True Left

Robert Wright, in his popular book, Non-Zero, The Logic of Human Destiny (2000) brings up the research findings of evolutionary psychologists who have absorbed the findings of sociobiologists to argue “that human beings naturally pursue social status with a certain ferocity. We all relentlessly, if often unconsciously, try to raise our standing by impressing peers.” This drive for prestige has been “the impetus behind cultural evolution.” Wright thus challenges the Rousseauite-Marxist idea that stratification, competition, and the pursuit of high status only emerged with the rise of an economic surplus and private ownership of resources. He also challenges what he calls the “equilibrium fallacy,” which is the claim that societies change – as Harris and Sanderson argue – only when external forces compelled its inhabitants to change. While Wright acknowledges the obvious effects of environmental circumstances and demographic pressures on the rate of social change, he states rather bluntly that the “arrow of human history begins with the biology of human nature” (18–53). The struggle for status within societies, warfare between tribes, and the struggle against scarcity have been a common feature of all societies. Thus, while Wright admits that geographical conditions explain why agriculture, chiefdoms, and civilizations arose in some areas before others, he maintains that ultimately the why of social evolution, and the “creative” progression of history, is the “unsocial sociability” of human nature (68–77).

The term “unsocial sociability” comes from Immanuel Kant, and Wright employs it in support of his thesis that “there is a universal human nature” on “every continent” of the world. Wright highlights the “paradoxical” meaning of this Kantian term in the way it speaks of human greed and vanity as being responsible for the suffering and awfulness of historical change as well as its creativity. He cites Kant’s well-known observation in the “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” that without their “a social qualities,” that is, without their desires for honor, property, and status, humans

would live an Arcadian, pastoral existence of perfect concord, self-sufficiency and mutual love. But all human talents would remain hidden forever in a dormant state, and men, as good-natured as the sheep they tended, would scarcely render their existence more valuable than that of their animals…[T]he end for which they were created, their rational nature, would be an unfulfilled void. Nature should thus be thanked for fostering social incompatibility, enviously competitive vanity, and insatiable desires for possession or even power (27–8)

Kant, I would add, was voicing a well-established idea in the Western canon.31 A few decades before Kant, Turgot had written, in 1750, a short sketch on world history, which pointed as well to “self-interest, ambition, and vainglory” as the driving “mechanisms” of progress. Before Turgot, Giambattista Vico had pondered on the ways in which Providence seemed to have employed the avaricious passions of men in the creation of the very civil institutions that were indispensable for the advancement of civilized life.32 We could indeed go deep into the Western past to find Christian thinkers such as Tertullian, Eusebius, and Origen all writing of human greed, pride, and aggression as inescapable components of historical improvement. It was with solemn eyes that these philosophers looked at the violent making of Rome’s “perpetual peace” as an indispensable reality that made possible the spread of the Christian message of the “unity of mankind” (Dawson 1935).

Later I shall argue that the concept of “unsocial man” was articulated by Western philosophers out of the historical experience of the West’s singular exhibition of a pattern of progression amidst much strife and aggression. In this respect, this term, even though it was articulated as a universal principle, should not be seen as a universal principle detachable from the unique experience of the West. I shall also argue that the unsocial behavior of big men cannot be fully understood within the theoretical ambit of evolutionary psychology or sociobiology. The self-assertive longing for “prestige,” “respect,” and “fame” are no doubt genetically-based traits which evolved in response to long periods of adaptive selective pressures. But I will argue that the pursuit of prestige needs to be examined as a psychosomatic or mental disposition on the part of humans to achieve validation and recognition from other human beings. I will also argue that this disposition assumed a heightened, more intensive expression amongst the aristocratic culture of the Indo-European speakers who gradually infiltrated Europe after 4000 BC. The “noblest” ideal of Indo-European aristocratic warriors was the pursuit of prestige through the performance of heroic acts in proud contempt for one’s biological survival.

The point I want to emphasize now is that the Western idea of progress is incompatible with the belief that human nature is “good” and that all change is for the best in this world. As we learn from Bernard Mandeville’s provocative book The Fable of the Bees (1723), the innocence of manners of people living an Arcadian existence cannot be reconciled with the “worldly greatness” of civilizations. A society of people living peacefully in a friendly and easy style would be the safest and “happiest,” but it would also be stagnant. The teaching of Western civilization, seen from this perspective, does not require that we leave out its deplorable aspects, but neither does it require that we ignore the ways in which this exceptionally agonistic culture cultivated religious tolerance, human rights, and science. The force that made progress possible in history, as Western thinkers long realized, was not some initial state of tranquility and goodness, but the “tumultuous and dangerous passions” of man. These were the passions that Christian theologians believed had brought an end to the mythical world of Adam and Eve. Humans were not rational and free at the beginning of history. As Hegel liked to remind his readers, God ratifies Satan’s prophesy after Adam has eaten the forbidden fruit: “Look, Adam has become like one of us, and knows what is good and evil” (in Rosen 1974: . Adam and Eve were happy in paradise but they had not yet asked the reason why they were happy, what the good life was. They were not human, for they had not achieved anything, had not worked, and had not disciplined their basic instincts. Paradise is for beasts.

Nisbet thinks that the myth of a past ‘Golden Age’ characterized by peacefulness and happiness is inconsistent with the idea of progress since this myth would perforce require one to view all subsequent history in terms of decay and decline. Thus, in his effort to argue that ancients and Christians alike already held a conception of progress on earth – against J.B. Bury’s (1932) classic statement that the whole notion of progress was strictly modern – Nisbet downplays ancient beliefs of a golden age. He argues that the ancients, by and large, saw the original condition of humanity as one of wickedness, ignorance, and scantiness. Nisbet manages to show (in part) that some ancient individuals did envision man’s early condition as “brutish” and “barbarous.” He does show as well that ancients sometimes wrote of historical stages marked by earlier times that were “simple” and impoverished as compared to later times that were stable and more advanced in knowledge. Still, I am not convinced that, for the Greeks and Romans, history exhibited a meaningful progressive pattern leading to a future goal in light of which events in the past could be seen. What Nisbet shows is that some contemporaneous Greeks had a sense of the superiority of their Athenian culture over other “barbaric” peoples living in primitive want. I agree with Bury, R.G. Collingwood (1975), and Karl Löwith (1949) that the Greek conception of history was ultimately periodic and repetitive. They – Herodotus, Thucydides, and Polybius – did not anticipate anything really new in the future; they generally held that it was “the nature of all things to grow as well as to decay.”

The myth of a golden age is reasonably consistent with the idea of progress. The myth that there was once a golden age, which gave way to strife and hardship, expresses the realization that the noblest accomplishments of humanity are fatefully connected with turmoil, suffering, and vanity. It is interesting that the very first instance in which Nisbet (6-18) detects the idea of progress in Greek times is in reference to the legend of Pandora’s Box, which suggested that all the evils of the world originated in Pandora’s desire to know the contents of the box she had been prohibited to open. When she did open the chest, as the myth tells us, the insects of avarice, cupidity, cruelty, and conflict flew out. Pandora had belonged to the first mortals on earth who lived in a state of perfect innocence and bliss. Hunger and death were unknown; the gods had forbidden her to open the box, but she refused to comply in that “she had to know what was in the box” (Hamilton 1969: 70). Without getting into some of the conflicting interpretations of this myth, it can be reasonably said that a suggested meaning of this myth is that the pursuit of knowledge constitutes an act of defiance signaling a loss of innocence and childhood contentment. Moving beyond a state of eternal tranquility, and exercising one’s faculties, necessarily entails certain human dispositions: rebelliousness, daring, risk-taking, or what Kant called the “unsocial sociability” of human nature.

Starting around 1419 when Prince Henry established a sort of institute for advanced study at the southern tip of Portugal, Cape St. Vincent, to which he brought astronomers, shipbuilders, instrument makers, cartographers, and navigators of different nationalities, the Portuguese became the first world historical example of a program of discovery. Many technical solutions and improvements – in the measurement of latitude, the charting of the African coast, the collection of charts on new map projections, the differentiation of types of ships for different tasks – were introduced under the leadership of the Portuguese as they patiently sent out expeditions almost annually through the 15th century down the tortuous west coast of Africa, until the way was paved for Vasco da Gama to cross into the Indian Ocean. Whenever the Portuguese set out on an expedition they carried charts with a latitude grid, and the maps which Da Gama used “contained no error in the African coastline of as much as two degrees.” At first the Portuguese relied on Ptolemaic maps, which indicated that it might be possible to sail directly from east Africa across the Indian Ocean, but also mistakenly assumed that southern Africa was joined to some Terra Incognita. Eventually, however, they created the first accurate maps of west Africa as far as Sierra Leone, and then relied on Fra Mauro’s maps, one of which (1457) mapped the totality of the Old World with unmatched accuracy while also suggesting, for the first time in world geography, a navigable route around the southern tip of Africa.14

It would be an oversimplification, however, to emphasize only the scientific dimensions of the Portuguese undertaking. These explorers were not scientists travelling to annual conferences. A contemporary of Henry, Azurara (sometimes spelled as “Zurara”) believed that Henry was driven by a number of motivations: the desire to find markets, seek allies to wage battles against the enemies of Christianity, extend the religion of Christianity, and discover the lands beneath Cape Bojador. Here I would point to the contribution of Peter Russell, who questions the claim that Henry was only a “harbinger of humanism or a pioneer of modern science,” (1995) and calls attention to the medieval (not modern) crusading or missionary mindset of Henry.

On the surface, Armesto appears to be making a similar argument when he states that “chivalry was more important than humanism [scientific curiosity] in stimulating overseas exploration” (2007: 516). The difference is that Armesto brings up the idea of chivalry only to trivialize the entire Portuguese effort. He dislikes the very idea of a “chivalrous hero,” speaks of heroic feats as “fictions” embraced by “violent criminals.” Henry “imagined himself a romantic hero, destined to perform great deeds…The truth is that he never went exploring” (517–8).

Armesto backs his claims referencing Russell’s work. Russell (1995) does question the notion that Henry was guided by a “single-minded” scientific interest in exploration, but he does not see him as a violent character inhabiting a world of romantic fictions. He writes of the careful planning and diligent use of resources by the Portuguese at the same time that he portrays Henry as someone determined to live up to the chivalric military ideals of his noble class at the service of the Christian doctrine of the crusade. He also does not see any “contradiction between the Prince’s crusading interests and his search for gold” (1995: 121).

The pursuit of personal renown through heroic deeds – as I shall elaborate on in later chapters – was a uniquely Western strain with deep roots in the aristocratic warlike culture of Indo-European speakers. Russell is correct in stating that Henry’s chivalric spirit gave him the “moral strength and the single-mindedness which made it possible for him to carry through the great enterprises of discovery associated with his name” (1995: 128). Henry’s contemporaries had always known this, that Henry was a man driven by a crusading and missionary spirit emboldened by chivalric honor.

Those who explain the European age of discovery in economic functionalist terms miss both the Portuguese rational method of exploration and the Western spirit of chivalric-individual strive.15 No one denies the costs and benefits associated with the explorations, the motivation for gold, slaves, and trade. But we should not forget that even seemingly economic actions partake of non-materialistic motivations – as Adam Smith well realized, calling “vanity” not the pursuit of wealth per se but the pursuit of wealth for the sake of gaining adulation from others. Yet there was more to European conquerors and explorers than the pursuit of adulation by way of riches. The leading men wanted to be renowned for their feats and achievements even if it entailed economic costs, persistent hardships, and early death.16

I will try to explain in chapter six why Europeans exhibited a peculiar restlessness which was manifested not only in their zeal for exploration and in their crusading tradition, but in all spheres of life. There is no doubt that China had imperial interests of its own and that it engaged in expansionary ventures that resulted in the acquisition of windfall resources from the land colonization of vast tracks of land in Asia. But China did not exhibit the same zest for exploration and overseas power. The Portuguese advanced into the Indian Ocean with ruthless determination, daring and pugnacity. The Chinese came with a live-and-let-live attitude, uninterested in converting heathens, uninterested in acquiring special access to other countries’ staples, and indifferent to chivalric deeds. Instead, the expeditions of Admiral Cheng-ho were intended to display China’s power and to extend her tributary relationships. The tributary system involved an exchange of gifts wherein China’s benign cultural superiority over her neighbours was asserted. There was no effort towards creating a maritime empire, establishing new bases for trade, and expanding militarily. Cheng-ho was, evidently, a man of talent, but he was not an adventurer, an entrepreneur, or a conqueror. He was, let us be clear, a eunuch. There were thousands of eunuchs in the Ming imperial household; that is, men who were castrated when they were young in order to keep them in a docile state, as trusted counterweights to the ambitions of the meritocratic Confucian elite.17

Our enemies define "white" culture:

https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2024/01/21/what-is-white-culture-flushing-anti-white-genocidal-rhetoric-down-the-drain-once-and-for-all/

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There are certain foods common to all of Europe. These foods vary regionally, but there are foods that are distinctively or at least massively European. Whites dominate the production and sale of these foods. They have more or less always been widespread in Europe and we globalized them. Whites created/invented these foods themselves or borrowed them in early antiquity or prior and turned their production into an art form. They made them theirs, in other words.

The first food type on this list is cured meats: Pastrami, Prosciutto, Speck, Salami, Chorizo, Serrano, Bacon. Indeed, the European tradition of meat prepping and curing may be part of the reason Europeans have such a visceral reaction to the “eat the bugs” propaganda emanating from World Economic Forum types and other predatory capitalists and banksters. We are a meat-eating people. We are the masters of meat and of animal husbandry, and we have been ever since our people wandered off the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.

Second on this list must be dairy generally, but cheese especially. Remember, a love of milk is basically White supremacy, folks. The White love of dairy explains why lactose intolerance reaches its lowest levels in the Whitest of all places (Schleswig-Holstein). Indeed, this may be a major contributor to why Whites tend to grow bigger and stronger than other groups, and not just physically, but mentally. European cheese is unrivaled in its quality and flavor. Nobody makes cheeses like Whites make cheeses: Gouda, Havarti, Emmentaler, Gruyere, Cheddar, American, Stilton, Roquefort, Gorgonzola, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Manchego. Whites are the cheese masters.
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There is a certain aesthetic outlook that is more or less unique to White, Western civilization. It is one that emphasizes two things primarily: discipline and fertility. Those are the traits that define classical European art, from the Renaissance and before: beautiful, proportionate men, and beautiful, fertile women (see Rubens or Botticelli). These things are prized in White societies.
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That is why even today body sculpting/building is so popular on the political right and even in the smallest, Whitest towns in the far interior. You will uncover these aesthetic values in most any work of art from the Renaissance period.
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The same goes for classical music. Does it not seem to you that it is only our ear that appreciates it? You will never get large segments of most other populations to identify with or appreciate classical music. That is why classical orchestras are still dominated by White people, a fact which has of late become but another cause for non-White/anti-White griping, consternation, and calls for more equal representation. They don’t like our music and they don’t identify with it. You can’t make aspiring rappers into cellists, no matter how much propaganda you peddle. Classical music is a White thing and it always will be. Anyone can play it to be sure, but not everyone will. Our artistic geniuses are ours. Bruegel and Vermeer are, most of all, appreciated by our eye, as Beethoven and Chopin are, most of all, appreciated by our ear—because they are part and parcel of our White culture, and no one else’s. They speak to our nature and our spirit, no one else’s.
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The White race is a race of industry and action. If there are trees about, we may well cut them down and build homes—although we also have pioneered conservation and the national park movement. If there is some resource under the ground, we find a way to get it to the surface and use it. These are good things.
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there is no discussion of Whiteness and White history without a discussion of our unrivaled military successes. The White race is the champion of warfare and weaponry. Killing and conquering are certainly part of that systematization. Our people killed and conquered everything and everyone, before giving it all up in the name of “human rights” or “loving diversity” or some such hogwash. I guess when you reach the top there is nowhere to go but down, eh? Still, that curiosity, that life drive, that love of expedition and conquest, has been applied to so many domains, even space. Exploring new domains, no matter how challenging, no matter how far one has to reach, is White culture. Grabbing the lowest hanging banana is the culture of other peoples.
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“White culture” is anything non-Whites and anti-Whites and Western power structures generally struggle to define precisely, but detest as either “vestiges” of or “pillars” of White supremacy. If Western governments loathe it and are trying to replace or dismantle it, from traditional sex roles to knowledge of firearms, chances are it is some part, lesser or greater, of White culture.

The Europeans who made up about 98% of the greatest explorers in history did not seek to discover the unknown merely because of the higher income they stood to gain. The ones who reached the center of Antarctica or climbed the highest/most difficult mountains did so precisely to overcome the suffocating feeling of a life for the sake of its pleasurable prolongation.

Westerners, starting with the Indo-Europeans who colonized major civilizations of the Old World, and imposed their aristocratic ethos and languages throughout the European continent, achieved far more than the  peoples of the other civilizations combined, not only in the development of all the natural sciences, and the ability thereby to detect patterns in history, including Malthusian and Darwinian patterns, but in the generation of the highest arts, philosophies, literatures, architectures, and music — without which life has little meaning.

Kings spent enormous amounts of money on clothing, art, jewelry, architecture, parks, landscaping, etc. They wanted to build and create things of exceedingly high aesthetic value, as the grandeur of their works had to reflect the divine right of kings. On top of that, kings were vain enough to be sensitive to the achievements of other kings and did not want to be lesser kings. This often came at the expense of projects that might have alleviated the circumstances of the plebians, but, as a result, we now have a towering European legacy of unfathomable magnitude.

This top-down imposition of aesthetics bequeathed us statues so delicate they make solid marble look translucent, or the most fragile of details, like a fishing net draped over the anatomically perfect human of Francesco Queirolo’s masterpiece Il Dissinganno, reflect nothing short of divinity. Our aristocratic forebears gave us unbelievably gorgeous palaces, churches, cathedrals, and even entire cities. The Sistine Chapel, The Last Supper, the works of the Dutch masters, universities, and libraries all came to be because of the money of royalty attempting to build the best and most beautiful things.