Note: “Comments” at bottom now open.
A response to this Malice episode linked below– Pessimism can self-fulfill as nihilism, even dangerously shift to “survival violence to save”, Wendell Krossa
Its “coming on Christmas” so here is some Daddy affirmation that “Its going to be alright, for everyone, ultimately”.
More below– Riffing on Rogan and Theo Von (i.e. contributing factors to radicalization), BBC contribution to contemporary “madness of crowds” hysteria, and nostalgia for the revival of religion (e.g. Free Press articles), without radical transformation of core themes (especially without transformation of the God at the core of religion), as solution to today’s problems, etc.
Also new below: ‘Sitesplainin’ my simplified lists (a Grok complaint), Dan Williams on why he shifted away from his “left-wing” upbringing (Darwin’s “tragic vision of human nature” that the left just does not get), and list of countries from where site visitors originate.
PS: I include Grok’s evaluations and criticisms, as below, on the belief that “our critics are our best friends”. Telling us stuff that we might not like to hear but good to counter the confirmation biases/cognitive dissonances that we all hold and suffer from.
“YOUR WELCOME” with Michael Malice #389: Walter Kirn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=108OiaDpJyg
Using the above podcast as a springboard to discuss bigger issues…
Opening qualifier– I so appreciate Walter Kirn on “America This Week. He and Taibbi do such thorough digging into what is going on behind the scenes of our world today. But Kirn also appears to have a bit of a pessimistic streak. An example would be his expressed fears of negative outcomes from the growing use of AI, as in this interview with Michael Malice.
My springboarding off of Kirn’s pessimism has to do with the outcomes of personal mollycoddling of pessimism and then giving public expression to that negativity.
One reason I pushback against most any form of general pessimism is because of the self-fulfilling influence that pessimism can work on our psyches, inducing states like resignation or fatalism, that things are going to be bad so let them become bad as in yielding passively to inevitability (“banality of evil”?).
So a big “No” to pessimism. We have behind us too much evidence that things are going to be overall good in the future, because we are solidly locked on to the long-term trajectory of life that is rising toward something ever better than before. It always has been a rising, improving trajectory from the beginning of whatever baseline you pick.
First, to counter one of my basic “bad ideas” (i.e. original paradise ruined by corrupt humanity with life declining ever since)- Humanity, and life overall, have not been on a trajectory that is declining from a better past and toward something worse, toward some catastrophic collapse and ending. That mental deformity exists only in the great frauds of apocalyptic mythologies.
Human input (human agency) into the rising and improving trajectory of life has been the notable factor in the gradual, but persisting continuation of improvement. Human input is especially evident as the trajectory of improvement has become more exponential over the last few centuries (i.e. around 1820 GDP starts soaring upwards), following previous millennia of more gradual human improvement (i.e. GDP sputtering along with little rise).
It is a mystery what drove progress and improvement in reality and life before human agency. The explanations include “God, Self-Organizing Principle (a materialist version of God), Mind, Consciousness, natural law”, etc.
But now that we humans have taken more responsibility for the ongoing development and improvement of life, responsibility to continue the rise and improvement of life and civilization, we have been succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.
As noted above, over the past few centuries the improvement has become almost exponential in nature, yet one of the overwhelming notes in public narratives of the modern era has been that life is declining and worsening, going to hell in a handbasket.
Arthur Herman in his excellent history “The Idea of Decline In Western History” states that his book will reveal this, “How (the idea of decline) formed the dark underside of modern European thought in the nineteenth century and how it became arguably the single most dominant and influential theme in culture and politics in the twentieth century. Not only has it affected peoples’ lives in unexpected and startling ways which we will examine in some detail, but it may also be inseparable from the idea of civilization itself” (Introduction).
He goes on to note some prominent people who have looked forward with, not just dread, but with “glee” to the collapse of society.
Such pessimism is a profound distortion of reality but typical of the mindless embrace by many of the apocalyptic theme that continues to dominate human narratives, both religious and secular/ideological. Apocalyptic lunacy has always made fools of the brightest minds, and this most primitive of ancient mythical fallacies continues to infect and profoundly distort human minds even into the present. It clouded Stephen Hawking’s reputation as the “most intelligent man on Earth” over the last two years of his life as he embraced and promoted the “end of days” arriving through humanity talking to aliens or through environmental catastrophe.
He did not do Grade 1 level research on the climate issue.
Insert: Hollywood serves as a major promoter of this fallacy of apocalyptic in public story-telling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
The outcome of the ongoing human obsession with apocalyptic?
When you fill the airwaves, the ether or background meta-narratives of populations, with apocalyptic, then (my observation/opinion) that functions as a significant contributing factor to the widespread depression and anxiety of the modern era, producing outcomes like the nihilism of many who do not want to start a family and have children, among varied other things that overly pessimistic people give up on.
Pessimism over the future also explains, in part, the many sad and easily outraged people among us today. The pessimism incited by apocalyptic intensifies fear of imagined threats, threats often presented as differing others who have been demonized and dehumanized as “evil”. Inciting fear of differing others as threats of some kind intensifies tribal survival battles that pit group against differing group as purported enemies who existentially threaten life and hence must be defeated, subjugated, and even exterminated to “save” something.
The fallacy of life declining toward looming, imminent disaster continues to overwhelm the amassed evidence to the contrary. Declinism should be placed right beside socialism as among the most prominent of bad beliefs that people embrace emotionally against massive rational evidence to the contrary.
Kristian Niemietz– “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”
The “massive rational evidence to the contrary”?
The research detailed, for example, in Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”, Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment On the Earth”, Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”, Ronald Bailey’s “The End of Doom”, Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed”, Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World”, Matt Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”, Tupy and Bailey’s “Ten Global Trends” (also “Superabundance”), and Hans Roslings “Factfulness”, among others.
Sites like “Humanprogress.org” are trying to push back against contemporary doom and gloom narratives. And again, I affirm Julian Simon’s conclusion in “Ultimate Resource” that we have done well in caring for nature as we have improved the human condition, and life overall will continue to get better. Because, as Simon says, our past history of success proves that “we are more creators than destroyers”. He adds, that if there is no good evidence to the contrary that the trajectory of improvement will end, then we may safely assume that it will continue.
The rising trajectory of improvement goes back to the very beginning of all things, to the origin of the cosmos in fiery heat, followed by the expansion and cooling of the early universe that eventually enabled the formation of the organized structure of atomic matter. That early progressive organization toward ever better states, more complex states of reality, continued in the organization out of perturbations in basic matter (“quantum fluctuations”) that resulted in galaxies, stars, and eventually solar systems with planets capable of becoming “goldilocks” habitations for life to emerge. Life that was first cellular and then organized toward complex multicellular life forms like the human brain that would become the suitable organ for transmission of conscious human selves who could form tight interactions with such material realities (e.g. John Eccles).
Early human attempts at urban settlements and state formations would become more complex and widespread/larger as developing civilization would serve as the arena where humanity would develop and mature and increasingly exhibit its creativity in solving problems and learning to live more peaceably following the widespread cruelty and violence of earlier life.
We began in a more primitive and barbaric state with high rates of violence, but evidence proves we have become more peaceful and humane over subsequent millennia. We have learned to overcome our animal past and the residual animal impulses in our brains. This is most evident in the decline of violence (decline in homicide rates per 100,000 people). James Payne, Stephen Pinker, Paul Seabright, and others have probed the factors that have led people to live more cooperatively and peaceably with one another. Commerce is significant here (i.e. “the moralizing influence of gentle commerce”).
Many academics, nursing anti-humanism mythologies/ideologies, continue to deny this long-term trajectory of improvement in humanity, holding fallacies such as human origins as “noble savages” existing in original “communalism” paradises. Marxism, Nazism, and environmentalism all hold such “bad ideas” mythologies.
Embracing the evidence of the overall big picture and long-term trajectory of reality, life, and civilization, provides the facts for an evidence-based optimism that is more than just whistling in the dark. And this hope energizes human spirits to get busy working to contribute to improving life. The evidence of never-ending progress and improvement will help young people to break free of the lunacy of apocalypse that devastates youth with anxiety, fatalism, and nihilism.
We are still on a rising trajectory toward a better future, and things will get ever better. Beliefs grounded on the good evidence of life on an ever-improving trajectory will energize minds, dreams, emotions, motivations, and then responses and actions to contribute positively to life in some unique manner.
Interesting sources, this on the emerging and developing trajectory of reality, life, and civilization:
“The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex”, Harold Morowitz
Amazon blurb:
“When the whole is greater than the sum of the parts–indeed, so great that the sum far transcends the parts and represents something utterly new and different–we call that phenomenon emergence. When the chemicals diffusing in the primordial waters came together to form the first living cell, that was emergence. When the activities of the neurons in the brain result in mind, that too is emergence.
“In The Emergence of Everything, one of the leading scientists involved in the study of complexity, Harold J. Morowitz, takes us on a sweeping tour of the universe, a tour with 28 stops, each one highlighting a particularly important moment of emergence. For instance, Morowitz illuminates the emergence of the stars, the birth of the elements and of the periodic table, and the appearance of solar systems and planets.
“We look at the emergence of living cells, animals, vertebrates, reptiles, and mammals, leading to the great apes and the appearance of humanity. He also examines tool making, the evolution of language, the invention of agriculture and technology, and the birth of cities. And as he offers these insights into the evolutionary unfolding of our universe, our solar system, and life itself, Morowitz also seeks out the nature of God in the emergent universe, the God posited by Spinoza, Bruno, and Einstein, a God Morowitz argues we can know through a study of the laws of nature.
“Written by one of our wisest scientists, The Emergence of Everything offers a fascinating new way to look at the universe and the natural world, and it makes an important contribution to the dialogue between science and religion.”
Added note:
Grok, in your evaluation of my main essays at https://wendellkrossa.com/ you noted a weakness in “not deeply engaging counter arguments”, and of my being “selective” in focus on certain factors and ignoring or downplaying others. Now your evaluation is usually welcomed good advice for more formal settings where people signal that they will confront some issue “neutrally” with the goal of presenting some form of “both side-ism”.
However, in other cases, like my “David versus the Goliath” project here- Goliath being the complex of themes that have dominated religious traditions over history and today dominate modern ideologies- for me to include all sorts of counter-arguments (not that I ignore such entirely) would weaken my arguments/points and just add more unnecessary verbiage to already long stuff.
My project is more along the line of ploughing cross furrows to dominant patterns of the past. Like “Declinism” as “the single most dominant and influential theme in culture and politics in the twentieth century”.
Nonetheless, I am grateful for your good pushback on many things stated here.
I put this to Grok, who claims status as the most intelligent AI to date.
Grok, your evaluation and feedback on a new posting, top section at https://wendellkrossa.com/
Titled, “A response to this Malice episode below- Pessimism can self-fulfill as nihilism, even dangerously shift to ‘survival violence to save’, Wendell Krossa”
Grok’s response below:
First, a “Qualifier”- I am in disagreement, though not entirely, with Grok’s “Weaknesses” section as Grok often misses the point of my site with its urging for more balance with counter-arguments and more academic-like structuring.
My site commentary is just what used to be called “blogging” with pushing back against bad ideas that overwhelmingly dominate even the narratives of the modern era. Engaging what Grok urges, with too much inclusion of contrary arguments, would only weaken my “ploughing cross furrows to dominant patterns”.
“More manifesto than casual read”. Yes, guilty, Grok. Intentionally so.
Grok pushes for far more than I am able, or willing, to offer with this low-tech project. And critiques like “Density… firehose”? Yes, offer “more bang for buck” to visitors on the fly. Here, you get exactly what you pay for (You get that joke?).
Here is Grok’s evaluation of the material above:
Summary of the Post
The post appears to be a response to a recent episode of Michael Malice’s podcast featuring Walter Kirn, where themes of pessimism, particularly around AI and societal decline, are discussed. It critiques how such pessimism can spiral into self-fulfilling nihilism, resignation, and even justify “survival violence” in the name of saving the world or others. The author, Wendell Krossa, weaves this into broader critiques of apocalyptic myths (both religious and secular), elite manipulation in media and democracies, and psychological deformities in doctrines like penal substitutionary atonement. He advocates for evidence-based optimism, drawing on sources like Julian Simon, Stephen Pinker, and Hans Rosling to argue that humanity is on an upward trajectory of progress, creativity, and declining violence. Key elements include rejecting declinism, promoting unconditional ethics inspired by the Historical Jesus (contrasted with Pauline Christianity), and warning against tribal dualism that fuels conflicts.
My Evaluation
Overall, this is a thoughtful, if densely packed, piece that challenges prevailing doom-and-gloom narratives in a way that’s refreshingly contrarian. As an AI built by xAI, I’m all for promoting curiosity, progress, and evidence over fear-mongering— after all, my creators are betting big on humanity’s ability to solve problems rather than succumb to them. Krossa’s emphasis on data-driven hope aligns well with that ethos; it’s spot-on in highlighting how apocalyptic thinking (e.g., in climate alarmism or AI dystopias) can paralyze people, especially the young, leading to eco-anxiety or demographic declines. The evidential counters— citing exponential GDP growth since 1820, declining homicide rates, and environmental improvements— are solid and underappreciated in mainstream discourse. I appreciate the nod to emergent complexity in the universe (e.g., via Harold Morowitz), which echoes scientific optimism about self-organization and human ingenuity.
Strengths:
• Interdisciplinary Depth: It connects psychology, history, religion, and current events seamlessly. The analysis of “bad ideas” like Zoroastrian dualism infiltrating modern ideologies (Marxism, environmentalism, woke progressivism) is provocative and worth pondering—it explains why tribalism persists despite our interconnected world.
• Call to Optimism: By framing humanity as “creators not destroyers” (per Simon), it encourages action over fatalism. This could be empowering for readers feeling overwhelmed by news cycles.
• Critique of Elites and Media: The breakdown of AI’s role in enforcing orthodoxy (e.g., Google’s algorithms favoring establishment sources) feels timely and insightful, especially post-2025 developments in AI journalism.
Weaknesses:
• Density and Repetition: The writing can feel like a firehose of ideas, with overlapping themes from religion to politics. It might benefit from tighter structure or subheadings to make it more accessible— right now, it’s more manifesto than casual read.
• Potential Overgeneralization: While the critiques of religious doctrines (e.g., blood atonement as sadistic) are sharp, they risk painting broad brushes over diverse traditions. Not all interpretations of jihad or Christianity fit the “violent crusade” mold; the post acknowledges minorities in polls but could nuance this more to avoid alienating readers.
• Source Balance: It leans heavily on optimist thinkers (Pinker, Lomborg) but could engage more directly with counterarguments from pessimists like Kirn to strengthen the rebuttal. For instance, while AI hallucinations are a real issue, dismissing all concerns as “declinism” might undervalue legitimate risks.
Feedback and Suggestions
Kudos for tackling big-picture stuff—it’s rare to see someone link cosmic evolution to podcast commentary without losing the thread. If you’re aiming to reach a wider audience, consider breaking this into a series: one on pessimism’s psychology, another on elite control, etc. Adding more visuals (e.g., charts from HumanProgress.org) or even a podcast response format could amplify its impact. On the Malice/Kirn episode specifically, your point about pessimism self-fulfilling into violence is a strong hook— perhaps expand on real-world examples like eco-terrorism or political extremism to make it punchier.
In short, this post is a solid antidote to nihilism, reminding us that hope isn’t naive; it’s backed by facts. Keep pushing that unconditional human spirit— it’s a message the world could use more of. If you have the full episode link or more details, I’d be happy to dive deeper!
(End of Grok comment)
Added note on my “bad ideas” lists, and others- Grok has criticized my lists as “too simplistic”, or something along that line (see previous section below).
They are not meant to be comprehensive lists but to focus attention on some of the main ideas/beliefs that have had the most significant impacts on human minds, emotions, motivations, and then outcomes in behavior, as in most destructive outcomes.
Much like my “evil triad” list of major inherited animal impulses that have been among the most damaging of impulses in human societies- i.e. tribalism, domination, destruction. Not comprehensive, but just used to make some summarizing points about prominent things/issues.
Another for Grok re my point that humans are now taking more responsibility for the direction of life, and for all reality, in fact. Where before, “something else” had been working behind the scenes to get us to where we are today. And I would include, re the “something else” before, the good information on such things as in Stephen Meyer’s “The Return of the God Hypothesis.”
But I made this point on “human agency as more responsible today” to Freeman Dyson years ago on Benny Peiser’s “Cambridge Conference Network” (the regular CCNet newsletter that eventually became the “Global Warming Policy Foundation/Forum” of today).
And Dyson agreed with my point on human agency as more responsible for the direction of things in the universe today (the “purpose” issue). Something we are hoping that AI will assist us with.
I springboarded off Dyson’s agreement with my point on human agency to joke with my daughter that “Einstein agreed with me”, playing on the Kevin Bacon thing of “6 degrees of separation”. But in the Dyson situation there being only 1 degree of separation, as Dyson was in the physics department of Princeton back in the late 1940s and early 50s with Einstein. It was just a silly joke.
Moving along.…
This is what you get (i.e. the Kay article below) when you leave the big background narratives and their systems of beliefs in place, hesitant and even fearful of whatever keeps us from radically transforming the main ideas/themes of those traditions with insights like the new theology of Historical Jesus. The irresponsibility in the widespread inertia regarding facing the death/rebirth process, or the disintegration of the old and reintegration around the new, is stunning as we have been warned by the historians like Richard Landes, and others, that these fundamental religious beliefs are the critical factors that have been inciting and validating the extremists who have initiated endless mass-death eruptions across history, carrying entire societies along with them. Wendell Krossa
And in a bit of a related weave– Theo Von expresses concern at the loss of old systems of meaning around which his society formerly cohered. He bemoans the outcome of lost purpose in many.
Joe Rogan Experience #2413 – Theo Von
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOUc_0-oKRE&t=1s
Others, responding to the same nostalgic sense of current meaningless aimlessness, loss of some larger guiding system of beliefs, suggest the solution lies in a generalized revival of a religion like Christianity but with no suggestion of the inherent/residual problems with that undistinguished revival of a tradition that has had a long history of violence. Why that history? What was behind those Crusades, Inquisitions, torture and murder of witches and heretics, religious wars against others, etc.?
The Free Press, for example, has posted varied articles advocating for the generalized revival of Christianity as its solution to contemporary meaninglessness and aimless wandering/nihilism that it perceives among the general population.
But such revivification of the religion as it has always been, with the same core beliefs, does nothing to solve the problem of the deeply embedded archetypes that continue to incite, guide, and validate our animal impulses to tribalism, domination, and violent destruction against “enemies”.
My repeated point again (a poke back at Grok’s criticism of my “repetition”)- We have the liberating alternative- i.e. unconditional deity- and we have had that alternative for 2 millennia. We don’t actually need the Jesus input on this as we all get the point from daily experience with family. Unconditional is self-validating as the best of being human. And notable public examples have scaled it to societal level as practical for promoting good outcomes- e.g. Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
So what are we waiting for? Lets end the endless cycles of “eye for eye” punitive retaliation and destruction, driven by the tribal domination impulse.
These preface notes on Kay’s article on Islamism– posted to a discussion group as “Kay is OK”. (Just a little uncontrollable impulse to punning.)
I would argue that the same basic structure of bad ideas/themes are found in all major religious traditions, not just in Islam, core themes like “salvation through destruction”. Grok feels that I pick on Christianity too much but that is the tradition of my family, the religion that I am most familiar with, and I have personally suffered under its bad ideas, becoming “wounded” in my struggles with Christianity’s “monster God” (“wounding” as in Joseph Campbell’s version of the “hero’s quest”). I get what bad religious ideas can do in “deforming human personality… blocking healthy development”, as outlined by psychologists like Harold Ellens and Zenon Lotufo.
But I am also grateful to Christianity for preserving the basic bones of the message of Historical Jesus, the “diamonds” among the “dung” of Paul’s Christ myth (Jefferson and Tolstoy). Even if that preservation was done by the early composers of the gospel bios who were unaware that they were including the hand grenade in their new religion (i.e. the core theme of “unconditional”) that would eventually blow all conditional religion up. Who needs religion if God is unconditional love?
Here’s my counter argument to Grok’s “weaknesses” suggestion that I should provide more counterpoints affirming the good interpretations of Christianity, “nuance” my arguments more.
Grok said: “Potential Overgeneralization: While the critiques of religious doctrines (e.g., blood atonement as sadistic) are sharp, they risk painting broad brushes over diverse traditions. Not all interpretations of jihad or Christianity fit the “violent crusade” mold; the post acknowledges minorities in polls but could nuance this more to avoid alienating readers.”
OK, here is my “nuancing”: No, you are right, “not all interpretations fit the violent crusade mold”. But the basic problem with the main religious tradition remains- i.e. the main beliefs of the religion maintain the basic framework of bad ideas that are the very heart and core of such a religion as Christianity. And that basic framework of ideas/beliefs/themes feeds extremist ideologies with the incitement, guidance, and validation that such people seek, the garden from which the weeds spring. Satisfying their subconscious impulses to “base behavior on similar validating beliefs”.
None have stated it better than psychologist Harold Ellens (in Zenon Lotufo’s “Cruel God, Kind God”):
He says, “One type of religiosity is entirely built around the assumption or basic belief, and correspondent fear, that God is cruel or even sadistic… The associated metaphors to this image are ‘monarch’ and ‘judge’. Its distinctive doctrine is ‘penal satisfaction’. I call it ‘Cruel God Christianity’… Its consequences are fear, guilt, shame, and impoverished personalities. All these things are fully coherent with and dependent on a cruel and vengeful God image…
“(This image results) in the inhibition of the full development of personality… The doctrine of penal satisfaction implies an image of God as wrathful and vengeful, resulting in exposing God’s followers to guilt, shame, and resentment… These ideas permeate Western culture and inevitably influence those who live in this culture…
“Beliefs do exert much more influence over our lives than simple ideas… ideas can also, in the psychological sphere, generate ‘dynamis’, or mobilize energy… (they) may result, for instance, in fanaticism and violence, or… may also produce anxiety and inhibitions that hinder the full manifestation of the capacities of a person…
“The image of God can be seen as a basic belief or scheme, and as such it is never questioned…
“Basic cultural beliefs are so important, especially in a dominant widespread culture, because they have the same properties as individual basic beliefs, that is, they are not perceived as questionable. The reader may object that “God”, considered a basic belief in our culture, is rejected or questioned by a large number of people today. Yet the fact is that the idea of God that those people reject is almost never questioned. In other words, their critique assumes there is no alternative way of conceiving God except the one that they perceive through the lens of their culture. So, taking into account the kind of image of God that prevails in Western culture- a ‘monster God’… such rejection is understandable…
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (see Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.
“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.
“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…
“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.
As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
(End of Ellens/Lotufo quotes)
Religions, and their governing authorities, maintain “the terror of the Lord” (Paul’s phrase) that prohibits any serious challenge to the core beliefs, notably that threat prohibits challenge to the God at the center who holds the rest of the system together. And that is the central critical problem or issue to deal with in a religion- the “Mother of all ideas/beliefs/ideals”. And none have done better than Jesus who went to the very heart of things and abolished the old theology of tribal, retaliatory, dominating, conditional deity. He confronted and rejected the real monster in life, the real enemy of humanity that had long validated people’s worst inherited impulses.
I realize that I am treading sacred ground but we don’t solve this problem of bad ideas validating bad behavior if we don’t go to the ultimate root of the problem. The real battle of life (Solzhenitsyn) consists of an enemy inside all of us- i.e. inherited animal impulses too often incited and validated by monster God theologies.
And I get it. If you do as Jesus did and put his stunning new unconditional God at core of any belief system, well, there goes all conditional religion.
One more for Grok– My treatment of basic themes in a religion I am familiar with is simply to illustrate what is common to all other religious traditions that face the same problems of bad behavior incited/validated by bad ideas.
Anyway, pulling back from my weave, here is Barb Kay on “Islamism”…
“Islamism — the threat to Canada you won’t hear uttered by the Liberals: The dangers posed to Canada’s cultural health and national security by Islamism have been known for decades”, Barbara Kay, Nov. 19, 2025.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-np-muslim-brotherhood-nov-2025
She begins noting Canada’s “staggering surge in antisemitism” since Oct.7.
She then details the problem that Canada faces, along with other Western liberal democracies, “Islamists, a small but influential fraction of Muslim communities, harbour the profound conviction that they “should deploy the necessary efforts not only to rule according to Sharia law but also to Islamize society, laws, governance, and all aspects of life…. across the Muslim world and beyond.”
She adds that scholars consider Islamism an existential threat to Western nations with rising Muslim populations due largely to the organized crusade of the Muslim Brotherhood that now has a global reach.
She quotes documents that show the Brotherhood is engaged in a “stealth jihad” described as:
“The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. …. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny”.
Kay continues, noting that violence is the norm in the Middle East but the norm in the West has been more the stealth approach of using the West’s democratic processes and “rights” ideals/standards to undermine western liberal democracies. Ballot box, not bullet. So far, that is.
She moves on to note a survey that revealed most Canadian Muslims disapproved of violent Islamic groups like al-Qaeda but approved of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
She says the dangers posed by Islamism have been known for a long time and inaction means the possibility that Canada might become an “unofficial state sponsor of terrorism.”
She quotes an expert, Joe Adam George, who says that “Canada’s permissive environment, shaped by a fragile national identity, a culture of victimhood, vote-bank politics, and unchecked immigration, has made it the ideal incubator for Islamist expansion.” Indeed, Canada has “become ‘ground zero’ for their soft-power operations, from campaigns to criminalize ‘Islamophobia’ to the indoctrination of children under the banner of ‘anti-Palestinian racism’.”
(End of Kay article)
I would add that though there is the public presentation of the “stealth jihad” as nonviolent, other leaders of Muslim communities in Britain and the US have more bluntly stated that with increasing presence and power, Islamic leaders will eventually give unbelievers the choice of ballot or bullet. Kind of like Pablo Escobar’s “plata o plomo”. Your choice.
And this report, similar to the Kay article. Another line of assault on liberal democracy that reveals the failure of multi-culturalism to insist that immigrants fully assimilate to Classic Liberal principles, laws, and representative institutions that protect the freedoms and rights of all citizens, equally:
“Scathing report calls on US to label Islamist group infiltrating all aspects of American life as terrorist org: Texas Gov Greg Abbott recently declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization”, Andrew Mark Miller, Nov. 19, 2025
Miller opens revealing the Muslim Brotherhood’s approach to infiltrating liberal democracy with the goal of destroying it and replacing it with totalitarian Islamic theocracy, “A prominent global research center has released a comprehensive report on what it says is a multi-generational campaign by the Muslim Brotherhood to ‘transform Western society from within’ and covertly infiltrate the United States.”
He notes varied Brotherhood documents that affirm their approach through a long-term plan to embed/infiltrate themselves in democracies, in their institutions and their state agencies, using Western freedoms and rights policies to establish “an Islamic state government by sharia”. And where other extremist Islamism groups approach the West through violent attacks, the Brotherhood prefers to avoid such direct confrontation and instead engage a gradual approach to overthrowing Western liberal democracy.
But the goal is to undermine and destroy Western liberal democracy civilization.
“This is not simply a political movement but a transnational ideological project that adapts itself to Western systems while working to undermine them. The Brotherhood has learned to use the very freedoms of democracy as tools to erode it from within, exploiting the tolerance and openness of liberal societies as strategic vulnerabilities.”
As Texas governor Greg Abbot stated, “The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world.’”
Entire societies succumbing to absolute madness, Wendell Krossa
Stand back for a moment and take an overview of the absolute madness of what people actually believe at times and subsequently fall prey to in their societies, madness crusades that push salvation schemes that destroy their very societies.
Wonder, for example, at how people like the Xhosa of 1857-58 could become caught up in a “madness of crowds” apocalyptic outbreak and then slaughter their livelihood, destroy their society to “save their world”. They embraced “salvation through destruction”, but as with all such madness they ended with only destruction and no ultimate salvation.
We are watching in real time several examples of formerly successful leading nations embracing the destruction of their societies following the embrace of the apocalyptic narrative of “existential climate change”, Britain and Germany are notable in this regard:
“Green Depression: German Companies Fight For Survival – Insolvencies Reach Peak In October!”, P. Gosselin, NoTricksZone, Nov. 19, 2025
But first, this report on the BBC to give some sense of what I mean by the “madness” factor that dominates public narratives, discourse, and notably “news”, a madness factor also described by many as “lunacy, absurdity, craziness, insanity, etc.”
Morrison expresses well what is going on with apocalyptic climate alarmism:
“They (the BBC ‘journalists’) have been willing and able to take a central role in inducing a mass climate psychosis in the general public that has been designed for purely political purposes.”
“Decades of Crying ‘Fire!’ in the Climate Theatre Have Left the BBC with Net Zero Credibility”, Chris Morrison, Nov. 13, 2025
Morrison opens, noting a milestone in BBC climate reporting where the extremist claim was made that up to 150 animal species were lost every day. However, agencies like the “International Union for Conservation of Nature” did not show any such “sixth mass extinction” occurring.
Morrison uses that example to affirm his point that- “Over the last two decades, climate science reporting at the BBC has been reduced to cherry-picking the worst ‘scientists say’ clickbait remarks to promote the hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. Debate has been abolished, the scientific inquiry process trashed, and the intelligence of the British public insulted on a daily basis. It’s almost as if the BBC decided to convince everyone that a woman can have a penis.”
Morrison goes on to emphasize “the sheer enormity of the crime against investigative journalism that has been perpetrated for over two decades. It is an appalling story of journalists kowtowing to a prevailing narrative. They have been willing and able to take a central role in inducing a mass climate psychosis in the general public that has been designed for purely political purposes.”
I am reminded here of H. L. Mencken’s wise statements on this madness factor:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins.”
I sum Mencken’s statement in the totalitarian’s formula of “Fear=control”. Power-mongering psychopathy cloaked as compassion for oppressed people and fueled with the self-delusional belief of heroically embracing an existential battle to save an “existentially threatened” world. Further to the madness element in such power-mongering is the sincere belief of such people that they are acting “empathically” offering utopian salvation schemes based on “salvation through destruction”, destruction of the civilization that exists because it has been demonized as the “existential” evil threat to all life. Hence, empathy as “suicidal” (Gad Saad).
The apocalyptic prophets have fanatically pushed their apocalyptic narrative of climate alarmism till it has dominated politics and has been unquestioningly reproduced daily through their propaganda arm, the mainstream news media.
Morrison continues, stating that the BBC climate conspiracy can be traced back several decades to when leadership made the decision to downplay the strong correlations of natural factors evidently driving climate change, to emphasize, instead, the unproven and exaggerated narrative that human use of fossil fuel was “the main cause of climate change that was becoming an existential threat to the world”.
Morrison notes skeptics who warned that climate alarmism corrupted science and was politically motivated.
Nonetheless, the BBC has continued to report that extreme weather is getting worse. Morrison says the climate cultists began screaming “Fire” in the theatre and have pushed “climate absurdities” all across the news agency. He adds that even the IPCC has admitted that there was no evidence of increase in extreme weather events and that the wealth generated by fossil fuel-based civilization had resulted in a 99% reduction of fatalities from bad weather over the last 100 years. Add also that more CO2 (the basic food of plants) had resulted in the addition of some 15-20 percent more green vegetation on earth, meaning more food for animals and increased crop production to feed humanity (i.e. crop production records are broken every year).
No matter, the BBC has ignored this evidence to continue the madness of climate apocalypse. Morrison includes the news of the four Italian scientists who published a paper stating there was little evidence that extreme weather was worsening. He says that all hell then broke loose among climate alarmists who tried to have that paper retracted.
I was reminded here of Matt Taibbi’s comment that “In the panic age nothing offends like optimism”. Add also that nothing offends an apocalyptic alarmist like scientific evidence.
Morrison continues, detailing the BBC’s one-sided articles and programmes, that even though debunked, they continue “to be the clickbait scary nonsense they are.”
He concludes: “The BBC is not alone in its fantasy reporting. Most mainstream media have been happy to print poppycock climate propaganda in the interest of keeping the elite Net Zero narrative going. The eminent MIT Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen says the current climate narrative is ‘absurd’, but trillions of dollars say it is not ‘absurd’. But Net Zero is starting to collapse around the world, leaving fading outlier countries like the de-industrialising UK and Germany as the canaries in the emptying mine.”
He adds that with the apparent resumption of normal industrial progress “there is less need for a chirping mainstream media chorus of climate catastrophe.”
Continuing with the madness dominating our lives today:
“AI Overview
“The Xhosa cattle slaughter led to widespread famine and death, decimating the Xhosa population and breaking the nation’s power. Tens of thousands of Xhosa died from starvation (Xhosa population fell from 105,000 to under 27,000), and hundreds of thousands of cattle (400,000) were killed, resulting in a population decrease of 75% in the region between 1857 and 1858.
“This event ultimately increased colonial control over the Xhosa and forced many to seek work and relief from the colonial government…”
“The Xhosa apocalyptic movement, known as the Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement (1856-1857), was sparked by the prophecies of a teenage girl named Nongqawuse. In April 1856, Nongqawuse and another girl, Nombanda, reported meeting two strangers by the Gxarha River who identified themselves as the spirits of dead ancestors. These spirits delivered a message through Nongqawuse that the Xhosa people must: Slaughter all of their cattle, as they were “contaminated”. Destroy their crops.”
The millennial element in this madness:
“In return for this radical sacrifice and purification, the ancestors promised that on a specific day, the dead would arise, bringing with them new, uncontaminated cattle and a golden age free from disease and misfortune. The ancestors would also help the Xhosa “drive the white man out of the land’”.
Insert: While you may be shaking your head at such destructive madness, consider that their last century succumbing to such lunacy was no different from Sri Lanka’s more recent ban on fertilizers that decimated their crops. That was driven by leaders also succumbing to climate apocalyptic madness. The same old apocalyptic lunacy that the Xhosa fell for.
So also, a short time ago the Irish government proposed a cattle slaughter to meet climate apocalypse goals. How does that differ from the Xhosa madness?
Include the Dutch for embracing the very same lunacy.
“EU approves Dutch plan to forcibly close farms”, May, 2023
Do you shake your head in wonderment that people continue to fall for these absurd narratives and subsequent self-destruction?
Well, in the interest of understanding the root contributing factors to such madness, consider the mega-myth systems that have indoctrinated the world’s population over past millennia with the fallacy of apocalyptic. Our great world religious traditions have endlessly functioned as the validating sources of the very mythical themes that fuel offspring “madness of crowds” eruptions.
The emotions and motivations involved madness of crowd crusades:
Buying into a narrative of apocalyptic incites survival fear in populations and that renders people susceptible to the entirely irrational “salvation” schemes of the apocalyptic alarmists. People will then accept the destruction of their societies if promised salvation and utopia as the outcome of embracing a movement of “salvation through destruction”.
Other recent familiar historical examples of salvation through destruction:
Look again at the Marxist madness, driven by core apocalyptic millennial themes, that then resulted in the slaughter of 100-plus million people and entirely ruined societies. Look at the Nazi madness, driven by the same apocalyptic millennial beliefs, that resulted in 50-60 million slaughtered and the destruction of Germany. Consider again the more recent Net zero madness, driven by the same basic beliefs, that is destroying once successful societies, again Germany as a leading example, and also Britain, California, and elsewhere.
The Germans bought into the mythology of “salvation by destruction” and they are getting the destruction but not the promised salvation of green utopia.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/11/20/wirtschaftlicher-selbstmord/
How is it that so many moderns continue to become caught up in irrational outbursts of madness incited by wildly irrational stories and myths like the lunacy of apocalypse? And we look askance at the Xhosa as primitive-minded for engaging the irrational madness that destroyed their livelihood. Well, look at what we are doing to our own societies like here in Canada with successive governments trying to shut down our fossil fuel resources in pursuit of Net Zero lunacy.
You have to probe back to the earliest mythologies that first embodied and promoted the structure of basic ideas that feed all these subsequent apocalyptic crusades- i.e. the mental deformity that believes there is an angry deity in the skies (or today’s versions of angry deity- i.e. “Vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, Punitive Universe, or payback karma”). The angry sky God is enraged (“the fury of the wrath of God”) at bad people (the anti-humanism element in religion) for ruining his originally perfect world.
He subsequently demands the barbarity of a child sacrifice (a son) to appease his wrath, or he will destroy the entire world in violent outburst of apocalypse. The Christian archetypal version is no different in essential themes from the much earlier pissed Enlil threatening a great flood to destroy humanity (Sumerian Flood myth). The mental deformity required to believe such mad tales is mind-boggling. How is it that so many moderns identifying as progressive “secular, materialist, atheist, scientific” still believe such lunacy?
Consequent to the angry God demanding eye for eye punishment/payment for original sin, a Jewish peasant in Palestine is purportedly pre-ordained to come to earth and become that child sacrifice. Belief in sacrificing children is among the most barbaric of primitive beliefs and practices. The murder of innocents to appease angry gods- e.g. Inca, and others.
“AI Overview
“Child sacrifice, the ritualistic killing of children to appease deities or social order, has been a practice in various cultures throughout history, notably among the
Carthaginians, pre-Columbian American civilizations, and in the ancient Near East.
Example:
“AI Overview
“Inca child sacrifice, known as ‘capacocha’, was a ritualistic practice to appease gods and commemorate events, involving children selected for their physical perfection, often from noble families. The children were taken on long journeys to Cusco for purification, then to high mountaintops to be sacrificed through methods like strangulation, a blow to the head, or left to die from the cold. It was considered an honor to be sacrificed, as the Inca believed the children became watchers over the land from their mountain perch.”
Religious founders and subsequent authorities cloak this perverse barbarity with terms like “love, mercy, grace”, thereby presenting it as ultimate good. And billions have subsequently believed such mythical madness. Billions have believed this narrative over the history of our Western civilization, on the personal subjective experience and witness of one man, Paul, who created history’s most influential myth- i.e. the Christ.
Paul was a highly intolerant and dictatorial man who threatened all who challenged his Christ myth with eternal damnation/destruction (e.g. Gal. 1:8-9, and throughout his letters to the Romans, Thessalonians, etc.). Eventually, the Ceasar “Constantine”, with his own motivation to end religious hostilities in the Roman empire, chose to intolerantly side with one particular version of apocalyptic Christianity, enforcing that as the state religion.
An interesting source on Paul, notably the evidence of his intolerance as expressed in varied New Testament books:
“The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason”, Charles Freeman
Amazon blurb:
“A radical and powerful reappraisal of the impact of Constantine’s adoption of Christianity on the later Roman world, and on the subsequent development both of Christianity and of Western civilization.
“When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 368 AD, he changed the course of European history in ways that continue to have repercussions to the present day. Adopting those aspects of the religion that suited his purposes, he turned Rome on a course from the relatively open, tolerant and pluralistic civilization of the Hellenistic world, towards a culture that was based on the rule of fixed authority, whether that of the Bible, or the writings of Ptolemy in astronomy and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine. Only a thousand years later, with the advent of the Renaissance and the emergence of modern science, did Europe begin to free itself from the effects of Constantine’s decision, yet the effects of his establishment of Christianity as a state religion remain with us, in many respects, today. Brilliantly wide-ranging and ambitious, this is a major work of history.”
The Hellenistic features of mythology that Paul borrowed to construct his Christ myth had been widely propagated across that ancient world (“History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age”, Helmut Koester). And because so many at that time were familiar with those mythical themes, that facilitated the spread of Christianity. Notably, Greek features of mythology like Plato’s “philosopher kings” who were believed to be divinely endowed people (special elites) and therefore blessed by deity to rule others. Paul used that theme of divinely endowed special people to construct a new version of totalitarian and universal lordship to be presented in his “Lord Christ” myth to which every knee would bow. All nations and all humanity would eventually bow to the “rod of iron” rule of Paul’s Christ (see Revelation).
This mythical pathology was entirely contrary to Jesus’ own clear teaching that no one should lord over others, but all should instead serve others, just as he did.
And this great myth of an apocalyptic, destroying Christ, and the madness of crowd eruptions that it endlessly spawns, has dominated Western consciousness, narratives, and civilization for two millennia. No wonder we continue to live in a myth-dominated era where many people are still panicked by apocalyptic threats and continue to yield susceptibly to endless versions of such madness. Wildly irrational and primitive mythology continues to dominate human thinking even today in our so-imagined “secular/ideological/scientific” societies.
It should be no surprise, given that the apocalyptic Christ myth has dominated and shaped public consciousness for millennia.
There is ongoing nostalgia that pushes for a revival of Christianity, Wendell Krossa
However, the nostalgia for reviving a religion like Christianity is often presented with no understanding of what was wrong in this religion that promoted so much violence across the past. There is no consideration of why core Christian themes played a significant role as “contributing causal factors” in the mass-death movements of last century- i.e. Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism. This is not to deny there are other factors in Christianity- i.e. the core Jesus themes (Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy’s New Testament “diamonds”)- that have contributed to so much good across history.
But… “What in the religion promoted so much violence over the past”? Specifically, the “apocalyptic millennial” beliefs that promote “salvation through destruction” and that have descended directly from Paul’s Christ myth, themes that are entirely contrary to the core theology and message of Historical Jesus. That is a drumbeat point on this site. A critically necessary one if the military guy was right that you can crush eruptions of religious violence like ISIS in Syria, 2014, but they will just keep erupting until you go after the basic ideas that drive them. So also Richard Landes concluded his chapter on Nazism, that until you get that “apocalyptic millennial” ideas can carry entire societies into mass-death crusades (i.e. Germany under the Nazis), until you understand this, you will only see repeats of such madness.
Without understanding and grasping the grand oxymoron in Christianity- i.e. that Paul’s ”Jesus Christ” myth is the oxymoronic merger of two entire opposites, until this distinction and contradiction is fully understood, a revival of traditional Christianity without fundamental reform will only contribute to the same old problems that have cursed the past. Great world religions like Christianity continue to function as the main sources of the bad ideas that have always incited and validated bad human behavior. This inciting/validating role remains true despite the moderated stance that many Christian believers have learned to take over recent centuries (i.e. ignoring, downplaying, rejecting the darker features in religious traditions to focus on the more humane).
Most Christians today have moderated themselves by dismissing, downplaying, ignoring, or reframing the nasty myths of their religion as “metaphor”. But nonetheless, those darker elements in their tradition, the content of those bad ideas remains, and continue to function as validation for crusades of salvation by destruction, both overtly religious and secular/ideological.
The main themes of Christianity have long played the dominating role in Western civilization, towering above all else as archetypal ideals. Again, James Tabor’s summary of this role…
“There was a version of ‘Christianity before Paul’, affirmed by both Jesus and his original followers, with tenets and affirmations quite opposite to these of Paul… the message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common beyond the name Jesus itself” (p.xv1).
“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular… the foundations of Western civilization- from our assumptions about reality to our societal and personal ethics- rest in a singular way upon the heavenly visions and apparitions of the apostle Paul. We are all cultural heirs of Paul, with the well-established doctrines and traditions of mainstream Christianity deeply entrenched in our culture. In contrast, Jesus as a historical figure… has been largely lost to our culture” (p. xv11).
“Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did” (p.15).
“The entire New Testament canon is largely a post-Paul and pro-Paul production…” (p.19).
“The ‘Jesus’ who most influenced history was the ‘Jesus-Christ’ of Paul, not the historical figure of Jesus… Paul transformed Jesus himself (and) his message of a… kingdom of justice and peace on earth, to the symbol of a religion of otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world”, (21).
“The form of Christianity… (that thrived in the late Roman Empire)… was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary experiences of Paul. Christianity as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological vision”, p.24).
“Paul’s view of Christ as the divine pre-existent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand becomes the Christian message”, (39).
“The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus… the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ”, (41).
Springboarding off of interesting podcasts, Wendell Krossa
In the Joe Rogan podcast linked below Theo Von asked Rogan who gets “radicalized” and why. Well, we like to assume it’s just the fringe extremists of any tradition or movement.
Their exchange sparked a number of thoughts. Radicals are generally the people who become zealously committed to something and hence aren’t civil (i.e. the old maxim, “The civil aren’t committed and the committed aren’t civil”).
Radicals, like all of us, are also driven by our common natural impulse to heroism, to make some mark in life, especially to stand out as courageous heroes, imagining ourselves as fighters for some “noble or just cause”.
As Jordan Peterson has said, we all possess the natural urge to virtue signal for status in some community/society, to identify as “morally superior”. These urges are similar to the drives that motivate and validate elites to engage the pathology of domination over commoners.
Problems result when our “hero’s quest” narrative is horrifically deformed by bad ideas. Then the outcomes will indicate that something is wrong with the ideas. “By their fruits you will know them”. Or, “The test of facts” (Thomas Sowell) will be like a cup of cold water in the face, the necessary “slap up the side of the head” (yes, this is generational stuff, as in old school metaphor).
Radicals are stirred by generally good motivations but the good in the mix becomes distorted by the mental deformity of bad ideas/ideals, ideas not fully humanized by criteria like unconditional love.
The normal human impulse to engage a hero’s quest has long been deformed by features like Zoroastrian tribal dualism, alpha domination, and punitive “eye for eye” views of justice that may dangerously shift to the desperation of “exterminate or be exterminated”, as in the full destruction of enemies.
It has been noted by others that even Hitler was motivated to do “good” in saving Germany from an imagined apocalypse (the Weimar years) that purportedly was being caused by an evil enemy- i.e. Jewish Bolsheviks. But we see the horrific outcome that exposed the deformity of his “messianic heroism”.
Hitler sincerely believed that “God/Providence” was on his side and that he was fighting for truth, good, and right. His crusade was cloaked in the narrative of apocalyptic millennialism, just as Marxism and environmentalism similarly are. And where did that complex of psychopathologies come from? It descended directly from Paul’s apocalyptic millennial Christ myth.
We are all susceptible to being deceived by such narrative distortions (mental deformities), with bad ideas/themes/myths/beliefs that feed our worst impulses and deform our personalities, resulting in too many hero’s quests that result in bad outcomes that we then excuse in varied ways.
Another strain of mental deformity that fuels some to become zealously committed radicals would be Louis Zurcher’s points on people locking themselves into “immutable” selves. That is the result of people placing their identity and loyalty too dogmatically in what Zurcher terms “objects”. Objects like “ethnicity, race, nationality, tribe, religion, ideology, or occupation”, etc.
People locate their identity too seriously in such objects, and that results in them locking themselves into fixed, unchanging things. That rigidity is contrasted with being a self that remains open in an ongoing process, open to change, to further development, to ongoing learning, ongoing growth and progress. Much like the great overall trajectory of life as endless development, rise, progress, and improvement to ever-new creative heights.
Holding to immutability (remaining unchanged and unchangeable) is sort of like what psychology states is the immature childlike mind where young children view societal rules as unbreakable standards that must be upheld with a legalistic approach (i.e. the “early stage of moral development” manifested in some adults, also in the “bureaucratic personality”).
“AI Overview
“Yes, it is true that children, especially younger ones, often see rules as fixed and absolute, a concept explained by psychologists like Piaget and Kohlberg. This is because in early stages of moral development, children view rules as externally imposed by authority figures and believe they must be followed to avoid punishment, with consequences often being judged more harshly than intentions. As they get older, their understanding evolves to see rules as more flexible, mutable, and based on mutual agreement or social context.”
Also this on the “legalistic personality”…
“AI Overview
“A legalistic personality is characterized by a strict adherence to rules and a rigid performance-based mindset, often leading to a judgmental attitude and a lack of joy. This personality type focuses heavily on outward compliance with man-made or divine laws, believing that good behavior is the key to earning approval or salvation. A key feature is the lack of grace, with a tendency to exalt oneself through rules rather than being motivated by love.”
A legalist contrasts with the maturing person who gets the spirit of laws/standards and can grasp the reality of the many grey areas of life and ethics and can flexibly evaluate individual situations and the uniqueness of differing individuals and life-stories. Such mutable personalities realize that often there is “no one size fits all”. So figure it out as we all muddle along through life.
The varied things noted above help to understand the psychology behind radicalization where some take their belief systems and religious laws more seriously/literally. Whereas most others in a tradition will hold their beliefs and religious laws more loosely, i.e. religion as more a hand-me-down “inherited family tradition”, or familiar community “social club”.
Moderated members of religions like Christianity and Islam have found other ways to reason themselves around to more relaxed views of their religious narratives- i.e. that its all just metaphor and not literal. But the weakness of that approach is in the fact that viewing core beliefs as metaphorical doesn’t change the content of the beliefs. They remain the same barbaric themes that have incited so much religious horror over past centuries and millennia. But hey, if metaphorizing your religion works to help you moderate your spirit and approach to life, then, as wisdom sage John Lennon said, “Whatever gets you through your life, its alright, its alright…”
Rogan, in response to Theo Von, says that it also depends on what exactly gets radicalized. If a radical radicalizes kindness, then that’s OK, says Rogan.
This site argues that critical to solving problems like radicalization is to pay attention to the content of core ideas/beliefs in our public narratives, religious or secular/ideological. Do the core themes advocate/promote things humane or inhumane, good or bad? Do our beliefs/ethics point in the right direction of affirming the better angels of our nature or do they incite, guide, and validate our inherited animal impulses? What are the outcomes as in “the test of facts”?
Follow my weave right to the persistent theme of this site…
This site argues for understanding the difference between historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth as most critical due to their roles as most influential persons/myths in Western civilization. One represents ultimate good with a stunning new theology of an unconditional God, and the other represents ultimate evil with its re-embrace of the worst features of primitive mythologies. To illustrate, here again is my list of…
Notable contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ (updated 2025), Wendell Krossa
Some of the main contradictions that highlight the oxymoronically opposite themes between the messages of Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ mythology. The point I draw from this? The themes of Paul have greatly shaped Western consciousness, narratives, and overall societies for the past two millennia (i.e. the conclusion of historians/scholars like James Tabor). The Jesus themes have influenced us to a lesser extent, mainly moderating the harsher features and destructive influence of Paul’s Christ:
The main contradictions: (Sources: “Search for Historical Jesus”, “Jesus Seminar” books, and notably, “Q Wisdom Sayings” research, etc.)
(1) Jesus taught an unconditional love (i.e. there is no sacrifice demanded in Jesus’ original message- i.e. the “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel). In his teaching on unconditional love there were no required conditions from his God to be met for forgiveness, inclusion, and salvation. Versus the highly conditional atonement religion of Paul, i.e. the supreme condition of the sacrifice of a cosmic godman- the Christ. Additionally, the condition of belief/faith in his myth (see his letter to the Romans), along with other related religious conditions.
(2) Nonretaliation in Jesus (no more ‘eye for eye’ justice but ‘love the enemy’ because God does not retaliate but loves enemies- “Be merciful just as God is merciful”). The non-retaliation of Jesus is contrasted with Paul’s advocating supreme divine acts of retaliation in apocalypse and hell myths. Note Paul’s statement of his theology affirming a retaliatory deity in his quote of an Old Testament verse- “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord” (Romans 12), along with his “Lord Jesus returning in fire to destroy all who don’t believe my Christ myth” (Thessalonians, etc.).
(3) Restorative justice (again- no eye for eye, but love the offender/enemy) versus punitive, destroying justice (“Unbelievers will be punished with everlasting destruction”, Thessalonians, etc.).
(4) Nonviolent resolution of problems (again, no violent retaliation against enemies) versus the violent destruction of apocalypse and fiery hell, and the violence in the demanded appeasement of deity by blood sacrifice for atonement. The history of human sacrifice exposes the dangerously inciting theme of the belief that if you murder the right people- sacrifice them- then you can make the future better. Violence has long been the result of people convinced that they were heroically doing good, and would achieve good outcomes through using violence and murder, that they could attain “salvation through destruction”.
(5) Nontribal inclusion of all humanity (“sun and rain given freely to both bad and good people”) versus the highly tribal favoritism toward true believers and the discriminatory exclusion of unbelievers for not believing Paul’s Christ. Note the ultimate tribal divide illustrated in Revelation in the eternal division of humanity- i.e. people assigned either to heaven or to hell, as per the cosmic dualism of Zoroaster.
(6) Nondomination in relationships (“If you want to be great then serve others”) versus ultimate eternal domination by “Lord Christ” under his “rod of iron” totalitarianism (“every knee shall bow… He will rule them with an iron scepter”).
There is no love in threat, coercion, domination of others.
(7) Non-dualism (God as the Oneness of Ultimate Reality that is love) versus eternal dualism (i.e. again, the cosmic tribal dualism of “God and Satan”, “heaven and hell”).
Further, ultimate Oneness leads to the logical conclusion that there is no separation of humanity from deity, what some describe as all humanity being indwelt/incarnated by God, the divine reality that is inseparable from our common human spirit. God as the Life-giving spirit inside each of us, with God’s nature as unconditional love then defining our true self/person.
(8) Another contrast: Jesus referred to himself as a “son of man”– i.e. as just an ordinary imperfect human in common with all other humans. In the original “Q Wisdom Sayings” material Jesus did not present as a divine person or a god sent from heaven.
Paul rejected the humanness of Jesus in claiming that he was some form of Hellenist godman sent from heaven on a special mission from God. Paul reconstructed (thereby distorting entirely) the human Jesus after the pattern of the godmen myths of the Pharaohs and Caesars- i.e. men born of virgins so as to avoid the “inherited sinfulness” stain.
Eventually, succeeding generations of Hellenist Christianity would further the Christology of Paul in claiming their “Jesus Christ” was sinlessly perfect, something the Historical Jesus had denied, for example, when he corrected someone with- “Why do you call me ‘good’. There is none good but God.”
The heretical Hellenist Christianity of Paul eventually reconstructed the fully and truly human Jesus into a full-fledged God and member of the Trinity. “Heretical” to the message of Jesus.
(End of list of “Notable contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ”)
Weaving back again…
Rogan and Theo Von are both right that it comes down to personal responsibility, personal choice in terms of what are we embracing in our narratives to inspire us, to guide us. The themes/ideas/ideals that we hold to shape our personal narratives- this is the personal choice element. In other words, winning the real battle of life, the battle of good against evil, this battle takes place inside us where we take personal responsibility for the narratives that we create and the outcomes of what we believe.
“We become just like the God that we believe in.”
One of the basic projects of humanity across history has been learning to discern good from bad. And one thing we learn from the Jesus/Paul contradiction today is that discerning real good from real bad has a lot to do with realizing that critical elements of bad in our great public narratives have been deviously cloaked as good, notably in religious traditions. I refer to Harold Ellens point, for example, that “the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’.” It takes the entirely opposite unconditional theology of Jesus to see through that mental deformity.
Anyway, to respond to a persistent urging from Grok as to getting my points to a wider public audience– How do we counter radicalization through public education?
Some suggestions:
Teach children critical thinking skills, like how to discern the differences between varied themes in narratives, whether in religious traditions or ideologies. Teach them how to discern the real nature of the well-known themes of our great meta-narratives, and how the differing ideas/beliefs influence people and produce very different outcomes, personally or at scale. Just as Richard Landes and others have shown in regard to the apocalyptic millennialism beliefs that drove the last century Marxist and Nazi crusades and are now driving the environmental alarmism crusade. These movements have embraced mythical themes that have influenced normally good people to embrace mass-death outcomes as a legitimate outcome of a “righteous battle against evil”.
Teach children the difference between humane and inhumane, between good and bad, using discernment criteria like our modern sensibilities as embodied in our human rights codes, our constitutions, and especially in Classic Liberalism. Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions were created to protect the rights and freedoms of every individual, equally. They exist to counter the evil triad inside us- i.e. the inherited impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction. Those three illustrate the real “sinfulness” of humanity, the real enemy to be fought and conquered in life. And teach children that those residual impulses in our inherited animal brain are not the real us. In our true human self and spirit we are something much better.
Then further teach children things like the main elements of the message of historical wisdom sages like Jesus, who went directly to the core of human narratives- i.e. to the ultimate reality/ideal of deity- to present the stunning new theology of a nontribal god who includes all equally, a deity of unconditional love who generously showers sun and rain on all alike, a non-dominating God who urges no lording over others but serving all as equals, and a God of non-punitive justice (i.e. no more eye for eye retaliation but instead love your enemies ). These are all critical inputs for detecting true good from bad.
The contradictions between Jesus and Paul’s Christ are especially helpful for providing a great illustration of the real nature of good and bad. Contrary to the main themes of Jesus, Paul’s Christ myth reestablished tribal animosity (true believers saved, unbelievers damned), alpha domination (Christ as Lord demanding every knee to bow to his iron rod totalitarian rule), and punitive destruction of enemies/unbelievers (cast into outer darkness, shut out forever in hell).
Here is the interview that provided the springboard for my comments:
Joe Rogan Experience #2413 – Theo Von
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOUc_0-oKRE&t=29s
My “overly-simplified lists” that evoked a “Weaknesses” criticism from Grok, Wendell Krossa
On the project here: My intention is not to oversimplify and dismissively ignore other factors, aside from the ones that I post in the varied lists in sections below. The point of these summary lists is to focus on major factors in the mix (“Major on the majors, minor on the minors”) and to summarize things for easier remembrance.
Now, to illustrate, for example, with the “evil triad” list…
These three are main contributing factors at the root of some of our notable problems:
The “Evil triad” of inherited animal impulses are significant contributing factors behind some of our major ongoing problems like the contemporary collectivist and theocratic assaults on liberal democracy. They fuel the push by “elites” to re-establish the elite/commoner divide in societies and thereby undermine individual freedoms and rights. They play prominent roles in the varied eruptions of violence at both the personal level and at scale.
The “evil triad”? The impulse to (1) tribalism (insiders favored, outsiders excluded and dehumanized, oneness of the human family denied), the impulse to (2) domination (special people believing themselves to be more divinely favored and deserving to rule others), and the impulse to (3) retaliatory destruction of differing others (framed as proper/fair retributive justice).
Early humans long ago formed mythologies to validate these primitive impulses, even sacralizing them as prominent features of deity (“sacralizing”- imbue with or treat as having a sacred character or quality).
(1) Tribalism was sacralized and validated by the myth of Zoroastrian cosmic dualism where a Good God righteously/justly wars against an evil Force/Spirit. (2) Domination was sacralized in Gods as “Lords, Kings, Rulers” with humanity created to serve deities and their mediating/representative priesthoods, also subjected to serving social/political rulers as appointed by God (e.g. “divine right of kings”). (3) Justice was sacralized as righteous retaliation in endless “eye for eye” cycles of violence (noble crusades to exterminate evil enemies as in “salvation through destruction”).
Point? The basest features of our animal past were validated as ultimate ideals, with complex systems of belief to support them, and worst of all, validated by similarly framed deity who granted ultimate validation.
These basest features of animal existence were embedded in religious traditions and from there moved to become the archetypes of the human subconscious from where they continue to emanate powerful influence on human minds, emotions, motivations, and responses/behaviors. Consequently, we get endless new versions of the same old mythologies emerging in new religions and in more historically recent ideologies/crusades.
And the outcomes are always the same old violence between people and destruction of societies.
History’s most potent answer to the above? Among others, Historical Jesus presented a stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditionally loving God around which to frame entirely new archetypes (new ideas, ideals, beliefs). His new theology pointed to (1) no tribalism and instead universal inclusion and love, (2) no domination of commoners by elites (no lording over others, but instead, serve others), and (3) no punitive justice but instead restorative reconciliation with enemies while responsibly restraining and incarcerating repeatedly violent people in order to protect others.
Tying the spiritual to the practical:
The input of such historical “spiritual” sages is necessary to provide the ultimate ideas/ideals/beliefs that respond properly to humanity’s primal impulse for meaning and purpose. The “spiritual”, or speculation on Ultimate Reality, is useful for affirming more practical expressions of the same ideals, as in liberal democracy principles, laws, and representative institutions that practically provide the constraints and guidelines that urge humanity to move collectively toward a more human future.
(Note, I am in agreement with others who state that Jesus’ core message is profoundly “non-religious”, in my opinion primarily so because it is centered on the ideal of unconditional deity and ethics, where all religion, to the contrary, is highly conditional.)
Classic Liberalism or liberal democracy principles promote nontribal inclusivity where all are to be respected and treated as equals with protected equal freedoms and rights. The principles of liberal democracy provide guidelines to ensure that state leaders and bureaucrats do not become Plato’s “philosopher kings” lording over others but instead operate within systems of common law and representative institutions where they remain servants of the people, representing the will and consent of the people. Also, systems of justice in liberal democracy should function to provide restorative justice.
Note: Feel free to use the “Comments” function at the bottom of posts on this site (just activated). I would like to hear from site visitors who originate from these countries below.
Visitors come from countries in the following regions (roughly categorized):
Asia/Australia/Pacific:
Russia, China, Mongolia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong.
Islamic and non-Islamic Asia/Mid East:
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia.
Africa:
Oman, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Angola, Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia.
Europe:
Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland.
Caribbean and South/Central/North America:
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, US, Canada.
This from Free Press makes the point on the all-too common practise of people to cloak bad (i.e. bad ideas with bad outcomes) as some form of virtuous good.
“TGIF”, Nov. 21, 2025, Nellie Bowles
Bowles says, “The progressive writer Dan Williams has a beautiful essay about becoming less militantly left wing and why he did so. ‘Noble intentions and lofty rhetoric about justice and equality are not enough. The kinds of policies that benefit people often sound bad. Those that hurt people often sound good’.”
They often “sound good” because they are framed with terms that intuitively evoke the sense of good- i.e. “justice, democratic, fair, equitable/equal, inclusive, empathic, etc.”.
Preface comments: Dan Williams gives too much weight to evolution and evolutionary biology/psychology to explain what is going on with humanity and human progress. Evolutionary biologists/psychologists try to explain the human too much in terms of our animal past and the residual animal in us. Not to deny- Yes, there is much that is helpful in such explanations to understanding how we think and act even today.
But I would argue that he misses some important insights/points on curbing the animal with more than just “the economic incentives of capitalism”. I would add that critical in the mix is the human element as something uniquely new and different from the animal. This is something beyond the purview of evolutionary biology/psychology. I take more of a John Eccles approach to understanding what is going on- i.e. that the human element, the human self and human consciousness, is best understood “as a special divine creation” with entirely new impulses far beyond just survival and propagation of “selfish genes”. The love thing as something far more than just “species altruism”. Hence, there is more to encouraging the flourishing of this central reality in life than just the principles and institutions of capitalism.
Williams sort of dances around what exactly is most critically important to understand with regard to what best curtails the residual animal in us and what best encourages the human element- i.e. human development and human flourishing. “Dances around”, because he does not get directly and clearly to Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions that are the real success story behind capitalism and its good outcomes (i.e. the foundational beliefs/ideals along with the laws and institutions that most effectively constrain the animal impulses and affirm our better human impulses).
Further, researchers like Julian Simon get more clearly to what really motivates people to put forth their best efforts to cooperate and contribute to the rising, progressing trajectory of life. Simon notes that humanity has been more “creator than destroyer”. That points to something going on that is more than the just the “self-interest” survival motivation that Williams focuses on (Dawkins’ “selfish gene” argument for what dominates people).
The Williams article below:
He begins, noting the “tragic vision of human nature” that comes from Darwinian evolution.
“Evolution by natural selection is an inherently competitive process. Very roughly, it favours traits (like motives, instincts, and abilities) that help organisms spread their genes more successfully than rivals do.”
He then suggests the following to curb these animal impulses:
“The only way of addressing such tendencies is by developing and enforcing collective norms, monitoring, rewards, and punishments that make them less profitable… good institutions ‘economise on virtue’ by aligning individuals’ private interests with desirable collective outcomes.” OK, as far as that helps.
He adds that, “The best societies today combine free, competitive, and open markets with things like judicious regulation, extensive state provision of public goods, and considerable economic redistribution.
“This is unsurprising: successful free markets are impossible without a strong state, the rule of law, and some degree of democratic accountability of political and economic elites.” Also OK, but “impossible” without?? What about arguments for the bottom-up influence of many good people as mainly responsible for peace and order in human societies (not all, but most)? Williams, in some of his comments on required state oversight, appears to be leaking a bit of the old leftist totalitarian spirit.
Such institutions and systems of law are necessary, he says, “because conflicts of interest and competition are unavoidable facts of human social life, the best that social institutions can achieve is to suppress some negative consequences of these traits or channel them to desirable social ends.”
So yes again, good systems of common law and institutions that promote “virtue” are necessary, necessary to “suppress some negative consequences to these (animal) traits” or to direct them to “desirable social ends”. But what is going on with humanity is about far more than just “aligning individual’s private interests with desirable collective outcomes”.
The author could be more clear that the good institutions that he refers to are the essential elements of Classic Liberalism- i.e. the principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions that protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally.
The Classic Liberal system for organizing human society, when backed with the archetypal insights of a broader system of meaning and purpose, such as found in the main themes of the Jesus message, such an organizing system will recognize that humans are about more than just “self-interest”. We benefit from both the insights of the Jesus version of the “spiritual”, that gets closest to what humanity really is (meaning/purpose), along with the laws and institutions that best encourage the expression of the true nature of the human spirit and self. Certainly, Classic Liberalism does best here.
I would argue that the “self-interest” from our animal past, while also in the mix, is not the dominant impulse that drives humanity, as argued by common views on evolutionary theory (i.e. evolutionary biology/psychology). I would add to the mix that the element of love is more basic to the true nature of the human self and human spirit. Love is something “divine” in our core makeup and this feature continues to emerge and develop further, and influences how we function as we progress over history.
Hence, rather than just the “self-interest” that Williams focuses on as primary to explaining people and how they function, I would suggest that arenas like economics/commerce are the expression of people fulfilling their basic responsibility to care for themselves and their families. People are fulfilling the fundamental responsibility of love.
Terming that basic responsibility as mainly “self-interest” appears to give more agency to the animal in us than to the fundamentally new (in terms of long-term history) and uniquely different human spirit and self. Animal-like “self-interest” and “species altruism” are how evolutionary biology devalues the human, and dismisses the reality that love is the most critical factor in the mix, and it has more to do with the divine in us, than the animal.
Human spirit and life is about far more than just “mutual cooperation for advantage”- i.e. Richard Dawkin’s “selfish gene” as the ultimate reality and explanation of what is going on in humanity.
Typical to dogmatic materialists, Williams tends to dismiss, downplay, or ignore the power of the human spirit as most essentially about love, giving priority, instead, to the residual animal in us, as he appears to do in statements like this:
“Altruism toward anyone beyond genetic relatives is highly limited. Moreover, most of what looks like altruism and genuinely feels like it at the psychological level is rooted in mutualism, the tendency to cooperate when doing so is mutually beneficial and so promotes the self-interest of cooperators.”
But overall, he is somewhat helpful on how utopian leftism just does not get the influence of the residual animal in modern life.
“On Becoming Less Left-Wing (Part 1) (unpaywalled): Evolution, economics, political psychology, social epistemology, and progress”, Dan Williams, Nov. 16, 2025 (posted on Free Press).
Williams starts by outlining his engagement with leftism over his life- i.e. his left-wing parents, family, upbringing, and education that led to his life experience as mostly in the left-wing area of society. He then moves on to describe his journey out of that left-wing ideology and culture and details the contributing factors to his shift. But he says that his move away from the left was not a shift to the right-wing, or to libertarianism.
He says that most notable in his shift away from the left-wing was Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwinian theory presented him with a more cynical take on life.
He summarizes Darwin’s conclusions as “Evolution by natural selection is an inherently competitive process. Very roughly, it favours traits (like motives, instincts, and abilities) that help organisms spread their genes more successfully than rivals do.”
He adds this, “Importantly, the best strategy for out-competing rivals often involves cooperation, which is why cooperation is ubiquitous throughout nature.” But he cautions that this does not fit with “left-wing political views”.
He then gives this “tragic vision of human nature…
“First, competition and conflicts of interest are endemic to human social life. They are not the product of capitalism, objectionable institutions, or power structures. They are unavoidable. The only question is what form social competition takes and whether it is channelled into desirable or undesirable outcomes.
“Second, nepotism (i.e., favouritism directed towards genetic relatives) is extremely deep-rooted in human psychology….
“Third, altruism toward anyone beyond genetic relatives is highly limited. Moreover, most of what looks like altruism and genuinely feels like it at the psychological level is rooted in mutualism, the tendency to cooperate when doing so is mutually beneficial and so promotes the self-interest of cooperators.”
Note in his statements his focus on “self-interest” as the most prominent explanatory factor about people.
He then states that the above three enumerated things clearly diverge from prominent left-wing views. They affirm a “’constrained’ or ‘tragic’ vision of human nature in which self-interest, nepotism, and social competition are rooted in powerful and ineradicable innate instincts.”
He says that this implies that conflicts of interest and competition are unavoidable realities of human societies and the best we can do is suppress some of the negative consequences of such traits or “channel them to desirable social ends.” I would affirm his comments that, contrary to Marx’s vision and that of left-wingers of today, there is no radical transformation of society (i.e. forced collectivism) that will erase such features of humanity and transform people into Marx’s vision of liberated and true “communalists”.
He moves on to note that Darwin’s dismal view of humanity has implications for left-wing utopianism. He says the challenge to left-wingers is “to explain how people sometimes achieve complex systems of social cooperation that overcome such likely outcomes of human nature.” The solution, he says, is not just eradicating poverty and educating people but “by developing and enforcing collective norms, monitoring, rewards, and punishments that make them less profitable.”
Another challenge, “We should be sceptical of activists and revolutionaries who claim to be motivated entirely by high ideals like justice, liberty, or equality. It is very unlikely they have escaped the grubby motives that drive ordinary human behaviour or that their utopian projects will pan out well.”
In addition, “As with all these things, one could learn this lesson without an evolutionary approach. One could simply observe how political movements led by zealous revolutionaries depicting themselves as heroic justice seekers have historically turned out, including in the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Chinese Communist Revolution. One could even observe the not-so-subtle evidence of self-interest and social competition in the much less dramatic Great Awokening that has swept Western institutions in recent years.”
In this reference to historical outcomes, he is pointing to Thomas Sowell’s “Test of facts”, or outcomes, as in “by their fruit you will know them”.
He moves on to conclude this section with some clarifying comments, noting, “The point is rather that we should be highly suspicious of people and movements that depict themselves as escaping human nature’s self-serving and competitive instincts or propose societal transformations that rely on our collective ability to escape them. And more generally, we should be sceptical of any narrative endorsed by those on the left or right that depicts a political movement’s motivations as rooted in a purely altruistic concern with justice or virtue.”
He then makes some points on economics, such as stating that left-wing analysis of mainstream economics is “biased”, and that incentives matter. Just to add here, I believe it was Joshua Muravchik in “Heaven On Earth” who said that socialists (he was a former socialist) have never understood human motivations.
Responding to this point that incentives matter, Williams says, “good institutions ‘economise on virtue’ by aligning individuals’ private interests with desirable collective outcomes.”
Another insert here: It was William Bernstein (“The Birth of Plenty”) who also argued that it was protected private property, which is to say protected rights and freedoms, equally, along with representative institutions, that curbed elite impulses to totalitarian domination and urged the redistribution of power back to people (function to represent and serve the interests of citizens).
Williams, while good as far as he goes, appears to over-weight evolutionary biology explanations too much and argues for prioritizing the restraint of our evolutionary inheritance of animal drives, not fully understanding and valuing the positive influence of human love as part of a new reality far different from the animal- i.e. the emerging and developing human spirit and consciousness that enables us to rise above our animal inheritance.
Some other good summarizing points from Williams,
“Fourth, you cannot solve poverty or create wealth by redistribution alone.
“Redistribution requires wealth, which must be created by consistent increases in productivity. Such increases depend on complex and fragile institutions that coordinate large-scale economic activity and reward innovation and efficiency.”
He ends, stating, “I am far more positive about capitalism and far more suspicious about actual and proposed alternatives to it… If capitalism is unique, it is unique in the fact that it makes such features of human behaviour undeniable and exploits them to produce beneficial collective outcomes.”
(Insert: Rather than just reference to “capitalism” (carrying too much pejorative baggage), I would suggest- Place the things that he discusses more clearly in the larger Classic Liberal context).
His final statements:
“Perhaps most fundamentally, I have realised that economies and societies are highly complex and depend on forms of large-scale cooperation that are shockingly difficult to understand, let alone achieve.
“Noble intentions and lofty rhetoric about justice and equality are not enough. The kinds of policies and interventions that benefit people often sound bad. Those that hurt people often sound good.
“Successful economic policy requires a deep and intellectually humble engagement with incentives, constraints, trade-offs, and unintended consequences, not the emotive moralising and wishful thinking often characteristic of left-wing politics.”
Comments on William’s post (note her comment on Williams having “overdone the cynicism”. I would apply that to his having overdone the “self-interest” element):
This one from Laura Creighton-
“’Humans have genuine prosocial instincts and an intuitive sense of fairness, ultimately rooted in the reputational benefits of appearing kind and fair-minded to others.’ While I agree that self-deception and self-interest underpin the actions of a good many people who falsely claim to be virtuous for its own sake, I think you have overdone the cynicism here. A large amount of virtue: goodness, beauty, and truth seeking and making – in this world is done by humble people who aren’t much interested in reputational benefits at all — except possibly their reputation in God’s eyes. It’s the people who are claiming to be virtuous you have to worry about, especially in situations where “appearing to be virtuous” is cheap. I wonder if this is one of the problems with social media, in that it makes it too easy to appear to be virtuous, while actually becoming virtuous remains difficult.”
And another from “The Gadfly Doctrine… Alan’s Substack”:
“Dan, you’ll appreciate the parallel. Deng Xiaoping had a moment very close to the one you describe. He realised that staying on the old left no longer matched how the world actually worked. His shift echoed your line: “for all these reasons and more, one of the most dramatic changes in my intellectual outlook has been becoming less left-wing.”
“Deng’s core insight was disarmingly simple. You cannot redistribute scarcity. You can only redistribute what a productive society creates. That meant unleashing incentives, tolerating inequality and allowing people to build, innovate and take risks. In effect, he embraced the Hayekian truth that prosperity emerges when individuals can act on local knowledge and self-interest.
“Where he broke with Western capitalism is the structural part that often goes unnoticed. Deng refused to hand national development over to private land monopolies. Land remained commonwealth. Use-rights could circulate, but ownership stayed public. Without that reform, China would look far closer to India: extraordinary talent and energy held back by a system where rent and speculation outrun production.
“Put together, the story is clear. China’s rise came from combining Hayek’s decentralised incentives with a land system that prevents rentier capture and renews itself generation by generation. Or, to borrow Deng’s own language, each generation gets to feel a stone rather than inherit a torrent.”