In recent weeks, there have been several high-profile mass shootings in the United States. In Gilroy, Calif., on July 28, 2019, a man killed four and wounded 13 at the Gilroy Garlic Festival before being killed by police.[1] On August 3, a man killed 22 people and wounded 24 others inside a Walmart store in El Paso before being captured.[2] The next day, a man killed nine people and wounded 17 others outside of a bar in Dayton, Ohio before being killed by police.[3] A man killed seven people and wounded 25 in a rolling shootout with police between the Texas cities of Odessa and Midland on August 31.[4] The first two shootings appear to have been perpetrated by white nationalist terrorists[5,6], while the Dayton shooter had Antifa sympathies and violent misogynist views.[7,8] The Odessa-Midland shooter had no obvious political agenda, appearing simply to be a deeply troubled man who finally snapped.[9]

Gun Control

As usual, these events have provided impetus to leftists who support stricter gun control measures. These run the gamut from universal background checks to confiscation of firearms.[10,11] Initially, it appeared that Republicans might join Democrats in restricting gun access[12], but this now seems unlikely except for a few marginal changes[13,14], as the usual positions on both sides entrench once more. (I will assume that readers are reasonably familiar with these political front lines; those who are not are invited to research the matter elsewhere before reading further.) Meanwhile, in true woke capital form, Kroger, Walmart, and others have virtue signaled against customers who wish to carry firearms in their stores[15], and Walmart has decided to stop selling handguns and some types of ammunition.[16] Those who understand the role that corporations play in modern governance structures will recognize this as policy by proxy; corporations act toward desired policy goals when insufficient formal progress is made, then progressives defend this as a necessary workaround for government gridlock.

But what will any of the proposed measures do? Background checks are already required for most firearms purchases, and the databases are far from perfect. For example, the Odessa-Midland gunman failed a background check and did not go through one for the gun he used.[17] Another instance of failure occurred with the Virginia Tech massacre, when a gunman passed a background check that he should have failed due to his mental health history.[18] A ban on AR-15-style rifles has already been tried from 1994 to 2004, and there was a negligible impact on mass shootings.[19] The frequency has increased since[20], suggesting that other factors are actually responsible. Furthermore, the firepower available to the average American has declined in the wake of the Firearm Owners Protection Act, which banned fully automatic weapons manufactured after May 19, 1986 and strictly regulated those already in private hands. A so-called “red flag law” that allows the state to take possession of firearms from a person deemed mentally unstable and/or a potential danger to others[21] will cause people in that predicament to avoid seeking the help they need for fear of losing their guns, thus producing more shootings. A mandatory buyback or other confiscation action is not only unconstitutional, but would cause a civil war that the state and the Left would likely lose. While one could take the Napoleonic stance of not interrupting an enemy who is making a mistake, along with the accelerationist stance that conditions must get worse before real improvement is politically possible, this could cost millions of lives on both sides with no guarantee that the new social order would be better than the current one.

Heads of the Hydra

It is clear that we must examine American society to figure out what else is wrong that is motivating a heightened level of mass shootings. One can barely maneuver without bumping into a contributing factor to such violence, as there are many problems that lead people astray, deprive them of hope, and turn them against society itself. Our list cannot be exhaustive, so let us focus on some of the most prominent. First, there is the decline of religion and morality. The United States was founded upon a rejection of almost all forms of tradition and authority, including official state religion. But separation of church and state is impossible; attempting such separation only creates a power vacuum that is filled by forces that operate by religious methodology while professing secular progressive liberalism. In other words, the rejection of the Christian cathedral has given us the Cathedral described by Mencius Moldbug, in which the media, universities, corporations, and government bureaucrats work toward common purposes that have little to do with eucivic goods.[22] Although the various churches in America showed resilience for a time, their time appears to be waning.[23] Details of this process and its disastrous consequences are explored here, but the most important results relevant to gun violence are the loss of sanctity of life, the decline of penance as an immaterial technology in favor of a puritanical outrage culture, the loss of a place and institution of fellowship, and the treatment of deviation from progressive liberalism as heresy that renders a person deplorable and irredeemable. It should be no surprise that people who feel no shared sense of humanity with other people would become killers.

Second, there is the breakdown of the nuclear family structure. The combination of no-fault divorce, feminism, welfare statism, and sexual deviancy has weakened the sanctity of marriage and the foundation of healthy childhood development such that the bastardy rate in America reached 40 percent overall, 29 percent for Whites, 53 percent for Hispanics, and 71 percent for Blacks in 2014.[24] These and other attacks upon patriarchy and fatherhood have deprived young men of virtuous role models and the networking that secures job opportunities, meets social needs, and strengthens social cohesion. Each of these degeneracies have been advanced as Jouvenelian power plays, using a periphery to weaken the secondary societal organs in favor of the central state under the guise of democracy, equality, compassion, and human rights. Divorce can be a traumatic event for children[25], and trouble at home as a child frequently leads to trouble as an adult.[26]

Third, academia has corrupted the population and enslaved them with debt and usury. Instead of preparing people to be productive members of society, the university system has become a factory for indoctrinating the youth with lies and teaching them to hate themselves just for being white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian, and so on. Some people respond to this with pathetic professions of shame and eternally inadequate attempts to obtain forgiveness, and others come to find shelter and relief in reactionary circles, but still others decide that the world is against them and they must take up arms. At the same time, American student debt is at an all-time high of $1.6 trillion[27] due to government intervention to lead more students through the ivory towers and feed more money to the universities, which has been used to fuel the aforementioned leftism on campus. Of course, this is on top of twelve or thirteen years of indoctrination in government weekday prisons that leave students unable to perform in any but the most basic of occupations.

Fourth, the economic prospects for many young people are grim. Economic measures look good to most establishment commentators, but these measures turn a blind eye and deaf ear to many people who are being left behind. People who would have been better suited to blue-collar work are instead burdened with crushing student loan debt[28] and a degree that is not helping them to find employment.[29] Those who cannot find work for long periods of time have not been included in official employment measures since 1993[30], and that which is out of sight tends to be out of mind. Jobs that they can find are in danger of being automated away, which may leave some of them with no means of support.[31] Trade policy in recent decades has also been unkind to American workers.[32] Of course, a lack of economic opportunity also frustrates one’s prospects for finding a mate and starting a family[33], which feeds into the next problem.

Fifth, immigration is shifting American demographics from a White supermajority to no majority. Since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, America has gone from 83.5 percent White in 1970 to 63.7 percent White in 2010. Projections show that Whites will become a minority of the American population by 2042.[34] Importing demographic replacements, in addition to favoring elite employers at the expense of the working class, is a power play by the Democratic Party to thumb the scale of democracy in their favor and stir up ethnic resentment against Whites with a strategy based on identity politics. While systems do exist to be gamed, those against whom they are gamed are likely to respond in the common fashion of those who learn that they have been cheated. This cannot justify violence against innocent people, but it does explain the significant percentage of mass shootings and other domestic terrorist attacks committed by white nationalists and supremacists.[35] More broadly, a nation with no ethnic majority is not likely to become the peaceful rainbow nation that progressives hoped South Africa would become. Instead, it is likely to embody the Hoppean critique of democratic politics on the level of tribal conflict:

“As for the moral status of majority rule, it must be pointed out that it allows for A and B to band together to rip off C, C and A in turn joining to rip off B, and then B and C conspiring against A, and so on. This is not justice but a moral outrage, and rather than treating democracy and democrats with respect, they should be treated with open contempt and ridiculed as moral frauds.”[36]

Sixth, there is the corporate press, which is servile to the establishment and hostile to anyone who takes issue with the progressive liberal project in any but the most trivial of senses. In addition to their role as purveyors of propaganda, their combination of self-righteousness, power lust, and vindictiveness is matched only by the communist terrorists of Antifa. This is exacerbated by their reception of marching orders from leftist activist groups such as the ADL and the scandal-plagued[37] SPLC. The so-called journalists of these organizations are on the lookout for average Americans who commit public acts of wrongthink so that they may dox them and try to dis-employ them.[38] Those who are rendered unemployable by such actions are far more likely to become violent, as this both severs social networks that keep them connected to society and leaves them with little or nothing to lose.

Seventh, there are the perverse effects of social media. Much has been made of the role of Facebook, Twitter, and others in getting Donald Trump elected[39] and fueling political extremism[40] by facilitating previously impossible networks of communication. Though mainstream attention has been given to the loss of human interaction[41], isolation from the physical world[42], and the online disinhibition effect[43], and rightly so, there has been much less concern over corporate censorship. What commentary there is (with the notable exception of my own work on this topic) tends to either favor the removal of “hate speech”[44] or regard the technology giants as private companies that may censor as they see fit.[45] These approaches ignore the fact that political dissidents are in conflict with the larger society, and conflicts have only three means of resolution: reason, exit, or force. In the modern world, exit is nearly impossible in any meaningful sense. Humanity is too developed and spread out for escape on Earth and not developed enough for escape to other worlds. Thus, to deny the ability to speak to a segment of the population, as the largest social media companies do to the far-right and other dissidents, is to guarantee that some of the affected people will use force, as it is their only remaining option for expressing their discontent.

Eighth, the pursuit of fame as an end unto itself is increasingly common, especially in American culture. It was once the case that fame was a reward for acquiring and demonstrating exceptional talent in one’s occupation, and this is still true to some degree. But in an environment without upward mobility or social status, a healthy desire for renown can find a degenerate outlet. That some people can become famous for no apparent legitimate reason only fuels the rage of a struggling young man who is making no progress and has a tenuous grasp on anger management. But he knows that if he goes on a shooting spree, then he will get at least a moment of recognition. According to a recent study, the average media coverage following a mass shooting would cost $75 million to purchase.[46]

In summary, we live in a culture and under a government in which a young man is

likely to have family problems and experience violence while growing up, forced into government schools that feed him lies and teach him almost nothing about making a living, pushed deep into debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy to pursue higher education that still may not get him employed, less able to attract a mate and start a family, mocked for his suffering, if it is recognized at all, not allowed to leave, punished if he complains publicly to the extent of losing anything worth living for, and incentivized to pursue fame without the requisite justifying talent.

In this light, the surprise should not be that there are more suicides and mass shootings than before, but that there are so very few. But as we shall soon see, the governance structure itself makes matters even worse.

Heart of the Hydra

The most cynical, and therefore probably correct, observation to make about the entire tapestry of American life in the Current Year is that a problem will go unaddressed if the people tasked with solving it derive benefits from its continuance. For both major parties in American politics, concern over gun control and gun rights are significant motivations of campaign contributions and drivers of voter turnout. For the non-profit foundations and other activist groups involved in this issue, a decisive policy prescription for gun problems, whatever it may be, would remove their raison d’être. This is undesirable for them, as it would mean that the political operatives, think tank personnel, and activists would have to do honest work for a living. As all competent consulting firms know, as long as one can appear to be working toward a solution, there is profit to be made in prolonging the problem.1 Meanwhile, politicians have a wedge issue to get voters to the polls in the next election.2

Another problem is that in a democracy, the theoretical Hobbesian war of all against all is replaced with an actual cold civil war of half against half, and this cold war will occasionally flare up. Elites intentionally create such systems in order to manufacture perpetual conflict in society, which keeps the masses fighting among themselves so that they do not join together to overthrow the ruling class. Because a democratic system grants each citizen who is eligible to vote a small piece of political power, each person can — at least in theory — mobilize other people into a voting bloc to advance a political agenda that would use state power in a manner hostile to another group of people.3 This makes each politically active person an unofficial soldier in the aforementioned democratic war, and thus a target for various abuses by the other side. It is this dynamic that produces the degeneration of political discourse into physical violence. That portion of mass shootings which are politically motivated are perfectly explained by the logic of democracy as long as one understands that systems exist to be gamed. A domestic terrorist can vote once on Election Day in that election. But by utilizing guns, bombs, vehicles, etc., the terrorist can vote for their extremist cause many times in all elections that the victims would have otherwise lived to see.

A third issue inherent in republican and democratic systems is the obfuscation of responsibility. The checks and balances of such forms of governance, ostensibly extant for the purpose of ensuring that no branch of government becomes too powerful relative to the others, actually serves to keep anyone from truly being in charge. While it is always the case that sovereign power lies somewhere, there is usually enough plausible deniability and public ignorance to go around, and those who are not guilty of causing a mishap tend to cover for those who are in the name of “defending public institutions.” It should come as no surprise that those who look for someone to blame for their problems and find such a designed shirking of accountability would engage in seemingly random violence.

The ultimate resolution of all of the above dynamics is the elimination of democracy and its attendant vices in favor of an unelected governance structure that cares not for crowd power or filthy lucre. The critical factors that fuel gun violence in America can only be resolved in this manner, and all of these factors are firmly rooted in the incentive structures created by electoral politics. Though there will always be some level of societal conflict and violent crime, removing such a disastrous generator of malignant incentives as political democracy can only be a net improvement. Unfortunately, the end of democracy is not only off the table, but beyond the contemplation of all except for a few libertarians and reactionaries, so the political milieu is what it is for now, leaving all of the above problems insoluble.

Horrorism

In the face of such a currently hopeless situation, how shall we proceed? How shall we respond to the leftist politicians, activists, and demagogues demanding that something, anything, be done? Mainstream conservatives are likely to cave on some gun control measures while going into a policy wonk explanation of how other proposals will be ineffective or counterproductive. A few may present an analysis resembling a toothless, politically correct version of the first part of this essay. None of them will strike the root that is democracy itself, and next to none will understand the futility of responding to rhetoric with dialectic. The mainstream libertarian response will not be much better; they will cede nothing on gun rights, but will be even more politically autistic with regard to the rest of the context. More militant elements of both may remind gun control advocates that their weapons are ready for use against those who would attempt to take them. But none of these responses adequately counter the progressive thrust, so we may set them aside in our quest for a proper response.

Thankfully, an effective strategy already exists and is only in need of refinement and application to this problem. Nick Land has named this strategy horrorism, and it is best summarized as a combination of passivism and trolling. He writes the following on this strategy:

“Rather than resisting the desperation of the progressive ideal by terrorizing its enemies, [horrorism] directs itself to the culmination of progressive despair in the abandonment of reality compensation. It de-mobilizes, de-massifies, and de-democratizes, through subtle, singular, catalytic interventions, oriented to the realization of fate. The Cathedral has to be horrified into paralysis. The horrorist message (to its enemies): Nothing that you are doing can possibly work.

‘What is to be done?’ is not a neutral question. The agent it invokes already strains towards progress. This suffices to suggest a horrorist response: Nothing. Do nothing. Your progressive ‘praxis’ will come to nought in any case. Despair. Subside into horror. You can pretend to prevail in antagonism against ‘us’, but reality is your true — and fatal — enemy. We have no interest in shouting at you. We whisper, gently, in your ear: ‘despair’. (The horror.)”[47]

To respond in this manner is certain to provoke progressives into escalation. Unfortunately, the escalation of hostilities is a necessary development because humans tend not to do what is required to solve difficult problems until they run out of other options. Therefore, let us conclude by attempting such a refinement:

“We shall do nothing, for everything that you are willing to do will either come to nought or make matters worse. The only real solutions are those you cannot fathom, for they demand that you admit your own fault in creating the conditions that motivate mass shooters. You can say that we value guns more than children’s lives; you can even call us domestic terrorists. You can virtue signal against us and score all the political points you want, but your true enemy is the reality you have made with your beliefs, policies, and practices. Therefore, we will not engage with you. What could possibly be the point? Your chickens have come home to roost, and they will keep pecking you. The killings will continue until the myriad aspects of American decline are addressed, and you will not be the ones to do it. So despair, and be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Footnotes

This will not win them any human rights awards, but the concept of human rights in the political arena has only ever been a ruse to gain and exercise power.[48–52] This should make the gun rights side exceptionally cautious, as the gun control side cannot be satiated with an assault weapons ban here and an age limit adjustment there. They will take whatever they can get, and ceding anything will only embolden them. This does not tend to occur in practice, as grassroots movements that are universally opposed by elites are either crushed or forced into obscurity.[53–55]

References

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