321. Dispersion (V)
A few days ago, the weightlifters on Twitter were discussing whether or not a person should offer unsolicited advice to a man in a gym as regards form or technique. The correct answer, as everyone really knew, was that it is not your responsibility—and people who decide to offer you advice in this regard are sinister. I am no weightlifter, but the idea that another man could come and say, “Hey, mate, mind if I give you some help with that?” raises my hackles. I would allow, perhaps, that it is permissible to warn someone if they were in imminent danger; if, say, they used a machine in a flagrantly foolish way that could injure or kill them, but this is quite different to “advice”.
This whole issue is the divide between the left and right in microcosm. The reason our hackles rise when someone says, in a tone that is inherently phoney, “Hey, bud, if I were you I would do it this way,” is that the motivation is suspect. The person is motivated by arrogance; they think they know better than you, so they are not humble. Now, maybe they do know better than you, but even if they did it is not their responsibility to teach; the pupil approaches the master, to forcibly teach a person is an act of violence—mind rape. Incidentally, this means that compulsory education is state-sponsored violence against the young.
The person who is arrogant, who thinks he knows more or is better than others, will also be resentful; and this is because his assumed superiority is untested. Actually, he is quite afraid to find out his true mettle; hence his attempts to forcibly teach will be corrupted by the fear that the person he teaches will outdo him; indeed, to assume the role of teacher protects him from real competition. A teacher does not compete, he merely instructs; and the pupil is his inferior.
So the “helper” is motivated by arrogance and a secret desire to sabotage; he wants to compete with you by pretending he is not in competition—to top from the bottom, a feminine trick. To achieve this he takes responsibility for what is not his responsibility; and if the person he tries to “help” says, “Shove off,” he struts away, “Alright, alright, mate; just trying to help,” and looks offended and seeks communal sympathy for his social rejection. A more healthy approach to competition would be to say, “I’m better than you, mate.” “Oh yeah?”; yet to say this would provoke laughter, albeit good-natured—and if taken seriously it would put the other person to the open test, precisely what the “helper” fears.
As you can see, the gym “helper” is the political left: he takes responsibility for what is not his, and he takes responsibility out of arrogance and from a hidden fear that he is not up to scratch himself—he “helps” to sabotage. He is very concerned about the blacks, for example; and yet his attempts to help them with government aid somehow cripple them further. If his help is rejected, he looks hurt and appeals to “everyone else in the gym” that mean people he “just wanted to help”—responsible people, engrossed in their own business—have told him to shove off.
The right, for its part, argues people should be left to be responsible for their exercise, while, of course, being free to humble themselves and ask for help or advice when required; and most people, in most circumstances, are willing to share what they know and feel flattered to be asked. Indeed, in any profession or hobby there are usually a few wiser men who are, perhaps, semi-retired who are only too keen to share their knowledge now they are out of the main competition and its attendant ego considerations; and these are the men who can truly help, although they are often slightly obscure and forgotten—and so must be sought out by the humble.