A Sign Of The Decline
During the decline of nations, there is usually a transition in who the nation admires. It often goes from the nation admiring moral, loyal, honorable, self-sacrificial, and related characteristics to admiring celebrity-figures, financial elite, and successful but immoral people.
Within our late stage degenerate system, profit is seen as the ultimate end goal. This is the end result of the libertarian view of the world where everything is market-driven. If everything is market driven, then those who drive the market the best are considered the best. Regardless of how they do so.
This is why we have people like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan being worshipped as the most admirable. Both individuals that are successful in a market view, but hold minimal characteristics of what the nation would have once held as admirable, such as self-sacrificial characteristics (“serving” your country), displaying strong and intellectual leadership (such as Athenian statesman Solon), or individuals that spend their life’s work dedicated to the betterment of their people.
The idea of a businessman or rich person being admired by the population is an incredibly clear sign of the degeneration of a nation, because it indicates that the nation is at least to the age of debauchery/affluence and excess indulgence. It means that the majority of the population is past the “strong men create good times” and is into the “weak men” times, because weak men are the market driven men, whereas strong men must be more people or nation driven to have the characteristics of a strong man.
This is clear in the United States because we worship affluence, regardless of how that affluence is acquired. A rap singer that raps about her vagina in every song is a hero because she made millions of dollars. Whereas a teacher that spends night and day doing everything in his power to be the best in his career, that has dedicated forty years of his life to educating the next generation, is a mere cog with a job.
Nowhere is this more evident than in rap music, which exemplifies pure individualism. This scene is where soulless morons rap about money and the opposite of anything virtuous. Meanwhile, our people are trained to admire them, because they are rich and “successful”. But in reality, they are only successful because of the decline in proper societal admiration. If honor were at the top, as it is during the healthy times, they would be at the bottom. Both in terms of success and in terms of wealth.
Heroes used to be more obvious, because they were people oriented and nation oriented. A sign of the decline is when this becomes inverted, and the heroes are market oriented. Where their status is usually determined by gauging their profits or business acumen.
This is not just in who the nation admires, but also in who it looks to as intellectual leaders. Boomers look to Steve Jobs as a holy grail of an intellectual genius, even though he was just a businessman. Business, in the context of a non-degenerative society, is usually seen as a necessary structural function and nothing more. But because we worship the dollar, we instinctively feel that those who have more of it must be more intelligent and admirable.
In healthy nations, the intellectual leaders are the actual intellectual leaders. They are those who do the work and advance the intellectual realm, not the businessman who ropes in the intellectual leaders and then claims credit for their fruits. But because we do not care for the more proper virtues, only the dollar, only the one who gets the dollar from the market gets the admiration.
What is most ironic about this setup is that it is often not the most intelligent that become successful business leaders, but the most immoral. As Zman once said, “America has been transformed into a pirate’s cove where the only limit on your profit is your conscience”. So, the actual heroes, the virtuous, are limited in profit, whereas those without virtue are not. We admire the worst elements of a person, greed and excess, over that of healthier traits. In simple terms, we admire the enemy, the centralizer.
Everyone knows who Bill Gates is because he was a conniving businessman who ruthlessly conquered Microsoft by using immoral business practices. He has innumerable songs about his money, people that look up to him, and a legacy that paints him in a “genius” light.
But hardly no one knows Stan Brock, who created the non-profit RAM that has provided free medical, dental, and vision services to our people. Brock is not known because he was not rich, and thus did not meet the necessary market qualifier for the admiration of our age. “…[he] has no money, no income, and no bank account. He spends 365 days a year at the charity events, sleeping on a small rolled-up mat on the floor and living on a diet made up entirely of porridge and fresh fruit.”[1] Brock never gave up or shifted to the quest for money. He died at his desk in the RAM headquarters at 82 years old.
While I don’t agree with everything Brock believed, that is not the point. The point is, he held actual virtues and was an honorable person who was worthy of being admired for his life’s work. But he is not in our age. The business tycoons and billionaires like Bill Gates are. Because they have the dollar.
This is a necessary stage of the cycle of collapse because it provides immunity and a constant support system to the financial centralizer, who needs this position to advance their piece of the overall centralization of the nation-state. The financial elite become the untouchables, because they are the “leading intellectuals,” the admirable heroes, and the drivers of civilization.
Even though this is a complete inversion of traditional healthy approach, where the leading intellectuals are the actual intellectuals like philosophers and hermits who dedicate their life solely to learning and expanding our knowledge, the heroes are the self-sacrificial, honorable, and virtuous people from all castes of society, and the drivers of civilization are the aforementioned two groups.
This is not the first time this shift in admiration has changed. We saw this in Rome during its descent, we saw it in the descent of Baghdad, we saw it during the decline of Athenian democracy, and we saw it during most of the collapses of other great nation-states.
We can use this understanding to accurately tell where we are within the cycle of collapse, given that this admiration shift is a rather late-stage change. Even during the medium stage of transition during the cycle, those key virtues are usually still held on to by a majority. It’s not until the late stage that the full shift to admiration of market elements and affluence occurs.
We can also use it to persuade other dissidents to carefully catch themselves from falling into this trap. Do not worship or admire the centralizer, because then you enter into a late-stage degenerative mindset of admiring the market and the centralizers that control it over your own people.
We need proper heroes. And these individuals are not them.
Read Next:
Trade: The Global Transition 1960-2020
Julius Evola: On The Yuga Cycle And The Three Collapses
The Government Focus In Our Degenerating Society
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