An Important Message About the Virus of Nihilism from the Center for Vertical Disease Control

C. Bradley Thompson writes that 

the greatest existential threat to the United States is a philosophic virus of the mind. Specifically, the two greatest threats to the United States are nihilism and socialism, which, as actionable ideologies, are working in tandem to destroy Western Civilization.  

Socialism is the end, and nihilism is the means.

I don't know about that. If I'm Satan, then I'm thinking that nihilism is the end, because it is situated at the "bottom" of the vertical, or at least the bottom deprived of its context -- like a purely phenomenal world with no noumena, or appearances with no reality. Which is impossible. 

Alternatively, one might think of nihilism as the peripheral area furthest from the central sun, where its rays shade off into a nothingness without even the possibility of meaning.

As for socialism, the other day I began working on a post called Austrian Theonomics, in which I wanted to explicate the theological implications of some of Hayek's ideas, if indeed any such implications exist. Hayek himself was not a religious man, but in my world, any deeply true idea can and must be reconciled with other deeply true ideas. 

Now, one of Hayek's ideas is that socialism is not just a bad idea but literally impossible because of the calculation and the knowledge problems. Prices instantaneously adjust to, and convey information about, supply and demand, and thereby determine the value of goods and services:

Without market prices for capital goods, socialist planners lack this essential information. Without economic calculation, resource allocation under socialism becomes arbitrary and inefficient. Planners might make decisions based on guesswork, political considerations, or outdated information, leading to waste, shortages, and misallocation of resources.

As for the knowledge problem, it simply means that in a complex system, information and knowledge are widely dispersed among millions of individuals, and constantly adjusting to circumstances, such that no central institution could ever hope to gather it, much less synthesize it and make rational decisions.

In short, socialism is the pursuit of the impossible, making it a means to a nihilistic end. 

Hayek also felt that "social justice" was another impossibility, a name for nothing: the term is "entirely empty and meaningless," and

the people who habitually employ the phrase simply do not know themselves what they mean by it and just use it as an assertion that a claim is justified without giving reason for it.

It is indeed a "quasi-religious belief" that "has no content whatever and serves merely to insinuate that we ought to consent to a demand of some particular group." The phrase means "nothing at all," and the person who uses it is "either thoughtless or fraudulent." 

Those who are interested in the whole argument are directed to The Mirage of Social Justice. Those who just want the bottom line may take the word of the Aphorist that

Socialism is the philosophy of the guilt of others, 

and that 

"Social justice" is the term for claiming anything to which we do not have a right. 

Back to the essay cited at the top, Bradley writes of how the revolutionary strategy of the New Left changed in the 1960s. Since the proletariat were too stupid to get on board with a bottom-up revolution, this would have to be a top-down one, such that "the intellectual and cultural elite" would

engage in a long march through America’s cultural institutions. The nihilistic goal was to undermine all the values and virtues of America and Western civilization. America’s cultural Left attacked reason, truth, objectivity, free will, rights, individualism, freedom, constitutionalism, and capitalism.

Here again, the pursuit of the impossible by a superior erristocracy of nihilists. 

Speaking of which, just yesterday I was notified by the of California Psychological Association that if I want to maintain my license to practice -- which I don't -- I am required to take a course in Social Justice, which

pertains to the historical, social, and political inequities in the treatment of people from nondominant groups, while addressing the various injustices and different types of oppression that contribute to individual, family, and community psychological concerns. 

The totolerantarian informing me of my obligation says that this is "an ethical imperative, particularly here in the state of California," which she calls -- without irony -- "a diversity mecca." 

In other words, California is already a kind of paradise for nihilists who wish to impose the mirage of social justice on the restavus. They may be no better at treating mental illness than they are at fighting fires, but at least they're free of heteronormative and ableist fire departments.

So, does this post have a point? Well, it seems to me that the MAGA movement is a counter-revolution against a nihilist revolution that has been been unfolding for at least three-quarters of a century. But you already knew that, so I don't know that this post has added anything to the conversation.