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Suicidalism By Eric S. Raymond esr.ibiblio.org | September 29, 2005 The most important weapons of al-Qaeda and the rest of the Islamist terror network are the suicide bomber and the suicide thinker. The suicide bomber is typically a Muslim fanatic whose mission it is to spread terror; the suicide thinker is typically a Western academic or journalist or politician whose mission it is to destroy the West's will to resist not just terrorism but any ideological challenge at all. But al-Qaeda didn't create the ugly streak of nihilism and self-loathing that afflicts too many Western intellectuals. Nor, I believe, is it a natural development. It was brought to us by Department V of the KGB,  which was charged during the Cold War with conducting memetic  warfare that would destroy the will of the West's intelligentsia to resist a Communist takeover. This they did with such magnificent effect that the infection outlasted the Soviet Union itself and remains a pervasive disease of contemporary Western intellectual life. Consider the following propositions:    There is no truth, only competing agendas.    All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West's history of racism  and colonialism.    There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.    The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable. [the origin of the left's anti-white Nazism]    Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal.    Poor criminals are entitled to what they take.    Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.    The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)    For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself.    But "oppressed" people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.    When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist's point of view, and make concessions. These ideas travel under many labels: postmodernism, nihilism, multiculturalism, Third-World-ism, pacifism, "political correctness" to name just a few. It is time to recognize them for what they are, and call them by their right name: suicidalism. Trace any of these back far enough (e.g. to the period between 1930 and 1950 when Department V was at its most effective) and you'll find a Stalinist at the bottom. Among the more notorious examples were:    Paul de Man - racist and Nazi propagandist turned Stalinist, and fonder of postmodernism;    Jean-Paul Sartre, who described the effects of Stalinism as "humane terror" and helped invent existentialism; and    Paul Baran, who developed the thesis that capitalism depended on the immiseration of the Third World  after Marx's immiseration of the proletariat failed to materialize. Al-Qaeda didn't launch any of these memes into the noosphere, but it relies on them for political cover. They have another effect as well: when Islamists characterize the West as "decadent", and is waiting to collapse in on itself at the touch of jihad, they are describing quite correctly and accurately the effects of Western suicidalism. Stalinist agitprop created Western suicidalism by successfully building on the Christian idea that self-sacrifice (and even self-loathing) are the primary indicators of virtue. In this way of thinking, when we surrender our well-being to others we store up grace in Heaven that is far more important than the momentary discomfort of submitting to criminals, predatory governments, and terrorists. The Communist atheists of Department V understood that Christian self-abnegation tends to inculcate a cult of self-sacrifice even among Westerners who are themselves agnostics or atheists.  All the propagandists had to do was make the case that the value of self-abnegation applies to culture as well as individuals. By doing so, they were able to entrench the idea that suicidalists  are morally superior to non-suicidalists. They did this so successfully that at least one major form of Western self-abnegation seems to have developed as a secondary phenomenon: "deep environmentalism". I can't find any sign that this traces back to the usual Stalinist suspects, but it is rather obviously a result of generalizing suicidalism not just to culture but to species. I think it's important to understand that, although suicidalism builds on some pre-existing pathologies of Western culture, it is not a native or natural development. It is an infection that evildoers and their dupes created and then spread as part of a war against the West; their goal was totalitarian control, and part of their method was to talk the West into slitting its own throat. Al-Qaeda's goal is the restoration of the Caliphate and the imposition of shari'a law on the West so that the Dar al-Harb is abolished and absorbed into the Dar al-Islam. In other words, totalitarian theocracy. Western suicidalists have transferred their allegience from Communism to Islamofascism without a hitch. They're doing their best to see that we lose - and their best is rather more effective than any bombing campaign. Thus, to defeat al-Qaeda,  stopping the suicide bombers is not  sufficient. We must recognize, condemn, and reject the suicide thinkers as well.

Good read.

Never really put much thought to the lasting effects of the culture war and propoganda after the 'war' ends. Ideologues live on and perpetuate the philosophy beyond the battle lines... this contributing to the social clashes within the borders of the enemy as it consumes itself.

The future is not looking so bright.

Good post.
Rings true that while the Soviet Union has collapsed, communists/socialists are still enemy number 1.
Muslim terrorists are just the "useful idiots"

And everybody that isnt stark conservative that reads this will toss it out the window.

this reminds me of the doctrines pioneered by the founders of the Frankfort School, the creators of PC to increase the spread of Communism back in the 1930's.  Their work has lived on.........

PC= suicidalism, have to remember that one next time I'm accused of not being PC.

Great post.

Really good read-and another thing about all the "philosophers" you mention-they all had long hair.

So... what says the night crew?

Has Western society lost its impulse for self-preservation? Have we become too feminized & passive to stand up to the challanges that lay before us? Is moral relativism the cancer that will eat us alive?      

Quoted: So... what says the night crew? Has Western society lost it's impulse for self-preservation? Have we become too feminized & passive to stand up to the challanges that lay before us? Is moral relativism the cancer that will eat us alive?

No - the enemy is within us.
Enemy within the gates - liberal/socialists only use this moral relativism as a weapon to erode our God and will to fight.
They seek to replace Him with a new deity - the all powerful State.

Quoted: So... what says the night crew? Has Western society lost it's impulse for self-preservation? Have we become too feminized & passive to stand up to the challanges that lay before us? Is moral relativism the cancer that will eat us alive?

I think that many are soft and lazy. They will bring the whole country down with them if they get the chance.

The current state of affairs has me to believe that there may have been something to the greeks that believed that the masses were unfit to partake in govt. The athenians found that they could vote themselves a free lunch, and they did. A sad situation indeed.

Quoted: Quoted: So... what says the night crew? Has Western society lost it's impulse for self-preservation? Have we become too feminized & passive to stand up to the challanges that lay before us? Is moral relativism the cancer that will eat us alive?       No - the enemy is within us. Enemy within the gates - liberal/socialists only use this moral relativism as a weapon to erode our God and will to fight. They seek to replace Him with a new deity - the all powerful State.

For non-religious folk, just replace God with natural law.

i think its a very interesting (and alarming) thought --not one i had seen put into words

thanks for the link

A good antidote for any memetic infection is "nothing is true"

yes, we have grown soft ,but when the call comes we'll snap to just like we always do. The strong will carry the weak as far as they can and hopefully they will have toughened up by the time they can be carried no further.One thing I have learned is to never underestimate the human spirit.

The average American has no idea what price has been paid for their freedom, that's why they give it up so freely.

There are a few of us old-fashioned men out here, raising sons to be men.

It isn't easy, as a matter of fact the feminized males are worse then the females, as if they need to castrate themselves.

This situation cannot last.  It may be the WOT will heat up in CONUS, or take your choice of economic troubles, earthquake, etc etc. but the time will come to either sound off like you have a pair or get a pair somewhere.  I almost hope it happens in my lifetime.

Ops

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: So... what says the night crew? Has Western society lost it's impulse for self-preservation? Have we become too feminized & passive to stand up to the challanges that lay before us? Is moral relativism the cancer that will eat us alive?       No - the enemy is within us. Enemy within the gates - liberal/socialists only use this moral relativism as a weapon to erode our God and will to fight. They seek to replace Him with a new deity - the all powerful State. For non-religious folk, just replace God with natural law.

Yes, natural law for the non-religious folks.
Thanks for the clarification.

Buncha 'tards. We have as much right to be here as anybody. Racism is universal. Go into any ethnic community and see.  Damn near everybody hangs with their own. America is the only country that embraces different cultures and ethnic groups. We deal with it. The rest of the world brags about their "homogenous cultures".

The problem with the "sleeping lion" that is modern America is that it has developed a bad case of narcolepsy.  9/11, bad as it was, was a discreet event without (to date) a follow up and without continuous stimulation of the worst kind, the lion just goes back to sleep, or at least most of it does.  The WOT is not real to most Americans.

If suicide bombers were blowing up buses, restaurants, etc. on a regular basis, Americans en masse might cowboy up and get with the program.  The Islamic fanatics may realize this and prefer to periodically "bitch slap" us in to consciousness and then let the beast nod off again and dream dreams of suicidalism.

Great post.

“If you wish to know the actual motive behind the egalitarians’ theories—behind all their maudlin slogans, mawkish pleas and ponderous volumes of verbal rat-traps—if you wish to grasp the enormity of the smallness of spirit for the sake of which they seek to immolate mankind, it can be presented in a few lines:" (Excerpt: Philosophy, who needs it?)

“When a man thinks he’s good—that’s when he’s rotten.  Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he’s done."

"But if a man knows that what’s he’s done is good?"

“Then he ought to apologize for it."

“To whom?"

“To those who haven’t done it.”   (Excerpt: Atlas Shrugged)

Both books are authored by Ayn Rand.  She immigrated over to the United States from Russia, and has had a handle on the PC BS before it was known as PC BS.  Most of her books were authored before I was born, and reading them now seems prophetic.  If anyone wants some info on suggested reading, feel free to IM me.

I had a 'composition' (read: bullshit) class that required alot of excerpting and reviewing of books of your choice.  I almost always chose Ayn Rand's works and similar excerpts as those above and was never scored highly on it.

I considered your posted article, and believe it to be spot-on.  

Along those same lines: The Final Phase