We are still in the midst of our genetic interlude.
Why genes? Besides, I recall you saying that you were so distracted by that cute girl in the adjacent desk that you barely passed 9th grade biology.
That's true, but it is also an illustration of the power of genes, is it not? It just so happens that at the age of fourteen I studied abroad, and her name was Susie Campbell.
At any rate, viewed from the cosmic standpoint, genes are pretty, pretty important. A biologist can only look at them from a biological standpoint, but we examine everything from the metacosmic perspective. Life Itself is an ingression of verticality in a theretofore horizontal/material cosmos, and all that.
Anyway, yesterday's post left off with the suggestion that "Surely there is a better way to understand our cosmic situation, one that takes into consideration our genetic endowment without reducing us to our genetic endowment."
And surprisingly, one important way we escaped from the imperative of our genes is via economics. We've discussed this in the past, but for 99% of man's existence, he subsisted on the Malthusian treadmill: in short, more food meant more people, but more people meant less food, and we were back to where we started. Here is a handy graph that illustrates the problem -- and solution:
The average person living in the 17th century enjoyed pretty much the same standard of living as one living in the first. What happened in the 18th? Was there a sudden genetic mutation? Did human nature change?
Nah. Recall that Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, because Mr. Smith couldn't help noticing the emerging issue of Economic Inequality: why were some nations getting richer while others were mired in poverty? The question, of course wasn't why some nations were poor, since our graph shows that all nations and peoples were poor until economic liftoff begins in the 18th century.
Rather, something was unleashed merely as a result of allowing humans to do what they do, which is to say, barter, truck, and exchange. Freedom + rule of law + stable institutions released the human potential that had always been there but had been frustrated by various factors.
Say what you want about life prior to the 18th century, at least we had widespread economic equality save for a handful of elites at the top -- kings and aristocrats:
Probably from our first appearance as a species some 200,000 years ago, we lived in small egalitarian groups, with no bosses or chiefs, no gradations of wealth, and near-complete equality of status (Wade).
No kings!
Ironically yes, because the leaders of this movement, such as commie Mamdani, want to bring back the kind of equality we had prior to our escape from the Malthusian treadmill. Marxism essentially exploits human nature to make human nature even worse than it already is, whereas free markets recognize the same nature and use it as the means to transcend itself:
The egalitarianism of early human societies has many features of obvious attraction, at least in principle. Given that we have lived in such societies for something like 98% of our existence..., it's probable that we have adapted to their behavioral requirements. This may be why we feel instinctively that people should be free, equal, and independent, with no one bossing us about or exploiting our labor. Such a belief, in other words, is not a mere intellectual conviction but an inherited expectation about how society should work.
However, now we know that "hunter-gatherer societies are far from idyllic":
First, they are quite coercive. There are strong pressures for conformity. If you do things differently or make enemies, you can get branded as a witch and marked for expulsion or death. Anyone who tries to do better for his family by amassing wealth is forced to disgorge the fruits of such a deviation from equality.
Or fucking communists, as the case may be. It goes to what Helmut Schoeck described as a primordial Wall of Envy that man had to somehow overcome in order to progress beyond it. In short, man had to learn to tolerate his envy instead of indulging it, as retrograde progressives are wont to do:
If entrepreneurs such as John D. Reckefeller or Elon Musk had been born into a hunter-gatherer community, they would never have been allowed to innovate, amass wealth, or benefit society with their enterprises.
Well guess what? Elon Musk was born into a community in which half or more of our atavistic left-of center cretins think it is acceptable to murder him and destroy his dealerships. It's the same old envy, now armed with Molotov cocktails and funded by George Soros.
This goes to God's wisdom in giving us the 10th commandment: keep your envy in check and all sorts of good things follow, such as a meritocracy in which we admire the other fellow's success instead of trying to drag him down with the restavus.
Martin Gurri asks what would happen if we ignore God's advice and "Suppose socialism came to New York City for the long term. What would life look like under a leadership wholly committed to that vision?" For "What is socialism, truly and really?"
The constitution of the Democratic Socialists of America defines it as “a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.” The weightiest words here are “equitable” and “planning.” Every form of socialism known to history has fixated on absolute equality as the political end -- achieved through scientific planning and enforced by the rational application of state power.
Envy-fueled egalitarianism means No Freedom for You!
Individual goals and plans must be suppressed. Individualism is hateful to the socialist because it breeds inequality....
If equality is the highest human good, then anything that stands in its way -- your Wall Street job, your overeducated family, your big brownstone -- must be sacrificed on the altar of the leveling god.
The leveling god. That would be the opposite of the God alluded to above. Many aphorisms:
Hierarchies are heavenly. In Hell all are equal.
The left claims that the guilty party in a conflict is not the one who covets another's goods but the one who defends his own.
The left calls a critique of capitalism what is merely a lawsuit for possession.
As the State grows, the individual shrinks.
Leveling is the barbarian's substitute for order.
When the exploiters disappear, the exploited split into exploiters and exploited.
Freedom is the right to be different; equality is a ban on being different.
Of course,
Socialism has followed a predictable historical trajectory, and the pronouncements of the Democratic Socialists cling monotonously to those of the old-time religion. Their rhetoric reads like the work of time travelers newly arrived from the year 1900. To expect a novel outcome from the same archaic policies borders on insanity.
Why is that? Because
The liberal mentality is an angelic visitor impervious to earthly experiences.
Therefore,
The leftist emulates the devout who continue venerating the relic after the miracle has proved to be a hoax.
One might say the leftist is a genetic holdover enslaved by the primordial envy around which his angelic -- for demons are angels -- vision revolves:
As a secular Christian heresy, socialism offers submission and sacrifice in service of a political Eden, where the lion lies down with the lamb. It’s spiritual fool’s gold, but at least it’s something. If you are young and eager, or old and regretful, you might well follow the Democratic Socialists to the mountaintop -- and over the cliff.
Leftism is at once an ideology, but one that exploits our most base instincts, and for which reason it will always be with us, like the poor it pretends to elevate. Truly truly, it is a perennial temptation.
No comments:
Post a Comment