Some Notes on The Politics and Ideology of Hate
According to the Philosophy of The Numinous Way
Introduction
The ethical criteria of The Numinous Way will be used to consider
the politics [1] and the ideology [2]
of hate - that is, to consider: (i) those beliefs and/or ideas which
produce or which engender or which incite [3]
in people an intense dislike of or an extreme or violent aversion to
some other people or group and/or of or toward opposing beliefs
and/or toward opposing ideas; and (ii) the actions and the political
activities of those motivated by or pursuing some ideology that
inclines them toward hatred or which produces hatred.
Specific examples will be restricted to two sets of beliefs/ideas,
firstly that conventionally termed 'extreme
right-wing'/fascist/neo-nazi, and secondly that conventionally
termed radical Islam[4], and so restricted
for the simple reason that I have personal practical experience of
such beliefs/ideas and have also studied them in detail. In the
former case, my experience and study amounts to some thirty years;
in the latter case, to around nine years.
The Criteria of The Numinous Way
The criteria of The Numinous Way is the revealing - the insight, the
knowing, the understanding, the feeling - that the faculty of
empathy provides when we, as an individual, personally interact with
another living being over a certain period of time. What is thus
discovered by means of empathy is sympatheia - a numinous
sympathy with the-living-other - and how, as an individual, we are
an affecting connexion to all life, and thus how our assumed
separation, as an individual, is an illusion, a manifestation of
hubris. We therefore become aware of how we affect or can affect
others; how they affect or can affect us; and of how their
suffering, their pain, their joy, their grief, is ours beyond the
barrier of our inner and our outer egoist.
This discovery, this revealing, thus inclines us toward compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness, love, tolerance, peace, fairness,
wu-wei [5], and toward being
non-judgemental in respect of those we do not personally know and
thus have no experience of, have had no empathic contact with. For
it is empathy - the close and the extended personal interaction with
individuals, on an individual basis, that empathy requires - that is
the natural and the moral way of assessing, of really knowing,
another human being.
This means two important things. First, that we treat human beings
in a human way - that is, as individuals, recognizing that they are
unique or have the potential to become unique; that they, like us,
can and do suffer pain, grief, sadness, joy; that they, like us,
have hopes, dreams. Second, that all individuals we do not
personally know are or should be presumed to be 'innocent',
unjudged, and so are to be given the benefit of the doubt; for this
presumption of innocence - until personal experience and empathic
individual knowing of them prove otherwise - is the fair, the
honourable, the moral thing to do.
The Ideology and Politics of Hate
For an ideology to cause, provoke, or incite hatred - or which
inclines people toward hatred or which of itself embodies hate - it
is logical to assume that there has to be two components at work
given that hatred is an intense personal emotion which can
predispose a person or persons toward or cause anger and thence
violence, and given that an ideology by its nature is
supra-personal, that is, a coherent, organized, and distinctive set
of beliefs and/or ideas or ideals.
My experience leads me to suggest that the first component is
prideful identity, and that the second component is the ideal, the
goal, of the ideology. For this given and accepted identity is
always supra-personal and always imparts a needed sense of
belonging, a meaning to life, just as the goal, the ideal, involves
individuals committing themselves in a manner which vivifies,
removes doubt, and imparts a sense of purpose, with the result that
individuality becomes subsumed with duty and loyalty to the goal,
the ideal, given a high priority in the life of the individual.
Ideologies such as National-Socialism - new or old - and radical
Islam are predicated on identity, a pride in that identity, and on
the need to affirm that identity through practical deeds. In the
case of National-Socialism, there is a personal identification with
one's assumed race, a pride in what is believed to be the
achievements and the potential of this race, and a desire to aid
one's race and its 'destiny' by opposing 'race-mixing'. In the case
of radical Islam, there is the sense of belonging to the Ummah, a
'comradeship', a certain pride in Islam and its superiority; a
feeling of the need to undertake or at least support Jihad, and a
desire to counter the kuffar in practical ways, all deriving from
the belief that this is what Allah has commanded we do.
The identity so assumed or presumed produces or can produce
resentment, anger - caused by a perceived or a felt disparity
between the now and the assumed ideal, past or
future.
For an essential part of such ideologies is that it is believed that
in the past some posited ideal community or society or people or way
of life existed and that the present is a deviation from or a loss
of the 'perfection' that then existed; a deviation or a loss that
the ideology explains by the assumption of a simple cause and
effect, or several simple causes and effects, a simple linearity
between the now and the goal (future) and/or the
idealized past. Thus the problems or the conditions of the present
are assumed to have certain identifiable supra-personal causes, just
as the path to the goal is regarded as requiring that those causes
be dealt with. In addition, these causes are often or mostly the
work of 'others'; not our fault, but instead the result of 'our
enemies', and/or of some opposing ideology. That is, someone, or
some many, or some 'thing', is or are to blame.
Hence in order to return to this past perfection - or in order to
create a new form of this past perfection, this past ideal, or in
order to create a new perfection inspired by some past ideal - our
enemies, and/or opposing ideologies and those adhering to them, must
be dealt with. There must therefore be struggle; the notion of
future victory; and at the very least political activity and
propaganda directed toward political goals - a moving toward
regaining the authority, the power, the influence which supporters
of an ideology believe or assume they and their kind have lost and
which they almost invariably believe are now 'in the hands of their
enemies' and/or of traitors and 'heretics'.
In effect, perceived enemies, those having authority/power, and
those perceived as adhering to opposing or detrimental
ideologies/beliefs or living in a manner seen as detrimental, become
dehumanized, are judged en masse in a prejudiced manner, and become
disliked, with this dislike naturally - because of the struggle for
'victory' - becoming intolerance, harshness, and thence, almost
invariably at some time, turning to anger thence to hatred with such
hatred often resulting in violence against individual 'enemies'. [6]
Such hatred and intolerance are the natural, the inevitable,
consequence of all ideologies founded on notions of identity which
glorify past glories or past perfections, which posit some abstract
goal or some future ideal and which involve a struggle against
enemies to achieve such a goal or such an ideal.
For there is symbiosis, an empowering of the individual, with the
very notion of identity and meaning being dependant on notions about
past glories, on inclusion/exclusion, on notions of
superiority/inferiority, on posited enemies, on obstacles, and of a
striving, a struggle, for an ideal, for some posited goal. And vice
versa. This is the intoxicating elixir of extremism, a symbiosis
born of, which engenders and which flourishes on division, divide,
intolerance, pride, struggle, goals, and hate; a division, divide,
an intolerance, a hatred, that possibly are at their worst, their
most vitriolic, when based on ethnicity, or involve religions, or
involve perceived or assumed 'heretical' divisions within a
religion.
In terms of
nazi and neo-nazi ideology for example, Aryans are and have been
'the light-bearers of civilization'; the enemies are the Jews and
their machinations, inferior non-Aryan races, and ideologies such as
'multi-culturalism' and liberalism; while the goal is a racially
pure Aryan nation, and/or a strong and militarized
National-Socialist State with a mission, a destiny, to 'civilize'
the world through kampf.
In terms of modern right-wing extremism, as manifest for example by
certain nationalist political groups in European countries, the
'civilization of the West' - in which many such groups now include
Israel [7] - is the ideal because it is
morally superior; the enemies (the hated inferiors) are Muslims and
other 'immigrants'; with an idealized and resurgent 'European
culture and identity' (manifest in strong nation-States of 'native
Europeans' and/or in a return to communities based on 'European
traditions') having replaced the nazi/fascist ideal of a
National-Socialist/Fascist State and with 'past glories' celebrated
and idealized and used to motivate and inspire pride and develope a
sense of urgency about the 'threat' posed by enemies and by the loss
of national/cultural 'identity'.
In terms of radical Islam, the enemies (the hated inferiors) are
Amerika, Israel, Muslim collaborators, and decadent kuffar, with the
goal being a resurgent Khilafah or at least the implementation of
Shariah as the only law at first in Muslim lands and then elsewhere.
A Numinous Approach
Activists and even many supporters of such ideologies find meaning,
worth, identity, empowerment, in the inclusion, in the collectivity,
the belonging, that such ideologies assert or assume, and thus their
knowing of themselves and of others, and thence their 'ethics' (or
lack of ethics) are or become determined by the boundaries set by
such ideologies. The boundaries of enemies; of traitors; of those
'different from us/inferior to us'; of obstacles to be overcome in
the struggle toward victory; of sacrifice for the cause; of
conformity to guidelines for living laid down by a leader or leaders
or ideologues or 'the party' or set out in some political programme,
or book, or tract, or speech, or manifesto.
What therefore is lost or tends to become lost because of such
boundaries, such collectivity, is empathy; wu-wei; notions of the
innocence - the non-judgement - of those we do not personally know;
sympatheia with others on an individual basis; and a desire
to treat every human being as an individual sans all ideological
boundaries, sans all prejudice, sans abstractions of
inclusion/exclusion, sans all notions of 'them' and 'us', and sans
all rhetoric and propaganda about a struggle for victory, and about
the 'urgency of the situation'.
For such ideologies manifest the-separation-of-otherness
and which error of hubris is the foundation, the essence, of all
abstractions[8], and which separation-of-otherness
is the genesis of supra-personal, ideological, hatred and
intolerance, usurping as such ideologies do with their collective
empowerment and their supra-personal authority the empathy of the
individual, the unique individual judgement that arises from such
empathy, the necessity of interior personal spiritual (numinous)
development, and the wu-wei, the compassion, the fairness, the
tolerance, the humanity, that empathy by its revealing inclines us
toward.
As such, those ideologies, born of and manifesting hubris, ignoring
or disrespectful as they are of the numinous, and attempting as they
do to redefine the ethical, are therefore - it seems to me -
immoral, and lamentable.
David Myatt
2012 ce
The Politics and Ideology of Hate (Part Two)
Related:
A Rejection of
Extremism
(pdf)
Notes
[1] Politics, as used here, means both of the following, according
to context. (i) The theory and practice of governance, with
governance itself founded on two fundamental assumptions; that of
some minority - a government (elected or unelected), some military
authority, some oligarchy, some ruling elite, some tyrannos, or some
leader - having or assuming authority (and thus power and influence)
over others, and with that authority being exercised over a specific
geographic area or territory. (ii) The activities of those
individuals or groups whose aim or whose intent is to obtain and
exercise some authority or some control over - or to influence - a
society or sections of a society by means which are organized and
directed toward changing/reforming that society or sections of a
society in accordance with a particular ideology.
Ideology, as used here, means a coherent, organized, and distinctive
set of beliefs and/or ideas or ideals, and which beliefs and/or
ideas and/or ideals pertain to governance, and/or to society, and/or
to matters of a philosophical or a spiritual nature.
The term society, as used here, means a collection of people who
live in a specific geographic area or areas and whose association or
interaction is mostly determined by a shared set of guidelines or
principles or beliefs, irrespective of whether these are written or
unwritten, and irrespective of whether such
guidelines/principles/beliefs are willingly accepted or accepted on
the basis of acquiescence.
[2] For the usage, here, of the term ideology see footnote 1.
[3] Incitement is used here in the sense of 'to instigate' or to
provoke or to cause or to 'urge others to'.
[4] By radical Islam is meant the belief that practical Jihad
against 'the enemies of Islam' and the occupiers of Muslim lands is
an individual duty incumbent upon every able-bodied Muslim; that
Muslims should live among Muslims under the guidance of Shariah;
that Muslims should return to the pure guidance of Quran and Sunnah
and distance themselves from the ways and the influence of the
kuffar. Many radical Muslims also support the restoration of the
Khilafah and are intolerant of those Muslims they consider have
allied themselves with the kuffar.
[5] Wu-wei is an important part of The Numinous Way, with the term
being used to mean a personal ‘letting-be’ deriving from a feeling,
a knowing, that an essential part of wisdom is cultivation of an
interior personal balance and which cultivation requires acceptance
that one must work with, or employ, things according to their
nature, for to do otherwise is incorrect, and inclines us toward, or
is, being excessive – that is, toward the error, the unbalance, that
is hubris, an error often manifest in personal arrogance, excessive
personal pride, and insolence – that is, a disrespect for the
numinous.
In practice, wu-wei is the cultivation of a certain (empathic,
numinous) perspective – that life, things/beings, change, flow,
exist, in certain natural ways which we human beings cannot change
however hard we might try; that such a hardness of human trying, a
belief in such hardness, is unwise, un-natural, upsets the natural
balance and can cause misfortune/suffering for us and/or for
others, now or in the future. Thus success lies in discovering the
inner nature (the physis) of things/beings/ourselves and gently,
naturally, slowly, working with this inner nature, not striving
against it.
[6] One aspect of all extremist ideologies, of the politics and
ideologies of hate, that has intrigued me for some time is their
explicit or their implicit patriarchal ethos; their masculine bias;
their stridency, their lack of not only empathy but also of those
qualities that are ineluctably feminine, caring, nurturing, and thus
which tend toward balancing the hubriatic male qualities such as
harshness, fanaticism, kampf, and militarism, which such ideologies
laud.
This bias toward overt masculinity, toward machismo, possibly
explains why such harsh, such extremist ideologies - and often the
supporters of such ideologies - dislike, are intolerant of, or even
hate, pacifists, Sapphic ladies, gay men, and even sensitive
artistic men who are not gay.
[7] The support for Israel by such groups has led to some political
commentators regarding such support by such extremists as either
cynical opportunism or as some attempt to gain political credibility
and thus an attempt to distance themselves from nazism and fascism
even though their whole agenda, their trumpeting of 'European
civilization and culture', their nationalism, their dislike of
'immigrants' and especially of Muslims, seems to place them within
the sphere of those ideologies. For instance, these extremists seem
to have simply made Muslims, and 'immigrants' in general, the 'new
Jews'.
[8] The Numinous Way understands an abstraction as the manufacture,
and use of, some idea, ideal, 'image', form, or category, and thus
some generalization about, and/or some assignment of an individual
or individuals – and/or some being, some 'thing' – to some group or
category with the implicit acceptance of the separateness, in causal
Space-Time, of such a being/beings/things/individuals. This
assignment of human beings to some abstraction (some abstract
category) - such as Negro or Jew or 'traitor' or 'heretic' or
'prostitute' - always involves either some pejorative judgement
being made about an individual on the basis of the qualities or the
attributes that are believed or assumed to belong to that
abstraction, or some idealization/glorification of those so assigned
(such as some idealized 'Aryan race').
The positing of some 'perfect' or 'ideal' form, category, or thing,
is part of abstraction.
Thus understood, abstraction encompasses terms such as ideology,
idea, dogmatic/harsh beliefs, and ideals.