Landslaught
There is a band in Germany, called Landslaught, which portrays itself
, or has as its manifesto, the following:To me, this encapsulates, as a perfect disclosure
, what is in the subconscious of almost every person in the Western world. When I say every, I most particularly and definitely am meaning to include those among the most exclusive of the economic and political elite of the West; those who inhabit the secluded mansions built by and for the refined, aristocratic, highly educated, and supposedly enlightened, ruling class whose existence is hidden and far above the recognized leaders of Western nations.There are variations and distinctions that must be made. For, what is intriguing is what role is played in all of this by the structures and systems that adorn the opulent landscape of the Western World.
You see, for example, the academics of higher education would, I venture to speculate, scoff at the idea that they harbored such primitive Neanderthal and modern Fascist motives and feelings beneath their disciplined, ethical, dedicated scholarly exteriors. They too, like the elites, would attribute such coarse, brutish
, raw egoism to the likes of those who brawl in arenas before the raucous filled stadiums of the World Wrestling Federation. The academics envisage themselves to be in the upper middle or lower upper class and for them and their wives keeping up appearances is essential, whether in public or in private.I must amend what I wrote in the beginning concerning Landslaught’s manifesto being a disclosure of the subconscious of Westerners as a whole and particularly the elite. Contrariwise, among themselves, the super-elite are quite open about these inhumane attitudes. Yet, anomalously, they find the most euphemistically diplomatic ways of enunciating ‘their’ real, and truly iniquitous manifesto of which Landslaught’s is a mere gaudy and boisterous mirror image.
The irony is that, when far from the crude and craven world of the populace, when secure in their sequestered sanctuaries, the super rich, the virtual opposite of celebrities and elected leaders, those who possess the hidden hands controlling the puppet knaves below them, they gracefully gloat over their supremacy über alle
. To them, they are not only better than everyone else, they entitle themselves to what the Middle Age’s Spanish called the Droit de seigneur. Just like a medieval baron had the right to take the virginity of the peasant girls, and just as our contemporary CEOs assume that they have an irrevocable right to mind-boggling bonuses, the super elite make an even greater assumption of superseding-rights over the rest of the world’s population.‘Their people’ are somehow vastly inferior to them and somewhat more like anthropoids by comparison. ‘Their people’ should be at their disposal. It is of no consequence to this presumptuous, haughty, aloof elite what manner of atrocities ‘Their people’ suffer. As these primitive forms of life are enslaved, exploited, or used up and disposed of in the most grotesque manner, it is being done for the good of the preeminent aristocracy
. What is good for the nobility, for lords and ladies of the lofty castles is good for ‘their’ nations and that should be ‘the’ soul consideration.Turning now to the ostensive political and economic leaders, there is a quite different and much more complex dynamic in their relations with the levels of strata within their constituency and the populace. For most of these, the bare truth is like a li
fe-threatening illness. Most of them must maintain multiple public personalities. What is buried in their private persons is only disclosed to their most trusted allies of their innermost circle and sometimes to wives who are genuine and equally adept cohorts in conniving and corruption. There is a striking difference between these top administrators and those potential successors, who are immediately below them, or waiting at the gates, and who are secretly but eagerly wishing to usurp their position in the hierarchy. These top rung leaders or rulers either learn to be extremely deft and extremely flexible or adaptable in spinning just the right nuance of their public statements to each finely differentiated audience or they will immediately feel a tornado-like onslaught from their rivals.Just below them, the second rung administrators must look up to read their boss while they execute their peck to those below them in the pecking order, and on down the line, one chicken to the next. If they have a department under them, this is the fraction of the whole seen as through the opposite end of a telescope. From the top of the ladder, with a perspective on all departments, not only is what they contemplate far broader but the position over the whole also means they are exist in an entirely different structure. The moment they reach the pinnacle, they exist in an entirely different structure. What had been constraints keeping them under control have flipped to being under their control. They can now manipulate those constraints. To some it seems like ascending to the order of the ancient "Divine Right of Kings." At first, their underlings give them a while for a honeymoon to be ‘king of the mountain’. Some may seize this opportunity and this freedom from structural constraints to alter their world like a new wife of a wealthy husband seizes the opportunity to completely redecorate their home. This omnipotence, this vast leeway over their domain, this virtual freedom from structural constraints, causes fantasies, proclivities, and visions buried when they were an underling to surge up. Their private person, swooning with headiness, razes their public façade and casts off inhibitions like a sex-starved newlywed on honeymoon.
Boards of Directors in corporations and branches of government exist to reign in the ascension of the impetuous infant terrible to CEO or President. A problem arises when a too generous or too lengthy honeymoon is granted or those appointed to the job of reigning in are too weak. After an extended period of getting their way, the infant terrible can begin to believe that they are actually superior, that they do have the right and the special gifts to exert their powers unchecked, and that they do deserve unconstrained prerogatives. They may come to believe that they truly are above the law, in fact, that they actually are the law. Now the underlings cower but while cowering, their private personality is busy ruminating with seditious schemes. Connivances and conspiracy plots begin roiling around in their minds and for some the froth spills over into serious compacts with co-conspirators. Yet with the absolute power now corrupted absolutely, no one dares voice disagreements or tip their hand. When there is an apex power running amuck, this also, strange as it may seem, transforms the entire upper level ambience into an informal yet, nevertheless, rigidly oppressive structure that keeps that entire level in a pressure cooker. Heated minds notoriously have the poorest judgment. Likewise, when someone raises the issue of accountability, suddenly fingers of blame wiggle chorea-form-like through a diffuse fog of paranoia. Finding the proverbial scapegoat only buys more time for the infant terrible to wreak even more havoc.
As in Shakespearean dramas about Kings, the disarray of in-fighting in a pervasive atmosphere of suspicion only geometrically multiplies a King’s willful power. But that is the way things go in Monarchies. We can extend this to our capitalist democracy. A democracy and a Monarchy differ significantly with respect to the fact that adversarial relationships are the norm in a democracy. Now let us recapitulate and shrink to a manageable conception our perspective on the role of structure in personality. When a culture is founded on permanent adversarial relationships, rivals fight, not with guns but with words. Just as military forces must have strategies and tactics to deceive and defeat their enemies, rival politicians and corporations must do the same or exit the battle or game as it is called. One must have the necessary skills of verbal persuasion; spin if you will; deception; revising history; concealing devious deeds; twisting intentions; misrepresenting facts and opponents statements; ascribing stupidity; countless forms of labeling; playing one-up-man-ship; manipulating statistics; diverting attention; fabricating guilt; blackmailing and bribing; rousing constituent’s emotions and mobilizing them to hostile actions that are often for trumped up reasons; and a multitude of other varieties of lying and crooked acts. For adversaries in a democracy, which is everyone, the bare truth is a lie-threatening disease.
Democracy and capitalistic free enterprise thrive on this disarray of conspiracies, trickery, and attacks. You either win or go out of business or out of office; you win or die, figuratively speaking. Even within each party, there is in-fighting that creates a pervasive atmosphere of suspicion. The more suspicion, the less likely it is for anyone to discern the truth or arrive at a judgment and decision beneficial to all. The more of this kind of disarray, confusion, and obfuscation there is, the more likely it is that the willful, antisocial, sociopathic power of our political leaders and heads of corporations will multiply geometrically. The more incendiary these conflicts are, the more money the media makes. And, yet, we keep feeding the fire!
So ...
If you don't like it ... Fuck Off And DIE!!!" Quote the Landslaught evermore.