constant flood of human delusion, neurosis, selfishness, apathy, mental laziness, schizophrenia, megalomania, and sociopathy. In this way, we can see that nihilism and fatalism are opposites of a kind.

However, that “impulse to destroy” (not to be confused with the excellent 1989 Blood album Impulse to Destroy) seems to pervade the fatalistic West. The Left, having seized power but irate that this power is not absolute, wish to trash the world economy with panic so that they can seize power, much as they did after the War of 1812, the Civil War, WW1, the Great Depression, the Kennedy Assassination, the Iran-Contra affair, and the Great Recession, bringing us Irish immigration, the Fourteenth Amendment, income taxes with big government attached, market socialism through entitlement programs, the Hart-Celler Act, the Clinton presidency, and the Obama regime, respectively. All of these were destructive acts portrayed instead as benevolent and enlightened ones, as if those ill with fatalism were trying to convince themselves through symbolic acts that life could, indeed, be good. We might see all of Leftism, the political branch of egalitarianism, as a psychological method in this mold, attempting to use external symbolism to lift up depressed spirits through the “progress” and “compassion” of making others equal. Idle hands do the work of the devil, and people who are both materially content and without purpose regularly dedicate their lives to “improving” upon reality, usually by remaking it in the image of their own disordered mental state.

So: the COVID-19 panic has mostly ended, since it turns out that if we just wore masks, washed our hands, wiped our groceries, and avoided movie theaters and crowded offices, we would have all been fine. Even more, we have found out that we like life better without all the unnecessary human activity, and that nature has recovered more than we anticipated after just six weeks of less human bullshit. Our pro forma make-work jobs and endless pursuit of distraction through social and commercial activity look thin and hollow now, since we are finding out that real life — the real work, self-discipline, and self-actualization — happens inside the human heart, where in fact the cure for fatalism (and, by extension, materialism, atheism, perversity, and depression) lies: when we order our brains around reality, we come to see its beauty, and we lose our fatalism and hubris, instead settling into a comfortable esoteric nihilism where we recognize that no one thing works for everyone, no two people see the same thing, and symbols mislead us because the person receiving the message tends to interpret it according to his own needs, psychology, and abilities. With this freedom from the idea that herd consensus is necessary for something to be true, nations are breaking away from the international community and doing what works for them according to them; this used to be called “independence,” which is a more sensible term than “freedom,” an absolute symbol that swells human hearts and disconnects the brain immediately. Within nations, people are realizing that there is more to life than lifting up the poor or bringing good word of Jesus to the impoverished people of the third world, and that instead we should focus on actual production of things which are useful to our own people, cutting our work hours to the minimum so that we can, you know, enjoy life, including its transcendent and possibly metaphysical aspects.

This means that modernity — the social order founded on egalitarianism — is dying. It has been dying, which is why populism rose up, with people saying that they want out of the endless Leftist treadmill of working long hours on nothing important in order to inflate GDP so that taxes can raise and entitlements can flow out to those who cannot help themselves. Now, its death seems confirmed, since we like life in quarantine better than “normal” modern life of jobs, commuting, school, consumerism, democracy, and endless fighting over the equal distribution of resources. Russia-China finds itself on the outside, since it hoped to lure us into oblivion with egalitarianism, a disease it has mostly driven from itself, but now its future lies in making its own economy and society functional, something Asia has been dodging for tens of thousands of years since the ancient Polynesians first perfected a modern-style civilization and, in doing so, deprived their people of meaning. Even white nationalism is thankfully dying, since people are realizing that if you are going to choose your neighbors, you want people actually like you which means both innate characteristics (race, class, ethnicity) and what Richard Spencer sensibly calls elective identities such as religion, politics, and what you find meaningful in life, whether Star Trek or Nietzsche (I won’t judge… much). We are moving into a future of strong leadership, social divisions based on hierarchy, economies based in pure capitalism with strong cultural oversight, restoration of belief in our peoples and their cultures and faiths, and of course, a lot less television.

Everything is going swimmingly. We are not out of the woods yet; great battles await, but if you search for your inner feral atavistic beast you will see that you love that stuff. You are going to have to exterminate any number of Leftists, Russians, lawyers, Chinese, bureaucrats, perverts, neurotics, promiscuity cases, sociopaths, schizoids, Iranians, immigrants, fundamentalist-universalist Christians, media talking heads, and — did I mention Leftists? — drive them out of your country. You are going to have to deconstruct (heh, heh) the legal system added to your countries since at least the War of 1812, and more likely the French Revolution. If you are intelligent, you will want the return of the kings and to banish all people with even a whiff of the egalitarian about them to Venezuela (where they will become either enlightened progressive citizens or carne asada, and no one cares much which). At the end of this, humanity will come out of the dark age of fatalism brought on by the success of civilization and the ensuing death of meaning, and our blonde beasts will emerge once more. Godspeed, and goodnight.

Tags: linkpost, periscope