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Some universal laws and paradoxes of human nature

Introduction

It is not so widely recognised that people's political beliefs, as well as their religious beliefs, are dominated by meme competition, rather than by reason and logic. Here's a couple of laws that I see as holding true on this planet.

Law No.1 (The Paradox of the Fisks): The most criticised societies in the world will be the least criminal societies.

Why is this?

Explanation

The killing of a dozen protesters in a foreign closed society might rate one paragraph, one time. The killing of a dozen protesters in the free society would completely dominate news and analysis for months, and be strongly covered for years afterwards, even decades. There are all sorts of good reasons for why this is so. But the fact is, it is so. I am simply pointing out that the coverage is not equal.

Of course, in a free society the killing of protesters is a rare event. But even minor crimes - like bribery or lying to parliament - can dominate the news for weeks, even months. While actual massacres in foreign closed societies may be covered in "World News in Brief".

I am simply pointing out the obvious that minor crimes (bribery, embezzlement, lying to parliament) in the free world usually receive more column inches than major crimes (state repression, torture, executions) in the unfree world. There are good reasons for why this is so. But the fact is, it is so. The end result is that in the free press, the column inches given to criticism of free societies will be vastly greater than the column inches given to criticism of closed societies.

The societies singled out to be criticised are by definition those that are best-behaved. What did these societies do to be singled out for criticism? They were not ruthless enough. If they were ruthless, brutal and unfree, they would not be criticised so much. It is because their crimes are modest that they get criticised more.

And so we have a whole generation of journalists and polemicists like Robert Fisk and John Pilger, who write almost entirely about the crimes of the least criminal societies.

Moynihan's Law

Consequence

In the closed society, the regime (happily) reprints the free society's criticisms of itself. No criticisms are printed of the closed society. Many people in the closed society, not knowing anything else, may even come to believe that the free society is more flawed than the closed society. For example, in the Arab Middle East, most criticism seems to be of Israel and America, rather than of their own societies, which are far more flawed.

And in the free society, naive young people read the criticisms of the free society, and don't read the (small) criticisms of (uninteresting) foreign closed societies. They too may even come to believe that the free societies are the worst societies. And so we see a thousand marches and protests against America, Israel and Britain in the west, while I personally cannot ever remember a single major protest against the Soviet Union, China, Iraq, North Korea, North Vietnam, Serbia, the Sudan or any of recent history's serious criminals.

Similarly, I have seen in my life an endless series of posters, banners, graffiti and cartoons comparing the free countries of America, Israel and Britain to Nazi Germany, and their leaders to Hitler. I'm not sure I have ever seen this about an unfree country.

By definition, the countries people protest about are the best countries. They get this abuse because they are not ruthless enough. If they really were imperialists and mass killers (like the Soviet Union), no one would protest about them.

• Richard Fernandez makes the same point, about how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are slaughtering Muslim women and children in Sri Lanka - and Muslims around the world, the western left, and international bodies don't seem very interested.
  • "What's going is a demonstration of the principle that complaints are rarely lodged against those who are feared. Feared not for their power but for their brutality: such as the LTTE. Suicide bombs do not scare them: Tigers were suicide bombing before Islamic militants copied the tactic. ... The Tigers are impervious to op-eds in the New York Times and speeches at the UN. Law does not affect them. The International Criminal Court would not dare to serve a summons on them. Therefore the LTTE will remain blameless, whatever outrages it may commit against Muslims. In contrast the Danes cannot even publish a caricature of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper without bringing down the wrath of the entire Muslim world and half the flagship newspapers of the West upon them. The difference between the Tigers and the Danes is you fear the one and buy canned ham from the other. ... This is completely perverse. And it means that modern political correctness will be exercised relentlessly against law-abiding nations because they are the only ones on who it works. The lawless will be given wide berth: the more lawless the wider the berth. The result will be split level morality where a few countries will be held to an impossibly high standard while the most brutal will be treated with kid gloves, even fawned upon."

• The Bias Towards Brutality and Totalitarianism, by Carroll Andrew Morse, makes a similar point, on how the ruler of Haiti was not brutal enough. Had he been more brutal, the world would have been happy for him to stay in power:
  • "Ultimately, foreign military action in Haiti was deemed acceptable not because the international community will not tolerate the existence of a dictator, but because the international community will not tolerate the existence of an ineffective dictator. In terms of opening the door to foreign intervention, Aristide's mistake was a failure to keep the people of Haiti frightened into maintaining civil order. He did not go far enough in rigging elections and using street gangs to intimidate opponents. Had he been more brutally totalitarian, had he done a better job of killing the leaders of any potential rebellion while simultaneously glad-handing the diplomatic circuit, he could - like a Fidel Castro or a Robert Mugabe - still be in power today."

• Reporting For The Enemy by Deborah Orin - on how the media will not show pictures of Saddam's tortures in Iraq.
  • "we do far more to highlight our own wrongdoings precisely because they are less appalling. ... We highlight U.S. prisoner abuse because the photos aren't too offensive to show. We downplay Saddam's abuse precisely because it's far worse - so we can't use the photos."

Russia and China get a pass. America and Israel don't.

• Bruce Thornton makes the point about Russia:
  • ".. consider the case of Russia. For over a century Russia and then the USSR dominated and oppressed Central Asian Muslims. The Soviets then brutalized Afghanistan ... After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the attempt by Muslims in Chechnya to gain their independence has been brutally suppressed at the cost of perhaps 50,000 dead ... So is Russia, its hands red with Muslim blood, the "Great Satan" of the jihadists and their state sponsor, Iran? Of course not. The United States is: a country that never colonized or ruled a Muslim nation, a country that helped Muslims in Afghanistan, a country that liberated Muslim Kuwait, a country that bombed and killed Christian Serbs to protect Balkan Muslims, a country that has spent its blood and treasure getting rid of Iran's most bitter enemy and the Shia Muslims' worst oppressor, Saddam Hussein, a country that even now is fighting to empower Iran's fellow Shiites. We are the Great Satan, while the Iranian mullocracy happily does business with the Russians and seldom says a word of condemnation against them. Why is this so? Obviously, Russia serves Iran's interests by helping with their nuclear development and protecting its interests on the Security Council. But there's another important reason Russia's much more extensive crimes against Islam are given a pass: the jihadists know the Russians are not susceptible to the therapeutic blackmail used against a self-loathing West. Russia uses brutal force to promote and defend its interests and doesn't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks."

• Bernard Lewis, May 16, 2007, on how the Islamists gave a pass to the Soviet Union - because it was brutal and they feared it. In the Cold War, "While American policies, institutions and individuals were subject to unremitting criticism and sometimes deadly attack, the Soviets were immune. Their retention of the vast, largely Muslim colonial empire accumulated by the czars in Asia passed unnoticed, as did their propaganda and sometimes action against Muslim beliefs and institutions. Most remarkable of all was the response of the Arab and other Muslim countries to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979." When the UN tried to weakly condemn it, "Even this anodyne resolution was too much for some of the Arab states. South Yemen voted no; Algeria and Syria abstained; Libya was absent; the nonvoting PLO observer to the Assembly even made a speech defending the Soviets."
• Victor Davis Hanson on modern Jihadist cowardice. China and Russia have a far worse history with Muslims than America, yet they are not the "Great Satan". "Then why has not bin Laden and Dr. Zawahiri turned jihadist attention to either country? ... The answer is, as we know, that China and Russia are not only strong like the United States, but, unlike America, wildly unpredictable and seemingly a little crazy. No jihadist quite knows what would be the reaction to a campaign of suicide bombing on Moscow or Beijing, and, more importantly, no rogue nation that sponsors Islamic fascists wishes to find out."

• Press coverage of Israel (a democracy fighting Islamist fascists, relatively small death toll) v. Press coverage of Sudan (an Islamist fascist government carrying out genocide against black Africans, 2 million killed so far). For the reasons explained above, Israel gets more coverage than Sudan:
  • No time for Africa by Evelyn Gordon
    • "Over the past 4 years the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has caused some 4,000 deaths and .. displaced some 15,000 people. The Darfur conflict, in less than a third of that time, has caused an estimated 30,000 deaths and displaced some 1.2 million people."
    • "Yet archive searches of major newspapers in the US and Europe reveal that over the last year, these papers have published from 7 to 14 times as many articles on Israel as on Sudan. The New York Times, for instance, lists 260 articles on Sudan and 2,837 on Israel; the London Times figures are 148 and 1,118; Die Welt's are 568 and 8,205; El Pais lists 166 and 1,776."
  • Guess who forgot Sudan by Amotz Asa-El - Why so much coverage of Israel and so little of Sudan? "Israel is host to more than twice as many Western correspondents than the entire Arab world". Why? The answer does not reflect well on the profession of journalism:
    • "First of all, it is much more pleasant for a foreign correspondent to be stationed in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv than in Khartoum, even before the imposition there of Shari'a law, not to mention hell holes such as Darfur, where most Western journalists are not built to spend more than a short period of time without beginning to wonder why they chose their profession."
  • The Over-reporting of Israel, 26 April 2004 - "Israel - a tiny nation the size of the state of New Jersey - receives approximately 75 times more coverage than other areas of equal population. In comparison to other nations involved in armed conflict (where world media attention increases), Israel receives over 10 times more coverage by population."
  • Why do people support the Palestinians? - The strange press coverage is a lot to do with it.

• Victor Davis Hanson: "There is no news or reward in recounting that barbarous terrorists or savage governments murder innocents, but a great deal if accidental deaths can be pinned on the United States. The former earns a journalist no audience, but often real danger — the latter safety, praise, a possible award, book contract, or university guest lectureship."

• Survey of human-rights criticisms by churches sums up the entire sickness of the western left.

• The western media
  • Problems with the western media

Some definitions

• Demopaths
  • Definition: "Demopaths are people who use democratic language and invoke human rights only when it serves their interests, and not when it calls for self-criticism or self-restraint. Demopaths demand stringent levels of human "rights" but do not apply these basic standards for the "other" to their own behavior. The most lethal demopaths use democratic rights to destroy democracy."
  • "Characteristics:
    1. Radical imbalance between their insistence on asserting their own rights, and their lack of interest in defending the rights of others.
    2. Moral rhetoric expressing great indignation when appealing for personal rights.
    3. Tendency to tell demonizing tales of the enemies (of "human rights")
    4. Tendency to think in conspiratorial terms (they are conspirators themselves), and to project ill will onto opponents/enemies.
    5. Do minimal (required) work protecting the rights of others, especially opponents/enemies."
  • Examples:
    1. Sinn Fein / IRA, whining about shoot-to-kill in combat, when they not only shoot enemies when unarmed and off-duty (also here), but also execute captives without trial or defence.
    2. All Palestinian leadership ever, and all their supporters in the west ever. Using the language of human rights to set up a state in which there will be no human rights.
    3. Jihadis living on benefits and whining "I have rights, I have rights!".

• Liberal cognitive egocentrism
  • Definition - "The projection of good faith and fair-mindedness onto others, the assumption that "other" shares the same human values, that everyone prefers positive sum interactions. In a slightly more redemptive mode, LCE holds that all people are good, and if only we treat them right, they will respond well. This is a form of empathy that ... projects onto rather than detects what the "other" feels."

• Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome
  • Definition - "a form or pathological self-criticism that essentially holds that "everything is my (our) fault, and if we could only do/be better, we could fix anything."" (e.g. that the West needs to change, rather than the Islamic world).

• Human Rights Complex
  • "If you want to know what exercises the human rights community today, don't ask who the victims are, nor how badly they suffer, but who the victimizers are. If the culprit is white, the indignation knows no bounds; if they are people of color, HRCers look the other way."

• The Politically Correct Paradigm
• The Post-Colonial Paradigm

Law No.2 (The Paradox of Cruelty): The greater the hatred, the less the reason.

Again, there is this belief that humans must be rational. This is expressed in the question: "Why do they hate us?", which assumes there is an answer. Their hatred must surely be founded on reason. It couldn't just be founded on memes could it?

Yes it could, of course. It is not true that people must hate for a reason. Sometimes people hate for a reason that is somehow grounded in reality. But people can hate for no reason at all, or at least, no reason that makes any sense.

Humans kill for no reason. Humans die for no reason. They always have, and they always will. Obviously, there are "reasons" of sorts in their crazy, addled brains. What I am saying is that history shows us those "reasons" can be junk - hallucinations, lies, inner demons. That's my bleak view of religion and politics and human nature.

The law

Germany rounded up 6 million Jews - men, women, children, crying toddlers, babies - and shot them in pits and gassed them in camps in scenes from hell. Yet what did the Jews ever do to Germany to deserve being hated? Hitler's complaints about the Jews are fantastical, imaginary, hallucinatory, and simply pathetic compared to the unbelievable violence he carried out against them.

The Jews of Old Europe were the ultimate innocents. There was no reason whatsoever for the hatred against them. And so they were the recipients of the most staggering violence.

One could say the same about the "kulaks" who were exterminated by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. What did these poor peasants do to be hated so? The answer, of course, is nothing. Nothing at all. It is the same with the "bourgeoisie" who were butchered by the hate-filled killers Mao and Pol Pot. What did these ordinary families ever do to cause such staggering hatred and violence against them? Again, nothing.

What did the "witches" do to deserve being burnt alive by the thousand in the Middle Ages? What did the Armenians do to be hated so much and slaughtered by the Turks? What did the Asians do to be driven out of Uganda? Basically, nothing. Massive hate does not have to have a good reason. In fact, it basically never does.

The greatest hatred, killing and cruelty in human history has always been against the innocent, not the guilty. Truly unrestrained hatred is always against the innocent.

• So, we're hated by Dennis Prager

Law No.3 (Corollary): All great suffering is always for worthless causes

This law would imply that all really great, monumental suffering is always for nothing.

There have been more worthwhile causes in history - the fight by the west for democracy and human rights. The west had far more reason to hate, and to kill. And yet the killing by the west was more restrained, not less. Truly unrestrained killing is always in pursuit of a cause that is worthless.

How to spot a worthless cause

And indeed their cause did turn out to be worthless. Their cause is imaginary, based on dreams of ending the west and restoring some kind of 7th century utopia that nobody wants. All that killing for nothing.

This is the norm in human history. The people who carry out genocides and atrocities like Sept 11th are not rational people. It would be very surprising if their complaints actually had any basis in reality. It would be simply incredible if their causes were actually worthwhile.

We are taught in childhood and movies that evil is unattractive, ugly, rude, hostile, bad-tempered, friendless.
But this is what evil really looks like. Starry-eyed, idealistic, charming, as it puts children into the ovens.

Law No.4 (The Law of Protests): Protests and demos do not represent public opinion.

Governments however, being more sensible than journalists, do frequently completely ignore demos as if they had never happened. Governments realise that demos are simply another form of speech, no different to (apart from being ruder and more aggressive) and no more privileged than the usual collection of various points of view one can find in blogs, newsgroups or letters to the paper.

One fact governments understand instinctively: Demos do not represent public opinion:

1. Demos represent only the people who are against the government. - It is an obvious point, yet forgotten in media coverage of even miniature demos of a few hundred people. People who are happy enough with what the government is doing simply will not demonstrate. Even if the vast majority supports the government, all public demos will be against the government. The media will cover a few hundred people having a demo. It doesn't cover the vast number of people who didn't demo.

   Even huge demos may not represent public opinion. Votes represent public opinion. Demos don't.

2. Demos represent only the people who have time to go on a demo. - Demos are dominated by young, unmarried people like students. People who have tons of time and energy and are mobile.

   People who have serious jobs, mortgages, babies and children to care for, perhaps elderly parents to care for, and so on - not to mention having tired, middle-aged bodies exhausted by their reponsibilities - will not be found on demos, or travelling round the country living in tents and engaging in "direct action". They have opinions just as strong as the carefree, childless students, but they will not express them at demos. They express them at the ballot box. Governments know this, and that is why they do not take demos seriously.

3. Posters and graffiti don't represent public opinion either. - In every city centre in the west, one sees posters and graffiti representing various points of view. Or rather, all the same point of view, I should say.

   "END THE OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE. PUBLIC MEETING ..." say the posters. Why does one never see posters saying: "STOP SUICIDE BOMBINGS. PUBLIC MEETING ..."? It is not because nobody subscribes to that view. It is because only certain types of people go round putting up posters and having public meetings. Posters do not represent public opinion, and should not be taken seriously.

   Similarly, "NO WAR" and "DON'T ATTACK IRAQ" reads the graffiti. Why does one never see graffiti saying: "BRING DEMOCRACY TO THE MIDDLE EAST" or "END ISLAMIC LAW"? Again, it is because only certain types of people spray graffiti. Graffiti does not represent public opinion, and should not be taken seriously.

The most spectacular illustration in recent times of the uselessness of demos was the protests on Iraq:

• The "anti-war" protests on Iraq in 2003 failed utterly not just to prevent the war, but even to influence at all the policies taken that year by the US, British, Irish, Spanish or Italian governments.
• If you've got bad arguments, a huge mob chanting them does not make them better arguments.
• The utter failure of the "anti-war" protests

"How come," I asked Andy, "whenever something upsets the Left, you see immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever something upsets the Right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a six-inch American flag?"
"We have jobs," said Andy.
- From Parliament of Whores, P.J. O'Rourke, 1991.