Aztec Blues: Myth of Overpopulation as Politically Correct Human Sacrifice
In this podcast we take a look at the familiar theme of political correctness from seemingly unusual position: i.e. from the Left. By referring to passages from Guido Preparata‘s book Ideology of Tyranny claiming that myth of overpopulation cuts through both extremes of political spectrum, we expound upon the idea that the common core of contemporary darkening of the intellect indeed exists.
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Note:
As we have received objections on Guido Preparata being tendentious about his choice and interpretation of passages he quotes, we point out some objections on his reference to Ernst Jünger as neo-Malthusian from the passage in the introduction of his podcast, courtesy of Mihai Marinescu:
“Aldous Huxley created his famous dystopian novel Brave New World upon such anoligarchic hypothesis. Thus, for Jünger, Malthus and Huxley were “intelligentEnglishmen.”In one of the chapters the main character is presented by another one (who is on the same side as he) with a sort of utopia whose main condition is population control. The main charcter discusses later on with Father Foelix (mentioned above) these very plans and the question of population control. Here is what he has to say (again this hermit is the spiritual counsellor of the main character who all in all represents Jünger):Die Zeugung ist stets von Schuld begleitet und mehrt die Übel dieser Welt. Daher ist es verdienstvoll, wenn man sich enthält. Schon (Der Heilige) Paulus hat darüber das Nötige gesagt (Ok, I admit that this is excessive and I do not agree even with this view, but do remember that Jünger is at an early stage in his conversion, MM). Doch wird man fehlen (same as “sünden”, to sin), wenn man menschliche Pläne aussint, sei es um die Geburten zu vermindern, sei es um sie zu steigern zum Zwecke der Übermacht. Das führt zur Herrschaft der Hygiene, die vielleicht unsichtbarer, doch schrecklicher als die der blutigen Tyrannis ist. Das ist der Weg der Schriftt für Schritt zur überlegten Tötung führt, zum vollen Triumphe der Ökonomie. And further on: nur kann im Menschenreiche allein das Opfer und nicht der Plan bestimmend sein.As you can see here, the overall feeling is anti-eugenicist and anti-malthusian.
Branko Malić
If you are looking for a right wing malthusianism, look no further than Savitri Devi, her Impeachment of Man in particular.
“Our ideal world, entirely free from all forms of exploitation of animals; our world, in which man would both feel himself morally compelled to help all living creatures and have every power to do so; in which the rights of vegetable life itself would be recognized and respected as far as possible; our world, we say, seems bound to remain a dream so long as the number of human beings is not brought to a minimum — a few score million only; perhaps a few hundreds of thousands on earth — and made to remain stationary (…)”
Poor Maximine unapologetically chose the wrong political mythology – Nazis were essential Devil in the myth of post-WWII world. So her ideas could never subvert the mainstream in the way Heidegger’s or Foucault’s did. Besides, she would spare the animals. Not edgy enough.
Hahah well she is but a soft headed woman who melts when she sees a kitten. I was mostly thinking about Mihai’s argument about Jünger. If he doesn’t fit the bill, there are others who do.
That said, you say that the left has been destroyed by political correctness more than any other political option. How so, care to elaborate?
Because it was channeled through Left. Webster Tarpley talked about the Sixties when he saw first hand how traditional American left issues at university were discarded by postmodernist inspired radicals. Preparata himself is a leftist and he flatly rejects the whole thing. And now, as PC is branded as absolutely leftist thing, the whole political spectrum of the Left is open to casus belli from the Right, which is what happened with the election of Trump to a large extent. I consider PC to be far deeper and ominous thing and agree with Preparata that it is in fact one of various forms of subversion aimed at igniting chaos and erasing the belief in any kind of substantially existing virtues and principles.
The gist of it is that only possible communication is through competing power relations that cannot be reconciled even in theory. So you have to have an infinite diversity of groups fighting the system of “white falusocratic dominance” and each other: something we already witnessed in splintering of movements like feminism, black lives matter, etc.
As for Mihai’s objection, here I only included the part related to the passage I quoted. He had more to say about other passages on Junger and its rather damning for Preparata’s academic acumen. Doesn’t make him flat out wrong in principle: things he wrote on Heidegger I agree more or less completely, for instance. But I noticed he’s prone to such escapades of generalization and eschewing of facts. He has a book on Hitler with the thesis that Anglo-Saxon finance was crucial factor for his coming into power. Haven’t read a lot of it, but what he says about Sarajevo assassination is clearly not researched.
Also, other people noted that he tends to mold Bataille into collaborating his thesis. Not that Bataille is someone one should exculpate but you just don’t do that when you write a serious book.
Ah so you mean that the left has been hijacked by PC and destroyed in the process? That’s an interesting way of looking at it, I see the logic. However the left is in my opinion naturally open to PC due to it’s tendency toward equality (in outcome, even) which is unnatural from start so introduction of extreme nominalism, as you once defined PC, comes as a completely reasonable next step. So I can’t see how it deserves any sympathy, the left’s equation with PC is really quite well deserved even if it doesn’t completely satisfy the definitions of these terms. The sincere, old school leftists complaining about PC are in my eyes the proverbial children being eaten by their own revolution.
Hey, don’t talk smack about my dear Savitri, every naughty fantasy I have about Hitler usually involves her and some combination of ropes, whips and hot wax candles.
“The sincere, old school leftists complaining about PC are in my eyes the proverbial children being eaten by their own revolution.”
Completely agree with Ante on this.
Dostoievski’s novel “Demons” offers eloquent examples of how the lukewarmness of one generation spawns the demons of the next.