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“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.” -- John Milton
It’s not unusual for me to obsess over a post that captures my interest. What’s quite unusual is for me to obsess over one comment in a post. But I think some comments are worthy of blazing curiosity. (At least that’s what I tell myself.)
Southern Pessimist mentioned two friends who are married lesbians:
We thoroughly enjoy their friendship but one of them has gone totally wacko. She deeply believes Trump is going to hunt down gay and lesbian couples and put them in prison. She and her partner have bought a home in Mexico and are moving there. I can’t believe there is any place on the planet more accommodating to gays than South Florida but she is terrified of what Trump will do.
His post made the main page and got 34 likes and counting, but I think he buried the lede.
I spent about a week trying to figure out that comment and here is what I came up with.
We will all die and we are cognizant that we will die. Without religion, without offspring, and without a deep love of tribe or country, what’s left to comfort you with your inevitable death? And without anything transcendent to believe in, what’s left? For many it’s a belief in an apocalypse or politics, sometimes it’s both.
Nietzsche explains the need for suffering in order to obtain meaning quite well.
As he explains, man is a sick animal; he alone among the animals needs a goal in order to live. Ascetic or otherwise self-denying belief systems provide that goal. “Man would rather will nothingness than not will,” Nietzsche explains.
How does self-denial provide meaning? “By being energetically wearied with himself, and even wounding himself, man is compelled to live.” It sounds counterintuitive, but self-denial gives meaning. Writing almost 140 years ago, Nietzsche points to manifestations of this self-abnegation familiar to us today: in the “hatred of the human” and in a “fear of happiness and beauty.” In other words, belief systems that deny happiness, peace, and prosperity provide those who adhere to them with the spiritual fulfillment that they seek.
This perspective helps us make sense of why the myriad manifestations of wokeness today appear more interested in ritual and signaling than in the actual impact of policies. If Black Lives Matter supporters truly cared about black lives, they would be demanding more police presence in black neighborhoods, not less.
Believing that Trump (ironically, one of the two most pro-gay presidents in American history) wants to kill or imprison homosexual couples gives meaning to their lives. A perverse meaning, to be sure, but meaning nonetheless. Strangely, this desire to be oppressed only happens in a decent and tolerant society.
If this were the 1950s America or a Muslim country today, this lesbian couple couldn’t afford their beliefs. In a similar fashion, children of super-rich people who are secular tend to be Marxists because they can afford nonsense beliefs that spiritually fulfill them.
Now, modern Marxism (Wokism) doesn’t make people very happy. Wokists are similar to the most miserable type of Christian imaginable, one constantly hating this or that group of people. I recall in Angela’s Ashes a Catholic in Ireland watched a lovely Protestant family enjoying Christmas Eve through a window as he was working as a mailman. Watching a happy Protestant family celebrating Christmas day, he thought to himself, “How can these Protestants be so happy? Don’t they know they are going to hell?”
I suppose the lesbian couple described by Southern Pessimist is thinking to themselves whenever they see a gay couple at a Trump rally, “Don’t they know they are going to a camp?”
Hell is extremely satisfying to many people. The idea that your group belongs to a special elect and everyone else is bound towards eternal torment because they aren’t part of your group has a definite appeal. Just being aware of hell gives you a gnostic superiority above the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd.
There is an idea among some joyless people of various faiths that this world is so sinful that if you are happy, you are doing something wrong. In the more extreme versions of Wokism, if you are successful and happy, you are part of an evil and racist system. You have to be oppressed to be a good person.
Some Christians are so convinced that the world will end in their lifetime that they don’t save money. On the opposite side of the same coin, I knew one lesbian couple who got divorced because the crazy woke half of the couple believed that the world was going to end, so she wanted to invest in an underground bunker while she took herb-gathering classes to survive the apocalypse.
I can’t be sure but I don’t think people are superstitious or irrational because of Wokism or other religions. I think people are naturally superstitious and irrational, and they channel that energy into Wokism and other religions. I do think that Wokism is among the worst of religions and it makes people unhappy.
I predict that we are past peak Wokism. Wokism is seawater for the soul. Men dying of thirst sometimes resort to drinking seawater to quench themselves, but in the end, it only makes them even thirstier. So thirsty they cannot even move. On occasion, some good Samaritans find such a man and give him water to restore his life. I hear it’s about as impressive as a healing potion from high fantasy.
It is up to us to offer the waters of the best of Western Civilization to those sick with seawater-drenched souls.
Discussion (11)
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Pessimism is easier than optimism.
Being poor is easier than earning wealth.
Add in ego, shame, jealousy to one's condition or conditions and They can get creative.
Pessimists will fabricate a belief to make Them better than optimists, instead of accomplishing feats which would make Them optimists.And shout it from the rooftops.
The poor will fabricate a belief to make Them better than the wealthy, instead of accomplishing feats that would make Them wealthy. And shout from the rooftops.
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Normal mores and normal expectations about sex have been suppressed by the sheer inertia of a narcissistic age. Those who live in open rejection of all that went before may have a persistent fear that if and when normality and natural law returns, it will be in a vengeful form.
Chrisopher Lasch opined that the absence of fathers for many kids caused them to form a less human superego. Instead of a father who corrects and forgives, there is instead an image like an Old Testament figure poised in shadow to eventually punish sustained self-indulgence unless kept forever at bay.
It is ironic to the point of satire that Donald Trump is seen as the personification of traditional morality or its avenging angel.
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Any color can be created with red, blue, and green light. Too many women writers think you can make any color of human emotion from rage, smugness, and self-pity. So many times I read an article from the Washington Post or the Atlantic, and I can count them down, one by one.
"I look at the lamentable state of womankind after the defeat of 2024 and I am SO DAMN ANGRY at what this lying hoax of a "free country" does to black and brown bodies!" That's the rage.
"Women, especially women of color, are the best educated segment of society, accustomed to leadership, ready to play their usual role as America's saviors..." There's the smugness.
"unable to fully internalize our world of hurt, of the atomization of our polity, we are like wounded children, seeking out solace that does not exist, crying for succor that never arrives..." And that's the self-pity.
Let's laugh it up at their expense. They richly earned it. But let's not kid ourselves that all of us are strangers to that way of thinking. I've seen right wing rage, smugness and self-pity as well. Thank God, far less often. But it's there.
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But my rare instances of self-pity involve erudite quotes, wit and clever cultural references so I think my smugness is vastly more justified and qualitatively different from that of feminized lefty hysteria.
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Last night I saw the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. My brother and I had been talking about why the popular music today was so lamentable and forgettable earlier in the evening. In the movie, you saw the music of the time changing in the face of budding political activism, the civil rights movement and the youth movement. You saw the tremendous creativity that arose from the music houses and counter culture. We can argue about whether the young people were dupes and pawns in larger political struggles (of course they were), but what was clear was that they were drawn to the great struggles of our time. And they were great struggles-civil rights, the women's movement, the threat of nuclear war. The youth were not afraid to express themselves, they did not seek safe spaces, they were the rebels, not the mainstream.
The great struggles that the young are drawn to today-systemic racism, climate change, oppression of women -are largely manufactured; the rage, smugness and self-pity that @GaryMcVey mention above seem performative rather than sincere. They spout them to gain favor in academia and social media. As the OP states, they give meaning to lives that have none. The kids who spout them are not brave, but afraid.
Is it any wonder then that this environment has produced soulless music. Communist countries with these same characteristics also produced soulless music. Yes, there are some catchy tunes largely about women's empowerment and narcissism, but they fail to inspire. I know that every generation poo poos the music of the previous generation, but the statistics that today's popular music represents only 5% of the music streamed seem to indicate that this time we might be right.
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