Posted on 09/23/2022 10:06:24 PM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans
"A further reason for my hatred of National Socialism and other ideologies is quite a primitive one. I have an aversion to killing people for the fun of it. What the fun is, I did not quite understand at the time, but in the intervening years the ample exploration of revolutionary consciousness has cast some light on this matter. The fun consists in gaining a pseudo-identity through asserting one’s power, optimally by killing somebody – a pseudo-identity that serves as a substitute for the human self that has been lost."
~ ERIC VOEGELIN[I]
The pseudo-identity of a totalitarian dictator relies on pseudo-ideas. And what are pseudo-ideas? They are often ideas about the victim status of some group – based on sex, race, nation, or class. We hear these themes regularly; for example, that women or transgenders are oppressed, that non-whites are oppressed, that the poor are oppressed by the rich. Here is a victimology that promotes mass murder by encouraging despair. It is a despair that justifies “killing people for the fun of it.” The National Socialists said Germany was the victim and blamed the Jews. The neo-Marxists say people of color are victims and blame white racism. The old-line Marxists say the workers are victims and blame the bourgeoisie. The dictator states, who also see themselves as victims, blame America and/or NATO. In its current war against Ukraine, the Kremlin uses a confused mix of all-the-above, citing Ukraine as a U.S./NATO/Nazi conspiracy under Ukraine’s Jewish president, who is backed by Jewish oligarchs. Here we have an “all-the-above” goulash of popular resentments to justify Russia’s war of aggression. This justification differs markedly from the usual totalitarian demagogy. It partakes of an intellectual incoherency and rhetorical carelessness suggestive of mental disintegration. Who would have guessed? Russia’s regime of banal mediocrities cannot be bothered to make their lies credible. They no longer possess the intellectual wherewithal of the early Bolsheviks. The elder Soviet statesman laid out a long-range strategy. But now it seems, the post-Soviet generation cannot think for themselves. When the old strategy began to fail, they improvised. It was then, and only then, that the mediocrity of the nomenklatura showed itself. The Russian and Chinese governments are failing their people. Disaster in Ukraine and a financial meltdown in China follows.
In the beginning, the totalitarians were intellectuals; or, rather, they were pseudo-intellectuals; always talking about a better future for mankind. Yet their actions have always been less than ideal. They followed Stalin’s rule of elimination. “No man, no problem.” As Putin said in his 21 September speech, people who oppose the Kremlin lies are now subject to elimination. They are “fair game.” This is not merely a declaration of war against Ukraine. It is a declaration of war on freedom of speech. If anyone dares to contradict the Russian lies, they are “fair game.” So says that wonderful Christian and conservative, Vladimir Putin. All critics of Russia must die. Here is how “killing for the fun of it” is now justified. The Kremlin will have its way. And Putin says, “I am not bluffing.” So the world will bend its knee, or burn. Here is the logic of the coming nuclear war.
However long he pretends to be tolerant and normal, the revolutionary totalitarian cannot live in peace with people who disagree with him. He must overthrow the world order. He must destroy the powers that be. Because he must have his way, he must be the world’s boss, his only recourse is murder. Eric Voegelin wrote about this, and so did Edmund Burke in his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France.
We see today, in America, self-described revolutionaries emerging on the right and left. These would-be totalitarians, lacking self-knowledge, appear to be enemies of each other; but the stage is set so that they can be turned into allies (as happened when Hitler and Stalin agreed to their famous pact in 1939. From the left, everything possible is done to divide and alienate people. Conservatives and patriots feel more and more alienated, disempowered, and even afraid. There is, in American today, a growing paranoia and distrust of the authorities. Policies hostile to the citizens are routinely adopted by elites who think of the people as “deplorables.” Criminals have more rights than their victims. Illegal aliens are preferred over the citizenry. The basis of our existence, which depends on cheap energy, is under a coordinated assault in the name of Climate “science.” We the People are being strangled. Oh yes, the stage is set. Pre-revolutionary conditions are being fostered.
Worse than this is our intellectual confusion. Fact and reason are no longer relied on to establish common ground for discussion. The news is no longer news, in the old sense. Nobody seems ready to agree on the most basic things. Every fact is twisted to fit a partisan purpose, or to fit a conspiracy theory, or a revolutionary agenda. History no longer teaches lessons. Our ideas about history are now “deformed” by apocalyptic consciousness, ideologies of despair, or by those who claim to have unmasked history’s meaning (e.g., Hegel, Marx, and the conspiracy theorists). These deformed standpoints may be summarized as follows: (1) Apocalypticism – which assumes knowledge of the “end of history”; (2) despairing creeds – which say we should withdraw from the world on account of its wickedness; (3) historiogenesis – a linear misconstruction of history that promotes policies that lead to nowhere.[ii]
What we have learned, from recent international events, is that an intellectual decline is affecting both East and West. There has been a dumbing down on all sides. Yet the freedom enjoyed by the West provides an outlet for creativity and technological innovation that continues to bring advancements. Russia and China cannot, in the long run, compete with the West. The only thing they can do is rain nuclear destruction on our heads. But do they have the nerve?
READ MORE
https://jrnyquist.blog/2022/09/22/the-totalitarian-trajectory-and-man-in-american-interview/
BKMK
Excellent post!
Our (at least) seven tiered injustice non-system:
1) Foreign invaders aka migrants
2) Democrats
3) LGBTZRSTUVWXYZ+ regardless of party
4) "People of Color" regardless of party
5) Muslims
6) Republicans in general
7) White, Christian, straight men
Who are these self-described revolutionaries on the right he is referring to?
A description is given in the article, and there's a ton who fit this insane description right here on FR.
Part of this is not new. Circa when I was in the military I heard senior NCO’s call the military justice system as three tiered. Tier one; officers who commit various crimes such as drunk driving accidents (quite a few on base at the time), bad check issuance, etc get the following discipline.
A’ If white a black mark on their record, nothing else
B If black, nothing other than some verbal comments by a senior officer
Tier two; negro other ranks, basically nothing as they are a protected class
Tier three; white other ranks, the full weight of the code of military justice applied, no mitigation for previous good or heroic service.
The article describes the disillusioned conservative who wants revenge for the wrongs inflicted on them by their broken society.
But this conservative is far from being a “self-described revolutionary.”
The disillusioned Leftist wants to fix society, whereas the disillusioned conservative wants society to be fixed. The former is active, the latter passive. Only the former is a revolutionary, let alone a “self-described revolutionary.”
Maybe the semantics are unimportant, but I take exception to lumping the active revolutionary and the passive disillusioned into the same bucket.
Regardless, thanks for the article.
Yesterday evening, my dad, brother, and sister were having a text conversation. We were talking about Biden’s gaffes from earlier in the day and some from a few months.
Suddenly, someone texts my father and asks, if it would be okay if the conversation gets muted. Creepy!!!
My dad was the only 1 of the 4 of us that was contacted.
It's deeper than that. The revenge motive is, perhaps, the underlying motive of many, but Nyquist also discusses how they've completely detached themselves from reality and now ape leftists in their anti-Americanism/conspiracy theories. America is always bad bad bad, America's enemies are always good good good. He doesn't give these examples, but I've even seen so called "conservatives," normal people just a few years ago, defending/apologizing for China and even Iran. Not any different from self-avowed Communists across the world who hold the same views.
Read later.
Odd too, profiling (racial discrimination) is only applicable to colored folks.
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