These conditions have the obvious candidates for categorisation within the context of their commonly known psychiatric behaviours. But is it possible that some of these conditions are reflected in what is generally thought of as normal, or somewhat normal, behaviour in the western world? I will argue that some of the normalisation process in relation to these conditions has become deeply embedded in western societies by many manner of means and that this is due to a great many subtle and ever-present conditioning factors that have entered the mass western subconscious.
If we look at the historical evidence for western attitudes regarding other peoples it seems to me that this is a rather obvious process that has flowed from the top down to find a place within almost every western mind. The obvious candidates are slavery, colonialism, piracy, plunder, the justifications made for religious conversion and the general elite attitude that the ‘White Man’s Burden’ demands that we teach others how to live like us, believe like us and to adopt our attitudes, ideals and societal and governmental processes.
The first category, that of slavery, had its roots in the need of the settlers on the North American continent for workers. This after the virtual elimination of the native population, or at least the removal of its rights and most of its land. Here we can see some of the facets displayed that reveal attitudes of superior need demanding certain things be done and the justifications inevitably attached to the delivery of those requirements.
The second category demonstrates such proclivities by primarily the white man, that of colonialism. In this case it is even more pronounced. The justifications used were sometimes a profession of good intent being efforts to civilise, improve and ‘bring others up’ to our level of ‘success’ and ‘civilisation’. But however good the intentions of some may have been, as in the case of ‘The British Raj’ in India for example, the initial noble quest can be seen to degenerate over time into the oppressive methods used to control dissent regarding the superiority claimed by the British supervisors and military muscle that bedded itself at the top of Indian society.
The colonial era was arguably begun through piracy in the open seas by gentlemen such as Sir Francis Drake of England who generated vast wealth for the English crown through attacking the cargo ships of Spain at the time when Spain was plundering the civilisations of South America. Later ensued the various wars to become the primary beneficiary of myriad peoples and nations on both the North and South American continents. Britain and France vied with one another for the spoils.
In Africa a great many colonial powers sought to gain footholds. Nations such as Portugal and Belgium along with France and Britain, the Boors of the Netherlands and a host of others who saw the potentiality for gains of many kinds in what were seen as ‘barbaric’ and ‘uncivilised’ peoples within that continent. In their wake came those who personified the third category of ‘superior’ westerners arriving to ‘improve’ what they found in Africa and other nations seen as requiring this fundamental ‘upgrade’. Customs of dress, modes of thinking, beliefs of all kinds, many elements of societal relationships and culture were to be swept away for ‘the greater good’ of dressing, thinking, believing and forming relationships and developing cultures which reflected the ‘better’ western kind.
The political and entrepreneurial business elites seeking wealth, influence, personal and national benefit generated massive funds through all these enterprises and activities with which to fuel their national development. The more the individuals involved succeeded in benefiting themselves the more they benefited their elites at home who in turn were able to develop their societies. In this way initial concepts of western superiority became ever more enhanced and embedded. Along with this process came the affluence which generated a patrician view which felt idealistic to those who had so benefited from the genocide (of the Native Americans), the slavery of millions of Africans, the myriad gains of colonialism and the believed to be civilising effects of religious conversion.
So we arrive at the present day through the many generations since the activities described above. And we arrive with all the most positive aspects of them emphasised in just about every aspect possible and from every quarter, generating, I would argue, a deep subliminal level of conditioning to believe in our own superiority over others that has become almost completely subconscious. We simply ‘feel’ it in almost every fibre of our being. This has erupted at times as overt racism as seen in the generations who suffered from this in North America in particular. But, I suspect if you dare look closely at your own mentality you cannot help but find certain elements and notions of superiority in your own outlook. This I know exists within myself and is an almost inescapable and very likely impossible facet of my being to eliminate. This due to the vast and I would argue all-pervasive and deeply embedded conditioning that derived its power and ubiquity from a desire to cast the very best light on what had been done, counting almost everything related to the past as achievements rather than crimes.
But let us come fully up to the present day and the era of war we have entered. I will argue that notions of exceptionalism in the USA and superiority in the UK, invested to most but not to a totality of extent in their elite superstructure. The notion that we are the crown of creation almost, guided by God, righteous and noble, sensitive, idealistic and desiring to transform lesser beings and societies into some image of ourselves, remains very strong in us. Our relative wealth makes us feel the interventions we make outside of our own national borders are a kind of duty we owe humanity, doing good, expressing the patrician view of lords and ladies toward the unwashed and misguidedly ignorant masses.
In the pursuit of such ‘benefits’ to other peoples, societies and nations there are none so fervent in their desire to do so than those who have taken the name of ‘neoconservatives’. I would argue that these neoconservatives, or neocons as they are often called, are, since 9/11 in the predominant elite positions across the western world. These are the modern day interventionists who stand in place of the sometimes well-intentioned (by their own lights) settlers, slavers, colonialists, outgoing entrepreneurs and missionaries of the past. They have many attitudes in common with those who justified their activities that had such devastating effects on nations other than their own which they conceived the right to intervene in.
Over the past two decades we have seen one violent intervention after another initiated by those who professed that they were ‘doing good’ by such interventions and that they had a vision to bring ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ to those who laboured under distinctly inferior conditions to their own. These new missionaries knowing best what was good for others had and still have tremendous zeal and are indeed modern-day zealots for their cause. Mike Pompeo who was for several years President Trump’s Secretary of State is one such example, a born-again evangelical Christian who believes we are in what is called ‘The End Days’ and who awaits the great ‘rapture’ on the re-arrival of Jesus Christ on Earth.
Coming right up to present time we now have confronting us the wars and threat of wars that reveal what I call the ‘End Game War’, the fight to the death, winning or losing all, of those who conceive their way of life is so vastly superior to all others that they would risk the destruction of the entire planet rather than back down and accept the right of other peoples and nations to have their own sovereign evolution. This, as I see it, is what is going on and has been going on in recent times, particularly since the events of 9/11.
Western elites of all kinds have long considered themselves superior. I hope I have demonstrated this sufficiently above. These attitudes have to a great degree also filtered down to the citizens of their nations, particularly so in the cases of the USA and UK, but also in France and other nations that share (even if subconsciously) surviving elements of abiding western myth, ‘The White Man’s Burden’. Western elites, subconsciously or otherwise, quite clearly conceive that they are the true guardians of civilised behaviour, holding as they do what they see as the ‘best’ systems of governance, the ‘best’ forms of societal rules in regard to regulating their societies and so forth. Due to these notions of exceptionalism and superiority and the concomitant desire to do ‘good’ by transforming all people, societies and nations into our mirror-image we in the West share much in common with those who acted in this manner previously for ‘all the best possible reasons’ as seen by them.
In particular, Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and essentially all nations not accepting de facto rule by the West, are candidates for proactive intervention, undermining and weakening, the creation of sufficient internal chaos, penury or civil war to effect the goals, both short and long-term of the new high priests demanding change among those they define as inferior, the neoconservatives who have commanded the heights of political power in the West since 9/11. Post 9/11 it was certainly decided by this breed of warriors that no system of governance not corresponding to their needs of safety in perpetuity could be tolerated. Now it was not only personal or state good that was to be used to justify international intervention whether packaged as idealistic pursuits or not, now the until those moments assured superiority of power, of the western world was under threat. Therefore ALL individuals, societies and nations not agreeing to be allied to and dominated by the western powers were to be eliminated.
This is where we are now in my opinion. In a world where one group of nations which has always conceived of itself as ‘top dog’, guardians and warders of our world, global policemen and women, warriors for idealistic concepts regarding human freedoms and rights, see their influence waning. The long-held power to dominate is slipping from the grasp of those who have long conceived themselves to be the rightful judge, jury and executioner when it comes to the lesser mortals of other realms. This is, in my opinion, the overarching motivation for just about all we see occurring now within the war fought on many fronts by the western powers… not only to shore up their waning power base, but to increase and expand it to the level I regard as paralleling what would eventually become a de facto prison planet overseen (for the ‘best possible motives’) by them. This they clearly believe is their rightful place in the world and conceive it to almost be their inalienable right, a benevolent dictatorship in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.
If they succeed I have no doubt we will arrive at the virtual prison planet I mention above, a planet where satellites monitor so much more than even now, where powers exist to strike down at any nascent threat or those perceived as such by the new powers-that-be. Any and all resistance to the domination of the western elites would be quickly snuffed out by one means or another. Surveillance would exist below just as it would from above, citizens will report those who appear to harbour ‘incorrect’ thoughts and who make doubtful relationships with others. The cancel culture of today will be as nothing compared to the tools used to undermine those not conforming to the required ‘norm’ of those future days.
If the USA, UK, EU and Australia, along with Japan and a few others, succeed in their ambitions against virtually all other nations to effect overall success in bringing to a close the ‘End Game War’ in their favour with all “enemy” nations vanquished I would invite you to contemplate how they would manage the resulting ‘peace’. And to ask yourself if it would be a true peace at all or true freedom, or true democracy either. All as a result of a desire to transform others by the West whatever the justifications, the protestations of idealism, posited goodness and well-meaning desires… all of course which have been seen in every case where catastrophe of one kind or another ensued in the past.
These are the reasons why I believe that westerners require to be saved from themselves… and most probably economically and therefore militarily quarantined in order to do so. What is the alternative? A ruined world ravaged by constant war, the end of all hopes of a sustainable peace for any foreseeable future where the zealots of Washington and London’s Whitehall having dispensed with dialogue and diplomacy foment war against their perceived “enemies” everywhere with no limit in mind regarding the level of escalation they are willing to contemplate.
So I ask the question for all our sakes…
DO WESTERNERS NEED SAVING FROM THEMSELVES?
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