There is a tendency for people who first come into this corner of the world to be dismayed and overwhelmed by the degeneracy. I would say that this is also true of the majority of people out there, who may not be quite as aware, but instinctively know that something is wrong.

How did society get this way, seemingly in such a short period of time? How do these people think? What is the history of their radical, deconstructivist ideology? There are many articles but a surprising lack of definitive guides. I’m currently working on a project to remedy that situation. You can’t fight an enemy if you don’t know how.

Fortunately there is a compact, definitive, and powerful book that encapsulates some of the thought processes, tricks, and recent history (mainly the late 50’s to the 90’s) of the lunatic “social justice” left. That book is Thomas Sowell’s Vision of the Anointed.

In Vision, Sowell expands on themes regarding the contemporary left, some of which are amazingly prescient (the book was written in 1995). The major thing to understand in Vision, according to Sowell, is that there are two visions of the world, the “tragic vision,” which emphasizes the tragedy of the human condition based around incentives and trade offs (i.e.: that there is no magic bullet), and the “vision of the anointed,” which proposes magical “solutions” to problems while ignoring human behavior and allowing the said anointed to make themselves feel good in the process. Those opposing the anointed, the benighted masses, are not only wrong but morally inferior.

One thing that the book is lacking is that Sowell does not provide any solutions, but it is a nevertheless crucially important read, particularly for beginners that might not have much exposure to the red pill, Neomasculinity, or political philosophy in general.

Targets vs. Mascots

One of the anointed’s keynotes is their target vs. mascot method of judging situations. We all generally know this as the privilege vs. victim dichotomy. Sowell writes:

The ideals of “a government of laws and not of men” and “equal protection of the law” are at the heart of American constitutional law and the democratic process. Yet, increasingly, government has come to be seen as a way of benefiting particular groups adopted as mascots, often without much regard for what that does to other groups or the integrity of the system as a whole. Groups disliked, distrusted, or feared by the general public are particularly eligible to become mascots who symbolize the superior wisdom and virtue of the anointed. (pg. 149)

On the other side of the equation, you have targets:

Just as the logic of their vision guides the anointed in their choices of mascots, so it guides their selection of targets. The prime requisite for both mascots and targets is that they must distinguish the anointed from the benighted. Just as groups disdained by others become eligible to be mascots of the anointed, so groups respected by others are eligible to become targets. These include business people, physicians, and other professionals, members of religious communities, policemen, and others whose social roles or financial success engender respect or influence in the society at large. Just as the law is stretched and strained for the benefit of mascots, so it is stretched and strained to the detriment of targets. (pg. 168)

Verbal Inflation

The most common tactic that the freaks use to jockey for status is what Thomas Sowell calls “verbal inflation.” What Sowell could not have foreseen was just how prescient his words were with the contemporary power of social media. If, when the book was written, the verbal inflation game was played by devaluing the metals of the verbal coinage, today’s inflation is an endless digital stockpiling of that verbal coinage, almost turning language itself into a virtual reality:

In addition to particular words and phrases which betray the mindset of those with the prevailing vision, there is a more general tendency toward verbal inflation among the anointed. Thus ordinary vicissitudes of life become “traumas.” Any situation which they wish to change becomes a “crisis,” regardless of whether it is any worse than usual or is already getting better on its own. Verbal inflation, like monteary inflation, would have no effect if everyone understood what was happening and could adjust to it immediately. A ten-fold increase in the price level would mean nothing if everyone were free to add a zero to the sums in all contracts, laws, cash on hand, etc., and do so immediately. Inflation has an economic effect precisely because there is no such instantaneous and total flexibility. In the real world of lagging adjustments, borrowers pay back less than they owe, workers are paid less than they were promised, and the government cheats its way out of part of the national debt by paying it off in dollars that are worth less than the dollars that were borrowed. Verbal inflation likewise enables some people to cheat others. When “harassment,” “discrimination,” or even “rape” are redefined to include things going far beyond the original meanings of these words, there would be no real change if everyone understood what the inflated words now mean and neither social stigmas nor the penalties of the laws applied to the vast range of new things encompassed by these new meanings. Loading... In both cases, runaway inflation is not just a zero-sum game. Monetary inflation not only redistributes benefits but can also reduce the sum total of those benefits, by undermining the credibility of the monetary unit and with it undermining the predictability of the whole system of which it is part, causing the economy to be less productive as people restrict what they do and plan, in order to avoid vastly increased risks. For similar reasons, human relations suffer when the verbal common currency of social interaction loses its meaning and predictability, so that people now protect themselves from new risks by various ways of withdrawing from one another and reducing their cooperation. (pg. 215-16)

Remember, this was written in 1995.

The Need For Novelty

To demonstrate their superiority to the benighted masses that aren’t as smart and sophisticated as they are, the freaks have a need to flaunt their freak-ism. If they can’t be beautiful, they’ll signal their moral superiority by celebrating vulgar things under the guise that they are “new,” and they are thus “enlightened.” This is a phenomenon we are all familiar with, and so was Sowell:

The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else? In everything from avant-garde art, music, and drama to exotic animals and “radical chic” activities, the stress is on their own differences, their specialness. Consistent with this pattern of seeking differentiation at virtually all cost has been the adoption of a variety of anti-social individuals and groups as special objects of solicitude – which is, to say, special examples of the wider and loftier vision of the anointed. From multiple murderers to smelly vagrants, these anti-social elements have been adopted as mascots, much like exotic animals. The stigmas put on these mascots by the rest of society merely provide yet another occasion for the anointed to blame society itself for failing to “solve” these people’s “problems.” (pg. 248)

The Future

Sowell’s prescient warnings were dead on target:

The full dangers of the vision of the anointed cannot reveal themselves immediately. Even the anointed themselves are currently under at least the residual influence of traditional philosophical, religious, and moral inhibitions. To the extent that their vision prevails and endures, however, successive generations of the anointed will be less and less under the influence of these eroding traditional constraints, and the pure logic of their vision can operate more fully. (pg. 260)

Thomas Sowell, once again, wrote these words in 1995 – 20 years ago. As he wrote these words, a new generation was being educated by the older “anointed.”

I have remarked upon the differences between the 80’s-born Millennials (the cohort I fall into) before on the forum and on my semi-regular stream/podcast, The Bardic Circle. We both agree (as do many on the forum), that the 90’s born Millennials are far more neurotic and are the main source of SJWs. With the second half of the Millennials in particular, we seem to be seeing the fruits Sowell wrote about.

It is not a coincidence that the “social justice” freak show, or the vision of the anointed, emerged into the cultural mainstream and out of the ivory towers of the intellectuals (which Sowell was mainly discussing) at the same time that this cohort came of age.

I greatly fear that as the generation behind the Millennials comes of age, the culture will get even more detached from reality, and Sowell’s prophecy will echo with even more amplification. Even Millennials, and 90’s ones at that, had a few tempering influences – access to attention whoring technology was still limited for the overwhelming majority of their lifetimes. It is not limited now, and the generation behind them (the so-called Generation Z), grew up with it.

We must resolve to use that technology for our own ends and to be examples of a counter narrative, a counter vision. Sowell was short on offering solutions in his book – that will be on us, but nevertheless, his book is important for our side to read. We cannot fight an enemy we don’t understand, and he sheds crucial understanding in Vision.

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