The comforts of serfdom

The subconscious desire to wreck it all.

The West is characterized now by progressive ideals. Activism is constant even as our nations decline in obvious ways.

Many of the causes are destructive. Restricting energy and food, importing incompatible people unable to assimilate, or green energy policies inhibiting industry and productivity.

These are now the norms in many countries, cheered on by an energetic minority. They seem to be the gullible foot soldiers of a leadership class steeped in cultural Marxist ideas that aim for the absolute destruction of the West.

But is this true? Are they directed by overlords via NGOs and other mechanisms? Or is it a natural drive they possess? Do some just want to burn it all down?

Harmful ambitions

On the surface a lot doesn’t make sense. Ruinous policies will harm activists too.

Uncontrolled mass immigration will affect their lives in negative ways, including more violence, increased taxes and fewer job opportunities. “Decolonization” trashes cultures making life not only more bleak but amputated from its past and thereby weakening social identity and dissolving communities we rely on.

Campaigning for socialist policies damages everyone as economies stagnate, wages decline and inflation does the rest.

Then there are the suicidal movements, like Queers for Palestine or the climate zealots who want us to outlaw all use of hydrocarbons, a proposal that would trigger mass starvation at a minimum.

Many activists are creating a world they themselves cannot easily survive in.

What is going on? Why are people encouraging changes that harm them and diminish any hope of a normal, peaceful life?

Who wants liberty?

Many of the insanities of today are utopian ambitions that have been tried elsewhere and found ineffective. Most are left-wing or collectivist in nature and driven by egalitarianism.

Criticism or failure seems to have no effect. The same terrible ideas keep recurring no matter how disastrous they have been in the past. Communism is a famous example that reappears time and again despite its catastrophic track record.

How can this happen? Don’t people understand how destructive these ideas are?

I think we make the mistake of imagining everyone wants liberty but this is untrue. Most seek comfort and safety and willingly trade liberty to get it.

The Covid pandemic demonstrated this repeatedly. Only a minority stood up for themselves. The majority were indifferent to reason or facts and often hostile to any deviation from the approved narrative.

Many were relieved the government was willing to make medical decisions on their behalf. Why would anyone resist the experts?

The modern world can be frightening. The fearful want the government to do more. They seek safety. They want others to run their lives.

This is the appeal behind many of today’s crackpot ideas. Authoritarian societies comfort the scared because they lack freedom of choice.

The horrors of choice

The more free a society, the more success is a consequence of choices individuals make. Failure is painful as it reflects us and our efforts.

In a free society there is no escape. We play a role in our own success or lack thereof.

It can be appealing if liberties are curtailed along with the responsibilities that go with them. Fewer chances means less freedom to choose with more rules and regulations to tell us what to do.

This offloads responsibility to others. It gets us off the hook.

Many are unaware of these subconscious drives and instead find themselves inexplicably drawn to destructive ideologies, focusing on pleasant-sounding outcomes like universal fairness while really embracing a reduction in freedom and its attendant anxieties.

Many wonder what is the point in some grand goal like Net Zero if it means we destroy our economy? It seems insane anyone would want it because we overlook the diminished responsibilities it would usher in.

Hence the activism for discredited ideas like communism or heavy regulation in areas of life we should leave to voluntary exchange. Constant agitation for the government to provide jobs, healthcare, safety and protection from a growing list of harms that now includes speech that offends.

It is really a push to create conditions in which fewer and fewer people can really flourish.

Even flooding countries with dangerous unproductive people or endorsing the obliteration of families and childhood innocence. These are goals no one should want but they are lavishly funded and enthusiastically endorsed by key sections of the population.

A determined minority agitate for worse conditions to bring it all crashing down to circumvent the need to succeed on one’s own merits. This is slave thinking, and it is more common than we admit.

Serfdom beckons

For slave thinkers the ideal situation is a feudal society in which they are serfs. The serf has no illusions he can make it. His entire life is dictated by the conditions of his birth.

A free society is quite different. Western nations have come closest to achieving high mobility for many people even if imperfect. There is generally something we can all do to improve our lot. There are many chances in life even now.

But in a high mobility society we must confront our own inability to get on unlike the serf. Our failure to succeed is difficult to blame on others.

Many secretly yearn for these harder systems even if they are unaware of it. They are unconsciously creating more challenging conditions to alleviate feelings of inadequacy and the exhaustion they feel from the grind of Western life.

How many genuinely successful people are we seeing joining Antifa, radical feminist groups or espousing socialism? Why is there always a strong sense of loserdom to these movements?

Why do we never see them discuss their own positive view of a strong West? What is their vision? Do they even have one beyond platitudes like equity or trans rights?

Much of it is reactionary, a series of destructions that improve nothing for anyone including themselves. It is societal deconstruction and cultural erasure masquerading as improving fairness or correcting past wrongs.

And so a nightmare unfolds, where the activist class seem intent on the demolition of all that makes us civilized. They need society to be broken because they are broken. We sense this when we see yet another protest erupt from nowhere, populated with misfits who look like unemployable rejects. Where are they getting these people from?

I suspect the maladapted among us deeply fear a successful, stable society based on traditional Western principles of liberty for all because it exposes them for who they are. That is too much to bear so it all has to go. They would rather be feudal serfs where expectations are low and success is all but impossible.

There is much solace in serfdom, believing there is nothing you can do because uncontrollable forces shape your life. It consoles the anxious despite ushering in failure and stagnation.

A broken, dysfunctional society provides a myriad of reasons for personal failure. And that is comforting to some.

---