Saturday 1 November 2014

Introduction to Group Fitness

INDIVIDUALISM WITHOUT GROUP DIRECTION

So, if the pursuit of happiness is our main goal, are we Westerners a happy bunch? Yes and no. In recent times the West has made great strides in the pursuit of individual happiness through advances in health, entertainment, communication, education, travel, food, and so on. All well and good.

However, in many other ways, the West is headed in a distinctly unhappy direction. The main problems include:

DEMOGRAPHY

People of European background are rapidly becoming a minority in Western countries, and this manifests in many profound ways: from the street level (turning peaceful communities into alien and hostile territory); to economic and social stratification due to inherent racial differences; and eventually to the takeover of politics, bureaucracy, the courts, police, and finally the military. It's a demographic revolution.

If and when the revolution is complete, and we become a vulnerable minority, our future becomes uncertain, and literally overnight we could wake up to find ourselves in very dangerous times. No existing laws, culture, or constitution, are a safeguard when you become a minority. Everything can change, and fear and uncertainty are the only guarantees.

ECONOMICS

Economics has moved away from being a strategic policy in the national interest, to being driven by the convergence of ideological and corporate interests. Free trade has become the dominant economic ideology, which has hollowed out most Western economies, and transferred wealth, technology and military superiority to China. Balanced trade with peaceful countries can a good thing, but a massive permanent trade deficit with a hostile country is economic and national suicide. Indiscriminate trade is national security threat.

On top of that, there is unsustainable government debt, and dubious practices such as quantitative easing i.e. printing money. Economic policy is neither sane nor sustainable.

SOVEREIGNTY

Sovereignty is drifting away from the local and state levels, to the national, regional and global levels. Power is thus in the hands of far-away bureaucrats, and local control is diminished. You can be sure that your voice is seldom heard, and such concentrated power is ripe for abuse.

Further, many Western assets are being sold off to foreign ownership. Locals are being priced out of home ownership by wealthy foreigners buying up properties. Farms and companies are being sold to China, etc. The more you lose control, the more vulnerable you become.

CULTURE

We are in the midst of a rapid cultural free-fall, moving away from a traditional or religious background, towards a chaotic, hedonistic and materialistic culture. It's not all bad, some of the change is a good thing, but the resultant anomie (or normlessness) is destructive to community, cohesion, and civility. We need to find a balance between individuality and cohesion, freedom and civility, change and stability, etc.

FREEDOM

We are losing our freedoms in many ways e.g. freedom of speech, religious freedom, freedom of association, freedom to raise our children without government interference, basic property rights are being trampled, etc. Some of this comes from increasing legal constraints, or it may come from media shaming, which can instantly destroy the career of anyone who strays into forbidden topics such as race, immigration and diversity.

GOVERNANCE

With the decline of Western countries comes the inevitable questioning of democracy itself. Is democracy a failed model? With the decline of the West, and the resurgence of China, Russia, and Islamic fundamentalists, many observers are now wondering what a sustainable model of governance actually is.

APPEASEMENT

American and Western foreign policy is increasingly trying to appease hostile foreign actors e.g. trying to reason with Islamic fundamentalists, and trying to cajole China and Russia towards peace. But these policies are not working, and foreign powers are simply filling the power vacuum left by the USA. Some foreign actors are incurably hostile, and no amount of cajoling will turn them into peaceful actors in the foreseeable future. We need to protect ourselves against these threats, rather than persist exclusively with pollyanna-ish delusions of "democracy for all" and "peace in our time".

We can debate whether America should be involved in these regions, but it's becoming a moot point because the general trend is towards decline and retreat, and the power vacuum is being filled by opportunistic forces.

TRUTH

Many of the above topics concerning the future of Western people are now completely out of bounds in the media and academia. Only a narrow range of acceptable topics are discussed. Most journalists, politicians and academics are now lobotomised robots, parroting mindless mantras than only serve to put the audience to sleep and turn off the TV.

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That's just a quick look at the types of problems we face. You could easily add much more to the list.

In summary, through the chaos of diversity, globalisation, and appeasement, (and through the stifling of free speech and independence), we have moved down the ladder of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In a diverse, chaotic and oppressive world, we are increasingly concerned with safety, security and comfort. It's a struggle just to get some peace of mind. We are not free and relaxed enough to enjoy the higher pleasures of creativity, spontaneity, social engagement, etc. Instead, we retreat, withdraw, and hunker down like turtles.

These areas where the West is off-track are largely due to a failure of group fitness i.e. an inability to act strategically in our own interests as a distinct group, in a world where other groups are eager to take our place. This failure of group fitness has left a vacuum into which opportunistic forces have stepped: namely a combination of ideological, ethnic, corporate, and foreign interests. Together, these forces are accelerating our decline.

So, in the interests of our long-term happiness, we need to quickly recover our group fitness.

GROUP FITNESS: KEEPING YOUR LUNCH

So, what exactly is group fitness? Is it an aerobics class or a gym workout? No, while they may take place in a group environment, their purpose is to improve your individual fitness. Group fitness is the ability of the group that you identify with to survive and thrive in a world where other groups are trying to eat your lunch, so to speak.

Group identity? That sounds a little backwards and racist. I thought the world was moving on past that? Aren't we increasingly just one borderless global village that has put tribalism behind us? Aren't we going to live happily ever after?

That's what you might have been told, but it's not reality. The reality is that Western people have lost their identity and ability to function as a group, but other groups have not psychologically disarmed and are increasingly acting aggressively in their own interests. The West is increasingly a lame duck. The signs are there for all to see.

The main ingredients of group fitness are threefold: mind, body and spirit.

MIND

In order for our group to act intelligently in our own interests, we need two main factors:

1 - THINKERS. Our best and brightest minds coming together to argue what strategies best serve our group e.g. How do we define our group? Who is in, and who is out? How do our internal sub-groups get along? Who are our allies and adversaries? What is the internal structure of our politics, economics and culture? What are our strategies against our adversaries? etc

2 - EDUCATORS taking our best ideas and distributing them as far and wide as possible. In this way, our people are kept educated and informed about the right direction for our group.

BODY

But ideas by themselves are not enough. We need the right people, in the right positions, with the right training and resources, to carry out our plans. Essentially, it's a matter of MANPOWER,  RESOURCES, and ORGANISATIONS/LEADERS to direct them.

In the short-term that means recruiting good people and resources into our movement, in order to build up our size and influence. In the long-term it means encouraging fit and healthy couples to have an appropriate birth rate, and directing our youth into careers and positions where they are most needed.

And it means taking our ideas into the real world of politics, and preparing shadow organisations to provide for our security in the event of some collapse, attack or persecution.

SPIRIT

But having good plans, and people and resources to carry out those plans, are still not enough by themselves. The final ingredient in group fitness is spirit i.e. the emotional drive necessary to stir you to action.

To defend your group from outside threats requires two types of emotional drives:

1 - ATTACHMENT. To defend your group requires a deep emotional connection with the people and place that you're defending. Without that connection, you won't be stirred to action.

Spirit is the emotional bonds of unity between group members. Call it team spirit, if you like. It's not spirit in any supernatural sense. It's the degree to which you feel empathy for others in your group. Empathy is essential to preserve a group, because it's only through empathy that we feel the plight of others when they are threatened or attacked, and we are moved collectively to defend them.

So, spirit is about building social cohesion both within your particular group, and between the different sub-groups of the larger Western community, and fostering an attachment to your homeland.

2 - VISION. But attachment to people and place, are not enough by themselves. Also required, is a strong positive vision of the future that motivates you to action.

If your heart is not in the right place, it's game-over before it even begins. Without a strong motivation, and inspiring positive vision, you won't be energised to overcome adversity.

(For religious people, spirit may also include a supernatural dimension, but this website does not delve into religion at all, and will only deal with the human dimension).

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY

Restoring all of these factors will not be easy. There will be many obstacles to each one. But that's the defining quality of fitness: are we up to the challenge? Many Westerns will not be up to the challenge, and will turn away from the message and go back to watching TV. Some will hear the message and agree with it, but think it's all too hard, and do nothing. These people are not the future of the Western world.

But there will be some among us who hear the message and who think, yes it's challenging, but it is worth doing. These fit, healthy, brave, intelligent, and cohesive people are the future of the West. In a stressful environment, only the fittest survive. That is how selection pressure works.

I'm not making any bold predictions about what we could, or should, aim for as a group. It will be up to group leaders who look at the problem and decide, yes or no, what is worth doing. Life is not just about the goal, it's about the journey. I suspect that we will make gradual changes towards these group fitness goals, without any radical revolution. Whether we achieve our goals, or not, is too hard to predict.

Our situation is precarious, so while we can work for the best outcome, we also have to make contingency plans for the worst outcomes. The Western community might make a miraculous recovery and again become a major player. Or we might become a vulnerable minority, and be preyed upon by rival groups either from inside the West or from outside. But even in the worst case, there might be things we can do to protect ourselves, if we think creatively.

BEYOND REACTIONARY: THE BIG PICTURE

On pessimistic/realist websites such as this one, there are often a lot of negative news and views, criticising the ideologies of diversity, globalisation, and so on. That's all very good, but ultimately it's not the end goal that we're working towards, which is to offer a positive vision of the way forward.

This website is about that positive vision. Specifically, it's about the big picture, trying to (a) bring some clarity to the scope and structure of the problem before us and (b) defining some common goals and terms of co-operation between our various sub-groups. It will be light on detail. The purpose is to make clear the big picture, and you can fill in the details, as you see fit.

So, this website will take a wide-angle view. By seeing the whole problem, we can ensure that all our bases are covered, and we can then decide where are the best areas to direct our energy towards, rather than fritter away our energy with knee-jerk reactions that may make us feel good in the moment, but are not necessarily a long-term productive use of our time.

So, what does all this mean in terms of action?

FALL IN

In a world where other groups are increasingly acting aggressively in their own interests, we need to overcome radical individualism, and fall into line with some group structure. So, pick a group, any group. Even if it's only a loose affiliation, something is better than nothing. If you can't find a group, start one.

If you want to slow down or stop the demographic takeover, you are going to need a well organised group to represent you. That group needs to be thinking strategically, well resourced, and determined to succeed. And the front-line of that group will need to be active in politics. If our voice remains outside of politics, it will continue to be ignored.

You reap what you sow. You can sit on the sidelines and wait for a self-made politician, or political party, to spontaneously appear out of nowhere, but it may never happen. Or you can proactively take part in building up our group capabilities, so that we are educating and training people who are then equipped to enter politics.

And if some sort of collapse or attack happens, or we become a persecuted minority, again you are going to need the weight of a organised group behind you, in order to survive. If we remain bitter, divided, and isolated individuals, we are easy pickings for more organised groups.

So, find some group that you have an affinity with, and start working to build up that group's capabilities.

PATCHWORK IDENTITY

But what sort of group should the Western community be? That's not easy to answer. In the past, we could rely on being a distinct race, religion, or culture, and draw people tighter together on those terms. But today we are a more fractured people in many different ways.

Probably the starting point is to see the Western group as a patchwork of different subgroups. We have different group identities i.e. religious and naturalists, traditional and modern, and different ethnicities, etc. And groups are formed in different ways i.e. formal groups v. loose affiliations, in person v. over the internet, political groups, social groups, special interests groups or causes, etc.

Each of us needs to find some place within this patchwork of groups where we feel comfortable putting our talents to work, and drawing in new people to our movement. Some people will want a tightly controlled group, with clear group norms, like a religion or cult. Others will be want a group that is more open and flexible with their lifestyle and culture. And others are so independent they will want nothing to do with any sort of moral community, but will be happy to work for a political party, or prepping a local security team. Each to his own, so long as you find a way to get involved and help build up our group capabilities.

Together the alliance of different subgroups will then form one cohesive Western community, generally speaking. Despite our differences, we need to be spending more time defending our common interests, i.e. stopping the demographic revolution, and less time worrying about what divides us.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

So, what does this mean in practical terms? It means figuring out where you belong, and how to best put your talents to work. And then waking up others, and drawing them into the movement, and likewise putting their talents to work in building up our group capabilities.

So, if you are a thinker, then get involved in developing good ideas and strategies about how our groups should respond to the threats we face. Seek out other intellectuals and forums for debate and, together, push the debate towards developing sane responses to the problems we face.

Or, if you are a good communicator/educator, then seek out good ideas and spread them as far as you can via any means of communication.

If you are a young and healthy couple, then think about having a larger family, and raising them in a group structure where they are educated about group identity and group fitness.

If you want to stop or slow mass immigration, then you need to be actively working for a political party, or starting a new party, or running for office. Until we have a political party representing our interests, our voices will remain outside of politics and irrelevant.

And if some doomsday scenario should happen, and there is a collapse or disaster, you are also going to need the weight of an organised group behind you in order to survive. So, if you are practical minded, then get involved in preparing shadow organisations/structures to fall back on in a time of crisis.

Or, if you are more artistic or media savvy, you may want to produce some form of inspirational music, video, film, or graphic art, etc.

And everyone, no matter what their personal mission, can be the eyes and the ears of our groups. Everyone can be on alert to look for threats in their environment e.g. looking for corruption, misuse of government power, election fraud, covert attacks by foreign adversaries, terrorists, etc.

This barely scratches the surface of ways you can help build up our group capabilities. We all have a sphere of influence, it may be big or small. We all need to work within our sphere of influence, to draw new people into the movement, and put their talents to work. Everyone has something to contribute, everyone has to find their own personal mission.

MINISTRY OF TRUTH

In addition to finding our own place in the patchwork of groups, and finding our own mission, we need to reach out and draw new people into our groups. And that requires raising difficult subjects such as race, immigration, Islam, China, etc.

Outreach is a difficult process, and there are different ways to approach the problem. You can tackle it head on, in a high profile way. You can tackle it with a subtle, softly approach. Or you can avoid difficult topics altogether, at least initially, and focus instead on making a personal connection through social engagement, and later raise difficult topics after you have gained people's trust. There's no one answer. Different approaches will work for different people.

We are facing a lot of threats that people would rather avoid, and not think about. The old adage "most people would rather die than think" is true. Nonetheless, we need to find ways to bring people into the reality of the difficult threats we face. And we may need to think creatively about how to do this. Apathy, and normalcy bias, are as big a problem to confront as external threats are.

PULLING TOGETHER

Only when we have enough people awake, and actively working for our group, will we have any hope of defending ourselves against the growing threats. So, that requires all hands on deck, everyone pulling their weight, and everyone headed in the same general direction. Only then will have any hope of competing against more organised groups.

The longer we remain bitter, divided and isolated individuals, the more that other groups will grow to take our place.

Internally, immigrant groups will continue to displace us. Whereas Western people have decades of diversity conditioning to pacify us, immigrants don't have such conditioning and generally retain their ethnic solidarity, and will not hesitate to displace us.

Globally, the power vacuum left by a retreating, appeasing, and bungling America, is being filled by old-fashioned powers such as Islam, China, and Russia. Fundamentalist Islam is filling the void created from toppled dictators in the Middle East. A resurgent China is expanding its territory in the South/East China Sea, and expanding its influence globally. And Russia is likewise expanding in the north. These powers will not hesitate to grab any territory that America, and allies, hesitate to defend. And it's a safe bet that they are working around the clock, and working co-operatively, to "de-Americanise" the world through every available means.

Facing such growing threats, both internally and externally, our future is precarious unless we quickly recover our group fitness.

Only when everyone is pulling their weight will we have a group that is thinking strategically, equipped with the manpower and resources to carry out our plans, and cohesive and inspired enough to defend ourselves against determined opposition.

You reap what you sow. The number and scale of threats we face is growing rapidly, both internally and externally. Either we restore our group fitness, and start functioning effectively as a group, or we will quickly lose our lunch. And it may happen much sooner than you think.

Obviously, a lot of people are already doing many good things to improve our group fitness, and I don't want to downplay or discredit such work. But we need to raise our capabilities much further, in order to take our influence from the impotent fringe to a position of influence.

CONCLUSION

So, that's a start on a meta-narrative. It's a broad framework, to provide a general direction, rather than a detailed prescription. You can fill in the details to suit your preferences. Obviously, there's much more to be said about the finer points of group fitness, and that's a matter for further discussion both here and elsewhere.

But that's the challenge ahead: for each of us to get beyond individualism, to find our place in some group structure, to put our talents to work in building up our group capabilities, and to draw new people into the movement. We need all hands on deck and everyone pulling their weight. Only when we have enough people pulling their weight, will we have any hope of competing against more organised groups in an increasingly dangerous world.


1 comment:

  1. Inspiring message. I often struggled maintaining group relationships, but I realize it's important to have good supportive networks, especially in hard times.

    ReplyDelete