Sunday, March 9, 2014

Legions of Mindless Dipshits

The Russian writer Dmitri Merejkowski (1865–1941), believed all religions could be divided into two basic ones: in the first one, Man sacrifices Man to Man. In the second, God sacrifices himself to Man.

Rene Girard, the French theologian, wrote that God sacrificing himself to Man culminated in the sacrifice of Jesus, which was the first time in history the sacrifice was considered innocent (before that they were always considered guilty) and it was supposed to put an end to scapegoating and human sacrifice. It didn't work.

Nietzsche suggested something similar when, in his "Dionysus vs. the Crucified," he wrote about two totally different religions — one based on taking the point of view of the victimizer, and the other that takes the point of view of the victim.

The first religion he correctly identified as pagan, and it has nothing to do with the silly "kinder, gentler" faux-paganism that those repulsed by what Christianity has become are today trying to create (or in their minds, recreate).

The second religion Nietzsche identified as Christian. Although an atheist, he was in some ways more Christian than those who today profess to be. He could at least identify with those victimized, something today, in my opinion, many Christians cannot do.

The pagan god Dionysus, Nietzsche pointed out, was not the god of drinking and partying and having a good time. He was the god of drunken rioting, destruction, and at times tearing people to shreds. And although it sounds counter-intuitive, he was also a fertility god.

We've all seen Dionysus. Every time you see a mob of people rioting and destroying things, and breaking into businesses and carrying off the merchandise and attacking innocent people, that's Dionysus.

We still have Man sacrificing Man to Man, even if it is supposed to be for country (and of course God "supports" every country on the planet.) Walter Wink called this "the myth of redemptive violence," that belief that violence redeems us and make us "whole." They're fertility rites, supposedly to save and "renew" society.

I see human sacrifice all the time, and supporting it is based on propaganda.

Propaganda is not that hard. Say that you and your kind (country for instance) is in the right, and there are countries that are insane and evil and homicidal and want to attack you because they are evil. Claim the peacemakers are cowards and traitors, and the legions of mindless dipshits will march off to war - human sacrificing themselves, and human sacrificing their "enemies." And again, they are fertility rites.

It's as simple as that. It's called projection, or scapegoating. Say you're good, they're evil, project your problems on them, and the average retard will march off to his death - to "save" his country.

I'm been thinking about these things, off and on, for about 15 years. The one novel that struck me as being a perfect example of this insanity is Ayn Rand's (real name: Alice Rosenbaum) Atlas Shrugged. I didn't read it until my 30's so I was immune to it, and instead wondered how anyone could take it seriously.

Rosenbaum had her perfect, grandiose "heroes," so she had to project all problems onto her "looters" and "parasites," then cast them into the outer darkness to die by the billions. Human sacrifice, to "cleanse" the earth of "evil," so Utopia will reign. After all this death and destruction, a new and better society will spring up. Fertility rites.

Sick woman. Clearly narcissistic. And paranoid.

The reason she is so popular among some younger people is that they identify with John Galt, so they can take satisfaction in getting rid of all the "subhumans" out there. The ones who they think are tormenting them.

They also think she predicted the future, not realizing she took those predictions from other people. In fact, I've heard her writings described thus: "What is good is not original, and what is original is not good."

Again, I see these attempts at human sacrifice all the time. It's just astonishing that people defend this stuff. But then, I'm sure the Aztecs defended sacrificing 20,000 people a year so the sun wouldn't stop in the sky, or that the Canaanites and Phoenicians defended rolling live babies into the fire-filled stone belly of Moloch.

All these beliefs are based on the idea that reality is pretty much inherently evil, so you have to have blood sacrifices to satisfy these envious, evil gods so they won't rub us out. That's pretty much what ancient paganism was about.

It reminds me of a little-known but very accurate movie (which I have written about before) called Cabin in the Woods. H.P. Lovecraft's Elder Gods really do exist, and they want the blood of five innocent teenagers (who must die agonizing deaths) every year so these gods won't rise up and snuff the entire human race.

One of the curious things about the movie is that the only kid who sees through the whole murderous charade fits the archetype of the Wise Fool. The same thing exist today, and I'm sure in the past: it is the wise ones, who are considered fools by the self-deluded mobs, who see though to the truth. ("You know, I don't think God supports this country just because you say so...especially with the lying, murder, theft and destruction of the innocent...")

The first religion, Man sacrificing Man to Man (at least when it comes to mass murder), appears to me to be always associated with the Political Means of force and fraud. Rosenbaum believed in that, and since the Elder Gods do not exist, that movie, too, was about Man sacrificing Man to Man.

All political communities sacrifice Man to Man. To prove this, you need look no further than the Communists in Russia, China and Cambodia, or the Nazis in Germany. The 20th Century, with 177 to 200 million people dead from the Political Means of war, was the Age of Man sacrificing Man to Man. To save, to "renew." Fertility rites.

When individuals murder it's based on overcoming their feelings of humiliation and regaining their pride. To renew themselves. To regain their pride. It even works with this for the worst of killers - the serial killers, who are consisting sacrificing people in the eternally vain attempt to "save" and "renew" themselves.

These people always believe in Pure Good and Pure Evil, which is always associated with Man sacrificing Man to Man. Again, when people see themselves as good and someone else as evil, only then can they convince themselves that force – a lot of it – is necessary to human sacrifice other people, in the belief evil can be eradicated from the world. Again, for Utopia.

Political communities almost always become totalitarian. They do not believe in freedom; they believe in Pure Good and Pure Evil, and they believe in sacrificing Man to Man. All this, together, means political communities see violence as redemptive, as believing in what Mircea Eliade called “the Myth of the Eternal Return,” meaning a return to a Golden Age. Only they believe in returning to it through murder, theft, greed, lies, the love of power.

Because political communities always end up believing in Pure Good and Pure Evil, they idealize themselves as good, indeed sacred, and believe themselves to be Saviors, ones who have to save the world by force and violence. Those who oppose them, being defined as evil, must be destroyed.

The people who believe in human sacrifice, in whatever degree, are asleep. They are Dwellers in the Mirage, and one of the original meanings of "dwell" is to "deceive, hinder, delay; to err."

That, to me, is the best definition of Original Sin.

5 comments:

Rachael said...

I seriously do not get the fixation on that stupid book. I read it all - except John Galts redunkulous manifesto - because it was crazy-long (further evidence of Rands narcissism - none of them are ever succinct), and I already new what he was going to say and I have a life.

Somehow AS has become the daily devotional of the ill-informed. The irony is it's such a profoundly lazy philosophy I sincerely doubt any of those characters would actually ever get anything done.

Unknown said...

Any philosophy that appeals to our narcissism - "I'm great and you're the scum who is the cause of my problems" - is always going to be a hit with the simple-minded.

Glen Filthie said...

I think you boys may have missed the point by a mile and took the wrong message from Rand. Although Atlas Shrugged was tedious and poorly written, the main points were:

- all men are not created equal
- society doesn't owe you a living, it owes you the right to make a living,
- only capitalism can produce a society that will allow the average man to reach his full potential
- socialism destroys incentive and encourages sloth
- the world is what it is, and perception is NOT reality.
- I have been in Galt's shoes. Any decent man who has had to work for a politically correct/equal opportunity/diverse corporation WILL find himself in Galt's shoes at some point.

Needless to say those truths do not sit well with a lot of people. I am not one of them.

Rachael said...

Glen Filthie, I agree with your description of the message, it's just that AS is essentially a rip off of the Bible (and other religious texts) from the point of view of someone suffering from a God complex. I find it hard to take her seriously, not for her supposed atheism, but because of her complete lack of self awareness as she promotes the Religion of (her)Self, couched in a rejection of religion. It's very pedestrian, and her character studies were so vapid as to be annoying. Unoriginal, in other words, and not nearly so nuanced as the works she hacked.

John Salt said...

Glen, those points are the draws to get people into Rosenbaum's tent, as Bob pointed out in an essay some years earlier. Inside the tent are narcissism and scapegoating and human sacrifice.