In 2001 I wrote an essay about the class struggle between “the smart” “the average” and “the stupid” as a double parody – first of Marx and that riff-raff for misunderstanding the essence of each class – but ultimately at myself for being of the smart class. Ironical, therefore. Anyway, in 2006 I wrote this PS to it, which I have recently reworked a bit. Read it in reference to Nietzsche’s recommendation that intellectuals ought to champion the mean.
There are in fact four classes, and to put it in different terms, there are the shrewd manipulators, there are the creative materialists, there are the stupid producers, and there are the incapable. The stupid producers were always the majority of the world, did all the work, did all the producing, but were never able to organize themselves because they were stupid, because they were liable to fall into tricks and errors.
All great systems, economies, innovations, inventions are created by the creative materialists, but these materials—the common man, the beourgeusee, the middle class—do not own them, because these inventions are legally seized by the shrewd manipulators—the bankers, the legalizers, the usurers, the smart, the scheming, the rich.
The fourth class, the incapable, are the cripples, invalids, children, elderly, who both lack resources, lack tools, and lack reserves. This is the wedge class. Through handling the incapable, and using them politically, laws are made, systems are critiqued and broken, truths are outraged. Every morality focuses especially on the rights and welfare of the incapable, but fails as a morality because it centers on this class, which is not a center, but peripheral.
The shrewd manipulators of the smart class take the place of priests, professors, bankers, commentators, scholars—that is, those who create nothing in themselves, but take what others create and manipulate this in order to gain symbols by it. These human beings have high IQ, but other than this they need not share much else in common, least of all racial or national similarity. They come from all classes, they rise to the top, and they are the great conspiracy we hear so much about, not that they meet together in dark offices, but that they think alike, and know how to deal with each other in such a way to enslave the rest of the world.
The smart people wish to own the stupid workers, but they have no ability to control them. Thus they hire the creative middle class to manage them. And of course, always and ever, the wedge class is used as a guilt token for whoever can manipulate them. “You will always have the poor. Instead, honor me with you money,” a beggar once requested.
It goes without saying that the smart people are unregenerate. The working class breed, populate the earth, inherit the earth, are the earth, not because they are meek—if anything they are rude—but because they are too stupid to know better. The creative class also breed and have no qualms. The smart people, the great manipulators, are not family people. They are by their very nature manipulative, and so family becomes a living hell which they cannot buy their way out of.
The smart men bind the world with logical maya. The stupid class are awed and follow. The creative class shrug and pay attention to their passion. The incapable class are utterly amazed by the maya of the smart, are the true believers, take it to heart, hope and need the lies.
The smart men are sadistic, or masochistic in front of a mirror, but not violent. The stupid people are violent, but not sadistic. The creative class is the least violent, for they neither seek to control nor to defend themselves and so avoid what could be useful to them if they cared to use it: violence and aggression.
To apply these ideas to a story – almost at random! – let’s look at the story of King Saul.
Samuel: The story is stupid.
Saul is appointed king of the Jews because he is supposedly the best man, but he doesn’t do a single thing right, but acts continually from cowardice. Samuel gives him guilt trips about this, but no good counsel whatsoever, and ultimately, God dethrones him. What a useless God! He can’t even pick a king. All he did was make Saul’s life hell—sends an evil spirit to torment him at one point—and being a Jewish God, he puts all the guilt unto Saul himself, who never wanted to be king in the first place, never claimed to have the skill, the know-how or even the character to be a king. God himself gives no good counsel, is just pissed off that the Jews wanted a king in the first place, so appointed a commoner to show them what a scorned woman their God is.
It is almost a parable of my point. Or another book:
“Workers of the world unite!” I should end every book with these words just so there could be no doubt that everything I say is pure propaganda. Workers running the world? Whyever? Workers are made to work, not to lead. Labor is a different game then managing, and managing is a different game than creating. Ultimately, the creators must real the world, and the managers must rule the workers. Show me a system anywhere at any time that has ever been different? I have heard of communism and socialism, but I have never seen such a system work on paper or in life. The reason every form of communism is really a propaganda totalitarianism is because communism itself from the very beginning and always was invented before it existed, and therefore is nothing more than idealistic propaganda. What is called “capitalism” never called itself capitalism, never called itself anything other than “business.” In order for capitalism to become mortal, a heaven had to be invented as the true reality, and capitalism had to be defined as a stage towards heaven.
It is like the Christian gospel, where the missionary gives us a soul long enough to throw it directly into eternal torment, and then, finally, give us the good news that we can suddenly be saved by the immanent peril we never before knew of. It is like a mugger putting a knife to our throats and giving us the gospel “do what I say and you live.”
And this is the same trick we see in socialism and communism, or any preplanned progression of social evolution. Rather than letting the collectivity of men really govern the world, by easing into a glorious future from our glorious present, we are told to believe that we are “alienated” and “oppressed,” “exploited”—it is like a man accosting me on the street, giving me a full physical with his mere glance, diagnosing me with cancer, and selling me the pill there on the spot. Yes, I am poor, misunderstood, working minimum wage, and so? I love to write, what more should I do? Why do you promise to weigh me down with chains of gold? Or to lay men upon the ground for me to stumble over? Return me to pure unadulterated capitalism, yes, and then disallow a corporation from owning intellectual property, that would be good. Let the individual, and not the corporation, make money, and I will thank you.
What began in theory will never become practice. This is why communism is absurd: it is imaged before it arose—unnatural, unlikely, a complete failure. It has done little more than kill nations. And yet it was sold to us as the end of history! Pure Messianic bullshit, as all Messianism is. Life will never be better than my life now is.
Creativity, the greatest human trait, is only loosely associated with the sort of intelligence an IQ measures, the logical kind. Do we really believe that Homer, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or Twain would have rocked the IQ test? Or that Edison was an IQ wizard? IQ measures arrogance, manipulativeness, but not creative power.
This is why IQ can predict college test scores, but can never measure success, even self-rated success. It can only rate the sort of success and achievements that most represent a math problem.
The fact that computers would score the highest on an I test is enough to dispel their worth in esteeming human power.
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Take care, Caretaker!
Your innermost is the sacred!
\~0~/
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