BEYOND GOOD And EVIL, THERE IS NECESSITY…
Why do civilizations collapse?
Invasion, internal collapse or an ecological calamity, or a combination therefrom.
Invasion and internal collapse are two aspects of the same thing: evil exerted by men on other men.
There is a name for it: PLUTOCRACY… Evil-Power, in the most general sense.
Plutocracy, not even the climate calamity, is the greatest threat to humanity, always has been, and always will be… Plutocracy, in its full sense of Pluto-Kratia, Evil-Power… Not just wealth-power… Why? Because plutocracy is designed that way. Plutocracy is not just a crime of opportunity. It corresponds to a deeper instinct (for want of a better concept or word).
Plutocracy musters an instinct of apoptosis of humanity, killing excess or rogue humanity… Plutocracy is not just a wealthy oligarchy. It is a deliberately evil oligarchy, keen to impose mass death, whether it realizes it, or not.
Humanity, as it evolved, enshrined into genetics, epigenetics, even phenotype, deep mechanisms which enabled it to survive as a species. And what is the greatest danger to humanity?… Ecological destruction, as inflicted by… humanity itself.
That is how evil arose. That is how evil generated by humanity against humanity arose: as a control mechanism. Humanity, to control humanity, has to destroy the excess of humanity.
The Nazis had a related similar idea, the Lebensraum, the “vital space”. The Nazis claimed Germany needed more of it, so they would kill the humans (or, as they put it, sub humans) to the east, and grab their territory. The idea is not new: chimpanzees do it, they attack the valley next door and kill the chimpanzees there… we have to thanks the very Christian primatologist and ethologist Jane Goodall for this revelation. All over known primitive societies, the members of the society are typically called “men”… and non-members are not. The Nazis unwittingly solved their imaginary problem of too many Germans in too small a place, by killing even more Germans than Jews, thus diminishing the insufferably high density of Germans…
The evil exhibited by Nazism was nothing new. Only its absolute scale, in reduced time, was new.
This is a warning: a plutocracy driven collapse can be remarkably rapid, thanks to modern technology.
The collapse of Mayan civilization has several of the entangled characteristics of rogue plutocracy above: The Maya engineered ecological devastation so great, a mega drought ensued. That was followed by a succession of even greater ecological devastation and wars, to struggle over the dying resources in the following generations. When the exploited masses finally understood their elites and their gods had betrayed, they decapitated the elites, and burned down the society.
The apparition of exploiting oligarchies is caused by the exponential function. Only fierce taxation of the wealthiest, absolutely, as the Roman Republic did it, prevents it. Interestingly the government of Xi in China seems to be recently engaged in exactly that, cutting down the power of the financial, business, celebrity, and even Communist Party elite. They learned well… part of the lesson.
In any case, the plutocratic phenomenon is always in ambush of civilization.
As plutocracy is the power of evil, it may even consists in something as simple as bringing on a nuclear proliferation arms race, as Biden just did. War is the continuation of plutocracy by other means.
Power in a few hands naturally attracts individuals with a greater Dark Factor…. who thus end up in control. The Dark Factor entails a mentality maximizing one’s individual utility — disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others — accompanied by beliefs which serve as justifications. This is why the rise of the fascist Roman empire of Augustus and his family was accompanied by mass unemployment, etc.
Conventional psychology recognizes the existence of these evil traits, and there again, this is nothing new: original sin is a core belief of Christianism. Lack of empathy, taking pleasure from causing other people pain, narcissism (excessive self-absorption), spitefulness relate to psychopathy, Machiavellianism (the belief that the ends justify the means)… they may not seem as extreme as serial killings, or mass murdering ideologies… But behavioral links between these traits are well-known. It’s not called sadomasochism without good reason.
What was long view as a mystery is why these traits arise: apoptosis is the answer. Apoptosis means falling from… As leaves falling off a tree: there is a good reason for it, the killing of a surfeit function…
A particular Conquistador, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, originally a bodyguard of Charles V, and his personal envoy to counterbalance Cortez’s power and collaboration with the Natives was made Vice Roy of new Spain, and launched several unprovoked wars Mesoamerican nations which had collaborated with the Spaniards against the Aztecs.
In particular, the Spanish were received peaceably in Tzintzuntzan by Tangáxuan II, the cazonci of the Tarascan state, which largely coincides with the modern state of Michoacán. Tangáxuan gave Guzmán presents of gold and silver and supplied him with soldiers and provisions. Nevertheless, Guzmán had him arrested and tortured, to get him to reveal the location of hidden stores of gold. There was no more gold, so Tangáxuan could not say anymore. Guzmán had him dragged by a horse and then burned alive on February 14, 1530.
Guzmán then became again bodyguard to Charles Quint. He adamantly defended, until his natural death in 1561 CE, still a Charles V bodyguard, his destruction of independent Mesoamerican nations, even when allied to Spain. Gory, yes, but the only way to make Christianism triumph, he insisted.
The world we have is built by evil. However, it is time to quit the habit: evil is best exerted at a distance. However, please remember that the fundamental reason for evil is ecological: cutting off the excesses of humanity, reducing its ecological footprint. Nowadays, we have the biggest ecological footprint, ever, so, evolutionary speaking, we are in need of the biggest, or, let’s say, we may be stalked, by the biggest evil, ever. Watch the US president peddling weapon grade uranium…
Patrice Ayme
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 