I started this one thinking he's suffered a loss, he has an awe-inspiring responsibility to his kids, maybe he's a changed man.
Man is he not.
The problem with conservatives is the more you hammer the point home the more they thank you. You're getting hammered. Don't thank your server! That's for paid actresses at the end of certain videos that shouldn't exist because no one would want that for their child.
To the point of the article.
I've taught a lot. College kids, tier 1, hard subjects. In my teaching I learned to repeat myself. No matter how many times I've seen this exercise or experiment, for the student it is the first time. It's pre-first-time.
So I adopted a rule: For me it is always the first time. It worked by all measures.
This is what Yarvin is doing here. He's repeating himself. For you.
If it isn't Nock, "The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure." is damn close.
One might ask "is Nock the right thing to repeat?" He puts a lot of other material around it, and that may help some people, and maybe helping those people is a positive.
At the end of the day, Yarvin's and my own repeating serves a filtering function. I was a cog that ensured buildings will stay up and cars won't burst into flames.
Yarvin is a cog that ensures you are ruled properly.
"The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure" --
What is our rulers' worldview, and how does it arise out of the ways in which they're able to boss each other and us around?
How does the "organic structure" of our oligarchy (the ways in which our rulers are able to boss each other and us around) differ from that of the Byzantine and medieval-Chinese oligarchies, and how do these differences generate differing worldviews?
Curtis asserts that differently structured regimes promote different ideas because of their structural differences. I want examples, with an explanation in each case of how each exemplary regime's peculiar structure resulted or results in its promoting peculiar ideas. I suggested the examples of the Byzantine and medieval-Chinese regimes as well as our own oligarchy because the Byzantine and medieval-Chinese regimes were famously bureaucratic. The fact that there were emperors in both of those cases, so that strictly speaking these weren't oligarchies, seems irrelevant, but if it's in fact relevant then other examples might be chosen.
Thanks to GM I am more and more thinking of everything only in terms of “power”. Both sides of the radio dial seem even more idiotic.
In groups, and on average this power has to do with coherence of coalitions.
In individuals it has to do with skills.
Our host has mad skillz, and I’m always skywheeling on the high updrafts of his prose, looking to swoop down and peck at the Diamond-perfect fires he’s set for us.
So here's what I'm struggling with on this one. You say "You are going to lose" as if that were a bad thing.
Trite as it may sound, I can't get around the idea, central to Christianity, that the only way to truly win is by losing. More precisely, the Christian idea is that the only way to truly live is by dying, death being a prerequisite for resurrection.
I do find myself sympathetic with your take on Greer/Meadowcroft/et al. It's as if they're still pretending that everything can be put right in the Shire as long as the hobbits just keep doing what they've always wanted to do. Only they're maintaining that pretense not only long after the Nazgul have crossed the borders, but even after Saruman and his southerners have set up shop and torn up the Hill.
The time for pottering around in the garden was past long before now.
I just have this sinking feeling that you're going to tell us that the real way out is to make sure we use the One Ring good and hard.
Meadowcroft says that he and Curtis are really on the same team but that Curtis writes for “courtiers” who might be able to make big changes at the top while he (Meadowcroft) writes for provincial burghers who aren’t in a position to make big changes at the top and know that elections are pointless. Meadowcroft wants these provincial burghers to resist the regime from below in various little ways while Curtis’s courtiers work on destroying it from above. Obviously Meadowcroft gets the character of Curtis’s readers wrong – they’re priestly nerds, not courtiers, according to Curtis himself, and this seems to be an accurate assessment – but he (Meadowcroft) could easily adjust his statement accordingly, since his main point is that he and Curtis are working on the same problem from different angles. At the end of his statement, Meadowcroft affably notes Yarvin’s contemptuous tone: “… [h]is condescension comes from worry and frustration, a worry and frustration that we [provincial burghers] ... don’t know of what the [bad guys] in control are capable ….”
I think that if Curtis doesn’t want to accept Meadowcroft’s offer of friendly alliance then he should explain why in a non-contemptuous way. I suspect that Curtis doesn’t want to ally himself with people like Meadowcroft and the provincial (Trump-supporting) burghers because he (Curtis) wants to convert Scott-Alexander-type “rationalists” to Yarvinism (which seems to consist in hopeful expectation of the almost-imminent release of a rational-dictator-app that will enable its users to invoke a rational dictator) – and these rationalists irrationally despise provincial burghers.
What do you think of his latest post, "The real Great Reset", on which comments don't seem to be allowed? I noticed that at the end of it his practical proposal is to work on coming up with a "design" for a better regime. Does this mean that the summoning-the-dictator-app isn't ready yet?
Maybe the dictator gets summoned and we hope that the regime-design will be ready for him to review by the time he arrives? It occurred to me that Augustus and Napoleon figured out their designs only after they'd already become dictators; I don't know about Cromwell. Lenin and Hitler were improvising to a large extent too, weren't they?
I think that the best plan for Curtis would be to just summon the dictator and then let him figure out what he wants to do. Well, let me correct that; I think that Curtis should focus on summoning the military into installing the (non-military) dictator -- that would be the most plausible way in which the "transfer" (of power) that he talks about might occur. He should focus on befriending majors and lieutenant-colonels.
What are "conservative"/Traditionalist things that even many far Left elites and most people like/enjoy/miss. Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. What "conservative/Traditionalist" things have modern strip-mall, casual chinos, Trump raging on twitter conservatives abandoned? Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. There's a reason all the new wave of American Tankies wear ties.
In C S Lewis's THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH Merlin wonders why his conservative/traditionalist hosts are dressed like slaves. I assume that they were wearing ties and 50s professor-suits.
Regarding the "culture war", I think it's clear that the conservatives have lost whatever the war of 1995-2010 was called. The next war, against what is best referred to by the exonym "Successor Ideology", may turn out different. But it is certain to be won by those who fight, rather than those who simply prophesize victory.
"Before the war in the East Ramapo, New York school district, there was a truce. Local school officials made a deal with their Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors: we'll leave you alone to teach your children in private yeshivas as you see fit as long as you allow our public school budget to pass. But the budget is funded by local property taxes, which everyone, including the local Hasidim, have to pay — even though their kids don't attend the schools that their money is paying for. What followed was one of the most volatile local political battles we've ever encountered."
But, you have to be REALLY organized. Mainstream conservatives are not organized. They weren't organized to beat Ron Paul in my legislative district in 2012 because they don't have "class consciousness".
Well, at least now we know for sure that Curtis has a plan, even though he keeps saying he doesn't in his interviews. Now if he could at least drop a hint as to what the rest of us should be doing... I have energy aplenty.
This is pure intuitive observation of social trends, but I feel 30 years from now the hip in-crowd will be:
-more into traditional beauty
-less relativist
-less gay/victimy/effeminate
-more accepting of Christianity as a mythology and foundation
Will it be "conservative", no, it will be five times fresher than the blackest lesbian transgender is right now. But I'm with optimistic conservatives that we will see a cultural improvement as the pendulum swings away from our current miasma. Not a long term cure for oligarchy, not a turning back the clock. Quality of life will probably continue to slip --- but quality of culture will see its first upswing in our lifetimes. Not in the law books, in the novels.
To put it in GM terms, there is a power to truth itself, which grows in attractiveness the farther you drift from it. Most of us here already feel it keenly; many more will learn its luster as the contrasts become more defined.
Or maybe not :shrug: but I think this is the energy a lot of young conservatives are vibing on, which I'm not sure Curtis properly identifies and refutes.
That's "young Meadowcroft" 's view; his argument is that (1) things revert to their natures; (2) human beings are things; therefore, (3) human beings will revert to their natures, which include love of beauty and an inclination to marry and have babies.
I agree with you and Meadowcroft in general, but I think that the time-scale should be on the order of 500 or 5000 years, not 30 years. Certainly no observation of present social trends can lead us to the conviction that hipsters of 2051 will express and affirm human nature, because the hipsters of 2051 are unborn.
A point that may look trivially quarrelsome but that is in fact worth considering: It seems to me that when people endorse "tradition" (as you do when you use the phrase "traditional beauty") what they really care about is nature. Traditions are ways in which people can live naturally. Traditional living is necessary but not sufficient for natural living. For example, Aztec tradition was unnatural. Tradition isn't intrinsically good; it's good only as a means to living naturally.
Question (re: humans): If I invent a system to perpetually drug the humans, will they revert to their non-drugged nature?
Of course not.
Industrial society is a drug that poisons every culture that adopts it—and literally *not one* wants off that drug once they get that first high. Everyone, everywhere is high all the time. Software isn't consuming the world—industrial society is.
There will be no "reversion to their natures." Industrial society makes humans sick and depressed and then manufactures the cure, conveniently available in pill form (which, natch, boosts the GDP—and the downward spiral continues). There is no harm that Industrial Society can inflict on society that it cannot "innovate" it's way out of.
Curtis thinks that "different institutions" will save these drugged-out people and cultures, but the ultimate structure, the *real* "meta" is Industrial Society itself. And it started in 1760, so all of his precious history lessons before that are…useless.
"Doctor, what's wrong with this patient?" "He's a drug-addict. Take away his drugs. He'll get better." "But Doctor, he LOVES the drugs. Any other ideas?" Curtis interrupts with his Gray Mirror pitch: "Try drug burrito pods with 8K graphics. Get really, really good at delivering those drugs to everyone, all the time. All will be well."
I agree with you about this. That's why I said that it would take 500 or 5000 years for human life to become natural again. Industrial society has to collapse first, which will take a long time, and then new, natural societies have to form, which will also take a long time.
By "industrial society" you mean a society devoted to the mass-production of machines, right? Suppose that only certain monastic orders, in which a very small minority of the population is enrolled, make and use machines, but that these are extremely powerful machines -- for example, spaceships. Everyone else would live in a medieval way, except that they'd have clean drinking/bathing water and effective sewage-systems (which doesn't require machines). This wouldn't be an industrial society, would it?
You have a substack blog, don't you? What's the address for that?
I agree with you and Yarvin on a macro scale --- we are on sinking ship, but it's a nice sinking ship, and we're certainly not going to jump overboard because the water's up to our knees. The historical change is not going to happen soon (barring some cataclysmic event that catalyzes it).
But on a micro scale I do think we're heading for more interesting times that will please the conservative types. Perhaps this intuition is mostly fueled by living as a hipster in my 20s (arts school/Williamsburg), and directly experiencing how stale and fake that world has become. Postmodern ideas (manifested as irony, sarcasm, rejection of tradition, rejection of truth, deconstruction, subversion) were actually exciting in the art world 50/100 years back. They are now very transparent. They are staid, they are nerdy, no longer cool.
The enlightenment onwards artistically can be tracked as milking the deconstruction of the order that had been built up until then, and that yielded greatness, but nothing has been more clear in our lifetimes than the fact that there is no more blood to be wrung from that stone. Culture needs to go somewhere --- artists are intrinsically attracted to subversion, which is why this trend has continued for so long, but more than that they are attracted to excitement and uncovering the future. There's no where to go but up. One way to think about it is that there's nothing left to subvert but the subversion itself.
Where can that energy go? Into genuine dissidence, for one. We currently have larpy dissidence like Laurence Fox, but I foresee a real dissident art scene, like Wajda under the Soviets. There will be a place for real rebellion, not just Tim Burton rebellion.
I'm not even talking strictly politically though, more culturally. We can feel these forces reasserting themselves. Modern feminism is an interesting example (of the #metoo variety). This is essentially a conservative movement, expressing conservative ideas, yet it is superficially masked as progressivism. This is an emergent subversion of sexual emancipation that wasn't really spearheaded by anyone or any particular idea, yet it asserted itself with real consequences.
I'm fine swapping in natural beauty for traditional beauty. I believe there is a true ideal of beauty that can be manifested in different material specifics, and traditionally we in the west were closer to that ideal traditionally than we are now. Really it's just "beauty" though. Not even the relativists find pomo beautiful. "Beauty" as a driving force rather than irony.
I guess one's sense of its degree of downfall depends on one's neighborhood, pattern of activity, and range of motion. I haven't left the western strip of Brooklyn since the maskovid began 16 months ago, and have only left the Sunset Park to Park Slope part of that strip three times. I don't want to ride the subways because of the mask-requirement.
Almost all of the Chinese people here, including toddlers and small children, are still wearing masks; mask-wearing has declined significantly among all other parts of the population. The bourgeois-bohemians, who demonstrated their nazi-like souls throughout the maskovid with their self-masking fervor, are efficient propaganda-recipients and therefore no longer wear masks because they've all been dutifully warpslimed.
One thing that the maskovid has taught me is that ethnic diversity is good in this respect: the bureau-minions know that they can't force browns to obey their rules, so there's less pressure on the population as a whole. NYC has in general been pretty lax about maskovid-enforcement; even during the actual stay-home!-lockdown there was never any enforcement of the Australian sort except against religious Jews in a half-heartedly persecutory manner.
Of course no enforcement against the "Christians" was needed; they dutifully shut down their own gatherings, thus demonstrating the degree of their faith. I passed a latin-evangelical or pentacostal church last sunday (not just the storefront kind; this was an actual churchy sort of edifice) with an entirely masked congregation gathered in front of it, the service having just ended. The last time I passed the big Catholic basilica on a Sunday, not too long ago, everyone entering or leaving was concealing his/her God's-image-face behind a Satanic mask.
This feels like downfall to me, but it's worldwide. Israel has also fallen; I hope for a violent religious uprising against the Satanic government there.
'The Greek word “praus” (prah-oos) was used to define a horse trained for battle. Wild stallions were brought down from the mountains and broken for riding. Some were used to pull wagons, some were raced, and the best were trained for warfare. They retained their fierce spirit, courage, and power, but were disciplined to respond to the slightest nudge or pressure of the rider’s leg. They could gallop into battle at 35 miles per hour and come to a sliding stop at a word. They were not frightened by arrows, spears, or torches. Then they were said to be meeked.'
So, what did Jesus mean? Humble, patient, disciplined? He was a revolutionary, so I believe it more correct to understand his words as instruction for the followers on how to win their land back rather than some abstract virtue of being lame.
That seems likely, given what I've learned from the paragraphs that I'll copy-paste below (with bracketed quote-marks added) from the site that you link to, but perhaps he wasn't thinking of the winning-back-of-the-land as to be accomplished with physical weapons:
---
["]Besides looking only at the Greek definition of (prah-oos) you can look at Psalm 37:11 which is what Jesus is quoting. This was not a new saying and his first-century Jewish audience most likely would have known the reference. That said, the Hebrew (anav) means humble. See the description of Moses Num 12:3. If you look at a number of different English translations you will find the use of both meek and humble. The Septuagint uses (prah-oos) in both Ps 37:11 and Num. 12:3. The NT writers rely heavily on the Septuagint.
["]Derek Kinder has a commentary on Psalms 1-72. His description of Psalm 37 is excellent. He notes that it is a wisdom psalm from David to people (rather than to God) on how to act in the face of evil (v. 1 "do not fret"). There is no sense of weakness. Rather, that you watch your emotions - (v. 8) "refrain from anger and turn from wrath" - and trust that God will, in time, take care of those who are wicked. Psalm 37 is both psychologically and theologically correct. Psychologically because anger will eventually turn on the person who is angry and make matters worse. Theologically, b/c God will deal with evil people so you don't need to "fret" - which only makes matters worse.
["]On v. 11 Kinder writes, "The context gives the best possible definition of the meek: they are those who choose the way of patient faith instead of self-assertion." Again, no mention of weakness. The focus is on the strength to choose appropriately.["]
I rather lean towards the physical world interpretation, given the context of Jesus's time (Roman occupation, corrupt priesthood, the imperative of cleansing God's holy land of the invaders and the impure).
In any case, once you take the view of Jesus as a very earthly revolutionary (of course, using religion as the motivating ideology), it's hard not to see this in all of his quotations in the New Testament.
You might be right about what Jesus meant by "meek", but I wonder whether it matters more what he meant by it or what the gospel-writers thought that he meant by it. I guess I'm assuming that the gospel-writers didn't see him as a political revolutionary; maybe you disagree with me about this. (Although it's hard to read the Gospel-of-John's writer as interpreting him in this way, even if the first "Word-was-made-flesh" theological paragraph was stuck in later by someone else.)
Even if the gospel-writers, or the synoptic ones in any case, saw him as a merely human political leader, the people who developed a picture of his role that made the gospels worth caring much about didn't see him in that way. If he was a merely human political leader then why we should worry more about what he meant than about what lots of other people (Socrates, for example) meant? (But it's still an interesting question, of course.)
It's just occurred to me, though, that your intention in linking the source in question might have been to dissuade people from modeling their own behavior upon an inaccurate interpretation of Jesus's use of the word translated as "meek". In that case my previous two paragraphs are pretty much irrelevant.
"Meanwhile, what theory is so certain as this, That all theories, were they never so earnest, painfully elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them, must be incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that this Universe is, what it professes to be, an infinite one. Attempt not to swallow it, for thy logical digestion; be thankful, if skilfully planting down this and the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou prevent its swallowing thee."
-Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, Chapter 1.2.VII. Contrat Social.
Recently started reading Carlyle after hearing Yarvin discuss him a few times. This quote has been with me for the last 2 weeks, figured I'd share it. I think it catches certain elements of Yarvin's current writing.
Fun Fact: "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a poor translation of the original Greek. It seems to imply that "the weak shall inherit the earth," or something similar. The original term meant something more like "those who keep their swords sheathed," or "decline to battle." In context, it did not imply weakness, but more, "those who may be strong, but with the prudence to choose their battles and stand down as often as possible" shall inherit the earth. It implies wisdom, not weakness.
Probably doxxing myself here, but as someone with the name Greer this was pretty funny to read. Never considered it a very preppy, even lacrosse, name but I might add that to my Twitter bio haha
"Conway's law is an adage stating that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. It is named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967.[1] His original wording was:
"Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.[2][3]
"— Melvin E. Conway
"The law is based on the reasoning that in order for a software module to function, multiple authors must communicate frequently with each other. Therefore, the software interface structure of a system will reflect the social boundaries of the organizations that produced it, across which communication is more difficult. Conway's law was intended as a valid sociological observation, although sometimes it's used in a humorous context. It was dubbed Conway's law by participants at the 1968 National Symposium on Modular Programming.[4]
"In colloquial terms, it means software or automated systems end up "shaped like" the organizational structure they are designed in or designed for. Some interpretations of the law say this organizational pattern mirroring is a helpful feature of such systems, while other interpretations say it's merely a result of human nature or organizational bias."
---
Do you think that "software interface structures" are similar to ideologies (worldviews)? If so, how are they similar to ideologies?
Not to brag but I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Classics and PPE from Claremont and have an MPP from LKY & Sciences Po and this one is unreadable. Either put the crack pipe down or get an editor. xoxo.
Funnily enough not, I still struggle with this but I've ordered a course on DVD and so here's hoping! I was at Sciences Po in 2009 and we did turn our International Political Economy class into a semester on the economics of international piracy (The Somali thing was heating up). That was super fun. xoxo
The word "Science Po" may impress people around here, but to an American, it means one thing only: decline.
Did you know that when the Archbishop of Paris would visit Science Po, he'd boast to everyone that he never washed his feet?
It was public knowledge, and at Easter, at the washing of the feet, everyone was terrified that the Archbishop of Paris might be chosen.
As soon as I became his superior, I sent him three envelopes. In the first was a letter transferring him to the Marjorie Taylor Green substack, in the second was some soap, and in the third a note card on which I'd written: "choose".
And what did he choose? The soap. I imagined.
Right.
But what you couldn't possibly have imagined was the fourth letter I sent him. "Excellent choice, Archbishop", I wrote. "You'll find plenty of water in the Marjorie Taylor Green substack.""
Here something simple I don't get: first he is says that those knownig they are losing "would be instantly gripped with a sense of depression, apathy, and futility otherwise found only in some of the oldest Precambrian rocks". Two paragraphs later he says that those who think they are losing "are full of desperate energy".
That's the difference between "losing" and losing. Trying to escape a sinking ship vs trying to escape a sinking ship while chained to the floor.
Bad writing though --- I think those with a more abstract mind gloss over this sort of thing and take the author's meaning, while those with more analytical minds get hung up on it. Curtis seems to be more of the former.
Great point about "abstract/analytical" approches - I think I know exacly what you mean. Although from my analytical perspective "abstract" is a misnomer. "Poetic" might be a better (??) term.
As a matter of fact, I just realized that I can and do switch between those approaches when reading (never when writing, though - it's always analytical.) And on most occasions I read MM several times, alternating between those approaches (as well as other reading modes.)
However in this case I just decided that the discussion of what losers feel and think is just BS/filler/rhetorical fluff that can be safely skipped. (No disrespect to MM - it's a blog post, not a journal article.)
"Abstract" seems to be equivalent to "gesturing emphatically with one's right hand toward one's conclusion while giving the finger with one's left hand to those who don't accept that conclusion.
"Analytical" seems to be equivalent to "offering arguments that support one's conclusion and explaining why various objections to that conclusion don't work."
Maybe the emotional distinction should be between those who believe that they're losing and are therefore miserable, those who believe that they're winning and are therefore complacent, and those who aren't sure whether they're winning or losing and are therefore energetic?
My impression, though, is that the Republican Romans, Normans, Mongols, Communists, and Nazis all believed that they were winning or destined to win and that this contributed to their victories. Of course, all of them except for the Normans eventually lost, and maybe we're the Normans whose ultimate defeat was very delayed, but everyone eventually loses.
Eddie Hall and Hafthor Bjornsson both apparently want to believe that they're going to knock each other out. Presumably they both believe that believing that you're going to win helps you to win. Maybe believing that you're winning is different from believing that you're going to win, though.
I mean I'm perfectly fine if Curtis's ingenuity has surpassed my ability to understand, I've just been able to keep up with all his previous essays....this one is different....
Curtis is advocating for people being smart dissidents and plugging out of the democratic farce in order to reverse the course of the impending total state. These guys are advocating for something far less specific and more ideological, to be concise.
Clauses within single sentences seem to contradict each other; sentences within single paragraphs seem to contradict each other; paragraphs seem to contradict other paragraphs; the essay as a whole seems to contradict earlier essays.
I would like to propose an analysis of our present-time regime using Marx's method. For instance, if you take the premise that our regime inhabits some contradictions (tensions) that could lead it to (r)evolve into something else, what are those contradictions? If you were to identify the classes that have class consciousness (ideology), what are they? I think it was a big mistake for Marx to identify the proletariat as a class. I think the hippies, broadly defined, were a class, though.
Contradiction: Techno-society suppresses production of technicians. (Not enough technical-class babies.)
Class-worldview: Urban technical experts tend to see things in we-must-manage-their-lives-in-a-comfort-maximizing-way terms. The "we must" presupposes some vague idea of divine selection for this role. The divinity in question consists in the class of rulers, who see themselves as gods naturally dwelling in dark eternal delight and all others as dwarves, hobbits, and goblins that they (the rulers) dream into being. Among provincial burghers there's some residual we-are-deep-selves-encountering-one-another-and-God sentiment. Laborers mainly agree with the rulers about themselves, believing that they're hobbits inhabiting the rulers' dream. Welfare-wastoids also agree with the rulers about themselves, believing that they're goblins inhabiting the rulers' dream.
YARVIN IS BACK BABY
I started this one thinking he's suffered a loss, he has an awe-inspiring responsibility to his kids, maybe he's a changed man.
Man is he not.
The problem with conservatives is the more you hammer the point home the more they thank you. You're getting hammered. Don't thank your server! That's for paid actresses at the end of certain videos that shouldn't exist because no one would want that for their child.
To the point of the article.
I've taught a lot. College kids, tier 1, hard subjects. In my teaching I learned to repeat myself. No matter how many times I've seen this exercise or experiment, for the student it is the first time. It's pre-first-time.
So I adopted a rule: For me it is always the first time. It worked by all measures.
This is what Yarvin is doing here. He's repeating himself. For you.
If it isn't Nock, "The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure." is damn close.
One might ask "is Nock the right thing to repeat?" He puts a lot of other material around it, and that may help some people, and maybe helping those people is a positive.
At the end of the day, Yarvin's and my own repeating serves a filtering function. I was a cog that ensured buildings will stay up and cars won't burst into flames.
Yarvin is a cog that ensures you are ruled properly.
"The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure" --
What is our rulers' worldview, and how does it arise out of the ways in which they're able to boss each other and us around?
How does the "organic structure" of our oligarchy (the ways in which our rulers are able to boss each other and us around) differ from that of the Byzantine and medieval-Chinese oligarchies, and how do these differences generate differing worldviews?
Regime not care about idea. Regime only care about power.
Curtis asserts that differently structured regimes promote different ideas because of their structural differences. I want examples, with an explanation in each case of how each exemplary regime's peculiar structure resulted or results in its promoting peculiar ideas. I suggested the examples of the Byzantine and medieval-Chinese regimes as well as our own oligarchy because the Byzantine and medieval-Chinese regimes were famously bureaucratic. The fact that there were emperors in both of those cases, so that strictly speaking these weren't oligarchies, seems irrelevant, but if it's in fact relevant then other examples might be chosen.
Thanks to GM I am more and more thinking of everything only in terms of “power”. Both sides of the radio dial seem even more idiotic.
In groups, and on average this power has to do with coherence of coalitions.
In individuals it has to do with skills.
Our host has mad skillz, and I’m always skywheeling on the high updrafts of his prose, looking to swoop down and peck at the Diamond-perfect fires he’s set for us.
So here's what I'm struggling with on this one. You say "You are going to lose" as if that were a bad thing.
Trite as it may sound, I can't get around the idea, central to Christianity, that the only way to truly win is by losing. More precisely, the Christian idea is that the only way to truly live is by dying, death being a prerequisite for resurrection.
I do find myself sympathetic with your take on Greer/Meadowcroft/et al. It's as if they're still pretending that everything can be put right in the Shire as long as the hobbits just keep doing what they've always wanted to do. Only they're maintaining that pretense not only long after the Nazgul have crossed the borders, but even after Saruman and his southerners have set up shop and torn up the Hill.
The time for pottering around in the garden was past long before now.
I just have this sinking feeling that you're going to tell us that the real way out is to make sure we use the One Ring good and hard.
I hope not. But I wonder.
It's dangerous up here... so high on the ladder of abstraction.
I'd rather lose than lose my soul.
Brain surgery... where exactly are we installing that democracy-enhancing monarch control app?
Yes, my impulse is to go find Tom Bombadil or Treebeard and ask for help. There must be Ents around here somewhere. Maybe the Amish? The Sikhs?
I live basically right on the edge of the largest and oldest Amish community in the country, and thus (I assume) the world.
Trust me: they're not the Ents. The Woses, at best.
The Mormons. Joking, their cardinal rule is to obey the local laws
This is way too optimistic, they are not going to lose. Conservatives already lost, years ago
Meadowcroft has a response up now, at https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/roman-rhetoric-and-florentine-politics-a-reply-to-yarvin/
Meadowcroft says that he and Curtis are really on the same team but that Curtis writes for “courtiers” who might be able to make big changes at the top while he (Meadowcroft) writes for provincial burghers who aren’t in a position to make big changes at the top and know that elections are pointless. Meadowcroft wants these provincial burghers to resist the regime from below in various little ways while Curtis’s courtiers work on destroying it from above. Obviously Meadowcroft gets the character of Curtis’s readers wrong – they’re priestly nerds, not courtiers, according to Curtis himself, and this seems to be an accurate assessment – but he (Meadowcroft) could easily adjust his statement accordingly, since his main point is that he and Curtis are working on the same problem from different angles. At the end of his statement, Meadowcroft affably notes Yarvin’s contemptuous tone: “… [h]is condescension comes from worry and frustration, a worry and frustration that we [provincial burghers] ... don’t know of what the [bad guys] in control are capable ….”
I think that if Curtis doesn’t want to accept Meadowcroft’s offer of friendly alliance then he should explain why in a non-contemptuous way. I suspect that Curtis doesn’t want to ally himself with people like Meadowcroft and the provincial (Trump-supporting) burghers because he (Curtis) wants to convert Scott-Alexander-type “rationalists” to Yarvinism (which seems to consist in hopeful expectation of the almost-imminent release of a rational-dictator-app that will enable its users to invoke a rational dictator) – and these rationalists irrationally despise provincial burghers.
underlying yarvin's "optimism" is the fear (and anger) that there's nothing to be done
thankfully he's too pathological to submit to acedia. one of the few best fueled by passionate intensity. or at least its residue
speaking of which, dominic cummings is in the house
"fucking hopeless"
bwahahahaha
What do you think of his latest post, "The real Great Reset", on which comments don't seem to be allowed? I noticed that at the end of it his practical proposal is to work on coming up with a "design" for a better regime. Does this mean that the summoning-the-dictator-app isn't ready yet?
Maybe the dictator gets summoned and we hope that the regime-design will be ready for him to review by the time he arrives? It occurred to me that Augustus and Napoleon figured out their designs only after they'd already become dictators; I don't know about Cromwell. Lenin and Hitler were improvising to a large extent too, weren't they?
I think that the best plan for Curtis would be to just summon the dictator and then let him figure out what he wants to do. Well, let me correct that; I think that Curtis should focus on summoning the military into installing the (non-military) dictator -- that would be the most plausible way in which the "transfer" (of power) that he talks about might occur. He should focus on befriending majors and lieutenant-colonels.
What are "conservative"/Traditionalist things that even many far Left elites and most people like/enjoy/miss. Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. What "conservative/Traditionalist" things have modern strip-mall, casual chinos, Trump raging on twitter conservatives abandoned? Formal dressing up. Old architecture. Manners. There's a reason all the new wave of American Tankies wear ties.
In C S Lewis's THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH Merlin wonders why his conservative/traditionalist hosts are dressed like slaves. I assume that they were wearing ties and 50s professor-suits.
Regarding the "culture war", I think it's clear that the conservatives have lost whatever the war of 1995-2010 was called. The next war, against what is best referred to by the exonym "Successor Ideology", may turn out different. But it is certain to be won by those who fight, rather than those who simply prophesize victory.
jobs and patronage jobs and patronage jobs and patronage jobs and patronage
Since we're not allowed to comment on the great reset post, commenting here: since you asked where a school board runs a school system, one example did come to mind: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/534/a-not-so-simple-majority
"Before the war in the East Ramapo, New York school district, there was a truce. Local school officials made a deal with their Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbors: we'll leave you alone to teach your children in private yeshivas as you see fit as long as you allow our public school budget to pass. But the budget is funded by local property taxes, which everyone, including the local Hasidim, have to pay — even though their kids don't attend the schools that their money is paying for. What followed was one of the most volatile local political battles we've ever encountered."
Looks like they are still running it, which is pretty bad-ass: https://www.ercsd.org/Page/90
But, you have to be REALLY organized. Mainstream conservatives are not organized. They weren't organized to beat Ron Paul in my legislative district in 2012 because they don't have "class consciousness".
I hope our not being able to comment is a glitch or one-off.
Well, at least now we know for sure that Curtis has a plan, even though he keeps saying he doesn't in his interviews. Now if he could at least drop a hint as to what the rest of us should be doing... I have energy aplenty.
This is pure intuitive observation of social trends, but I feel 30 years from now the hip in-crowd will be:
-more into traditional beauty
-less relativist
-less gay/victimy/effeminate
-more accepting of Christianity as a mythology and foundation
Will it be "conservative", no, it will be five times fresher than the blackest lesbian transgender is right now. But I'm with optimistic conservatives that we will see a cultural improvement as the pendulum swings away from our current miasma. Not a long term cure for oligarchy, not a turning back the clock. Quality of life will probably continue to slip --- but quality of culture will see its first upswing in our lifetimes. Not in the law books, in the novels.
To put it in GM terms, there is a power to truth itself, which grows in attractiveness the farther you drift from it. Most of us here already feel it keenly; many more will learn its luster as the contrasts become more defined.
Or maybe not :shrug: but I think this is the energy a lot of young conservatives are vibing on, which I'm not sure Curtis properly identifies and refutes.
That's "young Meadowcroft" 's view; his argument is that (1) things revert to their natures; (2) human beings are things; therefore, (3) human beings will revert to their natures, which include love of beauty and an inclination to marry and have babies.
I agree with you and Meadowcroft in general, but I think that the time-scale should be on the order of 500 or 5000 years, not 30 years. Certainly no observation of present social trends can lead us to the conviction that hipsters of 2051 will express and affirm human nature, because the hipsters of 2051 are unborn.
A point that may look trivially quarrelsome but that is in fact worth considering: It seems to me that when people endorse "tradition" (as you do when you use the phrase "traditional beauty") what they really care about is nature. Traditions are ways in which people can live naturally. Traditional living is necessary but not sufficient for natural living. For example, Aztec tradition was unnatural. Tradition isn't intrinsically good; it's good only as a means to living naturally.
> things revert to their natures
Question (re: humans): If I invent a system to perpetually drug the humans, will they revert to their non-drugged nature?
Of course not.
Industrial society is a drug that poisons every culture that adopts it—and literally *not one* wants off that drug once they get that first high. Everyone, everywhere is high all the time. Software isn't consuming the world—industrial society is.
There will be no "reversion to their natures." Industrial society makes humans sick and depressed and then manufactures the cure, conveniently available in pill form (which, natch, boosts the GDP—and the downward spiral continues). There is no harm that Industrial Society can inflict on society that it cannot "innovate" it's way out of.
Curtis thinks that "different institutions" will save these drugged-out people and cultures, but the ultimate structure, the *real* "meta" is Industrial Society itself. And it started in 1760, so all of his precious history lessons before that are…useless.
"Doctor, what's wrong with this patient?" "He's a drug-addict. Take away his drugs. He'll get better." "But Doctor, he LOVES the drugs. Any other ideas?" Curtis interrupts with his Gray Mirror pitch: "Try drug burrito pods with 8K graphics. Get really, really good at delivering those drugs to everyone, all the time. All will be well."
Is this the medicine we need?
I agree with you about this. That's why I said that it would take 500 or 5000 years for human life to become natural again. Industrial society has to collapse first, which will take a long time, and then new, natural societies have to form, which will also take a long time.
By "industrial society" you mean a society devoted to the mass-production of machines, right? Suppose that only certain monastic orders, in which a very small minority of the population is enrolled, make and use machines, but that these are extremely powerful machines -- for example, spaceships. Everyone else would live in a medieval way, except that they'd have clean drinking/bathing water and effective sewage-systems (which doesn't require machines). This wouldn't be an industrial society, would it?
You have a substack blog, don't you? What's the address for that?
I agree with you and Yarvin on a macro scale --- we are on sinking ship, but it's a nice sinking ship, and we're certainly not going to jump overboard because the water's up to our knees. The historical change is not going to happen soon (barring some cataclysmic event that catalyzes it).
But on a micro scale I do think we're heading for more interesting times that will please the conservative types. Perhaps this intuition is mostly fueled by living as a hipster in my 20s (arts school/Williamsburg), and directly experiencing how stale and fake that world has become. Postmodern ideas (manifested as irony, sarcasm, rejection of tradition, rejection of truth, deconstruction, subversion) were actually exciting in the art world 50/100 years back. They are now very transparent. They are staid, they are nerdy, no longer cool.
The enlightenment onwards artistically can be tracked as milking the deconstruction of the order that had been built up until then, and that yielded greatness, but nothing has been more clear in our lifetimes than the fact that there is no more blood to be wrung from that stone. Culture needs to go somewhere --- artists are intrinsically attracted to subversion, which is why this trend has continued for so long, but more than that they are attracted to excitement and uncovering the future. There's no where to go but up. One way to think about it is that there's nothing left to subvert but the subversion itself.
Where can that energy go? Into genuine dissidence, for one. We currently have larpy dissidence like Laurence Fox, but I foresee a real dissident art scene, like Wajda under the Soviets. There will be a place for real rebellion, not just Tim Burton rebellion.
I'm not even talking strictly politically though, more culturally. We can feel these forces reasserting themselves. Modern feminism is an interesting example (of the #metoo variety). This is essentially a conservative movement, expressing conservative ideas, yet it is superficially masked as progressivism. This is an emergent subversion of sexual emancipation that wasn't really spearheaded by anyone or any particular idea, yet it asserted itself with real consequences.
I'm fine swapping in natural beauty for traditional beauty. I believe there is a true ideal of beauty that can be manifested in different material specifics, and traditionally we in the west were closer to that ideal traditionally than we are now. Really it's just "beauty" though. Not even the relativists find pomo beautiful. "Beauty" as a driving force rather than irony.
Interesting and plausible. You mention Williamsburg -- Do you still live in NYC? I'm in Sunset Park.
no, I got out ~5 years back. My brother is still there, says reports of its downfall are greatly exaggerated.
I guess one's sense of its degree of downfall depends on one's neighborhood, pattern of activity, and range of motion. I haven't left the western strip of Brooklyn since the maskovid began 16 months ago, and have only left the Sunset Park to Park Slope part of that strip three times. I don't want to ride the subways because of the mask-requirement.
Almost all of the Chinese people here, including toddlers and small children, are still wearing masks; mask-wearing has declined significantly among all other parts of the population. The bourgeois-bohemians, who demonstrated their nazi-like souls throughout the maskovid with their self-masking fervor, are efficient propaganda-recipients and therefore no longer wear masks because they've all been dutifully warpslimed.
One thing that the maskovid has taught me is that ethnic diversity is good in this respect: the bureau-minions know that they can't force browns to obey their rules, so there's less pressure on the population as a whole. NYC has in general been pretty lax about maskovid-enforcement; even during the actual stay-home!-lockdown there was never any enforcement of the Australian sort except against religious Jews in a half-heartedly persecutory manner.
Of course no enforcement against the "Christians" was needed; they dutifully shut down their own gatherings, thus demonstrating the degree of their faith. I passed a latin-evangelical or pentacostal church last sunday (not just the storefront kind; this was an actual churchy sort of edifice) with an entirely masked congregation gathered in front of it, the service having just ended. The last time I passed the big Catholic basilica on a Sunday, not too long ago, everyone entering or leaving was concealing his/her God's-image-face behind a Satanic mask.
This feels like downfall to me, but it's worldwide. Israel has also fallen; I hope for a violent religious uprising against the Satanic government there.
Regarding the meek, it is my understanding that the actual meaning of the word was “those who wield their sword wisely”
https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/a/35174
Someone named "John Reardon" there says:
'The Greek word “praus” (prah-oos) was used to define a horse trained for battle. Wild stallions were brought down from the mountains and broken for riding. Some were used to pull wagons, some were raced, and the best were trained for warfare. They retained their fierce spirit, courage, and power, but were disciplined to respond to the slightest nudge or pressure of the rider’s leg. They could gallop into battle at 35 miles per hour and come to a sliding stop at a word. They were not frightened by arrows, spears, or torches. Then they were said to be meeked.'
So, what did Jesus mean? Humble, patient, disciplined? He was a revolutionary, so I believe it more correct to understand his words as instruction for the followers on how to win their land back rather than some abstract virtue of being lame.
That seems likely, given what I've learned from the paragraphs that I'll copy-paste below (with bracketed quote-marks added) from the site that you link to, but perhaps he wasn't thinking of the winning-back-of-the-land as to be accomplished with physical weapons:
---
["]Besides looking only at the Greek definition of (prah-oos) you can look at Psalm 37:11 which is what Jesus is quoting. This was not a new saying and his first-century Jewish audience most likely would have known the reference. That said, the Hebrew (anav) means humble. See the description of Moses Num 12:3. If you look at a number of different English translations you will find the use of both meek and humble. The Septuagint uses (prah-oos) in both Ps 37:11 and Num. 12:3. The NT writers rely heavily on the Septuagint.
["]Derek Kinder has a commentary on Psalms 1-72. His description of Psalm 37 is excellent. He notes that it is a wisdom psalm from David to people (rather than to God) on how to act in the face of evil (v. 1 "do not fret"). There is no sense of weakness. Rather, that you watch your emotions - (v. 8) "refrain from anger and turn from wrath" - and trust that God will, in time, take care of those who are wicked. Psalm 37 is both psychologically and theologically correct. Psychologically because anger will eventually turn on the person who is angry and make matters worse. Theologically, b/c God will deal with evil people so you don't need to "fret" - which only makes matters worse.
["]On v. 11 Kinder writes, "The context gives the best possible definition of the meek: they are those who choose the way of patient faith instead of self-assertion." Again, no mention of weakness. The focus is on the strength to choose appropriately.["]
I rather lean towards the physical world interpretation, given the context of Jesus's time (Roman occupation, corrupt priesthood, the imperative of cleansing God's holy land of the invaders and the impure).
In any case, once you take the view of Jesus as a very earthly revolutionary (of course, using religion as the motivating ideology), it's hard not to see this in all of his quotations in the New Testament.
You might be right about what Jesus meant by "meek", but I wonder whether it matters more what he meant by it or what the gospel-writers thought that he meant by it. I guess I'm assuming that the gospel-writers didn't see him as a political revolutionary; maybe you disagree with me about this. (Although it's hard to read the Gospel-of-John's writer as interpreting him in this way, even if the first "Word-was-made-flesh" theological paragraph was stuck in later by someone else.)
Even if the gospel-writers, or the synoptic ones in any case, saw him as a merely human political leader, the people who developed a picture of his role that made the gospels worth caring much about didn't see him in that way. If he was a merely human political leader then why we should worry more about what he meant than about what lots of other people (Socrates, for example) meant? (But it's still an interesting question, of course.)
It's just occurred to me, though, that your intention in linking the source in question might have been to dissuade people from modeling their own behavior upon an inaccurate interpretation of Jesus's use of the word translated as "meek". In that case my previous two paragraphs are pretty much irrelevant.
"Meanwhile, what theory is so certain as this, That all theories, were they never so earnest, painfully elaborated, are, and, by the very conditions of them, must be incomplete, questionable, and even false? Thou shalt know that this Universe is, what it professes to be, an infinite one. Attempt not to swallow it, for thy logical digestion; be thankful, if skilfully planting down this and the other fixed pillar in the chaos, thou prevent its swallowing thee."
-Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, Chapter 1.2.VII. Contrat Social.
Recently started reading Carlyle after hearing Yarvin discuss him a few times. This quote has been with me for the last 2 weeks, figured I'd share it. I think it catches certain elements of Yarvin's current writing.
Fun Fact: "The meek shall inherit the earth" is a poor translation of the original Greek. It seems to imply that "the weak shall inherit the earth," or something similar. The original term meant something more like "those who keep their swords sheathed," or "decline to battle." In context, it did not imply weakness, but more, "those who may be strong, but with the prudence to choose their battles and stand down as often as possible" shall inherit the earth. It implies wisdom, not weakness.
Probably doxxing myself here, but as someone with the name Greer this was pretty funny to read. Never considered it a very preppy, even lacrosse, name but I might add that to my Twitter bio haha
"The ideology of the oligarchy is an epiphenomenon of its organic structure" vaguely reminds me of Conway's law.
From the Wiki for "Conway's law":
"Conway's law is an adage stating that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. It is named after computer programmer Melvin Conway, who introduced the idea in 1967.[1] His original wording was:
"Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.[2][3]
"— Melvin E. Conway
"The law is based on the reasoning that in order for a software module to function, multiple authors must communicate frequently with each other. Therefore, the software interface structure of a system will reflect the social boundaries of the organizations that produced it, across which communication is more difficult. Conway's law was intended as a valid sociological observation, although sometimes it's used in a humorous context. It was dubbed Conway's law by participants at the 1968 National Symposium on Modular Programming.[4]
"In colloquial terms, it means software or automated systems end up "shaped like" the organizational structure they are designed in or designed for. Some interpretations of the law say this organizational pattern mirroring is a helpful feature of such systems, while other interpretations say it's merely a result of human nature or organizational bias."
---
Do you think that "software interface structures" are similar to ideologies (worldviews)? If so, how are they similar to ideologies?
Not to brag but I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Classics and PPE from Claremont and have an MPP from LKY & Sciences Po and this one is unreadable. Either put the crack pipe down or get an editor. xoxo.
When you were at Science Po did you learn about... reading?
Funnily enough not, I still struggle with this but I've ordered a course on DVD and so here's hoping! I was at Sciences Po in 2009 and we did turn our International Political Economy class into a semester on the economics of international piracy (The Somali thing was heating up). That was super fun. xoxo
Look at me. I am the intellectual now.
My goodness what a funny and totally out of place comment for the comment section of Curtis Yarvin's substack.
Perhaps you got lost and were looking for the Marjorie Taylor Greene substack?
"Don't sound so cocky.
The word "Science Po" may impress people around here, but to an American, it means one thing only: decline.
Did you know that when the Archbishop of Paris would visit Science Po, he'd boast to everyone that he never washed his feet?
It was public knowledge, and at Easter, at the washing of the feet, everyone was terrified that the Archbishop of Paris might be chosen.
As soon as I became his superior, I sent him three envelopes. In the first was a letter transferring him to the Marjorie Taylor Green substack, in the second was some soap, and in the third a note card on which I'd written: "choose".
And what did he choose? The soap. I imagined.
Right.
But what you couldn't possibly have imagined was the fourth letter I sent him. "Excellent choice, Archbishop", I wrote. "You'll find plenty of water in the Marjorie Taylor Green substack.""
Here something simple I don't get: first he is says that those knownig they are losing "would be instantly gripped with a sense of depression, apathy, and futility otherwise found only in some of the oldest Precambrian rocks". Two paragraphs later he says that those who think they are losing "are full of desperate energy".
That's the difference between "losing" and losing. Trying to escape a sinking ship vs trying to escape a sinking ship while chained to the floor.
Bad writing though --- I think those with a more abstract mind gloss over this sort of thing and take the author's meaning, while those with more analytical minds get hung up on it. Curtis seems to be more of the former.
Great point about "abstract/analytical" approches - I think I know exacly what you mean. Although from my analytical perspective "abstract" is a misnomer. "Poetic" might be a better (??) term.
As a matter of fact, I just realized that I can and do switch between those approaches when reading (never when writing, though - it's always analytical.) And on most occasions I read MM several times, alternating between those approaches (as well as other reading modes.)
However in this case I just decided that the discussion of what losers feel and think is just BS/filler/rhetorical fluff that can be safely skipped. (No disrespect to MM - it's a blog post, not a journal article.)
"Abstract" seems to be equivalent to "gesturing emphatically with one's right hand toward one's conclusion while giving the finger with one's left hand to those who don't accept that conclusion.
"Analytical" seems to be equivalent to "offering arguments that support one's conclusion and explaining why various objections to that conclusion don't work."
Maybe the emotional distinction should be between those who believe that they're losing and are therefore miserable, those who believe that they're winning and are therefore complacent, and those who aren't sure whether they're winning or losing and are therefore energetic?
My impression, though, is that the Republican Romans, Normans, Mongols, Communists, and Nazis all believed that they were winning or destined to win and that this contributed to their victories. Of course, all of them except for the Normans eventually lost, and maybe we're the Normans whose ultimate defeat was very delayed, but everyone eventually loses.
Eddie Hall and Hafthor Bjornsson both apparently want to believe that they're going to knock each other out. Presumably they both believe that believing that you're going to win helps you to win. Maybe believing that you're winning is different from believing that you're going to win, though.
It's almost like a satire of a Curtis Yarvin essay. And I love the density of his work, but this one, woah child, no no no no.
I mean I'm perfectly fine if Curtis's ingenuity has surpassed my ability to understand, I've just been able to keep up with all his previous essays....this one is different....
Curtis is advocating for people being smart dissidents and plugging out of the democratic farce in order to reverse the course of the impending total state. These guys are advocating for something far less specific and more ideological, to be concise.
What is confusing here? There's no contradiction.
Pretty consistent with his earlier GM essays about detachment— the clear pill— no?
Clauses within single sentences seem to contradict each other; sentences within single paragraphs seem to contradict each other; paragraphs seem to contradict other paragraphs; the essay as a whole seems to contradict earlier essays.
I'm reading it a second time. I'll be back.
I feel like a moron but on this go-round I'm going to map it out on a piece of scratch paper.
I would like to propose an analysis of our present-time regime using Marx's method. For instance, if you take the premise that our regime inhabits some contradictions (tensions) that could lead it to (r)evolve into something else, what are those contradictions? If you were to identify the classes that have class consciousness (ideology), what are they? I think it was a big mistake for Marx to identify the proletariat as a class. I think the hippies, broadly defined, were a class, though.
Contradiction: Techno-society suppresses production of technicians. (Not enough technical-class babies.)
Class-worldview: Urban technical experts tend to see things in we-must-manage-their-lives-in-a-comfort-maximizing-way terms. The "we must" presupposes some vague idea of divine selection for this role. The divinity in question consists in the class of rulers, who see themselves as gods naturally dwelling in dark eternal delight and all others as dwarves, hobbits, and goblins that they (the rulers) dream into being. Among provincial burghers there's some residual we-are-deep-selves-encountering-one-another-and-God sentiment. Laborers mainly agree with the rulers about themselves, believing that they're hobbits inhabiting the rulers' dream. Welfare-wastoids also agree with the rulers about themselves, believing that they're goblins inhabiting the rulers' dream.