Skeptic Project

In his most prolific writings, Karl Marx spoke about the "anarchy of production" in capitalism, explaining how capitalism was an irrational system based on contradictions and prone to collapse. His enemies claim that capitalism is "economically rational"- and to give credit where credit is due, if you are producing in a society driven solely by the profit motive, by human greed, then capitalism certainly is rational from this perspective. Capital's greatest propagandists, like Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman were capable of reducing greed and sociopathy to rationality and self interest, explaining away the prophecies chronicling the invisible hand and its guidance of the distribution of resources to those that needed them the most. Profit drives all in capitalism, wealth being the permeating source of social relations and political power; values like equality and sharing, from the standpoint of the exploiting classes, are not rational. In the world of today, why would I give a brother in need food? I would be losing money. I would be going against the foundations of the system. It is more "economically rational" to eat it myself or go sell it on the market. This mode of production, this dog-eat-dog system is the main source of social alienation among people. It is this consumerism, this hedonism, that is destroying our society. We do not cooperate, we claw our way to the top by "competing" on the job market. The failures of Nazism and the various Fascisms show the nature of the struggle between labor and capital, a struggle that is unresolvable under the banner of nationalism and is becomes even more determined under the banner of global capitalism. Regardless of supposed "ideology", it is no secret that it's loudest propagandists are often the worst sociopaths, parading around slogans like "selfishness is a virtue".

"It turns what sweetness I have to gall, to hear, or hear of, the remarks of some of my neighbors. When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my townsmen observed that "he died as the fool dieth;" which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly, that "he threw his life away," because he resisted the government. Which way have they thrown their lives, pray? such as would praise a man for attacking singly an ordinary band of thieves or murderers. I hear another ask, Yankee-like, "What will he gain by it?" as if he expected to fill his pockets by this enterprise. Such a one has no idea of gain but in this worldly sense. If it does not lead to a "surprise" party, if he does not get a new pair of boots, or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. "But he won't gain anything... No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to." -Henry David Thoreau, on the death of John Brown

Once in awhile there are small explosions of terrorism or school shootings that are a rupture in the constant, hidden, already tense social base. Most of those who explode are often extremely socially alienated and mentally sick. We in America take our problems out on each other. We are killing each other. And not only directly, but indirectly, by supporting this system. America has more peopleless homes than homeless people. Popular culture projects the worst in people as social norms, it has divorced the spirit from the body, it has removed love from sex, beauty from art, and meaning from music. On your average television sitcom we see the rude, greedy, domineering, "independant" wife bossing around the fat, lame, weak, stupid father that never gets anything right, that is the butt of all the jokes. No wonder we have this toxic culture of gender lifestyleism and aesthetic barbarity. The norm has become men in dresses, our children are forced to use bathrooms with transvestites and the state enforces homosexual "marriage". Already rising above the horizon are movements advocating the normalization of child molestation, and a world where the basics of biology are considered oppressive to the outcasts who identify as animals and other ridiculousness, dragging us down the slippery slope that we were told for decades did not exist.

In his Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx spoke about how under capitalism, all things that are holy are profaned. The sanctity of marriage becomes mutual prostitution. All relations become money-relations. Children, who are supposed to be blessings, are twisted into economic burdens; soulless, hedonist consumer culture slits the throat of morality upon the almighty altar of profit. In the decadent stage of capitalism, hedonist Man holds no purpose and stumbles when he tries to find foundation on the shifting sands of postmodernism, deconstructionism, and moral relativism; when a society of too many useful things becomes a society with too many usefull people, Man no longer strives to build or scrape or strive his way to the highest stages of civilization, art, or philosophy. Even those well-off, middle class Joes are as Tolstoy's Levin: "several times so close to suicide that he hid a rope lest he hang himself with it, and was afraid to go about with a rifle lest he shoot himself." What drives Man to invent fire when he can buy cheap lighters at the local convenience store?

The formula for greatness is action without profit. This truth has been stamped upon every brick of Man's greatest architectural achievements, it is felt when we imbibe the verses of Scripture, it can be seen in every brush stroke of our greatest paintings, and it is the end product of Man's inherent desire for vitality and heroism. I once heard a very foolish man say that there "is nothing more dangerous than armed men with utopian ideas", and in the so-called post ideological world of today, this statement may seem intelligent to those who have given up. Indeed, how dangerous it is to wage war, how horrifying it is to stand up and fight and bear one's chest to the world and all it's dangers!


We cannot afford to be quitters. We cannot afford to abandon the large ideological projects of yesterday and accept Fukuyama's cop-out, on the contrary, we have a duty to uphold the best in our revolutionary history, upholding true science, true art, bearing the great torch passed down from Prometheus to Plato, from Saint Paul to Lenin, and from Hemingway to us. This is the future we are fighting for. Yukio Mishima was correct in saying that "We live in an age in which there is no heroic death"; yet he himself,through the striving of his will-to-power died a valiant death, as heroic and truthful as any roar from his freed lions.

"Love is the virtue of the Heart,
Sincerity is the virtue of the Mind,
Decision is the virtue of the Will,
Courage is the virtue of the Spirit."
― Frank Lloyd Wright