Discussion about this post

User's avatar
West Coast Philosopher's avatar

I think this was my favorite essay of Yarvin's I've read.

I have to reflect on why. My guess is that it articulates something I felt, but only inchoately, which is that (a) self-analysis, done in the wrong, but most common, way is the route to nihilism; (b) psychology, more than Marcuse, has ruined the western, developed world.

Re: (a), I've had a story of myself since I was in my 20s. (At least, that's part of my story of myself; I'm not actually sure I did have a story of myself in my 20s, or if I did, what it was. Honestly!) And I have found that when I delve into the causal antecedents of my behavior, it just drains the interestingness out of my life. "Oh, I'm a cog, huh? Great. I guess this is why I do X and Y. The end."

Not to mention all the second-guessing. I second-guess myself all the time. Hell, I second-guessed myself in the previous paragraph!

But Yarvin has a more intriguing, actionable explanation: when you get a sense of what your flaws are without an attendant sense of guilt, you accept your flaws and even rejoice in them. And then you're stuck with them, plus the new flaw of loving your flaws. I'm sure this was in _The Screwtape Letters_ somewhere.

Re: (b), I think that psychology is to culture what economics is to policy. Psychology is responsible for the implicit bias stuff, for the microaggressions stuff, for the "I'm traumatized" stuff, for the insane fixation on linguistic trivia stuff. It's responsible for the idea that environment is everything, more even than the empiricist, blank-slate philosophers like Locke, because it actually offered "rigorously" tested interventions that actually "worked" and depended merely on very small changes in language to effect their effects. (Growth mindset and values clarification, I'm looking at you.)

So, I've now learned three things from Yarvin that I have accepted as deep parts of my worldview:

(1) The desire to make a difference is often Satanic; (this was the most novel idea of his)

(2) You should look at your own age as a historian looks at past ages; (C. S. Lewis also had something like this; he talked of and condemned "chronological snobbery", but Yarvin gave me a way to practice the theory)

and

(3) Accepting your flaws is very bad. (As I said above, I'd always felt this inchoately, but now I can articulate it -- I have a story!)

Expand full comment
Automaga's avatar

But was she hot?

Expand full comment
99 more comments...

No posts