The underlying conceit of all of these tribes is that contemporary society is deeply deeply sick in some way, but only a small number of people are able to see the sickness. https://twitter.com/olivertraldi/status/1343172119639842816

If you have this feeling--that there is something *wrong* with the world as it is, and the people who live in it, that there is something hollow, or empty, or oppressive or corrupting about it--then you will cycle through various fringe explanations for why your society is sick.

I feel this way myself at times. But I am near the end of War and Peace and it has been very helpful in this regard, as (contrary to many today who believe that there was a time a few generations or centuries back this wasn't true), Tolstoy realizes this is a perennial

human problem, and has the two central male characters, placed in a setting of the 'good old days' of his grandparents time, contorted by the same set of problems. Pierre's journey from Napolean Stan to liberal reformer to freemason superman to would be assassin to-

is this exact same journey, just without the internet. Something is deeply wrong with mankind and with Society and Pierre has no meaning to his life and he searches ever more desperately on the fringes for the great key that will allow society--and himself--to be good again.

But the real answer is that society will always be Society, mankind will always have its corruptions, and the best things of life will always be exactly what the Pixar movies say it is. That is what Pierre has to realize

(and the fact that he does realize it this, instead of swerving into yet more extremes, is another reason Tolstoy beats Dostoevsky)

and it is what a lot of folks on this site would be better realizing. At some level, yes, most of what everyone believes and thinks important in our world is silly and arbitrary -- we are not the one culture that has finally figured it all out, the one people whose pieties will

be thought sensible and worthy in a thousand years time. But....

That is the world we live in. If the alt- people like to think of it as a Matrix, fine. But if everyone is living thoughtless in the Matrix, those living outside it are no better--it is both vain and juvenile to think that you and your little internet clique are have actually

came up with the Red Pill that will be able to show you the truth behind the illusion. These niche heresies are just as wrapped up in human corruption and limitation as the systems they try to replace. And they must be--

humans are limited creatures, and no construction our mind can hold will ever be anything but painfully limited.

More to the point, these intellectual vanities often throw their followers down dark and bitter paths, making them angrier with the world than the world deserves, blinding them to those small things that actually provide happiness:

a friend helped, a child's laugh, a lover's touch, a clear, starry sky, the world of tangible things and good deeds, those little moments Pierre discovers are at the center of meaning best understood, the little sentimental virtues red pillers of all stripes decry as "NORMIE."

And I get it folks. I really do. Tempted by all the same internet fantasies as the rest of you. Been down that road. It leads nowhere good. Man's task is not to find yet more arcane ways to condemn our flawed earth.

Man's task is to learn to live well despite the flaws.

/FIN