A Nihilist's Thoughts
I believe in nothing.
Throughout history, the single thing which has killed more people than any of their other inventions combined is ideology. As soon as one individual decides to stop thinking and start believing, beware. You will instantaneously be pushed into a decision ‘Join us, or become our enemy’. That is, stop your own process of thought and, in the process, become another mindless automaton, or decide to take the other path. The other path offers the prospect of years of name-calling, humiliation, degradation, and, ultimately, assassination. Which do you choose?
What if we make the danger more real? What if you were a moderate Hutu in Rwanda during the early 90’s? Your choice then becomes, become a member of the Hutu Power, a group responsible for a higher frequency of murder, rape and mutilation than the Nazi state (yet, strangely, their leaders are not painted as anti-Christs), or decide that you, like almost everyone else in the population, cannot actually tell the difference between Hutu and Tutsi. Maybe you are averse to the idea of exterminating an entire people based on the musings of the barking-mad Englishman, John Hanning Speke. The unfortunate reality of this situation is that, by deciding to let Tutsis live, you have sentenced yourself to die. Which would you choose?
Have you ever argued with a Zionist? A similar polarisation occurs there. Are you for the Israeli free-state, or are you a racist (no less the devil than Adolph Hitler himself)? In genocide, no concessions are made for peace. Once a people has chosen for the death of another group or subculture or race, who are you to tell them to stop? Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the other side of the debate is any better. The Palestinians have killed as well, but at east if I argue with them, they don’t accuse me of racism.
What is wrong in all cases of war, or genocide (or even an argument between neighbours over the height of a fence) is that both groups have stopped thinking and start believing. They cease to size up the situation rationally, and instead, become convinced that their way is the only way. Ideologues appear to sell you their cause in the same way a used car salesman always sells you the most marked-up hunk of junk. Invariably, what they are actually selling you is not a product you must have in order to live. What they are selling you is a only a set of beliefs. They are instructing you in the ways to believe. Why should you need to believe? Why should you need to ascribe to their postmodern, inevitably narrow, view to create, think and live? People thought a long time before any ideology, and others, who have seen through each ideology, will continue to think after it has faded away, so why should you buy?
Strangely enough, like the car bought off the used car salesman, ideologies never deliver on their promises.
Think of Communism for a moment. When Marx and Engel penned their manifesto, they pushed the idea that a state based on equality and respect between humans would grant a kind of Utopia to all that dwelled within its borders. When Communism finally hit reality, what happened? Was the USSR a Utopia, or a nightmare? Why do you think this happened? Personally, I believe that it failed because Communism, at it’s very core, was based on a flawed concept. The ideology was, as such, completely impractical. The root cause could well have been that human beings are not programmed to think of each other as equals. We just aren’t wired that way. We are wired to dominate, and be dominated. As soon as you place two people in a room, a dynamic forms. Now, you need not see a dynamic that is overtly dominating, but, within seconds, you can spot the differences between the two people. In a tribal sense, these differences would dictate breeding rights, power as a decision maker, special skills that can or cannot be learned. Any of these differences could mean the difference between survival and death, or, in the less melodramatic environment, poverty and wealth. Now I ask you, how can an ideology which would fail between two individuals, be at all functional in a state of millions of individuals? This isn’t a unique case. Ideologies fail every single day (‘We need to kill them because they have weapons which could be used against us. Now, are you with us, or are you one of them?’)
Which ideologies have no flaws?
Justice is by no means blind. Justice is lead by the hand of people who are, like any others, liable to be swayed by a good argument or an especially shocking act. Even the purveyors of Justice have trouble agreeing on the reason it exists. If its point is to deter repeat offences, why don’t we just put every criminal to death after their second offence? If its point is to deter potential criminals, why do we not just brainwash every human being to the point that they are unable to even conceive the idea of committing a criminal act. If it is to grant the victim revenge, then why has most of the Western world (at least with regard to domestic acts, international politics is a different matter altogether) abandoned the idea of ‘an eye for and eye’? )?
I have been focussing on the mainstream culture so far, but consider the canon of the counter-culture. Aside from having one of the most absurd descriptors ever invented (Is the counter-culture not a culture of its own? Therefore, isn’t it, by definition, against itself on principle?), the counter-culture is easily as flawed. I almost prefer mainstream paranoia about ‘illegal immigrant terrorists’. At least the purveyors of that message are crap at seeming rational. It’s easier to see through the irrational.
Greenpeace advocates will argue until they are blue in the face for saving endangered species, for saving those who cannot save themselves. In this case, consider Darwinian theory. Does the survival of the fittest have any limitations? Doesn’t it say that creature that cannot keep up with the times will be wiped out? With that concept in mind, why should a creature that would be wiped out, be saved? I will grant that the wiping out of these species is a short-sighted approach. Undoubtedly, once all but a few species are left, the major animal populations will start dying out. My first principle is this:
If the human population is a naturally all-consuming force—if its propensity is, and always has been, towards destruction—why shouldn’t it too be wiped out?
Dinosaurs were as unique as humans—more so, they were all different species—and they died out when the conditions changed. Life went on, for other creatures. Should humans be saved when the conditions change, even if, especially if the change in conditions is entirely their responsibility?
Locusts over-run a region. They consume everything and give back nothing. We are sad for the other species that are destroyed during their reign, but are we sad for the locusts when they begin to starve and eventually disappear? No. Of course we aren’t.
So what makes us so fucking special?