Amerika

In the question of human civilization, we see two generalized options:

1. Use the way things naturally are as a means to something else;
2. Change the way things are as a means to the state of that change.

For example, if we are managing a forest, we look at it and see chaos. We either keep that general order and let it renew itself with forest fires and periodic disease, or we clear out the underbrush, cut down the “extra” trees, inoculate against disease, and maybe even plant the trees in nice straight rows evenly spaced, so that we feel a human sense of power through our type of mental organization imposed on the reality around us.

The sticky point is that if you choose the second option, you can never have goals. You have replaced the idea of goals with a singular and unchanging goal, which is to change the way things are. You hate that forests are unequal, so you are going to make them be equal, but that has then replaced all other goals.

Even if you start out saying, “We’ll make the world equal in order to have other goals,” you will get stuck in a perpetual loop on the whole making world equal part. Reality does not obey human intentions; you will find yourself perpetually slamming that round peg into a square hole, hammering it even harder to force the irritating little thing in there, and enjoying the sheer futility and hatred you experience because at least it is clear, galvanizing and makes you feel a sense of power over the nature that will eventually kill you.

Conservatives — all nationalists, traditionalists, racialists, classists, and other clear thinkers fall under this banner — value conserving the best of eternal human civilization and morality, which means being realists who view life through the lens of history, and also having transcendental goals like excellence so that we know what “the best” is. As realists, we accept reality as it is, and avoid trying the quixotic process of hammering it into even grids of trees; we also have a principle for our goals, which is that it must match the best of history. But we can have goals.

With Leftism, you simply join a whirlpool. People tell each other happy things that make them feel good, and then they create an echo chamber where everyone repeats the same fiction to everyone else, and finally this picks up speed as it sucks everything down into the need to maintain this ridiculous illusion. The best part is that at the moment they think they have achieved victory because the whirlpool is at full strength, they are also closest to getting forced under the water forever, finally equal in death.

Tags: egalitarianism, goals, leftism, realism