The Reductionist Caveman Philosophy
There are a large amount of people that struggle to understand complex subjects, or for some reason desire that complex subjects be far simpler. These people follow the caveman philosophy.
The caveman philosophy is a reductionist tactic that boils everything down to two easily digestible options that are overly simplistic. One thing good; all else bad.
I deal with this often in emails, but it’s more damaging when done by other people working on the ground or in more active roles. I’ve seen it there too, but often in lesser numbers.
It’s fairly common with the traditional republican crowd, for instance. You’ll hear them say everything is either freedom or everything is tyranny. There is no alternative; there is no middle-ground. There is no scale of free versus unfree. Whatever they define “freedom” as is good, whereas whatever they define tyranny as is bad. This tends to happen even when the person cannot define exactly what freedom means to them, besides not tyranny. But then they can’t define tyranny either, it’s just not freedom. It’s an instinctual, base-level understanding of the environment, much similar to that of a caveman recognizing his environment. This rock good, bear bad.
This occurs even though the reality of the nature of “freedom” is far different. There are differing levels of freedom for differing societal components. Social, communal, personal, economic, national, etc. Some “freedom” is free only so far as you believe in its imaginary results (two party fraudulent elections). Other “freedom” would be defined as freedom, but the freedom-lover would not actually desire it, like allowing teachers the freedom to indoctrinate their kids with the LGBT and anti-white agenda. There is complexity and nuance with most things. But not to the republican caveman: there is only freedom or tyranny.
We also see this with the worship of democracy. We are either 1) democracy or 2) fascism (or your other preferred boogeyman such as Marxism, communism, or NatSoc). When literally anything happens, you’ll often hear someone, somewhere, yelling that it is fascism. Even if it is just a minor policy change, somehow it is boiled down to an entire systemic overhaul of a governmental framework, because there are only two options presented. So if it’s not democracy, it must be fascism. This is why the ruling class says we must protect democracy at all costs and that all things they dislike are a danger to democracy, because they are using caveman logic that my democracy good, all else bad. Even though their definition of democracy is corrupt, it’s still caveman logic because of the reductionism to two simple categories.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has noticeably similar trends. You have benevolent X (input Russia or Ukraine), and then you have evil X (input the other). No alternatives. No geopolitical complexities, no historical analysis, no foreign interference discussion, nothing. Just two caveman options: one bad, one good.
Simple things are easier for people to understand. It doesn’t come with the baggage of having to spend hours researching, analyzing, and thinking over difficult subjects. They don’t have to deal with harsh contradictions of events nor the internal strife with undesirable realizations. Self-reflection is difficult for nearly all of us, and this plays a part in why the caveman philosophy is so prevalent.
To put it in caveman philosophy terms: It occurs because it’s easy. It doesn’t occur because the alternative is hard. Easy good; hard bad.
Supporting caveman proposals can lead to major complications, as we can see in the democracy good, all else bad example above. Given this condition, we really would want to support democracy because it’s not Marxism, but the definition of democracy is so far reduced that it doesn’t even resemble what most would think it means. Our democracy is a corrupt rule by few oligarchy, but at least it’s not fascism. Because that’s the only two presented choices.
This form of logical absurdity is useful for the ruling class because they can herd the sheep with the simple logic. The communists in China performed a similar stunt by saying they were fighting for “freedom” against the “tyranny” regime Mao was fighting. When again, the reality of the situation was far more complex. The communists were anything but free, but it served a useful caveman role. Reductionism reduces our perception and awareness of these types of things happening, because we revert to x good, y bad.
However, don’t misconstrue my point here. The caveman philosophy definitely has its place, especially when talking with the grey masses, but it’s incredibly disappointing when our side uses it amongst one another.
The world is complex. Nearly everything is a grey area. To reduce it all to two simple buckets will not help us solve the overarching issue. We need to discuss complex subjects as they are, complex, without reducing them to easy soundbites that reduce our own understanding of the world. The natural order is messy, but one that requires understanding to truly harness.
It’s a necessary evil to use with the grey masses and the extended family while at the dinner table, but don’t use it amongst one another. We need to address root problems and actually tackle complex subjects, not reduce them down to a caveman level. That’s the entire purpose of why we exist, why we have the knowledge and understanding that we do—To use it to devise answers to the complex problems. The only way these can be fully solved is if we first address their complexities, and only after devising a solution, do we boil it down to easy-to-understand pieces for the grey masses.
We can’t do that if we can’t even see the problem because we’ve slammed them all into two unrecognizable buckets at the onset.
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