http://survivalacres.com/blog/the-hard-road-ahead/#more-9244
Money will always rule the day. Last night, I got to watch “Who Killed The Electric Car?” on Netflix. It was interesting. The staggering levels of money required for car builders to “succeed” would blow your mind. Money is always in the way when you try to do the right thing because profits are deemed more essential then anything else.
You just can’t make this **** up .
“Less than a week since signing the global climate deal in Paris, Japan and South Korea are pressing ahead with plans to open scores of new coal-fired power plants, casting doubt on the strength of their commitment to cutting CO2 emissions.
Even as many of the world’s rich nations seek to phase out the use of coal, Asia’s two most developed economies are burning more than ever and plan to add at least 60 new coal-fired power plants over the next 10 years.”
http://www.dailysabah.com/asia/2015/12/15/japan-s-korea-plan-61-new-coal-plants-in-next-10-years-despite-global-climate-deal
This is a poor approach for sustainability, which implies conservation, preservation and the natural levels of replacement (the true meaning of renewable) of resources. The so-called “Green Economy” and all other things greenwashed is built upon an economic model of profits first and foremost, and preservation and sustainable ranks at the very bottom. In other words, it’s not really any different then any other economic model, just new nomenclature and glitzy advertising with feel-good overtones.
If you want feel-good and if you are easily deceived, you can try these techniques covered here: The Top Ten Reasons To Be Hopeful On Climate Change
It’s all bull**** of course, every single one of the “ten points” listed.
There seems to be an entire industry springing up around these ridiculous claims. Why not? Ultimately, this is profitable too.
The new mantra now rapidly developing is “hope and change” under the title of climate solutions. Sound familiar? It should, because it absolutely dominated U.S. politics a few years back… and it was of course, yet another lie by the established spinmeisters who knowing the dumbed-down levels of intelligence and awareness in the American population, wrung it all out and flung it into the public sphere again…
Will we never learn? Apparently not. I like to point to how history reveals what we are, who we are, what we embrace, what we don’t and so forth. Yes Virginia, we’re pretty stupid, even at the best of times, because we often repeat the same lies to ourselves.
So be it. I got really tired of being a fool so I set myself to try and understand the reality of the world. I know that (s)Election 2016 will be an unmitigated disaster because (s)Election 20XX has always been a disaster and using the historical trends of what’s occurring in this kountry, 2016 will bring forth a level of fascism that we’ve not seen since the 1940’s. But at no time will Amerika “solve” its energy use problem – or effectively deal with its fossil fuel consumption. We’re definitely NOT there yet, despite the “promises” being made now or the TED talks to convince you otherwise.
I suppose it’s high time I let some of my readers in on a little secret (if you’re still here of course). Ok, here it is:
There, I said it. The harsh truth is, despite all of the rhetoric, empty promises, hand-wringing and escalating angst, the Genie has been let out of the bottle and it’s unlikely as a snowball in hell that we can fix much of anything.
We do not know how to fix this. It’s quite uncertain that we can.
You have to look PAST the rhetoric to understand this, and the disinformation, and the denial, and importantly all the “missing” and non-reported factors at work. Yes, we can plant millions more trees – but that’s not going to solve the phytoplankton problem in the oceans. We can build those cool electric cars too – but it’s fossil fuels that actually build them and the plants their built in… however, we can’t replace the missing ice, or cap the sea bed, or cool the oceans or even extract the C02 from the atmosphere, or stop the “unstoppable” catastrophic melt of Antarctica or Greenland now. It’s too f’ing late – get it?
There are several hundred, if not thousands of these issues all directly related to the unstoppable feedbacks that we keep contributing to, one way or another. Civilization IS the problem, and it will ALWAYS be the problem, and it is deeply embedded with our overpopulation problem that everyone in power keeps pretending doesn’t exist because it would affect our growth economy so let’s not talk about the untouchable and instead
let’s congratulateone another that we’re finally talking about the problem and we promise that we’ll find the solutions in time before it’s too late and focus instead on oureconomy which is of course the most important thing for human survival and all this talk about the environment or habit is just all so much nonsenseafter all because humans can always come up with solutions which is what we’ve always done and we’re absolutely certain we can do this now of course too….
Our capacity for self-delusion is quite amazing. Well, maybe not… Consider how religion has polluted the world into believing incredible fantasies and you get the general idea at how easily deceived and manipulated we really are. After reading a lot of history and anthropology, I believe that this capacity for self-delusion is inherent within our species, and that it’s always been with us. It dates back as long as we have been in existence. Because of modern knowledge and developed science, we can look at the past and know that these superstitions were false (then and now), but this doesn’t stop the species from embracing them anyway. We’ve always done this.
This is the part I actually find amazing. Why did evolution bring forth such a destructive, deluded species? The question implies “intent” or “design” which I find no evidence of at all (and I looked for twenty years). Far more likely and true is “opportunity” of which there is ample evidence. Life always manages to find a way given opportunity. Our species arose within these opportunities through millennia, but carries within it a “stupid gene” (the name of which I don’t know, so I’m generalizing here). We still have it, obviously because our capacity of self-delusion and destruction and distraction remain. Big brains don’t always mean what everyone thinks…
Life on Earth evolved over eons of time. All living things are predatory (as far as I know), which is essential for survival. Taking from their surrounding environment, life exploits what it can in order to sustain itself. You will find this basic requirement in all life forms found on Earth, even in the deepest ocean trenches to the bacteria living in the air.
This need to exploit the natural world around itself has always been so. It is in fact the natural order of things for life on Earth.
In the advancement of time, evolution eventually created a rather unique species, homo sapiens sapiens. What is incredibly unique about our species is our ability to prey upon everything – living and non-living. We can take anything – rocks, dirt, trees, animals, plants, even the very air and exploit it to our advantage. However, we also seem to be completely blind at a fundamental level to the damage that this causes. Conceptually we understand it, but that’s not good enough as the record shows. Instead, we embrace self-delusion and distraction, we even react violently when provoked (and even when non-provoked) with escalating levels of destruction. No other species exhibits this stupidity. It’s a suicide-gene in reality, and perhaps that’s what it should be called. It’s certainly leading the entire species to extinction.
What is a true wonder is why did this happen? Why is their a form of life that can exploit virtually everything? Why is our species so capable of self-delusion and distraction? I ponder this question and am not ready to pose an answer. Clearly, our capabilities are evolutionary, so this may be the wrong question too. But it’s quite odd that a species would eventually arise, then dominate, then eventually manage to destroy everything including the water, soil, atmosphere and biota of the planet. Apparently, the opportunity existed, but it’s been a fateful one at that.
Not many people seem to be aware of the vast array of man-made chemical compounds we’ve released into the environment, or how we’ve changed the entire chemistry of the biosphere. We’re definitely unique in that dubious “skill”. A good read is “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman will give the reader a good understand of the fundamental changes humanity has made upon the earth, the vast, vast majority of which have occurred in the last 50 years or so.
I’ve long contended it doesn’t have to be this way – we didn’t have to drive the world into extinction, but we most certainly are. However, the world is (now) run by sociopaths and psychopaths and we’re doing next to nothing to stop them except pay them lip service when what we really need is a lot of rope. And I honestly do think it’s too late, too many gigantic errors have been made on a finite world. But my self-delusion is that we should still try despite the very low chances of success or salvation. Don’t give up. Ever. Why should we?
So in the daze ahead, realize that the media, what many call the “mainstream” (but now it’s even in the so-called “alternate news”) will pledge and promise and dance and contort for their few moments of glory with the message that we’re all going to be ok. And industry will jump on board in a BIG, BIG way now because their sniffing the money to come and they too will keep telling everyone how great they are and how much they care and they’ve got the answer we need. But in all this, never, ever forget that stupid gene we still carry, that suicidal tendency to ignore the reality of the world around us and how we are having a devastating impact upon planetary survival of the biosphere.
And of course, keep up on your reading. Science is literally “****ting in their pants” to quote Anderson, about what they’re discovering and the growing awareness of just how ****ed we really are. They’re scared, and they’ve been silent too long (or beholden to the grant money). Whatever it is, they’re starting to speak up a bit more now.
I’d like to see a crescendo of qualified expert voices start SCREAMING at the world if that’s what it takes. Approximately two years ago, I begged the readers and posters on Real Climate to do exactly that – and was declared an instant pariah, “unqualified” to “judge” or even comment. Hogwash. I’ve been right about everything so far. I’m not on anyone’s payroll and never have been. Being opinionated does not make me wrong. And I’m LONG past caring what other people think. My only horse in this race for survival is to hope for a livable, habitable future for my children which I have serious doubts about now. I truly believe with all of my being that the future is going to be a living hell for those that survive long. I’m doing what I can, where I can, but it’s admittedly not enough and never will be.
But I’m not giving up. Nobody should – it’s WAY too early for that. But the whole world needs to know the truth about all of this – and you’re NOT getting the whole truth yet. This is critically important – we have got to stop LYING about what’s going on. This is why I am so disgusted with deniers who are astoundingly ignorant beyond description. But they’re just a minor footnote – the real problem is our ongoing capacity for self-delusion and distraction. We’ve got a honest-to-goodness real planetary emergency on our hands affecting every single living thing on the planet – and we’re acting like children, we’d rather “play” and refuse to grow up and act responsibly.
This is insane behavior. This is suicidal. This is of course, absolutely unacceptable. But too few seems to realize the truth and what’s really at stake here. That message needs to change FAST.
It’s been said “we need a war footing to combat this emergency” – so why isn’t there one? It’s obvious that we have to change HOW we communicate – so where are the communicators?
Once again – only the SCIENTISTS can do this, precisely because they have the credentials, experience and breadth of understanding and knowledge required for the true message to be received. But it’s painfully clear that they lack the political leadership and maybe even the skills required to convey this message. I don’t know how to fix this, other then just urge them along at all possible speed. But my voice is unknown, unqualified and unrecognized – so if there are by chance, any of you out there that also feel the same way as I do – encourage the world’s scientists to step up to the plate on a national level and loudly declare an emergency for mankind. THIS IS URGENT!
SURROGATE ACTIVITIES
38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretensions; many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn’t need the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science. 39. We use the term “surrogate activity” to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the “fulfillment” that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito’s studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn’t know all about the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate activity, because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity.) 40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one’s physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence and, most of all, simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society takes care of one from cradle to grave. (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot take the physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here of mainstream society.) Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities. These are not always PURE surrogate activities, since for many people they may be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant social activism by hostility. But for most people who pursue them, these activities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, the majority of scientists will probably agree that the “fulfillment” they get from their work is more important than the money and prestige they earn. 41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the “mundane” business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.
THE NATURE OF FREEDOM 93. We are going to argue that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But, because “freedom” is a word that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make clear what kind of freedom we are concerned with. 94. By “freedom” we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one’s environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one’s own life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72). 95. It is said that we live in a free society because we have a certain number of constitutionally guaranteed rights. But these are not as important as they seem. The degree of personal freedom that exists in a society is determined more by the economic and technological structure of the society than by its laws or its form of government. [16] Most of the Indian nations of New England were monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance were controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies one gets the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom than our society does. In part this was because they lacked efficient mechanisms for enforcing the ruler’s will: There were no modern, well-organized police forces, no rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade control. 96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for example that of freedom of the press. We certainly don’t mean to knock that right; it is very important tool for limiting concentration of political power and for keeping those who do have political power in line by publicly exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of the press is of very little use to the average citizen as an individual. The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect. To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. If they had been been accepted and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers, because it’s more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people. 97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not serve to guarantee much more than what might be called the bourgeois conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception, a “free” man is essentially an element of a social machine and has only a certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are designed to serve the needs of the social machine more than those of the individual. Thus the bourgeois’s “free” man has economic freedom because that promotes growth and progress; he has freedom of the press because public criticism restrains misbehavior by political leaders; he has a right to a fair trial because imprisonment at the whim of the powerful would be bad for the system. This was clearly the attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people deserved liberty only if they used it to promote progress (progress as conceived by the bourgeois). Other bourgeois thinkers have taken a similar view of freedom as a mere means to collective ends. Chester C. Tan, “Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century,” page 202, explains the philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu Han-min: “An individual is granted rights because he is a member of society and his community life requires such rights. By community Hu meant the whole society of the nation.” And on page 259 Tan states that according to Carsum Chang (Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist Party in China) freedom had to be used in the interest of the state and of the people as a whole. But what kind of freedom does one have if one can use it only as someone else prescribes? FC’s conception of freedom is not that of Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The trouble with such theorists is that they have made the development and application of social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently the theories are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than the needs of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society on which the theories are imposed. 98. One more point to be made in this section: It should not be assumed that a person has enough freedom just because he SAYS he has enough. Freedom is restricted in part by psychological controls of which people are unconscious, and moreover many people’s ideas of what constitutes freedom are governed more by social convention than by their real needs. For example, it’s likely that many leftists of the oversocialized type would say that most people, including themselves, are socialized too little rather than too much, yet the oversocialized leftist pays a heavy psychological price for his high level of socialization.
INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CANNOT BE REFORMED 111. The foregoing principles help to show how hopelessly difficult it would be to reform the industrial system in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom. There has been a consistent tendency, going back at least to the Industrial Revolution for technology to strengthen the system at a high cost in individual freedom and local autonomy. Hence any change designed to protect freedom from technology would be contrary to a fundamental trend in the development of our society. Consequently, such a change either would be a transitory one—soon swamped by the tide of history—or, if large enough to be permanent would alter the nature of our whole society. This by the first and second principles. Moreover, since society would be altered in a way that could not be predicted in advance (third principle) there would be great risk. Changes large enough to make a lasting difference in favor of freedom would not be initiated because it would be realized that they would gravely disrupt the system. So any attempts at reform would be too timid to be effective. Even if changes large enough to make a lasting difference were initiated, they would be retracted when their disruptive effects became apparent. Thus, permanent changes in favor of freedom could be brought about only by persons prepared to accept radical, dangerous and unpredictable alteration of the entire system. In other words by revolutionaries, not reformers. 112. People anxious to rescue freedom without sacrificing the supposed benefits of technology will suggest naive schemes for some new form of society that would reconcile freedom with technology. Apart from the fact that people who make such suggestions seldom propose any practical means by which the new form of society could be set up in the first place, it follows from the fourth principle that even if the new form of society could be once established, it either would collapse or would give results very different from those expected. 113. So even on very general grounds it seems highly improbable that any way of changing society could be found that would reconcile freedom with modern technology. In the next few sections we will give more specific reasons for concluding that freedom and technological progress are incompatible.
REVOLUTION IS EASIER THAN REFORM 140. We hope we have convinced the reader that the system cannot be reformed in such a way as to reconcile freedom with technology. The only way out is to dispense with the industrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society. 141. People tend to assume that because a revolution involves a much greater change than reform does, it is more difficult to bring about than reform is. Actually, under certain circumstances revolution is much easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary movement can inspire an intensity of commitment that a reform movement cannot inspire. A reform movement merely offers to solve a particular social problem. A revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems at one stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the kind of ideal for which people will take great risks and make great sacrifices. For this reasons it would be much easier to overthrow the whole technological system than to put effective, permanent restraints on the development or application of any one segment of technology, such as genetic engineering, for example. Not many people will devote themselves with single-minded passion to imposing and maintaining restraints on genetic engineering, but under suitable conditions large numbers of people may devote themselves passionately to a revolution against the industrial-technological system. As we noted in paragraph 132, reformers seeking to limit certain aspects of technology would be working to avoid a negative outcome. But revolutionaries work to gain a powerful reward—fulfillment of their revolutionary vision—and therefore work harder and more persistently than reformers do. 142. Reform is always restrained by the fear of painful consequences if changes go too far. But once a revolutionary fever has taken hold of a society, people are willing to undergo unlimited hardships for the sake of their revolution. This was clearly shown in the French and Russian Revolutions. It may be that in such cases only a minority of the population is really committed to the revolution, but this minority is sufficiently large and active so that it becomes the dominant force in society. We will have more to say about revolution in paragraphs 180-205.
THE DANGER OF LEFTISM 213. Because of their need for rebellion and for membership in a movement, leftists or persons of similar psychological type often are unattracted to a rebellious or activist movement whose goals and membership are not initially leftist. The resulting influx of leftish types can easily turn a non-leftist movement into a leftist one, so that leftist goals replace or distort the original goals of the movement. 214. To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can’t have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can’t make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can’t have a “planned society” without the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because technology is too valuable a source of collective power. 215. The anarchist [34] too seeks power, but he seeks it on an individual or small-group basis; he wants individuals and small groups to be able to control the circumstances of their own lives. He opposes technology because it makes small groups dependent on large organizations. 216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When theBolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those of our universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else’s academic freedom. (This is “political correctness.”) The same will happen with leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if they ever get it under their own control. 217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most power-hungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with non-leftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double- crossed them to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists. 218. Various thinkers have pointed out that leftism is a kind of religion. Leftism is not a religion in the strict sense because leftist doctrine does not postulate the existence of any supernatural being. But, for the leftist, leftism plays a psychological role much like that which religion plays for some people. The leftist NEEDS to believe in leftism; it plays a vital role in his psychological economy. His beliefs are not easily modified by logic or facts. He has a deep conviction that leftism is morally Right with a capital R, and that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist morality on everyone. (However, many of the people we are referring to as “leftists” do not think of themselves as leftists and would not describe their system of beliefs as leftism. We use the term “leftism” because we don’t know of any better words to designate the spectrum of related creeds that includes the feminist, gay rights, political correctness, etc., movements, and because these movements have a strong affinity with the old left. See paragraphs 227-230.) 219. Leftism is a totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold. In part this is because of the quasi-religious character of leftism; everything contrary to leftist beliefs represents Sin. More importantly, leftism is a totalitarian force because of the leftists’ drive for power. The leftist seeks to satisfy his need for power through identification with a social movement and he tries to go through the power process by helping to pursue and attain the goals of the movement (see paragraph 83). But no matter how far the movement has gone in attaining its goals the leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a surrogate activity(see paragraph 41). That is, the leftist’s real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goal. [35] Consequently the leftist is never satisfied with the goals he has already attained; his need for the power process leads him always to pursue some new goal. The leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educated him. And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on and on and on. It’s not enough that the public should be informed about the hazards of smoking; a warning has to be stamped on every package of cigarettes. Then cigarette advertising has to be restricted if not banned. The activists will never be satisfied until tobacco is outlawed, and after that it will be alcohol, then junk food, etc. Activists have fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable. But now they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that they will want to ban something else they consider unwholesome, then another thing and then another. They will never be satisfied until they have complete control over all child rearing practices. And then they will move on to another cause. 220. Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose you instituted EVERY social change that they demanded. It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority of leftists would find something new to complain about, some new social “evil” to correct because, once again, the leftist is motivated less by distress at society’s ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions on society. 221. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts and behavior by their high level of socialization, many leftists of the over-socialized type cannot pursue power in the ways that other people do. For them the drive for power has only one morally acceptable outlet, and that is in the struggle to impose their morality on everyone. 222. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, are True Believers in the sense of Eric Hoffer’s book, “The True Believer.” But not all True Believers are of the same psychological type as leftists. Presumably a true-believing nazi, for instance, is very different psychologically from a true-believing leftist. Because of their capacity for single-minded devotion to a cause, True Believers are a useful, perhaps a necessary, ingredient of any revolutionary movement. This presents a problem with which we must admit we don’t know how to deal. We aren’t sure how to harness the energies of the True Believer to a revolution against technology. At present all we can say is that no True Believer will make a safe recruit to the revolution unless his commitment is exclusively to the destruction of technology. If he is committed also to another ideal, he may want to use technology as a tool for pursuing that other ideal (see paragraphs 220, 221). 223. Some readers may say, “This stuff about leftism is a lot of crap. I know John and Jane who are leftish types and they don’t have all these totalitarian tendencies.” It’s quite true that many leftists, possibly even a numerical majority, are decent people who sincerely believe in tolerating others’ values (up to a point) and wouldn’t want to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals. Our remarks about leftism are not meant to apply to every individual leftist but to describe the general character of leftism as a movement. And the general character of a movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in the movement. 224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist movements tend to be leftists of the most power- hungry type, because power-hungry people are those who strive hardest to get into positions of power. Once the power-hungry types have captured control of the movement, there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies that emerge, but they generally lose, because the power-hungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a strong power base. 225. These phenomena appeared clearly in Russia and other countries that were taken over by leftists. Similarly, before the breakdown of communism in the USSR, leftish types in the West would seldom criticize that country. If prodded they would admit that the USSR did many wrong things, but then they would try to find excuses for the communists and begin talking about the faults of the West. They always opposed Western military resistance to communist aggression. Leftish types all over the world vigorously protested the U.S. military action in Vietnam, but when the USSR invaded Afghanistan they did nothing. Not that they approved of the Soviet actions; but because of their leftist faith, they just couldn’t bear to put themselves in opposition to communism. Today, in those of our universities where “political correctness” has become dominant, there are probably many leftish types who privately disapprove of the suppression of academic freedom, but they go along with it anyway. 226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally mild and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism as a whole form having a totalitarian tendency. 227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still far from clear what we mean by the word “leftist.” There doesn’t seem to be much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented into a whole spectrum of activist movements. Yet not all activist movements are leftist, and some activist movements (e.g., radical environmentalism) seem to include both personalities of the leftist type and personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought to know better than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of leftists fade out gradually into varieties of non-leftists and we ourselves would often be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is or is not a leftist. To the extent that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined by the discussion of it that we have given in this article, and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment in deciding who is a leftist. 228. But it will be helpful to list some criteria for diagnosing leftism. These criteria cannot be applied in a cut and dried manner. Some individuals may meet some of the criteria without being leftists, some leftists may not meet any of the criteria. Again, you just have to use your judgment. 229. The leftist is oriented toward large-scale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to be for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically “enlightened” educational methods, for social planning, for affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and against violence, but he often finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the common catch- phrases of the left, like “racism,” “sexism,” “homophobia,” “capitalism,” “imperialism,” “neocolonialism,” “genocide,” “social change,” “social justice,” “social responsibility.” Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights, political correctness. Anyone who strongly sympathizes with ALL of these movements is almost certainly a leftist. [36] 230. The more dangerous leftists, that is, those who are most power-hungry, are often characterized by arrogance or by a dogmatic approach to ideology. However, the most dangerous leftists of all may be certain oversocialized types who avoid irritating displays of aggressiveness and refrain from advertising their leftism, but work quietly and unobtrusively to promote collectivist values, “enlightened” psychological techniques for socializing children, dependence of the individual on the system, and so forth. These crypto- leftists (as we may call them) approximate certain bourgeois types as far as practical action is concerned, but differ from them in psychology, ideology and motivation. The ordinary bourgeois tries to bring people under control of the system in order to protect his way of life, or he does so simply because his attitudes are conventional. The crypto-leftist tries to bring people under control of the system because he is a True Believer in a collectivistic ideology. The crypto-leftist is differentiated from the average leftist of the oversocialized type by the fact that his rebellious impulse is weaker and he is more securely socialized. He is differentiated from the ordinary well-socialized bourgeois by the fact that there is some deep lack within him that makes it necessary for him to devote himself to a cause and immerse himself in a collectivity. And maybe his (well-sublimated) drive for power is stronger than that of the average bourgeois.
