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The right likes to speculate as to whether the various problems that face the West are down to incompetence or malicious action. Answer: it’s all malicious.
Man is an extraordinarily malicious animal. I once saw a boy hauled up by a mob of other boys by his underpants until they snapped—literally cheese-wiring his genitals; the whole event, his tears and his pain (excruciation), was filmed and e-mailed round the school for everyone’s delectation. And that’s normal—that’s a story from any school, and nobody was punished for it.
So…what can we infer from this event? What can we infer from the novel Lord of the Flies (1954)? Man is a really malicious animal. In the case above, it wasn’t because he was “piggy”, it was because he was the son of a teacher and the final school year had nearly finished and the guys just wanted to let out all the frustration from all the years when teachers—any teacher, not just his father—told them to stand up or sit down or tie their tie properly; so he was their little sacrifice “piggy”—very anodyne guy, very Christian, probably the only sincere Christian there, like a rabbit (perhaps that’s what happens to rabbits…).
I mean, yes, all those boys went to church too—but like most Christians they wiped their arse with the New Testament (in the metaphorical sense). I mean, they’re not actually going to “turn the other cheek—lol”, they’re going to stick the boot in. That’s why you have to watch out for a church-goer, “His word ain't worth a shit—not with the Good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal,” as William S. Burroughs observed.
So, you think those boys changed? You think they’re different now? Well, they have less energy now, but they’re still just as malicious—in whatever offices they’re sitting in. Just as petty, just as pathetic—still emailing videos of a girl giving a donkey a blowjob to the “all recipients” account. It’s all the same, I guarantee.
And these were people from the middle class or the upper middle class—so more intelligent, the “guiding elite”; so what do you think it’s like lower down? (Now, being malicious, being a human, you’ll hate me because you’ll infer I’m rich or high-status—because you’re a human, because you’re godless, because you’re driven by envy and hatred and malice). But it is the truth.
Stalin had about the right idea—notably, he died in his bed despite a life led in a “competitive environment”. Why? Because he was totally paranoid. And he was right—they are out to get you.
Subsequent to his death it was said that “he became overly paranoid that his Jewish doctors tried to kill him”. But the men who told you that, men like Khrushchev, as you so easily forget, were just like Stalin (hell, they implemented most of his policies)—they only seem better, hence more trustworthy, in relative terms; so their rosey assessment should also be suspect.
Stalin’s doctors may not have had an actual plan to kill him, but Stalin probably sensed they were about to…that’s how you have to think if you want to survive.
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The reason people say it’s “incompetence” is that they can’t face the harshness of life—they’re nice men like Peterson (who always says it’s incompetence). It’s too harsh to face reality, all these terrible events and decisions are deliberate—it’s all deliberate, because man is that malicious. It’s not stupidity—on the contrary, what’s worse, some of these malicious people are also very clever.
Just look at Robert Mugabe—not a stupid man. He had many degrees, from LSE and so on—not stupid. He destroyed his country, totally destroyed it—was he bothered? Not really, because at least the whites didn’t have it, even if it was more prosperous and freer under them. Plus he had the North Koreans kill and torture his tribal rivals. Plus he lived a luxurious life and was feted by people. The entire country slid into disorder and poverty—but, so what? At least I fucked over those bastards.
Man is so malicious he would rather live in shit and punish his enemy out-group than concede that what the out-group did was superior to him—or even just be indifferent and leave them alone. It’s why you’ll never even have that “technocratic Singapore high-IQ utopia” some rightists talk about—because the idea you can mix together intelligent people from different races and somehow they’ll be no maliciousness is fantasy. You can be intelligent and malicious just the same, it’s just you’ll hide it better—do it in a deniable way.
William Golding knew all this was so when he produced Lord of the Flies—because he was a teacher by trade; and, even today, you still see articles in The Guardian that pick on actual shipwrecked children and try to prove “it’s not like that”—but it is like that, because it’s not about shipwrecked children (and because the survivors lie, like The Guardian lies, about what actually happens—to preserve their pleasant outlook, the popular view they are “good people”).
It comes down to what most religions say—man has a basic inclination to evil, to malicious and destructive behaviour; and that can only be ameliorated by spiritual resolution or deterred with superior force. *