The French philosopher Joseph de Maistre once perceptively commented: “I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be; I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible.” Even the most kind-hearted of us would hesitate to expose his innermost thoughts to public scrutiny. Barbarous thoughts and inclinations are always bubbling just beneath the surface, and this is why it is so important for man’s baser instincts to be kept firmly in check by a moral code that carries with it the authority of experience, and the lineage of antiquity.
More and more, we are becoming unwelcomingly acquainted with the mentality of the fanatic. Whether modern society–with its corrosive influence on ancient moral codes and its titillating stimulus of man’s baser instincts—is breeding more and more of these people, or whether modern information technology simply unmasks them easier than in the past, is not entirely clear. In either case, an understanding of the mentality of the fanatic is important. We will discuss a few of his salient features here.
The fanatic sees the world in absolutes. For him, there are no mixed tones of grey. It is all one thing, or all the other. The world is a battleground between the forces of good and evil, and only he himself is fully aware of the dimensions of this conflict. He is blind to the nuances in things, because he can only see the world through the lens of his own monomania.
al-Baghdadi: a messianic belief in his own vision. The lives of others are irrelevant.
The fanatic sees himself as under constant attack. His projection of the all the world’s evils onto the demonic “other” creates this Zoroastrian conception of the universe, where all of creation is held hostage to this battle between the forces of Good and Evil. If he lets his guard down for an instant, the evil Other will overwhelm him.
This is why the fanatic often takes on the appearance of the hunted animal: furtive, opportunistic, and ready to sacrifice himself. It is this aspect of his thinking that makes him so dangerous. A good measure of self-hatred is also thrown into the mold of personality. The fixation on the evil Other makes the fanatic obsessed with purging traces of the evil Other that may be hidden in himself.
The fanatic’s certainty can make him seem persuasive. Most people, lacking firm convictions of their own about almost everything, are attracted to the prospect of someone who announces his dogmas with absolute certitude. It is this certitude that aggrandizes his standing.
People with weak wills, and those unable or unwilling to think for themselves, can surrender the responsibility of thought to someone else. The messianic zeal with which the fanatic announces his plans makes him, in his early stages, an attractive and fascinating figure with women, simpletons, and persons of bad character; and it is only when it is too late do these hangers-on realize the folly of their trust.
The fanatic lacks empathy for the sufferings of others. Because he is consumed by the burning responsibility of his mission, he is blind and deaf to the cries of those whom he persecutes or violates. For him, they do not matter. It is this ability to disconnect his moral programming that gives the fanatic the power to commit frightening atrocities. The fanatic is frequently the product of some abusive environment himself, and becomes conditioned to the necessity of violence and brutality as a means of implementing his plans.
Baruch Goldstein, the Zionist fanatic who slaughtered 29 people at prayer in Hebron
Some historical examples bring these points into focus. The Roman emperor Julian (A.D. 331-363) experienced the murder of his father and immediate family by his cousin Constantius. He was brought up in isolation, under the watchful eye of the emperor’s spies.
These experiences made him identify the religion of his oppressor Constantius (i.e., Christianity) with evil. When Julian finally came to wear the imperial purple himself, he became a fanatical persecutor of the Christian religion. It was, for him, synonymous with illogic and malignancy.
Another example is provided by the fanatical career of the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498). Florentines were initially attracted by is powerful sermons about the prevalence of vice and the imminent Kingdom of Heaven; his eloquence convinced many of his prophetic powers. He condemned art and scholarship as the products of vice, and sought to destroy these things, as well as regulate the sexual behavior of the fun-loving Florentines.
For a time, he was humored. But moralistic preachers tire everyone after a while, especially when they begin to attack the rich and powerful. Pope Alexander VI excommunicated him, and eventually had him executed.
The emperor Julian, a fanatical follower of paganism
In our time, religious and ideological fanaticism has seen something of a resurgence. Examples are depressingly plentiful. Extremists are found in every religion and every ethnic category. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of ISIS, is addicted to the slaughter of his sectarian enemies, believing himself to be ordained by God for this task. Of a similar mentality was the Zionist fanatic Baruch Goldstein, who believed it his holy mission to enter a place of worship (the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron) in 1994 and gun down twenty-nine innocent people.
To such people, human lives are not important: what matters are their monomanias. By kindling bonfires and butcheries, they seek to burn out the malevolence that flames within their own hearts. This was what Savonrola sought in his so-called “Bonfires of the Vanities” in Florence. When this proves impossible, they destroy themselves, as Baruch Goldstein was consumed by a lust for murder. It is this self-destructive impulse that makes the fanatic so recklessly “brave.”
We must cultivate our powers of rational thought, and sympathy for others, so that we may keep our more intolerant instincts under control. The fanatical “reformer” often turns out to be just as intolerant as the tyranny he proposes to replace. “Whenever the spirit of fanaticism,” wrote historian Edward Gibbon, “at once so credulous and crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.”
The first lesson of philosophy, it has been said, is that perspective matters. We must try to see the world through the perspective of others, if we wish to understand their behavior. Certainty, under whatever guise it takes, is murderous.
Read More: You Have To Learn To Love Rejection
A perfectly timed article on the seductive danger of fanaticism.
If I may recall an appropriate quote I encountered recently,
‘There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic. The person in whom one impulse, one value has assumed ascendancy over all others’ -Milton R. Saperstein, clinical psychiatrist.
“…the seductive danger of fanaticism.”
Yeah because being an indecisive conservative has worked so well. amirite?
Yeah and about that quote of yours; well of course a Jewish ‘intellectual’ would be discouraging gentiles off fanaticism; they know it works. It’s part of their group strategy, the last thing they want is White gentiles coming together.
Judaism didn’t stand a chance against Fascism and National Socialism, Judaism didn’t even stand a chance against Rome. Predictably Jews are neurotically scared anytime two White men get together.
Group strategies, syndicates, networking… All things White people don’t know the slightest about because you fools think that individualism and rags-to-riches fairy tales are the way to go.
Meanwhile Muslims and Jews are taking over everything you own.
Maybe it’s time to take a page from them and learn the virtues of fanaticism.
You raise some fair points.
I’m in agreement regarding the need for group strategy, networking & the like.
But we still need to self check to ensure we’re not inching down the same slippery path of attacking the other side of the same coin. The article showcases the mindset of the fanatic across a number of ideologies. The ability to self check. That’s my take away from the article.
If it’s of any relevance, i’m a half white half Asian currently working & living in Asia.
Let me tell you as a White man facing demographic decline, we have no use for moderation right now, we must find some group survival strategy. Personally I don’t even care if it’s Islam, National Socialism, or worshiping a tree. We must find a reason to live, cling to it fanatically, and push it as far as it will go against our enemies because we as a race have been screwing around far too long with poisonous Jewish ideas, and they’ve brought us nothing but destruction.
The points you raise are to the tee what Ben Klassen wrote about in the ‘White Man’s Bible’. Mr Klassen succumbed to ‘oneitis’ believe it or not and took his own life distraught over the passing of his long time one and only WIFE. Of all his writing, he never mentioned ‘oneitis’ phenomenon but believed that gifted boys should be schooled in ‘RAHOWA’ a term he coined for ‘racial holy war’. Upon his wife’s passing from illness, Klassen declared that his useful life was over and took his own life in ’93 leaving instructions for his founded church ‘COTC’ members and followers to burn his remains and release them at sea in a traditional Viking funeral. That would be like Hitler hanging himself over Ava passing away or George Washington calling off the revolt and falling on his sword over Martha suddenly having a heart attack or Santa Claus cancelling christmas and jumping into a freezing lake over Mrs Claus choking on an elf. Unbelievable, simply unbelievable the toll and wrath of oneitis. There must certainly be something biochemical with ‘oneitis’ where some people are more suceptable than others.
Every Muslim is a fanatic..this is our greatest problem and it needs a solution.
Because the past 25 years of invading their countries, dropping bombs on them and putting ourselves billions of dollars in debt sure hasn’t worked.
Especially when this is the methodology being used.
Great point, Socoloco. Like ‘Nam, it is a battle of the quickest promulgation of ideology, alongside weaponry and food. Napalm and precise bombing won’t do much.
one day, we will simply send some kind of electromagnetic waves down from outer space who send the enemies to sleep or simply change their minds.
i think they call it tv.
Tom,
Exactly. America should fund an ISIS News Network and run it in a fashion similar TO MSNBC or CNN. Or better yet, create a MTV like network for the middle East.
Well put.
exactly.
instead of all those pitiful education computer projects. give them the democracy machine.
TV? Isn’t that something people used to watch in the olden days?
i think they did. got rid of mine half a year ago.
How do we know it isn’t?
“True Dat.”
We bombed Bali/Indonesia? We bombed Nigeria? We bombed Chechnya? The muslims in the UK were bombed? Did we bomb muslims in the Philippines? What about muslims in India, did we bomb them? Funny how muslims are eternally offended to the point that they will commit terrorist acts in anticipation of being bombed.
Libya and Afghanistan were bombed, Iraq, Pakistan and Sirya are being bombed.
Bali is a safe heaven for western junkies, Chechnya is part of Russia (which duely bombed it), India is a strong (nuclear) country and wouldn’t kowtow to Washington and bombing Muslims in the West would mean hitting regular whites also.
Stop lying to yourself. We’re at war against Muslims and we are ready to kill … just like them.
Muslims would not have a problem given that they don’t adopt an absolutely different garb, want their own laws within secular society not only for themselves but for others and finally have an absolute belief that everyone else is Jinn.
They think we all have magic and grant wishes?
I think the word you’re looking for is kafir.
No they think like the revolutionary Sayyid Qutb that the non Muslim world is a wasteland of thought and degeneracy and that those who were not actors of Allah who lived in the secular world were the devil.
You’re missing a crucial point here: Westerners forced their own views on their colonies and are still trying to push their vision through movies and soft culture.
Everybody is a fanatic. Muslims are just more in the defensive. I’m ok with nuking them to preserve our interests but I don’t believe we are better than them
Add them to the list. Once we’ve made the world a desert we’ll finally have peace.
Ah ha the final solution…. get them to change their clothes!
The idea of wearing alienating clothes is not a new concept for group identification at any period of time. At one point in British history you could go to prison for wearing clothes that were outside of your wealth status. The ides of wearing a Kippa or Hijab are done for a purpose. That purpose may have internal significance but it also acts as a barrier between those who do not share the garb. Often small differences make big differences in social relations.
Muslims aren’t more defensive. They are more offensive. The west tends to play defence. Without looking too long at the history Islam shares an affinity with violence towards the external but also internal governing forces. It is does not stop until its either totally accepted or totally rejected.
Well a grown man ought to be able to ignore someone wearing silly clothes and mind his own business.
Personally I think all Caucasoids (White, Arabs, Jews, Indian, Persians) are driven by the will dominate and impose their views on others. Resorting to violence to achieve their goals is just normal for you guys. They destroyed or perverted most primitive cultures and now they are killing each other. In the end, Asians will be the only winners.
Anyway, when Al-Qaeda was killing Soviets in Afghanistan, we supported it. now, we’re wining because they are taking on us. How could American think that Muslim Fundamentalists make a difference between Atheist Communisted and the ‘depraved’ West.
The first part is a casual observation likely true but talking to a black about race is a waste of time. There will be 5 billion of you in 100 years. UN stats. With no white handouts a Europe and North America totally destroyed and maybe a function Asia who will be unreceptive to African needs it will be an odd turn of events. 2nd part about Afghanistan you are correct the CIA made a “mistake” their papers note as such but they make money from it!
You would think so wouldn’t you! But brown shirts and black boots or white hoods annoy some on the left.
White goods? Like a washing machine?
Lets not obscure the issue. The SA were there to crack skulls. A man dressed like a Muslim is simply on his way to a peaceful prayer meeting. Not the same.
A Muslim terrorist however will most likely be dressed like you or I, on their way to self-detonate on a bus or a train. The idea of course, to blend in until they have arrived at their objective.
in polls it was found 30-40% of ‘moderate’ muslims have sympathy with groups like isis..
selective history…everyone from whites to blacks to asians to north american indians to maoris have always fought and tried to invade and dominate others…it just so happens that some of the groups did it on a much more basic level because of lower intellect and intelligence…but they did it never the less..you cant complain if you build an empire (insert Zulus, Maoris, an North American tribe like the Cheyenne) and then get defeated when another more effective fighting force arrives on the scene (Europeans in these cases)
there is peace in europe and the ‘european world’, european countries do not tend to fight each other and also don’t have naturally booming populations …Africa and the Middle East with their booming populations, tendency to force their surplus population elsewhere and impose their natural tendency to violence and living off the state
Is there peace in Ukraine?
You believe polls? And what does that mean “have sympathy”?
look it up in a dictionary bob
i said european countries do not tend to fight each other…and europe is one of the most peaceful areas of the world despite ukraine…as is the usa, canada and australia and new zealand…those that lost european standards like zimbabwe and South Africa have seen a massive decline in living standards and a rise in violence…
stop being a hillibilly dumbass, I live in uk, ive muslim women co workers, they wear those clothes because they believe that a women should dress modestly for respect, not like a fucking slut with yoga pants and camel toe popping out of it. Only if our women be modest and start acting like them but we have been blessed by a gift of feminism and producing sluts. Ignorance on this site is fucking unbelievable
if we hadnt removed saddam hussain , and bless iraq with democracy…there perhaps woulve be peace in middle east, but we feel an intense need to give everyone in the world the gift of democracy.
have you read European history Chris Brony? Do u remember any significant war that started between europeons 74 yrs ago? let me give you a hint , 40 million people die in that?
i agree we should have kept gadaffi in power, also assad, also mubarek, also just replaced saddam with a new dictator and carpet bombed afghanistan instead of using troops
So why are white people whining about Muslims killing them and Chinese taking over? Muslims have a strong ideology and Asians have a strong ethnic cohesion. On the long term, the West is no match for them according to your rationale.
You have a limited vision of Black but White people like to think that Black are limited so arguing here is a waste of time.
White have more Neanderthal genes (i.e. lower fertility) so obviously, their number will keep shrinking. However, East Asians are also subject to low fertility. So on the (very) long run, Black will probably be the wining race.
About the CIA thing, it’s just time to understand that “good guys” are those who kowtow to the US and “bad guys” are those who defy it.
On the (very) long run, Blacks are the winner hands down. Non Black people have Neanderthal genes and are thus prone to low fertility.
Thinking short terms is useless for Black people. Obviously, for the next centuries, other races will keep despising and patronizing us. However, victory is already ours.
Islam has been a problem for 1400 years – stop being a pathetic weak apologist and face up to the fact..
People you can kill ideas however are harder to kill.
Yeah, turn on your Fox/CNN News and face reality!
if there are no people with those ideas left the problem has gone
we r been fucking bombing them and taking their resources for years on end. Stop being a dumb fuck , and get yourself some edumucation.
Which is next to impossible to do.
Plus in regards to certain ideologies. Their virulence increases as more people are killed. Like the more people holding that idea you kill the more you reinforce the narrative and the more you make that ideology stronger.
Using that argument means that we could never have fought hitler or any other evil movement that history has thrown at us. Islam is just another such movement.
They fight according to 2nd or 3rd generation warfare hence their centrality is what allowed them to be destroyed 4th generation warfare is more decentralized and harder to conduct which violence alone cannot eliminate. Likewise I am talking about specific successful ideologies, Nazism were only virilent to the extent that it promised the german people properity and greatness bringing them out of the depression. The centralized nature of Nazism means that when Germany was defeated it was largely robbed of it power though not entirely.
Yet a different case can be made of the fall of communist Russia. Even though main country has fallen from communism it still perpetuates in our media and academic institutions.
Not true, way to let american propaganda brainwash you, kinda ironic you’re in a site that supposedly promotes “the red pill”.
Muslims are people. Islam is the problem. Muslims are some of the greatest sufferers of the problem of Islam. Hate the sin, love the sinner.
muslims are islam…islam is like an alligator..one beast with those like isis at the sharp end like the teeth, while the so called moderates who make up the rest of the alligator trying to fool everyone into thinking they are completely separate and not part of the same beast….
Sure, many Muslims (but not all) are our enemies and they tell us so every day. In fact, their Quran clearly commands them to fight us wherever they find us. The point I’m making though, is that they are brainwashed by a death cult, much like the followers of Charles Manson. So sure they’re dangerous, but they’re also pathetic and sad and in need of help and leadership, much like feminists. Fight them if you have to, but help them if you can. Hate the sin, love the sinner.
lets agree to disagree
OK, but don’t get me wrong, I agree with your alligator analogy 100%. I played football for a Catholic high school where we were called the “Crusaders”, and I am fiercely proud of that tradition. When push comes to shove, us Crusaders will wrassle that alligator, and it won’t stand a chance. 😉
Bergen Catholic Crusaders by chance?
And just to back up my argument that not all Muslims are our enemies… take the example of our ally Tarek Fatah…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ugQMg1Wb4
Catholic Central Crusaders
Seems any religion that escaped the desert is full of shit. 2k year old bullshit tribal religions with modern weapons and corrupt political leaders.
Nothing good comes from the desert.
I’m including the tribe.
Well, fair enough. I’m not cheer-leading for them. I’m pointing out differences in doctrine. Islam’s version of the Golden Rule applies strictly to other Muslims. Judaism includes all mankind. That’s a pretty clear difference.
Islam is bad for non-Muslims. Islam is bad for Muslims.
Islam… is bad.
Religion is bad.
some are far worse than others…
The worst is Christianity.
in the age we live in Bob the worst is not Christianity, Islam is the worse by far. Its a threat to everyone it comes into contact with. If everyone joined against it it could be destroyed within years. India would be happy to get rid of their muslims and so would china, Israel would certainly be happier with far less muslims knocking at their door, and even the Buddhists are finally waking up….add in Christian Africa and they could eliminated rather quickly. Europe and America could sort them out in a matter of months. It will ultimately be either them or us.
Pretending something is ok does not make it ok Bob. Many people do it, so don;t be ashamed. People would rather pretend the world is as they hope and wish it to be than as it is in reality. That way there’s no hard decisions to make. Some do this consciously and some subconsciously but the result is the same. Open your eyes and see what’s happening and look at the violent expansion of Islam always supported either actively or passively by all Muslims.
I come in contact with Islam every day. I’m fine. The government robs me daily though. The only violent expansion I see is done by government.
are u in the usa or uk?
London.
I understand your sentiment englishbob, but you should note that atheism doesn’t result in a reduction in the size of the government, as those who suffered under Soviet communists and Nazi socialists learned the hard way. Fanatical devotion to the idea that there is no God is as dangerous as fanatical devotion to any cult. The founding fathers of the U.S.A. were fiercely faithful in their belief in God, and they created the most libertarian government in history. I leave you with some excellent words from Conrad Black discussing the eminent Dr. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford University and one of the most rational and persuasive advocates of a Christian theistic view of the world…
Richard Dawkins has often said that “the very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible.”
Yet neither he, nor his fellow vocal atheistic militants, such as Singer, David Hawking, Jonathan Glover and Richard Rorty, all formidable academics, can dispute that without some notion of a divine intelligence and its influence on the culture of the world through the various religions (though the principal religions are not interchangeably benign or influential) there would be no serious ethical conceptions. Communities untouched by religious influences have been unalloyed barbarism, whatever the ethical shortcomings of some of those who carried the evangelizing mission among them. Without God, “good” and “evil” are just pallid formulations of like and dislike. As Professor Lennox reminded me, Dostoyevsky, scarcely a naive and superstitiously credulous adherent to ecclesiastical flimflam, said “without God, everything is permissible.”
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-the-shabby-shallow-world-of-the-militant-atheist
The antidote to Islam is Christianity.
How’s Islam working out for England? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZWKQ9GxPJI
Atheism is not a religion, though some diehard atheists certainly act like they are in one. They do a disservice to the notion of not believing in woo woo imaginary friends.
Nazis were a right wing Christian affair, not atheistic at all. A quick review of Mein Kampf and even just a Nazi belt buckle will tell you that.
Communists had a disrespect for religion but did not do their atrocities in the name of atheism but in the name of Marxism.
I almost agree but for the fact that Judaism gave birth to Christianity and then Islam. Go to the source of all the nonsensical Abrahamic bs.
You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion [Islam] too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Albert Speer in “Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs”.
I didn’t say atheism is a religion, but many atheists are fanatical in their zeal to make everyone else atheists, which can be just as dangerous as zeal to spread cult doctrine. Stalin hated religion of all varieties, because he saw it as competition for the hearts and minds of his subjects. Stalin was the model for Orwell’s Big Brother.
My apologies then. I interpreted your statement in error. I do agree that many atheists are fanatical in their zeal to make everyone else atheists. That is just as extremist as any religious nut.
I think Obama may be a good competitor in a much more sly way for Stalin’s title of Big Brother.
No apology necessary, but you are all class my friend and I appreciate that. Obama doesn’t have Stalin’s charisma nor his capacity for violence, so he’s not as dangerous. What Obama has is an education in Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”, and that’s something we all need to study and counter.
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/04/13/12_ways_to_use_saul_alinskys_rules_for_radicals_against_liberals/page/full
He certainly doesn’t have Stalin’s capacity for violence or his charisma. I am far more concerned about Obama’s zealot followers. They make him powerful, but only if we let them.
I have not heard of “Rules for Radicals” but I thank you for that and shall look it up.
Hillary Clinton did her PhD thesis on Alinsky’s works. Obama taught Alinsky…
In 1988, Obama even wrote a chapter for the book “After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois,” …he traveled to Los Angeles for eight days of intense training at Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. In turn, he trained other community organizers in Alinsky agitation tactics. Obama also taught Alinsky’s “Power Analysis” methods at the University of Chicago.
http://canadafreepress.com/article/obama-taught-destroy-middle-class
The zealots aren’t following Obama… they’re following Alinsky. Obama is just a follower.
My education continues. I am obliged. I shall research that as well.
My pleasure. Just curious… did you notice the Hitler quote I posted? Hitler hated Christianity, eh? Said it was meek and flabby. Preferred Islam. Or Shinto. Anything that provided kamikaze suicide soldiers really.
I have read Mein Kampf, that really doesn’t fit into his fanatical Catholicism. Is it a confirmed quote? I did not see it.
You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion [Islam] too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Albert Speer in “Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs”.
Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1941 (probably discussing extermination of the jooooooz)
Interesting…and I did just look it up. It does make sense in the overall picture. Hitler started as a diehard and zealot Catholic. The further along the regime got, the more they started to form their own religion based on German mythology. His Catholicism was morphing into a new state religion and I can see where he would admire the more fanatical parts of Islam and Japanese Emperor worship.
The puzzle pieces fall into place.
Love the Asterix icon btw. Asterix and Obelix ROCK!!!!
This has been a delightful discussion. Thank you.
Agreed. And thank you.
A racist gets attacked by one of his victims? Shame.
The cat is out of the bag now though man. You could say in spite of their religious fervor, the founding fathers created a libertarian state. You could not say it was because of their religious fervor. After all, wasn’t King George also a Christian?
Good and Evil might be religious concepts but how much evil has been conducted in the name of God?
Judaism is directly opposed to Christianity. While there sure is some inspiration in it there’s some from Zoroastrianism as well. In fact, quite a bit. The Jews hate christ, as seen by many ill willing quotes by them against him in the Talmud.
Don’t forget the thousands of English girls getting raped and trafficked by these Islamic gangs.
All with the cowardly complicity of English faggots who look the other way as their women get sodomized by these filthy mud-slimes.
Damn that cat! Actually, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t mean that the founding fathers created a libertarian state BECAUSE of their religious fervor, what I meant was, as Conrad Black said, “Communities untouched by religious influences have been unalloyed barbarism, whatever the ethical shortcomings of some of those who carried the evangelizing mission among them.” Hitler and Stalin eschewed religion, and their societies descended into unalloyed barbarism. Holocaust in Germany, Holodomor in Ukraine. I agree with you that much evil can be perpetrated in the name of religion, ergo Islam. My point is precisely that good and evil are religious concepts and, as Dostoyevsky said, “without God, everything is permissible.” Intellectuals like you and I don’t need religion englishbob, but many people do, and we shouldn’t judge them for that need. Religion is like a security measure protecting against “unalloyed barbarism”. If you accept that, then the next task is to determine which religion is the best. And Christianity wins that competition hands-down.
And the Jews hate themselves for hating Christ. Self-loathing leads to all sorts of mental health complications.
In my opinion Christianity has been far worse than Islam but that’s like saying Jeffrey Dahmer is worse than Ted Bundy. They’re both bad.
Note that Conrad Black and Dostoyevsky are giving opinions not fact.
You are only showing an association with respect to Stalin, Hitler and religion not causality. Not only that if you accept that religion itself can promote barbarism, I fail to see how religion for the common man is a good thing. I might say “with God, everything is permissible” as people have managed to justify the most horrific crimes with religion.
No they don’t. The Talmud made fun of Christ and ridiculed it. The Jews take pride in it.
So you think Christianity is far worse than Islam? I’m not surprised. That’s because we are not educated about the horror of the history of Islam. The horror has been scrubbed from our history books. Why? Because we are afraid of Islam and we’re embarrassed about how badly we got our asses kicked in the dark ages. That’s why the dark ages are dark. We want to forget that whole period.
Want proof? OK, I’ll draw your attention to the following video of a professor of religion, Dr. Bill Warner at around the 11:30 mark. At that point, Dr. Warner shows you a map illustrating 548 battles where Islamic Jihad destroyed our classical civilization. Note how Islam washes over the civilized world like a tsunami. Now look again at around the 27:30 mark and compare the same map with the battles of the Crusades. Pretty striking comparison, n’est-ce pas?
Most Jews are not even religious.
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/02/12/ben-shapiro-why-jews-vote-leftist/
It’s not just Black and Dostoyevsky buds…
Richard Dawkins has often said that “the very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible.”
Yet neither he, nor his fellow vocal atheistic militants, such as Singer, David Hawking, Jonathan Glover and Richard Rorty, all formidable academics, can dispute that without some notion of a divine intelligence and its influence on the culture of the world through the various religions (though the principal religions are not interchangeably benign or influential) there would be no serious ethical conceptions.
It’s Black, Dostoyevsky, Dawkins, Singer, Hawking, Glover, Rorty…
How many atheist academics do you need me to produce, who have an obvious incentive to disagree with this, but yet accept it as fact? It’s not an opinion boyo… it’s a fact.
Most Europeans are not religious. What is your point?
Most Jews are oblivious to what the Talmud says and are in direct opposition to Orthodox Jews politically. As Ben Shapiro notes in that video I linked to (3:53 mark)… Jews vote 3-1 in favour of Democrats, but Orthodox Jews vote 2-1 in favour of Republicans. Pretty striking comparison and it says a lot about how Jews, in general, have turned their backs on Judaism. Being Jewish is an ethnic identity, not a religious one. Why have Jews abandoned their religion? This is the question I’m attempting to answer with my self-loathing hypothesis above. Why do they cling to identifying as Jewish? For the same reason Rachel Dolezal pretended to be black.
And how are Atheists any getter? Jews are bad news in any case.
I didn’t say atheism was better. I said it was worse. I said Christianity is better. In any event, you’re painting with a pretty broad brush there guy. Was Einstein bad news? Jews are people buddy.
Nazis were by definition left-wing (“National Socialists”) and were intensely critical of traditional Christianity. Their concept of Christianity was highly revisionist, since they viewed the whole thing as a crypto-Judaic corruption of Western/Aryan spiritual superiority. Look into “Positives Christentum” for example: it is explicit in its rejection of the entire Christian tradition in favour of the Fuhrer’s “new revelation.”
Hitler’s mother was devout, his father was irreligious. By the time he was 35, in Mein Kampf, he had already expressed opinions which he, and everyone else at the time, knew to carry the sentence of latae sententiae excommunication (statements in favour of Socialism, and against the Church’s social doctrine). He was critical of Catholic action. He at times appealed to Christ as a rallying point with the people, but those who knew him in private are on record as to his abiding and continuing dislike of traditional Christianity. On what basis do you assert he was a “diehard and zealot Catholic?”
What is your point? How much evil has been conducted in the name of Science? In the name of Three Square Meals a Day? Are they evil, simply on that account? If evil is merely a religious concept which you reject, then why does the “evil” bother you? Shit happens, amiright?
Milo gets it right…
By actually reading Mein Kampf and his speeches.
I have also read Mein Kampf, and only recall him mentioning that, as a lad, his ambition led him to think that the position of abbot, leading the splendid festivities in the Church, was the highest kind of position one could aspire to – and hence, he desired the office… but he then immediately goes on to say that this was a passing fad, and his “most spiritual experience” was to study the Franco-Prussian War. Flipping through the index in my copy of Mein Kampf and reading all the bits on Catholicism and Christianity, I see nothing that denotes he was ever a “diehard and zealot Catholic” – the only praise he ever accords the Church, is as a model for propagandizing efforts. If you’ve read the book and have something specific in mind, doubtless you can give us a quote?
Propagandizing speeches should hardly be trusted as reliable insights into his actual beliefs, especially when they are belied by so many other, better sources.
I defer to your superior wisdom sir. Well spoken indeed. Thank you for lending your learned thoughts to this discussion. Enlightening to say the least.
He was a Catholic. That sets the context for his beliefs. Though, as I clearly stated, they evolved beyond that.
“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2
Obama’s “zealot followers” aren’t his followers anymore, they deserted him a few months into his first presidency, when he stopped being a messiah and started being a politician, and an utterly spineless one at that.
The state they founded may have been relatively libertarian in practice, at least for its time, but it’s fallacious to talk of them as a group with a common agenda. Their only common agenda was independence. Everything else they produced, including the vaunted Constitution, was simply a grudging compromise shaped by the balance of power between competing interests and ideologies.
Madison famously stated that he couldn’t find anything in the Constitution that authorized the federal state to spend its’ constituents tax money on charity. Yet, other founding fathers disagreed, and Madison’s side lost that particular controversy.
How well is that antidote working for you? Are all the Muslims who have immigrated to Christian countries going to get cured of Islam any time soon?
If Christianity looks mellow at present day, it’s because it has been forcibly neutered for the last few centuries, largely in response to the horrors it inflicted for over a thousand preceding years.
It’s tragically comic when Christians claim moral superiority for not engaging in savagery like Muslims, when the truth is that they have lost all their power to, and fought back tooth and nail every bit against the loss of power, and suddenly had an enlightening discovery of religious moderation after having lost the power. They are much like the beta schlub married to a lazy fat entitled “reformed” slut who considers himself a better man than the alpha playa, while the sad truth is that he is simply a man without options.
Perhaps if Christianity puts some steel in its spine. Bin Laden said that Muslims follow “the strong horse.”
I understand this, but i am living in 2015. I care what the religions stand for now and today. And today islam is a threat to everyone else and incompatible with western democracry and values, and any other religion on earth. It must be defeated.
He was a nominal Catholic who rejected the Church’s teaching, and ultimately held it in contempt in every way, other than admiring its ability to propagandize. Your quote could just as easily be said by a Deist, a Protestant, Muslim, or a lying Demagogue. And that was my point; such things do not a “zealot and diehard Catholic” make. A “zealot and diehard Catholic” actually stands for the Church, defends her, promotes her doctrines, lives his life by her precepts, etc. etc. It is disingenuous in the extreme to describe Hitler in such a way, at any point in his life.
Perhaps… if Christianity puts some steel in its spine. Bin Laden said that Muslims follow the “strong horse.”
Ah yes, the Strong Horse (TM), the out-of-context snippet that gets quoted around to portray Muslims as amoral brutes who respect nothing but strength. If it really were like that, they’d be kissing the ass of the American Empire as we speak.
It’s not out of context. That’s exactly how Bin Laden the amoral brute meant it. However, having said that, I did not mean this to be derogatory. I encourage the celebration of strength and the Muslims are right to do so. The fact that we celebrate diversity, homosexuality, obesity, and disability is part of what fills the Muslims with disgust when they look at us. That’s why WE need to resume celebrating strength and putting steel back in our spines and brass back in our balls.
He might have been a brute, but if he had been amoral, he would never have started Al Qaeda to begin with, he would have lived the hedonistic life enabled by being massively rich and a member of the second-most powerful family in Saudi Arabia. He was an idealist and a holy warrior absolutely convinced of the righteousness of his cause, otherwise he wouldn’t have sacrificed everything to do what he did.
As for your assertion of what makes Muslims disgusted with the US, well, Osama himself refuted that talking point already in a 2004 speech video, asking why, if that is the case, he and his crew aren’t attacking Sweden. No, they attack the US because they believe the American Empire is an evil empire that oppresses Muslims, and it’s either ignorant or dishonest to claim otherwise.
The Navy SEALS found a huge stash of porn in Bin Laden’s hideout. He was SO living a hedonistic lifestyle. Just like Mohammed, who married a 6 year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was 9. Islam has hedonism built right into it. Charles Manson was also idealistic and a holy warrior absolutely convinced of the righteousness of his cause, and he was also amoral. You have proved nothing. Bin Laden sacrificed nothing, he was a coward and a fanatical cult leader. Islam has attacked Sweden.
Malmo was supposed to be a symbol of Sweden’s multiculturalism. But it is in danger of turning into an Islamist ghetto, with a hard core of those who favour an Islamic state.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/muslim-refugees-and-the-cost-of-sweden-s-kindness-1.912737
You need to wake up and smell the jihad buds. Bin Laden wasn’t the top of the food chain in Islamic jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood is running the show, and they’re much better at soft jihad, like the example illustrated in the story on Sweden linked above, than they are at violent jihad, which was Bin Laden’s specialty. Check out the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan for soft jihad in America here:
https://www.actforamerica.org/downloads/The-Project-doc.pdf
Much like white knight manginas are more dangerous than female feminists, it’s apologists for Islam like you who are an even greater danger than the jihadi’s themselves. You’re cheerleading for one of history’s greatest villains and the world’s worst death cult. You’re like Neville Chamberlain declaring “peace in our time” right before Hitler invades Poland. You see, you’re not merely an idiot, you’re an incredibly useful idiot to the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic jihad. If you were smart, you would negotiate payment from them for your propaganda services. Idiot.
When you fall for Islamic bullshit like the crap Bin Laden fed you when he “refuted that talking point already in a 2004 speech video, asking why, if that is the case, he and his crew aren’t attacking Sweden”… you are falling for a tactic in Islam known as “taqiyya.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya
This is where Islam authorizes Bin Laden to lie to you, the infidel kafir, in order to advance the goals of jihad. The problem you are facing is a common problem in our society. This is why we need a stronger Christianity that people will stand for. A man must stand for something, or he will fall for anything. And you fell hard. Hook, line, and sinker. Fucking Bin Laden telling you he didn’t attack Sweden. What a crock of shit. Islam has some swamp land in Florida it wants to sell you. Idiot.
Islam has attacked Sweden with extreme prejudice…
https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/sweden-muslim-gets-community-service-for-brutal-rape-of-12-year-old/
Like other Scandinavian countries, Sweden used to have the lowest crime rate in the world. All of that changed with Muslim immigration. Of all Muslims the most violent and barbaric are without doubt the African Muslims. Their racism and hatred is extreme. They should be barred entry to the West completely. Here is an African Muslim immigrant to Sweden who composed a song to ‘fight racism and injustice’. Listen to the subtitled lyrics. His song is filled with hatred and a call to rape and murder Swedes. He wants to “push a knife up the pussy” of every Swedish woman. This is his gratitude to the very people and country who give him a roof over his head, food on his table, access to free education and a safe country to live in:
A “porn stash” of whose existence we have no evidence except the say-so of the US government, or could have been planted by the elements of the Pakistani intelligence agency which might have been holding him captive all the time. Everyone who has personally known Osama, including people who are anything but his fans, have attested to his austerity. But even if he was a porn consumer, that would only prove that he wasn’t perfectly adhering to the ideals he proclaimed. Like pretty much everyone who has ever stood for anything in the history of the universe. If he had been a hedonist, he would have done his porn indulgence from a comfy palace in Saudi Arabia. And he was no coward either, and anyone who says so is an armchair internet warrior who looks for excuses to think of himself a greater man. Cowardice is to not do something for fear of what will happen to you. To commit an action that you know will make you the world’s most hunted man isn’t cowardice, it’s the very opposite of it.
As for Sweden, Al Qaeda isn’t attacking it, so you’re moving the goalposts and attacking a straw man.
Apologist, huh? I don’t see where I’ve engaged in any apologism, I’ve simply refuted the clueless, simplistic picture you’ve concocted of your enemies in your mind. You, not islamists, should be paying me. Sun Tzu said something about the value of knowing your enemy. That I come off as an apologist to you says infintely more about you than me, you’ve just made yourself a prime example of what Quintus Curtius talks about in the article.
But the most important thing that Sun Tzu said was that all warfare is based on deception, a lesson Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, who created Al Qaeda, have learned well. The Quran advocates the use of deception in a tactic called taqiyya, and you’re falling for it. I didn’t say Al Qaeda attacked Sweden, I said Islam attacked Sweden using soft jihad tactics designed and implemented by the Muslim Brotherhood. You need to learn to read more carefully, it will help you to avoid falling for taqiyya again in the future. Bin Laden’s actions may have made him the most hunted man, but being the most hunted man fed his acute narcissism. If he had an ounce of the bravery you are trying to attribute to him, he would have flown one those planes into the World Trade Center. Besides, he knew he had Pakistan to give him a nice mansion to hide out in which, by the way, was far from austere. Bin Laden was a coward and a piece of shit, may he burn in hell right alongside Mohammed. You’re right, you’re not an apologist. You’re a cheer-leader.
Am I the only one who sees the irony in this statement?
Only if you assume with “solution” he meant some sort of aggressive action. Which may not be the case.
You’re right. He means sitting them down and giving them a right talking to.
I was thinking more of something along the lines of stopping imperialism and closing our borders.
So you want a totalitarian state along the lines of the USSR? No one may enter and no one may leave. Closed borders. Think you would enjoy that?
I’m not some skinhead idiot. Not following in the footsteps of Sweden and letting in hordes of low-skilled medieval third world trash looking for handouts would suffice.
So you wouldn’t have closed borders then?
‘A good ol’ caning on the bum will set them straight, by George!’ 😀
no bob, every country can choose who they let in and let out. If Somalia chooses to bar all Brits and Americans from entering so be it. If Dubai wants to collapse its economy they have every right to do the same. If europe wants to reduce suicide bombings, sharia law and an increase in rapes they have every right to not allow access to muslims and remove those they dont want….i believe every country has the same right.
Countries have no rights. A country is a concept. People have rights. And you have no right to tell me who I may do business or otherwise associate with.
a country has every right to say who can enter and who can stay…i don’t just mean western nations but places like iraq and syria too
Countries can’t speak.
they have populations who do
Countries have a total right to control who crosses their borders or enters the country–indeed, that is the definition of a geographic country. And if you don’t want to be swarmed under by poorer immigrants, you had better do it…
Either you’re an idiot or a troll, go away.
A “country” is a concept. It cannot have rights.
Don’t be dick.
You have no right to tell me who I can associate with or where or when I can go someplace. Certainly an abstract concept cannot have any rights at all. Or if you think it does, let this abstract concept petition for its rights. Sound ridiculous? That’s because your reasoning is illogical.
Just because a group of people with all the guns have established a set of “rules” does not mean that they have a “right” to enforce them. It just means they are the biggest gang and can use violence to force people to adhere to these rules.
The same group of people are responsible for these “swarms of poorer immigrants”. This is because they establish a welfare state, which robs people of their wealth and gives it to others. These so-called “freebies” motivate poorer immigrants to move to the wealthier country and once there, they vote more benefits from the wealthy to the poor.
That said, in the absence of a State taking my money, or the ability of the poor to rob me, why should I give a shit if some poor immigrant moves to my “country”.
It is “my” country right? I mean, I do own it right?
Do those populations speak with one voice? (Glad someone is getting it though).
Only marxists make such statements. In fact, a country is people in a geographic area, the more homogenous the better.
Completely backwards my friend. A country, or nation state as we see them today, is a socialist concept. A libertarian would say countries do not have rights, only individuals have rights.
Countries, as associations of people, have all the same rights and obligations as the people. Indeed, the State’s powers, rights and obligations have their genesis precisely in the natural rights and ends of the people… who have their rights – such rights as are actually right, that is – only from and in God.
Everything is a concept. A country and a person are both concepts. They are also both real things.
*edit* I should clarify: your thought of everything is a concept. I did/do not mean to reduce everything merely to the conceptual realm.
Englishbob, I don’t know how to break this to you: you almost never know what you’re talking about. I would encourage you to consider how nonsensical your statement is, but I fear there is little point. It’s not just that I think your views are wrong; it’s that you aren’t even factually correct in describing the views of others. “Libertarians” for example come in many flavours, and plenty of Libertarians would understand that countries have rights. The Constitution speaks of the rights of government, and “States’ Rights,” for example. This is a simple matter of fact.
You may also find that countries and nation states were known to exist, from time to time, in the millennia of human history preceding Socialism. You would do yourself and others a service, if you refrained from sharing your “ideas,” until you gave them a bit more substance.
*edit* It occurs to me that you will say the precise Constitutional term is “powers” of the government and states. This does not change the fact that Jefferson, the courts, etc., have spoken of them as rights of government, the state, etc. And, of course, the Constitution recognizes many aggregate rights – rights of “the people” (certainly not an individual), rights of “the press” (certainly not an individual) etc. Associations of people – including the press, churches, clubs, businesses and yes, even governments, have rights.
Cui, your analysis is brilliant and thorough, but I must tell you… I think, sometimes, englishbob is just “taking the piss” as Brits like him are wont to say.
I think you’re right, but I’m glad to put a counter-point to his ideas, for those who may chance to read them.
Agree. That poster is mostly a troll who has views that are antithetical to the values shared on this site. I suggest not engaging with him.
You are a total, leftist, marxist. While there is no question that up top is filled with greed and corruption, accountability has to also be expected of the lower classes.
Why would it be bad for poor immigrants to move into “my” country? Simple asshole, these immigrants bring no skills, nothing of value, and unlike the early 1900s when we were building our cities and we needed skilled workers of mason, immigrants ARE NO LONGER NEEDED.
To make matters worse, the immigrants of today refuse to assimilate at best, and at worst, try to make US ASSIMILATE TO THEM! (cough muslims, cough, look at france and UK, cough.)
The people ARE the country, and majority of people in this country do not want 5 million illegals coming.
Because throughout history nations (peoples) that have not repelled invaders have perished. So-called “peaceful” immigrants who do not or cannot assimilate are much more dangerous to the survival of nations than are invading armies.
That’s why immigrants and their descendants have no right to be in Britain or any other place that they haven’t actually conquered. If the real Brits weren’t so brainwashed they’d not only expel you, and the rest of those from the possessions of the former empire, they’d recognize this as a war by the inferior nations and respond as they did in the 18th and 19th centuries.
You say “You have no right to tell me who I can associate with or where or when I can go someplace.” yet you are saying that the Brits have no choice about whether to associate with you, to allow you into this country and culture to which your people have contributed so little. You do not and should not have equal rights in other peoples’ nations, nor should you presume to assert freedom of association when it is precisely your people that have worked to deny that right to Whites throughout the English-speaking world. If you actually believed in freedom of association, you would have no trouble with organizations of any size saying “no Blacks”, “no Irish”, “no sodomites” or whoever else they felt like excluding from their association.
What do you mean “your people”?
So to your point, if people immigrate to Britain through murder and violence rather than through established legal means that is OK with you?
My friend, it is impossible for me to force someone to associate with me. Not only that, why would I want to associate with someone who doesn’t want to associate with me? That would be bizarre.
Further what do you mean “other people’s nations”? Do you own a nation? If so, post up a copy of your legal title to said nation.
Last, don’t put words in my mouth. Where did I say an organization can’t ban blacks from their association?
I’m British by the way.
The people are the country? So if five million people move in does that make it their country too? And who said anything about allowing illegal immigrants in?
Don’t use words you don’t understand. It makes you look stupid.
Its not your country. You don’t own it. You don’t own my street, my house or my business. If I decide to hire a “poor” immigrant to clean my floors that’s my fucking business and none of yours, Mister Fucking Socialist.
I will decide what my needs are on my property not you because its my fucking property you Socialist fuck. So stop deciding you own everyone else and go back to your fucking National Socialist Workers Union where you can let in whomever you like because I don’t give a fuck.
I believe that is called the fallacy of composition.
It is not. The Fallacy of Composition arises when one deduces (incorrectly) that a composite whole is endowed with the qualities of one or more of its component parts, when there is no logically necessary connection between that component’s particular qualities and the qualities of the whole. For example: “Katya has beautiful hair; Katya is therefore beautiful.” Katya could be a bearded tranny with an excellent wig.
In the case of associations of people, the scope of the association’s activity is logically and immediately connected to the scope of the individual activity of the persons, and for this reason it has always been recognized that corporate entities/associations of people are often treated as people in many ways – having to pay taxes, being able to file suit or have suit brought against them, to make charitable or campaign donations, receive tax exemptions, etc., etc.
Many people who study logical fallacies fail to penetrate to the substance of the logical fallacy; there are often superficial similarities of form to fallacious arguments, that are not themselves examples of a logical fallacy. This page gives some good examples on this particular point:
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/composition/
A nation only exists if it can control its borders, can impose law and order on its sovereign territory, and can sustain an economic basis for the taxes that pay for it all.
But if the nation state does not have individuals who share a vision of what their country is about, that is, if they lack and animating principle, their country will cease to exist.
We seem to lack and animating principle nowadays and we don’t have the economic basis to pay the taxes to run our country. If we keep this up we simply will not exist.
Letting anyone into our country who simply wants to be here but does not want to share in our vision and whose presence does not contribute economically makes this entire process of self destruction go on all that more quickly.
So, it is very hip and cool to make believe that there is nothing essential and needed in control of our borders and in the understanding of our collective vision of what we are about, but if we don’t straighten out soon, there won’t be much to straighten out.
You speak the language of a collectivist. “Our” “we”. What will you do with citizens who do not share your socialist vision? Purge them?
Socialism is about the collective owning the means of production through the state. Never said anything about it.
If a sufficient number of citizens do not share the vision of values, of meaning, then the country will fall apart on its own.
“Collectivism” is not what we are talking about. Italy is Italy and France is France because of a shared language, culture and values. Without that shared language, shared culture and shared values, those countries will cease to exist.
America’s “collectivist” shared vision is one taken from the Enlightenment and put into the founding document called the “US Constitution”. If “We, the People” all wake up tomorrow and forget about the Constitution, “We, the People” will cease to exist and the US will break up into regional areas.
Englishbob, it’s not just the Sex Pistols that sing of the demise of the UK. We see it daily in news reports. You use to dominate a sizable piece of the world but you just barely manage now to hold onto Scotland.
Without that shared vision, the one you don’t share anymore out of a spirit of cosmopolitanism, your future is no future at all.
On the contrary. A country has rights because the sovereign people who govern that country have rights. If they don’t have rights, then they can’t do anything. It sounds to me as if you resent the very notion of nationhood, and that you want a totally individualized society which has no real groups so you can feel safe? Am i right?
Voluntary groups are fine. Forced association or separation I find troubling.
I consider the notion of a “nationstate” to be oppressive. You speak of the people that govern that country. Which people do you mean? I don’t govern any countries.
If you are not a collectivist then you should not use collectivist. Collectivists use “our” and “we” as if you and I are a part of what they are doing. It is a subtle corruption of language. The logical use of the word “we” is when you can be reasonably certain that the people you refer to share your thoughts and motivations on a particular topic. Obviously a nation of 60 million do not all think as one, which is what you irrationally assume when you speak of “our” and “we”.
You speak of “our country”. You do not own a country and neither does anyone you know. The country is not yours. This is the illusion the politicians create when they repeat the words “our country”. You have fallen prey to this illusion. Furthermore, usage of this term makes you think you can tell other people what to do and value. That is socialism my friend and implies a collective ownership of the means of production. My hands are a means of production and you think that you own them collectively with others. You do not.
You are a socialist because you think you can tell me what to do wit my means of production.
Interesting that you mention Italy. Italy is a hodgepodge of previously independent states that was fairly recently unified. It does not have uniform values and cultures and in fact some former states have secession plans underway. Likewise with Spain and possibly Germany.
Make no mistake about it: I am an individual and a member of “We, the People”.
A society of true individuals is not a collective mob.
Do you find “nation-state” oppressive?
Try living outside of one.
That statement has no meaning.
You cannot be a member of a vague group. You can be a member of a specific group with specific rights delineated by the regulations of that group (say, The Masons). But you are not a member of “We, the People”. That is a mere abstraction.
I saw it too. 😛
Lol I see it too.
No they’re not, they’re just more devoted to their cause than most others
In some ways that’s admirable
The solution is to embrace nationalism on your own part
anyone who follows the Koran is a dangerous fanatic
Making absolutist statements is an important characteristic of fanatics as per the article above.
clever lad!!
The irony is: you sound like a fanatic. (I’m not saying you are, but you display the necessary condition of radicalization).
if you follow that logic then Winston Churchill was a fanatic, because he understood that the fanatic Hitler had to be defeated..
Churchill was a fanatic. He had a fanatical hatred of Germany. And his fanaticism led to the destruction of the British Empire.
thanks for making my point – almost every great leader and great movement is led by fanatics….we have a fanatical religion called islam that must be utterly destroyed and it will only be done with a leader who is fanatical about achieving that…
So replace one fanatic with another?
you’re weak and grasping for intellectual cover for your weakness and sheep like following of political correctness – and you know it!
Don’t be daft.
Can’t you read that I wrote you SOUNDED like one? It’s not enough to say you or Churchill were. If you’re a fanatic, then you’re radical; but if you’re radical, it doesn’t mean you’re fanatic. Anyway, Hitler is one person and you’re generalizing all muslims. That’s a big difference.
Upvoting your own comments to seem that people agree with you is quite coward.
Neville Chamberlain was a fanatic. He had a fanatical devotion to cultural Marxism that made him a pussy that Hitler laughed at as he kicked sand in his face. Then Churchill came along and brought some much needed alpha testosterone to the bargaining table.
anyone who follows Islam is by definition a fanatic…the koran is totally insane and fanatical written by an insane and fanatical paedophile.
I agree that the koran seems totally insane, but not everyone exactly follows it. It’s like saying that the bible is the ultimate book of virtue, then every christian is perfect. I’m not defending islam, so think what you will. By the way, this discussion is getting boring to me. Cheers.
i don’t think he wrote anything.
And he turned Great Britain into the 51st State of America. Great work!
Would you prefer to be speaking German right now? Didn’t think so.
Ja!
Actually, for the record, Hitler was happy to let Britain keep its empire, unlike the USA, which took it. Hitler’s enemy was the USSR and he did not want a second front with Britain. If Churchill had not gone to war over bloody Poland, he could have sat back and let the USSR and Germany wipe each other out.
Lol. You’re a funny guy englishbob. Don’t ever change.
So let’s just ignore the whole Maginot Line incompetence and the invasion and occupation of France business as if the French invited him in for wine, cheese, rape, and pillage? Hitler told Chamberlain he wouldn’t invade, and then he did. What leads you to believe Hitler would have left Britain alone? That makes me laugh. He opened up two major war fronts like a megalomaniac convinced it was his destiny to rule the world (and an incompetent military strategist.) Churchill “went to war over Poland” because Hitler INVADED it. Hitler wanted the world. He would have come for Britain, and he did. I seem to recall something about bombing raids where Churchill showed his HUGE brass balls by strutting about the tops of buildings in England risking death to build morale.
You know that when Hitler invaded Poland, so did Stalin, simultaneously? Stalin, who invaded Finland and rolled over Latvia, Lithuania etc. Why didn’t we declare war on Stalin as well or instead?
Also, I don’t agree that Hitler was a megalomaniac. I think his original objectives were more or less rational given a) the Versailles Treaty and b) the threat from the USSR. With that in mind, he had every incentive to end the war with Britain quickly through a negotiated settlement. Notwithstanding that, he did not have the resources to have a protracted war with Britain especially when the Soviets were coming.
Churchill put Britain firmly under the domination of the USA, where they have stayed ever since. He was blinded by his hate and envy of Germany.
Ha ha (or is that Ja ja?)! I won’t.
Stalin did that because of his non-aggression pact he had with Hitler, that Hitler ended up violating. Just like he violated the Munich agreement he made with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Hitler may have had incentives to respect international treaties, but he had a terrible track record of actually doing so. If Hitler considered USSR his enemy, he sure didn’t let Stalin know when he signed that non-aggression pact (that he violated.) Hitler was a madman. He was mentally ill. He wasn’t even German. He was a failed radical from Austria. You’re giving him far too much credit for sanity. Churchill saw this clearly and acted accordingly. And God bless him for it.
We didn’t declare war on Stalin, but we should have, then and there. Patton could have taken Berlin and Moscow and Beijing, and he wanted to do it, and he would have done it without permission if he didn’t need gasoline for his tanks from Eisenhower, who of course cut Patton’s supply. Patton should have been given the gas to take Berlin. We shouldn’t have let the Red Army do it. And then we should have let him take Moscow. Patton knew all this and was preparing to go public with his information after the war. Patton knew where the bodies were buried. And, of course, that’s why they killed him (see book linked below.) If they hadn’t killed him, he would have become President instead of Eisenhower.
http://www.amazon.ca/Killing-Patton-Strange-Audacious-General/dp/080509668X
“Patton could have taken Berlin and Moscow and Beijing” That’s funny.
It’s true.
Are you intentionally giving an example of the extreme good vs. evil outlook that Quintus attributes to fanatics?
The funny thing about fanatics is that they don’t see how their criticisms of others apply equally to themselves.
A final solution?
one that ends the problem…I am hoping the Shia and Sunni war will expand across the whole Middle East and one day Israel will be forced to wipe out many just to survive..
If you specify the problem vaguely as being a concept like “Islam” then you have a problem that cannot be solved.
But lets just cut the crap. You hate Muslims for unspecified and irrational reasons. You are dominated by “them and us” lizard brain thinking. People like you are fundamentally a danger to the human race. You are, essentially, a fanatic.
englishbob..the Islamic religion comes with an instruction manual called the Koran. It is filled with hate filled speech that instructs its followers to kill christians, jews and other unbelievers. The rights of women, gays and animals and their treatment is disgusting. So Islam is a very definable belief and not vague at all. People usually fear Islam and its easier to make arguments like yours in an attempt to give some intellectual cover to your weakness and fear than to face up to it.
…and fanatics, don’t you think almost all great leaders were fanatics. But there are good fanatics and bad fanatics. Mohammed was an evil and bad fanatic. Churchill, maybe Lincoln, Alexander The Great, Martell the Hammer, Richard The Lionheart, Wellington and others were good.
this. english bob.
u r a fanatic, dont go on a shooting spree in ur nearest mosque.
So what you are saying is that 0.7 to 1.9 billion muslims on the planet are a problem?
You are insane and the definition of a Nazi. You white supremists and white nationalists are the exact reason why websites like this are tracked and monitored by the security services.
The world would be a better place without people like you because in essence, you are no different from radical muslims or the KKK or Nazi.
read the Koran and you will see I am right 100%
no…i just understand the problem
So, we can consult you from now on to determine who the NAZI’s are?
Bring it on. We poop on your ”solution” 😉
well at the moment you’re all busy wiping each other out…wait til isis get to egypt and then israel has free reign to deal with them…remember for all your brave words tiny Israel gave your lot a kicking in the six day war despite you starting the war and in theory having an advantage.
From memory the Egyptian airforce was smashed in a matter of hours. The west could destroy every city in the Muslim world within hours if it chose and you would have no way of responding.
For reference this is a list of the allies against Israel..and therefore the list of defeated.
Egypt
Syria
Jordan
Iraq
Lebanon
Supported by:
Algeria
Kuwait
Libya
Morocco
Pakistan[3]
PLO
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Tunisia
The Egyptian airforce was hardly an airforce. 3000 years of foreign occupation made it rather useless to have an army, except for law enforcement. When looking at the Egyptian army NOW, it would wipe out Israel in an 1 on 1 war. Of course in reality America will lose its shit and send the NATO to destroy us. That’s basicly the only thing stopping us.
maybe one day we’ll see if your confidence is borne out
Because it’s a brat in the room we pamper and nobody is allowed to say it.
That’s like saying every Republican is a inbred trigger happy redneck
Well Oi fucking Vey
Way to drink the kool-aid. Fight extremism with absolutism. Good luck.
roll over ryan and let them tickle your belly…
This is an interesting article. To me, the real problem with fanaticism is that it creates a paradox by virtue of its very existence – when confronted by a fanatic, you are forced to choose between either ultimately becoming complicit in their fanaticism, or becoming a fanatic yourself to resist them. Resort to usual methods of discourse and justice are insufficient because fanatics are also very vocal with their deceptively contrived messages. After all, who should oppose something like “equality,” even though this is not the true aim of the fanatic?
So when faced with a fanatic, it eventually turns even the most even tempered men into fanatics themselves. I certainly know that I struggle with this. It’s very odd to find myself hating longtime friends over things they post on social media, and saying to myself, “yes, but when the collapse comes, I’ll be glad to see people like you done away with.” I feel this, and then instinctively recoil that I could feel this about people I have known for so long and been so close to. But at the same time that I recognize that this is out of sorts for me, I also recognize that these people feel the exact same way about me; they simply have not targeted me because I don’t vomit the contents of my innermost thoughts onto social media. If I did, I wonder how many would mark me as an enemy to be destroyed, rather than as a person to be reasoned with?
I haven’t found a solution to this. Ultimately, I know that in life, occasionally, you are forced to choose sides. If forced to choose, everyone must know what side they are on. When faced with this, perhaps the only resolution is to be aware of the paradox, and to remember that you were not the original fanatic. It was not us who said that opposing views could not coexist, and so we only need to fight fanatically until they are once again allowed and accepted.
i think you are fooled into a misconception.
there is no need to choose a side.
when you confront a fanatic, simply remember that it’s not the idea you feel angry at, but the personality of the person advocating it. to be precise, their “ideas” often aren’t even precise. take equality. it doesn’t really mean anything – to discuss it, you would need to ask: okay, brother, so what exactly is it that you want to be done and why should i want to help you do it?
these people (i was like that myself and often am, sometimes to provoke) provoke a straw man argument from you by presenting you the abomination of a good idea in the first place.
take jean-jacque rousseau for example. often cited by socialists and often opposed by capitalists.
yet when you actually read about what he really wrote, there was a lot of plausible and smart stuff in it.
people find those little black corns of sand on a yellow beach.
you say that you remind yourself that you weren’t the first to do it. that’s hypocritical. either be principled in your reason or don’t claim reason at all. claiming the moral high ground is just an excuse to not be disciplined.
i personally have started to take care of only thinking about very clear ideas. thus i often prefer to say “what do you mean?” instead of arguing against what i think someone means. even if that goes against my pride of being able to read minds.
I’m surprised Dylan Reed wasn’t mentioned in this article. Or was that intentional?
Dylan Roof? Intersting case. I don’t know if he was mentally ill or a fanatic or terrorist. He seems genuinely concerned for the future of the white race. Said that if no one else is voicing these concerns in public then the duty falls on him.
Dylan Roof my bad.
He seems to fit the description Quintus outlined pretty well. I figured the piece was meant to address that event without making this site look like a potential haven for neo-nazis.
I really don’t know what to make of that whole thing. What he did was obviously evil though.
Really in what context would you define him evil. As others at the parish notices he said “you rape our women and sorry but you must go” he noted that he did not view himself a radicle until the Trayvon Martin incident where the overwhelming support for the black youth and hated towards whites. That he felt there was no other viable outlet to voice concerns of crimes perpetrated by blacks towards whites. If he was acting to stop a greater crime by trying to start segregation
Perhaps the Breivik case is of worth noting. I mean these two both acted because they felt isolated. However the courts and media wanted it to be known Breivik was insane despite him protesting he was sane. Western media is quick to dismiss the agenda of these two individuals and focus on mental instability yet both acted over a long period of time with clear rationing of the proceeding events.
I apologize for my ignorance on this subject. I can’t contribute to the discussion you are looking for. I’m from Canada eh, and we lack the historical context for thinking about race issues in the ways Americans do. People here are talking about the Charleston shootings but our response is shallow at best.
With that said I read an article about Roof and apparently he wrote a manifesto, and the clips that I read from it were well written and thoughtful. He wasn’t a total idiot but he got caught up in the white-supremacist ideology. An ideology that seems to have allowed him to go to a church and murder a bunch of unarmed innocent people. In my book that is evil.
I get it that he wants people to take the decline of the white-race seriously. Perhaps he was trying to make some kind of statement… Or perhaps his girlfriend left him for a black guy with a big dick who knows… But his methods just make the world a worse place… And he is only contributing to further the image that white men are psychopaths who want control at all costs.
One of the tenants of maturity is realizing that only certain baser instinctual areas of living will forever remain black and white, while many others are shades of gray (and I don’t mean the solipsistic, hypergamous, fanatical sluts’ of Western Society favorite book). I think every young man has a bit of fanaticism inside him until he realizes how the world really works, and hopefully took some form of the red pill to get there. What’s lacking in these fanatics (male and sociopath females alike), is proper ordering of baser instincts, then on top of that, realizing most every things else is subjective.
what do you mean with ordering of baser instincts? sounds interesting.
The original fanatics were the Christian Crusaders.
Although the crusaders are commonly thought to have been motivated by their deep Christian faith, crusades were actually wars inspired by avarice.
As historians have confirmed, the Muslims were very tolerant towards Christians and Jews, whom they permitted to pray and worship. All minorities co-existing in the Holy Land benefited equally from this atmosphere of tranquility, created by the moral code of Islam. But because means of communication at the time were terribly primitive compared to today’s, medieval Europeans weren’t aware of this. Owing allegiance to the Vatican in Rome and conducting services in Latin, they knew little about the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Greek-speaking Byzantium, and even less about Islam.
The greedy hordes murdered countless Muslims and Jews in the hope of finding gold and jewels. Among crusaders, it was common practice to disembowel their victims in the hopes that they might have swallowed their gold and jewels to hide them. In the Fourth Crusade, their avarice reached the point where they looted Christian Constantinople, scratching gold leaf off the frescos in the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia.
I’m going to go ahead and call bs on that. The Crusades were in part a reaction to the Muslim invasion of Turkey and other traditionally Christian held lands. Additionally, calling out something from a thousand years ago in response to a modern issue is bullshit.
Here’s a good timeline
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2005/11/the_truth_about_islamic_crusad.html
Thank you, I’m reading on lunch at work and didn’t have time to pull a link. I’m glad someone did. Cheers sir.
The Crusades were a defensive action in response to Islamic butchery of Christians in the MIddle East.
Muslims invade India and kill millions.
http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/45331
Nice revisionist history, and your argument is a typical ‘game that muslimes play’.
The first Crusade began in 1095… 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Muslim armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Muslim armies, 443 after Muslims first plundered Italy, 427 years after Muslim armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Muslim armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Muslim armies, 249 years after the capital of the Christian world, Rome itself, was sacked by a Muslim army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced conversions of Christians.
By the time the Crusades finally began, Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.
Europe had been harassed by Muslims since the first few years following Muhammad’s death. As early as 652, Muhammad’s followers launched raids on the island of Sicily, waging a full-scale occupation 200 years later that lasted almost a century and was punctuated by massacres, such as that at the town of Castrogiovanni, in which 8,000 Christians were put to death. In 1084, ten yearsbefore the first crusade, Muslims staged another devastating Sicilian raid, burning churches in Reggio, enslaving monks and raping an abbey of nuns before carrying them into captivity.
In 1095, Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comneus began begging the pope in Rome for help in turning back the Muslim armies which were overrunning what is now Turkey, grabbing property as they went and turning churches into mosques. Several hundred thousand Christians had been killed in Anatolia alone in the decades following 1050 by Seljuk invaders interested in ‘converting’ the survivors to Islam.
Not only were Christians losing their lives in their own lands to the Muslim advance but pilgrims to the Holy Land from other parts of Europe were being harassed, kidnapped, molested, forcibly converted to Islam and occasionally murdered. (Compare this to Islam’s justification for slaughter on the basis of Muslims being denied access to the Meccan pilgrimage in Muhammad’s time).
Renowned scholar Bernard Lewis points out that the Crusades, though “often compared with the Muslim jihad, was a delayed and limited response to the jihad and in part also an imitation…. Forgiveness for sins to those who fought in defence of the holy Church of God and the Christian religion and polity, and eternal life for those fighting the infidel: these ideas… clearly reflect the Muslim notion of jihad.”
Lewis goes on to state that, “unlike the jihad, it [the Crusade] was concerned primarily with the defense or reconquest of threatened or lost Christian territory… The Muslim jihad, in contrast, was perceived as unlimited, as a religious obligation that would continue until all the world had either adopted the Muslim faith or submitted to Muslim rule… The object of jihad is to bring the whole world under Islamic law.”
The Crusaders only invaded lands that were Christian. They did not attack Saudi Arabia (other than a half-hearted expedition by a minor figure) or sack Mecca, as the Muslims had done (and continued doing) to Italy and Constantinople. Their primary goal was the recapture of Jerusalem and the security of safe passage for pilgrims. The toppling of the Muslim empire was not on the agenda.
The period of Crusader “occupation” (of its own former land) was stretched tenuously over about 170 years, which is less than the Muslim occupation of Sicily and southern Italy alone – to say nothing of Spain and other lands that had never been Islamic before falling victim to Jihad. In fact, the Arab occupation of North Africa and Middle Eastern lands outside of Arabia is almost 1400 years old.
Despite popular depiction, the Crusades were not a titanic battle between Christianity and Islam. Although originally dispatched by papal decree, the “occupiers” quickly became part of the political and economic fabric of the Middle East without much regard for religious differences. Their arrival was largely accepted by the local population as simply another change in authority. Muslim radicals even lamented the fact that many of their co-religionists preferred to live under Frankish (Christian) rule than migrate to Muslim lands.
The Islamic world was split into warring factions, many of which allied themselves with the Frankish princes against each other at one time or another. This even included Saladin, the Kurdish warrior who is credited with eventually ousting the “Crusaders.” Contrary to recent propaganda, however, Saladin had little interest in holy war until a rogue Frankish prince began disrupting his trade routes. Both before and after the taking of Jerusalem, his armies spent far more time and resources battling fellow Muslims.
For its part, the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire preferred to have little to do with the Crusader kingdoms and went so far as to sign treaties with their Muslim rivals on occasion.
Another misconception is that the Crusader era was a time of constant war. In fact, very little of this overall period included significant hostilities. In response to Muslim expansion or aggression, there were only about 20 years of actual military campaigning, much of which was spent on organization and travel. (They were from 1098-1099, 1146-1148, 1188-1192, 1201-1204, 1218-1221, 1228-1229, and 1248-1250). By comparison, the Muslim Jihad against the island of Sicily alone lasted 75 grinding years.
Ironically, the Crusades are justified by the Quran itself, which encourages Holy War in order to”drive them out of the places from whence they drove you out” (2:191), even though the aim wasn’t to expel Muslims from the Middle East, but more to bring an end to the molestation of pilgrims. Holy war is not justified by New Testament teachings, which is why the Crusades are an anomaly, the brief interruption of centuries of relentless Jihad against Christianity that began long before and continued well after.
The greatest crime of the Crusaders was the sacking of Jerusalem, in which at least 3,000 people were said to have been massacred. This number is dwarfed by the number of Jihad victims, from India to Constantinople, Africa and Narbonne, but Muslims have never apologized for their crimes and never will.
What is called ‘sin and excess’ by other religions, is what Islam refers to as duty willed by Allah.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Games-Muslims-Play.htm#crusades
I didn’t feel like typing today, but I had to log in and give you my CONGRATULATIONS. There’s too much marxist anti-christian bullshit in history nowadays.
I claim none of the content as my own. Thereligionofpeace is a highly credible resource when countering and debunking frivolous Muslim claims by the Koranderthals and their useful idiot allies.
I agree with you except on this:
The New Testament justifies self defense (from which the doctrine of Just War later emerged) and Jesus Himself stated he came not bring peace to this world but war and strife. Martyrdom was embraced if no other way was present. Without this impulse, the gains of Islam would have been greater…
did they find the gold?
Islam is the only religion without a Golden Rule. All the other major religions have this rule, i.e. “Treat other people as you would, yourself, like to be treated.” Islam has a rule for Muslims to treat every other MUSLIM as he would, himself, like to be treated. But then Islam has a whole OTHER set of rules for how the KAFIR (i.e., non-Muslim) must be treated, and the required treatment ain’t so very nice.
Judaism is the same way.
In Islam the Golden Rule is reserved solely for fellow Muslims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Islam
Now from the same web page:
The earliest known text of the positive form of the Golden Rule is the following Biblical verse, written c. 1300 BCE:[69]
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your kinsfolk. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
—Leviticus 19:18[70], Tanakh
Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE – 10 CE),[71] used this verse as a most important message of the Torah for his teachings. Once, he was challenged by a gentile who asked to be converted under the condition that the Torah be explained to him while he stood on one foot. Hillel accepted him as a candidate for conversion to Judaism but, drawing on Leviticus 19:18, briefed the man:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
—Shabbath folio:31a, Babylonian Talmud
Hillel recognized brotherly love as the fundamental principle of Jewish ethics. Rabbi Akiba agreed and suggested that the principle of love must have its foundation in Genesis chapter 1, which teaches that all men are the offspring of Adam who was made in the image of God
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule#Judaism
Judaism teaches that all men are the offspring of Adam who was made in the image of God, and so the Golden Rule in Judaism applies to all men, Jew or not Jew. Islam is different. Islam applies the Golden Rule exclusively to Muslims, and, furthermore, Islam does not teach that man was created in God’s image. To understand what Islam actually teaches, I encourage you to watch the video below.
There is nothing wrong with “absolutes”, however, it is important how they control your interactions with others …
the problem is that our language often doesn’t allow absolutes with it’s ambiguity. thus the people who think they follow absolutes actually have only very muddy ideas simply because the wording of their ideas is not precise.
Tom, you are talking to an English teacher(aka “preaching to the choir”). Every day we are told that we need to pump STEM in our schools, meanwhile completely ignoring language and it’s importance for personal growth.
ever since my ayahuasca trip, i have been obsessed with language.
have you read “language in thought and action”? if not, highly recommended.
whenever you ask “what is …” (a soul? god?), it is good to remember that it is basically just a word – a sound. and then wonder what somebody may have assigned it to. and then maybe see that people assign it to all kinds of things that are even contradictory, so it doesn’t mean anything, leading to all your confusion.
Tom,
That is the very reason why I enjoy Plato so much: he exposes concepts for what they really are. He then shows how prepositional language fails to expose those concepts.
interesting. i had a beef with plato, but i realize i never really read him.
Yes. It’s important to emphasize that the middle ground isn’t always the best option: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation
BB,
Morally I stand firm and “absolute” that I will not promulgate same-sex and LGBT(or is it BLT) in my classroom. However, using language and reason, I can convey that in a satisfactory way to my co-workers and superiors w/o being tarred and feathered or being handed a cup of hemlock to drink.
I see. The context really helped to understand what you were trying to say.
Religious fanatics, social fanatics, political fanatics… they’re a popular lot these days. Insensible.
Yes, they seem to be everywhere now. Modern technology has amplified their voices in ways that the lunatics of the past could only dream about.
But they always destroy themselves in the end. One way or another.
I think there is a tendency and perhaps this is through the shift from the objective to the subjective. That we haves moved from the rationale paradigm and towards the emotional.we therefore see those who are extreme be listed to and voiced because not only is it a form of exhibitionism but the “moderate” will say that it is passion and they should concede ground to the extreme. This further fuel the cycle because the radical feels further justification. I think animal rights activists show this perfectly. It’s like big concentric circles. PETA in the middle and on the outside people who are against some aspects of high intensity farming reduced. Between this you have vegetarians and vegans etc. it seems that much of this eventually becomes an issue of identity and some vegetarians turn to veganism etc. it’s all about how we perceive our status within a certain social moment that is largely the byproduct of an environment that only sounds the more extreme actions and views and then acts as if this is normal of everyone within that group therefore redefining the normal and creating a hierarchy of attatchment to a group.
The fixation on the evil Other makes the fanatic obsessed with purging traces of the evil Other that may be hidden in himself.
Sounds a lot like Nietzsche’s slave morality, n’est-ce pas? Another great article Quintus. A little surprised that you didn’t get into Nietzsche though.
‘These birds of prey are evil; and whoever is least like a bird of prey and most like its opposite, a lamb, – is good, isn’t he?’, then there is no reason to raise objections to this setting-up of an ideal beyond the fact that the birds of prey will view it somewhat derisively, and will perhaps say: ‘We don’t bear any grudge at all towards these good lambs, in fact we love them, nothing is tastier than a tender lamb.’
oh, come on, we’ve had enough relativism.
condemn the fanatic preacher, yet preach the morals of altruism without any logical justification.
condemn violence, for the sake of non-violence. what is your argument against violence?
what is your tip for the uncaring psychopath? “don’t hurt others because they don’t want to be hurt.” an argument he will rightly laugh at.
i accept that a man may live by a moral code, but nowadays, it must be one he is convinced of not out of “antiquity”. blind trust into age leads nowhere and is a boring sentimentality. not only that – it is simply impossible to be fully believe in.
a moral code that provides confidence must give a man a life that he profits from, not one that others profit from. life is business and no sane man will enter a business contract without thinking he can profit from it.
if certainty is so bad, how can you say with certainty that certainty is bad? isn’t that fallacious?
i loathe the fanatic’s irrationality, it is despicable and has no wit. but a man who chooses to listen to his darker sides and contemplate living them in one way or another is simply honest. a man who decides to interpret life completely on his own is a visionary.
aren’t we here advocates – in one way or another – of rape fantasies?
granted, the fanatic is not a visionary.
i would agree that certainty is destructive for the mind if you have not reached it through your own experiences. i see what this kind of certainty does to a friend of mine who is a scientologist.
something tells me that followers are often more convinced of the things they hear than their leader who tells them.
and even as you, quintus – like many before you – admonish your readers to think for themselves, many will only interpret it as “think for yourself – along the lines i prepare for you”.
Isn’t a true enlightened man supposed to come equipped with a functional self check/reflection system?
There’s a cosmic joke in between relativism & absolutism somewhere. And I ain’t figured it out yet… ;/
Of that..i am CERTAIN.
i don’t know what an enlightened man is, but some form of self-observation skill is useful.
not following with the cosmic joke.
I can’t profess to knowing the mind of an enlightened man myself to be fair.
Ah, the cosmic joke thing was just my way of alluding to the way the ancient Greeks would tell of how their pantheon of gods would make playthings of Man. A smart ass way for me to admit I don’t have answers.
well, some man must once have reached a state in which he felt very comfortable. he called this state enlightened.
would i call the same state enlightened? i don’t know.
if i would, would i care to be enlightened? i don’t know.
i’m kinda tired of chasing the carrot. not trying to be enlightened – makes me feel quite enlightened actually.
using confusing language to express your confusion. nice.
Yeah, I had one of those nights with little sleep & certain deadlines to meet. Came across in the drivel I typed out.
For the record I do enjoy reading the points you brought up in your large comment post above. Provokes thought & some degree of reflection.
thanks. be sure to challenge me if you find a mistake in my expressed ideas.
What is good for me is right. What is an obstacle to my own happiness is evil.
sounds like beloved objectivism.
Or a bunch of the red pillers on reddit.
cool guys for sure.
The general membership are fine but the mods are getting nuttier by the hour.
Sounds like a direct quote from the California State Constitution…
Following your example, then, I’d have to say that when I come upon you dangling over a cliff, beseeching me for help, that I’ll have to weigh the request by your standards. Pray that I find it more fun to help you than to continue on my way to the ice cream stand.
hey, sometimes a little false certainty is good for a laugh:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/413044/belief-systems-man-dies-after-drinking-hot-oil/
You mentioned something about abusive environments fostering this lack of sympathy/empathy for others.
The point id like to make is that if certain individuals are a threat to that person, how could their lives possibly have any value or how would they be deserving of any sympathy? Empathy of course is always a required attribute for any man’s intellect, but sympathy or misguided compassion for those who rise up against you? That would be immoral and detrimental to one’s survival, fanatic or not.
fyi, i started reading “inside the criminal mind”.
the author, involved in decade long research, proposes that the abusive environment theory fails to explain the criminal personality and that instead biological factors may play a major role.
i’ll be damned if i claim to know if that is true, but it is interesting to question these conventional wisdoms. we’ve all heard it said so many times – yet it may just be another false theory.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a feminist described as a fanatic, or for that matter any woman, despite the fact that there have been no shortage of fanatically radical feminists, even if they tend not to shoot things up for the most part. But why do you have to shoot things up to be labelled a fanatic?
Truth is, this is a society that is governed primarily through the management of risk. Fanatics – I should say overtly violent male fanatics – are essential for that purpose. We live in a surveillance society, with increasingly less freedom of speech, and fewer rights to challenge power, precisely because of idiots like Dylan Roof, etc, who can’t control their anger or their urges, and who are too stupid to argue their case with words (rather than guns).
If it was just about violent fanatics though it wouldn’t matter, but there is an ever present effort by the guardians of society (increasingly the left) to link lone nutcases to any kind of speech or activity they don’t like, via the concept of ‘extremism’ a term so flexible it can be used to describe virtually anything and anyone (except of course say feminists who want to depopulate the world of males or whatever).
Dylan Roofs legacy will of course not only be the damage he’s done to a community, and the lives he took, but also the freedoms that are likely to be lost on account of his actions, the fact that it will advance the agenda of ‘intolerance against intolerance’ – otherwise known as tolerance. In the next few years a different kind of extremist, or should that be fanatic will be pushing for legislation (at least in the EU) to legislate to enforce tolerance, and to criminalise anything that could potentially be labelled as extremism (that is in other words anything that could potentially threaten the free and unscrutinized exercise of power). None of which will do anything to stop the next Dylan Roof for the simple reasons that idiocy is eternal
if i was an alien superlord, i would come to america, ask each citizen if they are leftists or rightists. then i would divide the country with a big wall and beam the leftists to the right and the rightists to the left (they deserve california).
then see who does better. fair enough, or not?
i mean, why bother putting up with all those people you hate anyway?
Are you sure the sample size is big enough? Will your alien superlord get his proposal past the alien research council ethics committee
Still such an “apartheid state” might actually work…and all without any racism
maybe if he disguises as a gaylord. transgay, you know, those who think they are gay men inside a normal men’s body and are sad that they only feel attracted to women – if gender had not already been abolished in the alien race.
minorities always get some cookies from the alien committees.
makes me wonder, though – if aliens were to abolish gender, which one would they get rid of?
it would work until the suddenly poor wrecked leftist half would have nobody to pay for their abortions, pills and happy meals anymore.
“if aliens were to abolish gender, which one would they get rid of?”
I think they’d all go out to their favourite restaurant to think about it. Having dined at the Y, they’d then decide to abolish the corresponding chromesome. And if Bryan Singer and Ian McKellern have any say in the matter we will then all be known as X-men
It would still work. Just need a very high wall.
How is that not working? Who cares if it “works” for them, the whole reason for a division is to separate the wheat from the chaff. The fate of the chaff is irrelevant to the success of the wheat.
that’s true. as long as the chaff doesn’t decide to march into the wheat’s land in the name of social justice, take and rape.
i would then proceed to incinerate the leftist half from orbit
but that’s just me
maybe, if it took too long for them to incinerate themselves.
That has almost been done already, naturally. Only that the division is North-South, with the North being leftist and the South rightist. The division line goes approximately where the border between the Union and the Confederacy went back in the day.
And so far, the leftists are doing better in most measurable ways.
Same in Korea. The leftist are enjoying the north and the capitalists the south.
http://www.themonastery.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/2008-presidential-election-final1.jpg
interesting, but this is just about majorities. i am talking absolute division of all voters.
I strongly suspect that Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas would beg to differ to a degree.
Ah, so the reason why the Liberal states are significantly more prosperous on average is that they have minorities of Conservative supermen who carry the world like John fucking Galt, pulling up them above the national average despite the massive amounts of socialist mooching going on in their states? Super-conservatives who, for some reason, are way less prevalent in the Conservative states.
Of course. Always have to cherry-pick the case that best aligns with whatever point we are trying to make.
what do you mean by ‘more prosperous’?
if you look around the world, the most wealthy states are usually those to employ most socialistic politics. i propose that this is due to the laziness that wealth promotes, especially if it is not earned. in other words: once you have established yourself and got your business running, you want to engage in feelgood stuff like welfare. rich guilt may also be a reason.
Fanaticism is good, it’s what wins.
This lukewarm, conservative, bourgeois faggtory that’s paralyzing us is precisely what makes us sitting ducks for feminists, sjw, jews, muslims, white knights etc… Notice that all these are fanatics?
Most people are not even supposed to think for themselves, that’s why you need people on the extreme ends to guide the masses.
It’s really a question of who it is you want to be in control. Because if we don’t make a choice soon then things like multiculturalism genocide, Rotherham, and cuckolding will continue until every single White man is either dead or in a gulag.
Don’t be a fence-sitting faggot.
However Fanaticism taken to its conclusion may not be as beneficial in reality.
Why don’t you ask ISIS?
While you cuckolds are sitting around letting your daughters get raped by these Moslems, these same people are building a Caliphate.
What are you wankers doing besides going extinct while you jerk off to the latest red-pill ‘revelation’?
ISIS will be akin to a mountain of skulls with the last guy shooting himself in the head. That is the long-term consequence of fanaticism.
And those ISIS just had their main supply route cut by the Kurds. You think they will succeed?
That’s some pretty tough talk, yet in reality the US Military could not stabilize Iraq, and they sure as hell couldn’t defeat the Taliban. They’re a spent force, ISIS is free to do whatever they want, and they are.
The point is they’re fanatics and they’re not going to give up. They got funding from all over the place. Cut off one supply line and they’ll find another, they’re going to be as tenacious as the Taliban and they plan on going all the way into Europe.
Into Europe, where there are already so many Muslims forming gangs and brutally raping White European woman by the thousands. Just imagine what it will be like when ISIS gets in.
Meanwhile White men the world over are looking the other way, masturbating over trivialities while their civilizations are collapsing and their ‘strong and independent’ feminist whores are being taken away from them.
This demands a fanatic response if our race is to survive this catastrophe. There is absolutely no room for the measured, polite, and civilized moderation that conservative cuckolds and cowards exemplify. These null-brained idiots did nothing as this predicament developed. They were useless during the cultural insurrections of the 60s and 70s, and they’re useless now.
Fanaticism is what we need, we need National Socialism back!
HEIL HITLER!
You do know that socialism is a failed economic system.
National Socialism was not a failure. While the whole world was in a great depression Hitler’s Germany soared above it all. The man created six million jobs while Roosevelt was twiddling his thumbs.
Do you really want to debate semantics?
There has not been an adeqate timeframe to judge its success.
Wasn’t a failure? Is it still around?
And the Roman Empire is no longer around. Was that a failure too?
What a stupid comment.
It’s more the case that you don’t have adequate knowledge of the matter to make that judgement.
Don’t come crying to me.
Yes, actually the Roman empire was a failure as well. It had intrinsic weaknesses that allowed the Goths to eventually take it over. It didn’t just disappear like the elves from Middle Earth. It fell due to well charted and explored weaknesses. Ergo, failure.
Sneering ad hominem doesn’t work well here. Try to stay focused and on topic.
According to that brilliant logic every political organization and empire in world history is a failure.
What a stupid argument you have going here.
Ok, I’ll make it clear to you.
They failed because they did not act in accordance with human nature. Their leadership was extremely greedy, nefariously backstabbing and their social order was based on selflessness at the individual level (socialism) and an unworkable economic model (again, socialism). You can wave the flag all you want, nationalism can be a neutral value, but the socialism was untenable. The Soviets “put lots of people to work” too, but that doesn’t mean that they were ultimately successful. Given more than a decade and a half the Nazis would have had the same problems that plagued the Soviets economically. It’s easy to hand out shovels in the beginning, not so easy to see 5 year plan after 5 year plan plunge you into bankruptcy.
Socialism is bad, whether it’s served on the plate of the MultiCult or if it is lilly white, blonde haired and blue eyed. People don’t work like that at a societal level, never have, never will. Even the Chinese have a sense of individualism and have reverted back to capitalism, and they are the most selfless culture on earth.
And yes, ultimately all societies are failures in the end. Not failures because they were struck by a meteor, but because their societal fabric and ideologies contain flaws that allow the failure. While one can look at Rome and say “they were successful for several centuries at least, before their fatal flaws caused their downfall”, the Germans didn’t even make it 20 years with their stinker of an “idea”. That’s big time failure on all levels. I laugh at their incompetence.
End of the day, national socialism, like all forms of socialism, is for the weak, ineffectual and moronic.
And that adequate knowledge will not be due to the systems early demise.
Tough keyboard warrior.
You’re not as smart as you think.
I may not be smart but I can see internet braggado when I see one. I always seek after the truth so even if I am wrong know I will eventually come around.
Dylan Roof said that he didn’t consider himself a fanatic. He just said that he had no representation for his interests “no skin heads and no KKK” he said just alot of people taking on the Internet. Before he shot the people he said “no one else will do it so the job falls on me.” It seems very calm and collected. To sit through till the end of prayer and then shoot.
Too bad the active shooter exercise taking place in Charleston from the 15th to the 18th didn’t catch this.
https://www.fletc.gov/training-calendar
Oh well, lone gunman got lucky again.
OK The ads on this site have gotten ridiculous. I have domain based router-level ad blocking so I rarely see an ad when browsing, but popups from ROK seem to get through. I just got one of those horrible “Click here, your computer has a virus” ads that you can’t close without clicking cancel 500 times, so I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL. It was for pcservices.com or something. This kind of garbage has to go, if people are to take this site seriously. I’ve never seen a porn site that had popups as bad as this one.
OK it’s helperpcservices.com and it just happened again. I’m out. I’ll try again tomorrow but the site is totally unusable as long as it has this. I know you gotta make money but I draw the line on popup ads that take over my computer.
If you’re not running a browser alternative (Chrome, Firefox, or Opera) with Adblock, Ghostery, Flashblock, and maybe NoScript, you’re doing it wrong. DNS adblocking at the router shouldn’t be your only means of protection. I have ROK whitelisted for some ads like the sponsored posts and the trending ads at the bottom of the page. Never once seen a hijack ad here with my setup.
I’ve always used Adblock but those ads are bypassing it. I wouldn’t mind ads on ROK, after all they need to generate some money, but those ones are annoying.
Send a screenshot of the ad to [email protected]
This work?
The fanatic is only one who defies the trends. Nearly everyone who visits this site is deemed a fanatic by those that fanatically want to uphold the values and bonds that hold feminism together. Namely through self imposed loathing for the accomplishments that many of the forefathers have given US through sacrifice, hard work and determination. These attributes are the reason they are hated because these attributes can rebuild a broken a broken society. Many in ISlam to their credit want to remove some of the perils and hedonistic values that drain people and society of their spiritual essence. While i don’t want to join this Messianic cult i find it hard to view everyone who does as insane because there are reasons why well educated men of different ethnicities are revolting against a system that did not give them any other means for self determination.
Being deemed fanatic and being fanatic is not necessarily synonymous.
True however the outcome is usually the same
I’m afraid I disagree with you Quintus about Julian the Apostate. I’ve read a couple of books about emperor Julian. Gore Vidal’s book, “Julian” although biased , was fairly accurate. Julian did away with Christianity as the official and ONLY religion of the empire. Julian was a pagan, polytheist but he restored freedom of religion. He was a genius and renaissance man. He was murdered by religious fanatics.
What you should ask about your beliefs do you believe them enough to die for them. how did the Muslims grow so large, they grabbed the average joe and put a gun or sword on his neck and he gladly put aside his atheism and started praying 6 times a day. And the Catholics did the same. So you get to the point where the fanatic is the only one who lives or keeps his beleifs that grey area doesn’t survive
The Mind Of The Fanatic.
Another example…joining the military because the guvmint tell-a-vision tells you that there are weapons of mass destruction, a Red under every bed, so-and-so will “take over the world”, Remember the Maine and to Hell with Spain, ad naseum.
Google: War is a Racket – USMC Major General Smedley Butler.
Find out the truth from a direct source.
I’m not a muslim.But Islam is pretty good for us men.Sucks for women.And it’s way more easy than our religion that says that you can reach heaven only through Jesus, who walked upon the earth.So you HAVE TO belive that a man who once walked among us is a son of a one true God.
Muslims have it waaaay more relaxed, they have Mohamed, who was prophet and a messanger, rather easy to belive in, like beliving that there were Moses and Abraham.Extraordinary people, but people just the same.
And concerning fanatics, it’s not about religion, not for real.It’s about money, it was always about money, mainly the lack of it.
Speaking about fanatics, Americans are always like – “yeah man, what are we going to do about those dirty fanatic towel heads.”Idea for you, don’t go to their countries, and then messed them up, so you can buy cheap oil.How about that.Yeah, guess not, because not exploiting resources of weaker countries would ruin “The american way of life” tm.
Soooo, cheap middle east oil + CIA installed gov. + war = jihad fanatics that kill your soldiers and citizens when and where they can.It’s a package deal that you took.So don’t cry about it.
And what’s that about your professional crying pussies, I mean soldiers.It’s pretty embarressing to watch many of them bitching and crying when it’s time to go to war, or returning from war.Like they were drafted or were victims of mobilisation.You are a professional soldiers for crying out loud, you don’t fight for ideals and freedom.You fight for economic needs of your country, you fight for money.
You get paid to shoot people that oppose interests of your country, off course some will return fire, maybe kill you or cripple you, but that’s the way of a professional soldier, live with it, don’t sign up and then bitch about it.But I guess everybody want’s free education, military perks and benefits, without that silly war of course, because we are lovers, not fighters.
PS
And what’s up with that wanna be Arian dumb or dumber hairdo head case that killed nine people in a church.Talking about fanatics, it looks like you in America have endless supply of those.If it’s not a Jihad fanatic than the great odds are that it’s an American fanatic.You have to stop producing those silly morons.They are making you look silly.
Dr. Baruch Goldstein hy’d was a kind a righteous man who had acted to prevent the massacre the muslims were openly planning in Hebron. When the holy doctor entered the Marat hamachpelah the Muslims were screaming ikhbat al-yehud slaughter the Jews. He sacrifixied himself to prevent a repeat of 1929.
So for you the equivalent of Je Suis Charlie is Je Suis Baruch?
Once you start shooting up people details don’t really matter.
Is morality absolute?
Yes
So anyone who believes in morality is a fanatic?
Morality is an absolute. It may make anyone a fanatic but it may not make everyone a fanatic.
Morality is by its very nature relative. It is only the fanatics that believe their version of morality who believe that it is absolute.
Are you absolutely sure morality is relative?
lol…
Curious, do you know of cultures, any cultures, where it’s acceptable, in normal non-war type situations, to walk down the street (or dirt path) and rape 2 year old children from your own tribe? I don’t. Maybe I’ve missed something in the history books though.
I’ve noticed that there seems to be a meta-morality at play throughout humanity throughout history. Not granular rules, but large ones that, if not followed, lead to the death of any tribe/civilization in question.
I know of a culture where its acceptable to steal money from one group of people and hand it to another. Not only that, in this culture it is considered immoral if you act within the laws of that culture to reduce the amount of money that is stolen from you.
And of course, there have been many cultures where it is deemed acceptable to rape the losers of a battle or otherwise hurt them.
But these are not arguments or evidence for or against morality. They are merely emotive statements/questions. In fact, your question gets my lizard brain whirring – protect the “us” from the “them” i.e. the “threat”. The threat can be internal or external. An example of what you are talking about is the killing of heretics. So the heretics, even if born as members of the tribe, must be killed because they threaten the continued existence of the tribe, much as the the child rapist. Local tribe morality. And quite relative.
You’re talking exceptions to the rule. I’m talking about the rule. Any society that condones, on a regular come and go basis, the rape of any given 2 year old child will not last beyond a generation or two tops. All human beings seem to have a basic moral sense that is not misaligned with all other human beings, if they are normal sane people. Try walking down the street and raping random 2 year olds in Tailand, Canada or Montana and the reaction will be *exactly* the same from the locals. You’ll be strung up.
This is *not* the same as stating that all human beings share similar morals beyond the meta level. There are just certain things you cannot do as a human society and expect that society to continue existing for any length of time. Those that followed that “all morality is relative, even the kind against raping 2 year olds” have long disappeared before the first letter of the first alphabet ever appeared in history.
Well then by your logic such a culture would never exist. But so what? You haven’t proved the existence of morality. Rather, what you have provided is an example of evolutionary selection. In other words, the human species has selected for humans that do not randomly attack and kill one another, since if it did not, we would not be here.
Sure such cultures could exist, for a while. A generation, maybe two. They all would go Easter Island though pretty quickly.
Choosing not to rape 2 year olds is not a function of biology, it’s a matter of choice. One chooses based on certain cultural memes and overall moral codes. There are people who rape 2 year olds (or indiscriminately murder innocent people walking down the street), so it’s not evolutionary. All societies, across the world and history however all seem to share the common theme that you don’t indiscriminately murder random innocent people or rape innocent 2 year old random (key word, random, as clearly you can find history where certain “types” were made into “bad” and justified) kids. It’s written not only into every tome of law since Hammurabi (in general if not specifics) but across every social norm ever established. It’s a common theme in the human condition, ergo, a meta morality.
And last, if morality was all relative then basically you’re saying that slavery and the USSR are not awful horrible marks on humanity, but rather just differences of opinion.
Evolution is not absolute or perfect. And it can only be judged in terms of selection. Evolutionary development will still throw up results that are not optimal viewed from the perspective of the continuity of the human race. But as such, these results will not survive selection pressure.
Obviously vicious crimes appall me but that is my emotional response. It does not make it a universal fact that crime is “evil”. Your only fallback position therefore is logic since there is nothing else. Otherwise, you must explain to me the basis of your absolute morality with an argument more convincing than “its bad because its bad”.
@englishbob on a separate note bob, really value your posts. Noticed you’re based in the UK. Will you be heading to the Roosh World Tour in July?
I’m reminded of some words by George Lincoln Rockwell in regards to fanatics. His position was that the world needs more fanatics today. How do you think the USA was formed as a country in the first place? How do you think the greatest pieces of art that have become icons of our culture were made?
In a world where the forces stacked against us are becoming increasingly fanatic, maybe we should adopt a little bit of fanaticism ourselves. Of course our critical thinking and ability to put things in perspective help ground us; but if we don’t adopt some fanaticism and fight for what we believe in, we’ll all continue getting eaten by those fanatics who DO fight (e.g. radical leftists, feminists, cultural and political subverters, etc).
Julian tried to return the empire to its original pagan beliefs, which had been banned by zealot Christians. Pagan temples were destroyed and followers savagely persecuted with the usual Middle eastern dualistic zealotry. To accuse Julian of being a fanatic is like calling the Spanish Reconquista an assault on innocent, peaceful Muslims. Total BS. To fight aggressors you need to summon some aggression yourself.
Lack of education in critical thinking breeds ignorance and narrow mindedness, and gives venue to fanaticism.
Ignorance is bliss?
The Jewish guy who shot the Palestinians was a MD. the 9/11 bombers were largely University educated. Fanaticism is more ego driven which education may fuel!
Going to University does not mean the education took hold in his brain. And one example among thousands does not a rule make.
Every Zionist is an evil murderer . Right of return based on what?
A 3000 year old book written by Zionists.
Let’s give our lands back to Red Indians and go back to where we came from.
Blanket statement, much?
The fanatic sees the world in absolutes. For him, there are no mixed
tones of grey. It is all one thing, or all the other. The world is a
battleground between the forces of good and evil,
Are you religious Quintus?
When we have a society that encourages nothing but hedonistic narcissism, I think you’ll see this kind of fanaticism increase as well.
Why this specific type of society? Seems to me fanatics are not intrinsic to a particular society, and every society in history produces them in no small number.
Fanatics just need a safe outlet! Tiger Woods is a fanatic when it comes to Golf. In the past being a monk who wrote the bible was emblematic of being a fanatical catholic.feminism however seems to be symptomatic of a “safe” modern outlet for fanaticism which many are realising that it is not.
Nothing wrong with being a fanatic. It is not the moderates who make history, it is the fanatics. Pure fanatic power is a vital part of any society, what matters is how it is used.
Excellent piece Quintus. The detail and eloquece of your writing is to be admired.
I found myself drawing many parallels to myself when describing fanaticism:
“The fanatic sees the world in absolutes. For him, there are no mixed
tones of grey. It is all one thing, or all the other. The world is a
battleground between the forces of good and evil, and only he himself is
fully aware of the dimensions of this conflict.”
That accurately describes a large portion of ROK commentators. I see the conservative pro-male movement as a battleground between good and evil. Obviously I have enough perspective to not commit illegal or immoral acts in the name of my beliefs, but I am a force of good on a battleground of degeneracy nonetheless.
A great article, Quintus. Conspicuous for its absence, is the SJW, or progressive fanatic. Perhaps the conspicuous absence was calculated, highlighting it, in a way.
A further thought: while I certainly understand (and agree) with the overall point you make, it seems to me that the heart of fanaticism is not so much in absolutes – for this (i.e., that one must avoid absolutes) is itself an absolute. I am a man of absolutes, and of certainty, when it comes to essential principles. But there is always the distinction between matter and form, general and specific. So, for example, the Church observes a distinction between “material heresy” (the mere fact of incorrect belief) and “formal heresy” (obstinately to perdure in incorrect belief). Heresy is always bad (materially, generally); but it is not the case that every man (formally and specifically) with an incorrect belief, is guilty as an heretic. While principles remain absolute, the healthy man understands that individual persons and their actions are complex.
To me, therefore, it seems that the difference between a sane man and a fanatic is this: the sane man may be certain of his absolutes, but he is also cognizant of the personal struggle for integrity of life, and therefore he is not indifferent to the fact of this struggle in others; the fanatic mistakes his feelings of conviction for certainty and devotion, and therefore has no patience for the slightest hesitation or failings in others. Chesterton develops a similar train of thought in his book, “Orthodoxy,” alleging that the insane man “believes in himself,” when all of the sane people in history knew that one should believe in the Truth, and doubt one’s self. “To believe in one’s self” – i.e., to believe merely in one’s own certainty and commitment – is the definition of the madman and the fanatic.
SJW’s certainly believe in themselves with a fanatical narcissism.
Great article
This article reminded me of Chapter 2 of “Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton. It is entitled “The Maniac”.
The last line of this article “Certainty, under whatever guise it takes, is murderous.” reminded me of this passage from “Orthodoxy”. “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.” The context of this is made very clear by reading the whole chapter.
I recommend reading the whole book because it is fantastic but here is a link to the chapter I was talking about.
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ch2.html
Intense emotional attachment to any set of “should”, to any values, to any virtues, or to any depravities is a form of mental illness, a disease, and ultimately a condition of self-or other- murder. Moreover, it is a condition of cultural assassination and speaks of a deluded, weak, immature, and sick culture.
Sure every religion has its scattered fanatics…except the religion of Islam. An actually significant portion of muslims are fanatics, followed by an even larger portion of those who support them, followed by the largest; those who stay quiet and are apathetic at best and silently cheer the more aggressive at worst.
A bit disappointed by this article. “Enlightened” thinkers thought of themselves as rational, yet they paved the way for political radicalism and banking capitalism. Conservatives often pride themselves to be rationals, they merely keep losing ground for fanatical and hysterical leftists. Snobs who criticize the so-called conspiracy theories despise those who may believe in them, yet power networks truly exist, as well as metapolitics. Sometimes a bit of fanaticism is good. A fanatic on our side may do much better than a hundred “moderates” pursuing a petty carreer and bourgeois comfort. In a rotten world, I’d better be on the side of lions than sheeps.
It was so nice to read this piece immediately after a newer one called “why all leftists are clinically insane,” or some future-school-shooter kind of title like that.
Thanks for keeping the good shit on here QC
I love that last line, Quintus! Great article as usual from you!
What about the fanatical feminist?
An ROK article condemning fanaticism just set off my irony meter.
Can a fanatic change himself? Can he see himself as a fanatic? After Saint Augustine found a text which changed the image of himself, he made a big effort to know and to change himself. Could exist such a text for Savonarola? Or Chrysostom?
Yummy. I love that pic of Roosh in profile at the top. Makes me hard as a rock.