Amerika

In the mainstream, there are opinions that most people agree are not necessarily true, but safe. They will not disturb a social gathering, which now includes mixed-sex as well as mixed-ethnicity. If you want to know why empires disappear without a trace, it is because almost every person plays “follow the leader” and parrots these mainstream opinions without reference to reality, which is the only standard of actual truth.

When one steps outside the mainstream, the reason most people stay in the mainstream becomes apparent: here be dragons. In fact, most of non-mainstream thought is gibberish concocted for reasons other than trying to find and promote truth, and is prized like a consumer product for being inoffensive and thus unlikely to get the purchaser blamed for its failure. “Well… it was ISO 666 certified!”

However, whether you are left or right — and there are no other philosophically-distinct options, only clever marketing — you will encounter within the world of extreme politics a number of interesting characters. They can be identified by their psychologies, or even pathologies, and here’s a list to help you avoid the worst…

• The Poseur. The poseur exists to put others down. He believes in things in order to be “better than” other people, which explains away his mildewed townhouse, entry-level (20 years running) job, and general dissatisfaction with life. His purpose is to appear larger than he is.
• The Hipster. Hipsters are defined by one salient trait: they use external things to define internal. Thus, they listen to bands you have never heard of, wear combinations of clothing you would never consider, and embrace outsider political views just to be different, ironic and unique.
• The Suicide. This person has given up; life is for nought. He wants a reason to die so he will be remembered well, and so he drifts toward extreme ideology so he can have a solid and exciting reason to kill himself.
• The Sniper. Some people exist to feel important by tearing down others. The sniper is the person who reads a 400 page manifesto and thinks a minor footnote debunks it all. A person of no power or importance in life, he feels most alive when tearing down those above him.
• The Innocent. This is the person you actually want to attract. She means well, wants the best results possible, and has found that mainstream politics will never achieve this. Thus she drifts to outsider politics, a nerd among the extremists, and will always do what she thinks is right.

What makes these people similar? Like hipsters, they are “outward in”: they use external accessories to signal internal value. A hipster listens to obscure music so that the hipster seems knowledgeable and like an altruistic librarian, poring deep through the music world to find hidden gems. In fact, what he is pimping is usually obscure because it sucks, but the hipster does not care. He only wants to look good. That is what all of the above, save the Innocents, have in common.

Extreme politics means stepping outside of the nicely-laid path which most walk. That means you are on your own to separate lies from truth, and that because there are no rules, this path will attract a disproportionate number of mental defectives and neurotics. Know the major types that infest extreme politics, right and left alike, and you can avoid having your time wasted by people who are essentially moral parasites.

Tags: extreme politics, hipsters, neurotics, poseurs