The day after my last posting, I listened to this conversation of the Duran: Trump, Vance, Kellogg test Putin’s restraint and Russia’s Red Line. It provides excellent additions to my analysis with a set of great questions about the sanity and integrity of the Western leadership.
As I was listening to it, I started to consider the corrosive effect of the United States and the various secret services trying to manipulate elections around the world, deposing leaders and assassinating adversaries of any kind.
In the past 50 years, The United States of America was involved in 28 regime change operations. Only two of those were authorized by congress, and not even those two were formally declared wars.
These operations don’t include the rather difficult to count assassinations. Most are happening in secret, but some are brazen enough to make the news, such as the recent assassination attempt of Ali Shamkhani by Mossad.
None of this should be news to anybody.
Collectively, we consider it all OK, as we apply the Harry Tasker principle: “yeah, but they were all bad”
Collectively, we delegated these highly questionable decisions to secretive and corruptible organizations. We are way passed “my country right or wrong”; we are deep into “my side first, at whatever the cost” territory. We are not only tolerating but worshiping power over reason and our own supposed norms.
All of this is happening in front of a cultural background I exposed in my post “Bang bang, you shut me down...”, showing how popular culture embraced the Harry Tasker principle; the acceptance of the idea that power is the only true arbiter of morality.
Another layer is the embrace of moral relativism through postmodernism and its derivatives, like critical race theory, DEI and ‘wokeism’, the concepts suggesting that feelings and narratives matter more than reality.
The combined effects of these layers of moralizing relativism are impossible to avoid.
They reinforce and amplify each other. They are corrupting us, our cultures and civilizations.
They have corrosive effects on our psyche and our understanding of morality.
If it is OK to lie, cheat and even murder our designated enemies abroad, why shouldn’t we do it at home?
If it is OK to manipulate and steal elections abroad, why shouldn’t we do it at home?
If it is OK to spy on politicians around the world, why not at home?
If it is OK to spread propaganda around the world, why not at home?
If it is OK to lie to our enemies why not to our friends?
All we need to do is designate our targets “BAD”, fascist, misogynist, deplorable, far-right racists to be morally justified to do anything to them.
Charlie Kirk was assassinated because he stood up against this moral relativism and the powers representing them[i]. He was killed for it, proving just how deep the corruption already goes.
It is moral corruption that is killing Western civilization
…and this is where this all gets personal to me.
Cognitive dissonance and integrity.
When I finished listening to the Duran (which I, again, highly recommend) the Youtube algorithm gave me a conversation between Jordan B. Peterson and Gad Saad. In section four, titled “Why people fall into and defend cognitive dissonance?”, Gad Saad said the following:
“You know, I was asked on a show about a year ago, of all of the human phenomena that I’ve studied in my life or I’m aware of, which is the one that has surprised me the most about human nature.
I paused for a second and I answered the inability of people to change their minds despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Justin Trudeau comes in, he does a disastrous job. What do Canadians do? Reelect him. That that’s not enough. Let’s do it a third time. Then he steps down. Maybe it’s time now to do some autocorrection. What do Canadians do? They reelect the party that put them in the position that we’re in right now. So I think that that answer that I gave, it was a British psychiatrist who was hosting me. I think it’s that much more apropos today. It is almost impossible to get someone to change their opinions once it is anchored solidly into their personhood. So there you go.”
(Gad Saad in conversation with Jordan Peterson) (emphasis mine)
His point helped me realize the essence of a reaction to my last post.
In that post, I recalled a conversation that happened shortly after the start of the Russian “Special Military Operation”. (You can find it in the post under Personal side-step)
Next day I got an email from the subject of the comment expressing his shock about the rude expression of ‘hatred’ and ‘rage’ that I mustered to describe the conversation. I tried to explain myself, also assuring him of my friendship but it turned out to be akin to pouring gasoline onto fire.
This was not the first time that such thing happened to me. This is the second friendship that I am losing the same way and for the same reason.
Many years ago, I wrote three posts about the nature of truth prompted by a conversation on the subject.
The nature of truth - Oh truth, why is thy name reality? - Truth can be absolute
We finished our debate me thinking that I may have gotten through to him. Not convincing him entirely but at least seeing and appreciating my perspective.
We were exchanging emails occasionally and even getting together time to time.
At some point he sent me an email with some of his ideas that I found seriously wanting in reason and coherence. It was just messy thinking, and I answered back explaining why. He got worked up exactly the same way as my friend in the recent incidence. He considered my answer condescending and demanded an apology for ‘lecturing’ him.
Neither of these two guys addressed the subject of our conversation. Both treated my disagreement with their position as an assault on their person. An assault on their integrity. Just as Gad Saad pointed out in the quote above. In both cases, I touched upon something that goes beyond reason. Something that is “anchored solidly into their personhood.”
How could I possibly explain to them that dogmatism is not integrity? That the ability of changing their minds when facing new evidence is a strength and not a weakness?
Of course I cannot. Such effort will always be seen as a further assault.
There is another, very personal, element in both cases: social status. Both of these ‘friends’ consider themselves to be above me in the social hierarchy. Disagreements with their ‘solidly anchored opinions’ were quite possibly seen as a challenge of their self-perceived top-dog status.
This dynamic can clearly be seen in most of the Charlie Kirk interactions. Most of his challengers present themselves with smug, self-perceived moral and intellectual superiority.
On a higher level, this is not different from American exceptionalism, the national sense of moral superiority, the source of the self-destructive arrogance corrupting our whole civilization.
We desperately need some good, Christian-like humility. The kind that Charlie Kirk was killed for having.
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[i] Yes, the formulation of this sentence intentionally leaves open the possibility that he was killed by a professional, not an amateur.
