Submitted by: Lisa Richards
Why is Man His Greatest Threat?
From August 3, 2009
There is danger lurking inside movements toward change. Change for the good is virtuous, but what if change appears good but in effect hides an end result destructive to civilization? What if revolutionizing modifies good, transforming it toward an alteration all live to regret? What if the greatest threat to freedom is in fact man turning freedom into enslavement via mass movements?
“…many who join a rising revolutionary movement are attracted by the prospect of sudden and spectacular change…”[1] We saw this during the 1950’s and early 1960’s in Cuba. Cubans desperate to free themselves from Batista’s oppression were conned by the charismatic Castro brothers. Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks roused poor and starving Russians desperate for democracy, overthrew the czar, assassinated the Russian royal family and overpowered Russians who never experienced freedom in their 1000 year history. Lenin’s Marxist communism was able to take hold and eventually usher in the era of Stalin.
Weimar’s economic collapse was used by Adolf Hitler to foster Anti-Semitism toward Germans of Jewish ancestry, convincing Germans that Jews were thriving prosperously while the rest of the nation was bankrupt. A group of angry Confederate soldiers created a secret society, attacking freed black slaves after the Civil War. The Ku Klux Klan went on a rampage of change from the late 1800’s to the late 1920’s, using blacks as their excuse to create a mass movement of fear and death. Hugo Chavez, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amen, Sudanese war lords, Jim Jung Il, Mao, and more have amassed movements of people for change leading to enslavement and death.
Human beings want to be free. Freedom means different things to each nation’s people. The Soviets had difficulty accepting western democracy after Glasnost was freely given. The fall of the Eastern Block did not have the effect westerners assumed. Tearing down the Berlin Wall opened the world but did not usher in capitalism to people who never knew the concept and could not understand how private ownership creates independence. People used to control can’t instantaneously grasp autonomy. In the long run Russia returned power to the Kremlin and the EU is socialist. Capitalism is not desired. A mass movement by one group did not transfer Eastern Europe from communism to capitalism. In the case of Russia, the people are willingly reverting backward toward what Vladimir Putin refers to as “the glory days of old mother Russia:” “A glorification of the past can serve as a means to belittle the present.”[2]
Why would Russia reject capitalism for Putin’s return to communism? Because Gorbachev’s Perestroika collapsed the Soviet economy already in deep decline. Yeltsin knew nothing about economics, as a result Russia was bankrupt: “The ‘new poor,’ who throb with ferment of frustration …are the disinherited and dispossessed who respond to every rising mass movement.”[3]
Putin not only understands his people’s mindset, he is one of the smartest economic leaders, because, Putin is also a ruthless charismatic who understands how to move people to follow his leadership despite its lack of freedom. Putin played on Russia’s economic fears by fixing them: he paid off Russia’s national debt, creating an oil economy fashioning vast wealth for many Russians. The Russian people do not see democracy as free, rather poor: “Those who would transform a nation or the world cannot do so by breeding and captaining discontent…They must know how to kindle and fan extravagant hope.”[4] Russians chose to say no to capitalism because they view it as a false hope they have been told for centuries is corrupt. Russia truly has never known anything but manipulation. The change preferred by Russia is organized hegemony.
“The superior individual, whether in politics, literature, science, commerce and industry, plays a large role in shaping a nation…”
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
Is nationalism dangerous? It depends on how it takes hold. To love one’s country and countrymen is noble. To desire defending one’s nation and people is moral. If taken to the extremes, as seen in Nazi Germany and Lenin’s Russia, it becomes deadly. Nationalism leads to mass movements for the good or lethal. Hoffer looked at nationalism and how it affects all. He said “The discarded and rejected are often the raw material of a nation’s failure.”[5] Further, “A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly…”[6] Isn’t that how many on the left believe? Many in fact think ridding a nation of what they deem dregs creates a better nation of greater people.
What if this creation reverses itself to nationalism on the opposite end of the pride spectrum to that of feeling superior to others? It leads to disaster as seen in the Third Reich.
Movements shape nations. How societies comes forth and advances is crucial. Hoffer discussed movements of self-sacrifice. To be selfless is worthy. All should seek to think of others above themselves: “…in time of crisis, when the nation’s existence is threatened…”[7]the desire for self-sacrifice to save and protect is worthy. When we seek to put others first, we are moving toward better change. If however we sacrifice our nation and others around us for our own desires, we destroy. Is the fighting and dying to save or is it blindly following a movement that “…separates the individual from his flesh-and-blood self…”[8] Is self-sacrifice born on love or fanaticism? The problem is one can in fact lead to the other if emotions are not checked and ideologies not placed properly.
The problem with self-sacrifice is when it leads to dangerous forms of nationalism. Hoffer noted self-sacrifice also takes place in prison camps when people struggle to survive. The strongest are those who resist due to “…the individual’s identification with a group.”[9] Hoffer said it is not individuality but being a member of a group of individuals that has made people facing annihilation survivors.[10] Breaking a person’s spirit however has the opposite effect.[11] Breaking the spirit may not leave the victor powerful for long. Eventually those brutalized rise up if they find strength in each other, or, if an individual becomes filled with rage to kill those who crushed and destroyed their life. A mass movement can arise that is deadly when the assaulted gain inner strength. If hate augments, people seek to destroy just as horribly as their oppressor.
Many movements have come out of groups whose lives were miserable. They “…depict the present as mean and miserable… [and they will] deliberately make it so”[12] in order to create a situation to move the masses in a “campaign against the present.”[13] When people are convinced they live in terrible times, under appalling circumstances, they can be convinced failure is not their fault but that of the government. This fosters people to group into movements against their nation and those they are made to believe hold them down.[14] This situation may be true, or it may be the false creation by one group against the establishment, seeking revenge by inventing hate in people who are angry at “…the present and all its works…”[15]
As Hoffer notes, some people take joy in encouraging false moods of disgruntlement.[16] Such movements are dangerous to man. False hope or false moods can set up riots if not examined for the lie they are. On the other hand this counterfeit optimism can set people up for poverty.
Mass movements instigating self-sacrifice often generate racism, anger and jealousy toward wealth, nationalism against one’s fellow countrymen, and fanaticism seen in Islam fostering hatred toward those who do not adhere to Islam or Muslims stepping out of the inner-circle to associate with “infidels.” “A fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure.”[17] Herein lay the danger: insecurity does breed hate in many. When this sets up movements by others feeling the same lack of confidence and diffidence, these units rise against those they view as threats to their identity which they actually self-loath. These factions want revenge on people who never did anything accept live and breathe and gain success insecure people did not attain. The insecure with hate resent others for having. This fosters threats to mankind if not caught before it erupts.
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