Weltanschauung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Fascism

  • Trump Uber Alles

    Trump Uber Alles

    Heil Donald.

    I went to evensong last night and I find myself wondering why.

    The answer is assuredly that I find comfort in the extraordinary beauty of the high Anglican tradition.

    I have done so throughout my life – from prep school aged 8 when I sang in a glorious Saxon church, through public school when I attended daily morning prayer in Westminster Abbey, through to university when I would sit in the ancient college chapel which doubles as Oxford’s cathedral.

    Does this sound snobby, smug and self congratulatory? Highly probably, and there is a certain element, even in my conscious thoughts, of economic and class privilege which has enabled me to lead a life which most would find highly privileged and pampered.

    My privileged life is not something I regret and I feel no need to apologise for it. And yet I am very, very grateful. I acknowledge my enormous luck, the random chance of having been born into an environment which has given me so many advantages.  Which I have done nothing to earn.

    I was reluctant to go out in the freezing cold last night, but I had a hankering to hear what our good natured priest might have to say about the state of the world.  And in particular the ominous rebirth of fascism in the US and throughout Europe.

    For some the church is all about doctrine and so it transpired last night. Had I bothered to reflect a while before going, I would have realised that yesterday was the date for the celebration of the Pauline Ephipnay.

    I have to say I have always found good old Saul grating in the extreme. Pompous, bombastic and nonsensical. Jargon ridden hogwash.  I’m a Jesus man, me.  The Sermon on the Mount says it all – all the rest I find absurd.

    I cannot and will not believe in god in any conventional sense, and as for the “love” of god, where is it to be found in this brave new Trumpian world?

    Although of course there is nothing whatsoever new about the mean Ginger Tyrant’s base behaviour and sick motives.

    My heart sank last night when the good preacher mentioned nothing about the state of the world but instead droned out St Saul’s tedious doctrinal balderdash.

    What would Jesus the man have made of our world?  Perhaps he would suggest “rendering unto” Trump, Putin and Jinping. Some say the historical Jesus sought not change on earth but adherence to a separate world of god. I’m not so sure. I prefer to imagine the historical Jesus would have suggested practical and positive ways to improve earthly happiness and to achieve an egalitarian and just society.

    Even if only by way of example. By the life which he and his disciples led. And that, for me is what Jesus was all about. And is about. And as such he has much in common with many of the world’s spiritual leaders, not least the Buddha.

    The trouble is it is rather hard to render unto Trump when he has his boot in your face. When he is dismantling the US Constitution and its precious safeguards.

    Just as it must have been hard to render unto Hitler when he was herding you to the death camps.

    But if the church is to remain relevant, it cannot, in my view, stand by and preach some imaginary heavenly kingdom when the likes of Trump are creating a real, visceral hell on earth.

    It should not be preaching preposterous, convoluted Pauline gibberish when the stormtroopers are marching the streets once again intent on murder and mayhem.

    Perhaps the separation of church and state is a mistake. I do not think we should be rendering unto Caesar.

    I am with Bonhoeffer. I don’t want to assassinate anybody (even the evil ginger pigmy) but I would like to see the church pushing for more relevance. For egality, for justice, for the rights of man.

    I would like to see “my” church, “our” church calling for jam now rather than jam tomorrow. I would like to see our church in all its beauty and majesty contributing to a vision of what life on earth could and should be like.

    I have no doubt my views will cause great offence to those of a more doctrinal disposition, and for that I apologise. But I do have “Faith” of a sort and I maintain my right to proclaim it.

    My god may be that of Spinoza and Einstein but my god has a profound belief in justice, democracy and “love”.

    You will never see any politician up to the job – so perhaps the preachers could make more of a positive and active effort to transform society.

    I admit that I have no idea quite how but I must give the matter further thought.

    I will continue to reap the enormous benefit I find in High Anglicanism. I will continue to sit in our beautiful churches and listen to the extraordinary music Christianity has created. I will continue to be bowled over by the beauty and vision of our art and our architecture.

    And I will hope that the spirit of Bonhoeffer will encourage us all to work towards a world where the meek can inherit the earth.

  • 3 Evil Men

    3 Evil Men

    Why does a population of 9 billion allow itself to be enslaved by a handful of tyrannical despots?

    As we hurtle collectively towards oblivion, the saner among us might plan a happier and safer future – just in case the world doesn’t end anytime soon.

    Nothing short of revolution is needed. Not the typical bloody violence which has always led to domination by vicious Brobdingnagians – but a measured, just and peaceful regime change which ensures equality and that humanity can no longer be dominated by monsters.

    The first change I would recommend is that we agree to drastically reduce the world population by encouraging a lower rate of human reproduction. Not that such a reduction will reduce tyranny – but it may well deal a much needed death blow to the hideous bloat of capitalism and consumerism and at least ensure a return to a world of natural beauty and a balanced ecology.

    Capitalism ( or at least the evil it has created) is far from new. It is merely the latest incarnation of human greed and domination spawned by the industrial revolution. Prior to capitalism we had economic and political systems every bit as beastly as we have today – its just that they did not thrive by shoving useless junk down our throats. Think back over history and you will find the same scenario repeated infinitely and repetitively over time. Domination by the minority who have the energy, enthusiasm and malign desire to grab power and or wealth (or even better both) by robbery and violence.

    The so-called nobility and royalty of nations and states throughout the world have been led by thugs out to enrich themselves. Same for chieftains – a lesser species of noble. Remember the kindly African chieftains who sold their people to the slave trade. Yes, it is true that order was often created where chaos had previously existed (a claim often made for empires of the past) but order does not have to come from despotism or a ruling class.

    An entirely new system of governance and economy needs putting into place where the concept of equality is put harmoniously into practice. Democracy as it stands seems to need a fair bit of amending – perhaps a more decentralised model allowing all subjects to vote on more matters of concern – as in Switzerland. Rather than a small cadre of representatives voting on our behalf in a narrow two party system.

    As for the economy, control of resources should pass to the population as a whole rather than allow it to be amassed into a few hands controlling everything.

    Resources in the broadest sense. Land, air, water, transport, money.

    Super-intelligence may perhaps usher in an era of super abundance but if it remains under the control of a small band of self important tech “barons”, the benefit will remain mostly theirs. And the vast majority may find themselves in a worse position than ever before.

    Of course, I do not mean in this brief essay to set out any blueprint.  Merely broad principles. Human society sucks for the underdog and always has.

    Time for profound and lasting change.

  • Welcome Back Donald!

    Welcome Back Donald!

    As we shuffle forwards once more towards dystopia and death camps.

    And dear old Donald couldn’t have come back at a better time, when all over the world extremist politicians are on the make, and Tech Oligarchs ride as horsemen of the apocalypse.

    I am weary of making the point, but someone has to rub it in: human history is endlessly repetitive. No points for telling me who had a similarly tedious and terrifying agenda in the 1930s.

    Greed and lust for power and possessions.  Back then every country in Europe was targeted as lebensraum.  This latest madman has his eyes set on other treasures but the motive is just the same.

    Make America Great Again, for ever and ever. A thousand year realm.  Heard it all before?

    It’s always good to stoke up the discontented.  Tell them all their ills are due to the greed of the Jews. Or the immigrants.

    Promise the MAGA fools in their red caps and animal heads that theirs is the new order. You will see them right. The trains will run on time and their righteous cup will overflow with milk and honey.

    Suck up to Franco, to Farage, to the new Fascists in Germany and elsewhere. To the ghost of Mussolini, still strung up by wire on  a lamppost somewhere in the depths of Hades. Bang the drums, sound the horns of battle.

    What lemmings we humans are. At a time when new technology proffers the chance of a truly dramatic improvement of our lot, it looks as if we may once again be heading for the slaughterhouse. 

    How is it that killing and subduing and locking up those we fear always seems to be a vote winner?  How is it that the fools who vote for such people are unaware that no better world will emerge, can emerge, from such behaviour?

    Enough really. I have said my piece.

    Perhaps Donald is just a bad old pussycat and none of it will come to pass.

  • The Migrant Rat

    The Migrant Rat

    In a crappy little country which once called itself “Great” (on account of the number of races it had subjugated and the vast swathes of land it had annexed as its own) even the housewife realised that the kingdom’s ills were caused by migrants. 

    First Minster Chopthwack was himself from an immigrant family, but it was election year and he and his fascist cronies had to blame someone for the terrible mess they had made.

    It was alright for Chopthwack and his mates of course. They were all worth a packet, some by dint of inheritance, some through advantageous marriage and some through the endless swindles of brute capitalism.

    But the damn immigrants, that was another matter. They all came from third world shitholes where the inequality and appalling poverty was even worse. But why should their misery impact upon the Kingdom? Was it Chopthwack’s fault that these guys had been brutally raped and tortured by the ruling lovelies in the the hell holes they had escaped from?

    So, blame the migrants, portray them as vermin (as once a magnificently successful but ultimately flawed dictator had labelled an entire race). Which he proceeded to exterminate.

    Trouble is, you couldn’t stop the buggers pouring in anyway. Even if you let them drown in the hostile strip of water many crossed in toy rafts, others still came through, packed inside petrol tanks, strapped to aircraft wheels, or by walking through a tunnel.

    So make the best of it! Blame the migrants! Pack ’em up in prison hulks like dear old Magwich.  Shove ’em in holding bays. Make ’em suffer!

    And above all let the voters know that society’s ills are the fault of migrants. Dehumanise them. Soon enough the stupid punters would be waving banners and cheering you on as you dragged the migrant by force through the streets, handcuffed him, and sent him off to a place which had in the past suffered brutality and genocide of an entirely satisfactory type.

    Soon enough, Chopthwack would be suspending “democracy”, such as it was. And the people would egg him on! Applaud him, just like they had worshipped President Fart over the other side of the waters.

    Fart had successfully brainwashed his own electorate into believing that he could make his country “great” again. And organised a putsch to make himself Mr President for life.

    That was it! Chopthwack had a wonderful role model to follow!  First Minister for Life! And all he had to do was send a few unwanted immigrants off to a better place.  One of his henchmen, Lord Snooty, had explained to the Kingdom’s head holy man that getting kidnapped and forcibly exported in manacles to Bwanga was a “redemption”.  A holy pilgrimage, nirvana, a life after death, a veritable heaven was Bwanga.

    Despite the inconvenient fact that a short while ago one tribal faction in Bwanga turned against another and these kindly chaps hacked about a million of their fellow countrymen to death with machetes.

    Anyway, what fault was that of Chopthwack’s? And so the rallies began and the Ministry of Propaganda portrayed the immigrants as the rats they undoubtedly were. Huge numbers of troops marched past the leaders’ dais and mutual salutes were exchanged to the accompanying roar of approval from the hypnotised masses.

    It was to be a Thousand Year Empire. A period of unparalleled glory and plenty. Not for the ordinary folk of course – Chopthwack despised those losers, almost as much as the damned migrants.

    What Chopthwack and his cronies really meant by their extravagant rhetoric was that in the next thousand years they would become richer and richer and would pay no taxes.  And the untermensch scum they ruled over would be chained to the factory bench, or strapped in delivery vans delivering the useless consumer trash Chopthwack and his mates turned out to keep the wheels on the capitalist wagon.

    And what of the Opposition? Did they bleat and shout and protest? And were they any better? Would the communist saints on the other side of the divide bring about the promised socialist utopia? Equality and plenty for all! Heaven on Earth! The Second Coming!

    It seemed unlikely. Their comrades elsewhere had committed genocide on a commendable and unprecedented scale.  Enemies of the Workers ‘ Paradise were killed with an efficiency even greater than the heroes who had massacred an entire race on their westerly borders.

    So there you had it. Chopthwack and the right wing media were on a slash and burn. Extinguish the rats! Seize power! Do down the untermensch! Screw the whole damn country and get back into power. A 1000 year Empire!

    The far left were equally vocal and really quite as venal.

    For the truth is that 9/10ths of them despised the Unwashed as well. They too sought the 1000 year Reich but called it a “Soviet”. But with themselves at the helm. Pursuing of course identical policies.

    Luscious country dachas for the ruling elite. The finest food and drink. Beluga caviar and the mighty chauffeur driven Zil.

    If the left looked stupid blaming the Migrant Vermin they would find some other class of victim to wind up the gullible fools at home. Kulaks perhaps, intellectuals, Jews. Who cares!

    And so our glorious species continues. Violence, greed, the insatiable and hollow desire for power and baubles. I’m alright Jack, sod the rest of ’em.

    The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

  • Processed for the Slaughterhouse.

    Processed for the Slaughterhouse.

    In the featured image, Leni Riefenstahl and a camera crew stand in front of Hitler’s car during the 1934 rally in Nuremberg.  Note the eerie order in the street, the crowd carefully controlled in the gutters to express their awe of the military behemoth.

    Earlier, in 1927, Fritz Lang had produced the unsettling film  Metropolis, where wealthy industrialists and business magnates and their top employees reign from high-rise towers, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the great machines that power the city.  And lo, a few years later……

    It struck me today while travelling from Zurich to London by air, that the way our society is now organised lays us wide open to dystopia in the not too distant future.

    Airports, airplanes and their employees seem to be closely related to the prison services.  The secret police. We are dehumanized and humiliated while in their clutches. We are frogmarched, searched  and sometimes seized and stripped. We become numbers; lumps of meat. Our society has created monsters in the wings waiting to enchain and enslave us when commanded so to do by the Hitler or Stalin of the modern age.

    Faceless men and woman roam at will with guns.  They keep us in line, push us shuffling towards what today might laughingly be called “transport” but could tomorrow so easily become the gas chamber.  Hundreds if not thousands of faceless officials are in support of those toting guns. Humor is strictly discouraged and a minor infraction of some petty rule will have you marched, arm twisted behind your back, to a dark guardroom and interrogation.

    If you attempt modern air travel, you will so easily understand why Hitler’s Germany was run by  clerks. Ordinary people who became institutionalized into monsters.  The station masters and train guards who transported the victims to the camps. The police who rounded up Jews and dissidents. The ordinary people, you and me, our neighbors who gave rise to the phrase “the banality of evil”: we are turning ourselves into Hitler’s railway clerks.  His Blackshirts. His Gestapo.

    The descent into totalitarianism is made so easy by modern technology.  What would Hitler have given for CCTV.  For a digitised society where our every move can be traced and tracked and minuted by automated software and replayed at whim whenever we are caught in some infidelity towards the hydra state.

    Am I exaggerating? Am I just feeling particularly down after a hateful day? I think not. The monolith I witnessed today could so easily be pressed into more sinister service. The common response of the common man after the Second World War was that there was nothing he could have done to stop the terror.

    And how right was that common man. Picture a group of strong men in control of modern media, the army, transport, banking. Our societies are so centralized, our freedoms so restricted that a gang of half determined thugs could walk all over us and we, the common men, could do nothing to resist them.

    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.