At the time of writing, we are about a week into full lockdown and perhaps now is the time to take a moment to reflect on the madness going on around us.
With the economy now partially shut down by unprecedented government measures, I want to start with the world of economics. I have long believed that economics is one of the keys to understanding society and human behavior. My foray into this field came from the deep study of what governments don't want the public to know: economics. Austrian School.
Unlike the traditional Keynesian and Chicago school economics I studied in college, Austrian economics uses very few graphs and almost no math. Instead, it uses reason and axiomatic deduction to uncover truths about human behavior. One of those truths is that state intervention in the economy cannot improve the free exchange and individual choices of the people who make up a society, but it can and generally does make things worse. This truth is never comfortable for governments. So it's no wonder that Austrian economists are not welcome in the mainstream of state-funded economic institutions. They remain on the fringes of economic thought, saying beautiful, radical, insightful things without caring about the consequences. In economics, the Austrian school is rock and roll.
My economics studies started with grainy videos of lectures at the American University in Belgrade. I learned about credit cycles and their causes. I was introduced to the idea that there are two types of lending: investment based on savings is profitable, investment based on nothing is not profitable ('nothing' here is shorthand for central bank money printing and government interest rate manipulation). It was my path into the world of radical ideas. Menger To Mises,and Rothbard To HoppeThe lessons I learned were fundamental.
When the 2008 crisis happened, I realized that everything that had seemed confusing at first glance made sense. Everything I was reading was unfolding on a global scale. It was a very striking example of the soundness of thinking.
Now, 2008-2010 was a very tough time. I work in construction and the crisis hit me hard. But as things got worse, the understanding I gained through this previous study was a godsend. It allowed me to understand how and why the crisis was happening. It also allowed me to see where my previous lack of understanding came from and helped me understand why I made mistakes, what the mistakes were, and what to do about it. This was a huge benefit, because understanding the world around us in times of crisis not only allows us to respond logically, but it also helps us stay sane in situations that can be destructive to the human spirit.
Economics' “bad brother,” the Austrian School, also made it clear to me that government responses after the crisis were merely storing up more problems for later, never really solving anything, only making it worse. This provided the basis for personal decision-making away from the mainstream, the basis for my own independent views. I am forced to conclude that my study of economics and the Austrian School has made me a more complete person, for I am no longer “the slave of dead economists” (to borrow the words of John Maynard Keynes).
Since 2010, I have been involved in supporting beautiful activists. Robert GreeneHe had been imprisoned a second time in Scotland for an eloquent plea. Justice for Holly Greig And his tendencies Tell the truth By method Worried I didn't assert too much power, so my economic research took a back seat, and instead I was confronted with the most horrific type of human suffering, caused by the use of state power to silence innocent people. Victims of Abuse They cried out for help and justice. My brief involvement in this struggle revealed a dark and sinister side to the people and institutions that governed us. I learned that bad government rules, and that might is right. After all, our wise sovereigns could not, and had little desire to, justify their actions.
At some point, a question derived from Austrian economics started to emerge: if the free market is the most efficient way to give people what they want, what are the consequences if people want something bad, harmful, evil? I started to think about the deeper aspects of what makes us behave the way we do. Why couldn't the people we appealed to about Robert Greene and Holly Greig find the courage or sincerity to address this issue? The conclusion I came to was that culture and faith, in addition to human nature, are at the heart of this issue.
Andrew Breitbart He said that politics is downstream of culture, and I think that's true, but I would add that culture is downstream of religion.
From Austrian economics, I learned that free exchange, property rights, and sound currency are the core of a healthy society, and that with these in place, normal human behavior and interaction will take its own course, based on the desires of each individual in society. I gradually added questions about what defines those individual desires, and what is the collective impact of the errors each of us makes in making our plans. What is the impact on a society when cultural foundations such as lifelong monogamous marriage are destroyed? What happens when men's role as leaders and protectors of the young, the weak, and the infirm is subverted? What happens when the very concept of masculinity is portrayed as problematic or harmful? What happens when women's role in child rearing is overturned? Capsized And what if they were persuaded or forced to go out to work instead? What if single-parent families proliferated in the welfare state? What if the very definitions of man and woman were called into question? What if all these ideas, and even more pernicious ones, were taught to children in the schools funded by our taxes? What would the result be? Surely one in which our culture would be changed beyond recognition.
And what happens when faith, which has long been a preeminent unifying force in the West, is lost across an entire society? How does this affect people's choices and aspirations?
Before he goes insane Friedrich Nietzsche I have written:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we console ourselves, murderers of murderers? (Nietzsche, Gay Science)
But he did so without complacency, for he had considered the possible effects of such a change.
I am speaking of the history of the next two centuries. I am speaking of what is to come, what can no longer happen otherwise: the coming of nihilism. … For some time, the whole of European culture has been moving towards catastrophe, with an agonizing tension that grows with each passing decade. Restless, violent, headlong, like a river that is trying to reach its end, no longer reflecting, afraid to reflect.Will to power)
… As truth battles millennia of lies, there will be shock waves, earthquakes, displacing of hills and valleys such as the world has never dreamed of. At that time, the concept of “politics” will be totally absorbed into the realm of spiritual warfare. All the mighty worlds of ancient social orders will be blown away into space, for they are all based on lies. There will be warfare such as the Earth has never seen before. Only after I appear will there be grand politics on Earth. (Ecce Homo)
Nietzsche was certainly no friend of Christianity in his day, but he seemed to realize that the reaction to Christianity's loss of a leading role in society would be catastrophe and war. The 20th century seemed to prove Nietzsche right: people embraced the new certainty of totalitarianism, substituting causes and states for God, providing needed clarity and creating a basis for action and new hope.
But in the 21st century, when faith is still lost and the great dictators have, for now at least, faded into history, what has happened to our culture?
It seems that instead of nihilism followed by totalitarian certainty, we now have a society defined by fear.
Take, for example, the global warming mongers: every time the sun comes out and a beautiful summer day arrives on our wet little island, there is a reaction of hysterical fear that man-made global warming, or climate change, or climate collapse, or whatever the next marketing ploy will call it, is going to destroy the planet.
We have a fake grassroots organization. Extinction Rebellion They are waging a campaign to disrupt daily life and tell all of us, especially children, that the end is near, and that death – literal annihilation – awaits us all unless we embrace their socialism and follow their instructions.
And this is how the recent frenzy over COVID-19 began: the seasonal flu was suddenly elevated to an existential threat, without any more evidence than it had been for the past few decades. We are told that the only thing we can do is accept house arrest or we will “get people killed.” Our economies have been halted and our societies have been completely transformed. And this is despite no increased mortality compared to normal.
Experts guide government policy, but the government officials tasked with leading our nation seem to lack the strength or wisdom to question and examine that advice, to seek out dissenting voices, or to scrutinize the evidence behind wild and impossible claims.
When outsiders and heretics ask question When it comes to the data analysis and collection of data on which these dark prophecies are based, the answers reveal only emptiness, uncertainty and error.
And yet the man on the Clapham omnibus seems happy with the restrictions and more likely to report any neighbour who flouts the government advice in the slightest to the authorities, rather than resist the introduction of the near-universal restrictions. House ArrestIs independent thinking a rare thing in a society ruled by fear, whether in Downing Street or Downing Street? Main Street?
Why is this the case? I believe cultural change is simply the effect of changing beliefs and loss of belief. Our society was once based on one of the most radical and non-conformist ideologies: Christianity. Remember one of the central ideas preached by Christ:
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Matthew 16:25).
This boldly and directly challenged the greatest fear of death. A society that believed in this was able to face death head on, seeing it simply as a part of life, not the ultimate tragedy. So how can our current, non-believing society deal with death? In the post-Christian era, we seem to have lost the very foundation of our strength, sanity, and bravery in the face of serious threats.
…a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted (Ecclesiastes 3:2)…
I can no longer be so bold one time it was.
So what happens to a society ruled by fear?
Therefore, I conclude that our faithless and fear-driven society has consented and sacrificed for the destruction of our economy. Freedom fought for centuries Without looking back. So what monster are we running from? It is a monster summoned by seasonal flu, a coronavirus, and a story from China. Even though our society is not suffering from excess deaths, we are assured by experts at Imperial College that more than 500,000 people will die unless we agree to the downfall of the nation.
How should we sum up a society like this? I would like to quote the words of someone from long ago. proverb:
The wicked flee when no one pursues them.
