ARE LEFTISTS RADICALS AND REFORMERS ALL CRAZY? Are they jealous ANARCHISTS seeking to tumble what they can never have as they're dumb, disorganized and destined to be slaves? Analysis of the Psychology of Radicalism & MODERN LEFTISM
Anarchism
and the Politics of 'Ressentiment'*
French word meaning ‘jealousy of the haves
by the have-nots.' 
So
the MOTHER of our word RESENTMENT!
by Saul Newman
"A word in the ear of the psychologists, assuming they are inclined to study ressentiment close up for once: this plant thrives best amongst anarchists...." *word invented by Nietzsche
Your NEXT favorite
book is going to be FINLAND
Station by Edmund Wilson, Scott Fitzgerald's
personal conscience, friend and editor. This book is a personable, interesting
study of the childhoods of the great
radical leftists Marx, Lenin,
Michelet,Bakunin, Engels, Trotsky, (mainly martyrs,) and a dozen others, Heroes of the last five hundred
years. The author goes over their bios very carefully, showing what made them rise
up against corrupt royalty with a fist and invariably end up either
poor, dead or in jail. PRIMARILY, they hated their FATHERS! But not always. Here's
a take on that theme which I FOUND online. It tells us that THE INTERIOR
OF THE RADICAL MIND is different from our own. The FIRST
HALF of article below is from Frederich NIETZSCHE, the second half's author
is very famous & now in prison,
but
he is a unique man, even in the annals of this GROUP of unique men,
all dedicated reformers, not really anarchists, at all. Someone should
write the book that has all these head trips studied, but a 'combined system
analysis' or 'psych and theory both, investigation.' The psychiatric
and the sociological and the biographical as well as historical context
of this millieu would make a great three man stage play. Get a conversation
going between any of our hero leftists. Edmund Wilson, went on to study
a lot of more modern writers/ authors, Dickens,a humanist, GB Shaw a socialist,
in his book of essays. Get that book. It is excellent. Who else does what
he does? ANALYZE the heads of great men with a lice comb?
1. Of all the nineteenth century political movements that Nietzsche decries -- from socialism to liberalism -- he reserves his most venomous words for the anarchists. He calls them the "anarchist dogs" that are roaming the streets of European culture, the epitome of the "herd-animal morality" that characterizes modern democratic politics. Nietzsche sees anarchism as poisoned at the root by the pestiferous weed of ressentiment -- the spiteful politics of the weak and pitiful, the morality of the slave. Is Nietzsche here merely venting his conservative wrath against radical politics, or is he diagnosing a real sickness that has infected our radical political imaginary? Despite the Nietzsche's obvious prejudice towards radical politics, this paper will take seriously his charge against anarchism. It will explore this cunning logic of ressentiment in relation to radical politics, particularly anarchism. It will attempt to unmask the hidden strains of ressentiment in the Manichean political thinking of classical anarchists like Bakunin, Kropotkin and Proudhon. This is not with the intention of dismissing anarchism as a political theory. On the contrary I argue that anarchism could become more relevant to contemporary political struggles, if it were made aware of the ressentiment logic of its own discourse, particularly in the essentialist identities and structures that inhabit it.
Slave
Morality and Ressentiment
2.Ressentiment is diagnosed by Nietzsche as our modern condition. In order to understand ressentiment, however, it is necessary to understand the relationship between master morality and slave morality in which ressentiment is generated. Nietzsche's work On the Genealogy of Morality is a study of the origins of morality. For Nietzsche, the way we interpret and impose values on the world has a history -- its origins are often brutal and far removed from the values they produce. The value of 'good', for instance, was invented by the noble and high-placed to apply to themselves, in contrast to common, low-placed and plebeian. It was the value of the master -- 'good' -- as opposed to that of the slave -- 'bad'. Thus, according to Nietzsche, it was in this pathos of distance, between the high-born and the low-born, this absolute sense of superiority, that values were created. However, this equation of good and aristocratic began to be undermined by a slave revolt in values. This slave revolt, according to Nietzsche, began with the Jews who instigated a revaluation of values:
3. It was the Jews who, rejecting the aristocratic value equation (good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = blessed) ventured with awe-inspiring consistency, to bring about a reversal and held it in the teeth of their unfathomable hatred (the hatred of the powerless), saying, 'Only those who suffer are good, only the poor, the powerless, the lowly are good; the suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly, are the only pious people, the only ones, salvation is for them alone, whereas you rich, the noble, the powerful, you are eternally wicked, cruel, lustful, insatiate, godless, you will also be eternallywretched, cursed and damned!'....
4. In this way the slave revolt in morality inverted the noble system of values and began to equate good with the lowly, the powerless -- the slave. This inversion introduced the pernicious spirit of revenge and hatred into the creation of values. Therefore morality, as we understand it, had its roots in this vengeful will to power of the powerless over the powerful -- the revolt of the slave against the master. It was from this imperceptible, subterranean hatred that grew the values subsequently associated with the good -- pity, altruism, meekness, etc.
5. Political values also grew from this poisonous root. For Nietzsche, values of equality and democracy, which form the cornerstone of radical political theory, arose out of the slave revolt in morality. They are generated by the same spirit of revenge and hatred of the powerful. Nietzsche therefore condemns political movements like liberal democracy, socialism, and indeed anarchism. He sees the democratic movement as an expression of the herd-animalmorality derived from the Judeo-Christian revaluation of values.Anarchism is for Nietzsche the most extreme heir to democratic values -- the most rabid expression of the herd instinct. It seeks to level the differences between individuals, to abolish class distinctions, to raze hierarchies to the ground, and to equalize the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor, the master and the slave. To Nietzsche this is bringing everything down to level of the lowest common denominator -- to erase the pathos of distance between the master and slave, the sense of difference and superiority through which great values are created. Nietzsche sees this as the worst excess of European nihilism -- the death of values and creativity.
6. Slave morality is characterized by the attitude of ressentiment -- the resentment and hatred of the powerless for the powerful. Nietzsche sees ressentiment as an entirely negative sentiment -- the attitude of denying what is life-affirming, saying'no' to what is different, what is 'outside' or 'other'. Ressentiment is characterized by an orientation to the outside, rather than the focus of noble morality, which is on the self. While the master says 'I am good' and adds as an afterthought, 'therefore he is bad'; the slave says the opposite -- 'He (the master) is bad, therefore I am good'. Thus the invention of values comes from a comparison or opposition to that which is outside, other, different. Nietzsche says: "... in order to come about, slave morality first has to have an opposing, external world, it needs, psychologically speaking, external stimuli in order to act all, -- its action is basically a reaction." This reactive stance, this inability to define anything except in opposition to something else, is the attitude of ressentiment. It is the reactive stance of the weak who define themselves in opposition to the strong. The weak need the existence of this external enemy to identify themselves as 'good'. Thus the slave takes 'imaginary revenge' upon the master, as he cannot act without the existence of the master to oppose. The man of ressentiment hates the noble with an intense spite, a deep-seated, seething hatred and jealousy. It is this ressentiment, according to Nietzsche, that has poisoned the modern consciousness, and finds its expression in ideas of equality and democracy, and in radical political philosophies, like anarchism, that advocate it.
7. Is anarchism a political expression of ressentiment? Is it poisoned by a deep hatred of the powerful? While Nietzsche's attack on anarchism is in many respects unjustified and excessively malicious, and shows little understanding of the complexities of anarchist theory, I would nevertheless argue that Nietzsche does uncover a certain logic of ressentiment in anarchism's oppositional, Manichean thinking. It is necessary to explore this logic that inhabits anarchism -- to see where it leads and to what extent it imposes conceptual limits on radical politics.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~~^~~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~
Now, examine THE MIND OF AN ANARCHIST FRUITCAKE.
A friend of the philosopher writer R.K.MOORE sent
this article to him, RKM: " In all the furor over the Unabomber and his
manifesto (circa 1993) -- which was eventually published, in capitulation
to his bombing threat, as a supplement to the Washington Post—I was amazed
that apparently almost no one actually READ the manifesto, or if they did
they had little or nothing to say about it. Below, I have excerpted two
passages of special vitality.
Bear
in mind that this was NOT written by some right-wing fruitcake or ditto-head
demagogue, but rather by an ultra-radical biocentrist anarchist and enemy
of urban-industrialism and technology.
He
sees the ways in which the dysfunctional psychological attributes of typical
leftists act to abort or pervert their (ostensibly) noble purposes, and
how those same attributes foster statism and authoritarianism, even totalitarianism.
He may or may not prove to be correct about the fate of urban-industrialism
and technology (i.e. that it is doomed), and his style is blunt, but he
has said some insightful and riveting things in this essay—to which leftish
types should pay close attention, and should use as fuel for serious introspection.
Kaczynski’s
tract was, for me, the beginning of a 
process
of awakening and eventual dis-identification with the left. Over the next
decade I came to see identification with either right or left as an addiction,
and worse. The original green vision of “beyond left and right” came to
have real resonance (sadly, just as it was losing traction amongst the
greens themselves, as they yielded to a tide of conventional leftists and
“progressives”).
I
owe it all to Kaczynski, whose trenchant savagery was perhaps the only
thing that could have jogged me out of my self-satisfied intellectual torpor,
and prejudice.
Next,
for more scholarly/historic context, I reproduce a selection from Herbert
Schlossberg’s book Idols for Destruction (given in a letter to a
friend of mine). Schlossberg discusses Nietszche’s and Scheler’s “ressentiment”—the
basis, more abstractly, of much of what Kaczynski is talking about. After
that there is a brief clip describing Neitszche’s “underman”—also relevant.
The
only problem with all of this is that ressentiment—just like the Protestant
fundamentalist pathologies described in the Davis article, which precipitated
this—tends to be invisible to the very people who suffer from it. I’ve
found that people (including myself at one time) who consciously identify
with an ideology or orientation—commonly “right” or “left”, “conservative”
or “liberal”—almost invariably are in a pre-rational thrall, with areas
of cognition that are “off limits” to rational or super-rational appraisal.
In other words, that their orientations are rooted in prejudice. Thus they
cannot see in a self-critical way. In evolutionary psychological
terms they are informed by deeply-embedded “dominant” or “counter-dominant”
tendencies, as described in this remarkable, must-read article: Injustice,
Inequality and Evolutionary Psychology, by Bruce G Charlton -
http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/evolpsych.html
http://solutions.synearth.net/2002/09/16
http://solutions.synearth.net/2002/09/17
http://solutions.synearth.net/2002/09/18
http://solutions.synearth.net/2002/09/19
SO,
without further ado, here’s Kaczynski, followed by Schlossberg/Scheler/Neitszche...
The
Unabomber’s Manifesto:
Industrial
Society And Its Future
Introduction
The
Psychology Of Modern Leftism (6-9)
Feelings
Of Inferiority
Oversocialization
(24-32)
The
Power Process
Surrogate
Activities (38-41)
Autonomy
Sources
Of Social Problems (45-58)
Disruption
Of The Power Process In Modern Society How Some People Adjust (77-86)
The
Motives Of Scientists
The
Nature Of Freedom (93-98)
Some
Principles Of History
Industrial-Technological
Society Cannot Be Reformed (111-113)
Restriction
Of Freedom Is Unavoidable In Industrial Society
Technology
Is A More Powerful Social Force Than The Aspiration For Freedom
Simpler
Social Problems Have Proved Intractable (136-139)
Revolution
Is Easier Than Reform
Control
Of Human Behavior (143-160)
Human
Race At A Crossroads
Human
Suffering (167-170)
The
Escape
Strategy
(180-206)
Two
Kinds Of Technology
The
Danger Of Leftism (213-230)
Final
Note
6.Almost
everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society.
One
of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is
leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction
to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.
7.But
what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism
could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement
is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist.
When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists,
collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability
activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is
associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying
to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology
as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus,
what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our
discussion of leftist psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)
8.Even
so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we
would wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for this.All we are
trying to do is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological
tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism.
We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology.
Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave
open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied
to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century.
9.The
two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call
“feelings
of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic
of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic
only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly
influential.
FEELINGS
OF INFERIORITY
10.By
“feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the
strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem,
feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred,
etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly
more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining
the direction of modern leftism.
11.When
someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him
(or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority
feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority
rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose
rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate
minorities. The terms “negro,” “oriental,” “handicapped” or “chick” for
an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory
connotation. “Broad” and “chick” were merely the feminine equivalents of
“guy,” “dude” or “fellow.” The negative connotations have been attached
to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights advocates
have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” and insist on its replacement
by “animal companion.” Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid
saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted
as negative. They want to replace the word “primitive” by “nonliterate.”
They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive
culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive
cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity
of leftish anthropologists.)
12.Those
who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not
the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled
person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to
any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political
correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure
employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual,
white males from middle-class families.
13.Many
leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that
have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent
(homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that
these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that
they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these
groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest
that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about
leftist psychology).
14.Feminists
are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable
as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong
and as capable as men.
15.Leftists
tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful.
They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males,
they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West,
etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate
the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and
so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or
in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he
GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out
(and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western
civilization.Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real
motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because
they are strong and successful.
16.Words
like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative”,
17.Art
forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness,
defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational
control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational
calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations
of the moment.
18.Modern
leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality
and to insist that everything is culturally relative.It is true that one
can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge
and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined.
But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed
logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are
deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They
attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one
thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that
it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the
leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs
as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed,
inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot
tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and
other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by
many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ
tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities
or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear
superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit
or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is
“inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been
brought up properly.
19.The
leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority
make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor.
This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit
in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself
as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong
produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for
that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive
of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism
of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization
or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.
20.Notice
the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying
down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists
to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists
use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics.
Self-hatred is a leftist trait.
21.Leftists
may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle,
and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized
type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for
leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior;
so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally
calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be
trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is
good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action
in hostile or dogmatic terms?Obviously it would be more productive to take
a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal
and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action
discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach
because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people
is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them
to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing
so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude
toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.
22.If
our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT
problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.
23.We
emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description
of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication
of a general tendency of leftism.
24.Psychologists
use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children
are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be
well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society
and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless
to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived
as a rebel.Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are
not such rebels as they seem.
25.The
moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and
act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate
anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether
he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that
the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them.
In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves
about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions
that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized”
to describe such people. [2]
26.Oversocialization
can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt,
etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children
is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to
society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is
especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of
HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person
are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly
socialized person.The majority of people engage in a significant amount
of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic
laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things
or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized
person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself
a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even
experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the
accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization
is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many
norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus
the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his
life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized
people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can
be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more
serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.
27.We
argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left
is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance
in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized
type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice
that university intellectuals (3) constitute the most highly socialized
segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.
28.The
leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash
and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough
to rebel against the most basic values of society.Generally speaking, the
goals of today’s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality.
On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it
as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle.
Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people,
peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression,
kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to
serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All
these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its
middle and upper classes (4)) for a long time. These values are explicitly
or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented
to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system.
Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel
against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming
(with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.
29.Here
is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows
his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while
pretending to be in rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative
action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education
in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the
black “underclass” they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate
the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer,
a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will
reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy
of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture.
But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist?
It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening
to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style
church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial
matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the oversocialized
type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals.
They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or
a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black
people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers “responsible.”
They want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly
the values of the industrial-technological system. The system couldn’t
care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he
wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school,
holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a “responsible” parent,
is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the
oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system
and make him adopt its values.
30.We
certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type,
NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they
sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel
against one of modern society’s most important principles by engaging in
physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of
“liberation.” In other words, by committing violence they break through
the psychological restraints that have been trained into them. Because
they are oversocialized these restraints have been more confining for them
than for others; hence their need to break free of them. But they usually
justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in
violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.
31.We
realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing thumb-nail
sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and anything
like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the
necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly
the two most important tendencies in the psychology of modern leftism.
32.The
problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as
a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted
to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are
widespread in our society. And today’s society tries to socialize us to
a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts
how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and
so forth.
213.Because
of their need for rebellion and for membership in a movement, leftists
or persons of similar psychological type are often 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 the Bolsheviks 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 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 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 leftists 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-educate
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 truebelieving
nazi, for instance is very different psychologically from a truebelieving
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 largescale 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 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.
To:ritch-at-umich.edu
Subject:Kaczynski,
Nietzsche, Schlossberg, Ressentiment, Left Pathology
Kaczynski’s insights are not new. As I’ve subsequently learned, they hearken back to Nietzsche, and the German sociologist Max Scheler. I ran into a great passage about this in a book titled Idols for Destruction, by Herbert Schlossberg (a worthwhile work, generally). In the passage below (pgs 51-54), Schlossberg, a Christian, is taking aim at humanism, and finds Nietzsche’s concept of “ressentiment” at the core of what he sees as the failed humanist enterprise. In this passage you will find a more scholarly and considered version of what Kaczynski was saying.
[BEGIN
QUOTE FROM SCHLOSSBERG]
Ressentiment
The
twisted path from humanism’s soaring tributes in honor of the human divinity
to the consequences of modern humanitarianism is best explained by the
concept of ressentiment.
When Nietzsche wrote his celebrated attack on Christianity, he transliterated
this word from the French because he could find no German equivalent. Max
Scheler [author of Ressentiment, 1915], a German sociologist, built on
and corrected Nietzsche’s work and again used the French word. When Scheler’s
book was translated into English the same practice was followed, because
“ressentment” is too weak to convey the meaning he intended.Ressentiment
begins with perceived injury that may have a basis in fact, but more often
is occasioned by envy for the possessions or the qualities possessed by
another person. If the perception is not either sublimated or assuaged
by the doing of some injury to the object of the feeling, the result is
a persistent mental condition, stemming from the repression of emotions
that are not acceptable when openly expressed.The result is hatred and
the impulse to spite and to say things that detract from the other’s worth.
One of the most common secret elements to be repressed is Schadenfreude,
the rejoicing at another person’s misfortune; vengeance is the principle
manifestation of ressentiment.
This
phenomenon differs from mere envy or resentment because it is not
century
ago,
Ressentiment
does much to explain the existence of crimes that otherwise are thought
of as “senseless”. They are senseless from a materialist perspective because
the criminal does not gain anything tangible from his action. But if he
is striking at the object of ressentiment, his crime is as rational
as if he had made off with the crown jewels. He has gained what he desired.
Ressentiment values its own welfare less than it does the debasement
or harm of its object. Many crimes of vandalism, brutality, and murder
might be explained that way.Even anti-intellectualism is described by Richard
Hofstadter in ressentiment terms, being “a resentment and suspicion
of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it;
and a disposition constantly to minimize the value of that life”.
In
attacking the sources of its irritation, Scheler says, ressentiment
uses third parties as foils. “The formal structure of ressentiment
expression is always the same: A is affirmed, valued and praised not for
its own intrinsic quality, but with the unverbalized intention of denying,
devaluing, and denigrating B. A is ‘played off’ against B.” Therefore,
what appear to be positive affirmations of the worth of others are really
disguised attacks on still others. Altruism has its source in this poisonous
brew. The word was invented by Auguste Comte, who thought that self-love
was immoral. In common with other forms of ressentiment, altruism
glories in the praise of the weak and base, even at its own expense, if
that will debase the strong and good.
Thus
the “altruistic” urge is really a form of hatred, of self-hatred, posing
as its opposite (“Love”) in the false perspective of consciousness. In
the same way, in ressentiment morality, love for the “small”, the
“poor”, the “weak”, and the “oppressed” is really disguised hatred, repressed
envy, and impulse to detract...directed against the opposite phenomena:
“wealth”, “strength”, “power”, “*largess*”. When hatred does not dare come
out into the open it can be easily expressed in the form of ostensible
love—love for something which has features that are opposite of those of
the hated object. This can happen in such a way that the hatred remains
secret. [25] [ref 25 is to Scheler’s book Ressentiment.—AEL]
Altruism
is thus best interpreted as a counterfeit of Christian love, informed by
the ideology of humanism and powered by ressentiment. It permits
demeaning the successful, or those who display any form of superiority,
by pulling over that act the mask of concern for the poor and weak. Scheler
believed that the counterfeit is often good enough to fool the astute,
and he concluded that Nietzsche confused Christian love with its imitator.
Of course, by the time Nietzsche wrote, the church was sufficiently infused
with humanism to make his mistake understandable.
Christian
love, says Scheler, does not help the weak, sick, and helpless because
it values those attributes but because of concern for the person who lies
behind them... The fake love of altruism perverts the sense of values so
that sickness and poverty approach the status of virtues.Christian love
seeks to help the person but refuses to elevate the problem by giving it
ontological status and worth. It also avoids helping the weak as a means
of causing harm to the strong. In this it heeds the apostle’s admonition
that love “does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right” (1 Cor.
13:6). That is the meaning of Goethe’s statement that “against another’s
great merits, there is no remedy but love”. Christian love is directed
toward persons who need help and not at abstractions such as humanity or
the general welfare.
The
ressentiment penchant for creating wards in order to strike at enemies
is illustrated in humanitarianism’s treatment of class in Western nations.
So effusive has been its praise of the lower class that Jacques Ellul protests
what he calls the “divinization of the poor” [26]... In general this phenomenon
praises the worthiness of what is unsuccessful or debased while expressing
contempt for the exceptional and successful. Along with the exaltation
of the poor comes the abasement of the middle class; “bourgeois” has become
an epithet of hatred among those who chortle at H L Mencken’s lampooning
of the “booboisie”. Michael Harrington recalled that in his youth in Greenwich
Village the chief moral stricture in the midst of a dissolute life was
“thou shalt not be bourgeois”. Thus the poor are foils through whom ressentiment
can strike at the successful while hiding its evil intentions under a mask
of goodwill.
A
common humanitarian complaint is that the poor are not sufficiently interested
in their own welfare, making it necessary for the humanitarian gospel to
be preached among them. B F Skinner’s behavioral controller explained that
they would not speak out on their own behalf because the environment had
implanted a system of beliefs that inclined them toward compliancy. J K
Galbraith is offended by what he thinks is indifference of people toward
their own economic improvement and thinks that only trauma or education
will bring them to their senses. Helmut Schoeck, a German sociologist now
living in the U.S., finds it ominous that equalitarians are striving with
greater urgency to whip up among poor people a keener sense of resentment
against their neighbors.[27] Galbraith and others complain of their difficulty
in this task; PERHAPS THAT IS BECAUSE SOME OF THE POOR CAN RECOGNIZE WHEN
THEY ARE BEING USED AS TOOLS. [emphasis added].
[Note
interjected, 30 Jan 05: for more along these lines see Thomas Frank’s fatuous
and stunningly-blinkered book “What’s The Matter With Kansas”, or google
for reviews. Frank just can’t understand why people “vote against their
class interests”. There are several reasons—one just explained by Schlossberg.—AEL]
[END
QUOTE FROM SCHLOSSBERG]
Nietzsche’s
archetypal “underman” suffers from ressentiment and Kaczynskian “feelings
of inferiority” and “oversocialization” (sorry, no URL):
[BEGIN
QUOTE]
“The
Underman” (untermensch)
·merely
human type of person who cannot face being alone in a godless universe.
Refuses to be an individual; cannot even exist as an individual. Underman
turns to group or herd for power, identity, purpose. He has envy and ressentiment
(deep form of psychically polluting resentment) of all “higher types” and
“elitist” value systems
·uses
slave morality, a value system based on guilt, fear, and a distortion of
the will to power, to control superiors; praises virtues of humility, passivity,
dependency, and condemns love of domination, delight in one’s own talents,
fearlessness (traits of superior type)
·slave
morality is alien to true individuality: it is “inauthentic” (phony and
uncreative).
·the
healthy aesthetic perspective (N’s) finds underman repulsive, weak, evasive,
hypocritical
......
anything sound familiar there? There’s much more on Nietzsche’s “underman”
elsewhere, of course. Try google.
In
reading Schlossberg, Nietzsche, and Kaczynski, the inner reactionary (the
reptile brain) springs up, attempting to protect the ego and the emotional
investments of the little self in its pet prejudices. I won’t bother setting
up and knocking down a litany of specific typical reactions.You can do
that for yourself, and it would be a profitable exercise.
You
CAN do that, I believe. Whether you will or not is another matter, but
at least I believe in the possibility, which is why I sent this to you,
specifically. Most leftists don’t “get it”, and never will.
I
said that “Kaczynski’s insights are not new”, but they were certainly new
to me when I first read them, as was the hearkening to Nietzsche and Scheler,
later. Why is this? Why isn’t such a stimulating, core-level challenge
a routine part of left curricula and a broad topic of discussion? Why did
the substance of Kaczynski’s essay go almost entirely unremarked and undiscussed?
What could be more important? I think it has to do with a constitutional
blindness that can be explained in evolutionary psychological terms; more
on this to follow, later. In brief: for the left to lay its own psychotype
so bare is something that the pre-rational structures will not tolerate.
It is too painful.
And
by the way, in my view nothing that Kaczynski and Schlossberg/Scheler has
said suggests that there are not in the world gross inequities (far greater
than could be accounted for by natural disparities of ability, talent,
industry) and oppressions, or that these things should not be remedied,
or that their remediation need necessarily involve envy or “ressentiment”.
That’s not the point. Schlossberg goes on in subsequent pages to make serious
errors, claiming for example that equality has increased -- when
in fact it has decreased, along with a parallel growth of social democratic
schemes to prevent total destitution (which he confuses with “equality”).
Whatever. Everything must be read with a critical eye, ever making adjustments
for the inevitable biasses and misapprehensions, while refusing to yield
to one’s own prejudicial tendencies. The typical Marxist (say) would dismiss
Schlossberg as a toadying bourgeois apologist—when in reality that is only
a PART of what Schlossberg is, and not (for the leftist whose thinking
sorely needs correction) the most important part. Ah, well.
Also
by the way, Kaczynski (the fiery anti-tech anarchist), Nietszche (the fiery
anti-Christian) and Schlossberg (the devout Christian) obviously make very
odd bedfellows indeed! But they form a nexus about this subject which I
hope has been clear, and all the more fun for being so unlikely.
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