Ideology as a Schelling point for the coordination of violence.

An army is coordinated violence, and a state is coordinated violence. So an army needs a faith, and state needs a faith.

A faith is apt to acquire an army and a state, and a state without a faith will acquire one, either by deliberate policy or by hostile entryism. So we always have a state religion. To act cohesively, a group needs a leader, but also shared beliefs.

The faith may be, and often is, “point deer make horse”, a lie that no one believes, but no one is allowed to disbelieve. Such faiths are evil, and tend to become, like the faith in Awesome and Mighty Covid Demon, flat out demonic, inflicting harm for the sake of inflicting harm. But the success of such faiths indicates there is a power vacuum among faiths.

Chinese historians concluded that no matter how strong “Point deer make horse” appears to be in the short run, it is too fragile to build a state out of.

We have a state religion of lies. It will not stand. It will perish, the only question is, shall we perish with it?

Men were not created equal, nor women to be the equal of men, and as this has been interpreted ever more literally, it has become ever more toxic, and is now intolerable. The time has now come when this founding lie shall end.

If people of the state apparatus do not take their faith too seriously, if they don’t really have a faith, they are apt to suffer entryism from people who take a different faith seriously. The most cohesive faith tends to win.

Stalin and Trotsky

One should not treat the claim that the owner of an applecart is oppressing the proletariat, causing global warming, or whatever, as sincerely held, nor suppose they give a tinker’s dam about the sufferings of the proletariat or the temperature of the earth, one does need to take seriously what their story implies about what apple cart they are coordinating to knock over, and what mob they are assembling to knock it over.

These are not individual conflicts, Stalin versus Trotsky, but struggles over Schelling points for group coordination.

Trotsky was a purer communist than Stalin, because his communism was unconstrained by practical economic considerations. Since there had been repeated cycles of the ever lefter grabbing power from the insufficiently left, his purity was likely to result in him grabbing power from Stalin, which was undoubtedly the real motive behind such lunatic purity and the real reason for Stalin crushing the Trots – but such purity was likely to result in someone grabbing power from Stalin, regardless of what happened to Trotsky. The ideas, rather than Trotsky himself, were the threat.

Ideas matter. And they still matter even when they should not be taken seriously. They may not be the real motives for the left’s actions, but they are the real mechanism for left coordination to take action.

The details of Trotsky’s superior purity are irrelevant, uninteresting, hypocritical, and not sincerely held. And in this sense, it would be pointless to pay attention to the ideological argument. But the argument was real enough regardless. Stalin was impure, because concerned with practical consequences. His reasoning that Trotskyism was “objectively fascist” was that it was likely to have stupid and disastrous practical consequences that the fascists would be happy about.

Established Anglicanism and the Socinians.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, England suffered hostile entryism from postChristians, (believers in Jesus the Jewish Community Organiser) who were, by the standards of that time radical leftists (anti slavery, female emancipation, gay toleration, expanding the franchise) and who have since then discarded the pretence of Christianity and become ever more radical.

Before this hostile entryist operation, Jews etcetera were excluded from state or quasi office in England. You had to be an Anglican of the Established Anglican Church to enter parliament, and, in practice, to get any state or quasi state job. After this hostile entryist operation, Jews etcetera were theoretically allowed in, but you had to believe in some form of leftism. You don’t see the Jews who hang out in Jewish enclaves and wear funny hats in the state and quasi state apparatus. The ones in the state apparatus are reform Jews, post Judaic Jews resembling the postChristian Christians and postIslamic Muslims. Religious tolerance is a mask for every more extreme religious intolerance.

Till the early eighteenth century, Established Anglicanism excluded non believers from state and quasi state office. DEI and ESG attempted to exclude non believers from every corner of society altogether, and if you are a straight white male, you are automatically under suspicion of nonbelief, resulting in every more extreme and absurd efforts to prove “allyship”.

Iranian postIslam

Iran is theoretically an Islamic theocracy but it was progressive Islam, which is why its overthrow of the Shah was backed by the West, and is now clearly postIslamic. PostIslamic Iran is systematically pushing women into stem fields of academia, which is now seventy percent female in Iran, while in Islamic Afghanistan, though women are theoretically permitted higher education, provided sexual segregation is enforced, you do not see too many actually doing it, and they study in fields for which women are well suited. Women are notoriously and obviously bored and irritated by stem, and and are usually incapable of stem fields even if they get into them. Men are interested in things and are good at things, women interested in people and small scale relationships and are good at that. Men like gear porn, women like relationship porn. Which underperformance is deemed a problem, and that problem that is met by a very hard push pushing women into stem fields, attempting forcibly and artificially reduce the difference between men and women. As a result, Iran now suffers from collapse in fertility and widespread disbelief in Islam, a vacuum into which Christianity is entering.

The vacuum in Iran is apparent, and the vacuum on the left in America is apparent, with its increasing adoption of “point deer make horse” type beliefs.

Point deer make horse, 指鹿为马

This Chinese idiom means “Pointing at a deer and calling it a horse”.

Zhao Gao was chief eunuch of the imperial court, and wanted to seize power from the emperor.

During a court meeting, he presented a deer (鹿), but deliberately called it a horse (馬). He asked the ministers: “Is this a deer or a horse?”. Those who corrected him (saying “deer”) were later executed or purged. Those who agreed with him (saying “horse”) were promoted.

The immediate result was that Zhao Gao gained absolute power from the emperor. Very shortly afterwards, the empire collapsed.

Repeating:

Chinese historians concluded that no matter how strong “Point deer make horse” appears to be in the short run, it is too fragile to build a state out of.

We have a state religion of lies. It will not stand. It will perish, the only question is, shall we perish with it?

Men were not created equal, nor women to be the equal of men, and as this has been interpreted ever more literally, it has become ever more toxic, and is now intolerable. The time has now come when this founding lie shall end.

Abraham and God Most High

In the days of Abraham, peasants who grew grain stuck around in one place, and got taxed and conscripted by Kings, while nomads wandered around, did not have allegiance to Kings, and would wander off if the squeeze became too tight. So the old Testament ignores the doings of Kings until the sojourn in Egypt. With one massively important brief exception:

The patriarchs organised for violence through the the male line of descent, with father’s brother’s daughter marriage, while the grain growers were organised by Kings. And it came to pass that the King of Elam wanted empire over others, and the others did not much like it. So he defeated the rebel Kings, who fled, and then he went on a punitive expedition, ravaging the land — and in the course of his ravaging, abducted Abraham’s brother Lot. So Abrham organised a counter attack, and successfully whacked the King of Elam’s forces, and recovered the loot obtained by the King of Elam in the course of his ravaging. Which means he was acting in alliance with a broader rebel coalition.

So, a bunch of quarrelling kinglets, some of them no doubt very bad people, and a bunch of quarrelling nomadic herders, some of them no doubt very bad people need some unifying principle larger than themselves.

And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale.

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.

And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.

And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth,

That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:

Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.

After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.