Against Utilitarian Apathy.
I was originally imagining this as a general defense of collectivism, but it gradually morphed into an attack against of a far-too-common attitude I see uttered again and again.
We have a disturbing proclivity towards a kind of strange Utilitarianism in this day and age, one which responds to the "People on the tracks" debate with a kind of vague "eh" and shrug of the shoulders, a kind of constant self-doubt and self-contradiction wherein in the desire to do good is overrided by a constant fear of doing evil. I'd say that this is mostly a result of the age, and specifically of postmodern trash constantly seeking to "deconstruct" historical heroes and myths, so that you cannot just have Washington the Founder but you also have to have "Washington the Slaveowner" and "Washington the Native Genocider", in short the idea of a hero and heroic deeds have been removed from the discussion of great men, such that you cannot be allowed to celebrate the achievement of America's founding without first anguishing over the lamentable state of the people conquered in the process of attaining America.
What we get by this is what can be considered a denial of fire: people refuse even the idea of a state-sanctioned religion "because what if we have modern day witch burnings?!" People refuse a clearly outlined code of conduct, an enshrinement of the sacred by society at large "Because what if that leads to us creating a dystopian state run by murderers?!" People refuse any kind of morality that isn't consensual, but "consensual morality" is in itself an oxymoron--as it makes a firm statement that there is Good and Evil, that we should try to be Good, but demands that evil isn't opposed in any meaningful capacity, that evil attitudes and evil people should move freely about the greater whole of society because to force goodness on others would be an evil in and of itself.
In fact, the peculiar thing about this Utilitarian Apathy is it instantly assumes that the second you do have values, the second you do define a right and a wrong, you must commit murders; it's like a strange reversal of the old Religious-Nihilism argument that the second you aren't religious, you should just end up committing suicide because there's no reason to live.
On this very forum we have a thread honestly asking, "Well collectivists, if you care about the common good so much why don't you just MURDER the WEAK and SICKLY?! After all they're draining resources from the common good that they can't put back in!" It's as if people are so afraid of stepping on bugs that they reject moving and insist those who do believe in moving can't walk around with stomping an infant's head against rough pavement. We see this again in debates about Race Realism and White Identity: you could have the most perfectly liberal, progressive person in the world arguing against you, they'll say they want to help people, that they care about what's good for everyone, and when you beat their arguments on race they'll finally throw up their hands and say "Well if that's true I guess we just have to GENOCIDE ALL THE BLACKS BECAUSE THEY'RE AN INFERIOR RACE!"
It's not that they accept the dogma or believe it to be true, the more common case is they assume there's someone smarter than the "evil one" who knows the "real truth" and beat them resoundingly in a debate on race realism. But their response to what could happen if they accept the other side as correct reflects a deep doubt and fear of themselves, of what they'd be if they weren't just mindlessly grazing, that any kind of activity that motivates them or makes them passionate for something beyond the self would turn them into a monster.
This apathy falls on the revolutionary as much as the reactionary, whereas the reactionary wants a complete change of society towards something more spiritual, more transcendent of the self, the revolutionary wants a complete change in the economic relations between people and society, however both of these separate desires for change have been rebuffed by a apathetic liberal force which stokes fear over the slightest thought of challenging the herd, of trying to direct others in service of something, of having a little bit of willpower because the second you do is the second you have to take responsibility for your state of life, and for anything that could happen in your desire to change things for the better.
What this has done is robbed people of any kind of future. Mark Fisher talked about "Capitalist Realism", or rather how there's an increasing trend in depictions of the future to not be much different from today, rather than featuring an exciting new world with new economics and new relations between people, instead we see one wherein the liberal status quo has continued for hundreds of years, with the only difference maybe being in the "flavor" of capitalistic humans you see on screen: maybe more brown people here, less white people there, so on.
This attitude will not last however, because it can only ever infest a people but never conquer them, eventually those people will either get conquered in turn by a society which does care about something, which isn't nihilistic, which isn't afraid to act, or such an infestation will be burned out by men appearing in the ranks of those people who aren't afraid to do something. Thus those who whine that, for example, Islam "needs" a reformation are whining without cause: these are people who are used to dealing with their native churches, with the threat of a kind of psuedo-general strike: "Oh I'll just stay home on sunday and not pay a tithe if they don't become more liberal!" They are quite incapable of imagining a religion whose word is law and whose people can exist quite comfortably without modern politics in their Mosque. At the current rate of demographic displacement, it's less that Islam needs a reformation to be in line with modern times--as it's going to become one of the largest religions in the world regardless of terrorism--but perhaps modern times which needs to conform more towards Islam. Sweden will be 30% Islamic by 2050, that number will only continue to grow, if those Muslims form Islamist parties or demand more respect for Islam among the current parties they're in, do people think they will somehow "need" a reform? Why? When they already have growing political influence, when they aren't opposed, why in the world would it need a reform?
As I said, you can only choose to throw off modernity, or be conquered by those who have. But the current spirit of apathy in our world cannot last.
Posted Mar 16, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC
You're an idiot.
"no u"