Brilliant analysis of the Trump win! The systemic analysis approach brings into clear view the vortex of concentric circles that we are all trapped in. Watching Trump's victory speech and Kamala's concession speech I felt something very unsettling though, some strong sense that he is real and she is not (even though I would have voted for her or for Jill Stein if I could vote in the U.S.) Of course we could say that that feeling of 'the real' is just as constructed as everything else but I don't actually believe that. I think some things cannot be deconstructed, like our love for our children for example (although many would disagree with this!). I don't know how we fit this in? This sense of the real? Thank you for this post Carne -- it's very thought provoking.
Thanks Laila that's very kind of you, and it was so good to see you in that nuthouse of Stamford. It means a lot that you liked the analysis. It was an exploration and you never quite know where those take you. Hopefully somewhere new and interesting.
Hey Carne, thanks for this insightful piece. I too was stateside this summer for 3 weeks in California and Chicago. I felt a sadness each day I walked through the streets of LA, being first given a security briefing by our hosts. Where to go, where not to go, as in where it’s safe and not. Their tween son traumatized by homeless men who attempted murder in front of his eyes. We were in Chicago during the DNC and watched part of it on the tv. I was saddened at the whole message of the Harris campaign. They talked continuously about “joy” while a crisis of the middle class is unrelenting. I do understand why that message did not resonate with so many people. What I continue to not understand is how someone can think that a felon, rapist, liar can do better. Yet here we are again.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, we agree. Here we are again. It has to stop. I look forward to your thoughts on my proposed - and very tentative - proposals for solutions. To come.
Thanks Ronan The schematic is my version of a fairly common tool in systems analysis, of concentric circles of elements of the system that enable further elements. The ontology bit is the product of writing my forthcoming book, also called Gentle Anarchy.
As you will know from our many conversations, it was the ontology that especially struck me - so often underestimated in driving understanding and action
Thanks for this piece, Carne. I often feel emptiness, disgust, and anger about the world we've built here in the US. It's tempting to chalk it up to an individual emotional issue, so it's helpful to hear your experience as someone visiting the CT suburbs. I find your analysis compelling, particularly that our overall ontology leaves no room for the spiritual dimensions of life. Increased wealth is supposed to deliver increased happiness, and yet it does not. The wealthy are secure and unhappy, and the middle and working classes are insecure and unhappy. I'm eager to read your next piece. It sounds as if this analysis is pointing to a need both for a transformation of the materialist, empiricist world view as well as the neoliberal order. A heavy lift to be sure, made all the more difficult by the existential threat posed by climate change. I only hope that the crisis of ecological overshoot can be channeled into progressive change (spiritual renewal and economic transformation) and not just doubling down on individualism and consumerism.
Thanks Rachel for the thoughtful comment. I think your emptiness, disgust and anger are widely shared but largely secretly. It manifests in a hundred different ways. And on the solution, we are at one. More to follow. Thanks again. C
Germany 1930s fascism was a response to strong labour, communism and increased wealth gap, the gap gets wider the 1% get scared they’ll lose it, they have two choices new deal type reform or big stick suited fascism
American has 50% living paycheck to paycheck and millions homeless or to poor to count desperate people poorly educated, not even bobbing on the surface, prime for the beer Keller populism of Trump
Poverty produces grinding misery and mental illness mass Societal illness this is the driver of Revolution or reaction Lenin harnessed it with land bread peace, Trump promises everything to everyone, I see a cult like belief in people on all sides my wife absolutely shuts down on Putin or vaccines other friends it’s trans and trump.
The right is forming international alliances while the Left have no real organisation and explain how their right in blogs?
A simple way to get a graphic in article would be to screenshot your excel sheet and crop it 😉
Thanks Nigel. Agreed, as ever. The Left are useless at international organising. What would be a way to get it going? I'm starting a new communalist network to connect the various projects around the world. But that's not enough. And thanks for the graphics tip.
I believe we need the equivalent to the communist party of 1930s with all 1st international reunited around a simple program and I think Especifismo has some good parts https://www.blackrosefed.org/especifismo-weaver/ I like some of the simple approach to of the workers party though not it's leader, and a rejection of cultural discussions in favour of a class and socialist United front
I appreciate the systems approach deeply, but find it reveals a shortcoming at the level of the ontology of the situation and the exclusion of the..." immaterial, ineffable, spiritual etc." Surely a systems approach must be designed to help us identify root causes? And so I wonder how one might include the "cosmological" dimension as it relates to human beings and life on earth... For your reading pleasure I've attached a perhaps unusual quote that offers a glimpse of such a larger perspective and I wonder if anyone reads to the end, if it resonates. (Beware it's written in a particular style to deliberately challenge the reader's mental process and perhaps access a more holistic perception than our normal associative thinking...and so it's being recounted in the voice of none other than Beelzebub who is telling his grandson about his visits to Russia between the Great Wars).
…"In this latter system, however, the 'center of gravity of causes' is determined by the presence, among the number of its concentrations, of a great comet, 'Solni,' which, in accordance with certain combinations of the 'common-cosmic harmonious movement,' comes at times in its falling very near to its sun Baleaooto, which is thereby forced greatly to increase its 'tension' in order to maintain the path of its own falling This tension provokes the same in the suns of the neighboring systems, among which is the system Ors, and when in its turn the sun Ors increases its tension in order not to change the path of falling proper to it, it provokes the same tension in all the concentrations of its own system, among which is also the planet Earth.
"The 'tension' in each of the planets acts also on the common presence of all the beings arising and breeding on it, always engendering in the beings, besides desires and intentions of which they are not aware, the feeling called sacred 'iabolioonozor' or, as your favorites would say, 'religious feeling,' namely, that 'being-feeling' which, as I have already said, appears at times in the desire and striving for more rapid self-perfecting as regards Objective Reason.
"It is interesting that when this sacred feeling—or another similar to it, likewise engendered by a certain common-cosmic actualization—is produced in the presence of your favorites, they accept it as a symptom of one of their numerous diseases, and call it 'nerves.'
"It is necessary to remark that this impulse, inherent in the presence of all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, arose and was developed almost normally in most of the terrestrial beings of a former period, that is, from the time when the organ kundabuffer was removed from their common presence right up to the second transapalnian perturbation.
"But later, among the chief evils flowing from the conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves, especially since there began to predominate in the presence of every terrestrial three-brained being their 'inner evil god' named 'self-calming,' it came about that under the action of Solioonensius, instead of the desire and striving for a more rapid self- perfecting, a 'something' began to arise in them which they themselves characterize by the words 'need of freedom,' which is the chief cause of the appearance of these grievous processes of theirs such as this recent 'Bolshevism. '
"I will explain somewhat later how they represent to themselves this famous 'freedom' of theirs, for the moment I will only tell you that the sensation which arises from the action of Solioonensius strengthens the need in them for some change or other in the general outer conditions of their ordinary being-existence, which until then were more or less stable.
"After the second transapalnian perturbation occurred to this ill-starred planet, that is, after the 'loss of Atlantis,' the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius in the common presence of your favorites took place at least forty times, and each time, thanks to this strange need of freedom which
has become fixed in the majority of them, almost the same thing took place as has recently been occurring among the groups inhabiting that part of the surface of your planet called 'Russia. '
…"Here it is extremely important to note that these terrifying processes could never have occurred among the three-brained beings of the planet Earth if those data for engendering the being-impulse of Conscience, which had remained intact in their subconscious—data to which the Most Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was the first to turn his attention, and which he relied upon for the fulfillment of his mission—had taken part in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs which has become habitual for them during their waking state.
"It is only because the data for the sacred impulse of being-Conscience do not take part in the functioning of this consciousness of theirs that the action of the law of Solioonensius, as well as of other inevitable cosmic laws, assumes these abnormal forms which are so lamentable for them.
…"And so, my boy, these terrifying processes of reciprocal destruction and of the annihilation of everything they have attained ensue partly from the following cause in certain periods, when the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius makes itself felt in their common presence, arousing in them the mentioned need for 'freedom,' then on the one hand, the intensity of action of the data already inherent in them for constantly engendering the impulse of 'timidity' in front of power-possessors automatically diminishes, while on the other hand, the intensity of action of those strange being-data provoking 'hatred' toward beings of other castes increases.”
…"These terrible processes usually arise and flow in the following sequence:
"It always begins like this Under the influence of the action of Solioonensius, several beings from one or another group in whom data for engendering that strange impulse toward beings of other castes, particularly those of the ruling class, happen to have been crystallized more strongly than in the rest—see and feel reality more than the others and begin, as is said there, to 'clamor,' and these 'clamoring orators' become for those around them what at the present time are usually called 'leaders.'
"And further, thanks both to this 'clamoring' and to the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius, which always combine abnormally in their presences, others in their turn begin to clamor.
"When this uproar among the ordinary beings begins to act too cacophonously upon what are called the 'effeminate nerves of the left half of certain power-possessing beings of the community, and these latter give orders to those whose jobs it is to grease with what is called 'Scottish cream' the navels of several particularly vociferous clamorers, it is then that these excesses of theirs begin and rise progressively to a climax—yet in the end, to the misfortune of your favorites, they always lead to nothing.
"If these processes of theirs had improved the existence of beings of subsequent generations even a little, then perhaps from the point of view of a strictly impartial observer they might not appear to be so terrible But to the misfortune of all the three-brained beings of our Great Universe, no sooner does the 'blissful action' of this lawful cosmic manifestation cease, and these terrifying processes come to an end, than there begins again the 'same old story,' and ordinary being-existence grows more bitter than before and, parallel with this, there also deteriorates what is called the 'sane awareness of the sense and aim of their existence. '
"And it deteriorates, in my opinion, chiefly because after these processes, the leaders of the former ruling class are usually replaced by beings from other castes which have never had among their representatives, either of the present or past generations, persons of any experience, conscious or unconscious, of that being-manifestation which gives the ability to direct the process of outer existence, and sometimes even of inner existence, of surrounding beings who although 'similar' to them have not yet attained to their degree of Reason.
"In all justice it must be admitted that although in the common presence of the three-brained beings of the former ruling class the data present in their 'subconscious' for engendering real being-Conscience also did not take part in the functioning of their 'waking consciousness,' these beings at least did have the habit of ruling, acquired by heredity and improving automatically from generation to generation.
"On the other hand, in the presence of the beings who have newly attained to power, not only is real being-Conscience absent, as in the beings of the former ruling class, but in addition, certain 'charms' begin to manifest in a particularly stormy way and to give extraordinary and terrible results These 'charms' in general are crystallized in the presence of terrestrial three-brained beings, especially of recent times, in consequence of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, such as 'vanity,' 'pride,' 'self-conceit,' 'self-love,' and others, whose functioning in them is still quite fresh, having almost never before been 'satisfied' to a sufficient degree.
…"As I have begun to speak about Bolshevism, in order to give you still another example of the strangeness of the being-mentation of your favorites that has become proper to them, I shall tell you about one of their naive rationalizations which is not without its humor.
"This naïveté of theirs, which arises from their excessively poor confrontative being-judgment, consists in this, that although during the last two centuries all events there, without exception, in the sphere of their mutual relationships occurred entirely automatically, without the participation of the consciousness or intention of any contemporary being, nevertheless they do not hesitate to ascribe, even with envy, all the good or bad results flowing from these events to one or another of their fellow beings.
"And this abnormality which has become fixed in the entirety of their spiritualized parts is due to the following causes.
"First of all, there have gradually disappeared from their common presence all those being-data, the totality of which can engender in beings the property called 'prescience,' and thus they are entirely deprived of the possibility of foreseeing imminent events in any degree whatsoever, second, having a 'narrow horizon' and a 'short memory,' they not only know nothing about long-past events on their planet, but even do not remember what happened quite recently, even yesterday, and third, they have no knowledge of the cosmic laws thanks chiefly to which there arise those sorrowful events that proceed among them. So these contemporary favorites of yours are convinced with all their presence that this is the first time that the terrible process they call 'Bolshevism' has broken out on their planet and that nothing like it had ever existed before that 'darling civilization of theirs', and they are even sure that it happened owing to the 'progressive evolution' of the Reason of beings like themselves.
"Their reasoning on the subject of similar processes which have taken place many times in the past on their planet may serve as a good example to illustrate and characterize the phenomenal stupidity and rigidity of their being- judgment.
"The simple common sense of every three-brained being would indicate that such processes were bound to take place, and ever since I became interested in the strange psyche of these favorites of yours and began to occupy myself with observing them in every aspect, I myself have been a witness no less than forty times of exactly similar processes, which I would call the 'destruction of everything within sight. '...
Brilliant analysis of the Trump win! The systemic analysis approach brings into clear view the vortex of concentric circles that we are all trapped in. Watching Trump's victory speech and Kamala's concession speech I felt something very unsettling though, some strong sense that he is real and she is not (even though I would have voted for her or for Jill Stein if I could vote in the U.S.) Of course we could say that that feeling of 'the real' is just as constructed as everything else but I don't actually believe that. I think some things cannot be deconstructed, like our love for our children for example (although many would disagree with this!). I don't know how we fit this in? This sense of the real? Thank you for this post Carne -- it's very thought provoking.
Thanks Laila that's very kind of you, and it was so good to see you in that nuthouse of Stamford. It means a lot that you liked the analysis. It was an exploration and you never quite know where those take you. Hopefully somewhere new and interesting.
Hey Carne, thanks for this insightful piece. I too was stateside this summer for 3 weeks in California and Chicago. I felt a sadness each day I walked through the streets of LA, being first given a security briefing by our hosts. Where to go, where not to go, as in where it’s safe and not. Their tween son traumatized by homeless men who attempted murder in front of his eyes. We were in Chicago during the DNC and watched part of it on the tv. I was saddened at the whole message of the Harris campaign. They talked continuously about “joy” while a crisis of the middle class is unrelenting. I do understand why that message did not resonate with so many people. What I continue to not understand is how someone can think that a felon, rapist, liar can do better. Yet here we are again.
Thanks for the comment. Yes, we agree. Here we are again. It has to stop. I look forward to your thoughts on my proposed - and very tentative - proposals for solutions. To come.
Carne, interesting and thought provoking as ever.
Where did that model (Ontology to Outcome) emerge? I’d like to poke at it a little more.
Best wishes
Ronan
Thanks Ronan The schematic is my version of a fairly common tool in systems analysis, of concentric circles of elements of the system that enable further elements. The ontology bit is the product of writing my forthcoming book, also called Gentle Anarchy.
As you will know from our many conversations, it was the ontology that especially struck me - so often underestimated in driving understanding and action
I think it's fundamental. What gets given names is a deeply political - and violent - decision.
Thanks for this piece, Carne. I often feel emptiness, disgust, and anger about the world we've built here in the US. It's tempting to chalk it up to an individual emotional issue, so it's helpful to hear your experience as someone visiting the CT suburbs. I find your analysis compelling, particularly that our overall ontology leaves no room for the spiritual dimensions of life. Increased wealth is supposed to deliver increased happiness, and yet it does not. The wealthy are secure and unhappy, and the middle and working classes are insecure and unhappy. I'm eager to read your next piece. It sounds as if this analysis is pointing to a need both for a transformation of the materialist, empiricist world view as well as the neoliberal order. A heavy lift to be sure, made all the more difficult by the existential threat posed by climate change. I only hope that the crisis of ecological overshoot can be channeled into progressive change (spiritual renewal and economic transformation) and not just doubling down on individualism and consumerism.
Thanks Rachel for the thoughtful comment. I think your emptiness, disgust and anger are widely shared but largely secretly. It manifests in a hundred different ways. And on the solution, we are at one. More to follow. Thanks again. C
Germany 1930s fascism was a response to strong labour, communism and increased wealth gap, the gap gets wider the 1% get scared they’ll lose it, they have two choices new deal type reform or big stick suited fascism
American has 50% living paycheck to paycheck and millions homeless or to poor to count desperate people poorly educated, not even bobbing on the surface, prime for the beer Keller populism of Trump
Poverty produces grinding misery and mental illness mass Societal illness this is the driver of Revolution or reaction Lenin harnessed it with land bread peace, Trump promises everything to everyone, I see a cult like belief in people on all sides my wife absolutely shuts down on Putin or vaccines other friends it’s trans and trump.
The right is forming international alliances while the Left have no real organisation and explain how their right in blogs?
A simple way to get a graphic in article would be to screenshot your excel sheet and crop it 😉
Thanks Nigel. Agreed, as ever. The Left are useless at international organising. What would be a way to get it going? I'm starting a new communalist network to connect the various projects around the world. But that's not enough. And thanks for the graphics tip.
I believe we need the equivalent to the communist party of 1930s with all 1st international reunited around a simple program and I think Especifismo has some good parts https://www.blackrosefed.org/especifismo-weaver/ I like some of the simple approach to of the workers party though not it's leader, and a rejection of cultural discussions in favour of a class and socialist United front
I appreciate the systems approach deeply, but find it reveals a shortcoming at the level of the ontology of the situation and the exclusion of the..." immaterial, ineffable, spiritual etc." Surely a systems approach must be designed to help us identify root causes? And so I wonder how one might include the "cosmological" dimension as it relates to human beings and life on earth... For your reading pleasure I've attached a perhaps unusual quote that offers a glimpse of such a larger perspective and I wonder if anyone reads to the end, if it resonates. (Beware it's written in a particular style to deliberately challenge the reader's mental process and perhaps access a more holistic perception than our normal associative thinking...and so it's being recounted in the voice of none other than Beelzebub who is telling his grandson about his visits to Russia between the Great Wars).
…"In this latter system, however, the 'center of gravity of causes' is determined by the presence, among the number of its concentrations, of a great comet, 'Solni,' which, in accordance with certain combinations of the 'common-cosmic harmonious movement,' comes at times in its falling very near to its sun Baleaooto, which is thereby forced greatly to increase its 'tension' in order to maintain the path of its own falling This tension provokes the same in the suns of the neighboring systems, among which is the system Ors, and when in its turn the sun Ors increases its tension in order not to change the path of falling proper to it, it provokes the same tension in all the concentrations of its own system, among which is also the planet Earth.
"The 'tension' in each of the planets acts also on the common presence of all the beings arising and breeding on it, always engendering in the beings, besides desires and intentions of which they are not aware, the feeling called sacred 'iabolioonozor' or, as your favorites would say, 'religious feeling,' namely, that 'being-feeling' which, as I have already said, appears at times in the desire and striving for more rapid self-perfecting as regards Objective Reason.
"It is interesting that when this sacred feeling—or another similar to it, likewise engendered by a certain common-cosmic actualization—is produced in the presence of your favorites, they accept it as a symptom of one of their numerous diseases, and call it 'nerves.'
"It is necessary to remark that this impulse, inherent in the presence of all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, arose and was developed almost normally in most of the terrestrial beings of a former period, that is, from the time when the organ kundabuffer was removed from their common presence right up to the second transapalnian perturbation.
"But later, among the chief evils flowing from the conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves, especially since there began to predominate in the presence of every terrestrial three-brained being their 'inner evil god' named 'self-calming,' it came about that under the action of Solioonensius, instead of the desire and striving for a more rapid self- perfecting, a 'something' began to arise in them which they themselves characterize by the words 'need of freedom,' which is the chief cause of the appearance of these grievous processes of theirs such as this recent 'Bolshevism. '
"I will explain somewhat later how they represent to themselves this famous 'freedom' of theirs, for the moment I will only tell you that the sensation which arises from the action of Solioonensius strengthens the need in them for some change or other in the general outer conditions of their ordinary being-existence, which until then were more or less stable.
"After the second transapalnian perturbation occurred to this ill-starred planet, that is, after the 'loss of Atlantis,' the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius in the common presence of your favorites took place at least forty times, and each time, thanks to this strange need of freedom which
has become fixed in the majority of them, almost the same thing took place as has recently been occurring among the groups inhabiting that part of the surface of your planet called 'Russia. '
…"Here it is extremely important to note that these terrifying processes could never have occurred among the three-brained beings of the planet Earth if those data for engendering the being-impulse of Conscience, which had remained intact in their subconscious—data to which the Most Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was the first to turn his attention, and which he relied upon for the fulfillment of his mission—had taken part in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs which has become habitual for them during their waking state.
"It is only because the data for the sacred impulse of being-Conscience do not take part in the functioning of this consciousness of theirs that the action of the law of Solioonensius, as well as of other inevitable cosmic laws, assumes these abnormal forms which are so lamentable for them.
…"And so, my boy, these terrifying processes of reciprocal destruction and of the annihilation of everything they have attained ensue partly from the following cause in certain periods, when the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius makes itself felt in their common presence, arousing in them the mentioned need for 'freedom,' then on the one hand, the intensity of action of the data already inherent in them for constantly engendering the impulse of 'timidity' in front of power-possessors automatically diminishes, while on the other hand, the intensity of action of those strange being-data provoking 'hatred' toward beings of other castes increases.”
it continues...:
…"These terrible processes usually arise and flow in the following sequence:
"It always begins like this Under the influence of the action of Solioonensius, several beings from one or another group in whom data for engendering that strange impulse toward beings of other castes, particularly those of the ruling class, happen to have been crystallized more strongly than in the rest—see and feel reality more than the others and begin, as is said there, to 'clamor,' and these 'clamoring orators' become for those around them what at the present time are usually called 'leaders.'
"And further, thanks both to this 'clamoring' and to the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius, which always combine abnormally in their presences, others in their turn begin to clamor.
"When this uproar among the ordinary beings begins to act too cacophonously upon what are called the 'effeminate nerves of the left half of certain power-possessing beings of the community, and these latter give orders to those whose jobs it is to grease with what is called 'Scottish cream' the navels of several particularly vociferous clamorers, it is then that these excesses of theirs begin and rise progressively to a climax—yet in the end, to the misfortune of your favorites, they always lead to nothing.
"If these processes of theirs had improved the existence of beings of subsequent generations even a little, then perhaps from the point of view of a strictly impartial observer they might not appear to be so terrible But to the misfortune of all the three-brained beings of our Great Universe, no sooner does the 'blissful action' of this lawful cosmic manifestation cease, and these terrifying processes come to an end, than there begins again the 'same old story,' and ordinary being-existence grows more bitter than before and, parallel with this, there also deteriorates what is called the 'sane awareness of the sense and aim of their existence. '
"And it deteriorates, in my opinion, chiefly because after these processes, the leaders of the former ruling class are usually replaced by beings from other castes which have never had among their representatives, either of the present or past generations, persons of any experience, conscious or unconscious, of that being-manifestation which gives the ability to direct the process of outer existence, and sometimes even of inner existence, of surrounding beings who although 'similar' to them have not yet attained to their degree of Reason.
"In all justice it must be admitted that although in the common presence of the three-brained beings of the former ruling class the data present in their 'subconscious' for engendering real being-Conscience also did not take part in the functioning of their 'waking consciousness,' these beings at least did have the habit of ruling, acquired by heredity and improving automatically from generation to generation.
"On the other hand, in the presence of the beings who have newly attained to power, not only is real being-Conscience absent, as in the beings of the former ruling class, but in addition, certain 'charms' begin to manifest in a particularly stormy way and to give extraordinary and terrible results These 'charms' in general are crystallized in the presence of terrestrial three-brained beings, especially of recent times, in consequence of the properties of the organ kundabuffer, such as 'vanity,' 'pride,' 'self-conceit,' 'self-love,' and others, whose functioning in them is still quite fresh, having almost never before been 'satisfied' to a sufficient degree.
…"As I have begun to speak about Bolshevism, in order to give you still another example of the strangeness of the being-mentation of your favorites that has become proper to them, I shall tell you about one of their naive rationalizations which is not without its humor.
"This naïveté of theirs, which arises from their excessively poor confrontative being-judgment, consists in this, that although during the last two centuries all events there, without exception, in the sphere of their mutual relationships occurred entirely automatically, without the participation of the consciousness or intention of any contemporary being, nevertheless they do not hesitate to ascribe, even with envy, all the good or bad results flowing from these events to one or another of their fellow beings.
"And this abnormality which has become fixed in the entirety of their spiritualized parts is due to the following causes.
"First of all, there have gradually disappeared from their common presence all those being-data, the totality of which can engender in beings the property called 'prescience,' and thus they are entirely deprived of the possibility of foreseeing imminent events in any degree whatsoever, second, having a 'narrow horizon' and a 'short memory,' they not only know nothing about long-past events on their planet, but even do not remember what happened quite recently, even yesterday, and third, they have no knowledge of the cosmic laws thanks chiefly to which there arise those sorrowful events that proceed among them. So these contemporary favorites of yours are convinced with all their presence that this is the first time that the terrible process they call 'Bolshevism' has broken out on their planet and that nothing like it had ever existed before that 'darling civilization of theirs', and they are even sure that it happened owing to the 'progressive evolution' of the Reason of beings like themselves.
"Their reasoning on the subject of similar processes which have taken place many times in the past on their planet may serve as a good example to illustrate and characterize the phenomenal stupidity and rigidity of their being- judgment.
"The simple common sense of every three-brained being would indicate that such processes were bound to take place, and ever since I became interested in the strange psyche of these favorites of yours and began to occupy myself with observing them in every aspect, I myself have been a witness no less than forty times of exactly similar processes, which I would call the 'destruction of everything within sight. '...