Ch2b: The Frivolity of Opposing the Regime

In his "Gray Mirror" Curtis Yarvin argues against political involvement, because all political action ends up supporting the regime. In "#2b: negative causes are frivolous and doomed" he argues that dissident activity just ends up making the regime more powerful.

OK, so we are agreed that "people who volunteer for positive causes tend to be signing up to stroke their own vanity by serving unaccountable power." But whatabout noble dissidents? We are trying to #Resist! Right?

On the contrary, says Yarvin. "Resistance is useless—at best. In fact, you probably do more for the regime as a dissident than a volunteer." That's because the opponent of a regime almost always plays a cartoon villain. A regime has its narrative, and if you are opposing it you will almost certainly become its "stage villain." The example Yarvin proposes is:

It’s as you lived in 15th-century Paris and thought the Church was very corrupt and bad—but there was no alternative. You couldn’t be a cool Enlightenment philosophe or at least just a Protestant. Because it was the 15th century. And there weren’t even words for these things.

Back then, if you opposed "God, King and Church" there was only one role for you: Satan. Oops. The right thing to do would be to "invent Calvin or Voltaire," which would be something orthogonal to the regime narrative. Hey kids! Nothing to it!

So now Yarvin goes into the tall grass illustrating the three kinds of roles that dissidents play, and why they don't work.

Voyeur/Consumer This kind of person is like the sports fan watching TV. You can yell and scream all you like, but it doesn't make any difference. In fact, you are a consumer of political pornography, and pornography is a craft, not an art. You can get off on it, but it doesn't produce any children.

And this illustrates the difference between engagement and detachment. If you are detached you can appreciate the skill of the political porn craftsmen: how they stimulate the emotions.

Sucker/Saboteur This is the guy whose action has the opposite effect from the intended effect. The sucker is the guy that gets to play the stage villain in the regime morality play. Obviously, he is serving the regime, because he is proving to the multitude the truth of the regime's narrative. And so he is a saboteur, harming the cause of opposing the regime, because it is very hard to oppose the regime without becoming part of its morality play and playing the villain. And you know what always happens to the villain...

Player/Operator Here's the problem. If you decide to oppose the regime from outside you are helping the regime, because a regime needs enemies. Only when it is low on enemies does it resort to making them up, like "imaginary conspiracies, unstable teenagers, straight-out madmen, etc." Not to mention far-right white supremacists! So if you organize a cell to oppose the regime, you are doing it a favor. Hey, the regime should be paying you to oppose it! (Hmm. Doesn't the regime more or less "pay" BLM to oppose it?)

Then, of course you can infiltrate the regime and try to destroy it from within. But that doesn't work either. Yarvin quotes Vaclav Havel to the effect that once an opponent infiltrates the regime enough to do some damage he will either

be ejected by the power structure like a foreign organism, or he will be compelled to resign his individuality gradually, once again blending with the automatism and becoming its servant.

 In other words, the regime, like any organism, is programmed to keep itself alive. It detects foreign organisms and either kills them or neutralizes them. Which makes sense.

I suppose that what Curtis Yarvin is saying is that if you want to change the world you can't be playing the regime's game of power. You have to be playing another game. That, I think, is what Yarvin means by "detachment."

But whatabout successful revolutions? I suppose the main thing about them is that they happen when the regime runs out of money. As in France in 1789. As in Russia in 1917. As in Germany in the hyperinflation after World War I. And our regime hasn't run out of money. Not really close.

But then, I look at our present situation, and I'd say that the question of who is the regime and who isn't is a good question. Yes, you could say that the media, education, Hollywood, mega-corporations are all united. And they can cancel you at will. But, how powerful are they? Because they are involved in a game to fool the American people into thinking that down is up, that advocating for helpless victims is more than just the rulers dealing themselves a big helping of power, and not helping the victims one bit. When President Trump invokes our national heroes carved into the rock of Mount Rushmore, and making the Democrats and the media into cartoon villains, which is up and which is down?

And here's the thing that I come back to. All the great changes of the last 200 years have been effects of nobodies inventing new stuff that changed the world, completely orthogonal to the regime, and that took the regime by surprise. Maybe that is what Yarvin is talking about. If you are an Elon Musk building rockets to go to Mars, or Curtis Yarvin inventing a new software environment with his Urbit, there is no telling what the outcome might be.

And the politicians and regime supporters will be the last to know.

Ch2a: The Emptiness of Supporting Political Causes

In his "Gray Mirror" Curtis Yarvin argues against political involvement, because all political action ends up supporting the regime. In "#2a: positive causes are vain and unaccountable" he argues against  the nuts and bolts of pro-regime politics.

Let's put the three points down in order. Yarvin says that "[P]ositive causes that become popular tend to be" 

1. unaccountable (not selected for plausibility), 
2. vain (selected for creating a sense of power and importance), and 
3. sycophantic (reinforcing the regime).

Obviously, the nearest-to-hand example of this is climate change. For instance, if global warming is a problem we might fix it with "global carbon emissions control" at a cost of $50 trillion versus a program of "geo-engineering" that would cost $50 billion. Obviously, global carbon emissions control wins in a landslide because it is "elegant... expensive... and more popular" than a boring old cloud-seeding program.

And nobody would know if the program would work, anyway. But the attraction of carbon control is clear.

Obviously, when you say we should emit less carbon, what you objectively mean is that you support power in forcing everyone to emit less carbon.

Clearly, the attraction of climate change policy is that it is a fantastic ego trip, just like a big war. Wow! Imagine converting the whole economy to fighting carbon! It's almost as cool as FDR sending the Greatest Generation all across the world to fight Nazis and Japs.

And, of course, such a program is unaccountable. A better word would be to use Karl Popper's notion of a good scientific theory being "falsifiable." Climate change politics fails this test; it is unfalsifiable. It only asks you to believe. This would be rather like blaming witches because the milk turns sour. And suppose you kill half the women in the nation as witches and the milk is still sour? When do you decide that your politics isn't solving the problem?

Or, maybe higher temperatures are a good thing: "higher agricultural yields; better weather up north; insurance against the next ice age…" But really, where is the excitement in "higher agricultural yields." Who is going to peacefully protest for "higher agricultural yields?"

I'd say that all political causes are unaccountable, and that's probably the best argument for limited government. We are always being asked to buy a pig in a poke. Which form of government is best? Which program will work? Doesn't matter what it is, the advocates will continue to argue for it forever and the opponents will argue against it forever, and there will never be true evaluation of its benefits. Or,

As I write, exuberant volunteers are trashing historical monuments (X) to help protect the underclass (Y).

What could go wrong?

And we should be unsurprised, when we see these complex chains between X and Y, to find that X also has some more immediate effect Z—which expresses power. Z often involves punishing, humiliating, or otherwise chastising the enemies of the regime.

Yep. That is always the funnest part of politics. Chastising the enemies of the regime. Until the shoe is on the other foot, of course.

And that's the problem with a guy like me. I really don't want to teach those nice liberal ladies up the street a lesson. OK, I might like to show them how the statement "Science is Real" shows a lamentable ignorance about science.

But if everything comes down in the end to punishing the enemies of the regime, then ordinary people might wonder what use the regime is to them. I mean, if you are not into punishing, either on the front end or the back end, what is the point of politics and the power of the regime?

Maybe the best in life is to go off into a corner and invent a fusion-powered spaceship to fly to Mars. That wouldn't be unaccountable, because it would either work or not; it wouldn't be vain -- well, just a little bit; and it wouldn't be sycophantic to the regime -- why it might help people escape the regime. 

Ch2: The Emptiness of Political Action, For and Against the Regime

In the first chapter of his "Gray Mirror" Curtis Yarvin "marketed" his idea of "detachment." Now he's going to "argue" it, in "#2: The Action Imperative."

Kant, he says. The Categorical Imperative: that "everyone should act as if their actions formed a universal rule whose results are best for everyone." Early game theory. But suppose Kant was wrong?

Well, not exactly wrong. 

By default, you should still give up on politics, power, and even persuasion—because there is no obvious and realistic Kantian action...

You’re done trying to change the world. You quit that job. It didn’t seem to be working, anyway.

So what Yarvin is saying is that there is no action in politics that could form a universal rule whose results are the best for everyone. If that is true, then what?

Detachment. That's what.

Suppose you want to change the world, and you come up with an idea to change the world and you start to implement it. But there's a problem. There is no check and balance to make sure that you will actually change the world for the better. You idea is unaccountable. That is Bug One.

In fact, the way that politics works, the only ideas to change the world that get implemented are ideas that flatter the ambition and vanity and increase the power of the regime. And they have to be exciting. Who ever heard of a successful political idea that wasn't exciting? That's Bug Two.

So, the only useful ways to change the world are ideas that don't "generate power."

But whatabout an idea that "involves resisting an evil regime?" Problem is that you will almost certainly end up failing and adding to the power of the regime. This is called, in software development, "thrashing," trying to solve a bug without a strategy for solving it.

Actually, once you feel yourself thrashing, the right thing to do is always to step away from the keyboard—then lift or surf or run or something. There’s at least half a chance you’ll solve the problem before you get back.

I agree. Whether it's software or ideas. The best thing is to step away. Sooner or later your unconscious will solve the problem.

And, as a dissident, what is the point of adding to the power of the regime?

OK, let's put the arguments down in black and white:

On side A, we assert that positive causes are (a) unaccountable—not selected to be capable of achieving their ultimate goals; (b) vain—selected to maximize expression of power, real or apparent.

On side B, we assert that negative causes are (a) doomed—almost never capable of achieving even their proximate goals; (b) frivolous—selected to maximize their sense of excitement. 

Do you see why "detachment" is the answer? 

What Do Voters Want?

Well. We know what the experts want: they want to issue orders. And we know what the activists want: they want revolution, baby. That is clear from the last three months.

But what do the voters want?

Ah yes, but which voters?

Here's Theodore Dalrymple proposing that the Wokies, of which we've heard tell, are disappointed would-be politicians.

I think it is true that life is much more difficult for young people now than it was when I was a young person. On the one hand they seem to have (and expect) limitless choice and on the other they are facing severe limitations on job opportunities...

The problem is that, back in the day, a university education gave you a pretty good entry ticket into the elite. Back when Calvin Coolidge went to Amherst around 1890 the college knew it was educating future leaders, and many of Coolidge's fellow students went on to high-flying careers.

Of course, we are still carefully taught that a university education is a ticket to ride. Only it isn't.

So maybe it's a good thing that we now teach "activism." Which I would translate as teaching the kiddies how to play-act at revolution, baby.

Of course, the kiddies are not really supposed to burn down the cities. But then the folks that thought all this activism stuff up are not that bright. It's all supposed to keep the deplorable middle class under control. And so it does, in theory.

And what do voters want?

Yes, whatabout blacks and Hispanics? David Catron writes that

The latest Quinnipiac poll, for example, indicates that only 82 percent of African-Americans support Biden — 6 points below the 88 percent Clinton garnered during her failed campaign.

Whatabout Hispanics?

In 2016, Clinton won 66 percent of the Hispanic vote and Trump won 29 percent. Recent polls show Biden ... Biden garner[ing] only 59 percent while Trump w[ins] 39 percent.

So, does the BLM thingy rally black support? And what does it do to Hispanic support?

See, my theory of politics, my reductive Three Peoples theory, says that at some point victim minority groups get into the middle class and then identify with the nation rather than their ethnic group. When President Trump calls the father of a black kid shot by the CHAZ/CHOPpers in Seattle he is saying to African Americans everywhere that they count as Americans. Without the hyphen.

I think that, maybe, blacks and Hispanics are starting to seriously enter the middle class in battalion strength. If they are, then they are going to start voting Republican. And think of themselves as Americans. Because the natural "fake tribe" of the middle class is the nation.

Of courses, then there are educated white women, the ones with the #WeBelieve yard-signs. They are down for the movement, as this piece by a woman having a Satisfying Emotional Experience about Blackness and "corporate racism" attests. Talk to a tech billionaire and dollars to donuts his wife is a liberal.

Oh yeah. Whatabout deplorable white men without advanced degrees? I can't imagine what those voters want.

The President's Bully Pulpit and American Heroes

One thing that the whole George Floyd riots have taught us is that a lot of people don't know much about historee, as the song goes.

So I'd say that President Trump has a golden opportunity to visit a bunch of monuments and tell us why the American hero so honored is important to us. It ought to be pretty simple. Maybe it should be too simple so that liberals and The New York Times and the fact-checkers can amplify the whole thing by contesting the president's words.

First, the political heroes.

George Washington: Statue on Mount Rushmore. He did two important things. After winning the War of Independence, he went home to Mount Vernon. Then, after being elected two terms as President, he went home to Mount Vernon.

Hey President-for-life Xi! Hey President-for-life Putin! Cat got your tongue?

There is nothing more important than for politicians to put in a couple of terms and then go home. You are not that important, geniuses, and if you are stupid enough not to realize that then you are certainly someone that needs to be forced to retire.

Thomas Jefferson: Statue on Mount Rushmore. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. A magnificent proclamation.

Alexander Hamilton: Statue in Washington DC. This guy did so many things, including put an end to the political career of Aaron Burr. But the big thing was to set up the new nation's finances with the creation of the National Debt.

James Madison: Statue in Washington DC. He is considered the "father" of the US Constitution, perhaps the most amazing piece of statecraft ever. Yes, the ideas that went into the Constitution, like the separation of powers, were ideas developed over the previous century. But He Did It -- with the other delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Andrew Jackson: Statue in Washington DC. President Jackson was the guy that terminated the Second Bank of the United States and plunged the US into financial turmoil for a decade. Not good.

Abraham Lincoln: Statue on Mount Rushmore. He freed the slaves.

Then the ordinary nobodies that invented the modern era:

John D. Rockefeller: He brought safe illuminating oil to the masses and reduced the price of oil by 90 percent.

Andrew Carnegie: He founded the US steel industry and brought the price of steel down by two-thirds. This was particularly important for rails for railroads, since the old cast-iron rails had a way of breaking.

Thomas Edison: Yes, he invented the light-bulb, but also got electric generation off the ground. The importance of electricity to today's world is inestimable.

Wright Brothers: Developed and flew the first powered airplane.

Henry Ford: Brought the cost of personal transportation down to about one year's wages for the average worker. Never before in history had the common man been able to travel around needlessly.

J. Pierpont Morgan: Notable for his work in railroad bankruptcies, Morgan managed the Crash of 1907 and brought the US economy quickly back to life. Unlike the Federal Reserve in 1929.

And that's about where I'd stop. Because once you get to President Wilson, who got us into World War I instead of letting the European powers exhaust themselves into a tie, once you get to President Roosevelt, who got us into World War II by provoking Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor, once you get to the post WWII presidents you are talking politics not national heroes.

But I think that President Trump could do a lot worse than stop at the shrines of these heroes and eddicate the young'uns.

Who obviously, despite the expense of over $1 trillion a year on gubmit education, are obviously not well eddicated.

Three Peoples -- Script

Hello I'm Chris Chantrill. Let's look into my reductive theory of humans. I call it my Three Peoples theory.

It is an attempt to simplify human society as much as possible, but no further. I got the idea of the Responsible Self from Robert Bellah in his "Evolution of Religion." I got the idea of the Creative Self from Richard Florida in The Rise of the Creative Class.

I propose that there are three kinds of people in the world:

First, the People of the Subordinate Self. Call them slaves, serfs, workers, clients, marginalized, these are people that do not experience "agency." They are go-along-to-get-along people, villagers under the thumb of the big man, the serfs of the feudal lord, the factory workers of the corporate behemoth, the ward heelers of the precinct captain.  They attach themselves to a powerful patron in return for scraps from the lordly table. 

Next, the People of the Responsible Self. Call them commoners, citizens, middling sorts, "deplorables," these are people that believe they can understand the world and have a responsibility to do something about it. These are people that follow the rules, go to work, and obey the law.

Finally, the People of the Creative Self. These are people that want to live a creative life, maybe as a writer, an artist, a videographer, an activist, a revolutionary. They don't want to follow the rules, they want to discover new rules. They don't just want to go to work, they want to reinvent work. They don't just obey the laws; they want to make new ones. 

Of course, the world is much more complicated that that. But most of the time most people have difficulty imagining anyone different from themselves as anything but an enemy, in a crude "us" and "them" approach to life, religion, and politics. So, my Three Peoples is more sophisticated that the Us and Them world.

Using my Three Peoples theory I maintain that our modern politics is based upon a coalition between the People of the Creative Self and the People of the Subordinate Self against the People of the Responsible Self, in which the People of the Creative Self pose as the defenders and saviors of the People of the Subordinate Self.

The People of the Creative don't quite see it my way. They think of themselves as noble "Allies" of the "oppressed peoples" fighting against the domination and hegemony of the "white oppressors."

So I maintain that my reductive Three Peoples theory encourages people to imagine that, yes, there really are people different from me out there.

And if they are different, maybe they experience the world differently from me, and that's all right.

But let's understand how they experience the world differently, in their religions, up next.

I'm Chris Chantrill, and thanks for watching.

Activism Culture -- Script

Hello, I'm Chris Chantrill. Let's talk about what I call Activism Culture.

I experience the Left not as a glorious progressive movement, but as a lurch back to the past, even to primitivism. 

I take a high tone with "activists," for I regard

activism [as] a return to revolution, rioting for the ruling class, part medieval knight-errantry, and part activisme, or gentry kids putting on a school play for their parents;

Our modern activists are not really revolutionaries fighting for the powerless against the powerful; they are fake revolutionaries, the stooges of the ruling class. The tip-off is the remarkable indulgence that our rulers have for left-wing "peaceful protest." Real revolutionaries get roughed up by the police, and sent to jail or exile.

So I say that today's activists are actors, play-acting revolution for the benefit of the ruling class and helping the ruling class advance its agenda with an AstroTurf version of revolution.

It all makes sense. Your lefty activist goes to college not for an education but a boot camp in Activism. He or she learns how to make non-negotiable demands, and how to organize a "peaceful protest." Hey, the Drill Instructors -- er, professors -- demand that you actually think up and enact a protest, perhaps against some visiting far-right speaker, in order to get your degree.

Thus, I would argue, the university has really become an activism seminary, training young activists to become the priests of the state church of activism. 

This is not remarkable. Back in the day, universities were built by states like Britain to train priests in the state church so they would go out and teach ruling class wisdom. 

And in the United States the marquee colleges like Harvard and Yale were built by the Puritans to evangelize the faith.

It is almost as if there has grown up a literature of activism, like the medieval romances that celebrated the ruling-class knights, rough tough feudal thugs that wanted to be thought of as activists for Jesus Christ. Only now it is ruling-class activists wanting to be thought of as activists for the oppressed.

What’s the difference between an activist and a revolutionary? The activist is building his resume; the revolutionary is burning it.

The wages of Activist Culture is what I call the Great Reaction. The subject of our next exciting episode.

I'm Chris Chantrill, and thanks for watching.