Amerika

Ideas not only change how we think about a certain subject, but provide us a template for thinking about all subjects. If an idea turns out to be powerful, or to give us justification or license for certain behaviors we desired anyway, we seize it like a tool or weapon and wield it wherever we can make it fit the subject.

Democracy is the most powerful idea of later civilization. Having lost its initial impetus which arose from the need to make civilization itself work, the society becomes lazy and bloated, justifying this inattention by believing itself to be the greatest empire on earth. The citizens want to earn more money or be more powerful and so they seize power, and in order to unite the herd, they chooses the idea with broadest appeal: “everyone is equal, and therefore, we are only weak and many because the others oppressed us, so let’s do away with better people and focus on a mediocre minimum.”

This idea makes many women swoon and appeals to the young and those who have found life did not work out as they expected. This group has a gap between the real and the ideal to explain, and instead of making themselves more realistic to solve the problem, they scapegoat the rich, powerful and intelligent. Psychologically this thought is like crack because in one fell swoop, it explains all of their shortcomings and gives them a purpose — which they previously lacked — in life.

Through this ideology of equality, democracy infects even many of those who claim to oppose it. They cannot escape the mental programming that all people are the same, and therefore, all they need is the right System to control those people and make them do what “should” be. It takes years of thoughtful contemplation to figure out where this idea goes wrong, and to realize that instead of viewing people as many equal units, they must be seen as an ecosystem or large family with different roles in which no one is responsible for the success of everyone.

Ideology serves as a reality substitute and a replacement of the great void of life, formed of the questions of what one should do with irreplaceable time and how to deal with the pressures from others. This includes the mightily feared “judgment” of the individual and its achievements. Equality is a form of pacifism, or a desire to cease the risk and struggle of conflict, and to bribe others with promises of brotherhood and peace so they do not attack. Socialism is the same; it works by buying off the workers so they do not riot, unionize or otherwise disrupt as they are prone to do.

All of those ideologies serve a single role, which is to excuse humans from having to get their act together. Quality demands struggle, conflict, discipline and self-refinement; equality says there is no reason to improve, and since the individual is equal as it is, people can indulge in whatever illusions they find comforting instead of discovering reality. At the heart of every liberal philosophy hides this desire.

The West has been driven insane by this impossible dream because it corrupts the minds of those in its grasp. They see life as a task of finding self-expression, when they should find self-discipline; they look toward society as an omnipotent group which solves all problems through uniform solutions. Even the great anti-hero of democracy, Adolf Hitler, held on to many of these illusions and they drove him mad as they have every other leader.

Democracy is an unworkable fiction. It always has been. Most people are crazy until they self-discipline; democracy removes knowledge of this need. People in groups choose easy compromises over hard truths; democracy legitimizes this process. The ideology of all people being equal creates a pervasive guilt and paranoia in all people, and it makes them existentially miserable. They turn to fetishes, greed, and inanity to escape, but nothing can save them.

We live in a time that is thoroughly sick with this deep mental illness. Sanity is considered insane because insanity is mandated to be normal and sane. The paradox breaks people, starting with the most intelligent. While democracy has bungled every decision it has been handed, it has also muddled and distorted the minds of its citizens, so that now misery rules the land but no one will admit it.

The first step in escaping this mental disease is to realize that most people are the cause of their own misfortunes. Were they to discipline their approach and try to be realistic, they would in time get used to that. But throughout history, most people have fought tooth and nail against this type of humility and reverence for life. They want to worship only one god, and that is themselves. To them, reality is a competitor and an enemy.

When confronting this illusion — democracy, egalitarianism, socialism, pluralism — this first step enables a person to realize that the few who have their minds disciplined, and the ability to lead, should rule us. The rest will only screw it up if given power, and will in fact deliberately do so because a dysfunctional society camouflages their own personal dysfunction. The illusion is just common weakness disguised as profundity.

Democracy makes people into zombies by making them dependent on ideology. It destroys their self-esteem by judging them only by external traits, and not giving them credit for who they are; it creates a world so vapid it drives people into a fury of self-loathing. And yet, without equality, they think they will be judged and found wanting, so like addicts they return to the needle even as it kills them.

The West is currently winding down. Like every society before it, it has collapsed, probably because its wealth allowed illusion to be as successful as realism, and then it went down the path of democracy. We still have a chance to save ourselves, but the biggest battle is in our heads, to rid ourselves of the insanity before it drives us into lashing out, failing and then self-destructing.

Tags: crowdism, democracy, egalitarianism, pluralism, socialism