CommentsRESPECTING THE IMBECILES-When we look at the spectacular, astonishing, bizarre state of affairs that Anglo countries — meaning the US and UK are in — it’s hard not to see a truth emerge.
Large segments of these societies have become imbeciles. I don’t mean that as an insult, a gibe, a taunt —not at all, I will always respect you, and the question I will ask is whether people respect themselves and the things that matter anymore — so I mean “imbecile” in a precise, an analytical way, a way that will yield , perhaps, some understanding. But you can be the judge of that.
Do you need examples? They surround us daily, in the mounting collapse of Anglo societies. Imbecility is rising like a massive tidal wave, crunching down everything in its path — from the rise of anti-vaxxers, to casual fascism, to lies that spread at light-speed, lies masquerading as unsullied truth, to the rise of superstition and the persistence of bigotry, a new wave of bellowing, enraged dunces who, quite naturally, have risen to the heights of Western power — because an imbecile loves nothing more than a bigger imbecile.
Can anyone really deny by now that Anglo societies are the world’s greatest hotbeds, breeding grounds, and maybe even industrial-scale laboratories of imbecility…by a very long way? Where else do you find gigantic, unbelievable spectacles like armed teachers, kids pretend dying, economic suicide, imploding middle classes voting for their own ruin, and people taking away their own healthcare and retirement (while people Facebook applause at Insta-celebrities while it all burns down)…not by mistake, but by design? Not by accident, but deliberately? If that’s not imbecility, my friends, what is?
What else do we call a person who burns down their garden just so that his neighbors don’t have flowers to see or smell anymore…but an imbecile? But isn’t that exactly what Anglo societies have degenerated into, “build that wall!” “Brexit means Brexit!” “Make us great again!”?
Let’s define imbecility a little more exactly, then, so we can get to the heart of this tidal wave of stupidity that has engulfed the West. An imbecile is a person who is three things. An idiot, a fool, and a dunce. Now, again, I don’t mean these as insults, but in a very precise way — so that we understand just what the problem in Anglo societies is, and how the rest of us can avoid it.
The ancients used the word idiot to mean “someone only concerned with their own self-interest, not with the public interest.” And that is precisely what we see in the Anglo world. If I say to you, “democracy is you choosing what’s best for everyone, not just yourself,” I’m sure many of you will be thunderstruck. Literally no one in the lives of many Anglos has pointed this out.
In other words, one of the great, fatal failings of Anglo culture is the confusion, and conflation, of self-interest and shared interest, or the private and public interests. Anglos think of democracy as something like the sum of private interests — like a crude mathematical algorithm, that sums self- interest: if I choose what’s best for me, and you choose what’s best for you, that’s all democracy is.
But democracy can be no such thing. If I am only concerned with myself, I have ruled out morality, ethics, virtue, principles, standards, codes, laws, institutions. In short, I have said to myself: “society does not exist. Nothing exists. Only I do. My desires and appetites.” That is the beating heart of imbecility.
It’s not too hard to see why Anglo cultures has bred the greatest and largest number of imbeciles in the world — no matter how rich and powerful it has gotten. This conflation of private and public interest is of course the foundational logic of capitalism, which became the fundamental principle of neoliberalism. And Anglo societies are founded, most for all, much more so than others, on these two fatally flawed ideologies.
That brings me to the second element of imbecility, which is folly. An imbecile is a fool, but a fool is a word that means a specific thing. A person so badly deluded that they confuse their ignorance for wisdom. It’s one thing to be ignorant, and know it — very good, then it can be remedied. It’s another thing still to be ignorant and flaunt it — at least there is still a distinction between folly and intelligence, wisdom, truth, meaning. But it’s something else, and a very funny, dangerous, and tragic thing to be ignorant — and call it wisdom.
But that is precisely the position that the imbeciles of the Anglo world take. They don’t say: “we don’t vaccinate our kids because we’re ignorant and proud.” They don’t say: “we don’t believe in climate change because we would like to learn more about it first.” They don’t say: “we don’t believe people are born equal, and free, because we are terrible and selfish.” They say quite the opposite: “We believe these things because we are the smartest!”
Hence, the imbecile of the Anglo world will issue a bilious stream of racism and bigotry — and then justify it with all kinds of quack science, of the kinds famous professors in the Anglo world are now given million-dollar book deals for. Hence, the Anglo imbecile will “debate” you on all the following things: whether climate change is real (even while his neighborhood sinks and burns), whether kids need to be vaccinated (even if his own kids are falling ill), whether people should have healthcare (even while he pays through the nose for falling life expectancy.” Do you see what I mean a little?
People in many countries know they are ignorant — and try desperately not to be. They educate themselves, as best they can, they read and learn and think and discuss. But the Anglo imbecile is different. Ignorance to him is wisdom. The highest form of truth for him is the opposite of knowledge, the certainty of ideology, the vacuity of pseudo-science, pseudo-philosophy, pseudo-thinking.
Is it any wonder the Anglo world is degenerating daily into more and more bizarre spectacle? A very large number of Anglos are now imbeciles, who don’t just flaunt their ignorance, but proudly call it the highest wisdom — racism, bigotry, hate, selfishness, greed, abuse, violence — and that, my friends, is the living definition of a fool.
But history has been full of foolish nations, which haven’t collapsed, but merely hundred on, stumbling drunkenly from one mishap to the next. What completes the cocktail of imbecility the Anglo world is poisoned by is stupidity. Very large portions of Anglos are dunces now, too stupid to function in the context of modern democracies — which is precisely why they reject them.
What does “stupidity” mean? Again, I want to be precise, not just hurl insults. We’d say that someone was stupid, for example, if they reclined on their couch, and set fire to their home. If, after cracking open a beer, they chopped off their arm. If, for example, they happily sent their kids off to school, where they’d be traumatized by men in masks pretending to massacre them.
Wait — isn’t all that exactly what the Anglo world is doing? Perhaps you see my point. The Anglo seems never to have learned the most basic moral logic of all — two wrongs don’t make a right. The reason we should learn that moral logic as children isn’t just to protect our neighbors from our foolishness, though — as we often think. The reason is to protect ourselves from our own stupidity.
If we believe two wrongs make a right, we may well end up setting fire to our own homes, just to prove a point. We might happily sacrifice our kids — just for revenge. We might even wreck our own societies — and call it a job well done. And so on.
But this is precisely the plight the Anglo world is in? Consider Brexit. The driving sentiment isn’t that it won’t lead to ruin — it’s that it will. But that only causes the Brexiter to want it more. Why? The only possible reason can be that two wrongs make a right. Self-injury can at least be a form of martyrdom.
Or consider the Trumpist, the one who voted for Trump, only to find himself out of a job, thanks to Trump’s absurd economics — yet still probably supports Trump. Two wrongs make a right, again.
Stupid, then, is a very specific kind of thinking. The idea that doing wrong and more wrong and more wrong can somehow, one day, add up to right. Let me translate that into plain English. Stupid is the idea that the negative can beget the positive. That the absence can create the presence. That violence and cruelty and hate can lead to justice, truth, and freedom.
None of these things are true. The negative cannot yield the positive, in the moral world. Violence and cruelty cannot lead to justice and freedom — only to despair and ruin.
And yet if we look closely at Anglo culture, we see that these ideas have always dominated it. Anglos alone, almost, in the world, believe — really believe — that mistreating people, abusing them, denying them, is the virtuous and right thing to do. That cruelty is kindness and compassion is something like kicking a person when they are down. Hence, Americans beg one another for healthcare online now — instead of simply giving it to one another, for all to enjoy.
In other words, Anglo culture has always been the world’s most individualistic, most materialistic, and most ruthless, by a very long way. Anglos genuinely believe, and have for a very long time, that to help a person up is to take away their “incentive” forever becoming “self-reliant.” Hence, Europeans enjoy plentiful public goods — retirement, healthcare, education, and so on — but Anglos enjoy few, and dwindling amounts.
How else could it have ended up? Celebrating individualist materialist utilitarianism, Anglos could never have built enduring democracies. That is because a person who is not “useful” is a “liability” and a “burden.” But in a democracy, either we are all equals, or we are not. Democracy is not compatible with stupidity in this deep way. Stupidity says that wrong can lead to right — but if everyone in a society thinks that way, or enough people do, such illogic only leads to endless, deepening circles of wrongs, that go nowhere. A democracy never really develops. Something more like an arena for endless combat does — for the very rights that people could have just given one another.
Stupidity is just this, my friends. The perversion of right into wrong, and wrong into right. The upside-down transformation of virtue into vice. The idea that if I do violence to you, I am helping you, aiding you, making you a better person. When has violence ever made anyone better, wholer, truer, stronger? It hasn’t — and Anglo collapse is the simple proof of the matter.
Let me sum up a little. The Anglo world is now composed largely of imbeciles. Brexiters, Trumpists, extremists, nationalists, fascists, anti-vaxxers and plastic surgery addicts. Even its best and brightest are imbeciles — Ivy Leaguers who hope to become hedge funders, not to do anything of real worth or purpose with their lives. Anglos have become people the rest of the civilized world laughs at, entertained by such spectacular displays of self-destruction.
But an imbecile is three things. A fool, a dunce, and an idiot. Each one of these alone is not a very good things to be, but one can get by. But put all three together, and — bang! Something like an explosion is the result.
The idiot is one who believes he is all that matters. The fool is the one who believes ignorance is wisdom. And the dunce is the one who thinks wrong is right, and virtue is vice.
When these three forms of backwardness combine, my friends, the results are every bit as spectacular as Mount Vesuvius, because the perfect apex of human illogic and unreason has finally been reached. There is no further to go. Such a person, one who is an idiot, a fool, and a dunce all at once, is perfect in a way.
He is the perfect mark. The perfect rube. The perfect victim. He will fall for anything at all that tells him to do more violence, more harm, more abuse — so as to gain more for himself. Even if the thing he must do is to destroy himself first. I know that doesn’t make sense. But an imbecile does not think that far.
That is why he is happy to Brexit, even though it will cost him his future, happy to vote for Trump again, even thought has cost him his job, happy to see the planet burn, even as the wildfires scorch his neighborhood, delighted to go without healthcare or retirement, even though he is getting older and frailer. And so on.
A very significant percentage of the population in Anglo countries now rejects democracy and civilization, in their most basic forms. What’s more, they imagine that rejecting democracy and civilization are democracy and civilization. Adding insult to injury, they further imagine that the best thing they can do is spread the rejection of democracy and civilization throughout the world, proudly proclaim it, support it feverishly and vehemently.
The imbecile is the one who cannot think, reason, understand at all anymore. Regarding Anything. The world. Society. History. Himself. Cause and effect. Premise and conclusion. None of these things are real to the imbecile. The only things that matter are the trinity of folly, stupidity, and idiocy: to put himself first, above, beyond all else, to bellow that his ignorance is wisdom, and to do wrong until there is right. Nothing else can be, or ever was. So what can the imbecile understand? He already believes in a delusion. There is nothing to understand because the world does not exist.
So he doesn’t think even as far as the next logical step — what if the planet burns down? Am I not on it? What if the economy crashes? Am I not part of it? What if my society implodes? Am I not sitting atop it? — because the tools of reason cannot fit in his hands. All that he knows how to wield is the sledgehammer of stupidity, the gun of idiocy, and the fist of folly.
And he will use it on everything, if he is told just this much: “destroy this, and you will be the one who prevails!” He will obey — even if the target is his democracy, his future, his society, his life savings, his job, his income, himself. He doesn’t see the paradox, the problem, the issue. He cannot think that far, because he is not thinking at all to begin with. You can never make him see any problem with his illogic, because he is already looking, in awe, at a certain kind of heaven. A place where he will be a king, a saint, and a billionaire — even if he has to destroy himself to do it. Bang! Democracy is replaced by something like a mass system of willing suicide.
Why not destroy himself, anyways? What has capitalism left of him? It has all told him, all his life, that he is worth nothing at all — unless he is the strong one, the ruthless one, the most vicious one, the one who thinks the least, cares the least, sees the least. Who just obeys, destroys, and smiles. Why bother thinking, when capitalism has told you all there is is getting rich, so you can buy more pleasure? When your dying empire has told you all that matters is power and violence?
When all you’ve ever know is the law that the greatest imbecile is the one who wins the most?
Do you see why I say we are seeing the rise of the imbeciles, then?
(Umair Haque posts at Medium.com.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.