The conservative mind seeks a darker, but soberer, point of departure: What to do with violent criminals? How should free-riding, cheating and loafing be discouraged? How do we get people to come out of their comfort zones and make sincere efforts for the good of themselves and others?
And what are the “hard truths” that we must all relate to? Here’s a perspective from a “pickup artist”, i.e. a man who has become a professional at seducing women:
“There is a pride in being a pickup artist. It is a challenge. I have performer friends who can explode on stage like samurai and kill five hundred people, but they are afraid to approach a girl in a bar. I don’t blame them. Most audiences are horny to be fucked. They want it hard and deep. But the girl sitting on the bar stool is more difficult. She is scarier. She is the five hundred pound gorilla in a little black dress. And she can bust you up, if you let her. But she is also horny to be fucked. We are all horny to be fucked.” [21]
“Juggler”, as is the nom de guerre of this fellow, tries to “tell it like it is”. He tries to face up to the inherent challenges of life, ones that cannot be brushed aside with idealistic visions and wishful thinking. In short: he accepts the game of life (in this case seduction) and tries to take its consequences.
But it doesn’t sound very nice, which is probably why Juggler is part of a secret society in the first place, where knowledge about the games of seduction is spread and refined. Speaking one’s perceived hard truths often makes you sound like a douchebag.
This puts the conservative at a constant rhetorical disadvantage; you generally tend to sound less nice. Which is quite annoying—a tired and irritated look on the conservative’s face unmistakably presents itself when liberals and radicals go on, performing their moral braggadocio and “virtue signaling” in the media or at any given dinner party.
Conservatives generally talk less. They tell themselves they are practical, down-to-earth, realistic—doers rather than talkers. And in more or less refined manners, they resent the game deniers, these cheap fakes who take every opportunity to shout out their opinions and to shine their own politically correct medals; liberals, loud as a motorbike, who choose moral bombasticity over sober analysis.
This “conservative silence” is supported by research, which clearly shows that the farther left you are, the more you tend to voice your opinions in everyday life. If you’re rooting for the nationalist party, you talk the least about it. One such study was undertaken in Sweden by the polling company Demoskop: When asking over 4000 people, 56% of self-reported socialists were comfortable with voicing their opinions to strangers, while the same figure for nationalists was 27%—the other ideologies neatly arranged in order of left-wingness. [22] Similar figures have been found in the US, as shown by a recent Cato Institute report. [23] Ours is a world of liberal loudmouths and tight conservative lips (and quiet support of populist and conservative leaders).
And since nationalism and Trumpism are the least kosher and most difficult to publicly defend, people even hide supporting them when asked in polls (which, by the way, is likely a major reason that polling has begun to be less accurate lately). When they do support the Trumps of the world, they often add in small excuses, justifications, hedgings, accounts and disclaimers: “Well, I don’t like Trump, I just thought we should shake things up a bit” and so forth. [24]
When rhetorical talents who understand the metamodern games of the media landscape—like the young, posh Brit Milo Yiannopoulos and perhaps, to some extent, Donald Trump himself—finally manage to break through and say the things that conservatives wish they could express, the response is huge. A sigh of relief echoes through many as what might loosely be termed the “Alt-Right” gains momentum. Even if Yiannopoulos and Trump may embody exaggerations of conservative sentiments, at least they rain some sweet vengeance upon the often so suffocating politically correct establishment, the smothering welfare state and perceived status quo . A mellow sense of satisfaction arises in the conservative tummy.
Game Acceptance
But I have argued elsewhere that reality consists of more than “actuality”; that a deeper and fuller reality lies in the realm of what is possible. And the conservatives have a strong tendency towards accepting the games of life in their current, actual form in a way that disregards the very real potentials for alternatives and change.
I have said that crimes against reality are crimes against humanity. But crimes against potentiality are also crimes against humanity, and against all life on our planet—against all beautiful futures. Game acceptance also kills. In fact, these killing grounds are far greater and more brutal than the ones of game denial.
Game acceptance means to prostrate before the game and take it as a law of nature in its current form, denying that the game can and must evolve. Or, more often, the game accepter holds that real and substantial changes are only ever possible in a distant and irrelevant future.
This makes us justify illegitimate force and injustice. It makes us think the unfair sides of the game are somehow indeed fair, because someone, somewhere “deserved it”. And that injustice is all for the best in the long run because it serves the game. Game acceptance is the tune of political realism, “political theology” (Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, Vilfredo Pareto, Niccolò Machiavelli…), neo-liberalism, conservatism. The game accepter quietly mumbles:
“It has to be this way! It’s how the world works. Some were born to sing the blues. We have to let them starve, get screwed over, get stuck and crushed in systems that are not for them. If we only let the system play out and the game be played the way it is, it will turn out for the best for everyone. Besides, I can’t help I won. Don’t hate the player, hate the game!”
But game acceptance really loves the game and hates the player—correction—hates the player who happens to get the short end of the stick.
The billions of enslaved, tortured and murdered animals under global industrial farming find no heroic defenders among the game accepters. The unjust international order which keeps the global South exploited and subjugated is defended under the auspices of “free markets”. The losers of everyday life—the unintelligent, the ugly, the sickly—they all deserve what they get.
The central principle of game acceptance is hence: That which could be is not, and hence it should not be. As David Hume warned us already in the 18th century, this is a fallacy—deriving an “ought” from an “is”. That something is the case doesn’t mean is should be the case.
At its most extreme, game acceptance goes beyond the existing games of life to invent fictitious ones so that we may revel in what “necessary evils” these games demand of us: “Western culture is trying to destroy the Arab world and undermine all of Islam. Ergo we must stop them by ramming airplanes into buildings full of innocent folks!”—or “The Jews are plotting to destroy Germany! I don’t like it any more than you, but we must kill them! It’s either them or us. Race against race!”—or “Species against species! Humans must kill and torture billions of piglets, lest we all starve! It’s the terrible game of life. Alas!”—or “Men must be superior to women and make more money and be more respected in public life, or else—the impending collapse of civilization!”—or “We must have a schooling system which more or less systematically permanently breaks the souls of the less gifted and less privileged and lets them know their lowly place in society! And we need to beat the kids! I wish it weren’t so.”
But now that it is so, mumbles a voice at the outer fringe of your conscious mind, you might as well enjoy subjugating the weak and feel exalted with every proof of your own power.
And just as there is an embodied form of game denial, so there is an embodied form of game acceptance . Especially those of us who have had high social status during our upbringing and reflexively assume we can win out in any confrontation
that shows up can be tempted to think all such confrontations are necessarily good and just. Losers get what they deserve; that’s not just an idea, but a felt bodily experience that sets our mind up for game acceptance.
Exaggerated forms of game acceptance lead to the most brutal forms of social organization. If you look at Nazi Germany, it killed less people than the communist experiment, numerically speaking. But if you look at the relatively small spread of fascism and its shorter period of existence, you notice the killing rate was much higher and the brutality much more an end in itself. Game acceptance, at its most extreme, murders a lot more people than does game denial.
But it doesn’t stop there. The worst crime of game acceptance is that it blocks legitimate, necessary and very possible change. The game accepter remains serial killer calm in the face of glaring injustice. If you look at the thousands of very preventable maladies that have been perpetuated by game acceptance throughout history, you see a silent, invisible death toll looming larger than any other crime in world history.
Should we be complacent towards obviously avoidable suffering? What the barreling fuck! Of course we could end slavery. Of course we can end animal slavery. Of course the rich world can and should support sustainable global growth with a significant percentage of its GDP. Of course the trade system should be fairer. Of course most wars were avoidable. Of course everyone can have free basic health care. Of course we can live less wastefully and still be healthier, happier and have meaningful lives.
Crimes against potentiality are crimes against humanity.
Don’t Hate the Game
Before we go on, I should note that neither game denial nor game acceptance is a consciously held perspective . They are, of course, mistakes we make because of unconscious biases and emotional investments in ideas and identities (“I am a radical anarchist!” invites game denial, etc.). They constitute subtle forms of self-deceit.
The moment game denial and game acceptance are recognized for what they are it becomes apparent that they cannot be sustained. Everyone will vehemently deny their own game denial or game acceptance and claim to be a responsible “game changer” if confronted.
What then, is game change ? It is the productive synthesis of game denial and game acceptance: you accept that life is a game and you resolve to work to change it. It’s quite obvious when you think about it. Let’s take a closer look.
Life is unfair because relations between sentient beings are layered in games for scarce resources. Through resources (of whatever form) we can reach for the sublime and approach our fundamental, unknowable God-nature: Through gaining access to food and favorable mates we escape the ever-present clutches of death and reach for immortality through reproduction. In human beings socialized within complex tribes or societies, death is defied by the extension of the idea of ego—my name, my recognition, my ideas, my deeds, my sacrifice, my devotion, my children, my ancestors, my style, my monument, my love, my passion. These are all, in their own ways, scarce resources, that are distributed, accessed and enjoyed through the playing of games.
The students of the psychology of death—a fascinating and promising field of empirical research that builds upon the heritage of Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death —have produced plenty of experimental evidence to show we become more eager players of games when confronted with our own mortality. Humans have a strong unconscious drive to cheat death. When reminded of death, even in a subtle manner, we latch on to our identities, our wealth and our worldviews more eagerly—and we judge one another more harshly. True story. [25] The intrinsic and inescapable fear of the great gig in the sky distorts our cognition and turns us into game deniers or game accepters.
The bad news is that life is unfair. The good news is that life is a game and that its rules can change. These are two sides of the same coin. The question is not “game, or no game”, but the nature of our relationship to the game and the evolution of its rules.
Games produce dynamics of interaction. They give life in samsara a temporal, fleeting meaning: maybe we can be winners, or at least avoid being losers, or at least hide we “really are” losers. They give an experience of substance to the fundamental, pristine, empty meaninglessness of phenomenal reality. They produce a story, a drama, where stakes exist, moves are made, victories won, losses cut and bitterly remembered. Games produce results. They produce losers and winners. Just like you and me. We all know both sides, in different contexts, to different extents.
The major objective of the metamodern political project is to change the rules of the game . Our simple message is that everyday life as we know it can and must evolve. The game change position holds:
Life is a plus-sum game with possible win-wins.
Life is also often a zero-sum game with lose-win.
Life is sometimes even a tragic dilemma of lose-lose.
But the rules of the game can change, evolving into more win-win, less lose-win and less lose-lose.
Nobody actually ever “deserves” to lose games and suffer defeat or humiliation. Seriously—would you tell a kid that she “deserves” to be crappy at school? To be ugly and lonely or poor? To starve? To have low self-esteem? To have a fragmented, anxious mind? To be part of the losing side of globalization? That baby turkeys in industrial butcheries get what they deserve?
All injustices in the world are caused by the playing of games.
Humans and other beings have no choice but to partake in games.
In the last instance, no injustice or suffering is ever excusable or tolerable.
It is our ethical imperative, without compromise, to change the rules of the game.
Successful changing of the game is that which:
produces more winners in life,
produces fewer losers,
softens the fall of the losers,
increases the rewards of the winners, and
makes people act kindlier and more fairly while playing the game.
The point is that winning in life is never enough . What if you become that successful? What if you get those hot young men? What if you save that many lives? What if you really save the world from climate crisis?
Then you’ll still have a kid, or somebody else you care about, who is crushed and humiliated by the same game you played and happened to win. The game is still on. Still grinding. For every winner, there is a loser. You were that awesome idealistic writer who pointed out injustice? You were a hero? The very fact of your moral victory means that you just trashed, humiliated and outcompeted somebody else. That somebody else could have been you. It could have been your own child.
And more fundamentally—it is you. Winning in life is fun. But it’s just not enough. Classical liberalism, neo-liberalism, conservatism, capitalism and fascism are all based upon accepting the game and an attitude of “may the best player win”. They are all defenders and upholders of injustice, cruelty and suffering that just cannot be ethically justified.
So what if I win? In a deeper sense, you have still lost. You must change the games of life. That is the only result that counts. That is the only victory worth keeping, because it includes everybody.
The game of life will still produce losers and winners, but the results will be determined through much less bloodshed and losing will come at a much lower cost. This will be a society in which people get more than one shot at glory.
Don’t hate the player, and don’t hate the game either. We need to love the game, learn to play it—and change it, because we love the players.
Multi-Dimensional Game Change
Game change means to admit the game, even to play it lovingly, but seeking to change the way it works. Games have dynamics and these dynamics can work in directions towards grosser or more refined games.
All games have evolved from something else. When modern Western people compete for spouses we usually don’t even reach the point of ver
bal confrontation. Lions fight and kill each other’s cubs.
Our game is more refined, and its rules harder to learn. But obviously, games for sex, identity and partners have evolved. Just a few hundred years ago, intrigue in Europe would habitually involve physical violence and duels to the death. Nowadays it rarely does.
As we shall see in the coming chapters, game change is a developmental affair. It has to do with making advances into higher stages of societal development.
So, to sum this up, here is a simple model of a holistic game change—presented as five-step process:
Figure: Game change. See Appendix B for more on these different fields of development: system, psychology, behavior, culture.
Can you see how the inner development of people is interlinked with the development of society as a whole? That society’s function fundamentally relies upon the personal development of its citizens?
You can’t just develop society by means of “imposing” a certain political system or changing people’s values. Game change occurs by means of systemic change, psychological development of the populations, changes in habits and behaviors, and through cultural development. These fields—system, psychology, behavior and culture—develop together, as described in Appendix B.
Of course, many other interactions than the ones presented in this feedback loop are possible, but it gives us an idea of what it really means for society and humanity to develop.
Don’t you ever dare tell me that dramatic and positive change is not possible. If you can’t change people’s behaviors, you might change something in the systemic incentives. If that isn’t possible, you can always bring up new issues and find ways to change the cultural discourse. If that fails, you can always find a few people and help them develop their values so that they can form a new competitive social structure.
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