Aurini On The Divergence Of Virtue

Aurini discusses the inversion of values:

There used to be a time when we understood the importance of personal virtue; where working hard, honouring one’s commitments, dealing fairly with others, and accepting responsibility for one’s mistakes were things that we celebrated – and yet we also recognized that even when the values of thrift and temperance were followed, a spate of ill fortune could devastate a person. A single mother whose husband died honourably in war might find herself in the same position as the slattern who couldn’t keep her legs closed, but where the latter is a pox upon society the former is a pillar, and deserving of what help we can render. She is the deserving poor.

The reason this phrase is so passe is because we as a society have crumbled into envy and narcissism. When we see a good woman brought low by misfortune, the knee jerk reaction in most people is not one of empathy – “There, but for the Grace of God, go I,” – rather it is a feeling of satisfaction, of schadenfreude, pleasure at seeing another suffer through no fault of their own. Meanwhile we take the slattern and raise her up, describe her single motherhood as ‘heroic’, and force others to pay for her lifestyle through socialism.

Black Lives Matter is no different. Christopher Cantwell covers the latest case coming out of Chicago: Pierre Loury, an “aspiring rapper”, shoots up some of his fellow Blacks, and then winds up getting put down by police. He is, of course, just a good boy who dindu nuffin, who’s currently undergoing beatification by the typical voices amongst Left Libertarian circles, while those Blacks who try and make something of themselves, only to be dragged back down by their ghetto friends, are ignored and laughed at…

We no longer hate people for their vices – we hate them for their virtues.

Our political rabbits and wolves have completely different operating systems installed in their brains. As a result, each is evil by the other’s metrics, according to the programs installed in their brains by the complex mix of environment, genetics, epigenetics, and whatever unknowns go into that recipe. Each, at its core, desires a completely different world, and operates with completely different goals.

This realization is mildly disturbing. As the K-shift approaches rabbits enter a hyper-neurotic ultra-rabbitized state, where even words wound them like swords. At the same time, the wolves enter a progressively more irritable state. Given that each views the other as evil, it would imply that peaceful coexistence may very well not be possible once the collapse begins.

We know rabbits have a strategy to survive this. They will turn wolves upon each other, and hope their rage is exhausted on each other while the rabbits hide. It is a strategy which sadly often works.

We need to be vigilant to it, and make sure that on this turn of the cycle we don’t fall for it. We know where our rage needs to be focused.