VJM Publishing

VJMP Reads: Aristotle’s Politics V

This reading continues from here.

Book V of Politics mostly covers the causes of change or stability in constitutions.

Aristotle foreshadows the logic of Communism when he writes “People are prone to think that the fact of their being equally free-born means that they are all absolutely equal.” Lesser people find reasons to believe they deserve as much as their superiors. This is the primary cause of factionalisation: “It is the passion for equality which is thus at the root of faction.”

There are seven inherent causes of factional conflict: arrogance, profiteering, someone gets dishonoured or sees others honoured, superiority of a person or group, fear by wrongdoers expecting punishment, contempt, and a disproportionate increase of one part of the city.

In a stinging rebuke of modern Western immigration policy, Aristotle writes “Heterogeneity of stocks may lead to faction – at any rate, until they have had time to assimilate. A city cannot be constituted from any chance collection of people.” Thus it was already understood millennia ago that diversity destroys solidarity. “Most of the cities which have admitted others as settlers, either at the time of their foundation or later, have been troubled by faction.”

In fact, any person or group that adds new power to a city will tend to produce faction.

Alluding to the point made in the previous book, Aristotle notes that revolutions often occur in the absence of the moderating effect of a middle class. Treating this middle class with respect and dignity by preventing lawlessness and by not lying to them is the way to prevent constitutional collapse. Factional disputes can arise from inequality, so the middle class should be strengthened. The reasons for revolutions are unjust oppression, fear and contempt. Arrogance, especially, is the most salient form of oppression.

It’s possible to stabilise the constitution by restricting tenure of office so that more people get to have a go. The most important thing is to prevent the corrupt from profiting from holding office. Despite this emphasis on the middle class and an expanded franchise, Aristotle is no egalitarian: “Ordinary people cannot see the beginning of troubles ahead; that requires the genuine statesman.”

There are three qualifications for holders of sovereign office: loyalty to the constitution, high competence and goodness of character (including a sense of justice). This goodness of character and humility is a moderating force in politics: “Those who think that theirs is the only form of goodness, push matters to an extreme.”

Individual moral failings can also be collective moral failings: “If an individual can lack self-control, so can a city.”

Much of this book is devoted to the machinations of tyranny. Herein Aristotle distinguishes tyranny from kingship. Kings are drawn from the upper classes, from the aristoi who have distinguished themselves. Tyrants are drawn from the masses and are much baser men. “The aim of a tyrant is his own pleasure: the aim of a king is the Good.”

Of particular importance to today’s rule by globohomo, Aristotle writes “The guard of a king is comprised of citizens: that of a tyrant is composed of foreigners,” and “It is also a habit of tyrants to prefer the company of aliens to that of citizens at table and in society; citizens, they feel, are enemies, but aliens will offer no opposition.” Both of these quotes reflect the disregard that modern Western leaders have for their own peoples.

Aristotle goes into detail here about how tyrannies are preserved. One way is by the destruction of outstanding men. Another is by the destruction of men of spirit. A third is by preventing mutual confidence and high spirit by prohibiting common meals, clubs or education. A fourth is to forbid cultural societies: “use every means for making every subject as much of a stranger as is possible to every other.” A fifth is to require everyone to appear regularly in public. A sixth is to ensure nothing ever done escapes notice. A seventh is sowing mutual distrust and fostering discord between friends or classes. An eighth is impoverishing the subjects, keeping them too busy for plotting. A ninth is encouraging feminine influence.

This latter point about encouraging feminine influence is relevant to today’s Clown World. Aristotle observes that “Slaves and women are not likely to plot against tyrants: indeed, as they prosper under them, they are bound to look with favour on tyrannies and democracies alike.”

The three main ends of tyrants: to break the spirits of their subjects, to breed mutual distrust, and to make their subjects incapable of action.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2024-25
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2023
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2022
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2021
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2020
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018
Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017

Antisocialism

Socialism, in theory if not in practice, is the attitude of thinking about the collective first and foremost. Aristotle emphasised in Politics that neither individuals nor even families were self-sufficient, and therefore were not independent political units: “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.” They had to come together in the form of a polis to achieve the meaning of life, which was happiness.

The logic of socialism is that if people work together as a collective, they are more powerful than they would be as the same number of individuals. The same way that a bundle of sticks is harder to break than several individual ones, a group of people who come together in solidarity are strong. Any weaknesses present in individuals are compensated for by the rest of the collective. Socialism is thus a kind of social insurance.

There is a popular alternative attitude in society today, known as antisocialism.

Antisocialism is characterised by an extreme selfishness that puts the individual well before any collective interests. The antisocialist has no interest in society or in the greater good. They simply follow lower impulses, whether from their own bodies, minds or from kakodemonic forces. Other people’s suffering is a non-factor.

The left and the right both exhibit antisocialism, even though they point fingers at each other.

The right’s antisocialism manifests in its worship of money and the economy, and its willingness to import cheap labour to the detriment of their own working classes, whose suffering the antisocial right seems to enjoy. Right-wing antisocialism is also evident in how they give landlords a pass for their parasitic behaviour. They will rage all day about beneficiaries getting $400 a week, but have no problem with a landlord of inherited property getting $4,000 a week.

The favourite refrain of the right-wing antisocialist is that socialism led to the starvation of millions in the Soviet Union and China, and therefore we need to cut all welfare and leave the sick to die in the street.

The left’s antisocialism primarily manifests as resentment. As Morgoth pointed out, they believe society is evil, and should be destroyed so that we can start again. Most leftists are born ugly, stupid, weak or poor, a phenomenon known as Bioleninism. They resent everything healthy, strong, beautiful or sane, which is why they support anything that harms Western society, such as mass immigration of Muslims and Africans.

Where the right-wing antisocialist defends landlords, the left-wing counterpart defends criminals and gang members. For the left-wing antisocialist, criminals are deserving of more sympathy and tolerance than people who grew up in the same families but who did not become criminals. Nietzsche wrote in Beyond Good And Evil that “There is a point in the history of society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals.” The oversocialisation of the leftist makes him prone to this form of antisocialism.

The sneering aggression with which many leftists attack anyone proposing immigration restrictions reveals the extent they are antisocialists. Much like the Abrahamist, who destroys spirituality while claiming to be spiritual, the leftist destroys society while claiming to be a socialist.

Boomers are especially prone to antisocialism. This manifests as an extreme indifference to the state of society or the national finances after they pass on. Many Boomers hoard multiple houses, charge rent and claim fat pensions on top of that. They don’t care that younger people are suffering under the burden of having to work to pay for all of this, and most of them want even more houses and even bigger pensions.

However, large elements of the younger generations exhibit antisocialism as well, albeit in different forms. The prosocial response to Boomer apartheid is for young people to work together for the sake of each other, taking power and cutting pensions to the level of other benefits. In practice they don’t do this, preferring to abstain from politics and complain instead, or bog themselves down in identity politics, although sometimes they destroy things in protest.

The Palestine flag is the flag of the Gen Z antisocialist. It can be seen everywhere young antisocials gather. It signifies only that the bearer hates Western civilisation and wants it destroyed. Anyone waving this flag can be guaranteed to believe in mass immigration to Western countries.

Everyday antisocialism can be seen more and more in the form of several petty offences, such as littering, slovenly dress, bluetooth speakers at high volume, poor service in retail and hospitality, reckless driving, breaking promises, loud swearing in public, people stinking of piss, shit or sweat and in general hostility and indifference to the suffering of others.

Antisocialism is caused by several factors.

The chief reason for increasing antisocialism in Western societies today is the economic situation. It’s all but impossible for the average young Westerner to achieve the same standard of living their parents had. Many have reasoned therefrom that nothing matters and there’s no point in being prosocial. Might as well burn the whole thing down and start again.

Antisocial parents are also a major factor. People often talk about the ongoing fertility collapse but, unfortunately, the fertility of quality people already collapsed decades ago. Decent and respectful people seldom breed anymore, leaving the dregs of society to produce all the children, which they usually abuse and neglect. This widespread abuse and neglect has impacted great numbers of people today, who have become twisted, raging and bitter as a result.

The foremost reason, though, is materialist nihilism. The prevailing belief about the nature of reality is that we are apes that evolved out of amoebas, that consciousness evolved as part of this process, that consciousness is exterminated when the physical body dies, and therefore that life is meaningless. The vast majority of people in science, academia, politics, business and media believe that there is no ultimate purpose to human existence. This attitude has permeated throughout society and has made enormous numbers of people act like chimpanzees.

This attitude of antisocialism is one of the defining characteristics of the post-Covid age. It is a plague that is likely to continue for at least a few decades yet.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

VJMP Reads: Aristotle’s Politics IV

This reading continues from here.

In Book 4, Aristotle considers the various forms of constitutions in practice, having considered constitutions in theory in the previous two books.

Of the perverted forms of government listed in Book 3, tyranny is the worst, oligarchy the next worst and democracy the least bad. The more severe and dominant the perversion, the more a system will incline towards oligarchy, and the more soft and relaxed the more it will incline towards democracy.

Aristotle tells us that “democracy exists wherever the free-born are sovereign, and that oligarchy exists wherever the rich are sovereign.” There are several different types of democracy, but they all share the characteristic of a low bar to entry. This can be manipulated by demogogues, who make populist decrees appealing to the masses.

Like Plato, Aristotle is very much against rule by the lowest common denominator. “It seems impossible that there should be good government in a city which is ruled by the poorer sort.” This is because good philosophy is contingent on sufficient leisure time, which itself is a function of wealth: “Of course, there cannot be opportunity for leisure where there is no income.”

Regarding the big picture vs. the details, Aristotle wrote: “Law should be sovereign on every issue, and the officials and the constitution should decide about details.” Herein we see the importance of getting the laws right, which requires selecting the right lawmakers. This shouldn’t be about birth or wealth, but rather character. Aristocracy is rule by the most excellent of mind and character: “merit is the criterion of aristocracy, as wealth is the criterion of oligarchy, and free birth of democracy.”

There are two senses in which government can be good. The first is one in which laws are obeyed. The second is one in which the obeyed laws are good.

Aristotle might have despised democracy, but he was no craven elitist. His prescription was for power to be held with the middle class: “the best form of political association is one where power is vested in the middle class.” As in ethics, the doctrine of the mean (from Nicomachean Ethics) applies to politics. Aristotle wrote that middle-class people are more inclined to listen. The noble are arrogant, the ignoble criminal; together they commit most offences.

Constitutions do not need to include everyone equally. Aristotle observes that even when excluded from the constitution, the poor are happy to keep quiet as long as they do not suffer violence or loss of property.

Alluding again to Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes that “an association depends on friendship.” Friendship is a necessary ingredient for political associations because it is the basis of solidarity. Absent friendship, there are just slaves and masters.

The definition of someone who holds political office is that they have someone to delegate powers to: “Giving instructions is the special mark of one who holds office.”

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!

The Alt Centrist Approach To Science And Technology

Thirty years on from the publication of the Unabomber Manifesto, it’s apparent that Ted Kaczynski was right about technology. It mostly enslaves rather than liberates. We were promised all of humanity’s information and learning at our fingertips; we received advertising, addiction and slop.

The difficulty is foreign relations. A technologically inferior nation will be subjugated by a technologically superior one, as history demonstrates.

Therefore, the alternative centrist state needs to find a balance between the enslaving effects of technology and the need to defend ourselves against foreign aggressors (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Defence for more on this).

Resisting the enslaving effects of technology does not mean surrendering to hysteria or propaganda. The alternative centrist opposes clumsy, anti-freedom measures like the under-16 social media ban. Such moves are egregious violations of the Second Acceptance. Research has shown that the harms of social media use for younger people are drastically overstated; opposition to social media is a moral panic.

However, despite the advantages of technology in minimising human suffering, it can also cause immense suffering, in particular through its enslaving effects. Kaczynski pointed out that the invention of the car did not make people freer, because they ended up needing cars. This is now also true of cellphones.

The alternative centrist approach divides media technology into one-way media and two-way media. One-way media is when the receiver cannot communicate with the sender or with any other receivers, such as television or radio. Two-way media is when it’s possible for the receiver to give their opinion and to discuss the merits of the broadcast with others. Two-way media is preferred, on the basis of the freedom and justice it offers compared to one-way media.

Much of the hysteria about social media is pushed by advocates of one-way media who don’t want people talking. The reality is that media did not arise organically as a way of informing people. The media has been an apparatus of propaganda since its inception. This constant propagandising has had extremely damaging effects on both social cohesion and on the mental health of the citizenry. It’s not natural to sit passively to get hectored and badgered into obeying the political establishment and consuming.

The alternative centrist state would levy massive taxes on technology that has significant deleterious effects on mental and social health. This would mean that televisions and smartphones, along with all other devices for receiving one-way media, were taxed as vices, like alcohol and tobacco. Advertising on one-way media would be heavily taxed also, to make up for the social harm caused.

The main advantage with future technology will be replacing harms caused by human error.

One area of application is self-driving cars. Human drivers currently kill over 40,000 people in America every year. The vast majority of these deaths are attributable to speeding, impaired driving, distracted driving and fatigue or drowsiness. Self-driving cars will not have these problems. Already there are video compliations demonstrating the superior ability of self-driving cars to avoid accidents.

It’s easy to predict that human drivers will soon be banned. This wouldn’t be much different to ships and planes using computers to navigate instead of humans using sextants and altimeters. The alternative centrist encourages all possibilities for reducing human misery through technology.

A similar case applies to medicine. Iatrogenic harm is believed to kill as many as 250,000 people annually in America. There are several reasons for this, but over and above the difficulties inherent to a complicated subject such as medicine, there is a lot of indifference among doctors as to the patients’ realities. Many people have had the experience of meeting an elderly doctor who checked out of learning new things 15 years ago and simply will not listen. Much like elderly drivers, elderly doctors like this do tremendous amounts of damage.

An alternative centrist state would leverage AI for potential healthcare benefits, especially in the area of preventative medicine. School students would be taught to use AI for this purpose, and also when to bypass the AI to enlist a human doctor.

Jurisprudence is a third area in which AI offers great advantages. People are regularly confused and appalled by the bizarre verdicts and sentences handed out by biased and prejudiced humans. Peaceful cannabis growers often get harsher sentences than people who beat others to death and people who sexually offend against young children. Grok recommends sentences more in line with what a decent human would.

One of the major problems with modern technology is that it is mostly controlled by corporate interests in America. The solution is government-controlled social media. The alternative centrist state would create social media platforms for domestic use. This is not hard to achieve today with many clones of existing platforms available. The state would then communicate with its citizens exclusively on these domestic platforms. This would allow for the social benefits of social media, but would prevent much of the manipulation by foreign actors.

In a related vein, foreign social media platforms that do not follow free speech laws will be heavily fined or banned. Platforms such as Reddit, which do not allow nationalists to speak, would be banned outright.

Aside from the heavy taxes on antisocial forms of technology, technological development would, like most economic issues, mostly be left to the free market (see The Alt Centrist Approach To The Economy). Close co-operation between the corporates and the military for the sake of technological development would be established, and facilitated, by the state.

This chapter is from The Alternative Centrist Manifesto, the upcoming work of political philosophy that offers the answers to the political problems of the West.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms!
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books!

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!