nydwracu niþgrim, nihtbealwa mæst

I’ve been working my way through The True and Only Heaven, a history of progress by Christopher Lasch, an ex-Frankfurt School Marxist who followed the trend of breaking with the left after the 1960s, but, instead of following many of his contemporaries into neoconservatism, jumped the divide altogether and landed in a worldview that can only be described with the overused cliche “beyond left and right”. Although technically a history of the idea of progress, the book, after aligning itself against the secularization explanation of Mencius Moldbug and Alain de Benoist, jumps tracks and ends up summarizing the republicans, Orestes Brownson, and Carlyle (characterized as an Emerson-like secularized crypto-Calvinist and advocate of hero-worship as a means to something bearing at least some resemblance to palingenesis). (I’m about halfway through now, and that’s the Carlyle bit. Also, I’m only going to cover a few points in the introduction; there’s much more there. I might scan it later.) Anyway, Lasch throws out enough interesting points that I decided to collect a few. (My comments are in italics.)

1. “The history of the twentieth century suggests that totalitarian regimes are highly unstable, evolving toward some type of bureaucracy that fits neither the classic fascist nor the socialist model.” (p. 24) This certainly seems true of China, the most successful of those regimes; I am (admittedly to my detriment) neither a historian nor an international relations specialist, but the only counterexample that comes to mind is North Korea, which can be safely written off in any pattern to which it is an exception.
2. “The tradition of English Marxism, as articulated by Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson … repudiated economic determinism and the mechanistic distinction between economic ‘base’ and cultural ‘superstructure’. It showed that class consciousness is the product of historical experience, not a simple reflection of economic interest. The work of Williams and Thomas also showed how Marxism could absorb the insights of cultural conservatives and provide a sympathetic account, not just of the economic hardships imposed by capitalism, but of the way in which capitalism thwarted the need for joy in work, stable connections, family life, a sense of place, and a sense of historical continuity.” (p. 29) I know nothing about either of them, but they’re going on my reading list.
3. The theories of inevitable historical progression through a particular set of stages came not from Christian eschatology, but, as per Hans Blumenberg, from the mistaken assumption of the necessity of competition with Christianity on its own ground. The characteristic feature of progressivism is the “moral rehabilitation of desire”: the belief that the “private vices” of “envy, pride, and ambition” become “‘public virtues’ by stimulating industry and invention”, whereas “thrift and self-denial” lead to stagnation; in other words, the finding of value in, the moral rehabilitation of, man’s “insatiable appetites”, as a driver of never-ending expansion. “The modern conception of history is utopian only in its assumption that modern history has no foreseeable conclusion,” and its denial of the belief in the life cycle of civilizations, or at least the possibility that said life cycle may apply to ours, that it may go the way of Rome and die a natural death.
4. “[I]f humanity thrives on peace and prosperity, it also needs an occasional taste of battle. Men and women need to believe that ‘life is a critical affair,’ in Richard Niebuhr’s words. They cannot be satisfied merely with the opportunity to choose their goals and ‘life-styles,’ in the current jargon; they need to believe that their choices carry serious consequences.” This drive for cosmic significance is present in Christianity and communism, and, as per Lewis Mumford, was at least partially responsible for the success of Hitler. Compare Orwell, who Lasch quotes; or Alain de Benoist’s statement that it is “better to wear the helmet of a Red Army soldier than to live on a diet of hamburgers in Brooklyn”. This is also, according to a professor who I mentioned this to, a key point in Frankfurt School analysis (a school which Lasch once followed), which can be explained along the following lines: When traveling a long distance by car, it used to be the case that one could only take back roads; but now, we have highways, which largely prevent us from getting lost, point out the attractions we might want to see along the way, and are far more convenient. To take the highway, then, is more convenient, but at the same time less human. (I can’t vouch for any of this myself, though, since I haven’t read any proper Frankfurt School yet.)
5. According to Jon Elster, the “most valuable and persuasive element in Marxism … is the way it makes ‘self-realization’ the ‘central value in society.’ But this is another way of saying that Marxism owes much of its appeal, at least in the West, to its identification with the central values of capitalism itself—which can allegedly be achieved, in their fully developed form, only after the socialist revolution.” It may be interesting for someone with more knowledge of the Marxist and liberal traditions to catalogue their similarities, or at least those existing before their cross-pollination (or, alternatively, the coöptation (yes, with the diaeresis… there really is no less wrong way to write that word!) of what remained of leftism) in the American academy.

Also, some administrivia: I have a Tumblr now, so follow if you’re into that sort of thing.

Remember Tom Ball? The man who said that this country is run by a shadowy dictatorship of unelected bureaucrats, and then set himself on fire in front of a New Hampshire courthouse?

Well, he got the dictatorship part right.

From his last statement:

Any one swept up into legal mess is usually astonished at what they see. They cannot believe what the police, prosecutors and judges are doing. It is so blatantly wrong. Well, I can assure you that everything they do is logical and by the book. The confusion you have with them is you both are using different sets of books. You are using the old First Set of Books- the Constitution, the general laws or statutes and the court ruling sometime[s] call[ed] Common Law. They are using the newer Second Set of Books. That is the collection of the policy, procedures and protocols. Once you know what set of books everyone is using, then everything they do looks logical and upright.

Translated into grammatically correct English with proper terminology, this essentially says that such concepts as separation of powers and rule of law are now irrelevant; instead of laws being written entirely by legislative bodies, many are now written by the other two branches. In the current political climate, of course, this makes sense to a degree; the laws are so complicated and so far-reaching that to consistently enforce them would require far more resources than are realistically available.

But what this means is that separation of powers is a myth. What we have instead is a dictatorship of the bureaucrats, the shadowy, unelected masses who have amassed pervasive power through their role in writing policies, procedures, and protocols. Tom Ball’s case promarily involved lower-level government, but it is trivial to see that the same principle applies at the federal level.

For example:

Now, DHS and the Department of Justice will convene a working group to evaluate, on a case by case basis, the files of everyone facing deportation, and those whose cases are dropped will be eligible to apply for work permits. The move will not grant any of those people legal status, nor will work authorization be guaranteed. But they will not have to leave the country.

For years, immigrant rights advocates have pushed Obama to exercise his executive authority, which allows him prosecutorial discretion over who the country prosecutes and deports. The numbers within Obama’s record-breaking deportation effort showed that a majority of those being deported, contrary to what the Morton memo called for, had no criminal background whatsoever. Outrage over this fact escalated after the failure of the DREAM Act last December, which would have allowed a select portion of undocumented youth the opportunity to gain citizenship if they cleared a host of hurdles. In April, 22 senators sent a letter to Obama urging him to issue deferred action to DREAM Act-eligible young people, and reminded him of the menu of options he had to ease the lives of undocumented youth.

President Obama was a vocal supporter of the DREAM Act, yet his immigration authorities were still sending deportation orders to DREAM Act-eligible youth. Obama ought to bring his policies in line with his rhetoric, immigrant rights advocates argued. Thursday’s policy change was his administration’s response to those demands.

The Obama administration has instituted a policy that amounts to a laxer version of a law that has been defeated in Congress multiple times. And those in favor of this move openly admit it. Separation of powers is dead, and it died a slow, silent death.

So, you ask, how does this tie into the title? How can this teach you, a budding revolutionary, how to overthrow the Evil Regime™ of your choice in a bloodless coup with a very high probability of success?

Unfortunately for you, it probably can’t. This method only works for those in favor of instituting a bureaucracy, and I doubt this blog would attract anyone but reactionaries, libertarians, and stone-cold paranoiacs, who are generally not the sort to support such absurdities. But if you happen to be a progressive, a globalist, or some other flavor of Vogon, here’s how you’d do it:

1. March through the institutions. Manipulate public opinion, especially the opinion of the bureaucratic classes, in the direction of supporting moral judgments favorable to your agenda.
2. Institute overly broad laws, or laws that would dramatically increase the workload of those enforcing them, to flood the system. If you can’t get that done yourself, rustle up some idealists or opportunistic capitalists to muscle some through for you.
3. Point out that the system has been flooded and claim that heuristics (policies, procedures, and protocols) must be installed to deal with the caseload.
4. Guide the codification of those heuristics to ensure that they support your agenda. This should not be hard, since if you carried out step 2 properly, the bureaucrats should already think your agenda is sensible policy.

Then sit back and watch as your perverse vision of heaven on earth becomes reality. If opposition arises, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt.

Good luck pulling this off in America, though; it’s clearly already been done.