Sometimes
I think that I may be too unfair in my harsh criticism of modern American
society, picking on its human degradation, out of a whole bunch of
nations spread all over the earth, both vertically at present, and horizontally
over the centuries. One compelling reason of my reproachful bias is my sad disillusionment
in what had indeed been an illusion all along: my “great expectations”
of America’s spiritual greatness, much admired from afar, yet collapsing, at
close range.
I
expected honesty, but found hypocrisy. I expected intellectual liberty, but
found the worst type of slavery imaginable, when the slave has no clue as to “what is his true condition” (using Pascal’s
phrase). I expected an open mind, but found a bigot…
In
my earlier life, I should have been better prepared for my later life. In other
words, I ought to have been reading Nietzsche with a greater comprehension. I
wish my mentors had done a better job in organizing the list of my required
reading, both in terms of its general scope and with regard to the specific
focus of my effort. As a matter of fact, Nietzsche does have the right
answers. I could have been so “rich,” if only I had known where to
strike oil!
Look
what one little acre of land could have done to my fortunes. I am referring to
a remarkable passage in Nietzsche’s On the Advantage and Disadvantage of
History for Life, Section 5, which is itself, the Second Essay in
his Unzeitgemäßen.
“One should think that history would encourage men to be honest,
even if it were to be an honest fool, and it has always had this effect, but no
longer!” …In this splendid context I would not at all mind
getting the title of an “honest fool” myself, but not when it becomes a
lame excuse for one’s pathological naiveté. The bottom line is that I should
have known, and I refused to know it! “Historical education
and the universal frock of the citizen rule at the same time.” Am I
getting a distinctive flavor of what has degenerated into the Globalist hubris
of today? That is what civilization can do to society, when its good is
unceremoniously trivialized, and its ugly downside allowed to metastasize! “While there has never been such sonorous talk of the ‘free
personality,’ one doesn’t even see personalities, not to speak of free ones (what
a glorious indictment of Western Civilization in its “twilight’s last
gleaming”!) -- rather nothing, but timidly
disguised universal men. The individual has withdrawn into his inner being:
externally one discerns nothing of him anymore.” (Hypocrisy of the
civilized dissimulator versus the honesty of a naïve fool,--- no contest!)
And
now comes the clincher...
“In how unworthy a condition must the most sincere of all sciences,
the honest naked goddess philosophy, find herself in an age which suffers from
general education! In such a world of forced external uniformity she remains a
learned monologue of the lonely walker, the chance prey of the solitary
thinker, a hidden private secret or harmless gossip of academic old men and
children. No one lives philosophically. (!) All modern philosophizing is political and official,
limited to learned appearance by governments, churches, academies, customs, and
the cowardices of men.”
When
I talk about the great crisis, or rather, the great collapse of modern
philosophy, I should be paying more attention to Nietzsche, to put my wishful
thinking in perspective. Having lived a whole century-plus after Nietzsche, one
might have thought that history has not stood still all this time. But, in
effect, it has! For, we are dealing with general laws governing the course of
civilizations, and with the immutability of human nature.
But
all this has not yet explicitly answered the original question of why one
should pick on America, when one’s deep disillusionment with his own illusions
is his fault, to begin with?
The
answer is short and simple. America today is the epitome and the chief promoter
of everything that is wrong with human civilization. I am blaming myself for
the naïveté of my illusions, but the alternative to such illusions is a despair
in the general progress of humanity, a defeat of Hegel’s idealistic optimism. I
can see only one nation in the world that can counteract the downward spiral of
the Geist, with its positive alternative. Russia alone has the physical
and intellectual power to demonstrate to the whole world how its pathetic “free
personality” model has fallen apart, because this so-called personality
freedom is a malicious fiction, spread by those who wish to enslave all fools
who believe in it. The time has come to turn the tide of mischief and decay,
embodied in the free personality déjà vu, and present the world with the
alternative, consciously unfree personality, which alone recognizes the
historical hoax of the freedom-sayers, and can alone overcome the
deception of freedom by countering it with the only real freedom there
is: the freedom to choose your own unfreedom, in this case, choosing the
unbreakable bond tying each citizen to his or her nation, culture, tradition,
heritage, in other words, ridding the world’s psyche of its free personality
delusions and repopulating the world with true patriots, each pledging allegiance
to his or her own nation, rather than to some bogus abstract ideas, used to
confuse and indoctrinate, while serving no practical positive purpose.
Why
Russia alone? I have already talked about it elsewhere. Only a historically
unfree nation can truly understand what freedom is, both as a desideratum when
sought, and as a monster when gained. And only Russia can elevate this understanding
to the superpower, supranational level…
It
remains to be seen, of course, whether Russia is up to this challenge, which
may or may not be the case. But having seen Russia both from the inside and
from afar, I sincerely hope that my belief in her is much more than just
another illusion. In case my hope for Russia is justified, it extends to the
United States as well, for, the best possible outcome in such a case can never
be one-sided, but, paraphrasing the famous saying, it is born out of a
constructive argument arising from a healthy rivalry among peers.
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