House of Eratosthenes

It’s certainly a question worth asking. Because twenty-year-old guys aren’t that worried about evening out an economic playing field, and Das Kapital is boring.

Three fundamental ideas: “The enemy of being is having”; “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his need”; “philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.”

Hat tip to David Thompson, by way of Gerard.

I have noticed there is a narrow band of authority altitude that is highly attractive to the Medicator mindset. You could think of it in military terms as Sergeant and Corporal ranks, but not as disciplined. Something high enough that the holder of the office is responsible for seeing what needs to be done, and also high enough that he can order a grunt to do it once he figures out what it is. But low enough that forming the vision to be carried out, is someone else’s job. So someone else higher up figures out, if the mission is to succeed then this thing over here is going to have to be done; then this middle-management layer comes in, takes the order, figures out something incredibly mundane has to happen, and then starts barking orders to the muscle-men who have no discretion and make no meaningful decisions at all.

The appeal seems to be: High enough on the org chart to get some atta-boys, low enough never to be blamed for anything. Apologies to retired Sergeants and Corporals for the comparison, I can’t think of any other way to illustrate it and I know your “real” jobs are much more complicated than this.

Point is, there is a role being sought out, and the role is to boss around others, with or without a real purpose involved. If all commodities achieve value through scarcity, then surely a ticked-off Marxist guy thundering away about how this-shall-not-stand, young or old, is about a dime a dozen. How tiresome the spectacle has become. Yeah yeah, you’re angry and you’re mobilizing, got it. Just order the damn burger and let’s get out of here.

So the appeal of Marxism, apart from getting hold of the fruits of others’ labors without helping to shed the blood sweat & tears, is bossiness. That’s my opinion, anyway. Like ~~Severian~~ (we think it was?) said, somewhere (Update: Nope not him): Modern liberalism amounts to a lifelong struggle to make high school come out right. They are the nerds who were shoved into trash cans by the bullies, who grew up and now want to become the bully.

Longer lecture here:

At 15:33: “Marx was also a master psychologist. He understood there is a class of people in every society who, like himself, are motivated in their day-to-day lives by envy, resentment and hatred. Such people always blame others for their condition and plight. And Marxism speaks directly to such people.”

Related: Because I don’t link to it often enough: Zizzo and Oswald’s money burning experiment.

Never met a communist male who wasn’t a beta.
Men are more widely distributed than women.
Less desirable men in every distribution search for means of demonstrating alpha-ness as a way of attractic status and hopefully mates.
For the betas, communism is attractive, not the least of which is because women slant collectivist.

It’s as good a religion as any.

Oh. Wait. That’s not true. It’s sort of got the lock on mass murder, doesnt it?

🙂
- curtd59 | 04/22/2012 @ 07:34
Like Severian (we think it was?) said, somewhere: Modern liberalism amounts to a lifelong struggle to make high school come out right.

I think it was actually Nightfly, or maybe CaptDMO, who originally coined it…. I just repeat it a lot, because it’s awesome.

There comes a point in every young lad’s life where he looks at the Seven Deadlies and thinks, “Dude, these are awesome! I don’t see what’s supposed to be so bad about lust, envy, and sloth…..” And then he either figures out why they’re bad (the process we somewhat inaccurately label “growing up”), or decides on cold utilitarian grounds that it’s just not worth it to buck the system… which is why most folks coming out of college at least act like decent human beings, instead of the id-driven little monsters we’d all be if we weren’t given some guidance in our formative years.

There’s another path, though, that especially appeals to the kinds of little totalitarians-in-training who will go on to captain Debate Clubs. It’s a kind of Nietzschean reversal — sloth, envy, lust etc. aren’t bad, they’re good, because they spur the collective human race to better and better achievements. Where would evolution be without lust, for instance? And “envy” is just another word for “competitiveness,” which has inspired nearly every great figure in history to do the things that made him great. Heck, whole nations need competitiveness — look what happened to Imperial Rome when they ran out of people to fight, or the kinds of things the USA was capable of when we had to fend off Nazis…..

And right about this time, some “cool” teacher comes along and tells them that this is idealism, that the children are our future, that the cynicism of dried-up old men like their dads is soul death, to fight the power, to never trust anyone over thirty.

And all of a sudden you don’t hate the starting quarterback and yearn to see him brought low before the whole school — you’re concerned about “social justice.”

You’re not consumed with jealousy that the head cheerleader will never go out with you — you’re worried about “equality.”

You’re not nearly blind with envy that so many rich kids have so much more stuff than you do — their parents are only rich because they cheated, and exploited poor brown people, and if, come the Revolution, most of their stuff ends up in your pocket, well, that’s just simple “fairness,” no? “Spreading the wealth around” and all that… which, as we know, is good for the economy, and thus society as a whole.

And then the “cool” teacher gives them As for this, and then their professors do, and pretty soon they’re 30-year-old perma-students demanding that society as a whole should pay for their baby pills, because “social justice.”

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled wasn’t convincing the world he doesn’t exist; it was convincing the world that all our sins become virtues if we apply them to society as a whole.
- Severian | 04/22/2012 @ 08:13
I don’t know about that, Severian. Adam Smith had a pretty good point about sin and virtue, and as Madison furthered, they’d try ambition against ambition since all other motives had been proved to be defective. That is what the Marxist do, go back to the original and defective motive of altruism, which turns virtue into sin.
- xlibrl | 04/22/2012 @ 21:08
Xlibrl,

I see what you’re saying. I’m not sure I buy it in this case, though, because I don’t think altruism was ever a part of their motivation. They certainly claim that is — “but their hearts were in the right place!” is the constant excuse for socialist atrocities from Albania to Zimbabwe — but that lets Marx’s acolytes too far off the hook for my taste. I submit that envy, sloth, wrath, and lust were the key components from the get-go.

Marxism, in other words, isn’t spoiled altruism; It’s a function that allows us to claim our worst impulses are our best…. and then expect praise when we follow them.

[Then again, I want Marxists to be horrible people, so I need to think further on what you’re saying — I don’t want to confuse the thing I hope is the case what is actually the case. That would be awfully….fraternal socialist of me, no? 🙂 ]
- Severian | 04/23/2012 @ 10:48
Altruism is a dangerous thing in the politics of developed civilizations. All atruism in politics is spoiled fruit. I am on board with the idea that all Marxist are evil poseurs. Manipulating asltruistic instincts are what they are about. They love themselves, love the game, and fear and detest people.

All advances in civilization are anti-instinctual. Altruism is instinctual. So no matter what advances are made, no matter the horror of socialist history, we see how vulnerable the public psyche is to appeals back to instinct.

Smith hinted at it–“We are not ready to suspect any person of being defective in selfishness. This is by no means the weaker side of human nature.” Tom Sowell’s observation is that one of the great peculiarities of the American Revolution is that its leaders pinned its hope on the organization of factions against one another, rather than the default position of man–good versus bad.
- xlibrl | 04/23/2012 @ 19:58
Actually, Sev, I thought that it was you with the liberalism/high school quote! WordPress spent months locking me out of commenting here, regardless of how often I logged in, so it’s long odds that it was me. Glad it’s out there in any case, because it does fit the thought process: a group of the coolest and smartest people in the history of anything, feeling everything so deeply, caring so much, in perpetual rebellion against squares and scoffers who are both frightened and envious of their genius and power. Culturally, it was quite a disaster when adults gave up and agreed with them. This last point Morgan has made a number of times – everywhere we look we are shown kids who are always smarter and hipper than their clueless parents (and especially the dad), all destined to save the world from itself, ending in showers of grateful adulation… occasionally the adulation comes too late, after our hero has perished to save others. The public pressure on teenagers to become adults in thought and attitude has nearly vanished, and so not many of them do.

Run down a great majority of our public bellweathers. They pretty much hit every checkpoint: they chase even the appearance and wanton behavior of their youth endlessly, and can only pretend to be wise and calm and deliberate. Annoy them just enough and their sputtering immaturity comes right to the forefront. Their political philosophy is, in essence, “Someday I’ll show you ALL.” President Three Putt can make all the telepromted noise he wishes about healing and hope and bridging the divide, until it’s time to do things. Then it’s “Tough, I won” and abuse of the recess appointment privilege and end-runs around Congress and browbeating the SCOTUS… or the American people.

This leads me (as much as I don’t like it) to think you’re close to the gold, xlibrl, with Marxists fearing and detesting people. The worst thing about people from this point of view is that they’re OTHER people. They don’t belong to the Marxist. Even if they agree with him they aren’t actually him, and have their own hobbies and habits and jobs and families and attitudes. Ultimately this means that they can say NO. Hence the obsession among Marxists to make all their requests into requirements. They’ve even come right out with the delightfully-revealing concept of “compulsory volunteering.” And of course, you can keep your doctor if you like! – if by “your” you mean “your ASSIGNED” and “doctor” you mean “bureaucrat” and “like” you mean “stuck with.” As long as they call it the “Democratic Freedom of Medical Service for the American People Act” or something, then what are we proles bitching about? It’s got the word FREEDOM right in there, c’mon!
- nightfly | 04/24/2012 @ 07:48
Nightfly,

well said! Especially this: This leads me (as much as I don’t like it) to think you’re close to the gold, xlibrl, with Marxists fearing and detesting people. The worst thing about people from this point of view is that they’re OTHER people. They don’t belong to the Marxist. Even if they agree with him they aren’t actually him, and have their own hobbies and habits and jobs and families and attitudes. Ultimately this means that they can say NO. Hence the obsession among Marxists to make all their requests into requirements.

This is the way children think. And not sophisticated, on-the-cusp-of-adulthood children, either — this is the basic subject/object distinction problem that characterizes the Terrible Twos. I think that’s why I ultimately left my youthful leftism behind — it’s childish.

At some point, every developmentally-normal human being learns that there are some disputes that simply cannot be resolved, because it’s impossible to argue someone else into belief or disbelief. For instance: Nobody in the history of barroom sports arguments has ever actually won a barroom sports argument. That’s because they’re not really “arguments” — they’re chances for me to show that I know what VORP and BABIP and whatnot mean and you don’t, and that’s why you’re wrong when you say Ted Williams was the greatest hitter in the history of baseball (it’s clearly Albert Pujols).

Leftists can’t accept that. If you don’t agree that it’s Ted Williams, they’re going to make you agree that it’s Ted Williams — first by appeals to ever-more-esoteric statistics and other verbal squid ink, later by convening congressional committees and suing in federal court. Which is why you don’t see too many leftist sports fans (ever actually watched Supreme Leader “discussing” college hoops?). More importantly, though, that’s why they always come back to Marx and the iron laws of dialectical materialism…

….and pretty soon you’re arguing that it’s a metaphysical necessity that on-base percentage is more valuable than runs batted in. And that’s why Ted Williams is a better hitter than Albert Pujols. It’s science, comrade.
- Severian | 04/24/2012 @ 10:22
[…] Morgan quoted someone as saying, “Modern Liberalism amounts to a lifelong struggle to make high school come out […]
- They are still going « Blog of the Nightfly | 04/24/2012 @ 13:24

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