The following piece asks the question, ‘was what Hitler or Stalin did
rational?’.
The question sounds perverse, and in a way it is. How can the mass
killings of people–especially those who are ‘innocent’–be rational?
Also, even if we allow that no one is innocent in either the spiritual
or ideological sense, who has the right to kill so many?
Still, rational isn’t the same as moral. The opposite of rational is
mad or irrational. Neither rationalism nor madness is moral or
immoral; both are amoral. We generally prefer rationality, but
rationality isn’t the same as rationalism. Rationalism says that we
should think, believe, and act according to the rational dictates
arising from premises founded upon scientific principles. It could be
argued that Hitler and the Nazis would have been less dangerous had
they been mad than rationalist. As madmen, they might have killed Jews
one day, spared them on the next, and so on. Mad people lack
consistency and don’t follow logical courses of action.
This cannot be said of Stalin or Hitler. They had a set of beliefs or
principles supposedly founded on scientific facts, and acted
accordingly and consistently. To be sure, there are people who can be
mad or delusional in some fundamental way and then be logically
consistent in the pursuit of that delusion. Think of UFO nuts whose
basic belief in alien beings are founded on nonsense or lunacy but
logically pursue ‘data’ based on their assumptions. And, there’s
another kind of madness where some people see patterns and
conspiracies through overly active, imaginative, and paranoid mind.
All of this makes us wonder to what extent people like Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Hitler, and others were merely scientifically wrong or
fundamentally imbalanced psychologically. Were they scrupulously
rational and sane men who unfortunately or tragically came upon a set
of wrong ideas, or were they fundamentally imbalanced mentalities
fated to mis-connect historical and ‘scientific’ dots–those that would
not have been connected by people more attuned to reality. (But, what
is macro-reality except what we read about in books and magazines, and
what author or researcher has full grasp of larger social reality? All
views of social reality are half-truths and half-guesses founded on
personal agendas and prejudices.)
Anyway, no one can know everything about the world of men. It’s
difficult enough to understand the nature of elemental particles or
the behavior of ‘simple’ organisms. When it comes to mankind–all the
people together--, it’s impossible to know the utlimate truth about
human nature, human potential, human diversity, and human good/evil.
So, anyone who claims to know about humanity and then comes up with a
set of theories which justifies policies for creating utopia is deeply
suspect.
In this sense, rationalism is dangerous when applied to the human
world because there is only so much we know about ourselves, much less
others. To look upon mankind as particles of (historical)matter can
lead to dehumanization–no matter how utopian the goals–, as was
demonstrated many times in the 20th century.
The problem is never rationality, something we always need more of but
of excessive rational-ISM. Excessive or radical rationalism assumes
that a handful of very intelligent men can understand the true nature
and potentialities of man, and such, they should have the power to
socially engineer us like guinea pigs. This is not necessarily an
anti-government position. Indeed, one could argue libertarianism is
just another radical ideology though less dangerous than leftism. The
libertarian philosophy of let-chips-fall-where-they-may also looks
upon human beings as particles of (socio-economic)matter; supposedly,
individual freedom and free markets will sort everything out for the
good of all. Rather fanciful notion considering the nature of man.
Anyway, one could argue both Stalin and Hitler were rationalistic men–
even ultra-rationalistic. They believed in a set of principles and
then pushed them to their logical conclusions. When it came to
ideology, Stalin was a communist and Hitler was a National Socialist.
When it came to strategy, both were opportunists. As a result, their
tactics were sometimes at odds with their stated ideologies–especially
during the Nazi-Soviet pact–, but everything they did made rational
(ist) sense within what they believed about the world and statecraft.
One may ask, how rational was it for Stalin to kill so many? What
possible harm to the state could entire families of peasants or
various powerless ethnic groups possibly do? What was the necessity
of pushing millions of Ukrainians and others toward starvation? Why
did entire ethnic groups have to be deported across the vast Soviet
continent and worked and/or starved to death?
While some of it made brute economic sense, the scale on which it took
place makes us wonder if there could be any rational justification.
And yet, if we take Stalin’s ideology seriously, it made sense enough.
After all, Stalin wasn’t only trying to build an economy but create
the New Man, a New Culture, a New World. In this equation, all the
little nationalisms were an hindrance. All nationalisms had to be
smashed or made Soviet-friendly. And, the logic of the revolution
dictated that the most ruthless, dramatic, and sudden attacks on the
Old Order was most effective. The Russian Civil War taught the
Bolsheviks that it’s us-or-them. There could be no compromise. So,
the communists waged a total blitzkrieg against the old order–
churches, nationalities, property owning peasants, etc. That most of
the victims were powerless–and even poor–was irrelevant. Cumulatively,
they were seen as a deadweight dragging the revolution. The only way
to turn the lethargic masses into a revolutionary force was through a
war mentality. Everything had to be us-against-them. So, even people
who didn’t oppose the revolution could be deemed as the enemy if they
weren’t part of the revolutionary army or militants. The enemies were
not only the anti-revolutionary saboteurs and agents, but the people
themselves clinging to old ways of thought. In a way, the latter type
was a bigger challenge for the revolution. The ruthless Soviet secret
police could amply ferret out and destroy anti-communist agents in a
totalitarian police state. But, what do you do about the population
who only wanted to be left alone, keep their property, and mind their
own business? Such people weren’t out to overthrow the system, but
they were standing in the way of the revolutionary locomotive. Either
they worked to lay down new tracks or they had to be run over.
In this sense, Stalin’s mass killings did make sense. That they
unfairly killed millions of innocents is very true, but what is an
‘innocent’ in historical terms? Whether one is innocent or not depends
on the historical context. A well-off German family in the early
1940s is doing no direct harm to anyone and is indeed innocent. But,
as a witting or unwitting cog in the Nazi-dominated German machine–
much of it devoted to war–, is he truly innocent? Similarly, within
the context of Soviet ideology, anyone who owned private land and
didn’t want to relinquish it to the communists could not have been
regarded as innocent. By the very nature of his outlook and habits, he
could only be regarded as a reactionary or even anti-revolutionary.
Much the same could be said of Hitler’s mass killings. It may seem
perverse to say Hitler’s killings–especially of the Jews and gypsies–
were rational(ist), but it would be more perverse to say they were
mad. It was not like Hitler was hallucinating day in and day out,
rolling the dice and killing Jews and gypsies the one day and then
embracing them the next. No, there was a terrible logic to what
Hitler did, and it was certainly rationalist.
One may ask, what is so rational about killing Jewish conservatives
(Jews who embraced German nationalism) and Jewish children? How could
children be guilty of anything? This is a valid question within the
field of criminal justice, but Nazi ideology had another way of
judging people-racially. It was the contention of Hitler and other
Nazi ideologues that Jewish problem was essentially biological.
Therefore, the outer manifestations of Jewish sickness was rooted in
Jewish genes. As such, the genes themselves had to be eradicated.
Within the beliefs of this ideology, Hitler’s holocaust makes rational
sense.
After all, how do we deal with cockroaches and rats? Do we just kill
the adults of the species since they are the ones doing the harm? No,
we find ways to eradicate their babies too. Why? Because the babies
will inevitably grow up into harmful bugs and pests. We don’t hope
that maybe the young rats and roaches will grow up to be different
from their pesty parents. We believe that rats and roaches are
genetically programmed to engage in behavior that is harmful to us.
This was the logic of Nazism when it came to the Jewish and gypsy
question. Nazis believed that the social, economic, and political
problems related to Jews or gypsies were essentially rooted in
biology. In other words, Jew can’t help but be a Jew. A gypsy can’t
help but be a gypsy.
Of course, not even Hitler believed all Jews were bad or corrupt, but
he believed that even good or decent Jews possess recessive or latent
genes that could produce an evil or wicked Jew down the line.
The nature of Nazi ideology being what it was, one could argue that
the Jewish holocaust was rational even if horrific. Rationalism always
operates within the context of what is assumed to be true. As such, it
is amoral.
To be sure, one may question the rationalism of the premise itself;
one can argue, for instance, that Nazi ideology wasn’t rational at its
roots, and so the Jewish holocaust was the rational outcome of
something irrational. There is some truth to this. If Hitler and the
Nazis had looked carefully at the facts, they would have realized that
the nordic race wasn’t purely ‘Aryan’, a misapplied term to begin
with. Also, they would have admitted that the so-called Aryans were
not superior to Jews in intellect nor superior to blacks in physical
prowess. So, Nazi ideology was fundamentally false, and the
rationalist actions perpetrated in its name served a set of lies or
delusions. So, would proper rationalism have prevented something like
Nazism? If Nazism had been founded on truth than falsehoods about race
and human biology, could the Jewish and gypsy holocaust have been
prevented? Perhaps, perhaps not.
After all, the truth–Jewish intellectual superiority, for instance–
could just as well have served an ideology committed to the mass
killing of Jews–man, woman, and child. A people may feel contempt
for those deemed inferior but may fear those deemed superior. We
humans wouldn’t want to be visited by beings much smarter than us from
other planets. (Suppose a 1000 alien being arrive from another planet,
and their average IQ is a 1000; and suppose we accept them as fellow
beings. Suppose their numbers multiply quickly, and they gain control
of our economy, politics, etc. Suppose they grow more arrogant and
contemptuous of us dumb humans as they gain power and wealth.
Wouldn’t many people prefer to wipe them out before we eventually
become their guinea pigs–like Christian Slavs, for a time, became the
chattel of Bolshevik revolutionaries disproportionately made up of
significantly smarter Jews?) There’s a chance that the Alien
Beings may be nice, but what if they are not? And, even if they are
nice, it would mean we are now at the mercy of their kindness; if they
choose to destroy us, we are finished.
So, the Jewish holocaust could have happened even if Nazism had been
an ideology of inferiority than of superiority. Indeed, there’s enough
evidence to suggest that Nazism was as much founded on inferiorist
impulses and resentments as on supremacist ideas. No race,
nationality, or people want to regard themselves as inferior or less
worthy, so they mask their feelings of inferiority with superiorist
rhetoric. But, look behind the facade, and the real passions may well
be driven by fear and resentment of the people perceived to be
smarter, richer, more talented, and/or hostile to the established
order of the native majority. In Germany, especially during the great
depression of the 20s and early 30s–and the humiliation of defeat in
WWII and fear of Soviet communism(dominated in the early stages by
radical Jews), many Germans came to regard Jews with envy, fear, and
dread. Many Germans were too proud to admit their sense of
inferiority vis-a-vis the Jews, so the Nazis came up with a theory of
why Jews were more successful and accomplished than Germans. It was
said Jews were devious, cunning, or conspiratorial. Or, that Jews
concocted false ideas like Marxism, Freudian psychology, and
Einstein’s theory of relativity to confused good solid Germans. Even
in the world of the bourgeoisie, it was said Jews got ahead through
fancifully devious finance capitalism than good honest economics. (A
crucial contradiction that Nazism fed upon was the perception that
‘Aryans’ looked nobler and more handsome but were less intelligent
than Jews. Nazis believed that aesthetics should be synonymous with
intellect, and natural nobility with talent, but that wasn’t the case
in actual reality. A rather funny looking and acting Einstein was the
greatest scientist of his age. ‘Nibelungenish’ Jews were better
businessmen than Germans who were themselves among the best in the
world. This divergence of intellect and aesthetics has been something
Jews have been well-aware of as well. So, Jews always found ways to
find and use idealized‘decent’ good looking goyim who would serve to
cosmeticize the superior intellectual ideas of Jews. And, so Freud
placed his hopes on the Aryan Carl Jung to be serve as the conduit for
Freudian psychology. Ayn Rand was radical Jewess who propped up Aryan-
like heroes of commerce and art, when in fact many giants of business
and arts of the 20th century were funny looking Jews–or funny looking
gentiles for that matter. Reagan was the tall handsome goy face to
Milton Friedman-ism, and the ‘noble’ and ‘soulful’ Obama is the
idealized mask behind which Jews like Larry Summers and the New
Republic gang hope to operate. In Hollywood, many writers have been
funny-looking Jews, but the actors have often been Aryan-like whites
or Idealized blacks. The superior aesthetic image of the goyim has
been made to serve the ideas and values of Jews. Since the audience
come to see ‘Aryan’ or ‘Soulful’ types espousing values pushed by
liberal Jews, people are led to think that Jewish values are their own
values.)
Anyway, for the Nazis, this wasn’t just a political, cultural, or
historical problem but one rooted in Jewish genetics. Hitler and his
ideological comrades were convinced that the Jewish gene had directed
Jewish survival, behavior, deviousness, and repulsiveness toward non-
Jews from the beginning of history. Jews were like a unpleasant breed
of dogs–one with weasel-like features and different from the normal
breeds. This was an extreme form of anti-semitism, but philo-semitism
could also be based on genetic uniqueness of the Jews. Charles
Murray, a neo-conservative gentile, wrote an article last year in
Commentary magazine arguing that Jews–at least the Ashkenazi kind--are
intellectually and creatively more gifted than other peoples(which
implies that Jews are more precious than other peoples). Murray makes
a genetic case for why we should admire Jews whereas Nazis made a
genetic case for why we should hate them.
Given the premise of Hitler’s beliefs about race and history, it made
rational(ist) sense to remove Jews from gentile society and even
execute something as radical as racial extermination. Indeed, given
the principles and beliefs of Nazis, it would have been irrational not
to do otherwise. Again, rational(ist) isn’t the same as moral or what
we would consider sane. It is what logically follows from what is
accepted as the factual premise. If the premise states that Jews are a
cancerous tumor, only radical surgery can save your people from the
Jews.
It’s often said that Nazi biological science ranged from crude to
downright false, but that was true of all biological sciences back
then. (Of course, much ‘scientific’ knowledge about humanity even
today is pretty fanciful or tainted by ideological prejudices, mostly
leftist and egalitarian.) The problem wasn’t so much the theory of
racial differences but the radical conviction that one’s beliefs were
totally correct. In this light, one may ask whether Nazi prejudices
were the results of biological sciences or biological sciences merely
justified their prejudices. We may also ask if rationalism and
radicalism are compatible, inseparable, or opposites.
First, the relationship between rationalism and radicalism is a tricky
one. Rationalism says one’s view of reality and worldly actions must
comply with what reason has revealed about the nature of reality.
Perhaps, the problem isn’t so much rationalism as the need to live and
to act–to apply rationalism to the real world. If we existed as mere
consciousness without physical form, we may indefinitely ponder the
nature of truth through open-ended rationalism. But, we must act IN
THIS WORLD, and our knowledge–whatever the methods used to attain it–
is always faulty and incomplete. So, rationalism can only amount to
applying one’s imperfect understanding of reality to reality. For most
of history, the great scientific minds thought the sun and stars
revolved around Earth.
Even the best minds could only be rational with known data, and not
everything is ever known; also, even if everything has been discovered
and revealed, no single man or group of men can learn and synthesize
ALL knowledge and come up with a totally unified theory of reality or
what it means to be human. Also, what we may know about subatomic
particles or cells or simple organisms may not tell us much if
anything about morality and human needs.
Anyway, the problem of man is he must live, and in order to live he
must act. To act, he must make decisions. He cannot put off decisions
forever in search for the ultimate truth. Like a commander in battle,
he must make decisions with limited, faulty, and ever shifting
intelligence. So, man is always condemned to act with imperfect
understanding of reality despite his effort to be factual and
rational.
(We must also keep in mind that factual and rational are not the same
thing. The problem is different ideas and decisions can be
rationalized from the same set of facts. Suppose you hit a dog with a
car. Should the dog be put to sleep or treated for recovery at great
cost? Both are rational.)
Besides, most people are not particularly brilliant or intelligent,
and so their rationalism amounts to accepting what the experts say.
If textbooks told kids that there are only two lifeforms–animals and
plants–, that’s what most kids would unquestioningly believed. If a
new textbook said there are 3 lifeforms–animals, plants, and
protists–, that would the new orthodoxy. And, so on. So, even for most
secular people, rationalism is little more than going along with the
experts. Since we can’t understand the complexity of their ideas and
methods, we readwatered down magazine articles or books that explain
in layman terms. Or, we watch a PBS or cable documentary on scientific
matters which are really no more than fancy graphics and generic
narration. Even so, we believe that most people in science are
serious and worthy men committed to the truth and have the character
and caution to admit and correct mistakes. And, who can deny that this
system has indeed done wonders for the modern world? Of course, we
are talking of hard sciences such as physics, chemistry, and elemental
biology.
But, when it comes to human or social sciences, the picture is
different. Assumptions and beliefs about mankind are never free of
prejudices, agendas, ideologies, and so on. Worse, though social or
human sciences are the least truthful and objective of all the
sciences, they are expected to offer the greatest number of answers to
our social and psychological problems. And, this is where radicalism
creeps into rationalism. Social scientists don’t merely want to
understand the world but to change it–as Marx put it(though Marx was
wrong to assume he was the first to try; philosophers had ALWAYS
wanted to change the world; one only needs to read Plato, Han Fei Tzu,
or Machiavelli). On the one hand, as scientists they must be filled
with caution and humility. But, given the nature and scale of human
problems, they feel a need to do something. Just being ‘objective’
may be belittled as ‘bourgeois’, ‘privileged’ and detached from the
needs of fellow man. Social scientists and intellectuals of the Left
argue that scientists who insist on ever more experiments and
discussions are living in a bubble; when the world is crying out for
help from poverty, oppression, ignorance, and so on, how can
scientists in their ivory towers just search for better truth and look
upon every proposed program for social change with skepticism? And,
indeed, it may well be true that some people calling for caution and
more experimentation/discussion rather than radical action aren’t
necessarily devoted to pure science but trying to maintain the status
quo. The Left may call for a radical program on scientific grounds,
but the Right may call for caution and stasis on the same grounds. The
Left may argue that science tells us so and so, and we must act on the
so and so. The Right may argue that the so and so are not so certain,
and we shouldn’t do anything until we know more. But, how long do we
have to wait?
Rationalism isn’t the same as radicalism, but it’s often compatible
with radicalism–at least in the human sciences–because many
‘scientists’ in the field believe that their discoveries must serve to
advance mankind. There is a built-in impatience within human sciences,
which aren’t so much about knowing simply to know but about knowing to
DO more. Even so, rationalism isn’t necessarily serviceable only to
the Left. Though the Right, due to its religious grounding, has often
been at odds with rationalism, rationalism has served the agendas of
the Right. Consider the leftist principle of the equality of man.
More scientific data are showing that not only are individuals
markedly different from one another but there are also considerable
differences between men and women and among races. The scientific
left has tried to do away with the concept of race altogether, but
more data is showing that such is a scientific stupidity, borne more
of ideological fixations than real science. While race is not the
same as species, that different groups within the same species have
different genetic makeup cannot be denied.
Today, there are many rationalist scientists whose findings may be
equally disturbing to the religious right and to the ideological left.
Consider the case of Edwin O. Wilson whose theories are at odds with
the religious right who cling to God and the ideological left which
blindly embraces the notion of human equality as fact than as mere
ideal.
And indeed, this has been the problem of the Left from the very
beginning. On the one hand, it claims to be rationalist, i.e. based on
scientific inquiry, experimentation, and data, but on the other hand,
it claimed to be for the equality of man. This is the fundamental
contradiction within the so-called Enlightenment Principles. Consider
this statement on the Soviet revolution from this site which we’ve
heard over and over from the Left:
http://www.history.ucla.edu/people/faculty?lid=651
“His research seeks to understand how the greatest experiment of the
20th century, led by a movement that grew out of rational,
enlightened, egalitarian, and democratic traditions resulted in
dictatorship and the deaths of millions of its own people.”
The above statement assumes that ‘rational’ and ‘enlightened’ are
synonymous with ‘egalitarian’ and ‘democratic’. Taking note of the
contradiction within Enlightenment principles, it’s not hard to
understand why Leftist experiments failed miserably.
To be sure, there was something enlightened and undoubtedly true about
the notion that all men are basically the same and that the
traditional forms of social hierarchy were based on false
assumptions. In other words, the King and noblemen didn’t have any
special kind of blood running through their veins; they were not
biologically superior to their subjects. So, an idea of a society
where all people would have equal chance and a greater stake made
sense. But, just because traditional forms of hierarchy were based on
false assumptions, it doesn’t naturally follow that there are no
natural hierarchies among men.
Given the fact that most people aren’t very intelligent, we can’t
expect them to be expert rationalists. Also, to be truly enlightened
was and will always be an elitist ideal and possibility. One may
argue that all people should equally have access to higher wisdom, but
the fact is only a relatively few are bound to achieve it. Also, being
educated doesn’t necessarily mean learning how to think freely or
think rationally. For many people, it simply means being
indoctrinated, just swallowing what one reads in books or gets from
lectures. Why else are so many social scientists clones of one
another, spouting the same cliches and certitudes? They’ve learned how
to read books, take notes, and make good grades, but the great
majority of them never learned how to think freely on their own.
So much for rationalism and enlightenment being cousins of
egalitarianism and democracy. The enlightened order is bound to be
just as elitist and hierarchical as the old order though on firmer
biological and, perhaps, moral grounds(depending on how one conceives
of right and wrong). In the old order of the king and aristocracy,
power and wealth were passed down by blood/heredity. In the
enlightened order, many on top happen to be people with the best
minds, talent, ambition, etc. The successful in the enlightened new
order tend to have earned their right to wealth and power. Even so, we
don’t have an egalitarian order.
There were bourgeois revolutionaries–especially Americans–who were
perfectly happy with this new order; there was a greater emphasis on
equality and fraternity–whatever that means in practice–in the French
Revolution. Many French revolutionaries wanted simply to get rid of
king and the noblemen and make for a freer society. But, the more
radical ones–and such folks tend to be more ruthless, committed, and
conspiratorial–insisted that the ‘rational’ and ‘enlightened’ must be
synonymous with ‘equality’ and ‘democracy’. They were Procrustean
rationalists. It was this irrational insistence that led to socialism
and communism and the horrors of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism-Maoism.
Worse, radical leftism also raised major doubts about the value of
intelligence and intellect. People like Marx, Lenin, Bela Kun,
Trotsky, Stalin, Ho, Mao, Che Guevara, etc were no dummies. They were
highly intelligent men. Marx and Trotsky were probably even geniuses.
Yet, each of them was monstrous in his own distinct way. While some
people with superior intelligence/ intellect may despair of the
stupidity of most people, other men of intelligence actively seek to
‘save’ mankind–and make things worse.
To be sure, most communist leaders embraced the ideal rather than the
factuality of equality as it was a useful justification for holding
onto all the power. Even a communist society isn’t equal, and that
becomes the excuse for leaders to hold onto power–as the goal hasn’t
been accomplished yet. Indeed, this is still the ideological
justification of the Chinese Communist Party--that everything it does
(even pushing capitalist market reforms)is all part of building a
truly equal society.
This may well explain why so many elitists–cultural, intellectual, and
political–have tended to be of the Left. Egalitarianism has been more
about creating than living in an equal world. For such to be realized,
‘enlightened rationalists’ must have more and more power over the
people(nominally, to serve the people). So, it is in the name of
equality that a permanent mandarin class seeks power. And, people are
too dumb to realize this, which is why the masses of people keep
voting for politicians who promise more equality and ‘social justice’.
The end result is we end up with politicians who are more powerful
than ever before. We elect would-be-tyrants in search for equality. We
need only to look at the example of Venezuela with Hugo Chavez. The
funny thing is, for all the rhetoric about the nobility and self-
respect of The People, The People often don’t trust themselves or
their. Poor people want tougher government to take from the rich to
give to the poor. The rich people may want tougher government to
protect the property of the rich from the poor. The more ‘enlightened’
rich may want bigger government to buy off the poor–by providing
diversionary bread and circuses–before the people turn into angry mobs
and rebel.
There is also the problem of temperament and personal nature. Whatever
intelligence may achieve in math or hard sciences, it is a slave to
one’s temperament or emotional nature shaped by cultural upbringing
and factors in human affairs. Men like Marx, Lenin, and Hitler may
have been genetically fated to be radical and dangerous. What’s true
with cats and dogs is true with humans. Some people are naturally more
tolerant and live-and-let-live than others. Generally, people of
strong emotional dispositions tend to seek dogmatic or radical belief
system. It’s hard to imagine someone like Marx or Hitler as an easy
going liberal even if they had been raised by Maude(of the 70s TV
show). On the other hand, take a man like Gorbachev who grew up in a
radical communist system; he had a generally congenial and easygoing
nature and liberalized an iron-clad totalitarian system. Intelligence
may be crucial in attaining power, but decisions are often driven by
emotion and temperament.
In some cases, totalitarian systems do come under the rule of men of
superior intelligence and intellect. This can be said of Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, and to a lesser extent,
Castro and Che. But, in some cases, second-raters come to power with
the help of sponsors–like the communist bosses of Warsaw Pact nations
installed by the Soviet Union–or over a mostly ignorant, stupid, and
pathetic populace(in which case, it only takes cunning and opportunism–
as with Mobutu in Zaire or Chavez in Venezuela). This fact further
complicates the problem of ‘social justice’ and egalitarianism. What
chance does a nation have for making progress if its rulers who think
themselves so smart, wise, courageous, and visionary are really just
demagogic political hacks? But then... did nations ruled by men of
genuine intelligence and talent–Russia under Lenin, Trotsky, or
Stalin–, or Italy under Mussolini, or Germany under Hitler, or China
under Mao do any better? Intelligent and talented, yes, but
intelligence and talent in the service of what? In the service of
impossible dreams and warped by the megalomaniacal personalties who
thought they knew everything.
Neither the rationalist–as opposed to rational–premise for communism
nor Nazism was truly scientific in light of what we know today–indeed
even of what they knew back then. The Enlightenment ideal of equality
was rooted in Judeo-Christian principles despite the anti-religious
position of French revolutionaries. The concept of fairness or
justice has little or nothing to do with scientific facts. Also, the
facts were bound to show that humans were more equal than some
‘scientists’ claimed while less equal than others claimed. There was
always bound to be scientific data that could be used to emphasize
similarities or differences. Study of DNA can show that every person
on Earth belongs to the same human species and originated from a tribe
in Africa. But, studies of people around the world make it plain as
day that intellectual, emotional, and physical differences do exist
among races. So, there is a scientific and rational basis for both
leftism and rightism. Humans and society, being ever so complex, what
is The Truth that favors one -ism over the other.
A leftist could argue that his side is preferable because it’s in our
interest to live together as equal world citizens with mutual respect
for one another. A rightist could argue that the nature of blacks
being what it is, a higher number of blacks in any society is bound to
lead to social decay and the sort of thing you have in Haiti, Detroit,
and Africa; it can be argued that no amount of goodwill or idealism is
worth a dime if it goes against the reality of how things actually
work out.
And indeed, this is a major problem we face today. The number one
problem in both US and Europe today is race. In the US, Jews, the
smartest and most talented people on Earth, have gained near-monopoly
in many areas. Jews tend to look upon white gentiles as their main
rivals and have used blacks to guilt-bait white gentiles. Blacks, the
strongest and most aggressive and the wildest race on Earth, have
often been a criminal, social, sexual, and cultural threat to white
America. Of course, most Jews don’t live with dangerous blacks; most
Jews range from affluent to super-rich. Jews have also milked the
Jewish holocaust for all its worth to pre-empt any criticism of Jewish
power. Though many Jews are leftists and champion the need to speak
truth to power, don’t ever think it applies to Jewish power. We must
all pretend that even billionaire Jews just got off a refugee boat.
We have idiot white trash Evangelicals praying for Israel and cheering
Jerry Springer who exploits them with derision.
As long as Jews control the media and schools and fill our eyes, ears,
and brains with the Jewish holocaust all night and day, we’ll think
that our primary moral duty in life is to suck up to Jews. Thomas
Frank wrote a book called ‘What’s the Matter with Kansas?’ where he
asked why poor whites support rich Wall Street Republicans. Someone
should write a book called ‘What’s Wrong with White Goyim?’. Why are
so many white gentile Americans supportive and slavish to Jews and
Jewish interests when the vast majority of Jews support policies–
economic, political, cultural, demographic, foreign policy, etc–which
go against interests of white goyim? If rich secular Wall Street
republicans have exploited cultural issues to make poor whites vote
for free trade policies, Jews have exploited moral and historical
issues to make white folks support the Jews when in fact most Jews are
doing everything in their power to undermine white power. The vast
majority of Jews–through their all-powerful control of media, culture,
entertainment, and academia–has given us the contemptible and
disgusting Obama as president. When will white America wake up and
understand that Oprah and Obama are both hoaxes manipulated by liberal
and leftwing Jews to undermine white power. And, why shouldn’t white
people think in terms of white power when blacks think in terms of
black power and Jews think in terms of Jewish power?
When it came to Jews, the Nazis came to find a connection between
their physical repulsiveness with their moral repulsiveness. Of
course, repulsiveness is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, and what may be deemed morally repulsive to some may seem
morally justified and liberating to others. But, we have a tendency
to match one kind of hideousness with another. Most movies still
follow this formula, which is why good guys are generally handsome and
bad guys tend to be either ugly or hideous in some way. The central
prejudice that says beauty is good and ugliness is evil still stands.
And, in some ways, we use this against the Nazis. How useful it has
been for anti-Nazis that Hitler and his henchmen were mostly an
unpleasant looking bunch. To be sure, there was a certain intensity
and striking quality about Hitler; there is genuine power in his
photos. But, Hitler and many Nazis come across, in many newsreels, as
dark and disturbed rabble-rousers. They were into the ‘bad boy’ image.
Given the nature of our debased and mindless rebel culture, it may
explain why there continues to be a fascination among some youths for
Hitler and his cohorts; they could almost be seen as the proto-Rolling
Stones who played rock n roll with history itself.
Anyway, the way we remember and condemn Nazism is often contradictory.
On the one hand, we give them the same treatment they gave the Jews.
We look upon them as ugly, hideous, monstrous, subhuman, degenerate,
and irredeemable sickos. It’s as though there was only one way to get
rid of them--eradicate them. Germany had to be thoroughly de-nazified,
and even–or especially–Germans took up on this theme. In a way, the
process is far from over. Today, German kindergarten students are
drilled to tears about the Holocaust and made to feel national-
spiritual guilt over what happened during WWII. It’s as though the
German soul and psyche are naturally infected with this evil which
must be rooted out at an early age; in other words, Germans are BORN
guilty and wicked.
In contrast, there is the oft-seen image of the noble Jew, the
wonderful Jew, the Jew you wanna hug, Jew you wanna invite to dinner,
the Jew worthy of your daughter, the delightful Jew, the warm Jew, and
etc. In many cases, good looking non-Jews play Jewish characters in
movies to physically ennoble Jews–to sanctify them as more christian
than christian. So, Lena Olin is a Jewess in “The Reader”, Montgomery
Clift was a Jew in “Young Lions” and “Freud”, and Aidan Quinn played a
Jew in “Avalon” and so on. Or, Jews are placed in what should really
be handsome roles. Because we’ve been brainwashed that Jewishness is
wonderful, we don’t say ‘Ewwwwwwwwww’ but force ourselves to believe
that Barbra Streisand is really the romantic heroine or that Sarah
Jessica Parker is sexy and on par with the hot women around the
world. So, there is the ugly-fication of Nazis and ‘white
supremacist’ types who are portrayed in most movies as subhuman
neanderthals, human apes, degenerate retards, or sick fuc*s, whereas
there is the pretty-fication of Jews as the new and proper ideal of
physical nobility or beauty. (This reversal of standards is also
being carried out with homosexuals. The Jews who run the media would
have us believe that there’s nothing as dysfunctional, desperate, and
degenerate as the traditional nuclear family and nothing as healthy,
normal, and clean as a gay couple. Ozzie and Harriet are closet
psychotics while Ozzie and Harry know best.)
But, there is a more sophisticated twist to countering the Nazi myth
that equated (Aryan)beauty with goodness. This way is to subvert and
undermine the notion of beauty altogether, or at least the notion of
Aryan or gentile white(especially Northern European) beauty. The
remarkable documentary ‘Architecture of Doom’ does exactly this.
http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Doom-Rolf-Arsenius/dp/B00003XALS
The central theme of Peter Cohen’s documentary is that beauty as a
political ideal is anti-humanist as it imposes godly standards on us.
Susan Sontag argued along similar lines in ‘Fascinating Fascism’, an
attacks on the aesthetic sensibility of Leni Riefenstahl. Beauty
itself is the enemy since it is elitist and exclusive. Most people are
not beautiful, not even pretty. Indeed, one wonders if Nazism would
have waged war on the ugliness among the Aryans after the Jews had
been dealt with. Had Hitler triumphed, what would have been the next
stage? To favor the beautiful and healthy Germans over the ugly and
less healthy Germans? We may be attracted to beauty, but people are
generally not beautiful.
Also, beauty is not the same as morality or intelligence. And, since
Jews are generally less beautiful than white gentiles, Jews have seen
beauty as a false idol to smash and desecrate. So, the Jewish
character in ‘Broadcast News’ says that William Hurt’s character(who
gets promoted based on looks) is ‘the devil’. And, white goyim have
bought into this as well. So, Robert Redford made ‘Quiz Show’ which
apologizes for the special treatment good looking white goyim got over
more deserving and intelligent Jews. So, Tom Brokaw broke down in
tears and confessed that he got ahead in his profession because he was
a good looking white gentile male on the night of Obama’s win. (So, do
Obama’s undeserved win and the promotion of other undeserving blacks
in various professions at the expense of better qualified non-blacks
serve justice?). So, Betty Friedan waged her feminist campaign which
essentially was an ugly Jewish attack on the pretty goyess order.
Since Friedan felt ugly and worthless as a woman, she felt a need to
undermine and discredit the entire edifice of femininity. Her main
enemy for many years was Phyllis Schlafly, but Schlafly could never be
effective with her marmish and moralistic demeanor. The ugly gang of
Jewesses finally met their match in the pagan Camille Paglia who
celebrated beauty.
Though the Jewish attack on (white)beauty was radical, hateful,
demented, and ugly, there was an important issue to consider–namely,
that beauty in and of itself is not morality, intelligence, dignity,
or nobility; heck, we need only to consider the moral and intellectual
makeup of most Playboy bunnies. The Nazi cult of beauty was indeed not
just dangerous but insane. It was inhumane in its impossibility,
contempt, arrogance, and delusion. (Hitler was also blind to the
beauty of the Slavic peoples.)
The absurdity of the cult of beauty can be seen in Japan today. Most
Japanese are, by world standards, short. By world standards, Japanese
are not generally a good-looking people though there are wonderful
exceptions. Now, consider the manga and anime, the cultural obsessions
of Japan. From a young age, Japanese kids gobble up this stuff, and
what do they learn? That nothing is more important, essential, and
cool than being tall, muscular, western-looking, and etc. Most
Western people cannot match the ideals set forth in manga and anime,
so just imagine how many Japanese fit the bill? This culture has
spread all over Asia and may explain why so many Japanese are
unwilling to get married. With short Japanese guys dreaming of the
ultimate dreambabe goddesses of anime and with short Japanese girls
dreaming of the ultimate studs of manga, most Japanese are bound to be
very disappointed with actual fellow Japanese. This is a massive self-
delusion on a national scale. At the very least, the Nazi ideal was
based on some measure of reality as good number of Germanic peoples
were tall, sturdy, and solid looking. When wimpy Japanese guys pretend
that they are anime-like studs or when Japanese girls pretend they are
like manga-like goddesses, it’s pathetic and ridiculous. They may dye
their hair blonde or wear shoes with foot-high midsoles, but they
aren’t fooling anybody but themselves. Of course, Japanese haven’t
killed anyone as a result, but it is still a flight from reality that
is pitiful and laughable.
Anyway, another way Jews have tried to destroy white beauty is by
promoting miscegenation. This way, white beauty becomes absorbed by
blacks, Jews, and others. Since our multiculturalist society
ideologically favors non-whites over whites, half-breeds generally
tend to identify with the non-white side–especially if black. So,
when a white mixes with a black, white beauty is serving blackness.
When we see a good looking person of white/black ancestry, we don’t
say, ‘doesn’t white features make the black person look good?’ but
instead, we say, ‘isn’t he or she good looking because he or she IS
black?’
Jews see a sexual parallel between Nazi hatred of Jews and white
American fear of blacks. In the American South, white men feared the
much stronger black men on two levels: one fear was that the black man
would rape the white woman whereby the weaker white man would be
unable to protect his wife or daughter(the Willie Horton scenario
where the negro raped a white woman while her man was beaten up and
helpless to save her); the more humiliating was perhaps the scenario
where the white woman would willingly choose the black man over the
white man because she found the negro so much more masterful and stud-
like(the Jack Johnson scenario where white women swarmed all over the
studly and powerful negro and laughed at the flabby white men who’d
been pummeled into hamburger meat by Johnson). Black men were a
physical sexual threat to white men. As such, white men propped up the
mythic ideal of the pure and dignified white woman who remained loyal
to her chivalrous white knight warrior.
In Europe, gentile men often resented the ‘ugly Jew’ using his
superior intellect and talent to gain more money and power to charm
and buy quality ‘white pussy’. There is some of this today. There’s
no way any good looking woman would fall for Woody Allen if not for
his fame, fortune, and celebrity attaiend through superior smarts and
talent. The idea of ugly and hideous Jews using their smarts and
cunning to ‘buy’ quality Aryan women was anathema to many proud
European men. (A variation of this resentment and even fear applied to
Asiatic men as well–the Fu Man Chu or Ming the Merciless, who sought
to sexually conquer and enslave white women with their ruthlessness
and wantonness. This, like the fear of blacks and resentment of Jews,
was rooted partly in history as huge areas of Europe had once been
conquered and raped by Mongol barbarians; also, the Ottoman Turks who
conquered Greece and some of the Balkans and long posed a threat to
Europe were partly of Asiatic origin.)
Anyway, for these reasons, Jews have a felt a need to destroy the
ideal of the pure white woman and the noble chivalrous white knight
warrior. Jews have tried to turn white women into lowlife skanks aping
and lusting after negroes or hopping into bed with a rich Jew. As for
white males, they’ve been castrated into faggotyass dweebs who look
upon this prospect of racial suicide with happy acceptance befitting a
retard.
Is an ideology based on beauty irrational? If so, one could argue that
the Nazis rationally served an irrational idea. But, could a rational
case be made for beauty? After all, we all love beauty. Suppose there
are two kinds of butterflies facing extinction and only one could be
saved. One is very beautiful while the other one is plain. Wouldn’t
we choose the beautiful one? Would such choice be rational or
irrational? Isn’t it rational or at least sensible to choose beauty
over ugliness or plainness? On the other hand, beauty isn’t
necessarily the truth. What if we had to choose between a beautiful
painting that presents a false vision of humanity and an ugly painting
that presents something truthful. Would the ugly truth have greater
value than the beautiful lie? I’m sure many on the Left would agree
with this, but this preference of truth over beauty also undermines
the philosophical assumptions of the Left. The idea of human equality
is, after all, just a beautiful lie. We know that people and peoples
are not equally beautiful, intelligent, or noble in disposition. Is
the ugly truth held by misanthropes then preferable to the beautiful
lie of progressives who’d have us believe that if we overcome our
‘racism’ and ‘sexism’, the world will be a shining utopia? What if we
swallow their lie onl to find our civilization invaded and under
attack by savages and barbarians who cannot elevate themselves? What
if a healthy modern white nation takes in a million black immigrants
from Africa in the leftist belief that blacks are merely white-people-
with-black-skin and find out otherwise: that blacks are, by nature,
stronger, less intelligent, more aggressive and out-of-control?
A beautiful idea is worthless unless it is grounded in truth.
Otherwise, it’s the false dream of the privileged elite that doesn’t
have to deal with reality on the streets but only learns about
reality through the media owned and operated by themselves. It becomes
a self-perpetrating lie until all of civilization crumbles and even
the elite finally fall under the sword. The problem is that the
privileged elite is always the LAST to fall under the sword. Even as
the elite has the most power over social policy, it suffers the least
until it’s too late. They can afford to be safe and protected in their
gated communities and ivory towers. So, the civilized masses fall
first before the barbarians or savages–or the civilized people
themselves become savage or barbaric(as is happening in the UK). And
then, the elite no longer finds itself protected by a buffer of stable
civilized folks(the very people the elite has been admonishing all
these years)from the savages and barbarians(those whom the elite had
been apologizing for and corrupting with their destructive and
decadent policies).
The rise of Fascism and National Socialism can be understood in these
terms. The elite lost its soul, and the civilized masses in the middle
felt civilization giving way to madness and supported men like
Mussolini and Hitler who promised a iron-clad defense of all that is
proud, strong, stable, healthy, and noble. Of course, Mussolini and
Hitler ended up bringing about the fall of European civilization as
dictatorial systems have a way of allowing ‘great leaders’ to act
according to their personal whims. But, the mass support and
solidarity behind both Fascism and National Socialism weren’t so much
to worship the godlike leader as to save civilization from looming
chaos and/or radical-bloodbath-of-the-Bolshevik-kind.
If an ideology founded upon beauty isn’t fully rational, can the same
be said of one founded upon the notion of human equality? How is
egalitarianism rational when there’s plenty of scientific evidence to
show that humans are, as individuals and as racial groups or as sexes,
not equal? There’s an idea about all men having been created equal
by God, but this is not a rational idea. Perhaps a nice idea, but
nothing more. One could argue that people are, more or less, the same,
but this is only true in the most basic sense. There is a world of
difference between Albert Einstein and Mike Tyson, just as there is
between a Chihuahua and a Pitbull. And, there’s a world of difference
between someone with an IQ of 80 and someone with an IQ of 180. An
person with IQ of 80 will probably never master Calculus in a 1000 yrs
whereas a person with an IQ of 180 can build the atomic bomb in a few
yrs. Indeed, though Jews are publicly the most vocally opposed to the
notion of racial differences, no group better demonstrates the awesome
power of racial differences. The power of the Jews cannot be
explained nor understood without taking genetics into account. For
some reason, Ashkenazi Jews ended up with the highest IQ of any
group.
It is for this reason that one of the profoundest contradictions in
the West, especially America, is that the people who are vocally and
ideologically most egalitarian are themselves the richest and the most
powerful. In a way, the Jews are trying to have it both ways. They
practice Ayn-Rand-ism to become the richest and most powerful amongst
us and then they support big government socialism to fool us that they
care about all of us. Of course, capitalist Jews and socialist Jews
collude to help one another.
In a way, socialism empowers the elite more than the masses. Socialism
is about government power, and as such, it makes those in government
more powerful over the people. Sure, the people get more freebies, but
this means people become less self-reliant and more dependent on
government programs and dictates(the bureaucracy and the professional
political class; also for the rich, nothing is as satisfying, sexy,
and fulfilling than Political POWER!!!).
Jews gain riches through capitalism and then expand government so that
they will have political power over us as well. And of course, Jews
pretty much took over all of the media and have the dominant role in
the top universities across America. Much of this is worthy of great
admiration and respect as Jews achieved so much through intelligence
and diligence. But, there are other reasons as well. Though Jews have
long attacked the old-boys-network(generally meaning wasp or wasp-ized
power), they practice the Jew-Boys-Network. We need only look at the
workings of Hollywood and the Bernie Madoff scandal to see Jewish
tribalism in business.
Also, Jews have cleverly exploited the Jewish holocaust to prevent
anyone from speaking truth to Jewish power which is the most powerful
power in the world.
Anyway, whether it’s Milton Friedman-ism or Naomi Klein-ism, it means
more power–economic or political–power to Jews. Just look at the top
businessmen in the US, and great many are Jews. Just look at the top
appointments in governments, and they are Jews. To some extent, this
is inevitable since Jews are more intelligent and talented. On the
other hand, it means more power to liberals and leftists since the
great majority of Jews are liberals and leftists. And, considering
that Jews generally look upon white Americans with feelings ranging
from condescension to distrust to hatred, it’s something we need to be
worried about.
Anyway, the notion of rationalism is generally flawed in our political
discourse. At best, all we can hope for is a crazy quilt coordination
of mini-rationalisms based on mutual respect and trust. In this sense,
rationalism is like law and business. It cannot work properly unless
all sides play by the rules and don’t overstep their boundaries. Laws
are worthless unless people obey them. Not everyone may interpret or
adhere to laws equally, but they must do so, more or less. Same is
true of business. Commerce cannot long function if only a handful of
people follow the rules while most people cheat–at least woefully.
Since no one has the powers of God and can know everything, the most
he can do is try to gain the best knowledge in his own specialized
field and then try to coordinate his findings with data gathered and
theories developed in other fields. So, people in each field should
ideally follow the methods of science and offer up their fragment of
truth. Some people may then be adept enough to knit all these pieces
together to form a better sense of the larger reality.
In hard sciences, great things have been achieved through this
process, but the same cannot be said for human sciences. There is too
much ideology, too much prejudice, too many agendas, too many sacred
dogmas–religious, cultural, or secular–for us to arrive at any agreed
upon unified understanding of human reality. In sociology, for
instance, those who favor the nurture argument will not even bother to
consider the findings of those who favor the nature argument, and vice
versa.
Also, what may be valid for one group of humanity may not be
applicable to others; there may far less universal truths for humanity
than we assume. For instance, many of us believe that the free market
system works best, but perhaps its success depends on a people with
adequate intelligence, discipline, and certain emotional qualities.
After all, what applies to some breeds of dogs may not apply to other
breeds of dogs. All dogs are intelligent, but some breeds are more
intelligent than others. Also, temperamental differences among breeds
make some breeds better at other tasks than other breeds are. So, in
a very general sense, we can speak of universality of man but this
breaks down when we get down to the nitty gritty. What would have been
the chance of creating an atomic bomb had the Manhattan Project been
dominated by African Pygmy scientists? How many gold medals in the
100 m sprint would US win if it only sent Mexican- or Asian-
Americans? Humans are flexible and intelligent enough all around the
world to appreciate and imitate the achievements of others–and even
the most intelligent peoples required ideas borrowed from other
peoples and cultures–, but it cannot be said that what comes naturally
or more easily to one group of people will be true with all groups of
people.
In the human sciences, we have three main problems as pertaining to
the ideal of rationalism. First, scientists come with ideological
baggage first and then seek only that data which justifies or
validates their ideology or prejudices. So, a leftist who enters the
field will seek only the data proving that races don’t exist at all
whereas a rightist will try to emphasize biological differences as
much as possible. Secondly, there is the willful falsification,
distortion, or repression of data to disprove the other side; the left
will also use social, moral, and intellectual ostracism to discourage
any research that might undermine its ideological dogma. Third,
because there’s so much bogus or exaggerated ‘science’ from all sides,
it’s nearly impossible to coordinate them into even a rough
rationalist picture of reality. There are simply too many divergences
among the ‘discoveries’ and theories. It must also be said that
humans are the most difficult subject to study–even if they could be
used as guinea pigs.
In hard science, there is much less of this problem. In many cases,
scientists will first look at the vast available data before venturing
upon their own hypotheses. In other words, a new hypothesis is likely
to be the product of great knowledge gained through long years of
study than merely something to prove out of ideological fervor. Also,
though hard scientists are often passionate, it’s hard to get
‘personal’ about neutrons and electrons. And, since the data are
likely to be produced from genuine scientific methods, they are much
more likely to complement other data to form a larger picture of
reality.
I don’t see human sciences being truly rational no matter how much it
may be rational-IST. But, just as realism isn’t reality, rationalism
isn’t rationality; rather, it is the conceit that one is being
rational or the cult of rationality. In a way, rationalism may blind
us to rationality just as much as religion, because a fool who’s
deluded that he’s being rational is less likely to heed warnings and
advice. Why should he when he’s being SO ‘rational’? This was both
the problem of Nazism and communism. They had no need for critics or
nay sayers since they had Reason on their side.
Still, no one argued that Nazism was the legacy of the Enlightenment
and the Age of Reason. Despite its scientism, it hasn’t fooled most of
the scientific and humanities community. But, communism did fool a lot
of people–in hard sciences, human sciences, and the humanities–that it
is indeed a product of the Enlightenment. But, this is both a curse
and a blessing. There was much that was profoundly good and necessary
about the Enlightenment but much that was twisted and contradictory.
The Age of Reason wasn’t so much about reason as what intellectuals
assumed reason would reveal. It was more about the prophecy than the
practice of reason. The French philosophs argued that reason would
show This to be true,Tthat to be false and would lead to such and such
society. Much of this was fantasizing and delusional. And, communism
was built upon the hallucination of reason. Funny that those who were
most passionate about reason were so unreasonable, but then passion
and reason are dangerous partners.