Comment on "Tribes and Societies"
I've got a full plate today doing demolition work in our master bathroom. So, I thought I'd post this comment I made on ShrinkWrapped to a post on "Tribes and Societies". Here's my comment:
This is an amazingly tangled web and you go great lengths to simplify and clarify it through your related essays.
It is simplistic, dangerous and wrong to believe - as many social utopian quasi-pacifists and hangers on in Europe, the U.S. and Canada do - that the way to deal with the violence inherent in the human condition is abdication of power and the renunciation of violence.
However, in their world view it all makes perfect sense. Individuals are naturally benign, empty vessels that can be molded by their culture. Power (or money, or firearms – name your poison…) is a culture artifact. Power is always corrupting and never so much when those with or in power leverage violence - no matter how just or justified.
The Islamo-Fascists - following in the footsteps of Soviet Union before them - use the harebrained, idealistic notions and faulty science of our progressive elites against us in a sort of sophist ju-jitsu. If power is the ultimate corrupting evil, those in power in our own culture must be brought low. The underdog must always be favored – no matter how heinous their actions or regressive and repressive their culture. Why…? It’s quite simple comrade - they’re the underdog and they’re fighting the power – see “power is evil” above.
Whether we are talking about individual men, tribes or nation states - the true measure of maturity and humanity of an individual or group is how and when it uses or refrains from exercising power.
Our elites can well afford their noble – and oh so self gratifying – philosophical pose because for the most part they are safe. They are safe and free to engage in self indulgent navel gazing or self gratifying spewing of their multicultural vitriol at the very folks who make their childish poses and behavior possible - their moral and intellectual inferiors in the Bush Administration or the military.
Our intellectual betters hate and pity these people, these cultural throwbacks, these Neanderthals from Kansas or Iowa or wherever, that are actually willing (not to mention proud!!!) to get their hands dirty or bloody in the defense of their family, their country or their culture.
How we deal with our aggressive and violent nature – particularly how we control, channel and yes… even embrace the aggressiveness of our young men – will define how we do as a species long term. The war we are in right now is just one of many natural experiments and I have great confidence that it will eventually all work out.
In the long run, I’m very optimistic about us hairless monkeys. In the short term, I fear that if we continue to coddle and enable the people who despise our culture (including the barbarians – foreign and domestic – already inside of the gates) that there will be a great reckoning and many, many people will die in the next 50 years or so.
Most of the dead will not be American or European. And most in our culture still care about these people, recognize their inherent worth, and would rather not seen them die at our hands. If you want to know what makes our culture worth defending by force of arms – that may just be number one on the list.
I've got a full plate today doing demolition work in our master bathroom. So, I thought I'd post this comment I made on ShrinkWrapped to a post on "Tribes and Societies". Here's my comment:
This is an amazingly tangled web and you go great lengths to simplify and clarify it through your related essays.
It is simplistic, dangerous and wrong to believe - as many social utopian quasi-pacifists and hangers on in Europe, the U.S. and Canada do - that the way to deal with the violence inherent in the human condition is abdication of power and the renunciation of violence.
However, in their world view it all makes perfect sense. Individuals are naturally benign, empty vessels that can be molded by their culture. Power (or money, or firearms – name your poison…) is a culture artifact. Power is always corrupting and never so much when those with or in power leverage violence - no matter how just or justified.
The Islamo-Fascists - following in the footsteps of Soviet Union before them - use the harebrained, idealistic notions and faulty science of our progressive elites against us in a sort of sophist ju-jitsu. If power is the ultimate corrupting evil, those in power in our own culture must be brought low. The underdog must always be favored – no matter how heinous their actions or regressive and repressive their culture. Why…? It’s quite simple comrade - they’re the underdog and they’re fighting the power – see “power is evil” above.
Whether we are talking about individual men, tribes or nation states - the true measure of maturity and humanity of an individual or group is how and when it uses or refrains from exercising power.
Our elites can well afford their noble – and oh so self gratifying – philosophical pose because for the most part they are safe. They are safe and free to engage in self indulgent navel gazing or self gratifying spewing of their multicultural vitriol at the very folks who make their childish poses and behavior possible - their moral and intellectual inferiors in the Bush Administration or the military.
Our intellectual betters hate and pity these people, these cultural throwbacks, these Neanderthals from Kansas or Iowa or wherever, that are actually willing (not to mention proud!!!) to get their hands dirty or bloody in the defense of their family, their country or their culture.
How we deal with our aggressive and violent nature – particularly how we control, channel and yes… even embrace the aggressiveness of our young men – will define how we do as a species long term. The war we are in right now is just one of many natural experiments and I have great confidence that it will eventually all work out.
In the long run, I’m very optimistic about us hairless monkeys. In the short term, I fear that if we continue to coddle and enable the people who despise our culture (including the barbarians – foreign and domestic – already inside of the gates) that there will be a great reckoning and many, many people will die in the next 50 years or so.
Most of the dead will not be American or European. And most in our culture still care about these people, recognize their inherent worth, and would rather not seen them die at our hands. If you want to know what makes our culture worth defending by force of arms – that may just be number one on the list.
posted by Royce at 10:43 AM
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