561. The arousing (VI)
There are some countries where you can solve problems with a briefcase filled with $325,545. Strange to report, this corruption tends to be benevolent—without it nothing would be done in countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece. This corruption, honestly venal, builds houses and completes roads. The dollar bill cuts straight through decades of political hot air. However, there is another corruption, a more subtle canker, that undermines a nation. This corruption is found in the perverted brotherhood, in the mafia. You see, you cannot bribe a mafia man to sell out his brothers—to do so is more than his life is worth; it offends his honour. The mafia is your family; if you betray them then you need protection from the state, from the bigger badder family.
If you could buy the mafia it would not be so bad, as it stands you have to fight fire with fire. So it once was that the Italians would elect Communists to run the local government because the Communists were also a perverted brotherhood—not a normal party—and so had the fanaticism and toughness to see out mafia-backed politicians. The Christian Democrat councillor would have his arm twisted and the mafia would end up in charge of city rubbish collection—a favourite mafia racket that also provides a useful spot to bury the bodies. The Communists prided themselves on clean and efficient local government—contrary to conservative fantasies that the left is “incompetent”—and yet Italians were canny enough to swap their vote from the Communists for national elections.
Perverted brotherhoods: the mafia, the Communists, the Freemasons, the lavender mafia, and so on. These groups—united by a common idea or perversion—control the chokepoints in society, help their brothers to procure contracts or children. They destroy the free market because all their deals are arranged with the Mason’s subtle thumb. If only all they cared about was money; to desire money, food, and sex constitutes the healthy corruption—it is when you make “a family” that inverts the army, the band of brothers, that you have the deep corruption.
Who offers the real alternative to these perverted brotherhoods? The outlaw. Where do outlaws dwell? In the forest, as with Robin Hood and his band of merry men—they were forest-dwellers. Only two types of men live in the forest: outlaws and holy men. The yogi and the druid dwell in the forest; there are no pious phoney priests here, only jolly Friar Tuck with his mead; only the joyful religion—perhaps the Christians, who chopped down the trees, were gangsters too? After all, Christianity came from the cities—from Rome’s corruption.
The outlaw is the opposite to the perverted “family man”; the perverted brother inverts the spirit of the law, engages in a deeper corruption, and yet he is accepted in polite society. The outlaw is loyal to the spirit of the law—just as Robin Hood was loyal to good King Richard—while the letter of the law, represented by bad King John’s Sheriff of Nottingham, hunts him without remorse. You can identify the outlaws, they are the men in Lincoln green—they do not wear suits like the educated criminals who work within the law.
They are natural men, just being themselves; and they are so because to “just be natural” does not mean to let it all hang out or to “fuck this” or “fuck that”. When you sit in nature, in the forest, you do not hear such sounds at all: you just hear bird song, the wind in the trees, and rain as it falls—to be natural, to be yourself, is to be as the forest; and there is nothing excessive there, only great silent patience—and great ruthlessness. This is what the forest-dweller becomes, the natural man: the law unto himself, as implacable as reality itself—as implacable as water on leaves. The question for you, anon: do you want to be an outlaw or a gangster?