This article clearly recapitulates that equality combined with high quality-of-life can only coexist at the "cost" of homogeneity. Very few societies have achieved this without homogeneity - think Switzerland. Scare quotes around cost because only in the present era is diversity an unqualifiable good.
But there are more ingredients to the current malaise. The progressive ideal has abandoned the principle of *reciprocity*, and created a social norm that some may demand equality from others without having to return such treatment. And what has resulted is what "equality" is today - actually revanchisme.
Of women against men, everyone against white people, gay against straight, indigenous against "coloniser" etc etc. The rule is "You have to kiss my ass but I get to spit in your face" - asymmetric egalitarianism if you will.
Lucky me - I was born just within that map's boundaries, but got to live one generation AFTER the straight-white-man goodies ran out.
Asymmetric egalitarianism is a cute way of putting it, and of course this is not egalitarianism at all.
This is one of the reasons I tried to emphasize the connection between duty and right. The two must be in balance. You can't grant one without imposing the other. Which is what the progs try to do...
That's a little uncharitable to slavery. Slaves often were rewarded historically, just on a more practical basis instead of overtly formal legal rights. You can have your master buy you new shoes, you can have a feast, and if you do really well you are manumitted. When I say "obligation without reward is punishment" the legitimate context is criminal punishment. Criminals who commit actual crimes should be punished. However, if non-criminals who have not committed any actual crimes are *effectively* being punished, then you are witnessing a tyranny worse than actual slavery.
read my longer post above, think it applies to your response. Forcing me to support things i don't support, or taking experimental injections smacks me as slavery, but hidden much better. If you can't agree on the meaning of words, how are you going to agree on the meaning of laws? We're at an impasse, and the readers here are going to have to decide at some point when they won't let the aggression stand, man.
Yes. Sweden took a somewhat different economic tract yet had about the same positive results as Switzerland until something changed. Let's hope the Swiss are not blinded fully by the fanaticism.
That change I can explain, if you can parse/stand my rambling. Brief summary:
By the 1970s, the ruling Socialist Democrat party (which had reigned since 1945, often claiming over 50% of the vote - no fraud) faced a dilemma.
The ideologically True Believers of The Movement (as the party is referred to colloquially) wanted to go full communist, in a legal manner. The Unions were to start buying up shares of banks and corporations, to allow the Party to legally take control and effectiviely socialise the entire economy, without any violent revolutions or eminent domain-shenanigans.
The pragmatic majority of the party opposed this, leading to infighting and schisms.
Meanwhile, the radical fringe (Soviet-loyalists, feminists and such) managed to sell their support to Palme's more pragmatic faction in exchange for concessions in accordance with feminist and mulitcultural ideology.
At the same time, the other dilemma faced by the party was taxes. They were too high, so high they suffocated the economy. And people (as Gramsci had found out decades before in Italy) didn't want didactic we-know-better-than-you-to-live-you-life politics. Swedish even has idioms for that kind of political thinking, which should tell you how prevalent such people are in our political landscape, among all parties.
But lowering taxes was seen as a dangerous prejudice by the majority of the party, and so they dithered until they lost an election in the mid-1970s. However, the opposing coalition managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory and floundered, letting the Socialist Democrats back in office. But by now, the party had started to adopt American neoliberalism, part of which was equality-politics and migration (all races equal and such).
Switzerland didn't start down this part until around 2010, and so is simply lagging behind, but they are catching up quite quickly. Also, since Swirzerland is where capitalist oligarchs and genocidal tyrants, terrorist billionaires, globalist pedphiles and such hide their stash, their economy operate under different conditions than does Sweden's.
Final point of comparison:
In the mid-1970s, a Swedish Crown and a Swiss Franc exchanged at 1:1. I think it's something like 14:1 now. Since Sweden has been spending ca 2%-3% of its GDP since ca 2005 on migration, well - the Good People and the US-trained economists and bankers tells us "the profit will appear eventually down the line".
Remarkable how much they sound like Soviet economists promising miracles thanks to the new five-year plan.
The fundamental bind is the same in every Western country: the electorate has two unpalatable choices - pro-worker economics with cultural leftism versus cultural security of the right but with neoliberalism. This is the reason the left could build such an oligarchic ruling lineage - most people simply pay the price of economic security and accept the Marxist BS culturally.
If only there was a pro-working class party that was "culturally preservationist"... they would romp in. I think that is what the Reform UK is trying to do.
Yes, certainly that is the major problem: we live under an alliance that combines the worst social politics/policy aspects of "cultural Marxism" with the worst qualities of Hayek/Mises' neoliberalism.
As in, we the peoples get the disadvantages of both and none of the benefits.
Like wolves and bears co-operating to get at the sheep.
Not a ramble in the reply, which was thoughtful and informative.
The successors to the Soviets learned at least one new trick: never put a date on The Plan.
It is sad to read that about the Swiss, but it perhaps it explains why they put their vaunted banking secrecy/security at risk by turning over information about Russian assets. The ones who provided the information apparently are of a like-mind with those who requested it.
They were. Essentially cough it up or be excluded from the world financial system. The American oligarchs were strong enough to enforce it at that point.
Since there's a very real plan and drive for conquering Russia and splitting it into dozens of client states under US/EU-rule (make that IMF/World Bank/Blackrock & similar corporatist menaces), the prize may have been as little as:
"You get to do business as usual and you get first right of refusal to any investment loans in the new territories once Russia crumbles".
Russia however, seems unwilling to co-operate. Not that I'm much of a fan of that nation or its people anyway, but I dislike dishonest wheelings and dealings no matter the source.
Thanks for the summary. Back in the 1970s in England, Sweden was held to be the gold standard of welfare socialism and equality. Funny how things worked out...
That just speaks to the essays point that few really believe in equality, and those who pay lip-service to it loudest knowingly do so in order to bludgeon those they instinctively feel inferior to.
It's envy all the way down - from Satan to Marx to Foucault.
'Say, I seek refuge in the Lord.. from the evil of an envier when they envy' - Quran
They are "killing us with kindness" is how i would frame it. It is why the token cuts to USAID and anything else they blathered on about the last few months mean nothing. People who are not US citizens and haven't paid into any of our social safety nets are still using Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. And if actual cuts were made the screaming would be all here right now. Democrats (or whatever you want to call them these days, globalists perhaps) use the social war to fund themselves. I am willing to bet all the money in the world that the people who work to hand out clean needles for junkies are democrats. And i'm willing to bet everyone who works in a facility "transitioning" people are democrats. And i'm willing to bet that every person working as a "social worker" are democrats. Every person who works for an NGO to help the homeless. These people and the misery they suffer are a source of income for a lot of people. Hence why the problem seems to get worse each year and they only ever ask for more funding. They use the fact that you don't have a heart of stone to fund themselves and destroy what you love. They aren't going to stop because you ask them nicely, or point out that the programs are not working. They'll just call you racist or claim you want grandma to die. This only ends one of two ways 1. the dollar collapses and they can't print to fund themselves anymore or 2. violence. Which do the readers here think will happen first?
How do you debate with people who can't even agree with you on the meaning of words? This entire situation strikes me like a girlfriend who doesn't like you anymore, but won't break up with you to save her "social credit". So she does everything possible to make you hate her or make the situation unbearable. Serious question: how does this end?
your example of switzerland is incorrect. It was homogenous and successful. Now that diversity and immigration has been imposed, it is decaying, just like everywhere else. It is just better hidden, maybe slightly better managed, but it is very clearly in decay nonetheless.
I was referring to the original Swiss diversity - ie the Romand/Alemmanic/Italo/Romansch political contract - not to modern era "diversity". Individual communties & cantons certainly were very homogenous internally to the point of splitting by religious lines.
Loved your article. As an educator who worked with every student population, including pre-vocal retarded students, I can attest to your accurate description of intellectual inequality. Equality does not exist in any realm of human existence, and nowhere is that more evident than in intellectual ability, which cannot be hidden ---only denied and reframed as "disadvantaged" in other areas. Right-think demands we accept that Black students don't have lower IQs, they're just suffering from social ills (poverty, malnourishment, violent neighborhoods, gang affiliation, no father in the home, matriarchal authority, etc.) as the result of racism. They're not inherently violent, they're culturally diverse. All nonsense excuses for non-socialization/assimilation/or simple separation.
For years I have used the 2nd Amendment issue as an example of political forces that militate against reality. Politicians demand gun control and blame white people for school shooting because of their gun culture. In fact, statistics reveal that what would really make an impact on gun violence is black gun control. Of course, it is impossible to legislate good sense and self-control into any population, but getting guns away from impulsive/inherently violent blacks is exactly what has to happen. Impossible -- our Constitution gives the same gun right to blacks as it does to whites. (It's stupid, but understandable in a way because if it wasn't guns, as we see in the EU, blacks will use knives, machetes, or their fists to kill whomever they choose.)
Another example I use is that of zoo facilities, which do not house Silver-backed gorillas with chimpanzees and baboons in the same enclosures. The now rejected separate but equal in human society is acceptable equal but separate in primate society for a reason ----like the warning against planting strawberries among your vegetables. They'll overtake the veggies.
Gun control is a very interesting case of what I was getting at with ‘inequality under the law’. There is a very good case for the right to bear arms to be denied to black people, and allowed - or even made mandatory - for whites.
Interestingly, come to think of it, this is almost what we see in practice in any case. Where do we see the strictest firearms regulations? Invariably in blue states with large urban black populations. Where do we see the fiercest defense of the second amendment? States with large rural white populations.
South Africa would be a good example. Intelligent, disciplined, responsible, white Dutch-descended farmers must have guns to survive another day, not to mention to feed their country. As was clearly seen in Zimbabwe, the country will descend into chaotic, machete-wielding anarchy if the white population does not keep law and order.
Gun culture is almost entirely the product of Northumbrians who settled the Backcountry. They suffered the constant state and stateless violence for 700 years over the question of border between England and Scotland. Men have to arm themselves on a moment’s notice of a cattle raid. This continues with the Indians and cattle raids in Old West. We’re not giving giving them up. It’s in our blood.
You can if you like use Sweden as a comparison to the USA, since Sweden doesn't have anything resembling the 2nd amendment.
Sweden sports some 500 000 licensed hunters, out of 11 000 000 total population. The number of hunters involved in illegal use of firearms is so low it has to be noted separately in the national statistics on firearms-crime. The hunters are 99.9% Swedes (Norwegians, Danes, Finns, Sámi). As in "white" except the Sámi who are - racially speaking - of Asiatic origin.
Yet Sweden has a very real problem with gun violence. Virtually daily shootings in public, where handguns are the weapon of choice. The perpetrators are virtually 100% dark-skins. Negros, Arabs, Afghans, Gypsies, and such.
There's also about 45 000 Swedes keeping fully automatic military grade weapons in the home - the members of the Home Guard. Yet, ever since its inception, there's been one single shoooting where a military man has used his AK-5 in committing a crime. (1) in over a century.
Whereas the darkies will pop drugs and go on a spree, or target someone tangentially related to their intended target if they cannot find him. Parents, neighbours, relatives, or just someone who happens to like the target.
The first "school shooting" occurred earlier this year. A Swedish man, who had access to his father's hunting rifles shot up a school for adults. Turned this man was autistic, on anti-depressants and had been denied his welfare check which would render him homeless. So he went looking for the social services clerks that had made the decision.
Naturally, this shooting got wide coverage. Not som uch a few weeks ago when one darksin walked into a barbershop in a city centre in broad daylight and shot three other darkskin teens in their heads, after which the shooter escaped on an electric kickbike.
I'm old enough that I was an adult when Sweden was all-white, more or less. Youd see the odd Negro if you lived in Stockholm or Gothenburg, the major cities, but otherwise even meeting a Greek or such was not even a weekly occurrence. And back then we had way les restrictive gun control than today - no age limit for one thing, and over 100 000 members of the Home Guard, and retired military or military having a civilian job kept their service arms at home (in case of Soviet aggression), which included AK-47s, m(45s, AK-5s and in some cases KSP-58s (the latter is a heavy machinegun).
And shootings were so rare even one made national news for at least a week. Bombings, which we now have semi-daily, were virtually unheard of. They were so rare people in the 1970s still talked about a gang that had used bombs in the 50s.
And then we opened our borders and the rest is history.
Either we are all equal, and then all differences between race/culture-groups must be explained by anything but the groups and the individuals making up the groups being not-equal (since "equal" nowadays means "the same"), or we are not equal and then the entire lie from the end of WW2 to present day collapses.
When reading essays like this, what becomes apparent is the catalyst for serious change as suggested above will not come from some enlightened awakening or polite discourse. What will trigger it will be exhaustion.
We in Western nations are surely becoming tired of the endless need to police the progressive Left and their fellow utopians. Those who seem unable to reason clearly and are lost to fantasies that exist only inside their own heads. We know their view of the world is hopelessly distorted.
At what point will we recognize we can't vote or reason our way out of this?
No one is coming to their senses. The adherents of these egalitarian schemes are indifferent to their failure. As they fail and fail again they just reinforce the fantasy; we weren't quite communist enough, we will go harder next time. The Patriarchy prevented success. Next time we won't just target the racists we will dismantle the SYSTEM of racism no one can see. On and on it goes.
It is all emotional claptrap, easily debunked, but not so easily dislodged because it satisfies emotional needs and also helps the less able do better than they otherwise would.
Our nations are being dismantled to prop up the delusions of mentally disturbed dreamers who build nothing. It is exhausting. And I believe that sense of exhaustion is becoming more widely felt as these deranged philosophies reach into every corner of our lives.
Perhaps if this is felt by enough people we may see a return to the hierarchies that always exist anyway and we can finally ridicule the inept for their absurd mental models.
Reading your comment made me think about the rebirth of all the varieties of reactionaries emerging.
I think this might have to do with the exhaustion you're referring to. It's like an instinctual sense that something doesn't feel right and is about to give under the weight of all this oppressive legal paralysis. And so the center is abandoned in favor of the peripheries until eventually there won't be many to maintain, uphold or protect the center.
This reminds me of what I interpreted about the rise of fascism in Italy. At first, in 1919, it was revolutionary, populist and liberal. By 1922 it was co-opted by power and old money. From the 20s onwards it became a case of being a party member to work with or in the system. The wheels inevitably came off in the 30s and by the time Mussolini was hanged, there remained very few fascists.
If we take it far enough we have to accept all these movements reflect some underlying reality. Today one of our realities is widespread mental illness. Most seem to gravitate towards grand schemes of which the Left tends to prefer. The causes then take on their mental distortions. Climate change alone is insane and ignored by most of the world and yet we have well-funded movements everywhere.
I believe we are living through a moment of widespread mass hysteria in the West for which the only antidote is a very hard dose of reality.
Yes, the deluded cannot be reached, only marginalized. That only happens post-catastrophe. The cavalier attitude toward nuclear war, I think, is a symptom of mental illness and could result in circumstances to combat it.
The attitude towards Ukraine alone was a giveaway. Remember the Reddit Corps? The very online have a warped view of reality.
I would extend that to all liberals, even the so-called sane ones. We can't fix poverty, homelessness or the gender earnings gaps because they are a consequence of human nature. So I'm at the stage where I think we should be pointing out the liberal aversion to reality.
We have elites in the thrall of utopian ideas with a degree of white guilt thrown in for good measure. We need an alternative. I am not sure a counter elite is it mind you.
The thing that got me about the Ukraine show was how it was a 24hr pivot from Covid. The mentally maladjusted flipped like performing seals. And the blue and yellow branding was an exact match.
I'm pretty sure homelessness can in principle be fixed, and different countries vary substantially in Gini Index, although obviously poverty is relative and can't be abolished in that sense. (You could even 'fix' the gender earnings gap with sufficient coercion, though I don't recommend doing it.)
I would also suggest that a proxy war with Russia was preferable to a direct NATO engagement with Russia, and back in 2021 Putin was essentially calling dibs on a bunch of existing NATO allies. Nor are there going to be fewer nukes in a world where every nation has to fend for itself.
Look at a counter-elite the same way Erdogan looks at democracy: a way to get to a destination that is then discarded. I would like to think a peasant revolt might work this time but that's certainly not the rule.
Yes, of course. There are some suicidal things happening we need to stop and doing so would be an improvement. So it does make sense. Work with what you have at your disposal.
I think what we have been seeing in the North of Ireland over the last few nights is a glimpse of that reality finally starting to assert itself without being overwhelmed by pushback from the system. It seems to be a defining moment for the indigenous majority who will not be cowed by media and state talking heads calling them nasty names. They picked the wrong populace to extend their policies on. After all, the Troubles were only a few decades ago so perhaps there is a different mindset which the managerial class did not account for.
Correct. The assumption was exhaustion would make the populace even more supine, but that is not happening at all, quite the opposite. There are outlines of a counter-elite emerging because the exhaustion is punching up as well as down.
I am not sure endless hassle directed towards the global conqueror demographic was ever a good plan to begin with. An early example of the competency crisis among their planners. The artificially-elevated do tend to make a mess of things.
We all know the nonsense ends when we say no. I suspect that is coming. And I strongly suspect our elites are less competent than we realize. I doubt they will cope well.
They cope poorly. The ham-fisted invalidations of elections and the blatant misuse of court systems might indicate an unwarranted confidence, but my guess is they are symptoms of insecurity and an ability to fashion more subtle responses.
I think they are also symptoms of how little they do control. Once you wind up a minion they act more or less solo. Some of those judges are clearly misreading the tea leaves. That is the danger with promoting midwits.
The idea of “equality” in early civilization begun with the invention of hoplite in reaction to the widespread Scythian invasion of Near East. The advantage of g the hoplite depended on the unit staying together so that the Scythian cavalry would lose their advantage. This required both a much tougher discipline and a new ethos that downplayed show-offism of an individual. Think of the opening scene of Rome mini-series where the captain have to go out and drag a disobedient Roman soldier for stepping out of formation. Hoplite warfare was no place for Achilles.
To do that, a new concept of equality was needed in order to get men to buy-in the new style of war.
So, what begun as a military necessary would soon grow into a new political concept. Since the common men were needed to provide the numbers needed for hoplite, it wasn’t long before the common man could demand some voice in the army. You can’t fight a war without men as Alexander the Great discover in India. This is the fact that so many monarchists kept overlooking. Once the Athenians created their own navy, they have to bargain with the common men to give more political voice in exchange for doing the very demanding and stinking job of rowing.
This political equality would quickly translated into legal equality. It wouldn’t be long before the idea of equality as a spiritual value took root in the Roman Empire, because the Empire needed to individualize many nations so that they can be Romanized to provide manpower and taxes.
It wasn’t limited only to Greece and Romans. All early empires after the Scythian invasion would introduced the universalist religion and spiritual equality in some fashion. India introduced Buddhism as a state religion as a part of the ancient high-low class strategy against the middle class, beginning with the archaic states. The first kings were confronted by the fact that the clans who created the state were too independent for their taste, having lavish immune as benefiting the creators of the state. So the kings must separate the men from their clans and their clannish and tribal cults, by individualization which could only be done by creating some sort of universalism where the Big Gods and their ethos are superior to that of the clans, undermining the claim of the ancestral dead and their priests on the loyalty of the men.
This high-low against middle would be repeated endlessly to this very day where the Liberals would use the Colorful Pets against the White men today. The Empire would adopt Christianity because it would individualize men away from their nations and clans to enlarge both the army and tax base, was happened in the first empires. The Catholic Church would continue this individualization project as a weapon against both Holy Roman Emperor and various Germanic lords in order to assert ITS own independence and authority. Things like the priests cannot marry and pass on their office to their sons, or that men cannot marry up to their fourth cousins were some ways to undermine the power of the clans against the Church. This is where the various Spanish clerics began to draw on the ancient Christian idea of the City of God vs City of Man in order to assert the men’s freedom of conscience against the worldly authority. The idea that would find its purest expression in the American Declaration of Independence. By this process, they secularized the Christian values. The Devil of Christian ethics now fooled the world into thinking there’s nothing Christian about the “humanist” values. But the parentage was always there. And Christian values begun not as an spiritual value but as an temporary military solution to the problem of countering the Scythian mobile tactics long before Christianity.
Both liberals and conservatives are individualists, however their differences. Civil rights were only the latest in individualize everyone until only the Corporate-State of the apparatchiks can be the only moral authority. Only those who affirms hierarchy and limits to equality and economic materialism would be the true radicals.
There's definitely a connection between military tactics and technology and egalitarianism, though this goes both ways. The medieval period actually saw a return to social elitism, when the knight replaced the legionary as the king of the battlefield. Switched back when firearms returned the infantry to dominance. Industrial warfare then moved us back towards more hierarchial forms, this time in the form of managerialism.
Yet the Greek hoplites certainly had no belief in equality beyond the notion of primus inter pares. Aristotle for example held that since the capacity for reason was unequally distributed, there could be no such thing as equality, and some men were naturally born to be slaves.
One of the tensions here is with the necessarily leveling of effect of law, which places all under a given law on an equal footing in the sense that the same law applies to all. There's no way around that of course - to play the same game, one must follow the same rules. But then it becomes a question of who should be allowed to play the game...
It can go either way depending on how war evolved. The point is that the popular idea of equality definitely began with the need to counter the cavalry tactics. Every studies pointed out that the idea of universalism under some Big moralizing God didn’t receive the elite support until after the Scythian invasion. Ideas will then percolate through the society as different factions plays around them, distilling them to fit their agenda, making them more viral. There will be push backs as always, especially as the bad results revealed themselves. Christianity itself was a confusing contest between various sects and preachers for a century before the needs of the Roman Empire forced some kind of compromise on dogma, creating a powerful enforcement machine through use of subsidies.
I think you can push it back even further, all the way to the hunter-gatherer band. They were notoriously egalitarian, which makes sense given that weapons technology didn't lead to large differences between warriors/hunters.
I was waiting for someone to point this out as it’s true. Both hierarchy in form of the best hunter getting the best cut and equality in the need of keeping everyone alive plays important role in the survival of the clan. So, it’s one of the struggles that will never get resolved. We just have to weight various advantages at different times.
In 20th c. terms, how it went from pre-20th c. Equality Leavened With Common Sense to the full-on late 20th c. horror was the intelligentsia mind game of Relativism. From 'my "abstract" squiggles on a canvas are as "artistic" as a Raphael or a Vemeer' to 'my lazyness is as valid as your industriousness' to 'my homosexuality is as good as your normal sexuality....and not at all dysphoric'. As I wrote in this essay: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/stairway-to-equiheaven
"During the course of the 20th century, this insidious, creeping concept of Relativism took hold....first of the visual arts and then ‘progressively’ of social norms and eventually pretty much everything. The consequences have been huge. But they have been sufficiently slow and incremental to advance largely unnoticed in the public mind. Relativism expanded during the course of the 20th century from being just an esoteric fringe art movement - of little interest to any but its adherents among the cognoscenti - to being the cradle of a perverse wholesale mutation of Liberalism. And once it became fused with Relativism, Liberalism, as a philosophical framework, , became woefully unequal to the setting of any common sense boundaries....to saying: No it’s not ‘all relative’. Not everything is as good as everything else. Eventually, in our time, it became Wokeness ....that huge, ugly brat child making shrill demands that nobody tell it anything it doesn’t wish to hear."
The awkward thing about relativism is that it is obviously in a sense true, whether at the level of physics or ethics, yet leads directly to the void. Suggesting that it is a partial truth.
Military and religious history are often overlooked sources of understanding. Far too many overlooked just how war impacted our own thoughts. Tom Holland touched on how Christian thought colored secular ethics in his book Dominion. Peter Turchin touched on war and religion in his many books. Imperium Press’s Stack on the Axial Age was also helpful. One thing to keep in mind is that counter-elite can use equality arguments against the powerful to create space for itself, as happens with Socrates and Plato. James Burnham often stressed looking past the superficial words toward the real motivation.
And as also happened with the American founders. Indeed something the woke are correct about, when they hold that discourse is about power ... Invocations of equality are almost always about taking power (and therefore not really about 'equality').
Democracy can only work in a small group (about 10,000) living in a harsh environment like the frontier where there are no police or welfare checks. The stupid and weak and selfish get to die from starvation or an Indian tomahawk or a public boycott. Only the robust and civil-spirited farmer-soldiers survive in such places, creating a very tough audience for any ideologue. This is at this level that democracy can be surprisingly effective. Once police is created, inequality returns as we can see with the arrival of the cattle barons who can then creates factions to control the elections.
How we govern ourselves at the level of tribes will be quintessentially important if a cyclical global catastrophic event occurs later this century. See “solar micronova” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A6ikRgZBf8].
Yes, this. Equality rhetoric is a weapon wielded by the true one percent. It is such an attractive fiction that much of the other 99 percent swallow it hook, line and sinker despite what their eyes and ears (and, unfortunately at times, nose) tells them.
Around 1924, the great clairvoyant and spiritualist Rudolf Steiner said that the dark forces are going to use the principle of equality as a weapon against us. They will claim that all people are equivalent, from the lowest caveman to the highest initiate. He said much more, too.
Correct. When they said they did, they were using a rhetorical trick - saying that they believed themselves, as a class, to be the peers of the British lords.
There was some ideological diversity amongst the American founding fathers - Adams and Hamilton were different from Jefferson and Paine. Also, I wonder if anyone is willing to argue that the (unamended) US Constitution is a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence?
My people, the Quakers, per capita the most inventive and powerful group in the world, were destroyed in the 1950s by adding a "testimony of equality" to the testimonies of truthfulness, peace, and simplicity.
There isn't a one of the egalitarians who doesn't fancy himself better than those who judge based on merit, but the contadiction does not bother them. They know deep down they are really inferior -- that is why they advocate for equality, so they will be treated better than they deserve, and, as a bonus, to pull their betters down.
My foundational ethical belief is:
The fundamental principle of all possible systems of ethics is: "prefer the better to the worse", (I would add: "to the extent of the significance of the difference").
This always requires judgment of what is better and what is worse. Thus it is categorically unethical not to judge, or to judge better as equal to worse, and evil to prefer worse to better.
To judge rightly is always better than not. Intelligence is the ability to judge rightly, so those with more intelligence, as actually applied, are categorically better and worthy of preference over those who are less likely to judge correctly.
There's a parallel here with evangelical churches that have begun teaching that racism is a sin equal in severity to the other seven, a position for which there is no biblical support. They reveal themselves I think as being not really Christian, but leftists belonging to the Church of MLK.
Treating others "better than they deserve" is actually one of humanity's greatest inventions - when applied to the in-group it lifted Western society into the Enlightenment. Today's equity holy warriors are trying to apply it to the out-group first of all - secondly at one's own expense; and thirdly clearly without any gratitude whatsoever from those gaining the benefit.
Its ironic that Quakers were the first true egalitarians (ie anti-slavery and racism etc), but the end-beneficiaries of their labours only have contempt for them as "old white males". Would they still have done the Lord's work had they known they would not be rewarded with gratitude or reciprocity?
Julius Caesar got this basically right. Show mercy once, maybe twice, but no more. Give an offramp from defect/defect to the more mutually profitable equilibrium of cooperate/cooperate. If they take it, great, you have both lost an enemy and made a friend, and are both enriched. If not, and they are committed to defection, then there is nothing to be done but to isolate yourself from or destroy your enemy.
🎯 well said old chap. That is exactly how I approach firing people at my company. Off-ramp: my father told me to give people 4 strikes but eventually they get fired if they are so primitive as to not learn.
Quakers were theoretically egalitarian, but actually quite exclusive. No proselytizing, difficult to become a member (required lengthy questioning, unanimous committee vote), easy to get kicked out (marriage without Meeting approval, ostentation, owning a racehorse, many other things). Quakers considered themselves apart from and superior to "the world", anyone leaving was "lost to the world".
This is not unique to the Quakers. Many groups practice this form of ‘equality among equals’, which applies exclusively to those within the in-group, with the group’s boundaries being very strictly policed.
Bravo Enon , “prefer the better to the worse to the extent of the significance of the difference”.
I’ve never had words for that , yet when I read it, I recognize it. I do believe that captures my modus operandi. Judgement: I have been contemplating the same things for decades, revisiting and reconfirming or revising my thoughts and then putting those thoughts into action in the world. Not inclined to deep abstractions and arcane philosophy for its own sake, I gage the efficacy of my ideas as I see them in action, in the world and always with the same simple criteria for judging success: the golden rule. Would I like to be treated this way, that is the best criteria. But don’t be mistaken, I’m no bleeding heart.
Sorry if that was a bit long, but really I think your description of your ethical model has put in language what I’ve done my whole life .
The golden rule is very important. It's at the heart of courtesy. Would I prefer people be polite to me? Obviously. Thus I extend the same to them. But this is really just game theory, thus if the tit I get for my tat is a defect signal rather than cooperate, I'm likely to respond in kind to that, too. After all, if someone treats me with hostility, I can reasonably infer from the Golden Rule that this is how they wish to be treated.
Yeah, I think I understand that. But that’s not how I deploy the golden rule.
I use it as my internal measuring stick as a governor on my actions. I satisfy myself that I am being fair, how I would wish to be treated, and give no regard - zero - for the reaction of the outside world, the world outside of me, beyond the boarders of my philosophy and practice.
My fellow primates reaction is of no consequence to me. I take it as a given that the rational animal are blind, assholes and brutish. My job, seriously adhered to, diligently adhered to, is to see that I am not an asshole and brutish. “I once was blind, but now I see.”
My best discovery is my evolving understanding of the nature of power and the importance of fear.
“ T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” Wonderful.
What I’m saying is that my application of the Golden rule does not play out as politeness in fact, it’s usually the opposite, fear. I’m doing my brethren a favor. Without fear we all go astray, without fear I will go astray, without fear we are blind, that’s really the point of amazing Grace. Fear is the elixir to our wretchedness.
Politeness no. Game theory no.
Enon said it right, I got it right intuitively and through my unrelenting disposition and most importantly through the application of judgment as aided by the ethical imperative to treat others as you would wish to be treated.
See the book Quakers in Science and Industry by Arthur Raistrick (IIRC), also the paper “The Global Network of Corporate Control” PLoS One. 2011; 6(10) supplementary material p. 17; Barclays and Lloyds were Quaker at least to the early 20th c., holding a greater share (4.5%) of control than the rest of Britain, or any other nation besides the US, more than J.P. Morgan-Chase, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America combined..
Some Quaker innovations: fixed-price shops, interchangable parts (ploughshares), mass production of iron, cast steel, iron rails, the compound microscope, the atomic theory of chemistry and antiseptics. Quakers financed Harrison's chonometer that solved the longitude problem and opened world trade. Many of the early watch and instrument makers such as Quare and Tompion, were Quakers, as was Thomas Young (advanced wave theory of light, Young's modulus, deciphered hieroglyphics)
Raistrick's book also covers Quaker domination of the mining industry in Britain in the 1700s, particularly lead, which also was the only domestic supply of silver. Quakers of Nantucket also dominated the worldwide whaling industry, though obviously that's not a big talking point now.
The population of silent-meeting Quakers in the US and Britain since the mid-1600s has been about 60k (40k-80k depending on generation). Perhaps less than 10% of silent-meeting Quakers today have Quaker ancestors going back to the 19th c. or earlier; we've been replaced by draft-dodging commies and fellow-travellers.
One more early comment: the key to breaking the spell of delusional equality is to talk about responsibility. Four decades ago I was chastised by hardcore liberals for assuming people are equal. Why? I was arguing an extreme libertarian position which required people to make their own rational decisions.
The Limousine Liberal may mouth egalitarian words, but the libertarian or MAGA populist in practice are more egalitarian. You don't have to advocate aristocracy to crush the woke Left. Indeed, many of the wokest Leftists ARE aristocrats. Think trustafarians.
The problem I have with your thesis is that liberalism, or liberals like your black Harvard professor, have no interest in equality. They view whites, or white men, as uniquely evil, and telling them this is not so means nothing to them. That’s just racism, or sexism, or homophobia.
They pretend to believe in equality because whites handed less competitive groups ”rights”, privilege without obligation. You merely have to be born into a victim group in order to acquire privilege and need do nothing at all. You are over complicating things.
Well, this should certainly be a book, even if a small one. Every word is hard hitting truth.
This topic is discussed in a different context in my book "From Paul to Mark" under the heading "Markan Epistemology". Here's a bit on that:
"There are many exhortations to ‘hear’ and to ‘see’ in Mark and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it appears that behind this is the idea that free will to choose one’s destiny is somewhat limited. In Mark 4:9, 23, not all are exhorted to hear, but only ‘those with ears to hear.’ That is, only those who are of the fertile soil as described in the Parable of the Sower; those to whom God has given ears to hear, can hear. Hearing and seeing is not something that anyone can just decide to do; you have to be specially equipped with organs of spiritual hearing and sight.
“Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" And he said to them, "Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." (Mark 4:23-25.)
"[...] [Joel] Marcus writes that part of the “mystery of the kingdom of God” is exactly the fact that there is a division of humanity into the blind and the illuminated, “a division which God, for unfathomable reasons of his own, both wills and calls into being.” He cites Enoch again, the revelations of which include the fact that the kingdom is divided between the holy and the sinners. Part of the mystery is that the righteous will be rewarded, but the sinners will perish, in accordance with God’s design."
The Parable of the Sower is of primary importance here. "Obviously, the different types of soil are different types of human beings; the good soil can receive the word, have their eyes and ears opened, and learn to see, hear and understand. The other types of soil, hardened path, rocky ground, among thorny overgrowth, apparently have no chance of acquiring perceptions of higher realities. What is more, there is no suggestion at all that one can alter the sort of soil one is. One assumes that it is ‘God’s will’ that there are so many different types of human beings."
The same issue is discussed in Lobaczewski's "Political Ponerology". He writes:
"The distribution of human intellectual capacity within societies is completely different, and its amplitude has the greatest scope. Highly gifted people constitute a tiny percentage of each population, and those with the highest quotient of intelligence constitute only a few per thousand. In spite of this, however, the latter play such a significant role in collective life that any society attempting to prevent them from fulfilling their duty does so at its own peril. At the same time, individuals barely able to master simple arithmetic and the art of writing are, in the majority, normal people whose basic intelligence is often entirely adequate.
"It is a universal law of nature that the higher a given species’ psychological organization, the greater the psychological differences among individual units. Man is the most highly organized species; hence, these variations are the greatest. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, psychological differences occur in all structures of the pattern of human personality dealt with here, albeit in terms of necessary oversimplification. Profound psychological variegations may strike some as an injustice of nature, but they are her right and have meaning.
"Nature’s seeming injustice, alluded to above, is, in fact, a great gift to humanity, enabling human societies to develop their complex structures and to be highly creative at both the individual and collective level. Thanks to psychological variety, the creative potential of any society is many times higher than it could possibly be if our species were psychologically more homogeneous. Thanks to these variations, the societal structure implicit within can also develop. The fate of human societies depends upon the proper adjustment of individuals within this structure and upon the manner in which innate variations of talents are utilized.
"Our experience teaches us that psychological differences among people are the cause of misunderstandings and problems. We can overcome these problems only if we accept psychological differences as a law of nature and appreciate their creative value. This would also enable us to gain an objective comprehension of man and human societies; unfortunately, it would also teach us that equality under the law is inequality under the law of nature." (I don't have page number since I have a doc copy.)
I've read FPTM, actually! Though that part specifically hadn't stuck with me (there was a lot in there...), there's certainly the concept from esoteric Christianity that souls are not actually evenly distributed throughout the population, not universally possessed as conventional Christianity would have it. And also the concept from Gurdjieff, that not everyone has a soul, that you have to work for one. Which directly implies that souls aren't actually equal. But then what do you do with that information?
Very interesting that Lobaczewski had the same intuition about equality. But then of course he did ... You can't grasp the reality of psychopathy and continue pretending that they are remotely equivalent to human beings. Many years ago, with Ponerology fresh in my mind, I had a conversation with a leftist in which I suggested that we should test people for psychopathy before allowing them to hold office. She was horrified at the thought. I found that very interesting...
You observed very astutely that this so-called modern ideal of ‘equality’ rests upon the assumptions of Christianity, with the rest of Christianity filed off, and so it makes no sense. ‘Equality’ is not so a Christian idea as so many of our post-Christian liberalists love to claim. Indeed, the concept of hierarchy as a Good is threaded throughout scripture. There are hierarchies of angels; a prescribed good order within families; we are called to submit to our authorities, whom God has established. Even in heaven, we won’t be equal; for Jesus said, “many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first”, suggesting an order. The claim that all can be equal is really of Satan, who resented his place in the hierarchy and desired to upend that order.
Indeed, traditional Christianity is far more nuanced than political ideology, and that nuance provides an essential balance that prevents certain ideas from being taken to their natural and dangerous conclusion. I tried to emphasize this near the beginning, but may not have been as clear as I could have been - this isn't Christianity's fault, per se, but rather the misapplication of an idea taken from Christianity and isolated from the rest of the faith.
Now I'm on board with this. I was about to launch a long comment but I concur with this nuance. It is odd too because a weirdly large part of modern malaise is that many people simply don't want to be the warlords or worldshakers or the like and that is more than fine.
Reading this, I find myself solidly on the side of spiritual equality but welcome this well-thought criticism.
I realize that less than a year ago, I was fully in the camp of equality, more or less, so I know I can be wrong.
I need to think, read, and reread more about this before coming back with a more full response, but for now, just saying thank you for the challenge, John!
I am with you. I think there needs to be a stronger demarcation between forms of equality. In my life, I have come to view the dignity of man as created by God to be the only true form of equality. All other definitions of equality are secondary to this, and most are harmful to the flourishing of man. The lowest form of equality is equality of outcome. The modern progressive has the order almost entirely backwards.
Early comment based on reading the first half: The classical liberals, including America's Founding Uncles, were *relatively* egalitarian with respect to the feudal system set up by William the Bastard. They were saying that being the first son of the first son of the first son of the first son of a badass didn't make you better than an actual badass.
That doesn't negate the possibility of inherited greatness. Even without feudal rules, aristocratic families arise. It is a mix of circumstance, expectations, genetics, and *identity*. I note the last component as a member of the fading Tidewater aristocratic class. I have been frequently been chastised by rednecks and hillbillies for using too many big words, listening to classical music, and being a pompous prick thereby. Some of these rednecks and hillbillies were considerably more intellectual/intelligent than many fellow faded aristocrats who went to good colleges (including Harvard) and watch PBS.
The Bible both recognizes inequality and buffers it. The great and prosperous are supposed to take care of the weak and unfortunate. This can be found in the Old Testament with the mandate to provide zero interest loans and gleaner rights to the poor. But also, the Old Testament law has the Jubilee Laws which make a feudal system impossible. It limits getting richer just for being rich.
Love the way you framed the founders' position. Exactly that. They were saying, in essence, "we don't care about your title, we think we can take you." And they did.
Of course many of the founders themselves were the products of aristocratic lineage. Not the first sons, perhaps, but the second son of the third son of the fourth son...
The biblical framing is valuable in that it emphasizes the responsibility that comes with power. Stewardship of the Earth, not exploitation of it. Man has dominion over the beasts of the field; the nobility over the commoner. But it does not follow that this position can be abused. If it is, a price will ultimately be paid.
Just the fact you wrote this essay, John, is proof of equality’s falsity. Your alpha brain whipped up (no offence) something I could never do as I am intelleckshually further down the ladder - which is nothing I resent. On the contrary, respect, inspiration and aspiration are due as I look upward and attempt another rung.
Equality, like its ideological enforcer communism, is a bulldozer of human creativity, flowering and social wellbeing. Its only beneficiary are its overlords. My bet is there is a clear heirarchy once you get into the top tier and hold all the spoils. As you said, the upper classes revert to their most rapacious forms.
Of all places in Western Europe, Denmark struck me as a willing state of equality. I have many relations there. There’s an unspoken, and sometimes spoken, thing called the Jante Law: if you stick out like a nail you have to be hammered back in - which makes for an incredibly conformist social condition. Everyone is polite, the country functions like clockwork, the standard of living is one of the highest in the world, and yet…
With all that repressive conformity, Danes are uncomfortable expressing or revealing themselves, especially with deeper issues and emotions which have been systemically locked in the basement for generations. Thus its films and popular export, Noir TV crime shows, invariably consist of dark buried secrets revealed, along with some more dark violence for effect. It came as no surprise to learn that this nation of equality - supposedly the happiest - has some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world.
All that Viking warrior energy has to go somewhere when there’s no rival village to rape and plunder.
As for the terrible condition of the progressive equality-driven Left, yes, I’ve seen it happen in real time and here in the UK, I feel increasingly surrounded by people who are getting uglier and fatter by the day. Obesity has become fashionable, curiously among the younger white population. As you say, it’s no accident and all the magazine covers normalizing it are partly to blame, not to mention the word ‘fat’ is now considered hate speech punishable by law.
And as for your definition of a psychopath, that seems to fit neatly as a definition of AI.
Thanks for another thought-provoking essay on our devolving world.
Jante’s Law isn’t only in Denmark - it’s a big thing in Sweden, too. I think all through Scandinavia. It’s really an expression of consensus culture. The Japanese are similar in this regard, though more extreme. Among the Anglosphere countries, Canada is the most consensus-driven.
I’m not sure that consensus cultures are NECESSARILY less creative. Scandinavia, Japan, and Canada have contributed far more than their fair share to human cultural novelty (though, it must be admitted, less than their more fractious cousins in say France, Germany, England, or America).
It seems to me that they arise when 1) there’s a high level of genetic homogeneity, such that everyone is pretty similar and 2) environmental conditions are a bit harsh, necessitating collective action for survival. The interesting thing though is that such cultures always have a conversation under the conversation going on - a continual testing to see if the consensus is still the consensus. So long as everyone concludes that the consensus is, in fact, still the consensus, it continues, and there will be very little overt challenges permitted. When the consensus does change, however, it does so very abruptly, at least from the perspective of everyone outside.
I’ve spent most of my life in the US Pacific Northwest which has a huge Scandanvian descended population. I really wonder how much echoes or remnants of this attitude help explain the peculiar nature of places like Seattle.
Yes, I should have been clearer. I mentioned it about Denmark but not only Denmark. I agree about the harsh environment aspect. It also ties into alcoholism, gun ownership and suicide, although that could mostly be attributed to lack of sunlight. And as for the conversation under the conversation, it's very obvious to outsiders, or at least to me when I'm there. There always seems to be a test going on.
It can certainly be obvious that there is a conversation under the conversation, but what exactly is being not-said isn’t always entirely clear to outsiders, I think. Interpretation of the unspoken relies on an extensive body of shared cultural assumptions, historical knowledge, and so on.
Going to add some to the reference to Janteloven (Law of Jante) which was invented/codified by Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose:
The ten rules state:
You're not to think you are anything special.
You're not to think you are as good as we are.
You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
You're not to think you know more than we do.
You're not to think you are more important than we are.
You're not to think you are good at anything.
You're not to laugh at us.
You're not to think anyone cares about you.
You're not to think you can teach us anything.
---
An eleventh rule recognized in the novel as "the penal code of Jante" is:
Perhaps you don't think we know a few things about you?
Important to understand is that the Janteloven is used and referenced in lots of discourse and debate, and is used pejoratively about people who try to enforce this, the Dark Side of cultural homogenity.
It is in no way seen as some ideal or norm by any Nordic/Scandinavian people, but as
dangerous and undesirable; this impulse is a large reason behind the often obssessive adoption of foreign ideas by the intelligentsia and bourgeois classes (in no small part due to a Nouveau Riche-inferiority complex when they compare themselves and their urban haunts to Berlin or wien or Zürich or New York). The working class counter-part is in equal parts to adopt foreign things shunned by their "betters" and reject the ones endorsed by said "betters".
Wikipedia actually - wonder of wonders! - has a quite good summary of it (and I totally copied the "laws" from there):
The truly horrific aspect of it is that since no-one thinks of themselves as being below-average, everyone assumes they themself are above-average (which we know from lots of interviews where people are asked to gauge their IQ and at least 2/3s always put themselves in the 115-130 range), and that their current conversation partner is too; the latter is the false equality-impules in action.
Which of course results in everyone subconsciously violating the Jante-law with regards to themselves while keeping tabs that others do not, which in turn spirals ever-inwards into some kind of recursion:
"I'm better than xyz, I just know I am but it'd be rude to say so better play it humble"
What's so funny is that there's a way to violate it while not being punished: be audacious abou it. Be brash and bold and a boisterous braggart (me) and people will instead appreciate you for /not/ adhering to it. I like to think of the whole thing as Jante being a consequence of Protestant morality and moralism taken to its logical extreme - and it all being in conflict with the underlying Nordic culture where there's great appreciation and admiration for braggadocious Falstaff-like characters, and outspoken straightforward plainspeaking honesty.
I've even been asked by non-European colleagues if I'm actually Swedish, because they found my attitude and way of behaviour being so unusual to the majority, and my reply has been that yes, I'm /more/ Swedish than most because I live my cultural heritage. It's funny - with the darkies I could have much more honest back-and-forth than with Swedish women in academia (which is where Jante is strongest).
Watching those false-equality impulses play out in endless recursive spirals is a form of entertainment for those of us not paying its subscription fees.
I sometimes wonder how often the intelligence quotient is mistaken for the new app for the London botanic gardens.
As for the pious virtue signaling of false humility, it is truly vomit inducing. I cannot abide it and do my best to call it out. Could your brash unSwedish Swede-ness be a function of age? As we get older, we're less concerned about who thinks what of us. As a wise man once said, "What other people think of you is none of your business."
I think it is because I straddle city and country, both in how I grew up and how I've lived as an adult, as well as straddling being of the academical class as much as I'm of the Lumpenproletariat and working classes.
Age only plays into it as far as being able to express myself goes: my younger self would get into trouble and fights due to my mouth having a mind of its own (or no mind...), whereas the post-30 me had learned how to say the same things but in a way that was listened to without fists starting to fly.
Thirty was quite a while ago though, and age and physical stature certainly provide the pondus (do you use that word in proper English?) a younger man lacks due to the different focus (girls, items of status, girls, deeds, girls, bragworthiness, girls for the young - steady hands, the voice of experience, accomplishments and skills, and family [and looking at girls] for the older).
I'll be turning 70 next year, so yes, looking at girls is enjoyable, although attractive fertile women would probably be a closer definition. My mouth still gets me into trouble though.
This article clearly recapitulates that equality combined with high quality-of-life can only coexist at the "cost" of homogeneity. Very few societies have achieved this without homogeneity - think Switzerland. Scare quotes around cost because only in the present era is diversity an unqualifiable good.
But there are more ingredients to the current malaise. The progressive ideal has abandoned the principle of *reciprocity*, and created a social norm that some may demand equality from others without having to return such treatment. And what has resulted is what "equality" is today - actually revanchisme.
Of women against men, everyone against white people, gay against straight, indigenous against "coloniser" etc etc. The rule is "You have to kiss my ass but I get to spit in your face" - asymmetric egalitarianism if you will.
Lucky me - I was born just within that map's boundaries, but got to live one generation AFTER the straight-white-man goodies ran out.
Asymmetric egalitarianism is a cute way of putting it, and of course this is not egalitarianism at all.
This is one of the reasons I tried to emphasize the connection between duty and right. The two must be in balance. You can't grant one without imposing the other. Which is what the progs try to do...
Obligation without reward is punishment.
slavery
That's a little uncharitable to slavery. Slaves often were rewarded historically, just on a more practical basis instead of overtly formal legal rights. You can have your master buy you new shoes, you can have a feast, and if you do really well you are manumitted. When I say "obligation without reward is punishment" the legitimate context is criminal punishment. Criminals who commit actual crimes should be punished. However, if non-criminals who have not committed any actual crimes are *effectively* being punished, then you are witnessing a tyranny worse than actual slavery.
read my longer post above, think it applies to your response. Forcing me to support things i don't support, or taking experimental injections smacks me as slavery, but hidden much better. If you can't agree on the meaning of words, how are you going to agree on the meaning of laws? We're at an impasse, and the readers here are going to have to decide at some point when they won't let the aggression stand, man.
Yes. Sweden took a somewhat different economic tract yet had about the same positive results as Switzerland until something changed. Let's hope the Swiss are not blinded fully by the fanaticism.
That change I can explain, if you can parse/stand my rambling. Brief summary:
By the 1970s, the ruling Socialist Democrat party (which had reigned since 1945, often claiming over 50% of the vote - no fraud) faced a dilemma.
The ideologically True Believers of The Movement (as the party is referred to colloquially) wanted to go full communist, in a legal manner. The Unions were to start buying up shares of banks and corporations, to allow the Party to legally take control and effectiviely socialise the entire economy, without any violent revolutions or eminent domain-shenanigans.
The pragmatic majority of the party opposed this, leading to infighting and schisms.
Meanwhile, the radical fringe (Soviet-loyalists, feminists and such) managed to sell their support to Palme's more pragmatic faction in exchange for concessions in accordance with feminist and mulitcultural ideology.
At the same time, the other dilemma faced by the party was taxes. They were too high, so high they suffocated the economy. And people (as Gramsci had found out decades before in Italy) didn't want didactic we-know-better-than-you-to-live-you-life politics. Swedish even has idioms for that kind of political thinking, which should tell you how prevalent such people are in our political landscape, among all parties.
But lowering taxes was seen as a dangerous prejudice by the majority of the party, and so they dithered until they lost an election in the mid-1970s. However, the opposing coalition managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory and floundered, letting the Socialist Democrats back in office. But by now, the party had started to adopt American neoliberalism, part of which was equality-politics and migration (all races equal and such).
Switzerland didn't start down this part until around 2010, and so is simply lagging behind, but they are catching up quite quickly. Also, since Swirzerland is where capitalist oligarchs and genocidal tyrants, terrorist billionaires, globalist pedphiles and such hide their stash, their economy operate under different conditions than does Sweden's.
Final point of comparison:
In the mid-1970s, a Swedish Crown and a Swiss Franc exchanged at 1:1. I think it's something like 14:1 now. Since Sweden has been spending ca 2%-3% of its GDP since ca 2005 on migration, well - the Good People and the US-trained economists and bankers tells us "the profit will appear eventually down the line".
Remarkable how much they sound like Soviet economists promising miracles thanks to the new five-year plan.
The fundamental bind is the same in every Western country: the electorate has two unpalatable choices - pro-worker economics with cultural leftism versus cultural security of the right but with neoliberalism. This is the reason the left could build such an oligarchic ruling lineage - most people simply pay the price of economic security and accept the Marxist BS culturally.
If only there was a pro-working class party that was "culturally preservationist"... they would romp in. I think that is what the Reform UK is trying to do.
Trump has entered the conversation.
Yes, certainly that is the major problem: we live under an alliance that combines the worst social politics/policy aspects of "cultural Marxism" with the worst qualities of Hayek/Mises' neoliberalism.
As in, we the peoples get the disadvantages of both and none of the benefits.
Like wolves and bears co-operating to get at the sheep.
And the PPC in Canada but with *much* less success, unfortunately.
Not a ramble in the reply, which was thoughtful and informative.
The successors to the Soviets learned at least one new trick: never put a date on The Plan.
It is sad to read that about the Swiss, but it perhaps it explains why they put their vaunted banking secrecy/security at risk by turning over information about Russian assets. The ones who provided the information apparently are of a like-mind with those who requested it.
I have zero doubt that "the Gnomes of Zürich" were given an offer they couldn't refuse:
Violate secrecy and security for the Russian state's and Russian oligarch's accounts, or there will be . . . trouble.
They were. Essentially cough it up or be excluded from the world financial system. The American oligarchs were strong enough to enforce it at that point.
They better had fetched a high price for their acceptance, because the asset of secrecy and trust is fully wasted now.
Since there's a very real plan and drive for conquering Russia and splitting it into dozens of client states under US/EU-rule (make that IMF/World Bank/Blackrock & similar corporatist menaces), the prize may have been as little as:
"You get to do business as usual and you get first right of refusal to any investment loans in the new territories once Russia crumbles".
Russia however, seems unwilling to co-operate. Not that I'm much of a fan of that nation or its people anyway, but I dislike dishonest wheelings and dealings no matter the source.
Thanks for the summary. Back in the 1970s in England, Sweden was held to be the gold standard of welfare socialism and equality. Funny how things worked out...
Time to make colonialism the comeback kid. Factionalism increase with population.
That just speaks to the essays point that few really believe in equality, and those who pay lip-service to it loudest knowingly do so in order to bludgeon those they instinctively feel inferior to.
It's envy all the way down - from Satan to Marx to Foucault.
'Say, I seek refuge in the Lord.. from the evil of an envier when they envy' - Quran
They are "killing us with kindness" is how i would frame it. It is why the token cuts to USAID and anything else they blathered on about the last few months mean nothing. People who are not US citizens and haven't paid into any of our social safety nets are still using Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. And if actual cuts were made the screaming would be all here right now. Democrats (or whatever you want to call them these days, globalists perhaps) use the social war to fund themselves. I am willing to bet all the money in the world that the people who work to hand out clean needles for junkies are democrats. And i'm willing to bet everyone who works in a facility "transitioning" people are democrats. And i'm willing to bet that every person working as a "social worker" are democrats. Every person who works for an NGO to help the homeless. These people and the misery they suffer are a source of income for a lot of people. Hence why the problem seems to get worse each year and they only ever ask for more funding. They use the fact that you don't have a heart of stone to fund themselves and destroy what you love. They aren't going to stop because you ask them nicely, or point out that the programs are not working. They'll just call you racist or claim you want grandma to die. This only ends one of two ways 1. the dollar collapses and they can't print to fund themselves anymore or 2. violence. Which do the readers here think will happen first?
How do you debate with people who can't even agree with you on the meaning of words? This entire situation strikes me like a girlfriend who doesn't like you anymore, but won't break up with you to save her "social credit". So she does everything possible to make you hate her or make the situation unbearable. Serious question: how does this end?
your example of switzerland is incorrect. It was homogenous and successful. Now that diversity and immigration has been imposed, it is decaying, just like everywhere else. It is just better hidden, maybe slightly better managed, but it is very clearly in decay nonetheless.
I think you Sweden.
I was referring to the original Swiss diversity - ie the Romand/Alemmanic/Italo/Romansch political contract - not to modern era "diversity". Individual communties & cantons certainly were very homogenous internally to the point of splitting by religious lines.
Loved your article. As an educator who worked with every student population, including pre-vocal retarded students, I can attest to your accurate description of intellectual inequality. Equality does not exist in any realm of human existence, and nowhere is that more evident than in intellectual ability, which cannot be hidden ---only denied and reframed as "disadvantaged" in other areas. Right-think demands we accept that Black students don't have lower IQs, they're just suffering from social ills (poverty, malnourishment, violent neighborhoods, gang affiliation, no father in the home, matriarchal authority, etc.) as the result of racism. They're not inherently violent, they're culturally diverse. All nonsense excuses for non-socialization/assimilation/or simple separation.
For years I have used the 2nd Amendment issue as an example of political forces that militate against reality. Politicians demand gun control and blame white people for school shooting because of their gun culture. In fact, statistics reveal that what would really make an impact on gun violence is black gun control. Of course, it is impossible to legislate good sense and self-control into any population, but getting guns away from impulsive/inherently violent blacks is exactly what has to happen. Impossible -- our Constitution gives the same gun right to blacks as it does to whites. (It's stupid, but understandable in a way because if it wasn't guns, as we see in the EU, blacks will use knives, machetes, or their fists to kill whomever they choose.)
Another example I use is that of zoo facilities, which do not house Silver-backed gorillas with chimpanzees and baboons in the same enclosures. The now rejected separate but equal in human society is acceptable equal but separate in primate society for a reason ----like the warning against planting strawberries among your vegetables. They'll overtake the veggies.
Gun control is a very interesting case of what I was getting at with ‘inequality under the law’. There is a very good case for the right to bear arms to be denied to black people, and allowed - or even made mandatory - for whites.
Interestingly, come to think of it, this is almost what we see in practice in any case. Where do we see the strictest firearms regulations? Invariably in blue states with large urban black populations. Where do we see the fiercest defense of the second amendment? States with large rural white populations.
South Africa would be a good example. Intelligent, disciplined, responsible, white Dutch-descended farmers must have guns to survive another day, not to mention to feed their country. As was clearly seen in Zimbabwe, the country will descend into chaotic, machete-wielding anarchy if the white population does not keep law and order.
Exactly. Armed white men are generally a force for order. Armed blacks generally are not.
Gun culture is almost entirely the product of Northumbrians who settled the Backcountry. They suffered the constant state and stateless violence for 700 years over the question of border between England and Scotland. Men have to arm themselves on a moment’s notice of a cattle raid. This continues with the Indians and cattle raids in Old West. We’re not giving giving them up. It’s in our blood.
You can if you like use Sweden as a comparison to the USA, since Sweden doesn't have anything resembling the 2nd amendment.
Sweden sports some 500 000 licensed hunters, out of 11 000 000 total population. The number of hunters involved in illegal use of firearms is so low it has to be noted separately in the national statistics on firearms-crime. The hunters are 99.9% Swedes (Norwegians, Danes, Finns, Sámi). As in "white" except the Sámi who are - racially speaking - of Asiatic origin.
Yet Sweden has a very real problem with gun violence. Virtually daily shootings in public, where handguns are the weapon of choice. The perpetrators are virtually 100% dark-skins. Negros, Arabs, Afghans, Gypsies, and such.
There's also about 45 000 Swedes keeping fully automatic military grade weapons in the home - the members of the Home Guard. Yet, ever since its inception, there's been one single shoooting where a military man has used his AK-5 in committing a crime. (1) in over a century.
Whereas the darkies will pop drugs and go on a spree, or target someone tangentially related to their intended target if they cannot find him. Parents, neighbours, relatives, or just someone who happens to like the target.
The first "school shooting" occurred earlier this year. A Swedish man, who had access to his father's hunting rifles shot up a school for adults. Turned this man was autistic, on anti-depressants and had been denied his welfare check which would render him homeless. So he went looking for the social services clerks that had made the decision.
Naturally, this shooting got wide coverage. Not som uch a few weeks ago when one darksin walked into a barbershop in a city centre in broad daylight and shot three other darkskin teens in their heads, after which the shooter escaped on an electric kickbike.
I'm old enough that I was an adult when Sweden was all-white, more or less. Youd see the odd Negro if you lived in Stockholm or Gothenburg, the major cities, but otherwise even meeting a Greek or such was not even a weekly occurrence. And back then we had way les restrictive gun control than today - no age limit for one thing, and over 100 000 members of the Home Guard, and retired military or military having a civilian job kept their service arms at home (in case of Soviet aggression), which included AK-47s, m(45s, AK-5s and in some cases KSP-58s (the latter is a heavy machinegun).
And shootings were so rare even one made national news for at least a week. Bombings, which we now have semi-daily, were virtually unheard of. They were so rare people in the 1970s still talked about a gang that had used bombs in the 50s.
And then we opened our borders and the rest is history.
It's incredible how people can look at that and conclude that firearms, and not the people with the firearms, are the problem.
It's the same old song.
Either we are all equal, and then all differences between race/culture-groups must be explained by anything but the groups and the individuals making up the groups being not-equal (since "equal" nowadays means "the same"), or we are not equal and then the entire lie from the end of WW2 to present day collapses.
“The gun was whispering to me, shoot! Shoot! It’s true, Your Honor!!!”
When reading essays like this, what becomes apparent is the catalyst for serious change as suggested above will not come from some enlightened awakening or polite discourse. What will trigger it will be exhaustion.
We in Western nations are surely becoming tired of the endless need to police the progressive Left and their fellow utopians. Those who seem unable to reason clearly and are lost to fantasies that exist only inside their own heads. We know their view of the world is hopelessly distorted.
At what point will we recognize we can't vote or reason our way out of this?
No one is coming to their senses. The adherents of these egalitarian schemes are indifferent to their failure. As they fail and fail again they just reinforce the fantasy; we weren't quite communist enough, we will go harder next time. The Patriarchy prevented success. Next time we won't just target the racists we will dismantle the SYSTEM of racism no one can see. On and on it goes.
It is all emotional claptrap, easily debunked, but not so easily dislodged because it satisfies emotional needs and also helps the less able do better than they otherwise would.
Our nations are being dismantled to prop up the delusions of mentally disturbed dreamers who build nothing. It is exhausting. And I believe that sense of exhaustion is becoming more widely felt as these deranged philosophies reach into every corner of our lives.
Perhaps if this is felt by enough people we may see a return to the hierarchies that always exist anyway and we can finally ridicule the inept for their absurd mental models.
Reading your comment made me think about the rebirth of all the varieties of reactionaries emerging.
I think this might have to do with the exhaustion you're referring to. It's like an instinctual sense that something doesn't feel right and is about to give under the weight of all this oppressive legal paralysis. And so the center is abandoned in favor of the peripheries until eventually there won't be many to maintain, uphold or protect the center.
This reminds me of what I interpreted about the rise of fascism in Italy. At first, in 1919, it was revolutionary, populist and liberal. By 1922 it was co-opted by power and old money. From the 20s onwards it became a case of being a party member to work with or in the system. The wheels inevitably came off in the 30s and by the time Mussolini was hanged, there remained very few fascists.
If we take it far enough we have to accept all these movements reflect some underlying reality. Today one of our realities is widespread mental illness. Most seem to gravitate towards grand schemes of which the Left tends to prefer. The causes then take on their mental distortions. Climate change alone is insane and ignored by most of the world and yet we have well-funded movements everywhere.
I believe we are living through a moment of widespread mass hysteria in the West for which the only antidote is a very hard dose of reality.
I think this is exactly correct.
Reality is always waiting, club in hand.
Yes, the deluded cannot be reached, only marginalized. That only happens post-catastrophe. The cavalier attitude toward nuclear war, I think, is a symptom of mental illness and could result in circumstances to combat it.
The attitude towards Ukraine alone was a giveaway. Remember the Reddit Corps? The very online have a warped view of reality.
I would extend that to all liberals, even the so-called sane ones. We can't fix poverty, homelessness or the gender earnings gaps because they are a consequence of human nature. So I'm at the stage where I think we should be pointing out the liberal aversion to reality.
We have elites in the thrall of utopian ideas with a degree of white guilt thrown in for good measure. We need an alternative. I am not sure a counter elite is it mind you.
The thing that got me about the Ukraine show was how it was a 24hr pivot from Covid. The mentally maladjusted flipped like performing seals. And the blue and yellow branding was an exact match.
Yep. It's almost like they lack the capacity to think for themselves, lol.
I'm pretty sure homelessness can in principle be fixed, and different countries vary substantially in Gini Index, although obviously poverty is relative and can't be abolished in that sense. (You could even 'fix' the gender earnings gap with sufficient coercion, though I don't recommend doing it.)
I would also suggest that a proxy war with Russia was preferable to a direct NATO engagement with Russia, and back in 2021 Putin was essentially calling dibs on a bunch of existing NATO allies. Nor are there going to be fewer nukes in a world where every nation has to fend for itself.
Look at a counter-elite the same way Erdogan looks at democracy: a way to get to a destination that is then discarded. I would like to think a peasant revolt might work this time but that's certainly not the rule.
Yes, of course. There are some suicidal things happening we need to stop and doing so would be an improvement. So it does make sense. Work with what you have at your disposal.
I think what we have been seeing in the North of Ireland over the last few nights is a glimpse of that reality finally starting to assert itself without being overwhelmed by pushback from the system. It seems to be a defining moment for the indigenous majority who will not be cowed by media and state talking heads calling them nasty names. They picked the wrong populace to extend their policies on. After all, the Troubles were only a few decades ago so perhaps there is a different mindset which the managerial class did not account for.
I suspect that is bubbling away all over Britain, not just Ulster.
Uh...define "hard dose of reality"?
I couldn't agree more. Thank you for articulating that.
You are most welcome. Always remember, their enemy is not us it is reality.
Correct. The assumption was exhaustion would make the populace even more supine, but that is not happening at all, quite the opposite. There are outlines of a counter-elite emerging because the exhaustion is punching up as well as down.
I am not sure endless hassle directed towards the global conqueror demographic was ever a good plan to begin with. An early example of the competency crisis among their planners. The artificially-elevated do tend to make a mess of things.
We all know the nonsense ends when we say no. I suspect that is coming. And I strongly suspect our elites are less competent than we realize. I doubt they will cope well.
They cope poorly. The ham-fisted invalidations of elections and the blatant misuse of court systems might indicate an unwarranted confidence, but my guess is they are symptoms of insecurity and an ability to fashion more subtle responses.
I think they are also symptoms of how little they do control. Once you wind up a minion they act more or less solo. Some of those judges are clearly misreading the tea leaves. That is the danger with promoting midwits.
The idea of “equality” in early civilization begun with the invention of hoplite in reaction to the widespread Scythian invasion of Near East. The advantage of g the hoplite depended on the unit staying together so that the Scythian cavalry would lose their advantage. This required both a much tougher discipline and a new ethos that downplayed show-offism of an individual. Think of the opening scene of Rome mini-series where the captain have to go out and drag a disobedient Roman soldier for stepping out of formation. Hoplite warfare was no place for Achilles.
To do that, a new concept of equality was needed in order to get men to buy-in the new style of war.
So, what begun as a military necessary would soon grow into a new political concept. Since the common men were needed to provide the numbers needed for hoplite, it wasn’t long before the common man could demand some voice in the army. You can’t fight a war without men as Alexander the Great discover in India. This is the fact that so many monarchists kept overlooking. Once the Athenians created their own navy, they have to bargain with the common men to give more political voice in exchange for doing the very demanding and stinking job of rowing.
This political equality would quickly translated into legal equality. It wouldn’t be long before the idea of equality as a spiritual value took root in the Roman Empire, because the Empire needed to individualize many nations so that they can be Romanized to provide manpower and taxes.
It wasn’t limited only to Greece and Romans. All early empires after the Scythian invasion would introduced the universalist religion and spiritual equality in some fashion. India introduced Buddhism as a state religion as a part of the ancient high-low class strategy against the middle class, beginning with the archaic states. The first kings were confronted by the fact that the clans who created the state were too independent for their taste, having lavish immune as benefiting the creators of the state. So the kings must separate the men from their clans and their clannish and tribal cults, by individualization which could only be done by creating some sort of universalism where the Big Gods and their ethos are superior to that of the clans, undermining the claim of the ancestral dead and their priests on the loyalty of the men.
This high-low against middle would be repeated endlessly to this very day where the Liberals would use the Colorful Pets against the White men today. The Empire would adopt Christianity because it would individualize men away from their nations and clans to enlarge both the army and tax base, was happened in the first empires. The Catholic Church would continue this individualization project as a weapon against both Holy Roman Emperor and various Germanic lords in order to assert ITS own independence and authority. Things like the priests cannot marry and pass on their office to their sons, or that men cannot marry up to their fourth cousins were some ways to undermine the power of the clans against the Church. This is where the various Spanish clerics began to draw on the ancient Christian idea of the City of God vs City of Man in order to assert the men’s freedom of conscience against the worldly authority. The idea that would find its purest expression in the American Declaration of Independence. By this process, they secularized the Christian values. The Devil of Christian ethics now fooled the world into thinking there’s nothing Christian about the “humanist” values. But the parentage was always there. And Christian values begun not as an spiritual value but as an temporary military solution to the problem of countering the Scythian mobile tactics long before Christianity.
Both liberals and conservatives are individualists, however their differences. Civil rights were only the latest in individualize everyone until only the Corporate-State of the apparatchiks can be the only moral authority. Only those who affirms hierarchy and limits to equality and economic materialism would be the true radicals.
So, we are in a fine pickle today.
There's definitely a connection between military tactics and technology and egalitarianism, though this goes both ways. The medieval period actually saw a return to social elitism, when the knight replaced the legionary as the king of the battlefield. Switched back when firearms returned the infantry to dominance. Industrial warfare then moved us back towards more hierarchial forms, this time in the form of managerialism.
Yet the Greek hoplites certainly had no belief in equality beyond the notion of primus inter pares. Aristotle for example held that since the capacity for reason was unequally distributed, there could be no such thing as equality, and some men were naturally born to be slaves.
One of the tensions here is with the necessarily leveling of effect of law, which places all under a given law on an equal footing in the sense that the same law applies to all. There's no way around that of course - to play the same game, one must follow the same rules. But then it becomes a question of who should be allowed to play the game...
It can go either way depending on how war evolved. The point is that the popular idea of equality definitely began with the need to counter the cavalry tactics. Every studies pointed out that the idea of universalism under some Big moralizing God didn’t receive the elite support until after the Scythian invasion. Ideas will then percolate through the society as different factions plays around them, distilling them to fit their agenda, making them more viral. There will be push backs as always, especially as the bad results revealed themselves. Christianity itself was a confusing contest between various sects and preachers for a century before the needs of the Roman Empire forced some kind of compromise on dogma, creating a powerful enforcement machine through use of subsidies.
I think you can push it back even further, all the way to the hunter-gatherer band. They were notoriously egalitarian, which makes sense given that weapons technology didn't lead to large differences between warriors/hunters.
I was waiting for someone to point this out as it’s true. Both hierarchy in form of the best hunter getting the best cut and equality in the need of keeping everyone alive plays important role in the survival of the clan. So, it’s one of the struggles that will never get resolved. We just have to weight various advantages at different times.
In 20th c. terms, how it went from pre-20th c. Equality Leavened With Common Sense to the full-on late 20th c. horror was the intelligentsia mind game of Relativism. From 'my "abstract" squiggles on a canvas are as "artistic" as a Raphael or a Vemeer' to 'my lazyness is as valid as your industriousness' to 'my homosexuality is as good as your normal sexuality....and not at all dysphoric'. As I wrote in this essay: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/stairway-to-equiheaven
"During the course of the 20th century, this insidious, creeping concept of Relativism took hold....first of the visual arts and then ‘progressively’ of social norms and eventually pretty much everything. The consequences have been huge. But they have been sufficiently slow and incremental to advance largely unnoticed in the public mind. Relativism expanded during the course of the 20th century from being just an esoteric fringe art movement - of little interest to any but its adherents among the cognoscenti - to being the cradle of a perverse wholesale mutation of Liberalism. And once it became fused with Relativism, Liberalism, as a philosophical framework, , became woefully unequal to the setting of any common sense boundaries....to saying: No it’s not ‘all relative’. Not everything is as good as everything else. Eventually, in our time, it became Wokeness ....that huge, ugly brat child making shrill demands that nobody tell it anything it doesn’t wish to hear."
The awkward thing about relativism is that it is obviously in a sense true, whether at the level of physics or ethics, yet leads directly to the void. Suggesting that it is a partial truth.
Your comment is worthy of an article in itself!
Military and religious history are often overlooked sources of understanding. Far too many overlooked just how war impacted our own thoughts. Tom Holland touched on how Christian thought colored secular ethics in his book Dominion. Peter Turchin touched on war and religion in his many books. Imperium Press’s Stack on the Axial Age was also helpful. One thing to keep in mind is that counter-elite can use equality arguments against the powerful to create space for itself, as happens with Socrates and Plato. James Burnham often stressed looking past the superficial words toward the real motivation.
And as also happened with the American founders. Indeed something the woke are correct about, when they hold that discourse is about power ... Invocations of equality are almost always about taking power (and therefore not really about 'equality').
Democracy can only work in a small group (about 10,000) living in a harsh environment like the frontier where there are no police or welfare checks. The stupid and weak and selfish get to die from starvation or an Indian tomahawk or a public boycott. Only the robust and civil-spirited farmer-soldiers survive in such places, creating a very tough audience for any ideologue. This is at this level that democracy can be surprisingly effective. Once police is created, inequality returns as we can see with the arrival of the cattle barons who can then creates factions to control the elections.
How we govern ourselves at the level of tribes will be quintessentially important if a cyclical global catastrophic event occurs later this century. See “solar micronova” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A6ikRgZBf8].
Breeding will be the key difference. The healthier one’s genome and culture is, the more robust and beautiful and sharper will he be.
Yes, this. Equality rhetoric is a weapon wielded by the true one percent. It is such an attractive fiction that much of the other 99 percent swallow it hook, line and sinker despite what their eyes and ears (and, unfortunately at times, nose) tells them.
Around 1924, the great clairvoyant and spiritualist Rudolf Steiner said that the dark forces are going to use the principle of equality as a weapon against us. They will claim that all people are equivalent, from the lowest caveman to the highest initiate. He said much more, too.
Steiner was an extremely interesting man. If I had unlimited time I would engage more deeply with his writings, but the guy was prolific. +
Too bad there's no Cliff Notes!
"The Founding Fathers did not believe in democracy. They did not believe in diversity. They did not believe in equality."
-- Patrick Buchanan
Correct. When they said they did, they were using a rhetorical trick - saying that they believed themselves, as a class, to be the peers of the British lords.
There was some ideological diversity amongst the American founding fathers - Adams and Hamilton were different from Jefferson and Paine. Also, I wonder if anyone is willing to argue that the (unamended) US Constitution is a repudiation of the Declaration of Independence?
The US Constitution is primarily a method of rolling back the more democratic nature of political organization under the Articles of Confederation.
My people, the Quakers, per capita the most inventive and powerful group in the world, were destroyed in the 1950s by adding a "testimony of equality" to the testimonies of truthfulness, peace, and simplicity.
There isn't a one of the egalitarians who doesn't fancy himself better than those who judge based on merit, but the contadiction does not bother them. They know deep down they are really inferior -- that is why they advocate for equality, so they will be treated better than they deserve, and, as a bonus, to pull their betters down.
My foundational ethical belief is:
The fundamental principle of all possible systems of ethics is: "prefer the better to the worse", (I would add: "to the extent of the significance of the difference").
This always requires judgment of what is better and what is worse. Thus it is categorically unethical not to judge, or to judge better as equal to worse, and evil to prefer worse to better.
To judge rightly is always better than not. Intelligence is the ability to judge rightly, so those with more intelligence, as actually applied, are categorically better and worthy of preference over those who are less likely to judge correctly.
There's a parallel here with evangelical churches that have begun teaching that racism is a sin equal in severity to the other seven, a position for which there is no biblical support. They reveal themselves I think as being not really Christian, but leftists belonging to the Church of MLK.
Treating others "better than they deserve" is actually one of humanity's greatest inventions - when applied to the in-group it lifted Western society into the Enlightenment. Today's equity holy warriors are trying to apply it to the out-group first of all - secondly at one's own expense; and thirdly clearly without any gratitude whatsoever from those gaining the benefit.
Its ironic that Quakers were the first true egalitarians (ie anti-slavery and racism etc), but the end-beneficiaries of their labours only have contempt for them as "old white males". Would they still have done the Lord's work had they known they would not be rewarded with gratitude or reciprocity?
Julius Caesar got this basically right. Show mercy once, maybe twice, but no more. Give an offramp from defect/defect to the more mutually profitable equilibrium of cooperate/cooperate. If they take it, great, you have both lost an enemy and made a friend, and are both enriched. If not, and they are committed to defection, then there is nothing to be done but to isolate yourself from or destroy your enemy.
🎯 well said old chap. That is exactly how I approach firing people at my company. Off-ramp: my father told me to give people 4 strikes but eventually they get fired if they are so primitive as to not learn.
Quakers were theoretically egalitarian, but actually quite exclusive. No proselytizing, difficult to become a member (required lengthy questioning, unanimous committee vote), easy to get kicked out (marriage without Meeting approval, ostentation, owning a racehorse, many other things). Quakers considered themselves apart from and superior to "the world", anyone leaving was "lost to the world".
This is not unique to the Quakers. Many groups practice this form of ‘equality among equals’, which applies exclusively to those within the in-group, with the group’s boundaries being very strictly policed.
Bravo Enon , “prefer the better to the worse to the extent of the significance of the difference”.
I’ve never had words for that , yet when I read it, I recognize it. I do believe that captures my modus operandi. Judgement: I have been contemplating the same things for decades, revisiting and reconfirming or revising my thoughts and then putting those thoughts into action in the world. Not inclined to deep abstractions and arcane philosophy for its own sake, I gage the efficacy of my ideas as I see them in action, in the world and always with the same simple criteria for judging success: the golden rule. Would I like to be treated this way, that is the best criteria. But don’t be mistaken, I’m no bleeding heart.
Sorry if that was a bit long, but really I think your description of your ethical model has put in language what I’ve done my whole life .
The golden rule is very important. It's at the heart of courtesy. Would I prefer people be polite to me? Obviously. Thus I extend the same to them. But this is really just game theory, thus if the tit I get for my tat is a defect signal rather than cooperate, I'm likely to respond in kind to that, too. After all, if someone treats me with hostility, I can reasonably infer from the Golden Rule that this is how they wish to be treated.
Yeah, I think I understand that. But that’s not how I deploy the golden rule.
I use it as my internal measuring stick as a governor on my actions. I satisfy myself that I am being fair, how I would wish to be treated, and give no regard - zero - for the reaction of the outside world, the world outside of me, beyond the boarders of my philosophy and practice.
My fellow primates reaction is of no consequence to me. I take it as a given that the rational animal are blind, assholes and brutish. My job, seriously adhered to, diligently adhered to, is to see that I am not an asshole and brutish. “I once was blind, but now I see.”
My best discovery is my evolving understanding of the nature of power and the importance of fear.
“ T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” Wonderful.
What I’m saying is that my application of the Golden rule does not play out as politeness in fact, it’s usually the opposite, fear. I’m doing my brethren a favor. Without fear we all go astray, without fear I will go astray, without fear we are blind, that’s really the point of amazing Grace. Fear is the elixir to our wretchedness.
Politeness no. Game theory no.
Enon said it right, I got it right intuitively and through my unrelenting disposition and most importantly through the application of judgment as aided by the ethical imperative to treat others as you would wish to be treated.
No, not game theory, I don’t trust that stuff
Jesus was radical in not responding in kind.
"My people, the Quakers, per capita the most inventive and powerful group in the world"
That's a pretty bold claim, though I'm open to evidence. Is there some kind of resource or article that delves into it?
See the book Quakers in Science and Industry by Arthur Raistrick (IIRC), also the paper “The Global Network of Corporate Control” PLoS One. 2011; 6(10) supplementary material p. 17; Barclays and Lloyds were Quaker at least to the early 20th c., holding a greater share (4.5%) of control than the rest of Britain, or any other nation besides the US, more than J.P. Morgan-Chase, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America combined..
https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/the-potpourri/4653/276
Some Quaker innovations: fixed-price shops, interchangable parts (ploughshares), mass production of iron, cast steel, iron rails, the compound microscope, the atomic theory of chemistry and antiseptics. Quakers financed Harrison's chonometer that solved the longitude problem and opened world trade. Many of the early watch and instrument makers such as Quare and Tompion, were Quakers, as was Thomas Young (advanced wave theory of light, Young's modulus, deciphered hieroglyphics)
Raistrick's book also covers Quaker domination of the mining industry in Britain in the 1700s, particularly lead, which also was the only domestic supply of silver. Quakers of Nantucket also dominated the worldwide whaling industry, though obviously that's not a big talking point now.
The population of silent-meeting Quakers in the US and Britain since the mid-1600s has been about 60k (40k-80k depending on generation). Perhaps less than 10% of silent-meeting Quakers today have Quaker ancestors going back to the 19th c. or earlier; we've been replaced by draft-dodging commies and fellow-travellers.
Alright, thanks for the links. I'll see if I can follow up at some point.
One more early comment: the key to breaking the spell of delusional equality is to talk about responsibility. Four decades ago I was chastised by hardcore liberals for assuming people are equal. Why? I was arguing an extreme libertarian position which required people to make their own rational decisions.
The Limousine Liberal may mouth egalitarian words, but the libertarian or MAGA populist in practice are more egalitarian. You don't have to advocate aristocracy to crush the woke Left. Indeed, many of the wokest Leftists ARE aristocrats. Think trustafarians.
Yes! Responsibility is absolutely central to this. Something that I touch on towards the end.
Yes. The equality delusion often is used as a weapon to retain power.
spot on.
As always, I applaud for going where no one else will go. This is why I subscribe. Lot to digest in terms of substance so I will be back later.
Same here. Will be re-reading.
Looking forward to your thoughts!
The problem I have with your thesis is that liberalism, or liberals like your black Harvard professor, have no interest in equality. They view whites, or white men, as uniquely evil, and telling them this is not so means nothing to them. That’s just racism, or sexism, or homophobia.
They pretend to believe in equality because whites handed less competitive groups ”rights”, privilege without obligation. You merely have to be born into a victim group in order to acquire privilege and need do nothing at all. You are over complicating things.
Indeed, and I point to exactly this dynamic early in the essay. When they say they believe in equality, they are lying.
this may be your magnum opus.
There is no question Allen doesn't think she demolished Yarvin, and in no small part because she is good and he is evil (Yarvin is white in her eyes).
they are creating a caste system with themselves at the top
Toby Rogers referred to liberal elites as brahmins.
that's a perfect word for it
Well, this should certainly be a book, even if a small one. Every word is hard hitting truth.
This topic is discussed in a different context in my book "From Paul to Mark" under the heading "Markan Epistemology". Here's a bit on that:
"There are many exhortations to ‘hear’ and to ‘see’ in Mark and the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it appears that behind this is the idea that free will to choose one’s destiny is somewhat limited. In Mark 4:9, 23, not all are exhorted to hear, but only ‘those with ears to hear.’ That is, only those who are of the fertile soil as described in the Parable of the Sower; those to whom God has given ears to hear, can hear. Hearing and seeing is not something that anyone can just decide to do; you have to be specially equipped with organs of spiritual hearing and sight.
“Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" And he said to them, "Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." (Mark 4:23-25.)
"[...] [Joel] Marcus writes that part of the “mystery of the kingdom of God” is exactly the fact that there is a division of humanity into the blind and the illuminated, “a division which God, for unfathomable reasons of his own, both wills and calls into being.” He cites Enoch again, the revelations of which include the fact that the kingdom is divided between the holy and the sinners. Part of the mystery is that the righteous will be rewarded, but the sinners will perish, in accordance with God’s design."
The Parable of the Sower is of primary importance here. "Obviously, the different types of soil are different types of human beings; the good soil can receive the word, have their eyes and ears opened, and learn to see, hear and understand. The other types of soil, hardened path, rocky ground, among thorny overgrowth, apparently have no chance of acquiring perceptions of higher realities. What is more, there is no suggestion at all that one can alter the sort of soil one is. One assumes that it is ‘God’s will’ that there are so many different types of human beings."
The same issue is discussed in Lobaczewski's "Political Ponerology". He writes:
"The distribution of human intellectual capacity within societies is completely different, and its amplitude has the greatest scope. Highly gifted people constitute a tiny percentage of each population, and those with the highest quotient of intelligence constitute only a few per thousand. In spite of this, however, the latter play such a significant role in collective life that any society attempting to prevent them from fulfilling their duty does so at its own peril. At the same time, individuals barely able to master simple arithmetic and the art of writing are, in the majority, normal people whose basic intelligence is often entirely adequate.
"It is a universal law of nature that the higher a given species’ psychological organization, the greater the psychological differences among individual units. Man is the most highly organized species; hence, these variations are the greatest. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, psychological differences occur in all structures of the pattern of human personality dealt with here, albeit in terms of necessary oversimplification. Profound psychological variegations may strike some as an injustice of nature, but they are her right and have meaning.
"Nature’s seeming injustice, alluded to above, is, in fact, a great gift to humanity, enabling human societies to develop their complex structures and to be highly creative at both the individual and collective level. Thanks to psychological variety, the creative potential of any society is many times higher than it could possibly be if our species were psychologically more homogeneous. Thanks to these variations, the societal structure implicit within can also develop. The fate of human societies depends upon the proper adjustment of individuals within this structure and upon the manner in which innate variations of talents are utilized.
"Our experience teaches us that psychological differences among people are the cause of misunderstandings and problems. We can overcome these problems only if we accept psychological differences as a law of nature and appreciate their creative value. This would also enable us to gain an objective comprehension of man and human societies; unfortunately, it would also teach us that equality under the law is inequality under the law of nature." (I don't have page number since I have a doc copy.)
I've read FPTM, actually! Though that part specifically hadn't stuck with me (there was a lot in there...), there's certainly the concept from esoteric Christianity that souls are not actually evenly distributed throughout the population, not universally possessed as conventional Christianity would have it. And also the concept from Gurdjieff, that not everyone has a soul, that you have to work for one. Which directly implies that souls aren't actually equal. But then what do you do with that information?
Very interesting that Lobaczewski had the same intuition about equality. But then of course he did ... You can't grasp the reality of psychopathy and continue pretending that they are remotely equivalent to human beings. Many years ago, with Ponerology fresh in my mind, I had a conversation with a leftist in which I suggested that we should test people for psychopathy before allowing them to hold office. She was horrified at the thought. I found that very interesting...
You observed very astutely that this so-called modern ideal of ‘equality’ rests upon the assumptions of Christianity, with the rest of Christianity filed off, and so it makes no sense. ‘Equality’ is not so a Christian idea as so many of our post-Christian liberalists love to claim. Indeed, the concept of hierarchy as a Good is threaded throughout scripture. There are hierarchies of angels; a prescribed good order within families; we are called to submit to our authorities, whom God has established. Even in heaven, we won’t be equal; for Jesus said, “many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first”, suggesting an order. The claim that all can be equal is really of Satan, who resented his place in the hierarchy and desired to upend that order.
Indeed, traditional Christianity is far more nuanced than political ideology, and that nuance provides an essential balance that prevents certain ideas from being taken to their natural and dangerous conclusion. I tried to emphasize this near the beginning, but may not have been as clear as I could have been - this isn't Christianity's fault, per se, but rather the misapplication of an idea taken from Christianity and isolated from the rest of the faith.
Now I'm on board with this. I was about to launch a long comment but I concur with this nuance. It is odd too because a weirdly large part of modern malaise is that many people simply don't want to be the warlords or worldshakers or the like and that is more than fine.
Reading this, I find myself solidly on the side of spiritual equality but welcome this well-thought criticism.
I realize that less than a year ago, I was fully in the camp of equality, more or less, so I know I can be wrong.
I need to think, read, and reread more about this before coming back with a more full response, but for now, just saying thank you for the challenge, John!
I'm fascinated to hear critiques of the arguments here. I'm certain that there are good critiques. Iron sharpens iron as they say.
I am with you. I think there needs to be a stronger demarcation between forms of equality. In my life, I have come to view the dignity of man as created by God to be the only true form of equality. All other definitions of equality are secondary to this, and most are harmful to the flourishing of man. The lowest form of equality is equality of outcome. The modern progressive has the order almost entirely backwards.
Early comment based on reading the first half: The classical liberals, including America's Founding Uncles, were *relatively* egalitarian with respect to the feudal system set up by William the Bastard. They were saying that being the first son of the first son of the first son of the first son of a badass didn't make you better than an actual badass.
That doesn't negate the possibility of inherited greatness. Even without feudal rules, aristocratic families arise. It is a mix of circumstance, expectations, genetics, and *identity*. I note the last component as a member of the fading Tidewater aristocratic class. I have been frequently been chastised by rednecks and hillbillies for using too many big words, listening to classical music, and being a pompous prick thereby. Some of these rednecks and hillbillies were considerably more intellectual/intelligent than many fellow faded aristocrats who went to good colleges (including Harvard) and watch PBS.
The Bible both recognizes inequality and buffers it. The great and prosperous are supposed to take care of the weak and unfortunate. This can be found in the Old Testament with the mandate to provide zero interest loans and gleaner rights to the poor. But also, the Old Testament law has the Jubilee Laws which make a feudal system impossible. It limits getting richer just for being rich.
Love the way you framed the founders' position. Exactly that. They were saying, in essence, "we don't care about your title, we think we can take you." And they did.
Of course many of the founders themselves were the products of aristocratic lineage. Not the first sons, perhaps, but the second son of the third son of the fourth son...
The biblical framing is valuable in that it emphasizes the responsibility that comes with power. Stewardship of the Earth, not exploitation of it. Man has dominion over the beasts of the field; the nobility over the commoner. But it does not follow that this position can be abused. If it is, a price will ultimately be paid.
“Equal rights” and “equal treatment” have always been what America promised. This “equality” and “equal opportunity” are both nonsense.
John, at this point I'm having to add your posts to my list of novellas to read...
This was more of a monograph … I still need to write a novel…
A novel sure, but also write some nonfiction books.
But honestly, I have been wondering if there should be different subscription lists, instead of just one generic one?
Just the fact you wrote this essay, John, is proof of equality’s falsity. Your alpha brain whipped up (no offence) something I could never do as I am intelleckshually further down the ladder - which is nothing I resent. On the contrary, respect, inspiration and aspiration are due as I look upward and attempt another rung.
Equality, like its ideological enforcer communism, is a bulldozer of human creativity, flowering and social wellbeing. Its only beneficiary are its overlords. My bet is there is a clear heirarchy once you get into the top tier and hold all the spoils. As you said, the upper classes revert to their most rapacious forms.
Of all places in Western Europe, Denmark struck me as a willing state of equality. I have many relations there. There’s an unspoken, and sometimes spoken, thing called the Jante Law: if you stick out like a nail you have to be hammered back in - which makes for an incredibly conformist social condition. Everyone is polite, the country functions like clockwork, the standard of living is one of the highest in the world, and yet…
With all that repressive conformity, Danes are uncomfortable expressing or revealing themselves, especially with deeper issues and emotions which have been systemically locked in the basement for generations. Thus its films and popular export, Noir TV crime shows, invariably consist of dark buried secrets revealed, along with some more dark violence for effect. It came as no surprise to learn that this nation of equality - supposedly the happiest - has some of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world.
All that Viking warrior energy has to go somewhere when there’s no rival village to rape and plunder.
As for the terrible condition of the progressive equality-driven Left, yes, I’ve seen it happen in real time and here in the UK, I feel increasingly surrounded by people who are getting uglier and fatter by the day. Obesity has become fashionable, curiously among the younger white population. As you say, it’s no accident and all the magazine covers normalizing it are partly to blame, not to mention the word ‘fat’ is now considered hate speech punishable by law.
And as for your definition of a psychopath, that seems to fit neatly as a definition of AI.
Thanks for another thought-provoking essay on our devolving world.
Jante’s Law isn’t only in Denmark - it’s a big thing in Sweden, too. I think all through Scandinavia. It’s really an expression of consensus culture. The Japanese are similar in this regard, though more extreme. Among the Anglosphere countries, Canada is the most consensus-driven.
I’m not sure that consensus cultures are NECESSARILY less creative. Scandinavia, Japan, and Canada have contributed far more than their fair share to human cultural novelty (though, it must be admitted, less than their more fractious cousins in say France, Germany, England, or America).
It seems to me that they arise when 1) there’s a high level of genetic homogeneity, such that everyone is pretty similar and 2) environmental conditions are a bit harsh, necessitating collective action for survival. The interesting thing though is that such cultures always have a conversation under the conversation going on - a continual testing to see if the consensus is still the consensus. So long as everyone concludes that the consensus is, in fact, still the consensus, it continues, and there will be very little overt challenges permitted. When the consensus does change, however, it does so very abruptly, at least from the perspective of everyone outside.
I’ve spent most of my life in the US Pacific Northwest which has a huge Scandanvian descended population. I really wonder how much echoes or remnants of this attitude help explain the peculiar nature of places like Seattle.
I hadn't realized the PNW had a significant Scandinavian influence. Always thought that was mainly Minnesota.
My father-in-law was third generation American but ethnically 100% Norwegian. Born in Montana. Just as an example.
Fascinating.
Yes, I should have been clearer. I mentioned it about Denmark but not only Denmark. I agree about the harsh environment aspect. It also ties into alcoholism, gun ownership and suicide, although that could mostly be attributed to lack of sunlight. And as for the conversation under the conversation, it's very obvious to outsiders, or at least to me when I'm there. There always seems to be a test going on.
It can certainly be obvious that there is a conversation under the conversation, but what exactly is being not-said isn’t always entirely clear to outsiders, I think. Interpretation of the unspoken relies on an extensive body of shared cultural assumptions, historical knowledge, and so on.
Indeed. And thanks again for a great essay. I hope there's a book in the works, a compilation.
Yes, people keep pushing me to compile my essays into a book…
Going to add some to the reference to Janteloven (Law of Jante) which was invented/codified by Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose:
The ten rules state:
You're not to think you are anything special.
You're not to think you are as good as we are.
You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
You're not to think you know more than we do.
You're not to think you are more important than we are.
You're not to think you are good at anything.
You're not to laugh at us.
You're not to think anyone cares about you.
You're not to think you can teach us anything.
---
An eleventh rule recognized in the novel as "the penal code of Jante" is:
Perhaps you don't think we know a few things about you?
Important to understand is that the Janteloven is used and referenced in lots of discourse and debate, and is used pejoratively about people who try to enforce this, the Dark Side of cultural homogenity.
It is in no way seen as some ideal or norm by any Nordic/Scandinavian people, but as
dangerous and undesirable; this impulse is a large reason behind the often obssessive adoption of foreign ideas by the intelligentsia and bourgeois classes (in no small part due to a Nouveau Riche-inferiority complex when they compare themselves and their urban haunts to Berlin or wien or Zürich or New York). The working class counter-part is in equal parts to adopt foreign things shunned by their "betters" and reject the ones endorsed by said "betters".
Wikipedia actually - wonder of wonders! - has a quite good summary of it (and I totally copied the "laws" from there):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
Do consider reading the novel it comes from: A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (1933), for the full experience.
Thanks Rikard for qualifying. It's so horrendous.
The truly horrific aspect of it is that since no-one thinks of themselves as being below-average, everyone assumes they themself are above-average (which we know from lots of interviews where people are asked to gauge their IQ and at least 2/3s always put themselves in the 115-130 range), and that their current conversation partner is too; the latter is the false equality-impules in action.
Which of course results in everyone subconsciously violating the Jante-law with regards to themselves while keeping tabs that others do not, which in turn spirals ever-inwards into some kind of recursion:
"I'm better than xyz, I just know I am but it'd be rude to say so better play it humble"
What's so funny is that there's a way to violate it while not being punished: be audacious abou it. Be brash and bold and a boisterous braggart (me) and people will instead appreciate you for /not/ adhering to it. I like to think of the whole thing as Jante being a consequence of Protestant morality and moralism taken to its logical extreme - and it all being in conflict with the underlying Nordic culture where there's great appreciation and admiration for braggadocious Falstaff-like characters, and outspoken straightforward plainspeaking honesty.
I've even been asked by non-European colleagues if I'm actually Swedish, because they found my attitude and way of behaviour being so unusual to the majority, and my reply has been that yes, I'm /more/ Swedish than most because I live my cultural heritage. It's funny - with the darkies I could have much more honest back-and-forth than with Swedish women in academia (which is where Jante is strongest).
Watching those false-equality impulses play out in endless recursive spirals is a form of entertainment for those of us not paying its subscription fees.
I sometimes wonder how often the intelligence quotient is mistaken for the new app for the London botanic gardens.
As for the pious virtue signaling of false humility, it is truly vomit inducing. I cannot abide it and do my best to call it out. Could your brash unSwedish Swede-ness be a function of age? As we get older, we're less concerned about who thinks what of us. As a wise man once said, "What other people think of you is none of your business."
I think it is because I straddle city and country, both in how I grew up and how I've lived as an adult, as well as straddling being of the academical class as much as I'm of the Lumpenproletariat and working classes.
Age only plays into it as far as being able to express myself goes: my younger self would get into trouble and fights due to my mouth having a mind of its own (or no mind...), whereas the post-30 me had learned how to say the same things but in a way that was listened to without fists starting to fly.
Thirty was quite a while ago though, and age and physical stature certainly provide the pondus (do you use that word in proper English?) a younger man lacks due to the different focus (girls, items of status, girls, deeds, girls, bragworthiness, girls for the young - steady hands, the voice of experience, accomplishments and skills, and family [and looking at girls] for the older).
I'll be turning 70 next year, so yes, looking at girls is enjoyable, although attractive fertile women would probably be a closer definition. My mouth still gets me into trouble though.