psychopathy

What Orwell Meant By “War Is Peace” And Why It’s So Relevant

One often hears reference to the phrase “War is Peace” from George Orwell’s 1984. VJM Publishing mentions it all the time. In fact, we mention it so much, that I often cringe when making essay compilations, because it comes up so often. I say “surely this is a cliche now?” In truth, it’s not a cliche because 1984 is as relevant as The Iliad. Everyone knows the basics of it by now because they must.

In 1984, Big Brother has three mottos. The first of these is “War is Peace”. The application of these mottos is how order and control is maintained (this ordering and controlling is discussed at length in the book-within-a-book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, which is in my opinion the most important 20 or so pages ever written in English).

It’s understood by most that this phrase refers to external war. If an authoritarian government provokes a state of war with a neighbour, the people’s anger will be deflected from their government to that neighbour. Thus authoritarian rulers start wars to deflect blame for how poorly run their countries are.

Many of us were taught about Saddam Hussein as a classic example of this phenomenon. Hussein, the television told us, attacked Kuwait to deflect the dissatisfaction of those he ruled over onto an external enemy. This is actually a pattern common to Middle Eastern rulers in recent times, and also in various other times and places throughout history.

But not enough people understand that this phrase also refers to internal war.

If the ruling class can set the masses against each other, they can secure their own position at the top of the pyramid. They do this, in practice, by fomenting discord along every existing social fracture line, and by creating new ones. The middle class is set against the working class by telling the former that the latter are lazy, and telling the latter that the former are greedy. Whites are set against browns in the same manner. Men are set against women by telling the latter that the former are trying to control them, and by telling the former that the latter are trying to vote away all their money.

In this manner, everyone is encouraged to have someone to hate who isn’t the ruling class. All discontent is directed horizontally at someone else on the same level. This leaves the ruling class safe and secure above it all.

Without this concept, the modern world can’t be explained.

It’s simply impossible to explain why Western ruling classes imported so many Muslims and Africans without reference to War is Peace. Everyone honest and intelligent knew that these Muslims and Africans would attack and harm the people in the neighbourhoods they were dumped in. But it must be understood this was precisely the point. The point was to subject working-class families to countless violent and sexual crimes. The point was to encourage those working-class people to hate the newcomers. In doing so, the working class would forget their grievances against the ruling class. And thus the position of the ruling class was secured.

It’s also impossible to explain the War on Drugs without such a reference. Why would the political establishment destroy so many of the finest minds of their younger generations by saddling them with criminal convictions, when all they wanted to do was explore consciousness and spirituality? War is Peace explains: the ruling class wanted the pro-drug and anti-drug segments of the population to be at each other’s throats. So it must either err on the side of excess restriction (War on Drugs), or err on the side of excess liberty (as with alcohol): it cannot take a reasonable middle ground. In either case, rationality must be eschewed, because that would lead to peace, which, viewed from the perspective of the ruling class, is war.

It’s also impossible to explain why the mainstream media pushes so much cortisol-raising fear porn unless this concept is understood. Why does the mainstream media constantly stir discord and misunderstanding? Why does it platform the worst examples of almost every demographic, and ignore the best? Because the owners of it want discord and misunderstanding. Not because it “drives clicks” – they don’t need money. They want control. They want to be the boot stamping on the face of the masses, forever. To achieve this, they need to foment war among those masses.

Everyone with any real chance of becoming part of the ruling class understands this principle, and habitually applies it by setting normal people against each other. Demonstrating an ability to do this is how people audition for a place in the ruling class.

Essentially, the logic behind “War is Peace” can be explained as: war for my enemies is peace for me. This is relevant because the Western ruling class is using this exact logic to destroy the Western middle and working classes. In most cases where there is clear evidence of social dysfunction or decay, the War is Peace principle is being applied somewhere.

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Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2023
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Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2021
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Good Riddance Jim Bolger, You Evil Bastard

I was overjoyed this week by the news that former New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger finally did something decent and died. Predictably, the hagiographies have already begun to flow, the most absurd of which claiming that he was a champion of the underdog. I want to state the viewpoint from the bottom of society.

I was nine years old in 1990, when Bolger came to power. I supported National in that election because their logo was blue, and blue was my favourite colour. Some of my family voted for him because the television told them to. We soon regretted it.

Because my family was working-class, we were impacted heavily by the reforms of the Fourth National Government. My father abandoned our family when I was two, and so my mother had to raise my brother and I on welfare. This wasn’t much. When Bolger and the Fourth National got in, they gave us Ruthanasia. This involved cutting welfare support, including the Family Support, which was the difference between our family making it and not making it. The stress of balancing the household budget drove my mother into a mental institution a few months after the cuts.

The stress of my mother being in a mental institution caused my own latent psychiatric problems to break out as insomnia. This was at age nine and my nervous system is yet to recover at age 44. There are thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – of us whose lives were destroyed in such ways by Bolger and his government of neglect.

Bolger personified everything evil about Anglos in general and New Zealand in particular: titanic greed mixed with indifference to human suffering. His Fourth National Government taught me that National voters and supporters get off on cruelty. Like a child pulling the wings off a fly, causing harm to the vulnerable makes them feel powerful, and that’s why they do it and will keep doing it.

I do not hate Bolger completely, however, because he taught me a lot of valuable lessons.

The most valuable lesson I learned was my value to New Zealand’s ruling class, which was nil. The Fourth National Government’s utter indifference to the poor, like we were an inconvenience the country would be better off without, is something I never forgot. Thus I have always done what I felt like in my life, with little consideration for wider society. This has not been criminal, but only because I did not want to be a criminal. Many other people I know from families that got Ruthanasiaed (including my own) became criminals. They, like me, reasoned that they don’t live in a society, just a big snake pit, so why not put their own needs above everyone else’s?

Schooling and media, together with government, create the impression that we’re all on one great team, and therefore sacrifices you make for the collective will be repaid by the collective. But in reality we’re cattle on one great tax farm. The system tolerates you as long as you’re paying in, but, when you need a payout, the system would rather you disappeared.

Many people read about events like World War One, and read about how working-class men were fed to enemy machine guns, and assume that things are different now and that no such thing could happen again. Thanks to Jim Bolger, I am aware that the contempt of the ruling class for the working classes is a permanent fixture of politics. The ruling class truly do hate the poor. They would feed us to machine guns tomorrow if they thought they would profit from it.

Thanks to these lessons, I have not been surprised by the actions of other National Party governments. I was not surprised when John Key slashed funding to mental health care, consigning hundreds of Kiwis to deaths by suicide and thousands of others to lives of despair. Neither was it any shock to me when Judith Collins forced the other National MPs to bloc vote against cannabis law reform at the referendum. I knew that the harm caused to medicinal cannabis users was a feature, not a flaw, of cannabis prohibition. And when Luxon got in and cut benefits under urgency, shovelling billions into the pockets of wealthy landlords, it was about what I expected.

Because of my opposition to mass Third World immigration, I am often pegged as right-wing. But, because of Jim Bolger, I have never voted for a right-wing party in my life, and I never will. I will never even vote for a centrist party that I suspect might support National (such as New Zealand First). I may or may not vote for the mainstream left either, but they aren’t automatically ruled out like National and co. are. The thought that my vote might help another Fourth National Government come to power evokes horror.

There is a wave of dark nihilism passing through New Zealand because of Jim Bolger. Many of the under-40s feel that society doesn’t exist, and that life is every man for himself. These people are essentially psychopathic in orientation, and the blame for this lies on Bolger and the harm he caused to this country. These youngsters have just internalised the selfishness of their elders.

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Understanding The Psychology Of Gang Members

A lot of energy is currently being directed into solving the gang problem. I grew up in a family full of gang members, so I have some idea. My father was one, my uncle was one, and my brother and one cousin grew up to be one. I went on to get a master’s degree in psychology, so have some special insight into the workings of gang member psychology. This essay shares some of my relevant observations.

The first point worth noting is that the mainstream narrative around the psychology of gang members is grossly inaccurate. This is because the mainstream narrative has been determined and advanced by middle-class people with no experience of gang culture.

Thus, there any many common misconceptions. In reality, people don’t join gangs for economic reasons. If they did, then wealthy America would have far fewer gangs than India and China, when the reverse is actually true. Neither do they join gangs because of colonisation. If they did, there would be no such things as white gangs. Nor would there be Tongan gang members, as Tongans were never colonised. Neither do they join gangs because of a lack of educational opportunities. The narrative that poverty, colonisation or lack of opportunities causes gang membership is pure Marxism.

In truth, people generally join gangs because they are horribly anti-social, and in joining a gang find a community of like-minded people. The vast majority of anti-social mentality comes, in turn, from two major causes: one material, one spiritual.

The material cause is really physiological: abuse and neglect resulting from shit parenting. Shit parents hit their kids, swear at them, lose their tempers in unpredictable ways, and fail to meet their children’s emotional needs. Shit parents fight with each other, do hard drugs, get institutionalised, break up with each other and refuse to get their own mental illnesses treated. All of this leads to immense stress in their children during their most crucial developmental years.

This stress leads to severe delays in emotional development. Brain structures exposed to massive traumatic stress in early childhood can mis- or underdevelop in a wide variety of ways. This leads to behaviours commonly seen in gang members, such as getting upset easily, which is often a consequence of a phenomenon known as limbic hijack. The brain is wired to react to threats to one’s person, and other considerations (such as long-term consequences or consideration for other people) are deprioritised.

The end result is selfishness. A person who is suffering naturally puts themselves first, so a person who is habitually suffering learns to habitually put themselves first. For someone who has consistently done so throughout their formative years, selfishness becomes character. People who have suffered a lot as children tend to put themselves first as adults even when inappropriate to do so – as if they were still children. Understanding this lingering trauma-based childishness is key to understanding the psychology of gang members.

The vast majority of gang members have suffered an upbringing characterised by severe abuse and neglect, whether physical or psychological. This is why the first thing that has to be understood about gang members is that they are, emotionally speaking, literally children still. If you would take the mind of a three-year old child and put it in the body of a 110kg male who everyone else was scared of, it would behave with similar levels of impulsivity, selfishness and aggression to the typical gang member.

A recent X post by Steve Stewart-Williams showed that toddlers are the most violent age group of all, and that people gradually become less violent as they age out of toddler mentality and grow into adults. Anyone whose emotional development is stunted, e.g. by traumatic abuse and neglect, won’t grow out of this toddler phase as fast, if at all. Some of those end up as manchildren with tattoos and bad attitudes.

It’s at this point where a reader might object that the vast majority of abused children do not go on to become anti-social or gang members. This is absolutely correct. The second factor, the spiritual factor, must be in play as well.

The spiritual cause of anti-social behaviour is even more complex than the material. Ultimately it’s a matter of thinking that evil is good and good is evil. This requires a complete spiritual warping, something that usually only happens in evil circumstances.

The main spiritual aspect is mimicry. Growing up trash like I did, I observed the high esteem afforded to adults in gangs. Other family members acted like older people who were in gangs, whether family or friends, were the coolest thing that it was possible to be. Men who had reputations for being particularly aggressive or cruel were afforded the most respect of all. In an anti-social environment like this, normal and healthy moral values are twisted and warped beyond recognition.

In anti-social families like mine – of which there are thousands in New Zealand alone – decent people are treated with contempt. As with pre-civilisational savages, kindness is seen as a weakness. Respect comes from having done time in prison, or having earned a reputation as a fighter. Children in such environments naturally mimic the displayed values of their elders, and come to value aggression and cruelty themselves. In doing so they start to climb the reverse dominance hierarchy of the anti-social. In this reverse dominance hierarchy, feelings are weakness, and turning them off and going down the psychopathy spectrum, a.k.a. “hardening up”, is an act of heroism.

A normal person would be ashamed to behave with the mindless, impulsive aggression that the typical gang member does. Gang members don’t think of their actions as childish, though, but rather classy, rebellious, cool or heroic – much the same way children rationalise abusing people. Do you remember hitting a younger sibling to “teach them a lesson”? If so, you have a good idea.

In a gang environment, however, all the common values are inverted. Reckless stupidity becomes bravery. Mindless sadism becomes dominance. Shallow preening and posturing becomes class. Perhaps worst of all, a soulless moral nihilism becomes dispassionate reason. It’s a total slave morality, but with a bestial veneer. A moral revolt of those not even fit to be slaves.

Perhaps the crucial spiritual aspect is a refusal to believe in any spiritual consequences for selfish actions. Of all the gang members I have met, I have never met one who believed in karma, and if I ever did I would assume that this person was on the way out of the gang scene. The universal logic seems to be that if you can escape legal consequences, then you escape consequences.

In summary, it’s the combination of bad material and bad spiritual influences that creates the anti-social mindset that leads to people joining gangs.

Just getting abused doesn’t make a gang member. Many people who get heavily abused as children become depressed rather than sadistic. Many swear off the idea of violence altogether and become the most peaceful people of all. A heavily abused child is many times more likely to become sadistic than a non-abused one, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Just being evil doesn’t make a gang member either. Plenty of evil people go into politics, religion or marketing instead of becoming gang members. Many would argue they cause much more suffering thereby. Gang members are rare: there are around 10,000 in New Zealand, which is only 1 in every 500 people. If the rate of evil in the general population is 5%, then gang members make up at most 1 in every 25 evil people.

The combination of physical and psychological damage is key. An abused child who has learned that gang members are exemplary has no real chance at life. It’s very likely they become a gang member too (there are multiple men in my family in this category). The only real solution – given that gang members are allowed to breed – is philosophy.

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Clinical Narcissism: Think Lightly Of Yourself And Deeply Of The World

Guest Post by Thomas S.

According to ancient Greek mythology, Narcissus was a youth of incomparable beauty, born from the coupling of the river deity Cephissus and a nymph named Liriope. Such was his beauty that bewildered and broke the hearts of all those who chanced to see him, that the blind prophet Tiresias cautioned Liriope that her son would live a long life, so long as he never came to know himself.

Followed by wanton eyes and beseeched by the lusts and longings of hopeful lovers, Narcissus would reject all advances made upon him. This eventually led to a curse by Ameinias, who upon rejection was handed a sword with which to commit suicide, but not before appealing to Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, that Narcissus would never be able to obtain the one he would one day fall in love with.

It was after losing his way while out hunting in the forest one day, that this curse of Ameinias, as well as the prophecy of Tiresias, would eventually bear fruit. Tired and thirsty, Narcissus happened upon a pool of water, which he stooped over to drink from.

Meanwhile, a mountain nymph named Echo was weeping nearby, having been the most recent suitress to have been rejected by Narcissus after having fallen in love with his beauty and made shy advances upon him.

Interestingly, the nymph, who had been cursed by Hera, the Queen of Heaven, for having deliberately distracted her with idle gossip in order to prevent her from discovering the affairs of her husband Zeus, was only able to utter the last few words of another, and was otherwise deprived of the ability of speech.

Unable to bear the torment of rejection by Narcissus, the mountain nymph was consumed by grief and her physical form melted away, leaving nothing more than a whisper, capable only of mimicking the words spoken by another, as is our experience of an echo still to this day.

While Echo’s voice trailed away, Narcissus scooped water from the pool in order to quench his thirst. As he did so however, a charming face below the shimmering waters caught his eye and soon became the object of his own heart’s desire – an object, which as per the curse of Ameinian, would remain unobtainable to him.

Forgetting his thirst, Narcissus reached toward his own reflection, while his reflection reached upward in return, only to be dispersed by the splashing until the stillness of the waters resumed between each failed attempt to clasp his beloved’s hand.

Eventually, Narcissus gave up his life due to the torment of being unable to attain himself, and was transformed into the daffodil flower.

Like many Greek myths which are etiological in nature, the story of Narcissus offers an explanation for why observable phenomena within our human experience, have come to be.

Clinical Narcissism

In the modern day, this same phenomenon of excessive self adoration, which was also evident in ancient times and thus deserving of an origin story, has come to be known as the narcissistic personality disorder, which can also sometimes be regarded as being pathological in nature.

While a high degree of variability of character is evident in those diagnosed with the condition, such as being either socially reclusive or highly extroverted, self-loathing or self aggrandising, having a history on the right or the wrong side of the law, and demonstrating all manner of success or failure in the professional field, narcissism can be problematic to diagnose clinically.

Additionally, there are specific clinical subtypes of this condition, and while narcissism is often associated with the grandiose and overtly arrogant and exploitative stereotype, there are also those who are fragile, shy and hypersensitive to the evaluations of others while harbouring deeply envious as well as grandiose delusions.

Both subtypes however, are excessively self-absorbed and it is possible for a narcissist to fluctuate between these states, depending on life’s circumstances.

It is also possible for a narcissist to exhibit a mix of these qualities, as well as for a narcissist to be ‘high functioning’ and able to employ their character traits in order to succeed, while their competitive, attention seeking and sexually provocative traits can often go unrecognised.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for instance, could be described in this way, for she employed various devices and rhetoric around themes of compassion and kindness, which all turned out to have been self-serving and politically expedient tools, rather than sincere sentiments. The effects soon wore off during the tyranny which ensued during her time in office.

Despite the diversity of narcissistic personalities, there are however, several indicators which have been published by the American Psychiatric Association, which may contribute to such a diagnosis when several exist concurrently in an individual.

These indicators are as follows:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without conmmensurate achievements).
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
4. Requires excessive admiration.
5. Has a sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectation of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations).
6. Is interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).
7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.
9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors and attitudes.

Of course, it is reasonable to expect that most people experience some degree of arrogance, selfishness and other character flaws, although clinical narcissism is a condition deeply affecting an individual’s self-esteem, sense of identity and their relations to others.

While the causes of clinical narcissism are not definitively known, there are indications that several factors, including genetics, childhood trauma and parenting, as well as cultural factors, may all contribute to an individual displaying a narcissistic personality disorder.

In particular, abuse, neglect, or parental overindulgence may inhibit the development of a child’s expectations in regards to themselves and other people. Adoption, divorce and losing a parent prematurely through death are also factors which may put a child at risk of developing a narcissistic complex.

Unfortunately however, many cases of emerging clinical narcissism in childhood and adolescence are left to develop without intervention through counselling or behavioural therapy. And later in life, many narcissists remain wholly unaware of their own character flaws and unwilling to admit that they could do well to improve themselves.

And while many narcissists do eventually self destruct under the weight of their own absurdities, the tragedy is that few are willing to learn from these mistakes, instead placing blame on those around them whenever discrepancies are called to account.

True Wealth Of Character

Unlike the narcissist however, there are those in life who in addition to a high degree of personal achievement, also demonstrate those qualities which may be regarded as wealth of character, such as genuine humility, renunciation, compassion and so forth.

The Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, who lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for instance, was a revered martial artist who attained the status of a kensei and was regarded as the most accomplished swordsman of his time, capable even of fighting with a sword in each hand.

After a life of considerable achievement, he eventually took to Buddhism in his later years, retiring from martial arts and taking to deep contemplation and a solitary existence. Musashi produced two works during his retirement, Go Rin No Sho, or The Book of Five Rings, as well as Dokkodo, or The Path of Aloneness.

Both books were passed on to his students in the days prior to his death and have been widely studied in many languages in the centuries since. Most significantly, according to precept four of Dokkodo, Musashi advises one to “think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”.

As this precept suggests, Musashi was grounded in a higher reality afforded by spiritual practice and practical renunciation, rather than base egoism. And interestingly, the seeds of this worldly detachment had also been tended to and nurtured prior to his retirement, throughout his career as a mendicant swordsman where he was confronted with the impermanent nature of life on a regular basis.

This deep sense of renunciation or detachment is one of six primary opulences in life, and is a precursor to the development of finer qualities of character, beyond the base animalistic ambitions. The opulence of wealth for instance, is rendered more desirable when complemented by detachment and a man who humbles himself despite his status, endears himself to others.

Those who are preoccupied by the low-hanging fruits and the bondage associated with self-absorption and egoism however, whether they be clinical narcissists, or simply those who indulge too frequently in their lower nature, are unable to obtain or sustain true wealth of character, despite their worldly achievements.

Thomas S. is a Kiwi writer with an obsessive interest in the truth, especially when it comes to spirituality and politics.

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