Western Civilization is Asiatic Despotism in the Absence of Daoist Influence.

Good and Evil Turn on One Hinge, Open and Close as One Door: egoism and its alternatives in nihilistic philosophy.

Altruism is not an alternative to egoism: altruism can be egoistic, and egoism can be altruistic.  Often enough, I stand accused of smuggling ethics into nihilism: there is a perceived problem with my philosophy in that it is neither egoistic in Stirner's sense nor in any other.  I have been told that I fail to apply my own standards of skepticism to ethical concepts.  Is Historical Nihilism a Trojan horse for conventional morality?  Will you be ruined by believing in good and evil if you at first open the door to allow in my wooden promise that there is nothing to be believed in at all?

Have you ever felt angry at a lamp for failing to light up at the touch of a button and then realized, after a few moments' investigation, that you had unplugged it for some particular purpose a few days ago and then forgot to plug it back in?  Have you ever reflected, "Oh, I shouldn't have been angry, because it wasn't the lamp's fault after all"?  What if the lamp had been plugged in, should you have felt some other way about it?  Are we going to seriously propose a philosophy of forgiveness for the failings of inanimate objects?  Whether it is the lamp's fault for not working or our own fault for not plugging it in, why should we feel angry toward the lamp at all?  Emotions are signals; signals must serve a purpose, no matter how ludicrous, arbitrary or self-indulgent; nothing is accomplished by letting the lamp know how you feel.

Adults make errors about the relationships between feelings and things because they enjoy confusing their feelings with the objective reality of the things themselves.  This is not an error made merely due to carelessness, but because most of us enjoy it.  In the absence of compulsion, people are doing what they want to do: there is some sense in which most people (i.e., some unknown percentage of people with a certain kind of character) genuinely enjoy feeling angry at a lamp —otherwise they wouldn't do it at all, as the feeling is accomplishing nothing.  There is a kind of self-assertion involved in the hatred felt (however briefly) toward the nonfunctional lamp: you are demonstrating to yourself that you are not the one at fault here —although, perhaps, a few moments later you'll realize that (in fact) you are.

Egoism is self-serving: what we are discussing here is self-defeating.  I once read a book-length analysis of the humor of the Navaho (Navajo): in their culture, in their language, it was normal to mock and ridicule white people for lashing out at inanimate objects, for punching the hood of a car, or for verbally reproaching a radio that "refuses" to tune in properly.  The Navaho perceived this as utterly absurd, and their humor on the subject expressed consistent confidence that this is a mistake they'd never make themselves: they would never try to punish or motivate an inanimate object.  But if we do not blame the car, do we blame ourselves?

"I look fat in this mirror."  Presumably the mirror should be destroyed.

Whoever may be reading this article has probably heard me say many times (with many variations) that doing things for the sake of happiness entails a kind of evil and is predicated upon a kind of error: happiness, properly understood, is something that enters into our lives unexpectedly and that remains unknowable and unknown.  Suppose I have a distant memory of a comic book that I read as a child and I now decide I should read it again, having thought nothing of it for more than 30 years: is this going to make me happy?  Will it make me miserable?  Will I respond in an entirely calm, cerebral fashion?  Will I analyze how my distant memory of it differs from the newfound immediacy of the thing itself, or will I simply analyze the quality of the writing?  What is utterly insane is the presumption that you can know the answer in advance and then commit to a course of action on the basis of that knowledge: if you think you know what will make you happy, you will be dragged into a life of real evil —destroying something real for the sake of something unreal, again and again.  It would not be insane, by contrast, to buy a copy of this same comic book for the sake of mere curiosity: yes it is possible that reading it again will make you happy, but it's possible it will horrify you, it's possible it will make you reflect on tremendously sad memories from your own childhood tangentially linked to the object, and so on.

You can climb a mountain for the sake of the view, not knowing what that view will mean to you: it is quite another thing to presume that this mountain has the power to make you feel happy.  The stakes are high: people don't just buy comic books for the sake of happiness, but raise children and then force their children to read the same comic books that they once read themselves.

Egoism cannot exist in the aftermath of this critique of happiness: architecture cannot exist in a world without solid land.  What the egoists think they are standing on, from my perspective, instead, they are drowning in.  They are drowning in misery misperceived as happiness.  The darkness comes not from the lamp but our expectation of it —and yet we blame the lamp for the darkness.

The common conceit of pseudo-nihilistic philosophers (who have lived before) is that egoistic self-interest is this tremendously powerful wind, forever blowing in one direction: we must steer our little sailboat assiduously to accomplish anything altruistic despite this gale force.  I say, instead, that good and evil turn on one hinge, as one and the same door.  An open door is neither good nor evil.  If you wanted the door to be locked shut, but in fact you've left it open, then you call that an evil; and, conversely, if you wanted the door to be open (or unlocked) to let someone else in while you were away, but you forgot to do so, then you'd complain that was an evil as well.  It swings open when you want it to be open: that's good.  However, it is a false inference to say that when it's locked shut it is therefore evil.

Egoism does not exist: good and evil are equally effortless —as painting with one color is neither more nor less work than another, although it may be quite a lot of work if you're not an experienced painter and haven't yet developed the skill, meaning only that you'll struggle with each color equally or not at all.  The tree neither serves the forest nor rebels against it.  The tree cannot subtract itself from the forest nor add anything more to the collective sum than it has already given simply "in being itself".  The egoism of the tree cannot be contrasted to an altruism that is subordinated to the egoism of the forest: neither tree nor forest have any ego at all.

The nihilists (now alive) who complain that I am not nihilistic enough still imagine their own lives as if they were divided between egoism and altruism: they assume that altruism is motivated by belief whereas the extirpation of belief will return them to their natural state of self-indulgence and inertia.  This division does not exist: the real division is between the life of an adult and the life of a child.  Overcoming belief will not return you to the simple (selfish) pleasures of childhood, nor will it liberate you from the temptation of exclusively adult forms of ambition and self-sacrifice.  Can you remember how amusing it once was just to play with a light switch?  Can you remember how amusing it once was to hide beneath a blanket?  To crawl through a tunnel?  To be tickled?  The happiness you remember from your childhood is something to which you can never return: nihilism is a kind of purification, yes, but the purified adult cannot enjoy childish self-indulgence any more than the contaminated true believer —on the contrary, less.

What if a man believes in nothing but becomes incredibly passionate about (i) stand up comedy, (ii) foreign language education or (iii) architecture?  If he starts serving this passion, will he be sacrificing his self-interest for the sake of a greater whole?  What if, instead of even trying to be happy, he sacrifices everything for the advancement of foreign language education: will you claim that he still secretly prays to unseen gods because of his lack of egoism?  As miserable as it may be to pour your time and money into a foreign language institute, trust me, operating a stand up comedy club is worse: you must spend many hours listening to examples of what other people think is funny, but you do not.  And you must hear the same jokes performed again and again.  Either you're passionate about comedy or you're not: either you're willing to hear a hundred bad jokes for the sake of a few moments of brilliance, or else you're doing this for nothing at all.  Either you're willing to endure the company of a hundred bad students (who are learning the language for the wrong reasons, etc.) for the sake of a few brilliant ones, or else you're doing this for nothing at all.  Do you therefore "believe in" a language because you're enduring such misery?  Do you "believe in" comedy?  There is no viable distinction between egoism and altruism: the tree is not something totally separable from the forest and the architect is not totally separable from architecture —not even if he perceives himself as living in a state of rebellion against the intransigence of architecture (as I see myself in a kind of rebellion against the intransigence of stand up comedy, and the intransigence of language education, etc.).

I have shifted the question (and its answer) from the struggle of altruism against egoism to the struggle of this man for his passion —which is neither egoistic nor altruistic nor both.  If he suffers for the sake of education it is because he is an educator; if he suffers for the sake of architecture it is because he's an architect; if he suffers for the sake of comedy it is because he is a comedian.  And even then, it is only "his own" notion of education, architecture and comedy, hm?  And this is not a relationship to an abstraction: the farmer does not relate to farming as an abstraction, but as a series of manual and mental tasks that are entirely real (so too for the educator, architect and comedian).

So why would anyone rage against the lamp and the mirror?  Making excuses for the evils of Communism: this is a declaration of who you are, it is a declaration of what kind of person you aspire to be, and it is a kind of advertisement for the friends and lovers you wish to have.  The social and psychological mechanism I'm describing here works in much the same way with Satanism: you start making excuses for one kind of evil or another, publicly, and soon enough you discover you've created a crossroads for everyone who has a certain set of unspecified desires in common with you.  Look at the utilitarians who make excuses for paying prostitutes: this serves a real function in their lives and isn't merely a matter of crafting an ideological identity for the satisfaction of judging oneself when standing in front of the mirror.  When we indulge in feeling angry at the lamp we are asserting (on a childishly simple level) that our feelings are more real than the things that inspire them: what matters is not the reality of the bourgeois class, for example, but the feelings the Communist assigns to them and then "finds" in them as if they were actually existing.  He blames them for how he feels about them, and this functions as a declaration of his own moral identity.  In the condemnation of witches, the Christian becomes confident that his own barbaric beliefs are something better than witchcraft; when he prays and conducts his own magical rituals he is becoming something quite different from a witch himself.  The fault in the lamp, dear reader, is a fault we must find within ourselves: as shallow and obvious as that may be, it is a riddle the majority of humanity never will solve.

Personal desire for personal identity perpetually creates and recreates a false system of morality: the majority of people caught in this cycle of asserting feelings to be innate in the real things that surround them can never break out of the cycle.  The bourgeois class is a lamp that you, yourself, failed to plug in: it is not broken and cannot be fixed.  It is a door that you yourself left unlocked.  It is a mirror showing you how fat and ugly you are.  And yet for the vast majority of people, the feelings they have arising from these hated and reviled objects (social classes, lamps and mirrors alike) are so seemingly real that they inspire one moral system after another, crowding out doubt, filling the world with false certainties.

I have said it is a personal desire for personal identity: what is it that the Communist wants?  To be a good person while regarding others as bad, perhaps?  To feel that they, personally, know the esoteric truth, while so many others labor in ignorance?  Moral superiority, intellectual superiority, physical superiority, sexual superiority: common, animal desires.  People make use of abstractions to serve these carnal interests, as if they could use a pencil and an eraser to edit human nature.  Wanting to be loved isn't evil: wanting to believe, and wanting others to believe as you do, so that you can be loved, is the greatest evil of all.

If the Christians say, "These Communists are climbing the wrong mountain, trying to get to happiness", we all can understand what they mean well enough.  The Communists from their side could say the same: they see the Christians doing all sorts of Communist things, such as caring for the poor and living in voluntary poverty themselves, to then remark on how unfortunate it is that this hiking instinct is being applied to the wrong mountain.  What if you genuinely do not believe there is any mountain, anywhere, that could make you happy?  What if the whole sport of mountain climbing relies on a cycle of self-deception no less pathetic than gambling and drug addiction?  What if the view from the top and the view from the bottom are one and the same?  That is where nihilism escapes from the ancient, narrow path: where the bottom and top of the mountain meet and become equal, where the cycle of climbing (our cycle of meaningless suffering) begins and ends, forever.

Nihilism 101: "The point is not for the word to give flesh and blood reality to the abstraction on the chalkboard: the word functions only for me to express something to you about myself."

On December 18th of 2020, I made a video quizzically titled, Nihilism: Advice for my Daughter, Advice for the Next Generation. As already indicated by the "new" title above (quoting a turn of phrase from the middle of the video) this was (and is) a sort of introductory course: "Nihilism 101".

This is not a video I would make today. It's an interesting stylistic contrast to the occult mystique of Blood in the Snow.

Here's the long, long comment that led to my searching for, finding and watching the video again today, posted from a viewer using the Sanskrit name Dasyuhan. A block quotation ensuses.

Hey brother, I hope you're doing well. You recently made a post about nihilism in relation to the events unfolding in the Middle East [i.e., the war in Iran], I assume. Since the comments were turned off, I'm leaving my response here instead.

As you know, I'm not a native English speaker and am still learning, but from what I can gather from that post, when you said "Nihilism: the least esoteric of the major faiths," you meant that nihilism isn't some obscure or complex philosophy, and that reality itself constantly provides obvious, brutal evidence for it. Then there is the picture of that Iranian man discussing all of this, paired with the quote about the just world fallacy, which I looked up and found to be the cognitive bias whereby people assume the world is fundamentally fair, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It is essentially a psychological comfort mechanism. If you believe in a just world, witnessing everything that is happening creates an irresolvable contradiction, hence the anguished question: "why did they deserve to..."

A nihilist, by contrast, has no such confusion. Bad things happen to good people because the universe operates without any moral logic. So nihilism is "the least esoteric faith" because you don't need scripture or theology to arrive at it. Reality teaches it constantly and plainly.

The just world fallacy sets people up for perpetual moral bewilderment, while nihilism, however bleak, is at least consistent with observable reality.

That is my understanding of what you posted. I'd love to know if I got it right. The reason I'm writing this is that what you described is something very close to what I have always observed about the world and believed in from a very young age, so it resonates deeply with me. Would you consider making a video about this, exploring it in depth? Something that lays out the evidence for how reality itself gives rise to this worldview, where we don't have to pretend otherwise. I know I'm not articulating this very well, but you have a way of expressing these things far more coherently than I do, and I think you'd do it justice. I would really appreciate it.

And here is my reply, including the link to the video aforementioned as "nihilism for beginners".

Yes, my own "school of thought" is called Historical Nihilism, and it is discussed both in many of my own youtube videos, and in several books and articles (that are generally available for free on the internet, and also for the lowest possible purchase price, on paper, on Amazon). Search for my name (Eisel Mazard) plus "Blood in the Snow": the whole book available on my blog for free, and you can then work with Google Translate, paragraph by paragraph. As English is your second language, this may be better for you than trying to follow my videos on the matter. There is quite a stark contrast between that book and this "nihilism for beginners" video: https://youtu.be/_cN1S6yk0H0 Quite a stark contrast again with this more advanced video, here: https://youtu.be/HxNB1YCzLjQ Again, with this second link, I imagine it would be easier for you to work with the text, copying and pasting into Google translate, and then comparing the two languages as you read, rather than hearing it as a video.

(1) I am aware that I may not have answered his question (i.e., I do not seem to be interested in "the evidence for how reality itself gives rise to this worldview"). (2) It is interesting that none of the texts or videos I've alluded to in my reply take the "easy" route of expanding the meaning of atheism to establish a broader and deeper meaning for nihilism. I believe I did take that easy route, once, when I was being interviewed by an unsophisticated imbecile about the meaning of nihilism (i.e., in a video that still remains on my channel). Many people find nihilism easy enough to visualize if you just draw their attention to the beliefs that atheism fails to challenge; however, that very ease may end up trivializing the concept.

Finland: the most atheist society in the world… that is neither Communist nor Post-Communist, I suppose.

Yes, admittedly, the Vietnamese claim that they're the most atheistic country in the world, and I'm sure North Korea could muster up some statistics to challenge the claim, BUT NEVERTHELESS…

According to GE2015, 24% of Finns identify positively as nonreligious (see Table 1). There has been some increase since 2011 (19%), when this option was introduced to the identification question. The percentage of religious identification was 36%. It is much smaller than Christian identification (67%), which most likely demonstrates that Finns consider themselves to be culturally Christian even when not regarding themselves as religious. Altogether 16% said that they were atheists.

[…]

Among those with only basic level education, 28% identify as nonreligious, whereas among those with tertiary-level education the figure is 23%.

[…]

For them, contrary to the older generations, being nonreligious or atheist has very little to do with the Soviet Union or Communism. At the same time, however, the historical filter that has connected Lutheranism and national identity explains (partly) why nonreligious identification is not more popular. In other words, the drift away from organic nationalism that combines ethnicity and religion towards the situation where national identity (or the idea of what it is to be an ordinary Finn) is divorced from religion advances the normalisation of nonreligious identities. At the same time, being religious is increasingly becoming a reflective choice rather than a taken-for-granted identification, as it should be in a scenario of weakening cultural Christianity.

So, we are led to suppose, the new Russophobia is not anti-atheist whereas the old Russophobia was precisely that: a sort of defensive Christianity erected as a barrier against Communism. This would be counterproductive, of course: Christianity leads to Communism in much the same way that Judaism leads to Christianity —Karl Marx is merely the author of another "new testament" —he offers neither an antithesis nor an antidote to the beliefs that came before.

Source:

"Normalisation of nonreligious identity in Finland"

Teemu Taira,Kimmo Ketola, Jussi Sohlberg.

Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Volume 38, 2023 - Issue 1. Pages 1-19 | Published online: 14 Nov 2022

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2022.2138020#abstract

The Slipped Disc: My Current (AND ONGOING) Spinal Injury.

AFAIK, what I've been suffering with is a herniated disc down at the bottom of the lumbar region. Yes, that "AFAIK" disclaimer could be significant.

This website presents a perspective on the illness and the process of recovery different from what I've seen before:

https://buffalorehab.com/blog/the-recovery-time-for-a-lumbar-disc-herniation/

This makes sense to me...

however, sadly, I have been making the injury worse, not better, by returning to the gym as quickly as possible, again and again…

whereas, in reality I shouldn't have even been sitting in a chair at all, but should have limited myself to bed rest (FOR SEVERAL MONTHS).

Within the last few days, I was evidently making the condition worse when I was working on the German translation (sitting at a desk) whereas I previously thought of that type of mild strain as a positive exercise, helping rather than hindering recovery (i.e., I could feel that sitting and working at desk caused strain / pain).

I am now really limited: all I can do is lie down flat. And I do not know for how long that will last.

-----

Activities that will cause more fluid to leak are bending, lifting, twisting, sitting, and any impact (running or jumping). The more we stick to the “good” positions and limit the “bad,” the sooner our discs start to heal.

Typically, it takes three to four weeks for the fluid to stop leaking from the outer layer. Keep in mind, this only applies if you start limiting the bad positions and promoting those good positions.

At this time, the point of leakage will scar over and trap the fluid within the outer layer. This is the point in treatment when you can start to tolerate sitting for a little longer.

Over the next four weeks, the fluid will continue to work its way back toward the center of the disc, and eventually, the inner layer will scar over

-----

This is significantly different from how I'd visualized the problem before.

-----

When following the ideal plan, after about twelve weeks your disc is healed enough to tolerate impact, such as running or jumping

...

Suffering a back injury may seem catastrophic, however, it does not mean you will have back issues for the rest of your life. With proper guidance, patience, and a little bit of hard work, you can heal your disc injury within twelve weeks!

-----

Well... I could still cancel my gym membership. :-/

It does not seem reasonable to imagine I'll be back at the gym FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS… whereas, instead, I've been injuring myself anew pretty much every time I returned to the gym (for many, many months now) trying to increase the strength of the muscles surrounding the injury in the back.

The Ideological Stagnation of the 21st Century

Everything that was supposed to change hasn't changed.  The ideological stagnation of the 21st century is worse than the broken promises of the 20th century were before.

Learning Russian in 2026: am I talking myself into it or talking myself out of it, at this point?

Professor _______,

[…] [Many boring details have been omitted.] […]

I am asking a very broad question: do you have any advice or
suggestions if I were trying to find a Russian language tutor or
teacher, so that I am not learning the language entirely alone (with
books and the internet)?

This message is brief to avoid wasting your time.  I hope you will not
find this message rude.

I have studied other languages before, including languages that are
much more difficult than Russian (e.g., Chinese).  Grammatically, the
language I've studied that most closely resembled Modern Russian is
Ancient Pali (it has the locative, genitive, dative, instrumental and
accusative cases).  So, in some sense, I am prepared for how difficult
the work will be.

With thanks for your time and consideration,
Eisel Mazard (Mr.)

—————

[In her reply, the professor seemed to be primarily interested in my motivation for learning the language: she asked if I needed it "for work" or not. Work or play, hm?]

—————

(1) My interest is in (i) politics, (ii) philosophy and (iii) history.
I have studied several languages for these reasons (and, admittedly,
these reasons may not be enough).

(2) I am genetically half Jewish, and my grandparents were
specifically Russian Jewish, so it is possible I will try to make some
kind of contact with the Russian-speaking Jews of Israel and New York,
etc., simply to counteract the isolation of living in Newfoundland.  I
am aware of the intensity of antisemitism in Eastern Europe,
generally, and amongst Russians, specifically.  I am a visible
minority: although I'm an atheist, I look Jewish, and I am hated for
it.  This is a major factor in the decision I now make for the next
ten years of my life.

(3) I am a real intellectual: in Canada, there are none.  Learning
Russian would allow me to fly back and forth to various parts of
Europe (and Israel) where some intellectuals exist.  Some.  I am not
deluding myself into thinking that Eastern Europe is an intellectual
paradise (nor Israel) but I have some optimism about knowing other
intellectuals (who care about history, philosophy and politics) via
the Russian language.  With many other languages I've studied (e.g.
Lao and Cambodian) there is no such hope.

I have now published one book in Russian translation.  The cover
illustration is attached.  It will be published in five or six
languages in total.

E.M.

Civilization is not discredited by its own absence.

Veganism, Year One: 2026 to 2036.

After the End of the Vegan Movement: What Now, What Next?

This is, in fact, the sequel to a podcast titled, "Leviathan: the Vegan Movement's Decade of Decline, 2015 to 2025."

The Israeli Empire with the Mask On: the American Empire with the Mask Off.

 (1 of 2)
America vs Israel: Old Empires, New Enemies, Perpetual Bankruptcies.
https://youtube.com/shorts/WwMgIfHgYKU [Two minutes long.]

(2 of 2)
The "Israel Has a Right to Exist" Discourse is Corny.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Hy5bJhPtirw [Two and a half minutes long.]

I was tempted to title this post, simply, Israel: THE USUAL.

Instead, the title here alludes to my (still shocking?) statement about the primacy of local democracy in Ukraine, Crimea, etc., The American Empire with the Mask Off: the Canadian Empire with the Mask On.

"Let us be blunt: if Quebec has the right to establish its independence by a referendum, then the Crimea does, too —along with the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk) and Taiwan and everyone else, everywhere else. If not, we're back to the phony sovereignty (and even phonier empire-building) of the Napoleonic wars."

^ Still worth reading. Still dangerous in principle and in practice. https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-american-empire-with-mask-off.html

It's still worth listening to the sequel that was published as a podcast, too. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5bXnSQIGAdvbu3B0REfG4Q

What I have to say about Israel is pretty closely parallel to what I have to say about Quebec, Scotland, Taiwan, etc. The making of history is a high-stakes game; perhaps that's why so many prefer, instead, to watch it transpire, passively.