The Report from Iron Mountain is a staple in many conspiracy theories about a New World Order. It is taken by many to have been a seriously intended document, which in effect claimed that global peace was not desirable, that human societies function best in conditions of difference and violence.
Proposed enemies were aliens from outer space, and environmental problems, and there was also some support given for “blood sports”, which would presumably be something like football, but moving more towards Rollerball (whose author may have been influenced by this book, who knows?).
I don’t spend time worrying about things I can’t really research. Even if these ideas were real at one time, who is to say that whatever hidden movers and shakers there might be still hold to these ideas. Who is to say they can’t change their minds?
To the point, it occurred to me this morning that we seem to be born with a certain need for challenge and difficulty, particularly men. Our sense of self is born from making decisions, and confronting obstacles. We need, I think, a certain amount of pain and misery, and can only realize full happiness in the contrast. You need useful work to do, so that you can rest.
This fact can be internalized and accepted, or externalized through aggression. The identity dynamic of war is this: you cement your own identity as a member of group with specific attributes in the process of sharing pain fighting the other group. They do the same.
Sacrifice is much the same. Take the Aztec practice of ball games, following which the winning team was ritually–theatrically–killed in public. Those people become thereby a sort of Other; they become ritually different. Those outside their space become thereby defined in their acts of violence. The murders refresh and enable group solidarity.
In a much muted form, one sees this in sports fans, cheering their teams. Packers fans, or Steelers fans, or Vikings fans can all relate to one another, rooting for their team. Now, I have often argued for sports, the way we do it, as working to teach democracy. You have a rule defined system combined with open competition where the best team wins, but in the process of which everyone is made stronger.
Pro Wrestling gets closer to sacrifice. The more ardent fans really want to see their guy beat the snot out of the other guy.
I have to run, but I would like to propose is this: there are two types of order, the sacrificial and the post-sacrificial. To the extent the Report from Iron Mountain was ACCURATE–and we must consider that the conclusions may have had some validity–then they would apply to sacrificial systems.
For my own purposes I have discussed four types of political order: sacrificial, sybaritic leftism, cultural sadeism, and Liberalism. The first three could be conflated, where sybaritic leftism could be termed either Post-Liberalism, or a Pre-sacrificial order. Like the Eloi, sybarites lack the capacity to further their social order, so it must in the end collapse one way or another, as those in Europe will, if they are unable to embrace true Liberalism.
Liberalism is an order in which it is understood that not only is pain a part of this world, but that it is necessary for happiness, paradoxically. One must pursue difficult ends, master hard skills, take risks, and lose sometimes.
To truly love someone is to wish them a certain amount of misery and loneliness, because only in such conditions can they create themselves as the sort of person who can be happy. I have often prayed for my children difficulty and challenge, but only within a range they can handle and grow from. In no small measure, this is one roll that sports plays in our ritual order.
One sees in many tribal orders times when young men, particularly, must go out alone in the wild, to become men. We need something like this. Historically it has been service in the military, but if we think long term, we must think global peace.
When you look at history, long term stability normally comes with assigned social roles. Take the Indian caste system. It was in some respects a form of systematic cruelty. The bottom of the order was treated quite inequitably. Yet, since there was nothing to be done, they presumably dealt with it, and their beliefs allowed them to contemplate a better future life.
On one level, this system is acceptable, since it incorporates unhappiness and forces the rejection of self pity. On a higher level, though, I don’t think it is structurally conducive to moral development. It enables higher caste members to improperly think of themselves as better in an ontological way, and lower caste members to lower their qualitative horizons of what is possible for them.
Ultimately, what I want is as much freedom of movement as possible for all people. Towards that end, we all must be made accountable for forming our own identities. This can be a challenging process, so we need better means of doing it. The identity of “American” is a good start. Being connected to a place, family, and religious creed is good, but ultimately I see creating an identity as a lifelong process.
Again, this would be oriented around my notion of Goodness. Something like it is necessary to prove the Iron Mountain boys wrong, if they ever existed.