A form of sophistry is to reduce all opposing viewpoints to hate or fear. I call this Tactical Freudianism.
Tactical Freudianism: the psychopathologization of the mental state or motivation of an opponent.
I see Tactical Freudianism as a variety of ad hominem, where rather than attack the argument, you simply label the opponent’s psychology as pathological. Just is an ad hominem is a label applied to ‘the man’ rather than the argument, Tactical Freudianism is a label applied to the psychological state or motivations of the arguer. In the scale of sophistry, Tactical Freudianism is a step above the basic-bitch tactic of calling your opponent a racist or a fascist. It’s still nothing more than sophistry.
Tactical Freudianism incorporates elements of gaslighting, where you attempt to convince someone that their sane judgement is actually mad. To label an argument as hate or fear or x-phobia, is to provide false information with the purpose of making the opponent doubt his own memory, perception or sanity.
Those who understand that Muslims are a clear and present danger to the West are Islamophobes. They are gaslighted into believing that their perception of the danger of Muslim invasion is due to faulty memory, perception or sanity.
We see this tactic applied widely, in all mediums. Tactical Freudianism. Call it when you see it.
Note @Outsideness sent me a tweet reminding me of Adorno, with a link to this Wiki page. Excellent addition.
(((Diamond)))’s thesis is that European civilizational attainment was due to dumb luck of geography, because Anglo-Saxons were situated geographically at the far end of a temperate region that stretched from Western Europe to Asia. This temperate band facilitated transfer discoveries, plants, and animals across the band, as opposed to North and South America in which two large temperate zones are joined through a narrow and inhospitable strip (Central America) which blocked transfer. I don’t doubt that there is some truth to the idea that the large temperate band was helpful in networking a larger number of humans together. This ties in nicely with (((modern))) world history in which the globe produced modernity and not NW Europeans. It also ties in with Blank Slatist egalitarian theories by giving an environmental cause for the differences in civilizational attainment that has no dependency on genetic factors.
(((Diamond))) basically asserts that the people of Papua New Guinea would have been able to attain the same level of civilational achievement, had they been born with Eurasian Temperate Zone Privilege. This supports the egalitarian hypothesis that genetic differences between populations are of minimal importance.
Modern world history is designed to deconstruct Western Civilization, and to find its ‘roots’ throughout the globe. This is why World History courses have replaced Western Civilization courses throughout the West, in order to reinforce in our people that there is nothing special about the West, because the West was simply privileged and piggy-backed on the greatness of other civilizations.
The best antidote to this historical leveling that I have found, with the most rigorous investigation and defense of the singular and distinct greatness of the West is Ricardo Duchesne’s The Uniqueness of Western Civilization. I highly recommend it. Duchesne opens by investigating the (((intellectual forces of leveling))) in academia which have been working implacably to undermine Western Civilization’s place as something beautiful, unique and worth preserving. (((Jared Diamond))) is among these forces.
In any discussion of group patterns, someone will inevitably use the NAXALT fallacy, as though it is a meaningful rebuttal. When discussing group patterns, it is not.
For example, if we are discussing swans, someone will say “Swans are white”, which will elicit the rebuttal “But, there are black swans too.” This is NASALT: Not All Swans Are Like That.
The problem is that when we say “Swans are white”, this can be interpreted as “Swans are universally white” or “Swans are generally white.” “Swans are white” is a generalization, not a universalization. We use generalizations a lot in our daily lives, and we just assume that we are talking about the general and not the universal. I might say “The Dutch are tall.” Obviously, the Dutch are not universally tall, even without visiting Holland, we know that there are some Dutch who are shorter than others. We naturally assume that we are talking about the general. When we say “The Dutch are tall,” it’s just sort of obvious that we mean generally.
Generally, swans are white, so: “Swans are white.”
Humans are pattern matching machines. We don’t need to take a survey and produce a statistical graph to know that “Swans are white.”
However, there are more controversial and complex topics where we do rely on statistical data.
This is a “Bell Curve”.
In statistics we call this a “normal distribution.” Many human traits, such as height, weight, or IQ, when measured in a large group of individuals, will take the form of a bell curve. The middle of the bell is the median. This is the norm. The tails on either end of the bell are not technically “outliers,” but you get the idea. The tails are filled with individuals which deviate from the norm. It is fair to say that those individuals are not the norm.
The point is: the median defines the pattern. Yes, there are those who don’t fit the pattern, but that does not mean that the pattern does not exist. The pattern still exists even though there are some who don’t fit the pattern.
So, if I say “Swans are white”. The rebuttal “But black swans exist” is meaningless because it is in essence a naive (or devious) way of saying “The pattern you identified, that swans are generally white, is false, because I saw a black swan”.
My impression is that some people think that The Cathedral is some sort of a conspiracy, that it’s an evil plot to take over our minds and control mankind. I don’t think that’s what it is. I think it’s a social technology.
Cathedral as a Tool
It exists because it provides competitive advantage to its adherents, and like any tool, it can be used or misused. Because it’s a system, it can also be gamed.
The Cathedral is a self-organizing ideological alliance of the elite (abstract thinkers). This alliance is made up of academia, media, government and business (corporate interests). It is an engine of abstract, universalist consensus building and distribution.
Humans are social animals and we organize together into groups for competitive advantage. Larger groups out-compete smaller groups (generally).Humans (and other primates) generally organize along genetic lines. This poses a problem: As the group size grows, genetic distance increases… so how do we scale the group and maintain group cohesion at the same time?
Cathedral as Self-Perpetuating Memeplex
In highly intelligent primates (humans), you can use a memeplex. A memeplex is a set of ideas, abstractions. This set of ideas should create a universal identity. Christianity is such a universalist memeplex. Christians refer to themselves (ourselves) as ‘Brothers in Christ‘. There is neither Greek, nor Jew. The dogma of Christianity enforces the idea that the members should ignore racial and ethnic differences, and remain united in their religious ideals. The Communist ideology maintains similar ideals of ignoring racial and ethnic differences. Communism maintains that all differences are merely socially constructed and must be deconstructed. Global capitalism takes a similar non-racial, non-ethnic view of the people within the nation-states. They view them merely as customers within markets, or as human resource widgets within the system of production. This is the meaning behind terms such as the ‘Proposition Nation‘. A Proposition Nation is a group of people who are united in their acceptance in a set of ideals or a creed, ignoring racial or ethnic differences.
Dogma
Throughout the West, the dogma is equalitarian. All men are created equal. The dogma is Love, and that which goes against the dogma is Hate. To deny the dogma is a heresy. Those who benefit from the group cohesion created by the memeplex will defend it, simply because it is in their intuited genetic self-interest.
Heresy
Heresies are disruptions of the ideological consensus. Because the consensus creates group cohesion, which confers competitive advantage, the system will attempt to reject the disruption. This is the point where we see the Hegelian dialectic, as a compromise or integration is attempted. At root, there is a cost-benefit analysis. If the cost of the disruption outweighs the benefit, it will be rejected. But if the benefit outweighs the cost, it will be integrated into the system.
An example of this is when Galileo disrupted the Ptolemaic view of the solar system with the heliocentric model. HBD, race realism and evolutionary psychology are similarly disruptive ideas. The system has been attempting to reject them to maintain group cohesion, but the benefits to building functional systems outweigh the costs. Thus we see the current scientific assault against the equalitarian consensus.
The Chant
Any memeplex of ideological consensus must be maintained and distributed. Humans learn through repeated exposure to stimulus. The process of distribution of the memeplex through endless repetition is known as indoctrination. We call this endless repetition of the dogma the echo chamber. We can call this by other names: Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), mind control, propaganda, etc. In call cases, it’s the process of creating in the minds of the adherents a Reality by Chanting.
Again, this is a social technology. It’s simply a tool that humans have created for the maintenance of our groups. Once the adherents are sufficiently indoctrinated, the reality of the universe is created in their minds. At this point, they have difficulty processing information which is counter to the dogma. The new information creates a painful cognitive dissonance. The modern secular cults label this information: Hate. While in religious memeplexes, these are labeled heresies or blasphemies. In the Alt-Right, we call this Taking the Red Pill. The process of overcoming our own programming is difficult. For many, this awakening is a very painful experience.
Analysis
In my opinion, abstract collectivism is a competitive strategy. It allows for group cohesion in large and disparate groups, which then allows the larger group to out-compete smaller, less-organized groups. It’s most effective in populations with a high ability for abstraction. The smarter the population, the more open they are to memeplexes.
I believe that this social technology is most beneficial in groups with single ends, meaning that they have a single reproductive strategy. When groups with competitive reproductive strategies are allowed into the system, then they may seek to game the system for their own reproductive advantage. I believe that this is what has happened in the West. We now the the anti-White bias of the Left as non-White polities attempt to gain competitive advantage within the system through the notion of White Guilt or Racism. Racism is an accusation of bad faith, of failing to adhere to the dogma of equalitarianism. Because the notion of racism is simply being used by certain groups to game the system for competitive advantage, to the white population the cost of it exceeds the benefit of group cohesion.
Conclusion
The Cathedral is a self-organizing ideological alliance of the cognitive elite. It is a social technology, which exists because it produces group cohesion in large populations and this group cohesion confers competitive advantage. Religions and ideologies are group organizing memeplexes. The tenets of the organizing memeplex may be referred to as the dogma. Ideas which conflict with the memeplex may be called heresies. The memeplex is distributed and embedded through repetition. Smart populations respond very well to indoctrination. The cohesion gained through this social technology can be very beneficial to groups with compatible reproductive strategies. This organizing technology can also be gamed, if groups with competing reproductive strategies are allowed to insert their memes into the echo chamber. The charge of racism is such a gaming of this system, and the cost of bearing the charge exceeds the benefit gained through group cohesion, thus we see a growing rejection of the notion.
(((Diamond))) basically asserts that the people of Papua New Guinea would have been able to attain the same level of civilational achievement, had they been born with Eurasian Temperate Zone Privilege. This supports the egalitarian hypothesis that genetic differences between populations are of minimal importance.
Poseidon Awoke: Realist 