Mencius Moldbugman

Caveat 1: My thoughts on this are still being formed and I will tweet as the thoughts reach me. There may be some flow issues with this thread, remember it’s a thread not an essay, but I hope by the end it will all be clear more or less.

Caveat 2: A lot of what I am going to say was inspired by reading The Burnout Society by Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han. It’s only a short read and I highly recommend it to understand the sickness of our late-capitalist current age.

Han’s diagnosis of our depressed culture is that we live in an overly positive culture that is increasingly dominated by narcissism and self-reference. We have also lost our desire due to the disappearance of the ability to devote to 'the other', the stranger, the non-self.

Many today revolve exclusively around themselves, unable to build meaningful relationships. Even love and sexuality are permeated by this social change: sex and pornography, exhibition and presentation are displacing love, eroticism and desire from the public eye.

The abundance of positivity and self-reference leads to a loss of confrontation. We cannot confront - or be confronted - in this never ending “feel-good” positive safe space of world we have created. But how did this age arise? Where is it going?

Every age has its signature afflictions. Once a bacterial age existed; it ended with the discovery of antibiotics. We were once afraid of an influenza epidemic, but we are not living in a viral age. Thanks to immunological technology, we have already left it behind.

No. From a pathological standpoint, our age is determined neither by bacteria nor viruses, but by neurons. Neurological illnesses such as depression, ADHD, runaway narcissism, and burnout are the hallmarks of the early 21st century.

The difference between these mental illnesses vs old physical illnesses is they do not result from the negativity of what is immunologically foreign, but from an excess of positivity. Therefore, they elude all technologies and tech- niques that seek to combat what is alien.

Otherness/discipline/confrontation are disappearing. We live in a time that’s poor in negativity. We’re bombarded with messages that we are special, unique, & can do anything we want to if we only be ourselves. But what happens when our own mediocrity means we don’t achieve much?

One of the problems is that with so much around us - food, opportunity, data, sensation - our ancient behaviours haven’t had time to adapt. Before, the smartest learnt to take want they can during times of scarcity, now the smartest are learning to exclude what is non-essential.

Baudrillard: “In periods of scarcity, absorption and assimilation are the order of the day. In periods of abundance, rejection and expulsion are the chief concerns. Today, generalized communication and surplus information threaten to overwhelm all human defenses.”

What I’m saying is that in previous times, that which was bad for us was obvious & real. It was clearly dangerous like the wolf or the rat & we learnt to fight them accordingly. However what is bad for us now looks good & feels pleasurable (porn, cakes, feels). We have to adapt.

Our current dangers are over-abundance (junk food, porn) and over-positivity (never being told we are wrong). The violence of positivity does not deprive, it saturates; it does not exclude, it exhausts. Depression, ADHD, and burnout all point to excess positivity, not negativity.

Our world long ago moved from one of discipline to one of kindergarten-level positivity. Gone are the asylums, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, a society of gyms, yoga studios, offices, banks, airports, juice bars and malls

We no longer live in a disciplinary society. We live in an achievement society - a tyranny of positivity where everyone is told they are unique and can do anything. Where doubt and hesitation are seen as weakness.

Disciplinary society is a society of negativity. It is defined by the negativity of prohibition. Achievement society is overwhelmingly positive - we are told we can and should try anything. Obama’s “Yes we can” and Nike’s “Just do it” epitomise society’s positive orientation.

Prohibitions, commandments, and the law are replaced by projects, initiatives, and motivation. Disciplinary society is governed by “no”. Its negativity produces repressed madmen and criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives, losers and sociopathic strivers.

Why did society move from a negative disciplinary one to a positive achievement one? Think of the old anti-slavery argument. It’s about capital and production. Free Men are more productive than slaves. Capital wants to give us the illusion of freedom to make us more efficient.

It is not the excess of responsibility and initiative that makes one sick, but the imperative to achieve: the new commandment of late-modern labor society. The gig economy (hey @0x49fa98!) hasn’t made us independent business owners, it’s turned us into hyperactive rats.

The complaint of the depressive individual, “Nothing is possible,” can only occur in a society that thinks, “Nothing is impossible.” Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself. We are our own slaves.

Excessive positivity also expresses itself as an excess of stimuli, information, and impulses. It radically changes the structure and economy of attention. Perception becomes fragmented and scattered. I’m going to now share a secret with you...

Remember your teachers and bosses telling you that “multitasking” was something laudable? That we modern men are better than our predecessors because we can multitask so much in our digital age. They lied to you. Multitasking isn’t evolution - it’s devolution.

Multitasking does not represent civilizational progress. Do you know modern people are not the only ones capable of multitasking? Multitasking is common among wild animals. It is an attentive technique indispensable for survival in the wilderness. Multitasking is regression.

An animal busy with eating must also attend to other tasks. It must hold rivals away from its prey. It must constantly be on the lookout, lest it be eaten while eating. At the same time, it must guard its young and keep an eye on its sexual partner. It’s always busy.

Wild animals are forced to divide their attention between various activities. That is why animals are incapable of contemplative immersion - they are either eating, fighting or fucking. This is why squirrels never built the pyramids.

We owe the cultural achievements of humanity to deep, contemplative attention. Boredom & free time are the wells of creativity. Culture depends on an environment in which deep attention is possible. If we are constantly active (online or offline) contemplation becomes impossible.

Nietzsche knew this. He knew that humanity ends in deadly hyperactivity when every contemplative element is driven out. The Last Man reigns supreme at the end. Here’s one of his quotes about this:

“From lack of repose our civilization is turning into a new barbarism. At no time have the active, that is to say the restless, counted for more...”

“... That is why one of the most necessary corrections to the character of mankind that have to be taken in hand is a considerable strengthening of the contemplative element in it.”

Exhaustion and barbarity. That’s what the multitasking of our positive achievement society is creating. This might not be so bad to our mental wellbeing if we still had religion and an ultimate goal, but we don’t. All this frantic busyness is for nothing except self-glorification