Understanding the Lure of Socialism
I recently learned about a misconception I had about socialism, and in this blog I wanted to explain what it is, and why you cannot convince a socialist to change with economics.
First, the misconception:
It's a great joke, because the "bwoke" SJW really fits the stereotype of someone who is drinking Starbucks, making angry tweets from his iPhone at 2 PM about how oppressed "zhe" is while everyone else is out working. But at the same time, we have to consider that many of the people in communist history did in fact fight bitter battles and do incredible amounts of work, which leads us to ask "why?" And indeed, when Mx. Bwoke throws away the panties and willingly lives in squalor to actually advance the cause, we will also be faced with the question of how he got there, and also with the danger of someone who has actually crossed over to the other side.
The "righteous" socialism
It was Nisbet and his book "The Quest for Community" that made this issue very clear. He explains that socialism, at least for the committed members, is not about free stuff. And further, when Americans would go and visit China or North Korea in the 70s, and come back with effusive praise, it is not because they could not see the squalor (though to be sure, either state's governments did their best to hide it). Instead, he observes that socialism is in fact a competing religion to the West's Christianity, and further that socialism offers membership in a brotherhood, with a dream and vision the requires great self-sacrifice.
In other words, the fact that people were living in great poverty and tyrrany did not matter.
If there is one American movie to capture the lure of socialism, particularly the anarchocommunist variety, it would be the 1999 film Fight Club. The protagonist starts off a weak, emasculated man in a corporate office, with a completely dull and unfulfilling life. In fact, the consumerism covers over a gross immorality of inventing justifications to prevent safety recalls of automobiles. And then he becomes something in his mind's eye, Tyler Durden:
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
And then he preaches a message that then young, now middle-aged Millienials still quote:
I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables - slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war... Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
Now the thing is, the economics of socialism is an open-and-shut case. It is easily shown to be impossible to improve living conditions, both in theory and in practice. But when you create a generation of men with no faith, no family, and no future, the evidence doesn't matter. Socialism provides a "family" in the form of a collective brotherhood of man, "faith" in a crusade to kill everyone who put them in their disaffected state, and of course, a "future" in the form of a utopia. Note that in the movie, the protagonist lived in squalor, and some of the ancoms I have spoken to call it "The squat." And that you haven't really arrived until you've lived there.
You cannot talk to this person in terms of having a better car or more or nicer living space. And Antifa today intentionally put their members into these conditions so that they become people you cannot speak to normally.
Can this be prevented?
First and most importantly, you prevent the disaffection to begin with. This is why the family matters. This is why religion that is not a popularity contest matters. That is why a coherent culture matters. The egalitarian, "diversity is our strength" non-culture is producing men with a fractured identity. Instead of more tolerance and more stability, we are already seeing and will continue to see less stability.
To make this happen, first we are going to need a new tradition, patterned after older ones but in the context of our current technology. This tradition needs to clearly divide child and adult, male and female. Instead of education being about arbitrary content goals, education must be about a boy becoming a warrior (not afraid to fight when necessary), a craftsman, and a scholar (self-teaching as the economy changes). And when he becomes a man, he can not merely take care of himself, but he also has a wife, and a family legacy, and most importantly of all, a heritage and a reason to defend it.
Funny enough, Mao understood this when he wrote "The Red Army fights not merely for the sake of fighting but in order to conduct xuānchuán among the people, organize, arm and help them establish revolutionary political power. Without these objectives, fighting loses its meaning and the Red Army loses its reason for existence." Without purpose, a violent person is merely violent. In this way, it is not enough to tell young men (the ones who are actually doing the fighting) to not fight, or that they can have a 40% better lifestyle. The vision and purpose we communicate must be bigger.
I am beginning work on an updated version of the Plan for Action, and part of the Plan is not merely mentorship, but intentionally seeking out opportunities to turn boys into men through life-changing experiences. It might be as simple as putting them into a workshop an producing something real, or as complex as doing missions and experiencing a totally different culture, where people don't have time for immaturity on social media. This isn't just to prevent boys from being pulled into Antifa, but also to build up defenders of Western ideas.
What about those already "lost?"
My Chinese friends have given me plenty of stories about people who figured out the truth about communism, and one example I would give is a movie that captures the spirit of the Cultural Revolution. This is the 2017 film Fang Hua (Youth, directed by Xiaogang Feng), which shows that every member of society being called to great sacrifice. Living in barracks, strict regimentation, and family members disappearing were all signs of not oppression, but purity. This is important for "getting inside the head" of the socialist.
But the movie also captures the spirit of the times in another subtle way, because while it is billed as a "coming of age," it is also about coming to know the truth. The actors slowly learn about ostracism over the tiniest matters of impurity (one character is literally driven to insanity as another mocks her throughout the film), about how some women were secretly selling themselves for advancement while feigning purity, and about proud contributors being abandoned the minute they cease to be useful.
This is where disaffection goes in the other direction. I recently listened to an interview of an ex-Antifa, and the thing that brought him back to us was watching other Antifa assault one of his friends, a "pure" socialist, had just one deviation along the trans vs. feminist issue. One wrong opinion on a complex topic and he was beaten within an inch of his life. That is the exposure of the evil of socialism, communism, and whatever other "ism" is thrown about, and once one can see that socialism does in fact breed moral corruption along with poverty, then it all becomes a big clown show. That is when one can also see Nancy Pelosi's mansion, AOC's luxury living, and all of those "socialist" professors living it up at the expense of students.
Where do we go from here?
I've started a new group, the Brotherhood of Free Men, where we can talk further, and start working on organization and education. However, understand that merely triggering kids on social media isn't enough. We need to each become defenders of Western faith and traditions, and we need to mentor young men who will do likewise.