« Obama Seeks To Calm Public Fear Of Ebola | Main | For a Muslim, jihad is a sacrament. »

October 10, 2014

There are many theories of what drives elite madness.

Peter Turchin thinks it’s about elite overproduction, we have too many educated people with ambitions of high status, so they fight each other to see who’s holier-than-thou and gain status for themselves.
Moldbug thinks it’s Puritanism evolved, getting ever more virulent. There also other theories: bureaucratic religion, mass-media induced cognitive failure. Choose your favorite one. Whatever the cause, the disease is increasing and getting worse. It seems to be getting close to the terminal phase, when it goes berserk and kills the patient. See the Ebola crisis. A quite easily controlled tropical virus is growing out there because people would rather use it to compete for holiness rather than try to stop people from dying.
Black herrings | Bloody shovel

Posted by gerardvanderleun at October 10, 2014 11:24 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

A perverse, secularized puritanism works for me.

Posted by: browncoat [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 10, 2014 12:29 PM

Those all seem plausible. For me, it seems like there have always been the crazed and extreme, the book burners and torch carrying mobs, the easily swayed, emotionally driven, and rationally weak have always been among us. They just glom onto whatever movement seems the strongest and most compelling and corrupt it.

Incidentally, the portrayal of puritans that is generally accepted is a malicious slander. They weren't anything like what was shown in The Scarlet Letter or pretty much any fiction about that time period. Puritans were, for example, the first to write love letters to their wives instead of mistresses.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 10, 2014 12:34 PM

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)