Meaning, Globalism, And Death
The fight between globalism and nationalism has escalated since last explored at Social Matter in 2015. The elites saw this fight coming as western liberal capitalist democracy was victorious over Soviet-sponsored communism. As Benjamin Barber wrote about McWorld (globalism), the boring seduction would calm the waters and fight off the last shout from the identity-based tribalist crowd (jihad). Third World importation does help the globalists, but unknowingly creates the situation to breed greater disturbances and greater incentives for tribalism. Tribalism need neither be violent nor suicidal.
The great pitch of globalism is that it provides material comfort, hedonism, and fulfillment of the most basic of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the progressive “freedom of children,” where daddy big business and mommy big government take care of you, so you can have all of the mindless fun you want without consequences.
The system also treats people as interchangeable parts with no concern over the units it inserts into its machinery. The progressive regime cares not for the genetic traits of individuals it pulls in because the dominant blank slate ideology and its trust in the ability of technological and sexual delights to calm even the most angry of Third World imports.
What the west is seeing now, what McWorld is struggling to grasp, is that the lumps of clay that its system manipulates and seeks to sedate are easily radicalized. With radicalization comes violence, and suddenly what was once a rare event (jihadi-planned terrorism) becomes a weekly headline. What does the West have to offer a young Muslim immigrant or second generation Muslim? There are attractive native women, drinking, greater safety than in the homeland, technology to stream anything right to their phones, and a cornucopia of secure food sources. There is also the progressive feminist legal system. There is competition from native men who earn more and have access to higher status goods, services, and areas. There is a spiritual emptiness surrounding these men.
Jihad offers what McWorld cannot. While the West has many tantalizing things that are just out of reach or if grasped, the law slaps down on you, jihad offers the chance at glory, martyrdom, and conquest. It offers meaning. There are suicide missions, but with the ultimate goal of conquest for Mohammed’s vision. Those cheap, tawdry Internet advertisements are in Muslims’ faces non-stop, but via the Internet, so is the call for martyrdom and glory to Allah.
In their hand, they can make contact with a network of men who want them, who need them, and who guide them to sacrifice for the cause. After their death, they will become Internet video heroes and inspire other jihadis. The average immigrant may not answer that call, but if impulse control is lower on average and future time orientation is weaker on average, more men will answer it.
This is not just a problem of jihad. There is a growing echo of that concept within the American black community. Black Americans are on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in America, yet have access and use of many technological marvels the elite have. The phones in their hands are roughly the same as those in the hands of people in the middle and upper classes. Basic food and shelter needs are taken care of, and even as the black family disintegrates, the government is there to fill the gap to avoid fatal impoverishment.
There is no flourishing black culture. The shared identity is not in being black and striving, but in placing focus on being a victim. Jim Crow and slavery are long gone, but the struggle against racism binds them. The latest hysteria is that the police are out to kill them. Over twenty blacks are murdered every single day by their fellow blacks, but the media has created a panic over the every other day death of a black at the hand of the police (forget that blacks often get taken down and out by police, while in the middle of committing a crime or pulling a gun on authorities).
This media-driven black victim culture is also creating a pathway for black men to take on suicidal missions against the police. The latest cop ambushes in Dallas and Baton Rogue reveal similar killers. Both were black men who served in the military, but they were not front line infantryman with PTSD. One was a Marine tech, and the other never saw a day of combat in the Army. The Army veteran was discharged, not dishonorably, despite early reports, but honorably, for stealing panties and harassing a young woman.
These men were raised in the black American matriarchal system that virtually reduces men to the role of sperm donor, in order to generate a government revenue stream for the women who run the families.
These black men were seeking meaning. Micah Johnson became Michah X. Gavin Eugene Long became Cosmo Ausar Setepenra. The black American identity, which is uniquely American, was discarded for an identity linked to the African homeland. These men were not satisfied with what was around them, as Gavin Long was a self-described “Alpha Preneur” who wanted to raise his level up. He was obsessed with the masculine and the idea of being alpha. There was no structural system helping him feel alpha, or secure the women who he felt gave him alpha status, so he sought it through coaching. Micah X was discharged for being friendzoned by a woman.
What ultimately provided these men with meaning was the opportunity to kill cops. These were suicide missions. The men wore body armor, but by attacking multiple cops, they knew the end result. Their glory was in striking back at a regime in the name of their tribe.
The Islamic State makes videos quickly and effectively for their martyrs in the creation of the caliphate. Black Lives Matter, but more importantly, American media and black social media, turn these cop killers into voices of a crying, hurting community. They become lionized and praised. They become memes for their tribe. Fiction has become reality as the “His name is Robert Paulson” line from Fight Club becomes real life. Atomized nobodies in a system of SCALE are born in death.
They suddenly have meaning. The globalist world provides everything you could possibly want, but lacks the one thing you absolutely need: meaning. Empty jobs, broken communities, constant entertainment distractions, but no glorious struggle.
The progressive system also needs to enforce its will, which is in contrast to male desire for attractive females to have sex and securely form a dynasty with and not be fired for the slightest joke. The progressive system encourages female liberation with fiscal empowerment and body positivity for any size.
While these jihadis and cop killers exemplify the negative side of the struggle for meaning in McWorld, the nationalism-globalism fight hints at a positive channeling of this yearning.
The nationalism of today is unlike the nationalism or jingoism of the 19th century. While nationalism of yesteryear was a competitive nationalism often linked to colonial possessions, military size, and influence around the world, the modern incarnation is one simply of existence.
This is our identity, this is who we are, and no, we will not be melded into the bland blend of McWorld globalism. A Polish nationalist, a British nationalist, and a French nationalist are not preparing to fight one another, as in the 19th century, but are rather looking at one another as brothers in arms in the fight against globalism.
With the emergence of Donald Trump, conservative commentators have been pointing out the legs of the Reagan three-legged coalition stool have been kicked out.
Reagan’s three legs were social conservatism, national-security hawks, and economic/libertarian free marketers. Folks like Erick Erickson lament Trump’s destruction of those legs, yet fail to see the replacement. Folks like Erick Erickson wave the Constitution and Bible around, forgetting that a people are not the papers they read, but the minds that create them.
Meaning can be found, and not in a violent, suicidal manner. There is a trio focused on meaning and being to replace those three conservative legs wrapped in his message. There can be a shared struggle for those who remember what the promise and the achievements of our nation were. There can be a coalition that invites those who have the shared identity of culture, history and struggle to rally around–not through sacrificing life in suicidal attacks, but in sacrificing individual, selfish drives. Mega-states and globalism have possibly rendered this impossible in our current configuration. Consumerism is a hollow, meaningless system regardless of the latest nationlist surge, and empty materialism and consumer thrills will not nurture the soul. To transcend and reject this system is to struggle and build a society for our children worthy of the memory of what our ancestors bequeathed to us.
