VJMP Reads: Religion, Property, Violence I

The next edition in the VJMP Reads column is Religion, Property, Violence: A Revolutionary Idea For Society by Horst Niclaus. This book was purchased cheaply from TradeMe. The back cover asks the question “Is the creation of God the reason why equality between human beings has not been achieved yet?”

After a short introduction, in which Niclaus recounts his early upbringing in wartime Germany, the first chapter begins. It is called ‘Does God exist?’

Niclaus mentions here that God was silent during the Holocaust and that “he” has no problems with things like the mass child rapes of the Catholic Church. It’s apparent that Niclaus is arguing against a conception of the Abrahamic God, in particular the Christian one. He lists a number of Biblical contradictions here.

In this chapter Niclaus cites Albert Einstein as saying that the Jewish religion is “an incarnation of the most childish superstition.” He then cites a list of arguments against the Abrahamic God and against religion in general, such as the fact that ignorance and fear underpins much religious belief. These arguments all proceed from a materialist perspective, and should be convincing to someone who has fallen at the second hurdle.

This list of arguments is duplicated from elsewhere, and any materialist ought to find them agreeable. One of the arguments copied here is Epicurus’s one, that makes that claim that if God has the power to end all suffering, but not the Will, then God must be malevolent.

The problem here is that Epicurus makes the assumption that the end of suffering is the highest value. The reality is that God encourages an unpredictable degree of suffering for the purposes of entertainment, on account of that infinite bliss is infinite boredom, and therefore more suffering than a the madcap mix of pleasure and pain that is life on Earth.

Many of the arguments listed here suffer from similar problems. They are attacking a Christian conception of God and therefore attack the characteristics that Christians claim that God has. These arguments do not address (e.g.) Luciferian or Hindu conceptions of divinity. As is true of many Western commentators, Niclaus appears to believe that disproving the Abrahamic conception of God is sufficient to prove the non-existence of God.

Most of the arguments in this chapter proceed on this basis, i.e. they are worthwhile criticisms towards Christianity or Abrahamism, but no more. The quoted section makes one cutting observation of missionaries in particular: while their work is risky, the rewards are to be worshipped by those who accept his guidance.

This chapter ends with the mention of some scientists who advanced the materialist world view, and then some letters to the Christchurch newspaper The Press arguing against Christianity.

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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Narcissistic Sadism And Narcissistic Masochism

Narcissistic people pose a number of challenges for the societies in which they reside. Their selfishness is liable to cause suffering to those around them, and the indifference that the typical narcissist shows to this suffering is liable to cause violence. As this essay will examine, however, there are two distinct types of narcissism.

Narcissistic sadism is what most people think of when they think about the problems that narcissism causes. This is when a person puts their own ego above all other considerations, to the point where they harm others for no good reason. Narcissistic sadism is behind most cases of bullying and many cases of physical abuse.

At its most extreme, narcissistic sadism manifests in conditions such as psychopathy, in which other people are considered nothing more than tools for gratification. Psychopaths act as if the suffering of others is entirely meaningless, particularly when it stands in the way of the desire of the psychopath. People like this are all but indistinguishable from demons, as if brought to Earth specifically to wreak misery.

There is, however, another form of narcissism that arguably does just as much damage, if not more. This is narcissistic masochism – when one sacrifices oneself unnecessarily to glorify one’s own moral rectitude or fortitude. It is the act of putting oneself first by putting oneself last.

At first, this doesn’t sound like that much of a problem, considering that masochism primarily does damage to oneself. However, the fact that all individuals are part of a countless number of overlapping systems means that, in much the same way that it’s impossible to remove one knot without damaging the whole net, it’s impossible to damage oneself without damaging other people.

The most striking examples of narcissistic masochism right now are the repeated displays of feet-kissing by Pope Francis. These performances are supposed to broadcast the humility of the Pope to the entire world – but, naturally, Francis only does them when the cameras are in position and rolling. In his abject submission, Francis supposes that he’s demonstrating his superior moral sophistication to the world.

All kinds of martyr complexes could fall under this rubric of narcissistic masochism. The common element is that narcissistic masochists will glorify themselves as they are destroyed, usually in the belief that they have established some kind of moral supremacy over the rest of humanity. They believe that their destruction has occurred on account of that they are too good or pure for this world.

A more nefarious example of this phenomenon is collective narcissistic masochism. This is most obviously seen today in the form of ethnomasochism.

In particular, there is a strain of ethnomasochism that is constantly berating itself for its supposed role in various historical crimes, in particular colonialism and slavery. This strain believes that collective narcissistic sadism (which perhaps reached its apogee in Germany between 1939-45) is the world’s foremost danger, so much so that we ought to go as far as possible in the opposite direction.

This strain of narcissistic masochism leads to people supporting the mass importation of “refugees” from various disadvantaged parts of the world. Even when these people are told that these imports will commit a massively disproportionate amount of sex crimes, this is waved away as some kind of karmic payback for the nebulous historical crimes of the white man.

The psychology involved here is very similar to that of a masochist who pays a dominatrix to beat him on the grounds that he has misbehaved terribly in the past. In principle there’s little difference between someone grovelling before a dominatrix and someone grovelling because they believe that they have inherited the sins of their ancestors. The brain circuitry that inspires either action is broadly the same.

The archetypal narcissistic sadist is little more than an overgrown toddler. They never grew past the phase of responding primarily to egoic desires. Although their actions may have become more complicated and sophisticated as they became adults, the basic motivation is the same aggression that motivates small children and wild animals – an instinct that puts itself first before any other consideration.

The archetypal narcissistic masochist is the one who hates his family, hates his neighbourhood, hates his city, hates his country and hates his race. He will not admit to hating the world, because that doesn’t give him the opportunity to glorify himself. Anything associated with himself, however, he hates. Therefore, he derives gratification from destroying himself and anything associated with him.

The major difference between the two is that the sadist is other-focused, whereas the narcissist is self-focused. Although both are self-centred, the sadist focuses on destroying the other, whereas the masochist focuses on destroying himself (or any group that he may belong to).

If men like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer best represent narcissistic sadism, perhaps people like Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Pope Francis best represent narcissistic masochism. The latter group of people – although most don’t realise it – cause just as much suffering and misery as the former, if not more. They also cause it for equally narcissistic reasons.

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The Gentlemen Shows That The Normalisation Of Cannabis Is All But Complete

Guy Ritchie’s latest crime caper film, The Gentlemen, is the rollicking, romping gorefest that one has come to expect from the director of Snatch. Behind the larger-than-life characters and the brilliant dialogue, however, are a few hints about where society is going, and a few things made to look normal that aren’t usually normalised. This article explains.

Cannabis users who stopped to think about it may have noticed a few things in The Gentlemen that are different to the usual messages contained within big-budget films. Normally alcohol, tobacco, adrenaline and oxytocin are all portrayed as acceptable forms of enjoyment, but cannabis is not. Cannabis tends to get lumped with opium and heroin as a drug of despair.

The hero of the story, Mickey Pearson, is a British cannabis tycoon. The character, played by Matthew McConaughey, is in charge of an empire that produces 50 tons of skunk every year. Yes, he has done some bad things on the way up through the underworld, but he’s very much a moral player, someone with far more class than the average criminal.

This weed-dealing protagonist is presented as the good guy, who the audience is invited to sympathise with. Not a good guy – because he’s certainly capable of violent crime still – but the good guy. This makes a change from the usual popular culture treatment of cannabis users. Aside from this central fact, several scenes in the film serve to normalise the idea of cannabis in the eyes of the audience.

In one scene, Mickey speaks to a Chinese gangster and heroin dealer named Lord George. Mickey makes the point that the drug he himself deals doesn’t kill anyone, unlike the heroin that George deals. It’s uncommon for a popular culture film to draw a distinction between cannabis dealers and “other” drug dealers. Usually the two are lumped in together, but here Lord George is presented as distinctly less moral than Mickey.

In another scene, Mickey’s henchman Ray (played by Charlie Hunnam) smokes a joint while expressing his disgust for heroin users. While rolling it up he expounds upon his weed preferences, including his belief that the right mixture of cannabis and tobacco is 50:50. In this scene, we are invited to sympathise with the cannabis-smoking Ray, whose classy demeanour presents him in sharp contrast to the heroin users around him.

In yet another scene, the major antagonist is trying to bargain Mickey down on the selling price of Mickey’s business. The antagonist makes the point that cannabis will become legal soon and therefore his enterprise would have to compete with the legal market, which inspires Mickey to demonstrate that his business has been future-proofed already.

The point that cannabis will become legal soon, and therefore that the relative values of positions in the cannabis market will change soon, is made with certainty. Guy Ritchie has his finger on the pulse well enough to know which way things are going, and it’s obvious from the international trends that moves towards cannabis liberalisation will soon occur everywhere. People have thought through most possibilities already.

This means that the plot of The Gentlemen is realistic enough to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story. It’s a great film – and for cannabis users eager to see an end to the prejudice against them, it’s great to see cannabis use normalised in popular culture.

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How The Left Snookered Itself Into Supporting Hatred

The Western Left has, by 2020, wedded itself to blank slate theory. Not only is it dogmatically true among most leftists that all human subgroups are precisely identical in intellectual capacity, but it’s also dogmatically true that if you believe that human subgroups differ in intellectual capacity you are evil. As this essay explains, the Left has snookered itself thanks to the rigidity of its own ideology.

Inherent to modern leftist theory is the belief that the under-representation of black, brown and Muslim people in prestigious positions in Western business, academia and politics can be best explained by white supremacy. The inherent racism of the white man, we are told, induces him to keep black, brown and Muslim people out of these high positions. The presence of inequality is taken as evidence of the existence of prejudice.

Part of this leftist theory is the adamant denial that white people might be wealthier than other races because of a higher IQ. All the science that suggests that an academic achievement gap – roughly equal to one standard deviation – exists between black and white students, is racism. Any scientist arguing for such an explanation is a racist.

Also part of this theory is an adamant denial that white people might be wealthier than other races because of a culture that leads them to study hard, and thereby to earn high positions on merit. Leftists are not keen on the idea that the Enlightenment of the Ancient Greeks lit the torch for the intellectual achievements of the entire Western World for the past 2,500 years. Much simpler to blame any difference in outcomes on racism.

If you’re the sort of slave-minded person who resents anyone better than you, this philosophy intuitively appeals. There are few things that the weak like to do more than think up reasons why the strong are immoral. Any explanation that ascribes immorality to those who excel will appeal nicely to the vanity of those who have not excelled.

Adopting this belief brings with it some probably unforeseen consequences.

If you say all human groups are precisely equal, the greater over-representation of Jews in high positions in politics, media and academia can only be explained by nepotism and/or an extreme ingroup bias. If it cannot be down to a genetic or a cultural advantage, it can only be explained by Jews weaseling their way into high positions and then corruptly holding the door open to other Jews on the basis of their shared identity.

Something similar applies to Far East Asians in the West, whose achievement often exceeds that of even Jews. In many American universities, Asian students need to get higher marks before they will get accepted – not only higher marks than blacks and Hispanics but higher than whites as well! These universities discriminate against Asians because they are forced to in order to remain ideologically coherent (to the extent that this is possible).

It’s unfair to assume that someone’s excellence is necessarily the consequence of immorality, but this conclusion is now unavoidable for leftists. If Jews in America and Northern Europe have average IQs of around 107-108, as estimated by the world’s foremost intelligence researcher Richard Lynn, then some proportion of over-representation in high positions is all but inevitable (at least while the average IQ of the host population is less than 107). Therefore, leftists are bound to end up hating them.

This was demonstrated by Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the British General Election last December.

If you believe in blank slate theory, the different outcomes for groups with different IQs cannot be the result of anything that could be attributed to an inherent superiority, whether that superiority be natural or learned. Therefore, anyone who ascribes to strict egalitarianism ends up snookering themselves into defending positions that, if presented to them in isolation, they would reject.

The more horizontalist a person’s moral viewpoint becomes, the more necessary it becomes to ascribe moral impropriety to anyone who excels. If all human subgroups were precisely equal, then any subgroup that dominates must therefore be exploitative or aggressive than the others. The more they dominate, the more exploitative or aggressive they must be. Therefore, it’s fair to hate any group that excels.

This is every bit the slave morality that it sounds like.

Some leftists have twisted themselves into comically inconsistent positions on account of this dogma. There is a strain of them that will tell you that the underachievement of browns and blacks is the fault of white supremacism, but the overachievement of Jews is, at the same time, best explained by genetic or cultural reasons inherent to Jews.

The problem here is that said leftists have merely adopted an anti-white position, and are therefore just as hateful as any Nazi. The only consistent thing about believing that Jews earned their position by merit but that whites cheated their way to their (lesser) position is a hatred for white people. And anti-white hatred, despite its current fashionability, is not a morally superior position.

The only truly loving conception of reality is one that sees it accurately. Firstly, this means to see it accurately despite the egoic temptations to view it in a way that makes you seem genetically, culturally or morally superior. Secondly, this means to see it accurately despite the egoic temptations to deny that fact that you are genetically, culturally or morally superior when you really are.

This double balancing act is the essence of metaphysical gold. Anyone who can stave off both the traps of narcissistic sadism and narcissistic masochism is a true philosopher.

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