Athena is the supreme deity. There is no other. Defy her at your peril. No, I’m not going all pagan on you dear reader, I’ve outgrown that phase. No, I’m writing metaphorically. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and as such she was also the goddess of war. Not war in the brutish ways of Ares, rather military tactics were her auspices. Her Roman counterpart Minerva adorns our courthouses as the blindfolded lady justice in her search for truth, weighing the accused upon the scales and employing her sword if need be. Likewise her shield is a mirror, as employed by Perseus against the Gorgon, symbolising Truth and her spear administers her punishments. So in a sense she represents the application of wisdom and the consequences of foolish action. To be wise one must understand reality and the laws of reason that govern it, but to be foolish is to be ignorant or in denial of these laws. Upon the wise she bestows victory, honour, prestige, and glory and upon the foolish she brings damnation. Here is one such example.
Our setting is South Africa. There was a tribe called the Xhosa who had been struggling unsuccessfully against European incursions into their territory. In May of 1856 a young girl named Nongqawuse was drawing water from a pool at the mouth of the Gxarha River and there she met three ancestral spirits. They told her that if the Xhosa destroyed all of their cattle and crops, then on the following day, a great army of the ancestors would rise from the Earth to aid in expelling the white man from their lands and with them all the slaughtered cattle and crops would be restored in greater abundance. Not only that, but sickness and hunger would vanish and youth and beauty would be bestowed upon all.
She rushed home to tell her uncle, a man named Mhlakaza, who believed her strange tale and conveyed the message to their chief Sarhili. He too believed the prophecy and ordered that the commands of the spirits be obeyed. The news spread throughout all of the other tribes of the Xhosa. They too believed and preparations began in earnest. Not only were all the livestock and crops destroyed, also huge cattle pens were constructed to contain the promised restored cattle.
Finally the prophesied day came. Then low and behold, nothing happened. Another day was chosen, and again the same result. There was no great resurrection. A great mass of Xhosa did seek out the British, but not as a military force but as starving supplicants. In their extreme self-induced famine, they had turned to cannibalism. There is even one account of parents eating their own child. The girl who met with the “spirits“, Nongqawuse, survived, but her uncle was among the 50,000 Xhosa dead. The newly depopulated region was settled by members of the German legion serving in the British army and 2,000 North German emigrants. Despite this tragedy, the Xhosa did survive as a people. The most famous modern Xhosa being Nelson Mandela.
So what happened to the Xhosa? They broke the rules. If you do not eat, then you will die. If you do not produce, then you will die. As the Xhosa economy was based on cattle ownership, they also destroyed their wealth, and they died. Athena is without mercy.
So why did they do something so foolish? Why were the Xhosa so fucking stupid? They acted like the people of South Park for Christ’s sake. And therein lies the answer. The beautiful thing about South Park is that unlike shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy, or American Dad, the humour is not based on the stupidity of a single individual character, rather it is the stupidity of an entire society living in fear, quick to over-react to situations, and who believe just about anything that they are told, particularly from the often misinformed media.
The citizens of South Park are quick to believe and so too were the Xhosa. They believed because they were taught to believe. For the Xhosa believed in their ancestral spirits. This was a given, a fact of life, the truth of their reality. Therefore, was it so difficult for them to believe that the ancestors would bear a message to them and instruct them even if the instructions went completely against reason?
I once met a man in Portland, Oregon who was trying to get media studies added to the grade school curriculum. He illustrated his point by enlightening me to the evils of Sesame Street. Yes, you read correctly, Sesame Street. He told me that it is natural for children to explore their world and to learn and discover new things for themselves. What Sesame Street does is give the children the answers. Pre-packaged and prepared answers all transmitted via the mass media. In those critical first six years of life children are taught to believe what they see on television and it becomes their authority for the remainder of their lives. It all starts with Sesame Street.
A belief is a thought with an emotional attachment. You do not just believe something to be true. You feel it to be true. Since emotions are pre-programmed responses to stimuli, then it stands to reason that beliefs can also be conditioned through emotionalism. Hitler knew this well. The Xhosa did not just believe in the ancestors, they felt it down to the very depths of their beings. But these feeling, no matter how intense or powerful, did not make their beliefs any truer. Since their beliefs were in fact not true, they acted foolishly and 50,000 people died.
Beliefs matter because what we believe drives our actions and our actions will be either consistent with the laws of reality or not. All things being equal, a man who lives by reason will prosper and a man who does not will not. This is Athena’s decree.
The ancestral spirits of the Xhosa promised a golden age complete with eternal youth and beauty. That’s how politicians, con artists and salesmen work. They tap into your desire, the imagined gaining of a value. What utopias are we promised on a daily basis? Imagine it. More money, a Green Planet, no more poverty, less work, stay young, be fit, a bigger penis, a dream date, no more exploitation of the working class, no more war, a great big hippie socialist love fest, oh….I forgot the current buzzword “Hope“. Yes, it is all about hope. Hope is just a dressed-up word for Desire. You hope for a better future. You hope for the realization of your values. You hope that life will be all that you dreamed that it will be.
There is nothing wrong with desire, or hope for that matter, but you cannot allow yourself to be blinded by it. The desire for victory over the British and for paradise blinded the Xhosa to the grim realities of their actions. They destroyed their food supply and their economy. Ponder that for a moment. They destroyed their food supply and their economy. Sound familiar?
In the name of “saving the planet” our society is destroying our food supply and our economy. If the Green Movement and the Animal Rights Movement and the Socialists have their way millions of people will die. That is reality. Sure you can put on funny costumes, beat your drums, frolic about, and then return to your nice suburban homes, but make no mistake. Decreasing production and increasing government planning will result in limited resources which in turn will force the population to decrease to match the available resources. By decrease I mean people will die.
What will they die for? They’ll die for their beliefs. Not a glorious self-sacrificing way of dying for one’s beliefs, but dying for their own stupidity and wishful thinking, just like the Xhosa. They’ll die for what they felt was right despite the evidence of reason.
I’ll take a moment to introduce a concept of which you may not be familiar called The Precautionary Principle. This is a theory succinctly summarized by the expression, “better safe than sorry.” It is the idea that in the face of a possible threat immediate action must be taken to avert it since the consequences of waiting to determine the legitimacy of the threat may waste valuable time should the threat prove real. The best illustration of this is in the issue of global warming.
Contrary to Al Gore, the debate is not over. We really do not know if global warming is a man-made phenomenon or not. Advocates of the Precautionary Principle hold that even though all the facts are not in and there is no consensus, we must act now to prevent climactic disaster because the longer we wait to act the worse it will be should global warming prove to be caused by human activity.
So what actions are being taken in the name of what is essentially the deep, heart-felt belief in an unverified threat? First governments tax companies in the energy industry. These revenues do not necessarily go towards environmental causes but into the general government coffers. Like all taxes, it is stolen production, but these taxes are implemented as a deterrent “for the greater good”. The companies then have to make adjustments by decrease production, increasing costs, or cutting-back on future investments. The result is that energy is more expensive and there is a prolonged wait for new energy sources and technologies. In the case of oil, the cost of everyday consumer items goes up to compensate for increased transportation costs. After the companies, the governments then tax the consumers of the products supplied by the companies thus further increasing the cost of living and government revenues. As the cost of living increases, companies must then pay higher salaries to compensate. This could lead to cut-backs and therefore increase unemployment. But that’s okay because in both the United States and the United Kingdom, 50% of the national budget goes towards welfare programs. If that gets too expensive, then they can just print more money and devalue the currency even further thus decreasing the buying power of your pension fund or they could borrow more money from China.
So what is going on here? Am I suggesting that the Green Movement is an unwitting part of a pro-socialist government conspiracy intent on creating an international serfdom? Sure. Why not? Whenever someone tries to sell you something, be it a product or an ideology, always ask yourself who profits from it. Always follow the money. I forget, how many mansions does Al Gore own?
Actions have consequences, and in our modern, complex, integrated, globalised system these consequences affect every aspect of society. For the Xhosa it was a simple matter of not destroying their cattle and crops in order to sustain their food supply and their economy. However it is more complicated for us. It seems so easy to just tax oil companies to stop the perceived threat of global warming through carbon emissions, but this simple act has wide-ranging consequences that could spell our damnation. It is in not understanding the consequences of our actions, no matter how desirable or noble the imagined ends may be, that will make us as foolish as the Xhosa. Then we will face Athena’s full wrath and be the damned fools that we deserve to be.
I want to end this on a positive note. If you know reality then you will prosper, so be in the know. Every great moral code comes down to respecting the rights of others to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of prosperity (provided that pursuit does not infringe on the rights of others).
I wonder, when the Xhosa went around destroying everything, was there this one guy who said, “You will not violate my property rights. These are my crops and my cattle. Fuck you all.” I certainly hope so. He may have been called evil for not believing in the ancestors or the promised paradise. Romantics are usually characterized as being evil for not going along with social norms and expectations, but he was right.
If anyone, be it a person, a government, or a religion, seeks to or advocates the violation your rights or these same rights in others, no matter their idealistic or moral justification, then they are evil. They may be the sweetest and most well-intentioned of people. They may tell you how much they care. They may dress-up in happy costumes and do a little dance for you. They may be characters in a children’s cartoon or a singer in your favourite band. They may be your best friend or your lover. None of this matters, because the ends does not justify the means. So beware the woman in the red dress, she might be an agent.
PS: Here is a brief clip from an episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit illustrating how beliefs inconsistent with reality driven by fear, paranoia, and self-righteousness can lead to the deaths of millions of people.
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