Why did the West go to Hell (Ia): A general overview (a)
by Virapala
[Why did the West go to Hell attempts to be a logical and historical explanation of the genesis of today’s Absurdistan: a world where you are evil if you say that pigs cannot fly. You can contact the author on virapala.merdeta.com]
Introduction
After some decades of thinking, reading and observing about the decadence of the Western civilization, I have decided to write my ideas about this topic. I started writing about the concept of rights, which went completely out of control producing four different long posts. I quickly realized that the topic of Western decline is so complex that there is the danger of the forest not being able to be seen for the trees.
So I have decided to write a general overview of the causes of decadence in Western civilization, trying to hide or summarize as many details as possible. The outcome has been this text, which is divided into two different posts. The text is a bit long, a bit heavy in information and includes some claims that are not justified. My idea is to start from this general overview and write other texts to tie the loose ends and explain better the ideas presented here.
Why civilizations decline and fall
As another text will explain, all civilizations decline and fall because of the same reasons. These reasons are caused by a basic human contradiction: humans evolve individually but they live in society. As a result, natural selection has shaped human nature to maximize individual fitness (defined as the ability to have as most descendants as possible) and this goes against a harmonious society because of the tragedy of the commons.
For example, males have evolved to maximize their individual reproduction. This means that their biological instincts make them to desire to have sex with every attractive woman they find. But this does not produce a good society because, if all men are competing for sex, they cooperate less, they focus less on work, and all series of conflicts are produced when men want to accumulate women or have sex with other men’s wives.
In short, the set of biological instincts wired in us by evolution is an insatiable beast. I imagine it as a roaring lion that wants to have all the resources (sex, money, status) he can and to the hell with everybody else. I will call it «selfishness» or «selfish human instincts». In Christianity, it is called «original sin»: the innate tendency to engage in sin (in antisocial behavior). This will be explained more accurately in another text.
Of course, the complete actualization of these selfish human instincts is not possible because everybody has these instincts inside him but not everybody can have all the resources in the world. So the complete actualization of the instincts of a person conflicts with the complete actualization of the instincts of another person, because they want the same resources.
As a result, the selfish instincts of people must be repressed to make living in society possible. They are repressed through two kinds of restrictions:
- Practical restrictions. Selfish instincts are restricted because of practical aspects that make them impossible to completely actualize. For example, I can’t have sex with all women in the world because I don’t have the energy, the money, the access to all women («that girl living on the mountains of Kazakhstan seems pretty cute!»), not all women want to have sex with me and other practical aspects.
- Cultural restrictions. Human culture has three mechanisms to restrict selfish human instincts and encourage pro-social behaviors. These mechanisms are called «guilt», «shame» and «fear» in anthropology and will be analyzed in other texts. Even if I could, I wouldn’t have sex with my neighbor’s wife because a) I would feel guilty of being such a scoundrel b) I would not want other people in the community to ostracize me and/or c) I would not want to be beaten by my neighbor or to be punished by the State.
So the lion (the set of selfish human instincts) is inside a cage with two kinds of bars that restrict his movements: practical restrictions and cultural restrictions, so he cannot harm others. Every person and every society lives in a continuous conflict between his selfish instincts and the restrictions to these instincts (called «repression» in psychology). This repression is necessary for a society to exist. As Sigmund Freud said: «The history of civilization is the history of the renunciation of instinct.»
However, the lion is always trying to escape his cage in all the manners possible and, to do so, he invents all kinds of strategies to take advantage of some defect in the bars of the cage. If some bars are weakened or removed, the lion takes advantage of this fact immediately.
Decadence starts when society reaches a high level of success and practical restrictions decrease (due to a bigger power, prosperity or technology) so selfish human instincts can have a better actualization. For example, maybe I can now have sex with more women because better contraceptives and cheaper travel give me better access to women with less hassle («Yes, this is my first visit to Kazakhstan, mister officer. The travel is affordable now.»).
In this situation, the culture of a society changes so cultural restrictions are also relaxed (for example, adultery is decriminalized, divorce and free sex are encouraged, etc.) in order to allow this better actualization of human instincts. The cage has fewer practical and cultural bars so the lion (the set of selfish instincts) is allowed more freedom .
This creates a higher level of conflict and societal dysfunction because everybody is trying to actualize his selfish instincts more than before and this enters into conflict with the instincts of everybody else. As a result, the society ends up being conquered by other societies that repress better the individual instincts of their citizens so they function better as a society.
The success of these other societies will lead them to eventually removing some restrictions to the selfish instincts of their citizens so they start the cycle again. This is a cycle that repeats once and again in history. You see it in the Late Bronze Age collapse (it is obvious in the ancient conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, as narrated in the Bible), ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Abbasid Empire and our modern Western civilization.
The insanity of the modern West
However, when we compare the decadence of the Western civilization to the decadence of other civilizations (say, the Roman Empire), we cannot help marveling about the insanity of our own decadence. For example, in a period of some few years, Western civilization has «discovered» that some men are women in reality. This has been elevated as a self-evident truth and the ones who deny such an absurd proposition are labelled as immoral, fired or persecuted with the force of the law. The late Romans, the late Greeks or the late Abbasids had their dose of degeneracy, thank you very much, but they never reached such levels of insanity.
There are two reasons why the decadence of the Western civilization is much bigger and weirder than other decadences. In the modern West, the two bars that repress selfish human instincts (practical and cultural restrictions to selfishness) have been removed in a specially drastic way.
Starting with the practical restrictions, the wealthier and more technologically advanced a civilization is, the more pronounced its decadence is, because it can remove practical restrictions to selfish human instincts better (this will be better explained in other texts). The West is incredibly wealthy and technologically advanced, due to the successive waves of the Industrial Revolution (whose last wave is the digital revolution). This removes many practical restrictions and allows the selfishness to express in unprecedented ways, not seen before in human history.
A relativistic civilization
However, in this series of texts, I want to focus on the second cause of the magnitude of the decadence of the Western civilization. This second cause is that the cultural restrictions of the modern West have also been relaxed in an unprecedented way to allow the expression of selfishness in ways unseen in human history.
More specifically, in 5000 years of history, the Western civilization is the only one that has a relativistic ideology as its official ideology (as its official religion, because we will see that ideology and religion are synonyms). This allows the biological selfishness to express in unprecedented ways.
This is a new event in the history of mankind, because something so absurd has never occurred to any other civilization before. How we ended up in such a dead end is only explained because of a strange chain of historical events, which will be explained along the line. For Christians like me, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that demonic forces were behind this chain of events, but this is going to be a historical and logical analysis, not a spiritual one.
We say that a concept is absolute if it is the same for everybody. A concept is relative if it is different for different people. A society or culture is absolutist if it is founded on absolute concepts. This is the only sane way to found a society and all enduring societies have been absolutist, with exception of the modern West and the societies that the modern West has managed to infect and pervert.
A culture is relativistic in theory if it claims to be founded on relative concepts. A culture is relativistic in practice if if claims to be founded on absolute concepts but these concepts are, in reality, relative. The modern West is a mixture of these two kinds of relativism.
The modern Western civilization is relativistic in theory with respect to the truth and morality. It is founded on the idea that different people have different opinions on truth and morality and these opinions are equally valid (we will see that this foundation is not true in reality, but this is the official argument). So there is no absolute truth or morality (which are independent from each person, and true for all people) or, even if it existed, it would be impossible to discover. So the only way to take collective decisions is to count the different opinions and see which opinion is majority. As Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges said: «Democracy is an abuse of statistics». This, in reality, is not true (the important collective decisions are taken outside the democratic game, as we will see), but it is the official argument.
Western civilization is also relativistic in practice because it is founded on concepts like freedom, equality and rights, which are presented as absolute. But these concepts are relative, because the freedom/equality/right of a person is, in reality, the lack of freedom/equality/right of another person, as we will see. So these concepts are relative to the person being considered.
Three problems of relativism
The problems of relativism are well known. First, relativism in truth is self-refuting. The statement «Each truth is relative (different for each person)» claims to be a universal truth that applies to all people, that is, it is an absolute statement that contradicts the very idea it is claiming.
In reality, this is the lesser of problems of relativism in Western civilization, because most people have lost the ability of thinking logically and they only emote and react to conditioning like Pavlov’s dogs. They don’t have any problem in having a contradictory worldview and, even if they could understand the contradiction, they would not give a dam.
The second problem of relativism is that it encourages selfishness and antisocial behavior, producing anarchotyranny. If freedom/equality/rights are paramount (which is always interpreted as «my freedom/equality/rights are paramount» because of the innate selfish bias of humans), I don’t have to think so much about other people. In addition, if I define my own truth and morality, I can define my morality to fit my selfishness. I am judge and jury.
«Yes, I abandoned my husband because the new man was more exciting, but I define my morality and I decide that I have the right to be happy. My kids? They are happy if I am happy. So this action was perfectly moral and, in fact, morally obligatory. About not committing adultery? These are tales of old church ladies. I don’t believe in any external moral authority: I believe in myself and being true to myself. Staying in an unhappy marriage would have meant not being true to myself. And my husband is sad now but it will be better for him to be with a woman who loves him. In fact, I am making him a favor.»
Men is not a rational animal: it is a rationalizing animal. He does what he wants and then finds reasons to justify his actions. With no external rule of conduct, he is judge and jury so he always finds a way to justify himself, to absolve his own selfish actions, whether by redefining morality or by using freedom/equality/rights as an alibi.
So the relativistic society gets more and more immoral and chaotic, with more conflict, a fight of everybody against everybody to express his selfish human instincts as much as he can. For example, England and Wales had 66% more population in 2001 than in 1898. But they had 4024% more rapes and 2630% more indecent assaults on women than in 1898.
In short, the relativism of Western civilization relaxes the cultural restrictions to selfish human instincts seen above. I can say to myself that I am not behaving badly because I define my truth and my morality and I define them in a way that they justify my behavior. I also define my bad behavior as a part of my freedom/equality/rights. So «guilt» and «shame» are removed, creating anarchy. Only «fear» (the fear of the State punishing me for my bad behavior) is left producing totalitarianism. As we will see, this is one of the roots of Western anarchotyranny.
The third problem of relativism is that it produces atomized societies. If different people have different concepts of the truth, they have three options: they enter into conflict with each other (anarchy, as we have just seen), they leave the State to solve the conflicts by force (tyranny, as we have just seen) or they separate from each other to decrease the level of conflict. This separation can be physical or psychological (for example, lack of meaningful relationships). So, under the banner of the relativistic concept of freedom, the Western societies unravel. First, the societies turn into a set of communities (see ethnic neighborhoods, posh woke real state) and then the communities unravel themselves. Families are more and more broken. People are more and more lonely. Western societies resemble more and more a formless groups of atomized individuals with are safe and lonely in their relativistic existence and are only bound through transactional relationships or through the State. This was Rousseau’s dream and it is illustrated in the Youtube documentary «The Swedish theory of love», which I highly recommend.
There is a fourth problem of relativism and it is the most important to understand the evolution of Western society but this post is long enough, so it will be explained in the next post.
We saw in the previous post that the modern Western civilization is
- relativistic in theory with respect to the truth and morality, which are claimed to be relative (different for each person).
- relativistic in practice because it uses concepts like freedom, equality and rights. These concepts are relative, because the freedom/equality/right of a person is, in reality, the lack of freedom/equality/right of another person.
We have seen that the relativism of Western civilization causes societal problems like anarchy, tyranny and atomized societies. But the main problem of the relativism in Western civilization is the one will be explained in next.
Political systems cannot be based on relativism
The main problem of relativism is that it is impossible to scale. Every man can adopt relativism in an individual manner (and, as we saw, this produces conflict, which causes anarchy, tyranny and atomized societies). But it is impossible to apply relativism in a collective manner.
To be more specific, it is impossible for a political system to be based on relativism, as we are going to see.
This is because each political system is based on laws. The law should allow some things and forbid other things. Which things should the law allow or forbid? It should allow good things and forbid evil things so it needs a concept of good and evil that is publicly shared by the elite and authorities and, even better, by the entire population (even if they don’t feel this way in private, see Timur Kuran’s Private Truths, Public Lies).
This concept of the good and the evil upon which the law is based is the official ideology of the society, that is, its official religion, because a religion is a moral system that distinguishes good from evil (some of you will object to my use of the R word but, please, bear with me, this will be explained in another text and let’s not quarrel about names). In this sense, every country is a theocracy.
This official religion cannot be relativistic in theory (if there is no absolute truth and no absolute good, there is no reason to have laws that allow and forbid behaviors).
This official religion cannot be relativistic in practice either. For example the law cannot be founded on «freedom». It is common for politicians to say: «Our political system is founded on freedom», as if the relative concept of freedom was an absolute concept (the same for everybody). But there is no such thing as a political system founded on freedom because the freedom of somebody is the lack of freedom of somebody else.
My freedom to have private property is the lack of freedom of everybody else to use my property without my consent. Capitalist countries will allow the first freedom and will forbid the second one. Communist countries will do the opposite (in theory). But you cannot allow both freedoms at once. So there is not a political system based on freedom, the same way you cannot have a coin with one side.
In short, a political system cannot be founded on relativist concepts, because the law is absolutist and not relativistic.
But we have said that the Western civilization is based on a relativistic ideology. So how is this possible? Are we contradicting ourselves?
The paradox of Western civilization
It is possible because relativism is the theoretical official religion of the Western civilization but it is never put into practice in the political systems of this civilization. It is only used by the powers that be in a rhetorical, official and theoretical way (in speeches, official documents and, more importantly, as a way of justifying policies and laws). But, as explained above, it cannot be applied in practice so it is not applied.
For example, in theory, all people in Western countries are free, equal and have the same rights. This statement is completely relativistic and completely theoretical.
But, in practice, some people are freer than others, some people are more equal than others and some people have more rights than others. So, for example, in a divorce, the person who wants out of the marriage has freedom and rights to divorce, but, the person who wants to remain in the marriage and his kids have no freedom or rights at all. In an abortion, the woman is free to kill her child (it is her right) while the man and the fetus have no freedom or rights and nothing to say. And so on and so forth.
As we have seen, it would be impossible for a society to be based on freedom, because the freedom of a person is the lack of freedom of another person (the freedom to divorce of a woman is the lack of freedom of a man to see how their kids grow). So in the Western civilization, like in any other countries, some freedoms are guaranteed while other freedoms are restricted. In a Muslim country, the woman has no freedom to divorce but the man has the freedom to see his kids grow. The late blogger Zippy Catholic used to hammer this point home once and again (we miss you, Mark).
Muslim countries don’t have less freedoms than Western countries. They have different freedoms. However, Muslim countries are coherent because they don’t claim to be based on freedom while Western countries do.
Therefore, in fact, Western civilization has two official religions:
1. A relativistic religion in theory, for rhetorical uses. I will call this «liberalism». Its concepts (liberty, equality and rights) are presented as if they were absolute concepts and they are claimed to be the foundation of the society. Of course, this is only a rhetorical ploy (for speeches and, more importantly, to justify policies and laws). Relativism cannot be put into practice so liberalism is only a rhetorical ploy. Liberalism is a very simple ideology (it only consists of some few words: liberty, equality, progress, rights, etc.) and has not substantially changed for the last 200 years.
2. There is a real official religion, which is codified in the laws and it is the base of public discourse and policies. I will call it «leftism». This is an absolute religion with absolute goods and evils. For example, absolute evils are racism, sexism, homophobia, white nationalism. Absolute goods are the legalization of divorce and abortion, secularization, uncontrolled immigration, etc. These are absolute concepts and must be enforced as absolute by the law, the government and society in general. Leftism is constantly changing and incorporating new absolute goods and evils (transphobia is the latest evil so far, but it won’t be the last).
Go to a workplace and say that you don’t think the new LGBTI program is a good idea, because everybody should have their opinion and freedom of thought, and you will see how long liberalism (relativism) goes (I did this and I was fired). You will see what the ideology being enforced in society is leftism, not liberalism.
Liberalism is only a rhetorical ploy to justify leftism. It took me a lot to see this distinction and this article by Bonald was useful so I decided to use his terminology.
That article explains how both religions are used to justify leftism, for example, in a debate of gay marriage. You attack the ideas of ideologies other than leftism by using liberalism («Christian marriage is a cultural construct that does not allow freedom and equality to gay couples. Live and let live») and you defend your own ideas by using leftism («You should bake the cake for a gay wedding, you bigot, you homophobe»). There is no freedom or live and let live for this last case.
In short, your ideas are relative (liberalism), my ideas are absolute (leftism). It is «relativism for thee but not for me». This phenomenon of «relativism for thee but not for me» will be constantly seen in the history of relativism in Western civilization.
In short, Western civilization is based on what I call «a fake relativism». Relativism (liberalism) is used in a rhetorical way as if it was the foundation of the society but the society is based on leftism, on an absolutist religion (like any other society is because it is impossible to do it another way).
How other societies work with ultimate justification
If Western society is really based on an absolutist ideology like other societies, why is so harmful that it uses relativism in a rhetorical function?
The problem is that relativism is used as an ultimate justification of changes in the culture and in the law. And relativism can justify anything, no matter how insane it is.
If we start asking: «Why is A true/false?», this will have an answer along the lines of «A is true/false because it is derived from B, which is true/false». Then we can repeat the question with B: «Why is B true/false». This will produce a C being true/false. We cannot go on infinitely with this chain of justification. This chain stops with Z being true/false, full stop. Z is an ultimate justification and we can call it «a reality dogma».
Morality works the same way. If we start asking: «Why is A good/evil?», this will have an answer along the lines of «A is good/evil because it produces B, which is good/evil». Then we can repeat the question with B: «Why is B good/evil». This will produce a C being good/evil. We cannot go on infinitely with this chain of justification. This chain stops with Z being good/evil, full stop. Z is an ultimate justification and we can call it «a morality dogma».
All civilizations have dogmas, which are the foundation of the civilization. In ancient societies, dogmas were collected in holy traditions or holy texts such as the Bible, the Qur’an or the Talmud, which were used as the ultimate justification in these other societies. Each chain of justification ended with «the Bible/Qur’an/Talmud says it so».
However, these holy texts are extensions of obvious reality («men are women are different») and of the natural law («don’t steal»), that is, the universal moral law that all sane societies follow, because it is biologically wired in humans and it is the only way to organize a society. The natural law has dogmas like «don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder, respect your neighbor’s wife, etc.».
All traditional holy texts include the dogmas of obvious reality («men are women are different») and the natural law («don’t steal») with some exceptions). They also include some other dogmas in addition («the Trinity», «the obligation to pray»). So the traditional holy texts can be seen as extensions of obvious reality and the natural law. See the appendix of The Abolition of Men by C.S.Lewis to see how all civilizations agree on the dogmas of the natural law (called «the Tao» by C.S.Lewis).
(The mechanism that makes all the holy texts to agree on obvious reality and the natural law is that societies that are not based on the natural law don’t survive long term , because the natural law is the minimum set of rules needed for a society to function, so the holy traditions of these societies die with them. This will be explored in another text)
Having the dogmas of a society derived from holy texts has as a benefit that its culture is not completely free. The culture is constantly changing but it does not get very far away from the dogmas of the holy texts, so it does not get very far away from the dogmas of the natural law. I imagine these cultures as a dog tied to a stick with a chain. The stick is the natural law. The dog (the culture) can move somewhat but he is not completely free, he must be somewhat close to the stick, even if the chain is long.
This seems outrageous to modern Western people, raised in a diet of fake rationalism. How can you limit your freedom of thought? You should be able to question anything! Follow your reason when it leads you!.
In fact, human reason (aided by convincing fallacies and social pressure) can justify absolutely anything, The modern West is a society that prides itself in its rationalism and it has rationally justified that a man is a woman (see «the social construction of gender» and other sophistries).
The dogmas of the holy texts mean that ancient cultures are protected from insanity. They cannot say that there are 26 genders because «God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:27). Or, if you are a Muslim, «O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women.» (Qur’an 4:1)
How the modern West works with ultimate justification
As we have said, the modern West has leftism as his real religion, but liberalism is his ultimate justification. Unlike ancient societies, whose dogmas were written in long texts, the dogmas of the modern West are surprisingly short: they are limited to a series of relativistic liberal concepts: freedom, equality, rights, and progress (with an additional implicit concept: tabula rasa). In the modern West, these concepts of liberalism play the same role than the Bible, the Qur’an or the Talmud in other societies, which are used as the ultimate justification in these societies.
Every ultimate justification of the leftist religion in Western society is done starting from liberalism (which is the rhetorical religion) and not from leftism (which is the real religion). So why is homophobia evil? Because it goes against the freedom, equality and rights of homosexual people. Why is secularization good? Because it goes in favor of the freedom and equality of people of non-Christian religions, and so on and so forth.
So why is having liberalism as justification so bad? And how it is possible than an absolutist ideology (leftism) is justified starting from a relativistic ideology (liberalism), when this is logically impossible?
It is bad because the dogmas of Western civilization (freedom, equality, rights) are completely relativistic. When applied to the collective, they are fake dogmas that don’t mean anything. They are words to conceal the fact that the Western civilization has no dogmas at all. This means that this civilization is a free dog, with no chain. The civilization can move in any direction and there is no limit to the insanity it can accept.
Any direction the Western civilization moves can be justified as a new right, freedom or equality. Do we want to legalize divorce? We can say we are protecting the rights and freedoms of people unhappy in their marriage. Do we want to forbid divorce? We can say we are protecting the rights and freedoms of kids to have a stable family.
Do we want to enforce the identification of trannies as women? We can say we are protecting the rights of people trapped in the wrong body or are wanting the equality of these «women» with other women. Do we want to forbid identification of trannies as a women? We want to protect the rights of women to have private spaces (like restrooms) or the equality of women to have the same reward as men with the same effort in sports.
The sacred relativistic concepts (freedom, equality, rights) of our civilization are able to justify ANYTHING, no matter what. They are no concepts when applied to collective but a series of empty words than don’t mean anything. They can justify anything and its opposite.
More specifically, there is no insanity big enough that cannot be justified by using relativistic concepts. And this is why our society has reached these levels of insanity: liberalism (relativism) as an ultimate justification allows it, while other societies are restricted by their holy texts, their absolute religions based on the natural law.
Liberalism for me but not for thee
But this produces another question. If liberalism can justify anything, why is it only used to justify leftism? Why isn’t liberalism used to justify the freedom of everybody to use the pronouns he wants to interact to other people? Or the rights of kids to have a stable family?
That is to say, the fact that the relativistic liberalism allows insanity does not mean that it forces insanity. If liberalism concepts mean nothing, if liberal concepts give freedom to the society (to the dog) to go in any direction (because they are relativistic), we would expect for the Western society to go in random directions, but the direction is always the same: towards insanity and towards the opposite direction of obvious reality and the natural law.
In fact, if we speak accurately, liberalism is not properly an ultimate justification of leftism. It is an ultimate rationalization.
Leftism has its own dynamics and evolves in an completely independent way from liberalism. It has mechanisms in place that make leftism evolve in one direction. As Mencius Moldbug said “Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left. Isn’t that interesting?”
Once leftism has produced a cultural change because its own internal dynamics, liberalism is called to justify it, to rationalize it. A liberal justification is created which justifies the novelty as derived from the freedom/equality/right of someone (let’s say the freedom and right to be called by your favorite pronouns). The fact that the freedom/equality/rights of other people is restricted is completely omitted (the freedom/right of everybody to free expression). So leftism is rationalized starting from liberalism using a fallacy of omission («stack the deck» fallacy). This is the only way to derive an absolute ideology (leftism) from a relativistic ideology (liberalism).
So, in other words, it is liberalism for me but not for thee. Relativism is never applied in a complete manner. It is applied in a partial way that justifies leftism and, when it contradicts leftism, it is not applied. Liberalism justifies leftist rights but other rights are never discussed. We will constantly see this in the history of the modern West.
But, what are the mechanisms that make leftism always evolve in the same direction? This will be seen in the last post of this text.
This is the end of this text. But it is only a summary. There is a lot more to explain such as the historical birth of relativism, the factors than increase its influence and lots of loose ends included in this text.