The Nature of Man

People frequently question whether man is mostly, or fundamentally, good or evil. Intellectuals and philosophers especially discuss and debate this. But it may be that man is essentially neutral. Or quite possibly he’s both good and evil, with large elements of these opposites inside of him, as part of his nature. The classical Greeks and Romans often claimed man was "part god, part beast".

Mankind must be significantly good in some senses or he wouldn’t have achieved so much, or risen so far above the animals, over the millennia. Still, he must be considerably evil too given his obvious propensity to irrational thought, senseless behavior, self-destruction, and harm to those he lives with and loves. And we musn’t forget his tendency toward suicide and war.

Looking further, it may be that the massman is especially inherently corrupt and low, while the elite man is much less so. The vulgate may be naturally vulgar and despicable. Many powerful thinkers over the centuries have denounced the hoi polloi, mob, philistines, and rabble for their base intellectual, moral, and spiritual qualities. These seem to complement their naturally weak minds, poor educations, and bad upbringing, as well as their inferior philosophies, cultures, lifestyles, and attitudes.

So it may be the case that the superior man of interior loftiness is inherently inclined to work long, hard, and well at all that he does, while the inferior man of interior lowliness is inherently inclined to sloth, lack of focus, and incompetence on this. Elite men may naturally take pride in themselves and their learning, manners, polish, and personal honor, while the crude man in the street is slovenly, careless, and lackadaisical here. Plato looked down upon "the common herd" while Aristotle said the masses "preferred a life suitable to beasts".

Even so, the massman and the elite both seem to be massively, or even overwhelmingly, controlled by the intellectuals and their dominant theories. If the philosophers and deep thinkers of a given society are profoundly irrational and nonsensical in their beliefs – such as by being nihilist, religious, socialist, or sacrificial – then the destructiveness and wickedness of both the common man and the superior one seems to rise exponentially. Neither can resist thinking, saying, and doing some truly heinous things.

So if someone is serious about uplifting human beings, and their society and culture, he very probably needs to focus on improving philosophy, and not human nature. People are likely morally neutral, or mixed, or unpredictably heterogeneous. But they’re highly subject to intellectual manipulation and control. If someone wants the vulgar masses and lofty elite to think, live, and behave better, he needs to give them much more rational and liberal theories and ideas to work with.

Heavenly Slaughterfest

 

Philosophically and psychologically, mankind hungers for a thunderous victory of Good over Evil. None of these ambiguous, half-ass, sissy-boy wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. People want a repeat of World War II Germany and Japan. Or a real live version of Mike Hammer, Dirty Harry, John Wick, or Jack Reacher. Humanity desperately wants to see the Good Guys laugh at, spit in the face of, and then beat the living hell out of the Bad Guys. This alone will satisfy the spiritual needs of almost all of us, which is extreme.

Mankind quietly hungers for Western Civilization to resoundingly triumph over the miserable, lowly, disgusting Communists, Moslems, and Third Worlders of China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Cuba, and many more. People also privately want the liberal reasonists (as I call them) to ferociously smash the double-talking Leftist nihilists and nonsense-spouting Rightist theists. The educated world even secretly hopes that the individualist freedom-fighters will crush the life out of the collectivist progressives and religious conservatives. And pretty much everyone decent yearns for the anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Enlightenment, anti-capitalist, anti-freedom, Antifa-supporting, B.L.M.-loving Woke monsters to be wiped off the face of the earth.

But along with all this good stuff, cutting-edge liberals also know we need for the real libertarians to cruelly ravage the libertarian conservatives and libertarian anarchists; as well as for the real Objectivists to ruthlessly savage the unprincipled, mediocre, wimp Objectivists, and the malicious, weird, cult Objectivists.

No more namby-pamby, effeminate, weak, partial victories! No more shameful, disgusting, uncertain semi-triumphs!

Philosophically and psychologically, mankind desperately hungers for the genuinely rational and liberal Good Guys to meet the irrational and illiberal Bad Guys in open combat and then annihilate them.

Humiliation

 

Everyone is humiliated. Everybody feels shame and horror. The normal confidence, masculinity, and testicular fortitude of everyone is gone.

So we don’t fight back against the forces of evil. Indeed, we join with them to help defeat the forces of good. Our fighting spirit has been taken away.

* * *

Practically no-one today truly believes the leftist dogma that reality is unknowable, or the rightist dogma that god exists. No-one really believes the leftist or rightist nonsense that self-sacrifice is a moral good. No-one believes that the welfare state is a noble political ideal. No-one believes that the different races and sexes are fundamentally the same in their natures and nurtures. And no-one believes that leftist abstract paintings and rightist church music constitute fine art.

And yet that’s what almost all of today’s intellectuals teach us. These types of absurdities and depravities are what they work to indoctrinate us with.

It doesn’t work. At least, not all the way.

But it does work some. Their false and evil propaganda does manage to intimidate most people into passivity and silence. Or even into active support and pretend public agreement. Few people today dare to stand up for what’s right or state the obvious on these issues.

And so everyone is humiliated. Almost everybody feels private shame and secret horror at their refusal to speak up and fight back.

But the reason for this public submission to intellectual and cultural evil is easy to understand. If you do choose to deny the leftist or rightist dogmas, and the awful ideals of today, pretty much everyone will hate you. Your friends and acquaintances will abuse and persecute you personally, while society will crush you socially and economically.

So almost all fairly rational, decently good, and semi-liberal people fall silent in the face of powerful leftist and rightist wickedness. The forces of today’s collectivist progressives and religious conservatives ruthlessly take away the honor and pride of the individualist liberals. They effectively strip away their spirit, self-respect, and will to resist.

And even tho the good guy liberals generally hate their illiberal persecutors – and privately vow to fight them ferociously – still, the fact that the good guys are almost always forced into public silence, acquiescence, and submission is profoundly humiliating to them. Their spirit is broken. Hence they hold out and fight back much less than normal. And even much less than they quietly believe of themselves.

So if you’re a properly rational, liberal, and good person, and wish to escape this dismal fate, it’s important that you openly express your views and publicly state the truth. Even if no-one openly agrees with you, or even refrains from publicly damning you.

However much surface pain you suffer, this still avoids the psychological devastation and personal misery resulting from surrender and submission to the forces of evil. Loyalty to reality and self avoids humiliation, self-hatred, and the destruction of your soul.