It means that the actor himself is convinced of the correctness and inevitability of his actions to the degree that his conviction serves both to help him to act more successfully and to persuade the opposition that his (the actor’s) actions are in accordance with the way thins should be. Strangely enough, this factor of morale, which we might like to reserve for men because of its spiritual or subjective quality, also operates among animals. A small bird will often be observed in summer successfully driving a crow or even a hawk away from its nest, and a dog who would not ordinarily fight at all will attack, often successfully, a much larger beast who intrudes onto his front steps or yard. This element of subjective conviction which we call morale is the most significant aspect of the ideological element in power relationships and shows the intimate relationship between the various elements of power from the way in which it strengthens both force and persuasion.
It also shows something else which contemporary thinkers are very reluctant to accept. That is the operation of natural law. For the fact that animals recognize the prescriptive rights to property, as shown in the fact that a much stronger beast will yield to a much weaker one on the latter’s home area, or that a hawk will allow a flycatcher to chase it from the area of the flycatcher’s nest, shows a recognition of property rights which implies a system of law among beasts. In fact, the singing of a bird (which is not for the edification of man or to attract a mate, but is a proclamation of a residence area to other birds of the same habits) is another example of the recognition of rights and thus of law among non-human life.
“[A] dog who would not ordinarily fight at all will attack, often successfully, a much larger beast who intrudes onto his front steps or yard.”
“It is not so much the size of the dog in the fight. It is the size of the fight in the dog that counts.” — Eisenhower
It seems “morale” means the desperate courage of the cornered animal.
Sun Tzu wrote of death ground. Any organism that gives in to an imminent existential threat will have Darwin to answer to.
But death ground is largely a matter of perception. Self preservation is a matter of accurate perception. If you’re in a fight for your life, you’d better realize it.
Let your enemy think they have an avenue of escape, and they won’t fight as hard. Defeat your enemy slowly, like a pool shark. Never put them on death ground until you’re ready to wipe them out in a mopping up operation.
There is no reasoning with someone who is convinced he will die if he doesn’t win. This is why fearmongering works. Motivate your troops by making them terrified to lose.
Quigley being very insightful here. As noted, he was a very perceptive observer and thinker, until his moderate mid-century liberal pieties were threatened. Of course, Quigley’s liberalism would be considered reactionary today, but it was beliefs like his that brought us to the current madness. Christopher Caldwell does a good job of outlining how.
General Patton:
“As usual on the verge of action, everyone felt full of doubt except myself. It has always been my unfortunate role to be the ray of sunshine and the backslapper before action, both for those under me and also those over me. I can say with perfect candor that, at that time, I had no doubt as to the success of the operation.”
And, “battles are won by frightening the enemy.”
(from War As I Knew It)
‘It seems ‘morale’ means the desperate courage of the cornered animal.”
It also means one of the biggest signals beings use for assessing claims of reality is that of the being(s) presenting them itself.
If you seem confident in something, they will feel confident in it. If you seem doubtful of something, they will feel doubtful of it. Those who act as if they are blameless paragons in the face of aspersion will easily be believed innocent. Likewise, those who intimate feeling guilt will be punished for it. If you loudly and repeatedly assert that you are a good person looking to do a good thing, people will tend to believe you. If you loudly and repeatedly assert that you are an agent of God pronouncing the law of creation with all of it’s power behind your back, people will tend to believe you. And so on it goes, in more instances than you can count.
In Why The South Lost The Civil War, for instance, the good messrs. Jones, Beringer, and Still overviewed several of the popular theories for confederate defeat that have been mooted over the years — from the attempts at naval blockade, to industrialization, to manpower, and so on — and noted how none of the more especially ‘materialist’ factors, either individually or altogether, were sufficient to explain defeat, and that by most objective measures, the confederacy was nowhere close to exhausting it’s war footing, and more than capable of fighting to a standstill.
The ultimately inescapable conclusion was that the biggest factor underlining the loss of the cause was that the confederates themselves gave it up; they became depressed and despondent; they lacked belief in a moral sanction to dominate and rule over their enemies, which the yankees had in spades. The northerners evinced a willingness to suffer defeat after defeat and still desire to prosecute war regardless, whereas any moment of similar fortunes induced paroxysms of lugubriousness amongst the southerners – which ultimately proved a fatal spiral. The generals had a perhaps futile task of trying to win on the battlefield a faith that had already been lost in the mind.
In many ways he war could have been over even before it started, given the huge strategic advantages involved in the situation at the outset, not the least of which being the frankly untenable position of the district of colombia. Yet the idea of actually invading the north themselves was never seriously considered until far too late — and nevermind the thought of conquering their neighbors. You need to bring a religion to a holy war, and — barring some notable exceptions, like the good reverend Dabney — the faith of all the assorted decent persons drawn to fighting the puritan conquest was lacking.
Throughout the history of warfare, it has been the case that the exponential bulk of casualties actually take place during routes and mopping up actions. The actual pitched fighting that takes place while everyone is in good order is practically a safe haven in comparison — indeed, in many ways, this is literally true even.
“If you loudly and repeatedly assert that you are a good person looking to do a good thing, people will tend to believe you.”
This works only on a certain subset of the populace: the gullibles. But on them, it works like gangbusters.
Which leaves the question of how to deal with the non-gullibles. Usually that involves running them over with tanks.
So, the South lost because they lost morale? Why did they lose morale? Simply because the North didn’t? When the answers offered only raise further questions, I suspect an explaining-away rationalization.
I don’t buy that the South was riddled with doubt over the moral rectitude of their position. How then to account for Jim Crow? Southerners never admit they’re in the wrong, not even to themselves.
“Southerners never admit they’re in the wrong, not even to themselves.”
This is not true and nothing but a demoralization tactic.
Not germane to the morale question, but the South actually invaded the North several times. Many of the early battles were fought on Northern soil.
“This works only on a certain subset of the populace: the gullibles.”
A “subset” that happens to constitute the great majority of humanity in general, and a sentiment that is influential in almost all humanoid beings to at least some degree.
“How then to account for Jim Crow?”
Basic good sense that every man possessed of “culture, urbanity, and respectable taste” felt embarrassed by.
“Basic good sense that every man possessed of “culture, urbanity, and respectable taste’ felt embarrassed by…”
This is of course gas-lighting. It’s an effort to place blame on the “majority” of White Southern males.
It does not belong there. You don’t have to be in favor of slavery or Jim crow to realize that you do not want Blacks without supervision. Nor do you want them to run anything. It’s simply the best that can be done about a bad situation.
There’s a lot of falsehoods about slavery, who had the slaves and how they got here.
Now the Jews are more than happy to try and tie that rock around all White Southerners but how did they get here?
It’s fact that almost the whole entirety of the slave trade was operated by the Jews. Without them they would have never been here in the first place, at least certainly not in the numbers that came to be.
It’s also true that 40% of Jews owned slaves before it was made illegal.
The numbers of slave owners was,
“Looking just at the slave states then, there were 393,975 slave owners in the slave states out of a population of 12,240,293. So this means that 3.22 percent of the population of the 15 slave states were slave owners.”
https://moguldom.com/296030/fact-check-what-percentage-of-white-southerners-owned-slaves/
I can’t prove this but I expect that the vast majority were owned by the 40% of Jews that owned slaves. At the very least, their high percentage and ownership of plantations would make their numbers higher.
I also suspect due to past behavior that the Jews brought slaves to the US for profit and most importantly to cause racial disruption. In most cases in the past the Jews have tried this tactic. They talked about bringing “Negros” into Germany obsessively.
It’s certainly caused problems in the US and they’re still at it with great gusto. How we need Afghans in the US, I do not comprehend. But it works for them.
If the South had any sense once they got back control of their States they should have shipped every black person North as fast as possible, but as usual the wealthy wanted cheap labor so…
During Reconstruction no one who served in the Confederate army could vote. So that was…everyone. The end result was a bunch of Northerners moved South (carpetbaggers) and took over the government. The rest of the legislature was mostly free slaves. You can guess how well that worked. Detroit on steroids.
The only reason it was stopped was the Ku Klux Klan was starting guerrilla warfare against the people running things. People had just had enough The South was devastated by the war then had carpet baggers and freed slaves looting the whole of the countryside. It was too much. The guerrilla war was just getting started and the North decided to get out before it got out of hand. Good move.
You might ask why I would be FOR Jim Crow. Right now.
Near where I live is a road that dead ends. On that road are government housing project apartments. They are at the end of the road, on both sides of the road and no one can go through there without seeing what is going on. Somehow a little 8 year old White girl got down there and she was taken to an abandoned house by several black boys, raped repeatedly and then murdered.
And not one damn person came forward to say who did this out of hundreds of people in that project. There’s no way possible she went through there without them knowing. Not one.
Think of the pain and fear of that poor lost little White girl who they raped repeatedly then killed in cold blood.
That was it for me. That was a dividing point that can never ever be overcome and things have not gotten better but worse.
Am I saying all Black people are evil, no, but there’s just a whole lot of them that are. The numbers are very high and some things are just not worth the effort. I don’t want them around. I avoid them completely if I can.
Let’s make it a solid numerical event. Let’s say if you hang out with a White fellow and some psych study guys are paying you to do so. You can have a good time and maybe you get a dollar and hour but there’s a 4% possibility that he will kill you. Well he’s not likely too so most likely you would take that. Now let’s do the same thing but make it a black person and the same amount of money, but the odds now have ramped up to Black murder levels so 8 times higher to 32%…would the dollar an hour be worth it??? No.
Now given this fact and the overwhelming amount of rape, robbery, assault, murder and on and on that blacks create then I see no alternative except eventually controlling then, deporting them or killing them off.
Is this a bad thing, surely, but there it is. We can not have our little girls murdered and raped and not even one black person have the slightest concern. This is not acceptable.
Properly the North should take all the Blacks as they freed them they should be responsible for them. Most White people in the South did not own slaves and it was nothing but a burden to them.
You don’t have to be for slavery to not want your country invaded and burnt down. You don’t have to be for slavery to have everything you buy made in the North due to high tariffs and taxes that you pay and they get the profits from. You don’t have to be for slavery to not want your little girls to be raped and murdered.
That’s just the way it is and I don’t care if Black peoples feelings are hurt when I see them raping and murdering White children.
Count on Sam to drag the Jews into it.
The reason I’m not a racist is I have a low opinion of humanity in general. Every argument for racism turns into an argument for misanthropy once you get past the cherry picking.
What Sam saw with Blacks I’ve seen with… no, I won’t name the ethnicity. Let’s just say they were human, all too human.
Trash comes in all colors. Pederasty is equal opportunity.
The poor Jews didn’t want to ship black slaves from Africa to Virginia or Moslem goatherds from Arabia to Sweden, they were (and are) coerced into doing that by omnipresent forces of structural oppression and a historical legacy of systems of privilege perpetuated by colonialist imperial powers and their even more diabolical republican offspring. To free the poor Jews from their centuries-old burden of fostering rich opportunities for diversity and inclusion by transporting millions of the poorest people on earth to peaceful, prosperous, and painfully pale places, we must abolish the ability of whiteness to reproduce itself. It isn’t pleasant, but Europe isn’t going to be the monolithic societies they once were in the twentieth century. All glory to G-d.
>The reason I’m not a racist is I have a low opinion of humanity in general.
You’re in good company; that is the exact same sentiment felt by the assorted gnostics who presently rule over you, too.
“Count on Sam to drag the Jews into it. The reason I’m not a racist is I have a low opinion of humanity in general. Every argument for racism turns into an argument for misanthropy once you get past the cherry picking.”
I am happy to say that I am not racist. I am not against any race merely on grounds of skin color, bone shape, and similar biological characteristics.
I am against chattel slavery, and if Jews turn out to have been the principal profiteers behind chattel slavery, that profiteering warrants discussion.
I am also against organ trafficking, and if Operation Bid Rig turns out to have been true, then the similarities between profiteering in organ harvesting and profiteering in chattel slavery deserve discussion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bid_Rig
I am confident that if the key players behind Operation Bid Rig were analyzed, they would exhibit the common attribute of psychopathy, which would be vastly more important than their ethnic characteristics.
The elite are the principal profiteers behind everything that anyone notices, and a lot that isn’t noticed. That’s what makes them elite.
It’s also why they seek to repress anything that they can’t profit from, lest it empower a new emerging elite to replace them.
Eat the rich. Only half kidding. Forget the protests. Protests are a mug’s game. Ernst Junger had half the solution: fly under their radar.
Elites are the principal profiteers behind everything they can be. It’s what makes them elites.
Elite is as elite does. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just what they do.
Well, it literally is a conspiracy. There is nothing that gets done in a demotist/bureaucratic state except by conspiracy. It’s the only way. (By intention.)
Harry Jones says,”Count on Sam to drag the Jews into it…”
I don’t have to drag them anywhere. They are in the thick of it, “every single time”.
You’re just upset because I noticed. It’s not my fault the Jews act as they do. They should stop it.
Longarch ,”…I am confident that if the key players behind Operation Bid Rig were analyzed, they would exhibit the common attribute of psychopathy, which would be vastly more important than their ethnic characteristics…”
What if some of these, attributes, are synonymous with certain races in aggregate?
“What if some of these, attributes, are synonymous with certain races in aggregate?”
That is a valid and worthwhile line of inquiry. It may be that some special characteristics allow certain groups of psychopaths to cooperate more effectively than other psychopaths.
For example, there might be some special gene in Tutsi psychopaths that allows them to cooperate more effectively than Sami psychopaths. This means that of course Tutsi psychopaths will oppress everyone in their vicinity, and Sami psychopaths will oppress everyone in their vicinity, but in a power struggle between factions, the Tutsi psychopath faction would have a strategic advantage over the Sami psychopath faction.
Human biology is full of odd surprises. How surprising it would be to discover that some particular gene pool within humanity had an advantage in the field of psychopathic violence! And yet such a possibility might yet be revealed.
That’s a novel and fascinating theory of psychopathic organization, Longarch. Are you suggesting, in other words, that it might confer a profound strategic advantage for two psychopaths to have three factions?
Jim says, “Are you suggesting, in other words, that it might confer a profound strategic advantage for two psychopaths to have three factions?”
No the opposite.
By the way have any of you read the biography of Ariel Sharon where the guys in charge want to bring him into their group tell him he must stop lying. That it was ok to lie to others but he absolutely must not lie to them.
In the past I would have never really paid much attention to these sort of details but once you learn about different sorts of genetic mental psychologies you begin to see stuff like this pop out all over the place.
“Are you suggesting, in other words, that it might confer a profound strategic advantage for two psychopaths to have three factions?”
That wasn’t where I was going with my thinking, but that sounds like it might also be true. Psychopaths are highly evolved to exploit weaknesses. If a deceptive psychopath can hurt a lot of people by deceiving his allies, or even by deceiving himself, some psychopath will probably try those tactics and succeed. Thus you could get a case of two psychopaths with three factions, or more likely, n psychopaths and n! conspiracies involving psychopaths. I might have to review set theory in order to count all the subsets involved.
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/discretemathematics/combinations.php
Anyway, what I mean to say is that you might find yourself in ethnic group A, and you might notice your country is going to hell, but some folks blame psychopaths from ethnic group B, but other folks say, “No, no, ethnic group B is not the real problem, the real problem is our own bad guys from ethnic group A.” Maybe both ethnic groups A and B have psychopaths. Maybe one group, e.g. ethnic group B, has more dangerous psychopaths than ethnic group A.
“…have any of you read the biography of Ariel Sharon”
I am really far behind on my self-assigned reading list. I still have not really delved into “By Way of Deception” and “They Dare to Speak Out.” On that note, if I forget to check up on this conversation, it’s probably because I have to catch up on my background reading. But thanks for the stimulating thoughts, everyone, and thanks as always to Isegoria for running one of the best blogs on the Internet.
Sam, the main problem was — which i implied but did not speak explicity — that it was not Richmond and Atlanta that set the definitions of “culture, urbanity, and respectable taste” in people’s minds, but Boston and New York; that men in other states nominally had legal sovereignty, but lacked memetic sovereignty; ‘spiritual security’ as Czar Putin would say.
“I am really far behind on my self-assigned reading list.”
Me, in a bad way. I used to devour books but since the internet I read too much crap and I think it’s stunted my attention span. I find it harder to get back into reading full length books with a good amount of complexity in them. Yet there’s a list a mile long that I ought to read.
“…it might confer a profound strategic advantage for two psychopaths to have three factions?”
I don’t think it does. In actuality I expect it’s just a side affect of psychopathy. Constant gaslighting everyone, all the time.
Like pit bulls being more likely to attack small children. It’s not their job, but…
What we call sociopathy is just an edge case of normal behavior. There are natural limits to empathy. It’s simply not possible to care about billions of people whom you’ve never met and whose names you don’t know.
Basic human decency doesn’t scale. That’s why we have wars.
It’s also why those religions and philosophies that preach universal love simply don’t work.
Don’t call anyone maladapted if he’s getting ahead in the world. Whatever works is sane. If you’re well adjusted to a sick society, you will outlast someone who is poorly adjusted to a sick society. After the sick society crashes and burns, then there will be a different sort of competition. But the sick society is the elimination round. Nobody too good for his own good will be there to claim the future.
The psychos will have the second-to-last laugh.
Harry Jones says,”…Don’t call anyone maladapted if he’s getting ahead in the world. Whatever works is sane….”
They are maladapted, to civilization. What Spaths are is the human in it’s original animal form. Just like gangs of Chimps. Do Chimps have civilization? No they roam around in packs on the edge of their territories and murder anyone who intercedes.
Spaths are nothing but animals.
Sam J’s theory of civilization,”Civilization came about because of the rise of empathy. This allowed people to work together”.
Sam J’s theory of civilization, ”Empathy is necessary to form civilization. As capacity for empathy rose civilization rose with it.”
Sam J’s theory of civilization, “Without empathy there can be no civilization”.
This is I’m sure why the Neanderthals lived in Europe for 250,000 years and didn’t do a damn thing. Built nothing. Passed on nothing. A big nothing. Yet Cro-Mags came to Europe and immediately we see all kinds of stuff being built, improved. They were not animals.
The Spaths we see are maybe powerful, smart and ruthless but they are animals and will ruin civilization. Letting Spaths run around free in your civilization is like letting hogs live in your living room, they will stink up everything.
Harry Jones says,”…What we call sociopathy is just an edge case of normal behavior…”
Oh and BTW you personally making excuses for psychopaths is…most telling.