Bioleninism, the first step

Posted by Spandrell on
This is the second of three essays on the topic of Biological Leninism, the organizational principle of the contemporary left. You can find the first part here, and the third part here. I also gave an interview with some more thoughts on the topic which you can read here.

Some things I said in Twitter yesterday. Man, 280 characters feel *way* better.

https://twitter.com/thespandrell/status/940732305265610752

Bronze Age warfare used to be about great lords going around in their chariots, shooting arrows here and there, then getting on foot and engaging in Single Combat. Early Samurais also did that. They'd go around on their horses, shouting who they were, their house, their pedigree.

But eventually somebody figured out that winning a war is really profitable. So they'd just raise a big army of common people, give them cheap weapons, a cheap shield, drill them into having rock-tight discipline. And they'd win. A disciplined team always wins against the most talented man.

The theory of democracy was that rich people, with the leisure to educate themselves about public policy, and a financial interest in the government of the nation, would run for individual office, represent their constituency, be reelected if they did their job well, replaced if they didn't. But laws are passed by majority vote. Soon somebody realized that getting a majority vote was very profitable; so the money was in finding a way to reliably organize half the parliament. So we got political parties.

A political party is a very different beast from an individual politician. A political party has no use for rich people. Well their money is welcome: but rich people tend to not be very loyal. They can afford to have a personality. As a political leader, politicians are your employees. You don't need staff who's very skilled or competent. They just need to be loyal, obedient, and have some ability to get elected. It helps if they can talk. Look good on TV. But that's about it.

You want people who are loyal, who will vote what you want them to vote. As Roissy would tell you, a man, or a woman, is only as loyal as his options. So the ideal politician is the man who doesn't have anything else going on for him. Someone for whom being a politician is the best thing that ever happened to him. Somebody who positively known that if he ever leaves the party his status would drop. Marco Rubio, say. He'll play ball. He better.

Any system ruled by political parties will always move to the left. Their business model is based on getting low status people to work for them. Obviously they must give them something in exchange. And they must motivate voters to vote for them. Their promise is simple: You, low status people, help us out, vote for us, obey our commands, and we will give you high status. Don't vote for us, disobey us, let the right win, and you will remain low status.

Once the left wins, which it always does, because they are better organized, better able to form majorities in comparison to rich pricks who have no good reason to coordinate. High status people have been in the losing side in politics for 300 years. So what? They're still rich. Life is good. Yeah taxes are higher. And women are incomparably more annoying. But they put out better now, so there's that. Anyway, who cares. The Son also Rises.

The left always wins. But once they win they become higher status. Come on, they got power. They try, very hard, to convince everyone that they're not really in power. No, the forces of reaction are lurking everywhere! We must keep on the struggle! 80% of the Left's energy is in producing propaganda about how the Right really runs everything. When the Left had 90% tax rates, they still talked as if they were in Charles Dickens world. After 60 years of feminism, affirmative action, and Jews in all resorts of power the Left of 2017 is obsessed with "systemic racism", "toxic masculinity" and "anti-semitism". Right.

But of course the Left has been in power for 200 years now. Once they got power, they got enjoyed their hardly fought high status. Naturally they lost discipline, until a party further Left appeared, and then won. And so on and so forth. Cthulhu always swims left. That's where power is.

First they captured the electoral system. Arguably it's the easie. But power is not only in parliament. Separation of powers is, or at least was, real. A Parliament can pass a law. The Executive could delay or outright ignore its execution. A judge could find or make up some flaw in the law and block it. It is of no use to have a legislative majority, having the ability to pass laws at will, if you can't effectively put them into practice. Power is absolute power or it is no power at all.

But where there's a will, there's a way. And there is always someone with a will to power. Eventually the Left found a way. Well, two ways. Stay tuned.

Switch to Board View

68 comments

Leave a reply
  • Could it be that the Left will start to go Right once there's no further space to the Left, like a clock going past midnight into the next 12-hour cycle? Got thinking about this after a commenter joked that the harmonious society now espoused by the Chinese Communist Party sounds a lot like corporate fascism.

    reply
    • There is always more room to the left. This is similar to the idea that "things can always be worse," because the leftward spiral can be understood as a race to the bottom. The left eats order and spits out chaos, so as long as there is still one living ordered structure, there is room to destroy it.

      reply
      • The Left will go "Right" when there are no more enemies to overthrow. Power works in two stages: expansion and consolidation. Expansion is usually, though not always, via war. Consolidation is centralization and resisting the more radical Left proposals to distribute resources.

        reply
      • Stop perpetuating the LIE that Fascism is a "right-wing" ideology. Fascism is a LEFTIST ideology. It's goal is the same as Marxism -- all-encompassing Worldwide, International, no-exceptions Communism. The only contention between the Fascists and the Communists was *HOW* to achieve world-wide International Communism.

        reply
        • Also, class conflict (with some ethnic suppression and ethnic massacres) vs race-focused conflict that aimed to suppress class issues. Cousins, in other words, both with some underlying belief about achieving some kind of Utopia on Earth by the power of human will.

          reply
      • [] Bioleninism, the first step []

        reply
        • If the mantra "Cthulhu always swims left" were true, we would never have been able to build society in the first place, because building society involves creating order, not consuming order. Prime examples of this are in the strong reactionary shift post-Roman-empire, which allowed the creation of Christendom. Late Rome was pozzed out the butt. Middles ages were not. How does this occur? Is collapse necessary? What are the necessary criteria for Cthulhu to turn his ass around?

          reply
          • Moving left makes you vulnerable to outside conquest and even if everyone knows that the elite are still trapped in a prisoner's dilemma. The implication is that social technology to produce private elite cohesion (along with enough actual intelligence* to understand that leftism is destructive) can slow leftward movement. * This doesn't mean just g - it also involves emotional control to not get addicted to holiness posturing.

            reply
            • Expansion and consolidation. Generally speaking, the conditions are either one or all of the following: 1: Badly losing a war which leads to a revolution or military coup. 2: Political and economic collapse, followed by a military coup or a dictator coming to power.

              reply
              • Participatory movement is what triggers the leftist ratchet. Rome had elections: the plebeians slowly but steadily grabbed more power until Caesar destroyed the Republic. Caste societies are very stable. But they're also poor and backwards, so there's that.

                reply
                • There's an in between path that we had in the US before. Property requirements, pass high school or take a intelligence test. This seemed to work ok. That it didn't stick and expanded is no fault of that one particular system as all the others have had the same error. We should try what we had before that worked and then if that doesn't work try something else.

                  reply
                  • You can't go back to that earlier, functioning model because it hurts black people's feelings, or at least the feelings of the righteous white progs who handle them and lead them.

                    reply
                  • SOME participation is necessary, because to handle a high-tech society, you need a large number of educated people, and they at least will demand a share in ruling. That´s why NeoreactionTM doesn´t really go anywhere. It´s incompatible with technological progress. So is Egalitarianism in the long run; because it destroys competence. We must think outside the box. If our only choice is between "Progressive" Equalitards and "Reactionary" Libertards, we are all doomed.

                    reply
                    • China. QED. Whig history is retarded. Try again.

                      reply
                      • I have no idea what you are meaning to say. What exactly does China prove? Since when am I a Whig? I suppose If I were I would know.

                        reply
                        • China proves that educated people won't necessarily demand participation in government. And even if they did, there's no need to grant their wish. The theory that democracy follows development is pure Whig history. It's leftist propaganda and it's a lie.

                          reply
                          • Who said anything about Democracy? I said SOME participation. And the educated in China CAN have some participation in power if they join the Party. It´s not as ideologically monolithic any more I hear. Democracy must follow development is of course pure rubbish. But Technocracy could and should both follow and cause development is what I say.

                            reply
                            • The communist party isn't free access. It has completely arbitrary hiring practices. Nobody has a right to participate in politics, and that means that the usual tactics of leftist agitation don't work in China. The party isn't ideologically monolithic because it has no ideology. It has factions, which are personal networks of patronage. They have no need to appeal to the public and so they don't use ideological cover for their patronage networks.

                              reply
                              • Everybody needs some popular appeal to stay in power, and the CPC is relying more on popular appeal and less on terror than, say, Stalin. And you cannot have no doctrine at all. A doctrine is the set of your guidelines and policies, and the CPC is the last organisation in the world to act spontaneously. The core point of their doctrine is CNP -Comprehensive National Power- to which China´s leaders are religiously dedicated. Which should certainly make them an inspiration to us, because they cut through to the ultimate goal -survival and prosperity of their people!-, which is infinitely more important than mere means that are in themselves of no value, such as any particular political system, not to speak of "rights".

                                reply
                                • The core point of their doctrine is CNP -Comprehensive National Power- to which China´s leaders are religiously dedicated. Which should certainly make them an inspiration to us, because they cut through to the ultimate goal -survival and prosperity of their people!-, which is infinitely more important than mere means that are in themselves of no value, such as any particular political system, not to speak of “rights”.

                                  It's easy to do this when you're the scrappy underdog fighting for your place in the sun. It's much harder when you're the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

                                  reply
                                  • Well, I am Austrian and the last time we were undisputed heavyweight was around 1530; feels a bit hard to recall these days. But you have a point, of course. Bear in mind, however, that CNP includes soft power. That´s why Confucius Institutes are spreading like mushrooms worldwide. The Chinese aren´t stupid. The USA used to be good at soft power. In the 1950s, they were arguably the most admired country in the world. But then they got reckless, both in their foreign policy and their handling of their internal affairs. In a sense, nothing fails like success.

                                    reply
                        • To expand, what 'participatory' means is that folk who don't own things are nevertheless involved in determining the disposition of things. It's an inherently irresponsible dynamic.

                          reply
                          • This is where Libertarianism gets ridiculous. A Right to Property exists just as little as any other "right". The very concept of "rights" is a fraud. Nothing binds the lawgiver. Only reality exists. And only expediency is reasonable policy. "Participatory", in the best case, means that the lawgiver is well advised to keep those whose competence matters happy, and to keep them happy you have to give them a share in the decision-making process.

                            reply
                      • Converting to C. Jarvis would be a good title too. It's like a fresh breath of air to read, somewhere, someone with no need to self-force-feed vanity-cast illusions on mankind (thus on their selves). I'm surprised mediatic power isn't listed with legislative executive and judicial formally yet. And what about that power... I'll lay it out in simple terms, and if you want you'll type it. For example, if a Minister of economics in the EU disobeys the cables coming from Washington, you'll have the 3 renowned independent equity rating agencies (from Standard & Poor downwards) downgrade that country's rating. Then the (whole. Is it still differentiated within?) media will amplify the news. The whole thing will be beaten on the drums until the disobedient one resigns — in certain case, the resignation of the whole government cabinet is demanded. Financial-mediatic power?

                        reply
                        • In most cases, the banks tell the media what to do. Fun fact: there's a strict floor peasant / upper management separation in media orgs. The upper managers monitor the floor peasants, but the floor peasants have zero access to upper management and their offices.

                          reply
                        • Sorta kinda OT but it made me laugh, the leninist ratchet in action: https://i.imgur.com/0739YUE.png

                          reply
                        • [] But of course the Left has been in power for 200 years now. Once they got power, they got enjoyed their hardly fought high status. Naturally they lost discipline, until a party further Left appeared, and then won. And so on and so forth. Cthulhu always swims left. That’s where power is.“ []

                          reply
                          • Off topic, but I'd like to know what's your take of David Cameron working for the Chinese Government ? How is that seen by asians ? The fact itself and how it was presented by western media (David Cameron is going to improve roads in China!) seems so wrong to me on so many levels that I'm having trouble processing.

                            reply
                          • Hey spandrell, I've heard a funniest thing, you'll laugh. Or maybe cry. A Canadian couple were traveling through Afghanistan. They were captured by terrorists, held hostage for last five years, and just recently released. They didn't believe their captors when they were told Donald Trump became president, but that's not the funniest thing. They returned with two sons (fair skinned, so they're husbands, even though terrorists raped wive). Explanation couple gave in interview was: "there was nothing to do, and clock was ticking". They would come back with three kids, but terrorist killed their infant daughter. Canada has fertility rate of 1.6. It took being kidnapped by fundamentalist to get Canucks to breed. Sure, captors raped her and killed her kid, but what are the odds if couple stayed in Canada, she'd cheat on her husband and have abortions anyway? Fuck Canada.

                            reply
                            • Yeah, I read about those. Not sure if they're really her husbands, Afghans can be fair too. But anyway, good for them.

                              reply
                            • "But laws are passed by majority vote. Soon somebody realized that getting a majority vote was very profitable; so the money was in finding a way to reliably organize half the parliament. So we got political parties." laws might, in the present era, in most states and nations be passed by majority in some fashion. However, laws, arising upon the basis of tradition and power, initially came from rulers recognizing which laws they should and could, codify. Then came 'demos' in the post-monarchical era. The end. Or, 'repeat', depending on the age of your particular society.

                              reply
                              • Any comments on the Chinese dissidents diaspora? The amount of self hate that goes on there is truly amazing. They go as far as claiming the Japanese invasion was the fault of China, due to the faults of the Chinese race or something. Wants Shanghai independence and crazy stuff like that.

                                reply
                                • Biological leninism explains a lot of them surprisingly well. A heck of a lot of them are ugly women. I don't vastly disagree that being invaded was the fault of the Chinese - weakness exists for others to exploit. And while you can't hope that everyone else becomes benevolent, you can try to become stronger yourself.

                                  reply
                                  • > I don’t vastly disagree that being invaded was the fault of the Chinese – weakness exists for others to exploit. And while you can’t hope that everyone else becomes benevolent, you can try to become stronger yourself. I agree with this position but the dissidents diaspora doesn't actually take this position. They take Liu Xiaobo's view that China needs to be colonised to be civilised. If China becomes strong and assertive then it just shows how the CCP is so so evil, and how the Chinese are slaves to the CCP. And China still isn't civilised so it's still better for China to be broken up and colonised. Basically retarded logic. Probably to do with Bioleninism.

                                    reply
                                    • They gotta justify their decision to leave China for the West. The West turned out to not be as nice as they had been bragging their relatives and friends about; so they compensate by claiming that China is so much worse. That and that many who left did so because they suffered some sudden and massive loss of status in China. So China is to them evil by definition.

                                      reply
                                      • Han jian - its not just a type of sword!

                                        reply
                                  • The promised continuation of the essays on Bio-Leninism is taking too long. This is not fair.

                                    reply
                                  • [] of which, I gotta continue my last post. So we left with the early evolution of Western liberal parliamentary system. In economics []

                                    reply
                                    • [] is a fellow dweller of reactionary East Asia who’s got a little theory he calls Bioleninism.  Forced to spoil the whole by Bowdlerizing it into a single sentence, I’d say: Bioleninism []

                                      reply
                                      • [] sociobiologists have observed in men and women. It is likewise true that what Spandrell has come to call Bioleninism has been in action in the Western world for long enough now that these traits have come under []

                                        reply
                                        • [] Spandrell: here, here, and here are three posts outlining an idea — “Bioleninism” — that seeks to []

                                          reply
                                          • [] of Biological Leninism, the organizational principle of the contemporary left. You can find the second part here, and the third part []

                                            reply
                                            • [] 1, 2 and 3 of Bioleninism can be read at Bloody []

                                              reply
                                              • [] Parts 1, 2 and 3 of Bioleninism can be read at Bloody Shovel. []

                                                reply
                                                • [] of Biological Leninism, the organizational principle of the contemporary left. You can find the second part here, and the third part []

                                                  reply
                                                  • [] Continuación a la primera publicación de Spandrell sobre bio-leninismo, publicado en Bloody Shovel el 13 de diciembre del 2017. []

                                                    reply
                                                    • [] of Biological Leninism, the organizational principle of the contemporary left. You can find the second part here, and the third part []

                                                      reply
                                                      • [] Mas há uma vontade, há um caminho. E sempre há alguém com uma fome de poder. Eventualmente, a esquerda encontrou um caminho. Bem, dois caminhos. Fiquem ligados.Artigo Original: https://spandrell.com/2017/12/13/bioleninism-the-first-step/[]

                                                        reply