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I Don’t Understand This Essay. Please Explain It to Me.
Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for his work for The New York Times, which has since then been ridiculed for being little more than promotion of Stalinism and intentionally hiding the Holomodor and endless other Soviet atrocities from a 1930s Western elite that really, really wanted to believe in the same thing that 2020s Western elites really, really want to believe in: That centralized control systems were ethical, efficient, and just. That the difficulties of this world could be simply managed away by a well-educated, well-intentioned managerial class of, well, of people just like those Western elites! Surely they could run things better than those filthy capitalists, who often didn’t even go to college, like they did!
Mr. Duranty was born into a wealthy English family and went to the best schools, until his family’s business underwent some hard times and he was forced to attend more common institutions, which he always resented. His first reporting job was covering WWI, and some say that the horrifying death and destruction he witnessed there desensitized him to the human suffering under the Soviets that he would later casually conceal in his writing. He became friends with Aleister Crowley in Paris, became addicted to opium, cocaine, and heroin, and became a regular participant in Mr. Crowley’s psycho-sexual black magic seances. A gifted writer, Mr. Duranty even wrote poetry that was chanted by the participants at these events, for example: “People upon the worlds, are like maggots upon an apple. All forms of life bred upon the worlds are in the nature of parasites.”
Aleister Crowley was raised in a devout Christian household, but became disillusioned with Christianity and became a proponent of, and participant in, recreational drug use, sexual freedom, and explorations of the occult. He founded a religion called Thelema and declared himself to be a prophet of this religion. His writings describing this religion are difficult to summarize, but the over-arching theme is described in the opening sentence of his first book on the topic: “Do what thou wilt.” His drug use, experimental masochistic sexuality, dismissal of conventional religions and ethics, personal philosophy, and political ideology were all based on freeing the individual from the constraints of social norms.
Which made him into a hero of the 1960s hippie movement 20 years after his death. And a hero to contemporary bohemian intellectuals like Water Duranty. Crowley was not the first to attempt to build a philosophy out of “Do whatever you darn well please,” but his powerful intellect and prolific writing made him one of its more influential proponents.
Which brings me back to Walter Duranty and the Western elite that gave him prestigious awards for lying to them about the atrocities of centralized control systems.
If you think about it, Mr. Duranty is a typical modern leftist. Born into wealth, but jealous of those who earn money rather than inheriting it. Raised in a stable, nurturing society made peaceful and affluent by its adherence to Judeo-Christian ethics, but learning to resent the limitations of his behavior posed by such ethical constraints. Attempting to deaden the pain of the loss of religion and other meaning in his life through drugs and sexual deviancy. Viewing humanity not as a noble struggle, but as a parasitic disease upon Mother Earth. Failing to find purpose in his own life beyond the immediate gratification of whatever pleasures are immediately available. Viewing life not as a sacred gift from a higher power, but simply a game to be won or lost by the strongest and most ruthless.
Leftists, it would seem, have not learned anything new over the past hundred years.
But here is what I don’t understand: Why is it that Mr. Duranty and his modern progeny work so hard to believe in the virtue of collective control systems, when all they really believe in is an extreme interpretation of individualism? If Mr. Duranty abandoned all systems of ethics and morality because they cramped his style, and he simply wanted to do whatever he wanted to do at the time, why did he admire an oppressive totalitarian like Joseph Stalin?
If Duranty had been Russian, he would have been on the first train to the Gulags. But Stalin tolerated him because he needed good press in the West. Duranty was too intelligent not to have figured that out immediately.
Duranty was a lot of things, but he was not stupid. He was a brilliant intellect, as well as a gifted writer. Did he not see the inherent conflict between the way he wanted to live his life, and the centralized control systems he deified in his writings?
Rush Limbaugh claimed to understand leftists absolutely and completely. I don’t. I just don’t get it.
Modern leftist Hollywood produces an endless stream of movies made by leftist actors who glorify the struggles of a small band of plucky individualists against an oppressive evil empire that seeks to control their behavior. And then those Hollywood elites all go vote Democrat, and look the other way when Russia invades Ukraine. Again.
I generally conclude my essays with a paragraph which summarizes my understanding the topic I’ve discussed. I won’t do that this time. Because I don’t understand.
I’ve given this a lot of thought. As I’m sure Mr. Duranty did. I don’t claim to be as intelligent as Mr. Duranty. He really was brilliant. But still. I just don’t understand.
If you do, please enlighten me in the comments.
Thank you.
Published in General
Exactly!
A while back Jordan Peterson read a poem written by Marx on one of his youtube streams. It reads like verse that was composed by Milton’s Lucifer himself:
Peter Saarsgard’s portrayal of Duranty in Mr. Jones (2019) was strong and very dark. The movie is about the refusal of major media of the time to report Stalin’s crimes and the blowback against an honest journalist.
All Journalists Are Statists™
For one thing it makes their job easier, because they are sucking up to the government. Central planning is easy to write about. All you have to do is suck up to a few propeller heads and talking to them is all it takes to get the job done. They screws everything up, so there is more central planning to write about. If Murray Rothbard set up everything, there would be nothing for them to do.
They don’t really want to understand math or intelligent economics.
The Democrat party ceases to exist if they aren’t creating more and more non-public goods and central planning. They do this by either lying about social problems or creating them. Due to structural issues, it’s incredibly hard for conservatives and libertarians to interdict this process.
That’s what I see. If the Democrats thought of some neat collectivist solution, well it must work, because we are going to will it to work. If you don’t get on board, you are bad. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous you sound, just do it.
There is no limiting principle on the left. The limiting principle on the right is anarchism which we are a million miles from.
mises.org is right about everything.
We aren’t practicing free market capitalism.
mises.org is right about everything.
Doc, I think you might have to change your pseudonym to “Socrates”. So many questions!
Good article, good question, good answers. What they really believe is hard to know, it’s all over the place and usually incoherent one level below the mantra. Easier to say what they think they’ll get and most of that is wrong as well. If they win tougher ruthless folks get the goodies but it narrows until it collapses. So far that’s only all societies run by whomever and whenever.
Perhaps because Cambodia was far away, and thus posed no threat to Chomsky. If I recall my reading correctly (and it’s been a while*) Chomsky seemed to be motivated, at root, by hatred of the West, and thus any enemy of the West was likely to look attractive to him.
* Feel free to correct me.
Jordan Peterson, reflecting on his youthful involvement with the socialist New Democratic Party, said that most of the party members, while claiming to be motivated by compassion for the poor and working class, were in reality motivated by hatred and resentment of the wealthy and middle class.
Comrades!
That’s satire, right?
Ultimately, they hate the God they cannot stand to believe doesn’t exist, and they hate that the gods they want to please aren’t there.
As John Paul Sartre said, “G-d is dead. The Bastard!”
“She” is the best. lol
I think it’s some comedian in the U.K.
It’s Andrew Doyle.
Because they also believe that they will never suffer under that system because they will be in charge.
Leftism is about accumulation of power. Which is why they study what they term, “systems of power and oppression.”
Not because they want to alleviate suffering, but because they want to cause it.
Mark Levin is going crazy on Durante for about the full half hour beginning.
SMH
After talking to my brother-in-law extensively, it’s simply whatever it takes to justify the Democrat party which means central planning and government force. More nonpublic goods. So they will do or say anything including creating social problems or lying about them. Then they get some kind of central planning racket they make money off of.
Minnesota just had a gigantic food security NGO blow up. Millions and millions of dollars for what is supposed to go to poor kids that have parents that can’t cook for them.
I think you mean they won’t cook for them.
It is the damnedest subject that doesn’t get enough attention. Why in the hell doesn’t a welfare check and a social worker get this covered? Isn’t that the way this used to work? Now we have to have all of these Soviet food delivery systems like 365 days a week feeding the kids at schools and then these separate NGOs.
They keep pushing for this thing called “full-service schools” here. It’s basically all of these extra positions at schools to make up for failing families, including feeding them 365 days a year. They act like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I just recently found out that the federal government spends 30 million a year on it in some way. They have never gotten it going permanently in Minnesota anywhere.
The guy who created Titania sucked in a lot of people on Twitter before he outed himself.
Titania’s Twitter feed is a must. The guy who writes it is brilliant.
Womynx? Wo-MYNX??? How many feminists are lovin’ being called Wo-mynx?!
Why, you little minx, you. Sounds kind of naughty, doesn’t it? Like some sexual objectification going on?
We are not a serious country (h/t: Powerline series).
This was insightful. I’ve read a bit about the topic before, but you added good points.
So, should I stop using the term “Gyno-American”?