Clown World Chronicles: What is 'Cancel Culture'?

Clown World Chronicles: What is ‘Cancel Culture’?

Unlike most of the other terms in this book, ‘cancel culture’ does not have an easily discerned meaning. It refers to a very specific mentality that is mostly found in a very specific sort of person, both of which are becoming much more common nowadays. Understanding it is necessary if one wishes to understand Clown World and where it’s headed.

It’s not currently feasible, in the current political environment, to physically exterminate one’s enemies. There are laws against that sort of thing. Therefore, the way to destroy them is to silence them.

In the old days, tyrannical kings would cut the tongues out of anyone they did not wish to speak. That’s no longer feasible either, but the sentiment motivating it can still find expression. Today, silencing people is still a matter of denying their ability to speak, but in an age of mass media it’s about denying them access to speaking platforms.

Cancel culture refers to a certain mentality where a person tries to silence anyone who they do not wish to speak. This means to get them banned from any media where they might have the chance to express themselves – a process known as ‘deplatforming’. This isn’t really a new thing, as examples of it have existed ever since the New Left came to prominence in the 60s and 70s.

One of the first victims was psychologist Hans Eysenck, who upset the Left with his research into the average IQ scores of different races. As discussed at length in a recent paper in the Personality and Individual Differences Journal, arguing in favour of human biodiversity is highly likely to aggravate the numerous fanatics who adhere to the Equalitarian Dogma.

These fanatics made a strong effort to cancel Eysenck on account of his statements that most of the differences in IQ between different races can be explained by genetic differences, and that this evolutionary explanation is much more powerful than the environmentalist explanation. Eysenck was punched in the face, had his family threatened with death and had numerous speaking arrangements cancelled by leftist agitators.

50 years later, cancel culture is as strong as ever. Jordan Peterson ran afoul of it when he refused to accept the far-leftist dogma about transgenders. Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux ran afoul of it when they wanted to speak about the science of human biodiversity in Auckland. Even VJM Publishing upset the shrieking loonies when we sold ‘It’s Okay To Be White’ t-shirts on TradeMe.

Cancel culture, then, is how the Left does violence in lieu of being able to use actual violence. The irony is that, despite constantly crying about how words are violence and that causing offence ought to be prison-worthy, it is the Left themselves who are most willing to aggressively interfere with other people’s right to free assembly and free speech.

The logic is that, if people promoting unwanted ideologies were allowed to speak in public or to hold gatherings, they would convert or at least invigorate a nonzero number of people. That someone could argue against them doesn’t matter – today’s Left affords no value at all to human reason. Merely speaking is enough to convince people in their minds.

Therefore, allowing the enemy to speak is tantamount to allowing the enemy to gain strength. If the enemy is gathering their forces, better to smash them now lest they become stronger in the future, as per Machiavelli’s maxim. Cancel culture is a form of ideological warfare, in which wrongthinkers are smashed and persecuted to the fullest legal extent possible.

Support for cancel culture is closely intertwined with an individual’s support for authoritarianism. Authoritarians don’t see anything wrong in taking away other people’s rights to express themselves, because they don’t consider other people to be full human beings. In Clown World, anyone who thinks incorrectly is a subhuman, and subhumans don’t have rights.

The problem is that people who are prevented from speaking rapidly turn to violence. John F Kennedy said “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable,” and history is replete with examples. What the cancellers don’t understand is that those cancelled don’t feel admonished or chastised – they feel enraged. This rage is easy to justify, considering that their human rights have been violated.

Cancel culture, with its egregious unreasonableness, empowers the far-right and feeds directly into their narratives about totalitarian censorship. Shutting down a person for speaking, when the right to speak is specifically protected by human rights legislation, is precisely the kind of action that makes conspiracy theories about Communist takeovers seem realistic.

Clown World promises to become ever more vicious, ruthless and insane as phenomena like cancel culture spread. It’s become so bad in some places that it’s every bit the persecution hysteria that lead to witchcraft trials. People all over the West are losing their livelihoods just for uttering opinions that contradict the bloodthirsty mob. Cancel culture may end up cancelling liberty.

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 the middle of 2020.

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Class Consciousness Is Dead – And It Was Murdered

Class consciousness was once widely understood to be the vehicle that the workers would use to liberate themselves from the divide-and-conquer tactics of the rulers. For that reason, the rulers sought to oppose the flourishing of class consciousness wherever they could. Today, class consciousness is dead – and we can tell you how it was killed.

From the point of view of the ruling class, watching class consciousness take root is like being a feudal lord and watching the peasantry assemble outside your manor with pitchforks and burning torches. You know that you’re going to have to do something about it sooner or later, or risk losing your position.

For the rulers of our society, it’s an imperative to destroy class consciousness wherever they can.

For a long time, the go-to tactic for destroying class consciousness was virulent nationalism. The ruling class had learned that they could take the hate and anger ordinary people had as a result of their suffering, and channel it towards rival neighbours. All they had to do was subject their working classes to several years of propaganda about how the neighbouring nation was evil, and then those working classes could safely be marched off to kill each other, at no threat to the rulers.

The ruling class eventually overplayed their hand. After the Hemoclysm of World Wars I and II, class consciousness made a resurgence. Although fraternisation between opposing troops was rare, it was common enough that the average soldier was able to figure out who their real enemy was – their real enemy was behind them all along.

Returning to the West, these soldiers brought with them an immensely strong class solidarity and a dogged refusal to allow the ruling class to divide and conquer them. This powerful class consciousness set the stage for the economic boom times of the 1950s and 60s. Because class consciousness was so strong, wages were high and working conditions were favourable. One worker could easily buy a house and raise a family on one wage.

The extreme unfashionability of nationalism meant that workers were no longer willing to kill another man simply because he wore a different uniform. The ruling class needed a new way to divide and conquer the workers. The ongoing Civil Rights Movement would provide the inspiration for their next strategic advance.

The masterstroke was to divide and conquer the workers in the exact opposite way to how they were divided and conquered before 1945. Thus, the workers never saw it coming. Whereas they were once united along ethnic lines, now they would be divided along them. Since the advent of neoliberalism, which was when the ruling class started to win back the territory they had lost over the previous 40 years, the working class has been divided among racial lines.

The secret to this has been manipulating a rise in the level of racial consciousness. The logic was that, if racial consciousness could be increased beyond a certain point, both working-class and middle-class people of the same race would come to see each other as being on the same team, and start to see people of the same class but a different race as being on a different team. With this achieved, working-class people of any race would stop fighting for their class interests.

To that end, the ruling class directed their lackeys in the mainstream media to overemphasise racial issues and underemphasise class issues. Any incident of racial conflict was magnified out of proportion and made to appear a terrible evil, while measures that damaged the working class were trivialised or made to appear inevitable (and therefore not objectionable).

Thanks to all of this, the number of people who identify with their race first and foremost has increased sharply, while the number of people who identify with their class first and foremost has decreased. People now say “If Maoris do well, then New Zealand does well,” but no-one ever says “If the working class does well, then New Zealand does well.” They used to – back in the days when class consciousness existed.

Wages were much higher back in the days when class consciousness was stronger than race consciousness, as was housing affordability, which ought to provide a couple of clues as to why it’s important. Sadly, not enough people get it.

Today, the ruling class knows that it can divide the working class neatly in two, simply by appearing to exclusively help the non-white half. They don’t have to actually help them – the Government gives with one hand and takes away with the other – they just have to give the impression that they do, and that they’re ignoring the white proportion of the working class.

As they do this, they tell the non-whites that this advantageous treatment is the result of past white racism. When the whites complain about being demonised, they’re told to suck it up because of the crimes of their ancestors. The outrage and resentment that naturally arises from this inevitably causes the working class to disintegrate from bickering. Then the ruling class laugh and go back to their gated communities.

The reality is that class consciousness is by far the greater threat to the ruling class’s stranglehold on our society than race consciousness ever could be. It allows the working class to present a united front to their rulers, which makes their negotiating position much stronger, and consequently their wages much higher.

A smart person will ask themselves, the next time they see a racial issue being blown out of all reasonable proportion in the mainstream media: what important issues is this hysteria intended to distract me from? In most cases, a small amount of investigation will reveal a class issue that our rulers would rather sweep under the rug. Racial issues were always a distraction from class issues, and the focus on them has made the working class much poorer.

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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Clown World Chronicles: Who Are The ‘Alt Left’?

Because Clown World is a failed system, there are many people proposing alternatives. A previous article here discussed who the alt-right are. There’s equally as great a need to explain their opposites on the alternative spectrum – the alt-left. Like two cheeks of the same arse, one doesn’t find the alt-left in isolation from, but rather in symbosis with, the alt-right. This article explains.

The alt-left, basically speaking, are those who reject the Establishment on the grounds that it’s not horizontalist enough. Like the alt-right, the alt-left considers the left, the right and the centre all to be much the same thing – one corrupt, monolithic entity. They consider that the left, the right and the centre are all represented by the same ruling class, so that all three groups are too cozy with each other to ever change.

What the alt-left wants is more horizontalism. That means anyone calling for hierarchy, separation or division of any kind is considered evil. The alt-left are the loudest voices calling for open borders, on the grounds that physical restrictions to movement are immoral. They are also the ones calling for a dissolution of the boundaries between genders.

Unfortunately, this extreme form of horizontalism necessarily implies getting rid of some borders that are there for good reason. The alt-left has no time at all for arguments about the disproportionate number of sex crimes committed by immigrants to the West from Muslim and African countries. Mentioning this is racist, and we should hold the borders open to all no matter how much sexual abuse they commit.

More insidiously, the alt-left also seeks to dissolve the sexual borders between adults and children. Wherever you have alt-leftists, you almost inevitably have people who are sympathetic to the argument that adults having sexual contact with children can be healthy for the children. The idea that sexual boundaries between adults and children are immoral is very persuasive to the alt-left.

The alt-centrist perspective is that both the alt-left and the alt-right are dangerous extremists.

This is reciprocated by the alt-left, who consider the alt-centre the same sort of Nazi as everyone else. Because the alt-centre agrees that the alt-right is correct about some things, the alt-left lumps the two in together. They do not realise that there is such a thing as the Fifth Rejection, according to which alt-centrists reject alt-right thought as fundamentally lacking empathy. Anyone not with the alt-left is against them.

The alt-left has authoritarianism in common with the alt-right. However, whereas the latter longs for another authoritarian figure, perhaps an avatar of the white race, the former enforces horizontalism with the same authoritarian zeal. It’s an extremely aggressive form of slave morality, in which any individual or group who excels at anything has to be ripped down.

The morality of the alt-left could be summed up with the following maxim: in every conflict, always take the side of the weaker party. The logic is that no weaker party would purposefully start a conflict, therefore the aggressor in any conflict must be the stronger of the two sides. Since morality demands that one oppose aggressors, it follows that one must take the side of the weaker party in every conflict.

This logic leads the alt-left to, for example, take the side of the Palestinians in the Israel-Palestine conflict, to take the side of the natives in any conflict against settlers and to take the side of women any time they accuse a man of anything. The alt-left does not brook any disagreement with the maxim that weakest is best. For them, it’s vulgar to make the argument that the stronger party in any given conflict might be the morally superior one.

The authoritarianism of the alt-left is part of the reason for the Fourth Rejection. The alt-centrist doesn’t have a problem with authoritarianism, in and of itself – but it has to be correct, proportionate, necessary and grounded in an accurate understanding of reality. The authoritarianism of the alt-left is none of this.

The authoritarianism of the alt-left is every bit the psychopathically controlling hate ideology that caused so much suffering to the people of the Soviet Union, and whose horrors were detailed in writings such as The Gulag Archipelago. The alt-left would happily recreate a gulag system, so absorbed are they in their own moral certitude.

The alt-left and the alt-right are in a state of conflict, and this will grow more intense as the Establishment fades. Both sides are gagging for a final, climactic and decisive battle so that they can forever crush their enemy or be destroyed in the attempt. As the individuals populating the Establishment continue to die of old age, the pro-war individuals will continue to grow in influence.

In summary, the alt-left is mostly made up of those who reject (and/or are rejected by) the Establishment. They are mostly the kind of freak that couldn’t fit into the system, although they often genuinely want to do so. This leads to the resentment that underpins all slave moralities. This resentment manifests as hatred for the oppressor class, where ‘oppressor’ is defined as anyone with wealth, influence or privilege.

The alt-left responds to this with oppression of their own, usually in the form of a swarming multitude of shaming attacks from as many people as possible. A favoured tactic is trying to destroy the reputation and livelihood of wrongthinkers by reporting them en masse to the authorities. The shadows of the Stasi informer network can be seen behind the alt-left’s constantly ratting out their enemies.

Whereas the old left looked to find accommodation with their opponents, the alt-left wants to annihilate them. They use tactics such as cancelling and deplatforming, preventing their enemies from communicating with an audience. They see no shame in this, reasoning that the more their enemies get to speak, the more powerful those enemies are.

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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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