Faith

Every time I get more Twitter hits than usual I run a Twitter search to see what are people blabbering about me. It's usually quite interesting. See here:

https://twitter.com/28ShermanSOBL1/status/795426241641934849

Heh. See also Alfa NL, who perhaps should call himself Maurice of Orange-Nassau or any cool soldier from Dutch history, wrote a post where he very kindly called me his Final Boss. I kinda like the attention. He writes how I'm a very compelling advocate of atheism. But he believes in God, and he wants to make God's will a part of my theories.

He is misunderstanding me, as many do. I actually get quite a lot of correspondence by sympathetic Christians telling me that I could accommodate Christianity in this or that way. The very fact that I get sympathetic Christians reading my blog should tell you that I'm no atheist. I've explicitly said so myself long ago. And I've said so with the very same argument that Alfa NL makes in his post. There's no point to atheism. It's completely self-defeating. I totally get that. I've always got that, and over the years I've learned what I think is the exact mechanism that makes atheism useless and religion useful.

So why be an atheist? I'm certainly not. But as a writer I can't be a theist. Thomas Huxley was in the same conundrum when he coined the word "agnostic", which I think is a brilliant way to put it. Being a theist would destroy all my work. It's cheating. I want to explain things with the available evidence. Inserting god here or there while I write about history or about theories of social behavior would be just too easy. So I don't, and I never will. No good historian does.

But if you want to believe in God, but all means don't let me stop you. If you want to believe in the coming race-war, by all means keep on believing that we will win. Don't let my pessimism discourage you. Incidentally titled my blog "we shall drown and nobody will save us" after a funny page on a 1930s English textbook that I found at my grandfather's, where they taught the difference between the usage of "will" and "shall". I thought it was a pretty accurate reflection of my views. I stand by those views. I do think we're likely going to hell. But I don't want you to agree with me. I probably did back in 2011, but I don't now, now that I know, and have extensively written about, what religion and ideology, and most social behavior is all about.

Razib Khan has had a similar epiphany, his one apparently being caused by his inside exposure to academic politics in the US. Razib Khan is an awesome blogger who's been writing on history and human biodiversity for a decade already. If we were Chinese I'd call him 師傅 master and would have to be extremely polite with him. Razib knows his facts. He knows a whole lot of them.

But nobody likes facts. Well of course some people do. Razib Khan certainly does, as I do. But why? Because we're good at it. We're so much better than everyone else we know that we use the comparative advantage to try go get status. But people aren't interest in the facts I give them. Why? Because being interested will make them lose, and me win. And they don't want me to win, of course. Well my mother does (sometimes). But some people want me to lose, they want to win themselves. In this status struggle, the facts aren't very important. They're only a factor inasmuch as I make them a factor because I'm good at them so I use them to get status. But if my conversation partner is adamant at being hostile to me, he'll deny the facts with extreme ease. All of them. You've all seen that happen. Especially on the internet.

The old Conquest's law argues that everybody is conservative (sticks to the facts) in what they know best. But that doesn't necessarily imply that they talk conservative. They must act conservative, behave conservative, basically because it's the only way to get things done. But they don't need to talk conservative. Many around here are constantly bemused about how high IQ, high conscientiousness, by any measure high performance people can be braindead liberals when you talk to them. Well of course they are; they must be, because it's the way to get status. Talk is also a kind of behavior. It's social behavior. And the point of social behavior is to maximize social status. So if talking progressive is the shortest path to social status, people are gonna talk progressive. They might even act progressive; but you might have noticed that people tend to do the talk but not the walk. They proclaim the equality of all races but live in white enclaves. They proclaim their love for public education but send their kids to private schools. Hypocrisy? No, just rational behavior.

Now the question of course remains; why is progressive talk the path to social status? The assumption in the right tends to be that the left is in power so they get to write the rules. 成王敗寇. The winner gets called the king, the losers get called rebel scum. And there's something to that; but that begs the question: how did progressives get to power? There's something to progressivism itself that gave them an advantage, an edge.

I've written extensively myself; perhaps my oldest and most long-lasting insight is that the particular beliefs of progressivism aren't contingent. They aren't just some random stuff that got in there. The progressive memeplex evolved because it's fit. For better or worse, talk about human equality is good social glue. It makes it easy to make friends and keep them. It also makes it easy to virtue-signal; and people like that. It makes it easy for women to claim for power; and as S.A.M. Adshead pointed out, the history of modernity is the history of the feminization of civilization. So the memes that progressives talk about (not necessarily act upon), are, in a sense, just good manners.

Note that evolution works in the margin; it doesn't follow that good social glue necessarily results in Bruce Jenner getting his dick chopped off using taxpayer's money. But human equality, feminism, anti-racism, all those are evolutionary fit memes; the perfect cultural viruses that Richard Dawkins suspected were behind much of human history. He didn't quite understand the mechanism; but then again he's no sociologist. Human society is complicated; and mere discussion of it is a social bomb. He's finding that out recently.

If progressive bullshit, if completely absurd beliefs work because they are good social glue; do facts matter? Does the cold, sharp truth that I write about count for nothing? No, it doesn't. It hasn't made me any friends. Search for my name in Twitter: you'll find everyone is saying the same thing: I'm too negative, I don't get religion, I give people no hope. And they're right in the general point. But I do get religion. I don't do religion; not in this blog. But I very much get it. I'm the one who's been telling everyone that we need a new religion. I'm just least suited man in the world to come up with one. But I'm telling you it's a good idea.

So again; don't let me discourage you. You wanna believe in God's Will: go for it. You wanna believe in Kek: I think it's a great idea. Just don't expect me to do Kek theology or to theology about God's will in this blog. It's not my strong point. I don't do bullshit. I just don't; I'm awfully bad at it. What I'm very good at is cutting through bullshit. Which I understand is counterproductive if you're trying to build a cohesive political group, but chill. My focus is and has been to cut through progressive bullshit; and I will continue to do so. If and when the cult of Kek or something more suitable to my purposes and those of my family and people achieves power: I for one will be the first to worship our new God and shut up all this negative truth speech.

So get working in your theology. And if you want to think of me as the enemy; be my guest. Any workable religion will have to answer all the questions I'm posing here. Think of me as a friendly sparring. But I am friendly. No enemies to the right. Not until the new dynasty is founded, of course.

And incidentally: my last post about the founding of the Ming Dynasty got people excited and all that. But do remember: the first thing Zhu Yuanzhang did after consolidating power was forbid all cults across the whole empire, and torture and murder everyone who disagreed. Manicheanism and all these Lotus Societies pretty much died forever. Oops, here I am again with my negativity. But hey, I didn't write the history books.

[…] Faith […]

I think you're taking this kek thing too seriously. I guess it's not a bad thing to do, considering the need of a new religion and your audience demographics, but still.

In the game of go, the best move is the one your opponent doesn't want you to play. Likewise it seems to me that the new religion you are looking for is plain catholicism, for the simple reason that it's the ideology which scares progressives the most. The whole "christianity is leftism" meme is a demoralisation tactic that needs to go. The main problem with catholicism is that believing in god is an extremely hard thing to do for for smart people. Hopefully the whole kek thing made people realise that there is a place for the irrational, maybe one day they will pray to Saint-Kek ?

[…] Source: Bloody Shovel […]

My post was more about you as an advocate of nihilism than an advocate of atheism. Reading this makes me realise you are not so much a nihilist. I think a lot of misunderstanding comes from the fact that [current year] traditionally religious people are constantly attacked for their beliefs by leftists and atheists who have absolutely no understanding of what it is they are attacking. You as a 'reactionary voice of reason' have an excellent understanding of religion, thus when you criticise religion it hits all the harder. Which like you say does not make your points any less true, it's just that truth hurts. Solid advice on the cool Dutch soldiers name. Perhaps somewhere in the future.

"And there’s something to that; but that begs the question: how did progressives get to power? There’s something to progressivism itself that gave them an advantage, an edge. I’ve written extensively myself; perhaps my oldest and most long-lasting insight is that the particular beliefs of progressivism aren’t contingent. They aren’t just some random stuff that got in there. The progressive memeplex evolved because it’s fit." It seems to me that a fruitful question that we haven't focused enough on is: how much of this is historically conditioned, and how much of this is characteristically true? What I mean is, how power-advantageous is leftism? A lot, right now, and since at least the Reformation and Enlightenment (though in some ways well before then, too, as you've pointed out). But a mechanism for that work has been posited: people in authority making a HLvM alliance with leftists to get more power, and then at the end falling off the tiger and getting mauled (WW1). How true is that mechanism? To me it makes some sense, but it misses...something. Je ne sais quoi. For one thing it doesnt' do a great job of describing why Western society since the fall of Rome right on up to the Reformation (or around 1300, to be fair) ruthlessly crushed leftist cults with the full cooperation of both Church and sovereign. For another, it doesn't explain why this alliance seemed like a good thing in the first place. (It makes sense why the sovereign would want an alliance to crush the nobles, but why with -these particular- people?) I've tipped my hand a little, of course, just by writing on this blog. The above is a very Western-centric view of history, and you've shown us that the Leftward Urge has raised its ugly head in Eastern civilisation without any help from us dirty white barbarians. But what makes the Left attractive at certain times and not others? Or, if it's always attractive, why are we able to suppress it in some cases, but not others? Sadly, your answer about historical lack of communication networks doesn't exactly hold water, either. You've just shown above the Manicheans were able to capture the government without an internet or a printing press. Christianity converted the Emperor and quite a lot of people without either. Similarly, rightist movements have survived up to the present day (weak and defeated yes, but still surviving, and maybe even on the rise - check out the Carlists and the SSPX.) So while better communication might lower the activation energies of mass political or philosophical movements, they're neither necessary nor sufficient explanations of Why Leftism? Sure, you can say Leftism is good because it fits the Social Points model. And it does. Signalling Leftism is really easy. But then, so does Rightism. Rightism is easy to signal. You put the King's Emblem on your letterhead, sing "God Save the King!" and attend meetings of the Royal Commonweal Society (or whatever). You can even get preferment this way, up to a point, just like you can get preferment with Leftism, up to a point. (Try being Right to the King and you get your head cut off a là More, just like being Left of Stalin gets your head cut off a là Trotsky.) This might ultimately be a message of hope. It might be that Leftism is purely historically conditioned, an historical accident, and can be defeated in the same way you defeat any other historically-accidentally-favorable social arrangement: change the rules of the game. But I'd want proof, before I go that far. And I'd want hard historical underpinnings, instead of all this theorycrafting I've done above. Sorry. Been a long while since I've been 'round these parts, so you've been treated to an especially bad case of my logorrhea.

"The main problem with catholicism is that believing in god is an extremely hard thing to do for for smart people." As an observant traditional Catholic, I could disagree with the premise of this remark. But I won't, because that's boring in this venue. Instead, I'll point out that: a) That's not true at all, and smart people have an -easier- time believing in the irrational, because their understanding of the social benefits is more keen. Witness point deer, make horse, or the simple fact that the most possed people tend to be the smartest, statistically speaking. b) Smart people trying to believe irrational things is (at least one of) the main force(s) behind what we call 'culture' and even 'science'. Witness gothic cathedrals and the Summa Theologica

Point taken, my argument was badly made. What I meant is that modern science grants access to knowledge with a very high degree of confidence of it's truth. Like the proverbial "1 1 = 2", or general relativity. While it is not too hard to accept that god exists, I've found it much harder to be confident in that assertion to the same degree, and even harder for the whole body of the church's teachings. Atheism or Agnosticism sometimes feel like reasonable application of Occam's razor. "I'm not sure therefore I disregard the whole thing unless proven otherwise." The Kek saga made me reconsider that argument, and I suspect I am not the only one feeling that way.

I have become considerably more religious over the past two years, and have found that the old testament (or Torah, if you're of my thede) is basically an ode to Gnon as told in a story that even women and children can relate to. The progressive innovation seems past due in an era of mechanized and automated warfare. Only Gnon knows for sure, but I suspect that religious memetics are poised for some rapid iteration (probably in the direction of idolatry/narcissism).

[ That’s not true at all, and smart people have an -easier- time believing in the irrational, because their understanding of the social benefits is more keen] Is a smart person someone who can get themselves to believe 2 2 is 5 if it's advantageous for them? The word smart isn't the right one to use in this case.

There is indeed a lack of vocabulary for this kind of correct but kinda evil understanding.

Very old saying I believe, to the common man religion is true, to the wise it is false, and to rulers it is useful. You, being wise, think religion is false. May God grant you the serenity to accept the things you cannot change. What this corner of the web calls progressivism is pretty much just Satanism. So the obvious answer would seem to be convert the Protestant masses back to the true faith. Holiness signaling-spirals should be able to produce actual holiness, I mean at least in theory right? Or perhaps hope lies with the trolls?

The trouble is that old time Christianity in all its forms failed against the change of modernity and here we are. In medieval times they liked to talk about unmoved mover and the problem of evil. But now the problem we must confront is finding something that smart people, of even a literate general population with access to information can believe in and use to rally around against other factions. As Spandrell points out, any irrational cult is good enough against criminal gangs and generals muzzled by political hacks. Now the challenge before us is to find something better if we can, that doesn't require suspension of our better judgment to make possible, but works naturally with it. As we see with Mormons, willingly buying into bullshit can be self-destructive in a more complex world. I suspect we need a new, post-Western culture.

It is partially arbitrary, of course. China has had relatively little of it. But I do think Leftism (defined as virtue-signaling about human equality) is generally stronger than Rightism (defined as virtue-signaling about loyalty to the power structure). You can be a sycophant of the king, sure. But you aren't gonna raise a rebel army like that. By saying that you have a Vision of a World without Borders where the poor will rise and take justice against the rich; hell a lot of people are gonna join that banner. Especially if your religion is pretty much based on that. Medieval times were a time of constant warfare and massive barbarian intrusions: loyalty to the king, law and order were a pretty good idea back then; to the extent that law and order was pretty hard to get. And leftist comunes starved pretty fast in those days, even if you were lucky to avoid the vikings.

I'm pretty much declaring my serenity to accept whatever is useful. Holiness signaling spirals don't produce holiness. They just produce holiness signals. Savonarola wasn't holy: he was an evil traitor. Evil greedy Clintons are what gets on top when you allow signaling spirals to spiral unopposed.

Spandrell, why do you say that China has had relatively little of leftism? What would you call Mao and Communist China up until the capitalist reforms? As for the definition of leftism, I think it's more the drive toward atomization of power -- the dissolution of social institutions (religious, cultural), the weakening of shared values (by importing violent non-integrating minorities) and the turning of different societal groups (sex, race) against each other so that all ultimately rely on the state to solve their issues.

"Plain catholicism" is funny. Does it come in as many flavors as Ben & Jerry's? "There is no 'Christianity.' There are only Christianities." --John Loftus http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2015/06/quoke-of-day-by-christian-proving-there.html

By that definition anarchists are not leftist. When I talk of China I talk of 3,000 years of history, not on what happened when the Soviet Union funded a rebel army in 1921.

>" If and when the cult of Kek or something more suitable to my purposes and those of my family and people achieves power: I for one will be the first to worship our new God and shut up all this negative truth speech." Some time ago I said, and it seems to have become a little bit internet famous: " If authority required me to believe in Leprechauns, and to get along with people that it was important to get along with required me to believe in Leprechauns, I would probably believe in leprechauns, though not in the way that I believe in rabbits, but I can see people not being equal, whereas I cannot see leprechauns not existing."

Give the recent /pol Pizzagate revelations (the Podesta/Abramovic satanist/pedophile/ritualistic cannibal thing,) it would appear that your enemies have preceded you by about 100 years (or more.) You want a utilitarian, game-theoretical religion that makes everyone involved have skin in the game and act reliable, well, what your enemies have is about as good as it's gonna get. The main weakness of the alt right is its simultaneous lack of originality and lack of historical knowledge: 1. The secular alt right is utilitarian and wants society to be run on rational principles, where the strong and smart rule the weak and stupid, to which end it wants a rational religion. Well, the first part (a society run by the smart on rational principles) is basically the definition of socialism, the middle and end part are basically Satanism. In other words, "Simpsons already did it"-that's the reality you're living under right now. Hilariously, Roissy has been LARPing Satanism for years and years-it's been his whole schtick. Now that it turns out genuine Satanists run the show, he for some reason isn't excited about it. Why not, isn't that what you wanted? 2. The white nationalist alt right is basically all of the above, but for whites. Again, though, that's the reality you're living under right now. Podesta, Hillary, Abramovic etc. are as white as it gets, and not in the slightest worried about Dindus stomping them. The various Humas and Obamas and so on are servants and mouthpieces for their white masters. You can complain about Soros, but he seems to have assimilated the European-American progressive mentality pretty well-2 out of 3 wives were non-Jewish, for instance, and he funds the enemies of the Jewish people heftily. If you want a country where your capital's wealthy elites feel a deep bond with hillbillies in the Appalachian Mountains and soy farmers in Iowa, that's never going to happen. 3. The Protestant alt right wants society to be run on rational Protestant principles, whether under solo scriptura or some other flavor. That's been done in Geneva and in Massachusetts, and gradually and inevitably led to the present situation. 4. The Catholic alt right-who the hell knows what they want? Obviously, the Catholic church as it currently exists is deeply pozzed, and the idea that it can be changed/purged from below is deeply un-Catholic. Maybe the values of a religion can't just be arbitrarily determined by utilitarian considerations? Maybe there is an objectively existing underlying numinous reality? Naaah, couldn't be, we all learned in school that there is no god.