In order to create your own religion, first of all you have to appeal to people's narcissism, and that is really quite easy. It's not like it takes a Ph.D. The shortest explanation of narcissism is that people have a decided tendency to split things into all-good and all-bad, meaning one group tells itself it is all good and those who disagree with them are all bad.
A really short definition? God and the Devil. People who think God is on their side become convinced their "opponents" are are in league with the Devil, so they have to be expelled or murdered. It's been the history of the world.
I first began to think about this after reading Ayn Rand's (real name: Alice Rosenbaum) psychotic novel, Atlas Shrugged. The woman was clearly mentally ill, which she projected into her novel, and at that time I did not understand how anyone could fall for what was clearly dangerously deluded nonsense.
Rand, who I'm sure did not know what she was doing, split her characters into her grandiose, all-good producers and projected all problems onto her subhuman, evil parasites, who she then cast into the outer darkness to die.
When I thought about it I realized it was a neat trick. Of course, her most fanatic followers consider her the greatest novelist and greatest philosopher who ever lived, and anyone who doesn't think so is attacked as a blasphemer and heretic.
My God, if I could pull that off I'd be rich and have people eating out of my hand! Convince them they are gods, tell them their opponents are evil and the cause of everything, and bingo! The money would come pouring in, especially if I could come up with a program that they think would greatly improve their lives. I could do the backstroke in a swimming pool full of cash!
It would work best if you could tell people they're going to Hell or will be reincarnated as dung beetles or something, but it doesn't work that way anymore, so second-best best is to say you're gods on earth, so you can be self-righteous and project all your problems on all those disgusting, repulsive and evil subhumans.
Every simple-minded religion, every cult, does it exactly the same way: we are gods, you are devils - expel! Kill! Then heaven on earth shall reign.
Leftists do the same same thing: we are right, and our opponents are not just wrong, they are Evil!!! And leftism, when it gained political power, has led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people.
Now the interesting thing about narcissism is that all of us are narcissistic. Here's a short definition of narcissism: "They have a sense of entitlement and demonstrate grandiosity in their beliefs and behavior. They have a strong need for admiration, but lack feelings of empathy for others. These qualities are usually defenses against a deep feeling of inferiority and of being unloved."
All of us have a "devalued" self which they cover up with a "grandiose" self. If we didn't no one would fall for any grandiose belief system. Some of course are more narcissistic than others, which is why some don't fall for any of them. Researchers think these devalued/grandiose selves run back to us being three months old.
The more integrated a person is, the less likely he is to fall for any narcissistic philosophy. The less integrated - or maybe disintegrated - the likely he is to fall for it. "Integrated" means wholeness - which has the same root as "healthy," "hale" and "holy."
By the way, the Greek word for "humility" is sophrosyne, which means "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess." It means knowing your limitations, too.
I don't believe in "evil," because the childish are always going to call their opponents evil and will insult, mock, expel and ultimately kill them.
Religion, at its best, has been about opposing our narcissism. The Greeks called it Hubris and noticed it was followed by Nemesis. The Bible called it Pride, as in "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."
Now we turn to the Manosphere. The definition of the Alpha is almost purely grandiose and narcissistic, so its supporters are always going to say "I'm an Alpha (Sigma, too) and those who disagree with these concepts are the eveel and contemptible Betas, Gammas, Deltas, Omegas."
Of course, these contemptible people have to be insulted, mocked, cursed and expelled as heretics, blasphemers - witches!
Neat trick, huh? And they don't even know what they are doing.
Not only are those who disagree attacked and expelled, another enemy must found who can called a permanent enemy. These days, for some in the Manosphere, it's women - those evil, selfish, gold-digging, loveless whores who only are interested in "Alpha Fux and Beta Bux."
To be precise, women are Satan and those criticize the more retarded concepts in the Manosphere are just Lesser Demons, ones who are the dupes and minions of ...Satan!!!
Whoever came up with these definitions of Alpha/Dark Triad has been hurt by women, wants revenge on them, and just might hate them. Anyone who truly believe these things is looking to poison his own soul.
They will, most certainly, defend their beliefs with the three main defenses: projection, denial, and rationalization.
The beliefs in Alpha, Beta, etc., along with the narcissistic Dark Triad and women as evil, have to go. And in the long run, they will. Except for that small group of fanatics who will never change their minds - as fanatics never do. They are heartless people with delusions of grandeur.
When you look at what the whole of history says about these things - Hubris/Pride/Alpha - the prognosis is - ahem - terminal.
3 comments:
Rand is a product of her time, Bob. By today's standards, she was a simple woman writing for even simpler people. Back then most men didn't finish school, they believed what the academics and intellectuals told them and 'Atlas' had no real room or need for 'character development'. By today's standards it was a pretty crappy novel. What it DID do was show the lesser academics of the day how communism failed. What you call narcissism - she called 'self interest'.
My grandfather enlisted with all the boys of his generation en masse because they were told that the Kaiser was raping women and bayonetting babies. They believed it because they saw it on a recruitment poster so it just HAD to be true, right?
Objectivism does have some merit, in my out-house opinion, but fails by doing a great disservice to altruism. All ideologies break at some point I suppose.
If an "Objectivist" ever gets too annoying, ask them:
"When have you accepted Ayn Rand as your personal savior."
I'd agree with Glen-- I think Rand was important in offering a counterpoint to socialism in a period in which progressivism was becoming culturally ascendant. I'd also agree that there are areas in Objectivism which do break-- one being the essential social nature of man, which Rand unconvincingly addresses as death worship.
I'd still take Rand over 99% of today's political thinkers-- though I've since moved to the Moldbug end of the spectrum.
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