Surrender

“…but don’t give yourself away”  —Rick Nielsen

I commented recently on a post by Free Northerner regarding a conversation he had with a pair of females.  They accused him of being an asshole, a common response when those of the fairer sex find themselves confronting uncomfortable truths.

I wrote a long comment in which I linked to several of my posts and probably scared the shit out of the guy.  However, in a collective response to the myriad of advice his readers gave him, he wrote:

@ Martel: The wrong kind of asshole is a good way of putting it. Your advice is good; I simply have to find the right balance between accepting and acquiescing.

I thank him for the first sentence but must give credit for the phrase to Roissy.  Regarding the second:

Accept it completely and without question.

Don’t acquiesce one single bit.

Each of these deals with one of the two fundamental principle of Truth.  Soon I’ll expand on all three and how they formed the foundation of Western Civilization, became (nearly) exemplified in America’s founding documents, and how recognizing and finding the correct balance between the three forms the basis for successful societies, groups, and individuals.  For now, a quick summary:

“Accept” applies to “A is A”, or what I abbreviate as A.  A is the unabashed recognition of how things are.  It incorporates a correct understanding of math, science, logic, economic law, the principles of cause and effect, the Law of Unintended Consequences, etc.  However, it also includes human nature, how people are.  Christians describe this as our fallen nature, Game-adherents emphasize our biological constraints, but each ostensibly grasps how people really are, albeit with a somewhat different emphasis.

“Acquiesce” refers to the Ideal, how things should be, or what I abbreviate as G.  Regarding human nature, if A is the choice most people are going to make, G is the choice they should make.  A is what we are, G is what we should be.  A is our animal nature, the primate within; G is our spiritual nature, our Individuality.  (G refers to a heck of a lot more, but for the purpose of this post, this will suffice.)

I was introduced to an underdeveloped variation of this dichotomy in college and recognize how hard it can be to grasp.  I was a junior taking a seminar with fourteen seniors, almost all of whom were headed to law school, but I was one of only two students who didn’t have to rewrite a paper in which we had to incorporate the concept.  We continually conflate the harsh realities of life with our ideals.  We pretend the former don’t exist because we cling to the latter, or if we accept the former, we let the latter fall by the wayside.  Neither approach is correct, for G without A results in destructive delusions.  A without G leads to cynicism, submission to our lower instincts, and stagnation.

In how we wish to govern (or not govern), conservatives and libertarians strike a relatively healthy balance between G and A (there are substantial disagreements, I know, but I’ll have to get into those later).  When analyzing whether or not to advocate a policy, we sometimes actually take human nature into account.  If you require a business owner to pay more for labor, he’s probably going to try to make do with less of it.  An old lady is less likely to get mugged if her potential attacker supects she might be packing.

Lefties don’t do this.  Somehow we’ll be able to reduce the cost of healthcare by utterly ignoring the law of supply and demand.  Raising tax rates by 5% means we’ll have 5% more tax revenue because nobody will alter their behavior to change how much tax they owe.  We can eliminate poverty by paying poor people to stay poor and disincentivising entrepreneurship.  In terms of policy, how they think people should be completely crowds out the realities of how people are.  G trumps A every time.  If the legislaton is meant to make healthcare cheaper, that’s what it’ll do.  Just pass it and then we’ll find out what’s in it.

In terms of politics, it’s reversed.  Lefties understand that people vote based on what’s cool, that repeating some dumb slogan enough will change people’s minds, that jealousy affects how we vote, that us vs. them can be a great way to rally support.  Alinsky was an evil SOB who had no grasp whatsoever of A in terms of what policies might actually work, but he understood A to its core regarding how to get those policies put into place.

Conservatives (and to a greater extent libertarians) fail to grasp this.  Ryan was respectful to the clownish Biden during the debate, mistakenly assuming that a populace addicted to reality TV is going to take class into account when deciding who to vote for.  We cite the Constitution repeatedly to voters who haven’t the slightest idea what’s even in it.  We assume that the best way to handle an unabashedly biased media is to act as if it’s an objective arbiter and let it harangue our candidates in countless debates.  We allow ourselves to be accused of racism for virtually every criticism of Obama while letting Harry Reid get away with egregious accusations against Romney scott-free.

We MUST adhere to Truth, but the political battlefield is under the aegis of A, we treat it like it’s G.

So back to the Northerner.

Rhetoric is no longer what it should be.  Man is fallen, and American Man is falling further fast.  Women are women, but you can build shit out of wood.

Successful Game requires the complete acceptance of how women are (A) in order to get them to do what they should (G).  A PUA doesn’t worry about feminizing himself when dealing with women, he accepts them for what they are, and through this acceptance, he brings them into his own frame.  In no way does his acceptance of her reality diminish him.

If you’re not a lefty, you probably have at least some grasp of Truth, a decent idea as to what the government can or should do.  If you’re dealing with a lefty, you’re talking to somebody who has some really messed up ideas.  Not unlike the cute redhead who completely defies male standards by getting turned on by being treated like dirt, a lefty defies objective standards by believing that making the entire US a gun-free zone will somehow reduce crime.  Furthermore, the way you reach your conclusions isn’t the way they reach theirs.  In fact, how you think may well be an anathema to them.

However, everybody’s right about something, and as people our minds fit certain patterns.  Perhaps repetition is a really dumb way to come to a conclusion, but millions of unthinking American myrmidons believe “we don’t need more gun laws–we should enforce the ones we have” as well as “Republicans are for the rich.”

Leftism corrupts many of our noblest instincts (concern for the downtrodden, etc.).  Why can’t our more banal instincts like solipsism or emotional maleability be used to advance productive policies?  Leaders as varied as Hitler, Reagan, MLK, and Churchill have all been master manipulators.

Should you have to manipulate people to get them to see what should be obvious to anyone with half a brain cell?  No, but you do.  Work through the emotional and ignorant nonsense, and then  you can focus on dialectic.  (Dialectic is the only way to ensure that somebody remains converted.  Without it Axelrod’s rhetoric may well just switch them back.  But that’s for another day.)

We instinctually understand A in how governments and economies run.  They get A regarding how to get people to do what they want.  Our understanding of A is an advantage they will never have (they are leftists, after all), so if we can get A as well as they do when we sell our ideas, we may actually have a chance to turn this thing around.

At least we’ll have more of a chance than we do now.