Betrayal is all too common within the activist milieu. This is primarily due to the scourge of not only fake grievances but also the very existence of disingenuous activists themselves. Opposing intellectual dishonesty by pointing out sophistry is not just limited to argumentation ethics, for those who publicly claim to value liberty and freedom deserve to be boycotted and ostracized should they ever compromise on their principles solely due to the winds of political expediency.
Controlled schizophrenia is the mental state of an opportunistic citizen-serf who practices doublethink, yet who still acts in his own best interest. Today, this can be observed in the political crusaders, especially those Donald Trump supporters who voted for Ron Paul back during the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. The question to be answered now is, why are any of the “celebritarians” glorifying Trump?
Throughout the 1960s, Rayo described the phenomenon of controlled schizophrenia. He begins by illustrating how an individual’s relative freedom could be conceivably measured:
“…[F]reedom is not a monolithic entity; there are various degrees. But not all degrees are necessarily viable. For most people, I suspect that choice is between predominantly servile (vulnerable) life-styles and predominately liberated (invulnerable) life-styles.”
Obviously, Rayo saw this in terms of shades of grey, as opposed to an absolutist black and white perspective. He continues:
“If satisfaction could be plotted with respect to freedom for a large number of people, I think the graph would have a low peak of relative satisfaction around 5% to 10% freedom, a higher peak around 90% to 95% freedom, and wide depression in between.”
While not a bell curve by any means, this hypothesis of his suggests that the vulnerability of the population to coercion could be gauged proportionally. Clearly, the relative proportions of those in the 5 – 10% batch vis-à-vis the 90 – 95% crowd is itself a separate educated guess, but for purposes of maintaining realism I will presume that the sheer number of those in the 5 – 10% freedom range to be higher than those in the 90 – 95% liberty curve.
If the freedom outlaws comprise the 90 – 95% portion, then who is in the 5 – 10% segment? Rayo explicates:
“The lower maximum is exemplified in contemporary society by many a ‘successful’ Middle Amerikan. He lives ‘conventionally’ but takes advantage of some of the easier, more obvious loopholes. He pays income taxes but hires a tax accountant to maximize deductions. He registers for the draft but goes to college in hope of being made a technician instead of a target. His mental state is one of controlled schizophrenia. He believes most of the statist myths in which he was indoctrinated yet maintains a modicum of skepticism. He goes to church, or at least accepts their standard of morality, but is not ‘above’ having a drink at a nude bar. He is largely rational in his work but keeps his rationality compartmented; he does not – dares not critically examine his life as a whole.” [emphasis added]
Given that the controlled schizophrenics are those who enjoy 5 – 10% relative freedom, then what advantages do they enjoy that the “wide depression” of the typical American does not? Rayo explains:/p>
“Although self-maintained schizophrenia leads to unhealthy and unhappy complications, on the whole the opportunistic serf may have it better than his more consistent, more gullible, less self-motivated brother who is drafted and becomes a target – and a paraplegic rotting in a VA hospital, struggling along in a low-paying, high-taxed job with a load of installment debts.”
In other words, inconsistency (hypocrisy?) is rewarded by the Establishment in the same sense that George Orwell’s Julia character expressed the notion that you can disobey the big rules just so long as you kept the small ones. Rayo further extrapolates:
“But the opportunistic serf is probably also more contented than the ‘non-conformist’ who tried to be free in some things while remained servile in overall living pattern. One who is half-free and half-serf dwells in a psychological no-man’s land. He knows too much and thinks too independently to play servile status games with conviction and success, yet remains too immersed in, and influenced by, that culture to achieve success/satisfaction on his own terms. This includes many (not all) ‘bohemians,’ ‘adventurers,’ black market entrepreneurs, religious/cultural minorities and radicals of all sorts. A half-and-half life-style tends to be unstable: some go on to more complete liberation; some drift back into, at first, outward conformity, then, acceptance of servile norms; some end in psychosis or early death.”
Put simply, there are no half measures when it comes to becoming vonuer (that is, comparatively more invulnerable to coercion) in this sense, the struggle to maintain and increase one’s independence must continue progressively, or else honest failure ought to be openly embraced, but not a sophist ex post facto rationalization that seeks to avoid judging success or failure on its own merits.
Too many individuals begin their path towards liberty with a starry-eyed naïveté that, although understandable, is rather quite deadly; I think that the solution to this all-too-common problem is to inculcate a hard-nosed realism about Leviathan’s intrinsic nature, particularly with regard to the reality of democide itself. In order to do this, however, would first involve a stubborn resolve to totally reject political crusading and reformist sophistry alike, so until the oxymoronic “anarchist politicians” are routinely ostracized as a matter of course, then the controlled schizophrenics who now support the Donald will remain with us for the foreseeable future, unfortunately.
What of the freedom outlaws comprising that proportion who are 90 – 95% free? Rayo said:
“The higher maximum of satisfaction is attained by someone with a liberated home-based plus some import-export with the servile society. For him, contact with the State is an occasional annoyance and danger, not a big part of his life; thus he can avoid the psychological paralysis that afflicts so many ‘non-conformists.’ Compared to the opportunistic serf he may enjoy somewhat fewer conveniences (at present) but is happier overall. On the other hand, he has more than someone living in the primitive isolation presently required for 100% freedom.”
This very psychological paralysis is what affects the controlled schizophrenics so totally, and I believe it is the primary reason why as many leading “celebritarians” glorify His Wannabe Majesty the Shiny Rug as they do. Not too long ago, celebritarians decried the War on Terror, the violations of civil liberties (such as the NSA’s dragnet wiretapping, which itself was based on phony “national security” due to the alleged Islamic threat), and central banking, but now these very same celebritarians demonize the Syrian refugees (many of whom are Christians) and tacitly acquiescence to the scathing immorality of government war, sounding little different than the neoconservatives and other supporters of George W. Bush’s presidential administration.
Alone, this is grounds for freedom outlaws to decry and ostracize these volksdeutchers who advocate the very same government propaganda they used to oppose; if anything, this fundamental change in rhetoric and the divisiveness it has caused within libertarian circles reminds me of the public disputes about the 2014 Ukrainian revolution showing how Vladimir Putin’s “libertarians” are little else than well-heeled and domesticated lapdogs for the Kremlin, whether they realize it consciously or not.
Is there anything else to be learned from the phenomenon that is controlled schizophrenia? Rayo wrote:
“Whether one will be happier as a freeman or as a slave partly depends on the individual. But this choice is not open to most libertarians. Relative contentment in servitude is possible only for those who believe in it; most libertarians are too independent and well-informed. For libertarians the choice is between freedom and neurosis. What became of those libertarians of five years ago who gave up (or never tried) achieving personal liberty? Of people I knew, one is now a Catholic. Another is a Mormon. Another committed himself to a mental hospital. Many are occupied with chronic ailments.” [emphasis added]
Again, this emphasizes the significance of integrity and ends-means consistency. What controlled schizophrenics, like those in the anti-libertarian “Libertarian” Party who chose Gary Johnson as their presidential nominee this election cycle, despise more than anything else, is sincerity. The partyarchy refuses to tolerate anyone who (at least, attempts to) steadfastly hold onto libertarian principles, and the same is easily observable with the celebritarians who support the Rug that is the Donald. These two factions are woven from the same cloth of authoritarianism, for should you fail to tolerate either “party” line, you are either a “purist” or a cuck, even if in the latter case you rebuke the social justice equality freaks publicly, as I have.
Going into the future, I think Rayo’s observation here is rather apt:
“Freedom does indeed ‘need’ more full-time professionals; not collective-movement preachers seeking a coterie of followers, but explorers/inventors/developers of liberated life-ways.”
That, more than anything else, is what is causing such a rift between political crusading reformists and freedom outlaws – a fundamental difference in terms of strategy and tactics, not altogether unlike the historical disagreements regarding strategy between the Bolsheviks and the Fabian socialists. A separation betwixt the political means and the economic means of making money, between reformism and direct action, is what truly separates someone like Christopher Greene, Eric English, Alex Jones, and even “anarchists” like Stefan Molyneux, Christopher Cantwell, and Dr. Walter Block from someone like Shane Radliff, Derrick Broze, Kal Molinet, and Larken Rose.
Ignoring this true dichotomy only serves to backslide all the effort that has been placed into shrinking the coercive power of the State. I hold that to be willfully blind to this is to be done at your own peril. These popular narratives about the bombastic self-righteousness of the Trump and Johnson supporters alike that they can do no wrong is prima facie evidence of controlled schizophrenia itself; of course, the Party would have you believe that a “purist” like me is doubleplus ungood.
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Kyle Rearden is a blogger, podcaster, and videographer who started The Last Bastille Blog in 2011 since he thought the blogosphere would be more conducive to his study of a wide variety of subjects within the alternative media. From 2009 – 2012, his former YouTube channel amassed over 127,000 total upload views with 150+ videos; and between 2012 – 2014, his blog has received approximately 81,000 total views. Currently, he is the creative consultant for Liberty Under Attack Radio, a co-host of Behind Enemy Lines, and records the Liberty Intelligence Files alongside Alex Ansary.
I think primarily it is people who still are locked into the two party shell game and think electing one of the people media force feeds them makes a difference.
The same fear that is benefiting Hillary is also benefiting Trump. Anyone that knows Hillary and the things she has done in the last 3 or 4 decades is likely truly terrified of her being president. Not for the things she says, but simply because they know the things she has already done when she had power.
So they latch onto Trump like he is the answer. Yet Trump says such outlandish things at times it has often left me wondering if the sole reason he is here is to scare people into voting for Hillary. Because, he is also proof that people are generally in politics more frightened of WORDS coming out of someones mouth than they are things the person has actually DONE.
Simplified: More afraid of a person who says they are going to kill someone, than they are of the person who has actually killed someone.
Couple that with extremely short term memories. (Lazy?) The politician's latest speech is generally the only one they remember, so they totally miss how they are so often 180 degrees from what they said in just the speech before.
Yet largely the Ron Paul people supporting Trump seem to think Trump is anti-establishment and that they are picking the Lesser of Two evils.
This is my opinion. (EDIT: I realize it seems like I agree with them... I was indicating the next part is my opinion)
As an Anarchist I do not believe we should be voting, yet I also still wrestle with this because we do not live in an Anarchistic society YET, far from it. So if I vote it is for people I see as potentially moving us closer to that. For me that'll generally be a Libertarian candidate. I do not think my vote ultimately means anything, so for me it is still me wrestling with my own conscious and not quite eschewing the system as much as I'd like to.
I haven't convinced myself doing nothing will bring us closer to where I want to be, yet I know voting is also an endorsement of system, and an authority over me they should not have.