It hit me today that Liberalism is at root a doctrine for the democratization and decentralization of pain. It is a doctrine in which all members of a society are expected to bear their own crosses, but hopefully help one another do it.
As I discuss here (sorry about the Word file, I think the PDF wasn’t working for some reason), I recognize four types of cultural order: sacrificial, Sybaritic Leftism, Cultural Sadeism, and Liberalism.
In the first, pain is embodied and expressed in a ritual order which is unequal. As an example, I visited the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois this summer. We looked at the museum, and climbed the tallest mound. I read everything they had written, but they somehow neglected to mention they practiced human sacrifice.
It appears the ancestoers of the Hopi were cannibals.
I did a research paper on ancient Hindu rituals, this one called the Agnicayana, and ritual instructions called for the heads of a goat, sheep, chicken, and human to be placed under the altar. It does not seem unreasonable to suppose all were sacrificed. In researching another myth, I learned about an Asian Indian cult that made it into relatively modern times, in which victims were pressed to death under heavy stones. The word Thug comes from Thuggee, which was a group of highwaymen who appear to have viewed their murders in part as sacrifices to the goddess Kali.
Or look at Judaism. Until their Temple was destroyed the second time they routinely slaughted animals on altars, consecrated to God. The word “Holocaust”, by the way, is a Jewish ritual term that refers to a sacrifice in which the offering is entirely burnt.
In my view, these sorts of things stem from the same desire most people feel at some point or other to kick their dog after a hard day at work. Circumstances push and push and push, and these sorts of theater–really, that’s what religious ritual is, and as far as that goes theater is a sort of ritual, when used properly, as the Greeks did–relieve the stress and pressure. It was the equivalent, then, to watching movies today just to watch things get blown up and people shot. Most people stop to look at major car accidents, and there exists today a theater of death that we call Horror films.
This basic dynamic gets manifested over time in class structure, in which somebody is at the bottom. You don’t want to be there. Those are the people everyone else gets to kick. Take the Egyptians. They managed a relatively stable social order for thousands of years. You had the Pharoahs, some sort of administrative class, the soldiers, and the slaves. The last two were likely often largely the same people, except for the leadership and disciplinary function.
Psycholically, I think cruelty is–to use a somewhat crude but hopefully useful word–outsourcing pain. Rather than meet the vicissitudes of life with a tranquil, accepting heart and mind, some people prefer to defer their own pain, by generating the thrill of exacting it on other people and animals. Power is a refuge, to some extent, from pain. It means you do not have to accept to the laws that govern, control, and constrict others. This makes you more free, free from the pain THEY feel, and it makes you feel superior.
In the end, all cultural systems have to answer the questions of what to do, and why to do it. Typically, this entails an understanding of the nature of the universe that is layered on to an understanding of the “nature” of the social universe. The King is God. You are not.
I’m tired, and have to get up early. I’ll try and finish this train of thought soon.
For now, I will end with the thought that all the meaning systems we use make use of pain. Take the craft and calling of the Warrior. Why does he suffer? To win, and because it is his chosen creed. Why do athletes work so hard to play entirely artificial games? Because it provides a sense of meaning. It allows them to transmute work into pleasure, addicting pleasure, and helps them organize their lives.
For my own purposes, I believe the questions “what is objectively true in a metaphysical sense”, and “why do people do what they do” can often be treated separately. I don’t think any religion has a completely accurate take on the universe, but that many come close, and that all of them are at least potentially useful.