There Are No Noble Savages

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If the reader is a user of facebook or any comparable website, he or she may be familiar with the following viral post:

“An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run, they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the treats for himself, they said: “Ubunto. How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”. ‘Ubunto’ in Xhosa culture means ‘I am because we are'”

Though the authenticity of the Ubunto story is uncertain, the word appears to be real and to have roughly the same meaning attributed to it. If this is the case, the concept is surely pleasant, even admirable. But is it really so original or sophisticated?

If the adoring Westerners cooing over this story could stop crying with happiness for one moment, they might recall the similar Western phrase ‘all for one, one for all’ – or indeed many hundreds of other equivalents around the world.

Human solidarity, yet another way of describing ‘Ubunto’, is an innate quality invested in the human condition by the legacy of biological evolution. It is not something one needs to give a name to. It just exists – ineradicably, albeit in differing endowments from person to person.

As many cynics have noted, the only reason Western audiences are so enamoured of the Ubunto story in particular is because it appears to align with a very old and sentimental fallacy; that of the ‘Noble savage’.

The Noble Savage has been part of Western art – particularly literature – for centuries. Put simply, the idea is that undeveloped cultures (especially African, Amerindian, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures), though on the surface less sophisticated and morally developed than those of Europe, nevertheless retain valuable ancient wisdom the West may profit by relearning.

You can see the cultural effects of this notion everywhere you look; from fridge magnets emblazoned with Confucian and Native American spiritual maxims, to the kind of the meme mentioned above. The West cannot seem to get enough of ancient non-European ‘wisdom’. It is substantially more popular even than Western philosophy, including the immortal works of Nietzsche, Kant and the ancient Greeks – (when was the last time you saw a Plato fridge magnet?).

Of course, being the cultural bigot that I am, I do not believe that Crazy Horse is the equal of Nietzsche. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think they even belong in the same category. Nietzsche was the greatest philosopher of the last 500 years. Crazy Horse, though undoubtedly noble in the military sense, made only commonsensical remarks about his own life and about a political struggle he ended up losing (to Europeans).

Historic Third World philosophers, like historic Third World mathematicians, physicists and inventors, are extremely thin on the ground. The vast majority of celebrated non-European thinkers are products of the past 100 years, a century marked by non-European adaptation to European domination and cultural hegemony.

This is not a coincidence. When European civilisation – now de-racialised as  ‘The West’ – made the first breakthrough from localism to worldliness, the broader world was still filled with savage darkness. And long after the enlightenment began, Asians (including those dwelling in the now impressive Japanese and Korean cultures), Africans and Amerindians continued to exist in a twilight condition of subsistence agriculture and mind-numbing ritual.

In India, now home to internet entrepreneurs and industrialist billionaires, widowed women hurled themselves onto burning funeral pyres to satisfy perverse notions of marital duty. In Japan, now the epicentre of global technological innovation, Samurai (normal people in strange clothes) cut their stomachs open to amend for ‘dishonourable’ failures in martial etiquette. There is evidence of cannibalism in Southern Africa as late as the Victorian era. And so on…

The European explosion – the multinational enlightenment – was the beginning of true civilisation. Though periods of greatness in North Africa, the Middle East, Mexico and China had been observed centuries before this point, it is only after this seismic event that civilisation in its contemporarily recognisable form began.

So why do Westerners, those to whom the most credit belongs,  now look back at pre-civilisation with such a powerful nostalgia? Why do Brits and Americans, looking at memes on Apple Mackintosh computers, interpret the word ‘umbunto’ as a proof of Third World superiority? And why are non-Europeans, Asians especially, increasingly more cognizant of Western superiority than Westerners?

Since these questions are interconnected, a single answer may suffice for all of them. The West, unlike the rest of the planet, is infected with a virus of civilizational exhaustion; a crisis of civilizational confidence. We Westerners have grown so used to the blessings of modernity that we have come to take them for granted. It takes real mental exertion for us to imagine (honestly and accurately) a world without the internet, refrigerators and Starbucks restaurants. And with a thick fog of relativism further obscuring our vision we are inevitably tempted by the idea that such a condition is more ‘wholesome’, ‘substantial’ or culturally complex than that in which we now live.

Westerners have become bored of affluence and modernity

But it isn’t more wholesome, of course, nor more substantial, complex, romantic… It is inferior by almost every measure. And if anyone needs evidence of this contention, one can experience pre-civilisation for a very paltry sum these days. One can fly over to Ghana, Chad, North Korea or Afghanistan and live cheaply for whole years at a time. The reason we don’t want to dwell in such places, would not even dream of doing so, is because anti-Western sentiment is based on lies, illusions and errors of logic.

The West (including the Western-inspired cultures of Japan and Korea) is the only true civilisation on Earth. The further you go away from it, the further you go away from all that is valuable, good and worth living for.

The Noble Savage myth is the first step down a very slippery slope. It is best not to take it, even if that means not sharing a heart-warming post on social media.

D, LDN.

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American Übermensch: Donald Trump’s Thrilling Confidence

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America 911, American Liberty, Art of the deal, Barack Obama, Capitalism, Civilisation, CNN, Defend the modern world, Donald Trump, Donald Trump 2016, Donald Trump could win, Donald Trump NBC, donald trump speech, donald trump wiki, Envy, Fox News, New York, Philosophy, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Riches, trump speech, United States

So, Donald Trump, the brash celebrity billionaire and star of TV’s ‘The Apprentice’ has dramatically announced a bid for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. Cue hysteria. Cue mob humour. Cue intellectual laziness.

I understand how conventional it is to laugh at Trump; at his braggadocio, his squirrelly hair and material emphasis. He is clearly someone who enjoys the media spotlight and who often speaks with the media in mind. But away from the quirks in his character, it cannot be denied that Trump, via his achievements and lived philosophy, also personifies America at its most unapologetic, creative, tough-minded and independent.

He is a throw-back in that regard; the living relic of an era – fast being lost – in which the United States was the country to imitate if you wanted your own to succeed. It was an era of unipolar domination, whether on the economic, cultural or military plain. It was the era in which most of the skyscrapers you see on the dazzling Manhattan skyline were constructed, when the bridges were built (on budget and on time), and when the US army considered concepts like ‘retreat’ and ‘failure’ to be eccentricities unique to Europe.

I believe this American spirit still survives, in pockets and enclaves, but the condition of America in general is increasingly tenuous. Toxic issues are beginning to develop in the marrow of American life; issues that if left without treatment, could prove lethal to its long-term prospects.

Trump announced his bid for presidency this week with a resounding rally held in his Manhattan skyscraper ‘Trump Tower’. The fallout would last for days. Here are some of the more ‘provocative’ statements emphasised by the press:

On immigration  – “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

On jobs – “Our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent. Don’t believe the 5.6. Don’t believe it… That’s right. A lot of people… can’t get jobs. They can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have jobs.”

On health-care reform – “We have a disaster called the big lie: Obamacare… Yesterday, it came out that costs are going for people up 29, 39, 49, and even 55 percent, and deductibles are through the roof. You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high, it’s virtually useless. It’s virtually useless. It is a disaster.”

Shortly after these comments were made, left-leaning cable channels set about presenting them as stand-alone bigotries, considerably more extreme and stupid seeming than in their original context. The television network NBC responded quickly by severing all ties with Trump, accompanied by the retail giant Macy’s, hair-product brand Farouk Systems, and the Latino TV networks Univsion, Televisa and Ora TV.

I won’t deny that the comment about Mexican rapists was lazy and ill-advised. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with sexual violence in Mexican communities more serious than in others. But outside of these unfortunate snippets (incidentally, I don’t share the Republican anxiety over subsidised health-care either), I found the speech rather inspiring.

Trump offered his audience an honest, easy to understand diagnosis of real and important maladies. His remarks about the pathetic failings of the Iraqi ‘military’ were dead on the nail. His comments about China’s cynical devaluation of its currency were timely and brave. His stated willingness to protect Israel should comfort the hearts of besieged democrats around the world.

But more than anything, it was Trump’s call for a ‘cheer-leading’ President who can resurrect the attitude of exceptionalism that truly impressed me. As I have written perhaps too many times before, positivity and the “Let’s Win!” spirit is not only useful on the football field or basketball court. It is the same attitude that destroyed the Empire of Japan and liquidised Iraqi divisions in Kuwait. It is the attitude that built the Hoover Dam, and which drives the world economy.

Trump understands this. He understands the psychological basis of American strength, that this strength is not derived from virtue alone, but from arrogance, determination and unilateralism too.

Despite my enthusiasm, I am soberly aware that a Trump administration is as unlikely Caitlyn Jenner birthing triplets. Impossible, of course, but perhaps not wholly undesirable.

D, LDN.

Notes on ‘Ride the Tiger’ (by Julius Evola).

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I’ve been reading philosophy since I was 15 years old. Since my teenage years, my favourite writer has been Friedrich Nietzsche, the predominant poet of the German language and (in my view) the greatest thinker of the last 500 years. But for the last decade or so, I’ve tended to neglect philosophy in favour of history and politics. My degree is in Politics and Economics. I am a political blogger and we all live in a uniquely politicised era.

Julius Evola’s ‘Ride the Tiger’ is the first work of philosophy to distract my attention in many years. You may remember that this blog is named as a refutation of Evola – whose work ‘Revolt against the Modern World’ advocated a rebellion against industrial development.

That book, commonly regarded as his masterpiece, is garbage. ‘Ride the Tiger’ on the other hand, continues to fascinate me. At its heart, this book (described by some reviewers as a self-help book for fascists) ponders the right way for a person of intellectual and spiritual depth to survive an age of stupidity, dissolution and over-democratisation.

To try and allow the reader to learn this ‘correct’ way, Evola takes issue confronts Nietzsche directly by reforming the philosopher’s classical dichotomy of ‘Dionysian’ against ‘Apollonian’.

In case you are unfamiliar with that dichotomy, I’ll try to briefly explain it here.

For Nietzsche, to be ‘Dionysian’ is to live in slack obedience to reaction and emotion; that is, to follow the impulses of pure physiology and worldliness; to live, as it were, without rationalisation (Dionysus, incidentally, was the Greek God of intoxication and wine). Nietzsche often suggests more explicitly in his later work that the reader choose ‘life’ over ‘thought’ and his noted thought experiment imagining an ‘Eternal Recurrence of the same” is designed to provoke this way of thinking in the reader. ISIS and al-Qaeda for example, pursue a life of unrestrained impulse and barbarity. In this way, they are far closer to the Nietzschean ideal than many of his Western readers would care to admit.

The Apollonian spirit, by contrast, is an attitude to life and art that rationalises and ‘stands back’ from existence; one that refuses to follow impulse and places greater value on the mind and the realm of intellect. This is undoubtedly closer to the spirit of the modern age than the former concept, given that we are encouraged to sublimate our instincts into the pursuit of rational goals (wealth creation, civility, security etc…).

In Ride the Tiger, Evola suggests a fusion of both concepts – the construction of what he called Dionysian Apollonism. As this name would suggest, Evola advises us to take inspiration from both philosophies. We should live in a way that honours our nature and innate drives, but in a way that allows us to navigate our way through modern society.

Evola rejects the barbaric as infeasible and self-destructive. He suggests instead the pursuit of primeval goals in a disguise of civility. This is what ‘Ride the Tiger’ is chiefly concerned with.

The title of the book is derived from a Hindu parable. There are many variations on it, but the basic gist is as follows: Imagine a tiger is charging at you at great speed… Your first impulse might be to fight or ‘take on’ the beast. But if you do this, you will surely lose, since the beast is more powerful than you are. However, if you manage to leap on the back of the tiger and ride it, you may be able to harness its energy and strength for your own ends.

For Evola, the tiger is modern industrial society, something he hated with a terrible passion but which he conceded was too strong to oppose. Rather than commit suicide by attempting a futile revolution against it, we should instead try to play by its rules, integrate into its system, but all the while stay faithful to higher and more transcendent concepts.

I understand and concede that Evola’s philosophy is esoteric and strange and also that the Italian was a confused anti-Semite and political fascist. But this short, strange and beguiling work has the potential to haunt the thinking of the reader long after he/she has closed it.

D, LDN.

Pain and Gain.

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American Dream, American way of life, Bodybuilding, Dwayne, Feminism, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Bay, No pain no gain, Pain and Gain, Palm Trees, Philosophy, Positivity, Rock, sex, Steroids, Sunshine, Taylor Swift

I sat down to watch the Michael Bay crime-comedy ‘Pain and Gain’ with the iconoclastic reviewer Mark Kermode’s critique still ringing in my ears. As the journalist made more than clear, this was not a movie that appealed to him:

“(It) was absolutely loathsome and morally repugnant and vile and evil and bad.”, he sighed with his usual laid-back, folded arms, schoolmarmish shtick.

Having a lot of respect for Kermode’s judgement on this art-form, I fully expected to loathe the film myself. And ultimately, yes, it is a haphazard work in parts, filled with lumpy, half-digested ideas and jokes in questionable taste. But for the first half hour, it can’t be denied, I was strangely enthralled.

I won’t go into the plot. Just know that the story and the crimes depicted are based in fact and that it all grows increasingly ridiculous as things go on. I only want to talk here about the opening, because this is something that – even if it was meant satirically – struck a chord deep within me.

Mark Wahlberg’s character Daniel is the film’s narrator and for the first half an hour, he explains to the viewer exactly why America is great and how this relates down to the conduct and attitude of the individual.

He informs us that be believes in physical fitness, self-starting, body-building, masculinity and self-reliance. He notes by way of illustration the example of US history; the story of a colony that went on to dominate the world through guts, determination and a terrifying kind of self-belief.

As I say, this is all meant to be a satire on the American mindset, and the film later tries to make nonsense of the opening premise. Still, I found myself in agreement with every word Wahlberg’s character spoke. He described in a simple and powerful way, the aspects of America I most admire. I also think the linkage between physical fitness and philosophy is a valid one.

I took up bodybuilding a few years ago under the influence of the work of Yukio Mishima. I really don’t think there is a better or more virtuous hobby available to a person, especially to a man. Bodybuilding doesn’t just build muscle, it builds confidence and ambition. It opens doors in the mind. The increase in dopamine triggers goal-orientated behaviours. I can write a thousand words in one sitting after working out. I feel more sure of my views, less tolerant of doubt, moderation and of those who would dare oppose me. This is the way nature inspires us. With every kilo added to your routine, you justify yourself. Bodybuilding – unlike intellectualism – counts for something in the Darwinian game. I may be able to write well (or so I’ve been told) but what does literacy matter in the end? When the struggle is unleashed and the contenders amass, I won’t be writing the enemy to death. To be a man, one has to be prepared to be a brawler, a thug even.

A well-built body is the physical manifestation of a determined mind; it is the ‘will become flesh’ – to quote Mishima. It is also an ideal metaphor for the American can-do attitude that is infinitely superior to the drizzling self-deprecation of England.

D, LDN.

What’s Wrong with Positivity and Health?

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Anti-Nature, Civilisation, Cultural Marxism, Defend the modern world, Irony, Life, Meta-Irony, New Sincerity, Philosophy, Postmodernism, Sportfreunde Stiller, Tyranny

The other day (having nothing else to do) I watched an interesting video on the Glenn Beck YouTube channel. In a ten-minute presentation, the flame-haired libertarian mourned the tendency of popular culture to emphasise and celebrate the negative. Where, he asked, is the art celebrating existence as opposed to devaluing it? I really share Beck’s exasperation on this issue and would identify one artistic trend above all as having led to the contemporary state.

Few attitudes have been more corrosive to British (and Western) potential as that we call ‘irony’. Married to the postmodern, irony (a mirage of depth) has deeply wounded, if not retarded Britain for over three decades. The famed British sense of humour now deals in little else. Nothing is said seriously. Sincerity and positivity are frowned upon, deemed to be infantile or unevolved. Those who celebrate openly positive concepts are dismissed as not being in on the joke of the age.

According to this position, life is a burden, a death-sentence. One may as well smoke or inject heroin as go out and exercise. The end result will always be the same; the endless grave. Hope for an afterlife or for a final, lasting justice is suited to childhood. People should be dark, philosophical and counter to all natural principles. Nature is ugly. Humanity overrated.

This poisonous attitude; the taking of life and nature as a joke we have worked out and transcended, must surely be the greatest burden of our history.

I am not wholly immune to its charm. For many years, I idolised the Kurt Cobain approach to living. The introverted poet, prone to self-harm, addicted to cheap pleasure, destined for self-destruction. I thought the painted smiles of White America were corporate illusions, and that when the camera faced another way, the smiles would surely drop. Never did I consider that those Americans were actually living more in tune with the rhythm of the universe than I or Cobain.

What is so wrong with health? What is so wrong with hope for the future, sincerity in emotion, politeness, hatred of death, celebration of life and vitality?

In England, we often associate smiles with stupidity and frowns with depth. Our musicians – even those with great talent like Radiohead – lean towards the dark margins around life, avoiding moments of integrity like spores of anthrax. We mock the happy and exalt the ironic. We are too intelligent to be happy.

Isn’t it time someone launched a cultural movement to counter this?

To be sure, there are some who claim to be making a start, but this is usually not in the way we ought to welcome. The ‘New Sincerity Movement’ in music for example, seeks to degrade the power of irony with the creation of unapologetically sentimental artworks. But sentimentalism is or can be just as corrosive as irony.

What we need is a positivity movement; a trend across the creative disciplines (but especially in literature and music) which resurrects natural principles. The rock band Sportfreunde Stiller are a good example of the way ahead. Stiller, a German three-piece, are known for their simple and positive song-writing as well their celebration of sport (sport and athleticism being far removed from the traditional lyrical themes of rock).

More broadly, culture must be revaluated from top to bottom, and the barometer of worth must be positivity. If self-help books, religious belief, vitamin tablets, Christian rock or therapy increase your feeling of life, pursue them.  

Positivity is what the world exists for, lest we ever forget. The anti-natural are foreign to it. They are unnatural. In any other system of life, the rotten parts drop away, rejected by the elements that still have the will to flourish. Perhaps this is how it should be. To be alive at all is a state of indescribable luxury. To waste life is a crime against being.

D, LDN.