Saturday, September 10, 2011

Against the Occupation of the Mind

Three years ago, I wrote about a "mental occupation" that Serbia is under - a perfidious, soul-sucking cloud of self-hatred and contempt, generated by the ruling caste of Communist heirs, globalists, oligarchs and media magnates (often mistakenly called the "elite"). That was itself inspired by a 2007 post about cowardice, resulting from an essay by Julia Gorin (I wasn't the only one it inspired, either).

Since then, I've been trying to break those mental chains through persuasion, satire, contempt, mockery, and any number of other techniques available to a writer that I could think of. I honestly don't know to what extent this has been my doing, and to what extent it was simply people adding two and two and coming up with four instead of "European Union," but Serbia has since developed a significant intellectual resistance to "elite" oppression, and is well on the way to throw off the mental chains - as well as the physical chains of their quisling government, in a not too distant future. It hasn't been easy, or pleasant, or simple - but it was needful, and remains worth doing.

I recently came across the writings of Daniel Greenfield. I've just posted a translation of his essay concerning the demographic demise of both Cold War empires (h/t Mightiest of the Nine). Today, I discovered another, this time concerning the self-hating Jews. Therein, he gives the following description of mental occupation, which I consider particularly relevant:

"Being right isn't enough. the left is rapidly metastasizing into its final genocidal form. Its occupation of the minds of civilized men has become a disease that is consuming the host. And like a mosquito deadening the nerve endings of the skin of its victim, the first symptom of the disease is an inability to recognize the problem. Its final symptom is to state that the problem is not the mosquito drinking blood, but the amount of blood that hasn't been drunk yet.
This is the point of view of the mosquito, of the Israeli left, the American left and of every left. It is Code Pink, the ACLU, Not in Our Name, Women in Black, J Street, Jews Say No, Please Kill Us Because We Raped the Planet and Don't Deserve to Go On Living.
The optimist says that the glass is half empty [sic]. The pessimist says that it is half full [sic]. The left says that it should be completely empty and you should feel ashamed that there is any water in it at all. And that if you had any humanity and decency, you would pour out that water right now. If you don't, then you're fair game. And if you do, you're fair game, because you didn't do it quickly enough. And if you do it quickly, you're fair game because you are descended from people who didn't pour out their own water quickly enough.
This is the occupation of the mind. It has a surface logic over an utterly irrational mindset. Its goal is to convince you to kill yourself. Its goal is to convince you to say, No, or at least, Maybe."

Bear this in mind when next you hear an impassioned activist for something. Is he (or she, as it may be) trying to persuade you to fight for your survival, or trying to talk you into suicide? And once you've figured it out... what are you going to do about it?

2 comments:

david montoute said...

Nebojsa, this tiresome red-baiting is unworthy of you. Many of the Western journalists and commentators who defended Yugoslavia (and the Serbs generally) against the corporate media's hysterical anti-Serb propaganda were and are "leftists": Gregory Elich, Michel Chossudovsky, Diana Johnstone, Ed Herman, Harold Pinter, Peter Handke, Neil Clark, Barry Lituchy, Steve Gowans etc...& I could go on. The moralising "self-haters" you refer to are such a marginal group that i don't even know why you take so much trouble to denounce them. It's clear that the primary source of today's wars, carnage and tyranny is not "self-hatred" but its very opposite - the totally narcissistic culture of corporate psychopaths who see entire nations as mere obstacles to their economic conquests. It's not 'Jews Say No' or 'Code Pink' who are currently bombing Libyan, who are employing depleted uranium munitions, who are further impoverishing the world's most disadvantaged countries, who are plundering the US economy to bail out the banks. Come on, get some perspective back. Please.

CubuCoko said...

Wait, um, what?
I'm a libertarian - the labels "left" and "right" mean very little to me. I don't necessarily agree with the way Greenfield uses them, either - but there was no way to quibble with it without distracting from the point of the quote (and you do understand that it is a quote, right?), the which is this:
There are many groups out there that match this description, whatever they choose to call themselves. I don't necessarily agree with the names Greenfield mentions, and would have edited it, but for the last made-up name that just had to stay. I principally had in mind the current government and "non-governmental" scum presently bleeding Serbia to death on behalf of the Empire. Either way, what they advocate is suicidal and nihilistic, which is both stupid and evil.
I don't know why any of the names on your list would recognize themselves in this description; I'd argue it doesn't fit them in the least.