Channeling Resentment as a Mark of Successful Politics


Never ask, “Oh, why were things so much better in the old days?” It's not an intelligent question. —Ecclesiastes 7:10

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. —Henry David Thoreau 

The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. —Adolf Hitler


     The whole predicament starts with the First Noble Truth of Buddhism: to exist is to suffer. With the possible metaphysical exceptions of a few fully enlightened beings, everybody is unhappy to some degree. Presumably even enlightened beings suffer physical pain and sickness; and even Gotama Buddha is said to have entered meditative “absorption” states in his final illness to tolerate more easily the racking pains he experienced.

     This applies not only to us earthly creatures—humans and conscious nonhuman animals—but of necessity to all sentient beings in the entire phenomenal universe, including those inhabiting the highest heaven realms. Presumably this is based, at least in part, on the idea that any “being” believing that it is a “self” distinct from the entire rest of the universe, necessarily involves delusion, a sort of mental illness and lack of awareness of infinite perfection. Also I have hypothesized that in order for any being to exist in time, that is, to experience change over time, which presumably would be required for any being to be conscious in a more or less human sense, it would require some kind of chronic dissatisfaction or unease driving us forwards from one conscious moment to the next.

     But regardless of the reasons why we suffer, the fact remains that all of us do suffer—from boredom or a fleeting worry that the happy times will end if from nothing more serious. Furthermore, to aggravate the situation, most people are ignorant of the Second Noble Truth, namely the idea that all suffering is caused by desire, which is a volitional state, and therefore all suffering is ultimately unnecessary and self-inflicted. (Even leftist western Buddhists have difficulty accepting this, since they appear to have been converted to the cultural Marxist dogma that suffering is really caused by social injustice and systemic oppression.) Everyone suffers, and always will suffer, no matter which social, political, and economic system is in place, no matter how many diseases get cured, no matter how comfortable their surroundings are, no matter what. Some people suffer more than others, but we all suffer.

     So because of the almost universal ignorance of the Second Noble Truth, with its corollary that suffering is ultimately volitional, self-inflicted, and unnecessary, people want to blame something or someone other than themselves for their own unhappiness. They want to blame their boss, or the government, or straight white men, or the Jews, or a dysfunctional family member, or Capitalism, or Socialism, or the weather, or whatever, for their own unhappy refusal to accept The Way Things Are.

     This is a big reason why colonialism pretty much ended during the twentieth century. Young men especially, who tend to be restless and prone to prideful anger, were raised to a high enough standard of living by the British and French especially that they no longer had despotic kings and hunger to inspire misery within their hearts, so they adopted the convenient rationalization of colonial oppression to account for their own chronic unhappiness. “We are unhappy because we are second-class citizens in our own nation! We are unhappy because we are not independent and foreigners are robbing and oppressing us! We are unhappy because we can’t vote!” was their comforting belief, ignoring the First and Second Noble Truths and the fact that they would be unhappy regardless, and also ignoring that overall most of them were better off, and probably had more human rights, as subjects of Queen Victoria.

     They blamed their own self-generated, self-inflicted dissatisfaction with reality on the idea that they were not “independent,” although history has shown that being a colony certainly can have its advantages. A classic example of beneficial colonization is the relative prosperity of ancient Britannia under the Romans; and Burma under the British was the richest country in Southeast Asia, and after independence it quickly became the poorest…although it is human nature to ignore history, as well as to be chronically dissatisfied.

     A great, or at least a successful leader persuades the populace that they are unhappy because of “THIS,” and that with some sacrifice and due patriotic obedience he will ensure that “THIS” will be defeated and they will then live happily ever after. This is not too difficult because pretty much everybody is unhappy to some extent and is inclined to blame something outside himself for his unease. Also people are conformist social animals who too often simply believe what they are told to believe. All the government has to do is to get everyone (or enough of them) focused on something unpleasant sufficiently that they see THIS as their main problem. Also I may as well add that clever rulers of the past have unified their people against some outward scapegoat in large part to prevent them from unifying against the rulers themselves. A truly great leader tends to be a charismatic one whom people implicitly trust when he tells them that they are unhappy because of “THIS”—or, if he his fortunate, the nation really will have some obvious enemy against whom it is easy to unify the people.

     Conservatives talk about how America started turning to shit, with the Republican establishment energetically participating, around thirty years ago. It is no coincidence that this corresponds with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. One of the main reasons why America was so prosperous during the twentieth century is that it was unified against Communism as the common enemy. But after the commie scum was “defeated,” more or less, the common enemy against whom the people were united evaporated; and it was gradually replaced by the bogeyman of the globalist Brave New World Order, the straight white male. Even a lot of indoctrinated, spineless, culturally emasculated straight white males have been on board with this. The new left especially began the socially and culturally self-destructive unification of half the population of the west (the less productive, less strong, less rational half) against the other (consisting primarily of the same white male demographic that created and maintained the civilization for millennia). Chronically unhappy leftists embraced the new scapegoat because, of course, the Marxist element of their belief system is spiritually dead and insists that human unhappiness comes from outside oneself, when of course really it doesn’t.

     Then along came Donald Trump, who had enough charisma and enough political intuition (and enough intelligence to see plain facts) to unite half the nation of America against the corrupt globalist establishment bent on selling out the nation to socialized globalism. The common enemy wasn’t some foreign enemy, it was the ruling class itself! Obviously, the corrupt establishment could not tolerate this focusing of resentment against themselves, regardless of how merited it was…and so they managed to unite the other half of the population against the President of their own freaking country. It wasn’t just that the corporate multinational establishment, with globalist politicians on the payroll, rigged the 2020 election; the entire corrupt system was rigged against him from before the day of his inauguration in 2017. They raged against him with cynical and/or hysterical fury, and were willing to stoop to dishonest, illegal, and utterly despicable Machiavellian means to get him out of the way, so they could unify the people against anyone or anything but their own sorry asses. I must admit, it is understandable.

     Trump’s famous statement that the establishment Swamp wasn’t really out to get him, but rather they were out to get the citizens of the USA, with Trump merely being in their way, is largely true. They used much of the same propaganda-induced hysteria against Trump (“he’s racist! he’s a misogynist! he’s a Nazi white supremacist! he’s evil!) that they used, and continue to use, against the stereotyped bogeyman Whitey.

     Nevertheless, ultimately, all politicians capitalizing on the chronic unhappiness of the common person are engaging in deception, since nothing that they do, or can do, will ever result in a truly happy populace. The best they can do along these lines is to promote wisdom and peace of mind in the people, although as a rule they are unable to do it because they lack it themselves. And this is especially true of the ones whipping up hysteria and hatred against their own national heritage, and their own civilization.



Comments

  1. "Furthermore, to aggravate the situation, most people are ignorant of the Second Noble Truth, namely the idea that all suffering is caused by desire,"

    There are none more ignorant of this than orthodox Buddhists who have changed the 2nd noble truth to "all suffering is caused by believing you exist." As if believing you don't exist makes you stop desiring. All those sex-addicted lamas and so-called monks who believe they don't exist yet still sexually assault their students, proves that denial of self leads to more lust not less. Time to go back to the original 2nd noble truth that lust is the cauae of suffering and drop the lying claims that belief in a self is the cause.

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    1. I am unaware of ANY orthodox Buddhists who have changed the 2nd Noble Truth to mean the cause of suffering is believing you exist...unless it is with regard to the alternate approach, also attested in the oldest suttas, that suffering is ultimately caused by ignorance/delusion or else perception. And it's not simply lust even in the original 4 Noble Truths: the cause is tanha, literally meaning "thirst," and usually rendered as "craving." The term is different from the word usually translated as "lust" or "passion" which is rāga. But in the earliest texts belief in ANYTHING is discouraged, self or no self.

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    2. "But in the earliest texts belief in ANYTHING is discouraged, self or no self."

      That's very interesting, and consistent with Evola's claim that the Buddha did not categorically deny the existence of the self.

      Does this extend to belief/disbelief in (literal) rebirth?

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    3. The very early admonitions to refrain from ANY belief, any perception, any view, applied to ANY philosophical belief, including belief in a self or rebirth. Just because the Buddha discouraged belief in no self as well as self does not mean that he was encouraging some kind of crypto self view.

      (And a certain anonymous is getting so sneering and arrogant against the compilers of the early Buddhist texts that I do not post the most ridiculous and disrespectful of his attempts to assert that the Buddha taught self view.)

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  2. You can't post what I said about the Sanjaya connection to Sariputta and Mahamoggalana and it explains the non-commitalism because its true and you can't refute the truth.

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    1. No it wasn't that, it was the name-calling against the early Theras after whom Theravada was named. The skepticism of Sanjaya was not the same as the Buddha's realization that concepts cannot contain the highest truth. There is a difference between not knowing and knowing but realizing that the knowledge cannot be expressed in words.

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    2. The skepticism of Sanjaya is "I don't think in that way. I don't think otherwise. I don't think not. I don't think not not." I.e. the four-fold negation that you get in the idiotic claim that you can't say when Buddha goes to parinibbana that he ceases, continues, both ceases and continues, nor neither ceases nor continues. The four-fold negation attributed to Nagarjuna was originally developed by Sanjaya, and how the hell did it get in the Pali canon? All suttas that use it are blashpemy against Gotama.

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  3. I think colonialism is a bad thing, even if the people were more rich at this time. I think also that the USA, France, England and Belgium now get their actions back as karma. I dont say this to be spiteful! Germany has the same problem with mass illegal Immigration. Thanks to Merkel and the stupid majority of the german people in good faith. t.me/buddhawarrechts

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  4. Yes, Trump presented himself as a non-political, but he was actually the worst of them. He promised the protesters on 1/6 that he'd March with them to the Capitol, but he ran back to the white house. Lying punk!

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    1. If you think he's worse or more dishonest than Biden, Obama, and W I've got a big gold plated pagoda in Rangoon that I'll sell you cheap.

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  5. How much for the pagoda? Do I have to buy it in food since you can't handle money?

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  6. That previous Anonymous is a different guy. I'll walk back my evaluation of Trump a bit. If we compare body counts, then yeah, W comes in first-worst, Obama and then Trump, I guess...

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  7. This is what I post on the internet for random unsuspecting strangers to read:

    The Four Chad Truths

    - Suffering is an innate characteristic of existence.

    - Craving is the root cause of suffering.

    - Ending suffering can be attained by ending craving.

    - There is a path to ending craving and suffering.

    http://buddhanet.net/audio-lectures.htm

    http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/What%20the%20Buddha%20Taught_Rahula.pdf

    If someone understands those, they will be bound for liberation. From there, things will sort themselves out one way or another. The more people understand them, the faster the process will potentially be. Spread the truth brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, etc.

    There is no greater gift than The Dhamma! Glorious Theravada Buddhism for the Imperium of Man! Lord Buddha has discovered the way! Take refuge in The Three Jewels! Become deathless! For the deathless, there is no death!

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  8. " and Burma under the British was the richest country in Southeast Asia, and after independence it quickly became the poorest".....I feel this statement has been constructed to potray a false reality..not that objectively it is true or not...Back in 1930s and 40s...all of SE Asia save Thailand was under colonial domination...your statement tries to imply that somehow the British were responsible for Burma's apparent prosperity...conveniently forgetting the fact that REAL GDP per capita in British times was still many several times smaller than during the times of independence...sure Burma may be relatively poorer compared to other SE Asian countries today than it was in 1940s, but it is still doing much much better that what it was doing under British rule...and that Burma could not keep up with other SE Asian countries after independence shows the ingenuinity of other SE Asian nations, not the greatness of British rule.....especially those of the likes of Thailand that avoided Colonoal domination...today Thailand sits at comfortable 8,000 US Dollars GDP per capita

    I hope you avoid these sort of blindspots in the future just to reinforce your deepset ideological beliefs..I will chalk this one up to honest mistake


    By 1980s, even the most corrupt of government in Myanmar had already overtaken British Burma in terms of GDP per capita

    https://clio-infra.eu/Countries/Myanmar.html

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    1. Although it is true that when lower Burma was a British colony and upper Burma was still under the rule of Burmese kings, there was a steady migration (or so I have read) of Burmese people from upper to lower because of the much greater economic prosperity there, as well as greater civil rights. The British were capable and relatively humane administrators, and the Burmese after independence certainly were not. For many years Burma hardly even had an economy, and I know because I lived there for more than twenty years. The idea that Burma (and many other former colonies) were better off overall under the British is simply an observation, and nowhere near one of my deepest ideological beliefs. As a person of Indian ancestry you may have more of an ideological and/or emotional axe to grind than I do on this issue.

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    2. You changed the topic of discussion from the original point which is Burma being the richest country in SE Asia under the British and the poorest since independence...I simply pointed out that this statement hides important truths about the relative economic performances of different nations post decolonization

      I may have earned say 100 rupees under an invading government and my neighbour also under an invading government may have earned 90...which would make me richer or richest... but after independence I earn 500 rupees and my neighbour 1000 rupees...yes I am the poorer or poorest in the independent era...but my lot is still better than under foreign occupation

      Regarding being a prisoner to ideological beliefs, may be that applies the same to you given that you steered the blog more into the territory of white triumphalism/white identitarianism (not that I mind) rather than to that of Buddhism..and to reinforce the white triumphalism theme of the blog you made that observation rgearding Colonial British Empire...An observation that deserved a second look from another side backed up with hard real world data from historical databases..

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    3. The point I was making with regard to colonialism was not directed entirely at non-whites. The same principles applied to Germans, Greeks, Moors, Armenians, and Jews under the Roman Empire. The principle is the same: people are unhappy, they prefer to blame some outward circumstance other than themselves for it, and if they are under the governance of people perceived as outsiders they want to blame the outsiders for their unhappiness. It's essentially the same principle that is exploited (mostly unknowingly) by Communists, anarchists, feminists, and radical environmentalists too.

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    4. Sure but using Colonial Burma was a major faux pas on your part, when the data doesnot back it up....within 35 years of independence, Independent Burma matched and then wholly exceeded the economic performance of Colonial Burma on an INDIVIDUAL basis...............Almost all former colonies in South and SOuth East Asia foundered in the first decade or two after independence, but they quickly steadied themselves and exceeded even the very best economic years under colonialism by many folds...Facts and data are your friends in this regard

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    5. If you want to believe that Burma was better off under a brutal and incompetent military dictatorship, with almost no economy to speak of, than under the British Raj, then that's your call. The very idea that the economy was better after independence than before it seems obviously out of touch with reality to me, considering that I lived there and saw the utter brutality and incompetence of the Burmese government for many years.

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    6. You didnot live there during British times..so you have no reference point...sure from an American who was enconscned in premier first world lifestyle it would look like a country with no economy...but facts on the ground speak that Burma has done economically better than it ever did under the British..this inspite of many sanctions

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    7. Yeah well you didn't live there at all. In fact you didn't even live in India in colonial times, so by your own standards you have no reference point either. You have an emotional axe to grind against colonialism, which you have expressed just about every time colonialism is mentioned on this blog. But the fact remains that the British ran Burma much more humanely and efficiently than the Burmese military ever did. Probably even sub-Saharan African countries torn by civil wars and dictatorships are making more money now than they did under the relatively peaceful rule of some European colonialists, going with modern economic statistics and a European infrastructure set up by the colonialists. How about the Aryan invasion of India? Do you consider that to be BAD BAD BAD also? That was colonialism too you know.

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    8. Well we have all historical indicators of well being and economic development..and we can always compare them against eachother.....We can only go by facts that are audited and certified by third parties...I have kept the discussion civil and on point

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