I am most pleased to present another guest poast from LRFotS Randale6, who sent in a pithy and quite articulate piece on the return of the men of action, just as Otto von Bismarck once spoke about so eloquently. The basic thesis here is that, ultimately, politics and words mean nothing – the actions of strong and capable men mean everything.

Another Age of Ideology is Dying

A provocative title, isn’t it? Yet it is truth, and it has repeated throughout human history…until another age of ideology arises, and then the cycle repeats itself, again and again. This cycle afflicted the Romans, the Greeks, the Chinese, and countless others, we simply are at inflection point where the cycle gives way to blood and iron.

Now one may ask, what is blood and iron? And what does religion have to do with ideology? The answer to the latter is that they are one and the same, their only effective difference being that religion ascribes its edicts and rules to divine will, ideology ascribes them to secular will. Both require the faith of their followers to function.

As for blood and iron, it is the opposite of faith: whereas faith asks you to hold out and believe in something (most often with no benefit to yourself or your family/friends), blood and iron deliver results. Blood and iron are what the people of the faltering Roman Republic asked for as their faith in the republic proved false in the face of its corrupt oligarchy.

Blood and iron came to them in the form of Julius Caesar, whose actions allowed Rome to live on for a further four centuries (in the West – the Eastern Romans continued for a good 1,000 years more). Notice the actions of Julius Caesar, he did not give the people of Rome empty promises, he did not ask them to believe in him or his cause.

Instead, Julius delivered what the people had asked for all along, prosperity and results. He cleaned up Rome, making myriad reforms to improve the life of the common man, and expanded Rome’s might and influence. He did not obey the oligarchy, he acted on the people’s behalf instead.

And Julius Caesar was not alone, succeeding Caesars would also deliver results, often earning deification for their efforts because of what they had done on behalf of the average Roman citizen. In the case of Julius Caesar, he never even requested the title of king, let alone deification…the people of Rome deified him anyway.

Rome is not an isolated example of this either, the Greeks would also come to experience this cycle with Athens (standing for ideology) and Sparta (standing for blood and iron). Chinese civilisation also provides countless examples, with the beginning of each dynasty being an age of blood and iron and their subsequent ending being a time of (disappointed) faith, either from their internal failings (famine most commonly) or their defeat at the hands of barbarians (the Mongols and Manchus most prominently).

The eastern world has already come to accept (and embrace) this further turning in the eternal cycle of blood, iron, and faith. The western world meanwhile is torn, her people yearn for blood and iron, her elite mutter the same, empty promises and platitudes that do nothing for the common man…and indeed, harm him greatly.

Yet the will of the elites will not prevail, why you ask? It never prevailed in our previous examples. The cycle is that strong, it may as well be a law of the universe at this point. The oligarchs murdered Julius Caesar, did that stop the coming of blood and iron? Nope, Augustus came along and continued in his predecessor’s place (and made the oligarchs pay dearly).

The return of blood and iron cannot be stopped by faith, for there is no faith left in the ideologies (both religious and secular) that exist within the west. As with their eastern counterparts (Soviet and Chinese Communism) the western ideologies (Enlightenment and Human Rights) no longer hold the common man in thrall. The only ones who still venerate them are mental degenerates looking for anything to grasp in the storm of their own insanity.

Addendum I: Many would argue with me that Chinese Communism is not a dead ideology, the reality of the matter is it is. What we now see in China is a government that is (lower case) fascist in everything but name. The only reason that they still claim to be communist is owing to the Chinese need for historical and political legitimacy to align… This is a tradition that stretches as far back as Chinese civilisation.

Addendum II: Somewhere in the future I will make a second article, covering how an age of blood and iron transitions into an age of ideology.

The Didact Speaks

I straightforwardly disagree with the notion that religion requires one to hold out and wait on things to happen – neither the actual history of the Christian faith (see e.g. the Passion and Resurrection, or the entire Book of Acts), nor that of Izzlam, support this view. The reality is, religion motivates strong men to move, just as much as political necessities do.

None of this detracts from the basic thesis. The reality is the current problems of the West are beyond solving through any dumbocratic political process. “VOOOOOOOOTE HARRRRRDURRRRRR!!!!” is not a solution – it is merely an idiotic repetition of failed strategies.

Say it with me, my friends: voting is completely irrelevant. What matters, especially these days, is who counts the votes.

The words are not mine, by the way. They belong to one of the most notorious mass-murderers in history (who may not have been quite as horrible as is usually claimed, but was still pretty awful), Josef Stalin.

In reality, when nations and empires face tipping points and crises, they stand or fall most often based on the actions of individuals, who take advantage of broader geopolitical, social, and economic movements to seize power and wield it.

Caesar, for example, could never have done what he did, were it not for the reforms of General Gaius Marius, the failures of the Gracchus Brothers, and the brief tyranny of Sulla. There were real sociopolitical upheavals in Rome that he harnessed and used to his advantage, as a man of tremendous personal courage and charisma.

The same is true of Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, or any other great historical figure you want to name – including, by the way, one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a Sigma male whom most people thoroughly underestimated at the time.

Ultimately, though history may not be dictated by the whims of strong men, it certainly is directed by them.