About a decade ago, I had a job that required a commute of
just over an hour to get to work. That gave me some time to think about things.
I eventually recognized that certain areas of research and rumination led to
serious doubts about meaning and value in life. I finally had an idea to
combine the various topics in a writing exercise for 500-word essays. But I
reached an impasse when I realized I had not wanted to write an overly long and
complicated analysis of entire historical periods. (I also became extremely busy with the cartoon series “Scum On Top.”) So, these essays end where I left off, but
they now serve as a foundation for most of what I’m addressing in "Scum (Back) On Top."
According to my notes, although I wrote the essays much earlier, I had settled on a preliminary title as dated “4-19-21:
Republicans, the Radical Right, and the Final Victory of Nihilism: A
Primer.”
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"A Problem of Nihilism: Essay 1"
For the past few years, I have thought that anyone who wanted to test their
religious faith might consider three areas to examine. (This would also apply
to test one's belief in a "purpose to the world."
Serial killers. In themselves, the extent of the
crimes and the relative impunity with which the killers operate are disturbing
enough. The number of them in the 1970s alone is startling. And while the
atrocities of Dean Corlii are horrifying, someone like Gary Ridgway and his
casual disposal of scores of victims is baffling. A meaningful order in things
might seem a bit in doubt when a man can get away with killing a human being
every other week or so for a long time.
Organized crime. Corruption is routine. Anyone can
be "leaned on," bought off, or otherwise used. Any offender can be
"rubbed out," which is at most a necessary evil. Tribal loyalty is
the basis of ethics, though that is still tenuous, as "honor" can be
a pretense for obedience. And as epitomized in the climax of the film
"The Godfather," there can be quite a gulf between formal observance
of religious ritual and "how things are in the real world." (Which is
implicitly atheistic, with no God recognized as a barrier to any evil.)
Genocide. The mass murder of entire peoples.
From the most ancient times, in tribal warfare, wherein people of a vanquished
foe are utterly wiped out. Then with the rise of great empires that crush all
dissent. Later, expanded wealth and technical knowledge led to naval voyages
that resulted in "discoveries" of "New Worlds" and the
spread of colonial empires. Native peoples are conquered and corralled and
nearly eradicated, their victims to a great extent unnumbered, unnamed and
unknown.
That anonymity and offhand disposal of the victims seem to be distinctive
features of all of the above. A further instance would be that of the peoples
of Africa, who were notably subject to slavery. Bought and sold as if they were
a kind of livestock, barely named or known except as one would one's farm
animals. And even long after emancipation, they could still be dispensed with
in a lynching or an isolated unsolved murder here and there.
In Nazi Germany, of course, the victims were numbered and known,
like inventory items. The process reached a level of efficiency that seems to
have set a standard. In that odd case, the enemies were not so much
"real" (in the way Carthaginians might be) as they were scapegoats,
seen as specters of pure evil. (A delusion that came from decades of being
exposed to notions about racial "health" and "purity." The
threat came from anyone who did not "belong," from those deemed
"unfit" or "unworthy of life." Or who otherwise seemed a
"danger," likened to invasions of vermin or an "infection"
in the "body.")
