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In the West, also known as the “World Community,” mediocrity reigns supreme everywhere and at all levels. Not only in the arts, but everywhere, from politics to science, from education to business. The fact that mediocrity has become the norm everywhere, is proof that all institutions have become over-organized.
It is plain for everyone to see that more loosely organized businesses and institutions require more highly qualified, more independent-minded functionaries at the medium and higher levels. After all, they need to make decisions that do justice to both the needs of the moment and the broader objectives of the organization. Actually, that subtle balance between the generic and the specific gives organizations their strength and flexibility and the power to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. It is what made the German army superior in 1870, 1914 and 1939-40, namely the principle of Auftragstaktik (mission tactics), as opposed to the Befehlstaktik (command tactics) prevalent in the opposing English and French armies, according to which every single detail of a given order needs to be fulfilled.
The stricter the organization, the more precise, detailed the orders from above and the more limited the responsibilities at each level. This means less room for maneuver and improvisation for everyone between the highest level and the rank and file. As a result, all big organizations (always difficult to move) in the West have become quite sluggish. This includes government ministries, the armed forces, national authorities, business corporations, universities, NGOs, everything. The required capabilities of middle and higher staff in all these organizations are quite a bit lower than they were one or two generations ago. Today, such people need to know less, have less of a broad education, less specific professional expertise and can make do with an IQ of around 100.
In the US, the educational system has long been turning out people that are just right: to do as they are told, to carry out specific orders, to not ask questions and certainly without thinking for themselves. Almost a quarter century ago, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt published The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, an analysis of the coordinated breaking down of the US educational system. Now it is plain for all to see why the previous quality standards were demolished. The same recipe has also been applied in the US vassal states in Europe. Moronic programs such as “New Math” have resulted in a widespread, elementary stupidity in the West. That is the reason why math departments all over the West began to get flooded with students from places where traditional math was still being taught, namely China, India and Iran. Although New Math has been thrown by the wayside, the havoc it has wrought is still plaguing many Western nations, and may help to explain why research funds spent in China and India yield more than elsewhere. It certainly is a factor in the rise to prominence of industry in those nations.
The systematic, planned demolition of education in the West has opened the door for the mass appointment of people who just a few years ago would never have been able to apply for the jobs they are now getting. With the great numbers of boys and girls graduating in business management, management, journalism, law, political science and other “social sciences,” it is obvious that detailed, specialized knowledge of most technical and hard disciplines is becoming a rarity. Whereas before, some basic general knowledge would be a requirement, the graduates in all those “soft” disciplines lack even that.
Enter people like US Vice President Kamala Harris and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. It is embarrassing and actually shameful to see that they are just plain stupid and incapable of formulating a meaningful sentence. Enter all the unqualified “People of Color,” women and transgenders, appointed solely on the basis of their being colored, female, sexually deviant or whatever. A lack of specialized and general knowledge, the inability to think clearly, the lack of a conscience, self-respect, a spinal column are no impediments, since all they need to do is carry out orders.
Although the West prides itself on the wide range of civil and personal liberties supposedly underpinning all of its political, social and economic organizations and businesses, in fact the opposite is the case. During the eight decades of domestic peace after the end of the Second World War, all institutions have become increasingly centralized, to the point where today all key decisions are made at the top level with only the scantiest input from below.
The system of centralized decision making in the West has now become so all-pervasive that it is leading to a kind of legitimacy crisis. Although centralized decision-making is most often determined by the imperative to make money and to increase power, it seems that ideology is getting in the way. This happened when the Budweiser company began to use a transgender in an advertising campaign, which led to a steep decline in sales and serious financial losses. Disney has lost a quarter of global subscriptions due to its pushing the trans agenda just a little too hard. In politics, most Western “democracies,” in lockstep with the directives from the Washington regime, are increasingly being seen for what they really are: elaborate clown shows. The MSM everywhere are no longer being taken seriously by growing numbers of citizens who are indignant at having been duped for just too long.
It is becoming clearer by the day that the West and a great part of the world are ruled by a small group of ruthless individuals. It is hard to identify exactly who belongs to this group and it is likely that those whom we see and who pronounce bold statements are not really in charge. The likes of Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab. Anybody can see these are rather average men: not very intelligent and without any superior knowledge or intellectual achievements. However, they pretend to be philanthropists, “people lovers,” and as such they think they have a right to tell us what we should think and do. They want us to own nothing, to eat bugs and lab meat instead of real meat, to mask up, take poisonous jabs and actually to stop breathing because exhaling produces carbon dioxide, which is good for plants but “bad for the planet.” Actually, those people lovers want to kill many of us. What they want is a world government where they and their cronies are calling the shots.
That sounds a lot like the ideals first put forward in 1789 by François Boissel (1728-1807), the French Jacobin and early communist in his Catéchisme du genre humain (Catechism of the Human Race), where he said that private property, religion and marriage needed to be abolished. These ideas were later espoused by others, such as Henri de Saint-Simon and Karl Marx.
Today’s elite socialists who are trying to bring these antiquated ideas into practice, share the belief that they are unique individuals, entitled to determine the lives of the rest of us. They are doing what they can to take over agriculture and cattle-farming from independent farmers, to expropriate land and housing, even to block the sun and to make life miserable for the hoi polloi. As a matter of fact, they are kings already, but want to be God.
Nevertheless, they dislike the prying eyes of the public and therefore have decided to impose an even stricter censorship wherever they can. Philanthropy does not want publicity. Google is now on full censorship mode and Youtube and Facebook have also further tightened the screws. In the EU, a new draconian internet censorship is about to be rolled out.
In the short run, such measures may seem effective, but the crime syndicate that is running the show does not seem to realize that once censorship is introduced, it will need to be made ever more rigorous. Where will this end? Do the Kings of Crime realize that in order to be complete and all-pervasive, censorship must abolish speech and language altogether, Then there will only be sign language, which by its very nature is even more difficult to censor.
Nor do the Crime Kings like humor and they have been quite busy destroying it everywhere they find it. This in itself is an interesting phenomenon, for on a theoretical level they are apparently aware there is such a thing as humor, but they clearly have no sense of humor, which is further proof of their lack of intelligence. The war on humor is fought on two fronts, namely by the fight against “hate speech” and the insistent demand for “safe space.”
So far the war on humor has been rather successful, because too few people realize that politicians such as Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Zelenski are no more than walking and talking jokes who, instead of being taken seriously, should only be loudly laughed at. Whatever they say and do, how they carry themselves, is absolutely ridiculous. In a broader sense it means that the states they represent have put them in a leadership position as mere figureheads and that those states are in fact being lead by other people or entities.
It would seem the Crime Kings are fundamentally unaware of what they are doing. They apparently lack some basic human characteristics such as a sense of humor and a conscience. Not content with the power they have, they want more and more and actually seem to think they are God.
They are very much like Nabucco from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera (1841) with the same name, the King of Babylon who sings in act II: Non son più re, son dio (I am King no longer! I am God!), whereupon he is struck by a thunderbolt, loses his crown and his mind and falls on the floor. Eventually this clears the path for the return of the exiled Jews to their homeland and the recovery of their liberty.
Apparently neither Bill Gates, nor Klaus Schwab, nor any of their brothers in crime has ever watched Nabucco.
Good for the rest of us!
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Shame the thunderbolt didn’t hit the Jews.
They were warned to stay home that day.
Jewish Supremacist elites know that people of true intelligence and integrity don’t want to play dog or whore. Only second-raters are willing to play that role, and so, Jews prop up goy mediocrities who are only in it for career and carrots.
This excellent and provocative article approaches a familiar topic—the Deep State and the Jews who manage it—from a fresh perspective. If only the author had not failed to mention the Jews by name!
I recall Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt’s book from the time of its publication (1999). Its title struck a chord in the minds of many because of its marked similarity to John Taylor Gatto’s Dumbing Us Down, which was published earlier in the nineties. In their somewhat different but basically complementary approaches, the two authors were eloquent in their censure of the Establishment’s project of using the educational system to indoctrinate the populace and subvert every child’s innate tendency to respond in a genuinely individuated fashion to both his immediate environment and society at large.
Our overlords like to see and present themselves as Kangz or Emperors in shiny new threads, but they are all really just a sleazy cheap imitation of General Butt-Naked.
Yes, Nabucco does declare that he is god, then is struck by a lightning bolt.
Zaccaria, the Hebrew Jewish priest/minister, declares that “he speaks for God.” No lightening bolts ensue, except for Verdi himself.
Verdi’s Nabucco does have a conscience and changes his life in accord with his new understanding.
Zaccaria styles himself the voice of god.
The opera is not so much about god or taking god-like power; it’s really more about children. It is with regard to children that Verdi truly turns the tables on Zaccaria.
In the “Romeo & Juliet” element of the opera in which we find Nabucco’s daughter, Fenena, the captive of Zaccaria’s forces and in love with Hebrew Ismaele, Zaccaria curses Ismaele and banishes him from the ‘tribe.’
Betimes, Fenena converts to Ismaele’s faith.
Having decreed that “all the Hebrews must die,” Nabucco’s mental breakdown is brought about by the thought that his daughter is captive and might die. In contrast to Zaccaria, Nabucco worries about his daughter to the point of derangement, and re-organizes his life in order to keep her safe.
After he was struck by lightening and spent some time in a delusional state, Nabucco regains his composure and reclaims his kingly power, which he uses to rescind the decree of death to the Hebrews. He, too, rejects his own gods and pledges to worship the god of the Hebrews.
VaPensiero, the iconic chorus at the center and heart of Nabucco is based on Hebrew Psalm 137. The Hebrews lament that Babylon has captured and destroyed their temple; in response, the Psalm says:
In other words, a version of, “I’m going to go in the garden and eat worms.”
Instead of pouting about their troubles, Verdi (actually, Librettist Solera, whose style was influenced by Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni)** chides the Hebrews:
But it’s Verdi’s treatment of the last verses of Psalm 137 that inverts the thinking pattern of the psalmist and of Zaccaria.
The last verse of Psalm 137 is:
But the last verse of Va Pensiero is:
No child-bashing for Verdi, who had just buried his two little children and his wife.
Verdi repeats the plea for courage! three or four times, ending with “Virtù” which hangs in the air for 30 seconds.
Immediately after VaPensiero, Zaccaria takes center stage to sing:
The “courage” that “the lord” summons from Zaccaria’s lips is the courage of revenge and destruction.
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**It’s not just name-dropping to mention Solera and Manzoni: both part of Austrian Resistance and, like Verdi himself, participated in the 1848 protests.
Some have argued that Nabucco and especially VaPensiero was not composed and is not sung in Italy’s opera halls as a song of patriotism. One such scholar argues that Italian audiences did not rise to VaPensiero but to Zaccaria’s aria immediately after.
I disagree.
Verdi wrote an Italian opera with political overtones for the Italian people. And they get it.
I choose to believe that Nabucco is a parable of the plight of the Italian people seeking liberation from Austrian overlords on the threshold of Risorgimento.
Hans Vogel wrote an important essay highlighting serious dysfunctions in our culture.
But Nabucco is more complex than Vogel assumed and does nothing to spotlight his essay’s argument.
Thanks for your illuminating and pertinent observations. Of course, I am fully aware that there are many factors and influences that result in the eventual form given to a work of art, in Nabucco as well as regarding other operas, paintings, novels, etc.
I agree with what you say, including on Va pensiero, which in the 1980s was suggested for adoption as Italy’s national anthem instead of Fratelli d’Italia. If Italy continues to mindlessly adopt woke and gender lunacy, however, it would seem that Va pensiero makes a good chance of becoming the national anthem after all.
As for Non son piu re, I could not think of a better visual and theatrical illustration of what total hubris leads to.
Thanks for taking the trouble to respond.
This statement was badly phrased: “But Nabucco is more complex than Vogel assumed and does nothing to spotlight his essay’s argument.”
Apologies. It was not my intention to be insulting.
My parents came from Italy, but no Italian was spoken in our home (except for a few curses). I had grandchildren before I started to learn about “My” Italian heritage; Verdi looms large in that constellation, and I get prickly when his work is misappropriated or diminished.
I agree that if Italy continues on its present course — if Meloni fails to hold a line — then, indeed:
O mia Patria: si bella e perduta.
In the spirit of Kevin MacDonald’s recent posting — https://www.unz.com/article/hatred-of-anglos-is-a-core-feature-of-multicultural-ideology-in-anglosphere-societies/ — I can do nothing more than add my expression of resistance.
I suspect that I used your essay to vent my outrage at comments made by a music critic who purported to represent Verdi in an Intelligence2 debate, Wagner vs. Verdi.
That critic’s presentation was so pretentious and so demeaning of Verdi — “He was just a peasant, just a peasant. How could he possibly know ….”
The audience was not insensible to the slights: based on the Debate, they reversed their original positions and voted in favor of Wagner.
(I suspect Wagner was more innovative, and pushed the boundaries of storytelling and of musical composition, moreso than Verdi. But the Verdi advocate did nothing to counter such a claim; he really said very little about Verdi’s overall contributions to opera and the staging of it — in which field Verdi set a high bar.)
I share your admiration for Verdi, and Nabucco is an absolute masterpiece. Wagner, especially his earlier work, is also masterful, perhaps hardly inferior to Verdi. They say that when Verdi first heard Wagner’s later work (the Ring), he remained shattered. After a recovery that took rather long, he wrote operas like Falstaff, influenced by Wagner. Nothing, however, can compare with the genius and sheer melodiousness of Italian opera from the first half of the 19th century. I think only Wagner comes close (Rienzi, Tannhäuser), not even Gounod.
BTW I recommend the 2011 version of Nabucco directed by Riccardo Muti, where the public is asked to sing along with Va pensiero. Probably you can find it on Youtube.
Sorry for diverting from the important topic of your essay, but thank you for responding, again.
I think I have seen/heard Nabucco directed by Muti: the audience threw programs into the air at “O Mia patria —“ and members of the chorus were seen to wipe away tears.
It may be gone now, but I also saw a youtube of Muti accepting an award. He spoke humorously for a few minutes, about how easy it was to conduct, you only needed to be able to count and to follow the orchestra: when they stopped playing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP5Nb_OBs2k
Video Linkstops moving his hands and takes a bow.
THEN he said something to the effect, “What the conductor needs to do is to try to understand how the composer was connecting to the divine, and communicate that to the musicians and through them to the audience.” THAT is religion of art and aesthetics.
Interesting staging and costumes in this Nabucco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP5Nb_OBs2k
Video Link
Tannhäuser — I try to revive my German by memorizing the Pilgrim’s Chorus.
Don’t know Rienzi.
To your essay: Kamala fits the role of Abigaile to a T. Good photo choice.
Are you sure it isn’t the corporate element that wants to keep us “just educated enough to run the machines,” as George Carlin said? Heaven forfend we should muss our pretty little heads thinking about class struggle and equal distribution of wealth. Heck, all we have to do is obey while we’re alive, and all our dreams will come true after we die – those churches don’t really get their tax exemptions for being the way, the light, and the truth, you do realize.
Of course it is the corporate element. As Rudolf Hilferding wrote more than hundred years ago, finance capital (i.e. Blackrock, KKR etc. etc.) has representatives on the board of every important firm. It is that element that appears to push for the sexual deviancy and woke agendas. It seems we are living under “really existing fascism,” where fascism is defined in the strictly theoretical Marxist sense, as the total domination of the state by private capital.
In corporations (i.e. Palentir, Facebook) that boast of hiring allegedly high-IQ persons such as computer programmers and the like, their work environment is infantilized. Their work space includes pool tables, games like corn hole, skate-boards, giant stuffed animals. Food-service is not from a vending machine but from free, made-to-order cafeterias.
Gone the poorly-lighted windowless lunchroom reeking of stale coffee.
The infantilized work-force has time-out spaces, even sound-proof boxes to chill out, and relaxation zones on sun-drenched decks is de rigueur.
Not sure if this is all bad.
But the toys?
This is a generation that spent their earliest years in pre-schools where cubbies and blankets for nap-time were the regimen, not in the back yard climbing trees and digging for worms.
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It’s also of concern how “gifted” or high-IQ young people are being used in the dumbed-down corporatocracy.
In her work tracking gifted young people, psychologist Joan Freeman observed,
Almost a hundred years ago, education psychologist Jewish Terman observed,
“Gifted” persons should be a gift to their overall society and treasured as such. But instead, a “dumbed-down” culture squanders these gifts and in the process make the work-life of a gifted person a life-long hell on earth.