18th August

What I do is to read calmly, to let the words reveal their own intentions. Surely I can be tricked, or I can miss vital parts of the picture. For instance, perhaps the real animosity and hatred is sufficiently disguised behind the author’s political lamentations that one had to know the circumstances of the Jews in Russia before 1900 to really connect the dots.

Perhaps what I am saying is that racism is quite the ordinary human condition. In other words, if nazis turn out to have opinions that most of us could have had under similar circumstances, that is, if their logic and sentiments can be made to make sense without requiring much in the way of aggression and physical power, then we would all have been nazis.

We usually assume based on old film bits of hoodlums running with batons in the street during times of violence that racism takes effort, that it is something you will have to rise from your chair and invest energy and human resources into doing.

What if it is the other way around? What if it takes enormous human effort to stay clear of racism, of antisemitism?

Then Holocaust is the norm, not the exception.

Are liberal societies immune to all of this?

Or are we just really good at keeping “our Jews” in ghettos further and further away? To structurally trap them in debt slavery and cultural disruption?

I am saying all this because it is only to the extent that the Protocol’s Jews are more than merely promotors of liberalism and socialism that their description is genuinely antisemitic, over and above the prevailing antisemitism you could just as well accuse British and American citizens of harbouring.

The author of the Protocols espouses an attack on the people’s ideologies rather than the divine ideologies of his Christian society. It just so happens that the author and a lot of other people believed these competing thought systems to be Jewish inventions.

19th August

Dialogue 9

● In the post-civil war turmoil, hold referendum over a new constitution. ● Universal suffrage: Give voting rights to people of lower classes who can be persuaded by scare of civil war. ● A constitution must be written by a single person. Discussion is fruitless. ● The institutions of government can be hollowed out until only the people and the population matters. ● Change the environment, change the political machine. ● Flatter public prejudice. ● Neuter the assemblies by exposing their uselessness to the people. Despot can then cut them down with the people’s consent. ● Make the autocrat the responsible politician. Same as giving him power. ● Autocrat is only one who can make laws. ● People can only organise through factions. Thus control the factions, control the people. ● Assembly can have veto right, but if they use it, they commit political suicide. ● Despot can cut down the assembly. ● Scapegoats in the form of subordinates taking responsibility for the autocrat’s actions.

Montesquieu says to Machiavelli:

“To hear you, one would think that you would be pulling the people from out of chaos or the profound night of their primary origins. You do not appear to remember that, in the hypothesis in which you placed us, the nation had attained the apogee of its civilization, that its public laws have been established and that it possesses legitimate institutions.”

Montesquieu of course says that a body politic can grow to become responsible micro-politicians themselves.

This is the crux of the matter.

Even Voltaire and Frederick the Great as well as many other Enlightenment philosophers looked down upon the populace in general as unable to fathom and handle political responsibility and participate in the philosophical debates.

Frederick, who was not one to mince words, wrote to Voltaire during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63):

From Frederick II, King of Prussia Bolkenhayn, 11th April, 1759, (Frederick II, Voltaire letters p.249)

It seems as if people have forgotten in this war all good behaviour and decorum. The most polite nations are fighting like wild beasts. I am ashamed of humanity; I blush for the age. Let us admit the truth; philosophy and the arts are only diffused among a few; the great mass, the people and the vulgar nobles, remain as nature made them, that is, malevolent animals.

But can people change?

Did the qualities observed in people by Frederick arise from their conditions in life? Perhaps culture and education mattered more?

For argument’s sake, let’s assume culture matters. What will liberal freedom furnish the human spirit with in that regard? What grander error could one possibly commit than assuming that nurturing the soul and intellect was tantamount to granting liberal freedoms and hope for the best?

Montesquieu in the Dialogue so far has only given the impression that liberal representatives see through most despotic gambits.

He is convinced that once political rights had become ingrained, fooling the assembly was not an easy feat.

My pet theory: Autocracy as a scarecrow

My pet theory needs a bit of honing:

In the political climate of our own generation, we favour democracy over autocracy. That is the spectrum that outweighs all others in these years.

We define true democratic values as the complete absence of everything the Dialogue’s protagonist describes. Military presence in the streets, propaganda, control of the press.

To us, the Dialogue is a catalogue of dangers that democracy must avoid. They are fairly easy to spot, if one has the story in the mind when looking at his or her society.

The Protocols tries to work around that simple approach by asking the question: How could we end up in a despotism without a despot. It understands that the question cannot be dealt with in a sociological language, as the very sociology it would employ has itself developed into an instrument of suppression.

One constitution, one author

The task now is to put the constitution created by the despot to the vote without changing the safeguards he has installed.

He can rely on simply human psychology.

This is harder to argue against within this framework of discussion. If the people can develop professional legislatures that at the same time are closer to the needs and opinions of the people they have sprung from, aren’t they having their cake while eating it?

Joly, who suffered under a classical despotism, understands how the institutions can be hollowed out.

Golovinski, who felt the onslaught of the future democratic despotism had only wretched sarcasm and irony to turn to.

Hollowing out the constitution while keeping it

Montesquieu wrongly thinks that Machiavelli will quickly slaughter the established people’s ways, but Machiavelli is confident he can use them to his benefit.

An approach so lacking in subtlety as this won’t fly, unless you can keep the population in a state of either fear or myopically concerned with their own worries and living that they will be outright hostile to even a hint of rebellion.

Machiavelli believes he can orchestrate that.

Can an entire public be swayed by appealing to their prejudices and base anger? Perhaps I was wrong before. I said that it was material concerns and outright fear that made people shy away from revolutionary activities.

With this image in mind, I can better compare with the contours of our present day. A number of observations strike me.

1. Poverty may not increase your political awareness, but if will hardly pacify you either.
2. Prejudices can indeed be a potent drug, while also being easier to control.

Note that Montesquieu is very specific that what transforms people is political rights. Not only do people want to be heard (they can feel they are listened to in a monarchy as well), they want to be asked. Some want to be able to climb the ladder to political influence. Becoming a president must at least remain a hypothetical possibility.

Every student of political science knows that the difference in political awareness between the periphery and the centre of the political power scale can be enormous. Turning the population against the elected politicians is not that poor of an idea.

In many modern cultures, one ought to note the stark difference between the president’s popularity and that of various parties, or even worse: Committee’s. How popular was Obama versus the House Committee on Ways and Means? And yet, where does the legislative power remain?

People usually have less sympathy for parties whose entire merit seem to be to stir up trouble and compromise afterwards.

How gigantic will not a man of strength loom over the children’s playground compared to a feeble politician constantly trying to oversell his own party’s meagre accomplishments when handed a microphone.

The irony in that is that from a Montesquieuean perspective, it is the very party discipline that grinds proud populists to a level where don’t threaten the political system by throwing in their dangerous weight.

In that sense, modern politics is more about sanding the tallest tree than about getting work done.

Perhaps Montesquieu has a better grasp in the long run?

And yet, come election time, and all parties in all the world endeavour to find their most appealing candidate.

The responsible despot putting his foot down

Political psychology lessons 201: Imagine that even a moderately educated and political savvy wide majority have chosen a strong leader to dampen the bellicose attitude festering in the people’s assemblies. Imagine further that the press is fed up with being used as platforms for fighting party politicians. They play the populist card as well by handing the microphone to the most popular, who tells them that he assumes full responsibility for the country unlike those who want power but not responsibility.

What an uproar that could bring.

Under the entire War on Terror, a scant crop of voices on the rim of the horizon yelled about reduction in our constitutional freedoms. The machine went on and mass surveillance became the norm worldwide.

Who are we to criticise?

The legislature

Onward to the legislative powers, who …

A plethora of ways to stifle the busybodies in the legislature comes to mind:

Power to the people then?

Montesquieu have reason to call his bluff:

It seems like a solid argument, doesn’t it? Democracy can protect itself because people may be able to elect a bad leader, but they can just choose not to reelect him.

Faith in democracy means an obligation to tackle the problem now presented.

Rephrasing the argument: The strongest trait of a checks and balances-system is its ability to withstand a siege from a popular contender with despotic tendencies.

Its weakest trait is its lack of ability to oust a despot once seated.

Any resistance against the political consensus must take the form of a trend organised in some way. Wait until it manifests itself and chop another head of the hydra. You are only acting out the people’s will!

That is, if you can keep them from sympathising with the rebels.

A free press has proven to be worth nothing here, as they clearly operate within mega-narratives in the traditional western tradition: Zig-zagging to the abyss.

The hundred men of highest rank

For several reasons he needs the senate and his cabinet of sycophants - one must assume - to take the blame and be visible.

20th August

As much as I like reading the Dialogue, I find it simplistic. It is obvious that Machiavelli as a one-man marionettist and kingmaker evolved into the secret society of Jews in the Protocols.

However, antisemitism aside, it at least tries to operate at a higher level.

The Protocols really starts at a time when Machiavelli has lost to Montesquieu, and even more, where Montesquieu has lost too to something much more elaborate.

Something swallowed society. The roof came down over our collective heads and we carry its weight in our newfound liberal freedom.

The institutions hollowed out where not executive, legislative and judicial branch, but the cultural institutions of freedom, equality and brotherhood.

We have those in abundance now, to the point of hyperinflation.

The Protocols premonished this and tries to alter the usual vocabulary. Sadly it ends up believing itself that the historical Jews were somehow involved.

By now I doubt the Protocols will accomplish anything beyond being a catalogue of ancient conservative attitudes towards “the mob”.

The author’s tactics is so far to let the lofty “Principles of ‘89” soak in hedonistic selfishness. Otherwise, he initially adds very little to Joly’s Machiavelli.

Protocol 10

● Avoid promising specific rights. Be fuzzy. ● Brainwash people to believe in the vote. ● Subdue actual thinking people. ● Never discuss the real plan. ● Use a puppet president who can be controlled, but who is popular. ● The House of Representatives can no longer make laws. They can choose the president. ● Martial law. ● Repeat Joly’s bag of tricks to stifle the legislature.

Machiavelli’s gambits are sweet music to Golovinski’s ears.

The next paragraph I want to go through step by step.

It may not seem complicated neither to the average reader nor to the connoisseur of history, but I find passages such as these difficult to unpack.

The way “I have saved you” becomes “destroying all nationalities, frontiers and national currencies” matters. Golovinski as a conservative would equal salvation with preservation of cultural identity and religion. As a defender of the principles of royal families he would on the other hand find the idea of the mob organising around ethnic nationality revolting.

If his sympathies are with the landowning nobility of less rank than the high nobility, then it makes sense, assuming the opposite urge is ascribed to the Jewish narrator.

Of course, the Jewish narrator would lie to the people (the paragraph is about his public utterances) and say the opposite of what he had actually done. My stance is that the sentence falls apart as Golovinski loads it with too many ideas.

What a German would gather from that sentence is horrifying to imagine.

Historically, I would say that Golovinski had plentifully observed socialism and global capitalism both work towards a future without nationalities, national frontiers and national currencies. Putting those ambitions in the mouths of the Jews does make sense (given his prejudices which were common for the age). I will stick with that for now.

Scathing remarks from the old conservative trenches

The author relentlessly bombard every commoner in his vicinity in the next paragraphs.

Moral and ethics today have become so complicated that we really are looking for answers to even everyday issues among the higher priesthood.

We must muster our entire mental capacity to even utter a burp against the prevailing political correctness, or risk sounding like fools. This is not due to an emperor’s clothes-effect, but because human culture is a long winded and intricate affair.

We need experts to advice us on everything now, and once they start talking, they do not really stop.

Why is it that we look at Trump as the only source of scaremongering? Campaigns against populists, disinformation and “autocracy” take the form of scaremongering too. We know that we have to read piles of undecipherable books if we want to even just participate in the postmodern discussion. We can’t, so we remain silent or stick with our colleagues in the canteen. But remain without political influence.

Next he plays a few tricks to complement Machiavelli’s approach. No need for martial law, nor threats nor fear. Secrecy is enough to keep people from harming the globalist plan.

Shrouded in suspicions about the inner workings at the upper echelons of society, the author hurls shadows on the walls with rocket launchers.

The distance between the upper and lower floors when it comes to grasping the workings of society is growing.

If you want influence in the political world of today, you need some level of education in the correct way of thinking.

It is a fait accompli today that our influence as unskilled minds is waning.

Once again Matvei Golovinski uses the stage to unfold the entire conservative religious program via proof-by-contradiction.

It is time to remember how Machiavelli at this point had begun to explain how he would hollow out the constitution using arguments that the people can understand.

In Joly’s book, he is the populistic leader who circumvents the assemblies, those institutions in which liberal values reside the most, and rather puts the assemblies up against the people themselves.

What an apt segue to Golovinski’s main grievance. Because populism can exist in liberal societies, they will always be susceptible to foul play.

He plays around with concepts for a little while and tinkers some kind of paragraphs together that points fingers in various directions.

The only agreeable part of modern democracy of course was the election of a powerful president. Almost an autocrat. And yet, it seems to his autocratic eyes that the president in USA is not a true despot. He is the worst of the worst: A ruler who does not crush his enemies with a sword, who listens to his advisors and takes orders from an assembly of common people.

In the Dialogue Machiavelli will let the ruler assume responsibility for everything. This is a trick. It sounds like a very ethical thing to do, but it conceals a move to remove power (also called responsibility) from the assembly. To neuter the assembly.

In the Protocols, responsibility is reworked to become the power of the puppet president under the control of hidden forces (as usual).

Essentially, the idea is that the president is morally compromised in some way before he even enters the stage.

How is this different from a president who, when he is inaugurated, has a long list of donors he needs to gratify?

Next comes an almost verbatim adaptation of Joly’s list of manoeuvres that the autocrat be perform to stifle the legislature.

Pretty much a one to one mapping from Joly’s suggestions except the “I” became a “we”, scholars, the club of (Jewish) scientists and capitalists.

I will go to bed now, more firmly convinced than ever, that the Protocols are to be considered mandatory reading for anyone believing themselves free of political prejudice.

If our idea of autocracy revolves around the anti-image presented by Joly’s Machiavelli, we may be missing the point.

Consensus is not freedom. It is cultural tyranny.

PARADISE LOST