Modernity and the Law of Struggle

Custom, pride, and the law compel us to observance of the common standard of struggle. The magnanimous, the benevolent, and the noble rise above the common standard of struggle. They set themselves a higher standard, but they struggle nevertheless. Therein lies all the difference between human littleness and human greatness.

— Hyman Segal, The Law of Struggle

The star-spangled world of modernity has removed the white man to an astonishing degree from nature. Relaxing in a lounge chair and sipping a soy decaf latte, he observes the machinations of the modern city. In his little white enclave, far away from the animalistic parts of the urban jungle, he feels so very contented by the equality and inclusiveness of his surroundings. He inhales the fragrance of his fair-trade coffee and is engulfed by a wave of self-congratulatory moral onanism. He is well versed in the faux-literary world of post-modern platitudes and seems to himself a man of the world – erudite, educated, and morally right. Yet he is as far from being a man of the world as can be conceived. He lives in a sterile, meaningless world that is devoid of any semblance of nature.

Nature is built on a fundamental and universal law – the law of struggle. All that exists must struggle. There is no other way. Nature creates pain, and all must struggle to get away from that pain. From rocks to humans, all that exists is subservient to this law. A rock struggles against the elements until it is but dust and man struggles to procreate and keep death at bay for as long as he can. Like trees that only become strong through tormenting tempest, man must be challenged and tested. Decaf soy latte and fat-free vegan-organic-unsprayed-Ben and Jerry’s-flavored cheesecake do not make strong men. Only actual struggle does.

The modern world places no demands on those that inhabit it. It is, however, a testament to the glory of the European culture that entire flaccid generations have been able to live utterly unproductive lives in meaningless vocations or of infinite state-sponsored basement dwelling as the unavoidable consequence of their bullshit “gender studies” degree. Anyone who picks one of these ridiculous studies is just as employable as a one-legged transgender hooker with a smelly “bonus hole.” All of this madness is possible only because we are still sailing on the zenithal winds of European culture. This weakness that is rampant in the modern world can only endure because it sunk its hideous talons into the flesh of the Faustian spirit that still powerfully reverberates everywhere in Europe.

Life is pain, as is endorsed by many religions and wisdom teachings, and most of them seek to alleviate the suffering or abolish it altogether and retreat from life. Modernity has adopted many of these teachings. So, to mitigate suffering, standards must be lowered, and norms adjusted to the lowest denominator because standards and norms create suffering when not met. The modern world has become a desultory desert that sucks all greatness from the aspiring and noble and has changed into an insufferable place of horrific equality. A veritable swamp of sameness where the noble and Faustian blood is evacuated from the societal veins with vampiric precision. Despite the appearance of pluralism, conformity has been coined as the highest value and from kindergarten on, all are smashed into the same non-descript bland die of ordinality.

This modern low-standard world is so utterly unnatural, one wonders why it did not implode decades ago. Nature operates according to the law of struggle to such an extent that we might say nature is struggle. Life, from its very inception to the grave, is one long fight against all that nature throws at us. Life is the temporary suspension of death. The hooded dark specter of demise looms over our lives at every injunction. A moments silence, to the careful listener, reveals the sound of the stone grinding the scythe, as death keeps its tools ready to collect the lives of those so chosen.

Man-from-the-world understands the relationship he has with Creation. It is a contract; man is given a body to have an experience in this arena we call Earth, and when he is no longer capable of struggling against the arrival of the cloaked collector, he has to fulfil the contract and return his body to the earth. Man-in-the-world lives his petty life seeking protection from the world, instead of engaging it. He lives his insolent life avoiding the struggle for his betterment. He wants to make all things comfortable and has a natural aversion towards high standards.

Man-in-the-world thus regards death as something “out there,” a specter that is a mere phenomenon from the world “out there.” Death to him is something to be overcome, not out of heroic ideals or out of the pursuit of eternal values, but out of the urge to extend his cushy, comfortable life and all the toys it provides him. To man-in-the-world, life has become detached from the world, as is evident by the way he jizzes his non-bleach-organic-cotton-recycled-underpants over AI and the thought of consciousness coupled with cyborg bodies. To him, it is the continuation of his hedonism that is more important than being from and embracing the world and its struggles.

Yet even man-in-the-world is, of course, bound to the world, and must eventually die. Even the world of severely diminished pain man-in-the-world inhabits, the law of struggle does its work. It is exactly the seeking of the cushy life which is a reaction against the pain of the world. It is struggling against pain. Struggling, however, at a far lower standard than man-from-the-world does. Man-in-the-world fears death as it represents “the end of the party,” the absolute cessation of his frivolous life of being good, virtuous, and moral, and therewith his struggle from the pain of being not good, not virtuous, and not moral.

Man-from-the-world knows that the fulfilment of the contract of life is utterly binding, and he must live his life bravely, facing each day with the possibility of death looming over him. He is aware that only he who struggles against pain shall be great and truly from the world. He knows that all that lives must give life to the next generation before death. He feels the seething urge to make his mark on the world. He seeks to live a life of which heralds will report, bards sing, and aspiring young men speak in awe.

Man-from-the-world can build a community from the raw state of nature with an axe and a knife, like the frontiersmen that sought out the West, forging the new world on the anvil of their will. They faced death everywhere. Mountain lions, wolves, bears, and not to mention the Indians, were ever-present companions in making their mark on the world. Such a man was acutely aware of death, as it left no chance unused to remain acquainted with him. These men-from-the-world struggled at the highest standard they could muster and accepted the time of their end as an autograph on a finished painting. Men of that calibre can look back on a life of achievement and honor, for they have thrown themselves against life and its struggle. Death to them is the motivation to discover, explore, build, and create, as they want to be remembered as great strugglers, not as idle hedonists trapped in perpetual adolescence.

Men-from-the-world are the intrepid, the bold, and the brave. Their will to struggle against the tides and tidings of life, and face things head-on, mark them as exceptional and exemplary. Any and all attempts at revitalizing the European way of being requires an absolute cognizance of the law of struggle, and everything we do must be in accord with it.

But the strong can be no lovers of death. The strong will willingly accept death in only one eventuality – as a necessary incident of a great struggle. As the fear of death is born of the fundamental love of struggle so, also, it disappears because of the love of struggle. Death does not weigh much in the balance with the love of struggle. This is simply another way of re-stating what we have already found to be true, namely, that love of life or the “will to live” is not a universal law and is wholly subordinate to the law of struggle. So the secret yearnings of even a child is to die, if die he must, fighting gloriously. There is nothing better or truer than this childish imagining in all the books of wisdom.

— Hyman Segal, The Law of Struggle