Altruism is the mortar holding together every community of social beings. In the biological past, groups of social beings that learned to be altruistic outcompeted those who were more selfish. This led to the range of pro-social behaviours that we see on display in the world today. But there’s an upper limit to how much altruism is appropriate. Too much of it, and it becomes pathological.
Pathological altruism arises when a population forgets how dangerous the world naturally is. It’s most common in populations where the crime rate has stayed low for an extended period of time. In populations like this, people can mistakenly come to believe that low rates of predatory behaviour are normal, and therefore precautions do not need to be taken.
In Clown World, pathological altruism manifests as kindess and tolerance towards people who show no inclination to reciprocate it. It can be seen everywhere people attempt to stop abuse by showering love on the abusers. It’s a phenomenon closely related to both narcissistic masochism and virtue signalling.
A kind but non-pathological person will withdraw their kindness once they see that it isn’t respected. A pathological altruist, by contrast, will keep making sacrifices for others even when those others clearly demonstrate that they aren’t grateful. This is a pathology because helping the ungrateful will quickly end up destroying the helper.
Pathological altruism might be summed up best by the Parable of the Woman and the Snake from the film Natural Born Killers:
Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, “Why have you done this to me?” And the snake answered, “Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake.”
Some of the altruism being shown in Clown World today is much like the altruism of the woman in the above parable. It’s a reckless, quasi-suicidal mentality that is similar to that of the Dodo birds of Mauritius approaching the Portuguese sailors. Unfortunately, in Clown World, this pathological altruism affects many people, and the rest of us are in danger of being dragged down with them.
There is already ample evidence that allowing certain folk groups (in particular Muslims and Africans) into one’s country will lead to a decrease in the average person’s quality of life.
Most convicted rapists in Sweden are foreign-born. One Aftonbladet study found that 82 out of 112 gang rapists were foreign-born. In Scandinavia overall, immigrants commit rape at over 40 times the rate of natives. In Germany, North African immigrants commit crimes at some 17 times the rate of natives. In some parts of Britain, half of all rape and murder suspects are foreigners.
Yet, despite the ample and undeniable evidence that mass immigration of these groups leads to suffering, anyone who points this out is liable to have people turn on them like a pack of wild dogs. Clown World altruism is so pathological that anyone who questions its application is marked as a sadist. It’s become so absurd that those who question the value of the mass immigration of Muslims and Africans are now blamed for the consequences of it.
In Clown World, pathological altruism is not only displayed towards outsiders at the expense of oneself and one’s own kin. It can also be displayed towards moral reprobates at the expense of oneself and one’s own kin.
As demonstrated in the later chapter ‘Justice in Clown World‘, pathological altruism can arise in the courtroom, where it gives light penalties to unrepentant criminals who will predictably continue offending. Pathological altruism is to blame every time a judge gives a psychopath a sentence that will see them back out on the streets in short order.
Usually such moves are explained as kindness. However, this kind of altruism is pathological, because it increases the amount of suffering in the world by enabling patterns of abuse. When an unrepentant abuser finds someone who enables their behaviour, it can continue to extreme lengths. Being kind to abusers makes no more sense than the lamb being kind to the wolves.
This is not to argue that altruism itself is bad. Genuine kindness is very much the gold to the silver, iron and clay of all other sentiments. However, gold is soft, and as such it can be easily defeated. If kindness is applied without discrimination, it leads to more suffering than if kindness was reserved for the right targets.
Pathological altruism is different to the ruling class showing altruism to outsiders at the expense of the lower classes. The ruling class never invites refugees into their own neighbourhoods; they might invite them into the country, but inevitably dump them in working-class neighbourhoods. This isn’t pathological, because, by doing so, they manage to keep their class enemies divided and conquered.
The ruling class preys on existing pathological altruism, especially in the middle class, to manufacture consent for measures that harm the masses. The mass importation of cheap labour is the primary way this is done.
Pathological altruism is highly prevalent in Clown World because people have had it so easy for many decades. When people are wealthy, they treat each other more kindly. So when people are wealthy for a long time, it means they are kind for a long time. This leads to people thinking that kindness is normal, and that all humans are inherently kind if just given a chance.
This child-like naivety is pathological in adults. In its most extreme form it can lead to cases like the Norwegian politician Karsten Hauken, who felt guilt when the Somali immigrant who had raped him was deported. Having altruistic sentiments towards someone who raped you is deeply sick, practically suicidal. Yet in Clown World, such sentiments are common.
The presence of pathological altruism ensures that mass Third World immigration will keep happening, despite that a majority of Europeans want to stop further immigration from Muslim countries completely – only 20% of those surveyed wanted it to continue. Even famously pro-refugee Sweden wants to take in fewer refugees. But as long as the ruling class can get a vocal minority to scream about racism every time someone suggests border control, the cheap labour will keep flooding in.
Pathological altruism won’t go away until Clown World collapses and Westerners suffer for an extended period of time. That will teach us, like the generations that preceded the Boomers, to be more correctly discriminating with our compassion.
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This article is an excerpt from Clown World Chronicles, a book about the insanity of life in the post-Industrial West. This is being compiled by Vince McLeod for an expected release in January 2021.
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If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.
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