I had no idea that Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert (BAP) had cracked the top 150 on Amazon. No idea! Right now it is #3,872.
But that is what Michael Anton, of "The Flight 93 Election" tells us in a Claremont Review of Bronze Age Mindset. Anton got his copy from Curtis Yarvin, the software geek that wrote "Unqualified Reservations" as Mencius Moldbug. Of course, Anton has a bit of a struggle with BAPs Nietzschean view of the world. Whatabout a "stable, just, and lasting regime?"
And what exactly does BAP mean by "pirate?" Not, I assume, what they mean in The Pirates of Penzance when the hero got accidentally apprenticed to a pirate instead of a pilot. Hey, accidents happen. But still, this young man discovered, "it is a glorious thing to be a pirate king."
Anyway, I thought a bit about the "pirate" thing, because it really was shocking to read about in Bronze Age Mindset. And then I thought: Elon Musk. There's your modern pirate for you.
Elon Musk is a modern rascal, who is ruthlessly taking advantage of all the government money and investor money going, for solar cells, for electric cars, and even space rockets. But why? I think it is pretty obvious. Musk is from South Africa. If I were a native South African white like Musk I suspect I would say to myself and the world: screw you. Screw you vile hypocritical lefties that pitched me out of my homeland with all your sanctimony about apartheid. Hey, how did that turn out, down the road, with a murder rate at 36 per 100,000, which is positively medieval? So now I owe nothing to nobody. Scew you.
Ditto for any young man in the west today living under the sanctimonious racist twaddle of our globalist educated ruling class.
I was reading a biography of Nietzsche, written in 1940 by a man I respect, Crane Brinton, and it joins the chorus blaming Nietzsche for the Nazis.
And certainly there is plenty in Nietzsche that would suggest things to a Nazi-to-be. So, shall we bury Nietzche because he helped bad people have bad thoughts and so became "the Nazis' favorite intellectual?" Sure, if that's what floats your boat.
But I think that what Nietzsche is saying is that, if you think you can rationally philosophize your way to a stable, just, and lasting political regime you are smoking something. The truth is that the world is a shitshow. There is nothing stable and lasting, and probably if you try to make things stable and lasting you will cause instability. There is no such thing as justice, only injustice.
So, the truth about life, the universe, and everything is that we are winging it, always have and always will.
So, will the pirates of BAP enslave us all and bring on a new Dark Age? Maybe, but I don't think so, and not because I believe that BAP's pirates are any nicer that the pirates of old. It is because the modern era does not lend itself to ruthless political power.
Surely, the lesson of the Soviet Union and Maoist China mean that if they mean anything. The point of Marx was to prophesy that a ruthless movement of political action led by Educated Youth was the one thing needful to smash the bourgeoisie and prevent the "immiseration" of the working class in a new feudalism. How did that work out, Chuck? It was an absolute, pedal-to-the-metal, bloody disaster. Unequaled in history, I dare say.
So what do we learn from the disaster?
I think the lesson is that the modern movement of human rights, of ending slavery, of limiting the power of government and politics says nothing about us moderns being better and moral. It is because all these things assist in human flourishing.
Or, if you want me to get crude, the clunking fist of political power does not pay.
Not only that, but slavery does not pay. It is too hard to supervise, and the slaves don't work very hard, compared to wage labor.
And so, over the last half millennium, in fits and starts, we have entered a new era, where the old rules of power have been replaced with new rules.
Back in the 19th century the Fabians sneered at the capitalists forever asking: does it pay? But, of course they are fools for saying that. All "does it pay" asks is, are you throwing money down a rat hole by doing that? Because if you are, it could be that you are dumb or something.
But that is what the market economy is asking every moment. What is this product, this service worth to you? A lot? A little? More than yesterday? Less than yesterday? And what it means is that most everything can be worked out by the decisions of people to buy or not to buy interacting with other people. No clunking fist needed, but it really helps if you are trustworthy and the people you deal with are trustworthy too.
But that still leaves the question of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
As men, we can think of it this way. After we have provisioned and protected the women so they can put the next generation on the ground and get it off the nest, what then?
The fact is that men are programmed for adventure. Used to be the adventure of hunting megafauna until we killed them all. Then it was the adventure of protecting our food-growing land from the chaps next door.
So now what do we do? What is there in the world of risk, and adventure, and developing courage, and making a name for yourself?
I don't know and neither, I think, do you. But that is what the young'uns are trying to figure out. When they get it all figured out, I hope that they will go gently with racist sexist homophobes like me. But you never know.
But that is what Michael Anton, of "The Flight 93 Election" tells us in a Claremont Review of Bronze Age Mindset. Anton got his copy from Curtis Yarvin, the software geek that wrote "Unqualified Reservations" as Mencius Moldbug. Of course, Anton has a bit of a struggle with BAPs Nietzschean view of the world. Whatabout a "stable, just, and lasting regime?"
And what exactly does BAP mean by "pirate?" Not, I assume, what they mean in The Pirates of Penzance when the hero got accidentally apprenticed to a pirate instead of a pilot. Hey, accidents happen. But still, this young man discovered, "it is a glorious thing to be a pirate king."
Anyway, I thought a bit about the "pirate" thing, because it really was shocking to read about in Bronze Age Mindset. And then I thought: Elon Musk. There's your modern pirate for you.
Elon Musk is a modern rascal, who is ruthlessly taking advantage of all the government money and investor money going, for solar cells, for electric cars, and even space rockets. But why? I think it is pretty obvious. Musk is from South Africa. If I were a native South African white like Musk I suspect I would say to myself and the world: screw you. Screw you vile hypocritical lefties that pitched me out of my homeland with all your sanctimony about apartheid. Hey, how did that turn out, down the road, with a murder rate at 36 per 100,000, which is positively medieval? So now I owe nothing to nobody. Scew you.
Ditto for any young man in the west today living under the sanctimonious racist twaddle of our globalist educated ruling class.
I was reading a biography of Nietzsche, written in 1940 by a man I respect, Crane Brinton, and it joins the chorus blaming Nietzsche for the Nazis.
And certainly there is plenty in Nietzsche that would suggest things to a Nazi-to-be. So, shall we bury Nietzche because he helped bad people have bad thoughts and so became "the Nazis' favorite intellectual?" Sure, if that's what floats your boat.
But I think that what Nietzsche is saying is that, if you think you can rationally philosophize your way to a stable, just, and lasting political regime you are smoking something. The truth is that the world is a shitshow. There is nothing stable and lasting, and probably if you try to make things stable and lasting you will cause instability. There is no such thing as justice, only injustice.
So, the truth about life, the universe, and everything is that we are winging it, always have and always will.
So, will the pirates of BAP enslave us all and bring on a new Dark Age? Maybe, but I don't think so, and not because I believe that BAP's pirates are any nicer that the pirates of old. It is because the modern era does not lend itself to ruthless political power.
Surely, the lesson of the Soviet Union and Maoist China mean that if they mean anything. The point of Marx was to prophesy that a ruthless movement of political action led by Educated Youth was the one thing needful to smash the bourgeoisie and prevent the "immiseration" of the working class in a new feudalism. How did that work out, Chuck? It was an absolute, pedal-to-the-metal, bloody disaster. Unequaled in history, I dare say.
So what do we learn from the disaster?
I think the lesson is that the modern movement of human rights, of ending slavery, of limiting the power of government and politics says nothing about us moderns being better and moral. It is because all these things assist in human flourishing.
Or, if you want me to get crude, the clunking fist of political power does not pay.
Not only that, but slavery does not pay. It is too hard to supervise, and the slaves don't work very hard, compared to wage labor.
And so, over the last half millennium, in fits and starts, we have entered a new era, where the old rules of power have been replaced with new rules.
Back in the 19th century the Fabians sneered at the capitalists forever asking: does it pay? But, of course they are fools for saying that. All "does it pay" asks is, are you throwing money down a rat hole by doing that? Because if you are, it could be that you are dumb or something.
But that is what the market economy is asking every moment. What is this product, this service worth to you? A lot? A little? More than yesterday? Less than yesterday? And what it means is that most everything can be worked out by the decisions of people to buy or not to buy interacting with other people. No clunking fist needed, but it really helps if you are trustworthy and the people you deal with are trustworthy too.
But that still leaves the question of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.
As men, we can think of it this way. After we have provisioned and protected the women so they can put the next generation on the ground and get it off the nest, what then?
The fact is that men are programmed for adventure. Used to be the adventure of hunting megafauna until we killed them all. Then it was the adventure of protecting our food-growing land from the chaps next door.
So now what do we do? What is there in the world of risk, and adventure, and developing courage, and making a name for yourself?
I don't know and neither, I think, do you. But that is what the young'uns are trying to figure out. When they get it all figured out, I hope that they will go gently with racist sexist homophobes like me. But you never know.
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