It has to Matter

Motivation is personally & socially essential. And antithetical to the House of Lies

Edward Burne-Jones, Lancelot at the Chapel of the Holy Grail, 1896, Southampton City Art Gallery

The original plan was a post on the House of Lies narrative shift that’s happening right now. But that was running too long and got kicked over to the Band. The next post here will link to it. For now, something that came to mind after seeing a video on Andrei Martyanov's insightful blog [it won’t download or extract easily and it’s only a minute]. With personal and societal ramifications.

Motivation came up in the last post but wasn’t elaborated on because it was tangential to the [socialization lessons from sports] theme. But what it is essential for are fulfilling lives and healthy socio-culture. Motivation meaning whatever drives someone to directed action and to what extent. The reason why it’s so important is simple, if rarely stated. As the Band noted some time ago, the preeminent sin of modernity is sloth. And the rationale behind that is also simple.

George Barbier, La Paresse (Sloth), 1924-1925, pochoir print after a 1924 watercolor for the 1925 fashion annual Falbalas et Fanfreluches

The most powerful compulsions are the ones that people ignore self interest for. Just rudimentary biology and cost-benefit. Self-preservation is the most basic animal reflex. Something worth sacrificing well-being for is necessarily a strong inducement. High personal value activity. So the sins that are most responsible for giving up self preservation - by the observable fruits - are definitionally preeminent. Lust is the other obvious biggie for willing self-harm. Porn and infidelity as the endemic societal dysfunction one-two. But when it comes to driving contemporary socio-pathology, sloth takes the flag.

Look around. The House of Lies runs on a burning desire to do nothing. [Ordered-in extruded slop and screen] > [mental, physical and spiritual health]. “Vegging” as commonplace intention - as if trending to a vegetative state is twee. Selling any and all autonomy for a little more automation. Cricket paste and pods are actually the humane beast option for where this is going. Liquidation is the other.

Another observable truth is that Material Reality is entropic. Also morally, physically, and mentally. Anything not actively worked on or pushed back steadily degenerates. The more complex the system, the more push-back is required to maintain it. And the House of Lies is complex. Talk of ideologies and policies obviously has it’s place. But most of the vast glut of abstract internet opinion ignores the most basic reality. Real people have to do real stuff. Or else they - and the society around them - literally devolves. And doing stuff takes motivation. Incentive to arise from the sweet sweet couch. A bar even the well-wordedest opinion piece observably fails to reach.

In primitive cultures, survival is motivation. From hunter-gather all through early modern small industry, doing stuff = living. Just at various comfort levels. Modern busywork separated effort from compensation. [What you physically do or contribute vs. what you’re compensated]. CLI means not enough people noticed anything meaningful happened. Meanwhile, modern convenience turned historical abundance to a pit stop on the way home. And modern screens progressively replaced reality in information, entertainment, social interaction, and reality. We’re now at a point where people can live motionless lives on government checks. Primal emotion #1 is basically eliminated.

Progress! brought material reward as a motivator. Severing compensation from productive value just became new possibilities for advancement. Incentive works. If the system has enough busywork so everyone can get ahead to the limits of ability and ambition, it works. Busywork can be hugely stressful and time-consuming. It’s in the name. But the system has degenerated to where the busywork isn’t sufficient. And most of that is handed out through politicized credentialism. There’s obviously still plenty of material motivation - hyperbolic dooming is tiresome. The issue is that the prevalence is cut.

A societal base code assumption level motivator has to be mainstream norm. Something everyone assumes is normative by definition. Reasonable expectations consistently common enough not to have to think abut. [Talent + effort = success] always misrepresented reality to an extent. But it was prevalent enough because it extended from base code American values like hard work, fair competition, and structurally Christian morality. Undermine those and the outcomes change, taking the assumptions along with them.

Family is preconscious motivation behind it all. Elemental drives to reproduce, nurture, and defend. On a personal level, it’s fulfilling in a way that that has to be experienced. Pure visceral motivation. Drives to survive or prosper are enhanced by family. No surprise the beast system discourages and undermines it. There’s still plenty of family motivation out there too. It’s defeatist nonsense and manipulation to think otherwise. But it is harder for a stack of systemic reasons. Prevalence.

Coming to patriotism. The topic of the Russian soldier video that inspired this post. The scene was far from unthinkable in past America. It is today. Beast system “patriotism” expects abstract blather from atavists and sociopaths to mean something. As usual the inverse of reality. Words resonate because they align with their society’s organic cultural identity. Most people don’t prioritize pop ideologies over daily life. “Freedom” or “democracy” only had power because the were associated with [lived socio-cultural experience] people defined themselves as. Undermine the culture, change lived experience, and the words lose their meaning.

Vic Guinnell, To Have And To Hold - War Bonds, 1944, poster

Organic culture is just lived experience in place over time. Common assumptions and conventions that everyone knows. The poster says the tie between patriotic and family bond part aloud. Different regions of America signed up for WW2 because their local cultures all included [America matters]. A meta-culture is the best way to put it. One denigrated and dismantled in decades of clown narrative. As waves of people who disdain its basic premises are imported. Despite none of the historic Progress! paths that incentivized past waves to buy in.

Minor tangent, but the Russian multiculturalism seen in the Ukraine operation is interesting. Their majority Christian army has large Muslim and Asiatic components. Obviously fighting together is the single best way to forge cross-cultural bonds. But there’s more to it. Russia is a federation of semi-autonomous areas. Each with it’s own national cultures and people. For a Yakut or Chechen, “Russia” is a shared meta-identity that is part of their identities without interfering with them. Not that far from the original American experience. The main thing appears to be relative local autonomy within a fair superstructure. Completely opposite clown world’s sorathic sludge. Worth a thought, you’d think.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Dream of Ossian, 1813, oil on canvas, Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban, France

Personal anecdote. My main motivators are twofold - Christianity and ancestry. The second isn’t “ethno-nationalism” or some beast redundancy cum nonsense. The reality is that whatever comes next involves who’s still here. For good or for ill. New organic cultures will evolve as systemic efficacy retracts. With all the discernment and responsibility stuff that comes with it. Nothing to do but ride it out. But we each have a bloodline far older than any allegiance to a colonial-era nation. Forefathers whose legacy we carry. I know some day I’ll be called to account for myself before my Creator. And I suspect that I’ll also have to stand before my ancestors. My motivation is to have them deem me to have been sufficient. Higher principles and priorities - metaphysical and personal, faith and honor - are the ultimate movers of action.

The point isn’t to convince anyone to embrace a personal narrative. It’s to isolate motivators for practical consideration. What would compel you the reader that level of devotion and willingness to self-sacrifice? Sincerely think about it - it’s a private reflection only you see. If there isn’t anything, that’s a larger point. The House of Lies lacks motivators. The only advice is to find something. But regardless of the answer, I doubt anyone chose this odious financialized corrupt clown bureaucracy.

Johannes Adam Simon Oertel, The Holy Grail, 1877, oil on canvas, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum

The final point highlights the difference between motivation and belief. Everyone has beliefs. Motivators are the ones that impel action. Whatever alchemy of place, people, and culture drives that Russian soldier is deeply felt. Something real, yet intangible, and worth dying for. Fake hypocritical !ideals, contracting materialism, and infinity screens aren’t that.

Raising the issue of faith. Everyone also has ontological beliefs. Even if it’s a vague “something spiritual” or an atheist void. But only some of those will drive action to the level of self-sacrifice. From a practical perspective, the best beliefs are the ones that support long term commitment to a productive direction. Anecdotally, [situational logic in a relativistic cosmos] as ontological pole star brought the stagnant hedonism of SBC and the Singles years. Long term efficacy ticked up when the family → lineage → honor chain imposed itself. And jumped with conversion and submission to Jesus Christ. Escalating motivators escalate motivation. It’s not likely coincidental that the ongoing narrative shift is suddenly open to Christianity. That’s a different topic, but it confirms the Scriptwriters get it.

Rudolf von Alt, The Office and Library of the Palais Dumba, 1877, watercolor on paper, Vienna Museum

If there’s a take-home, it’s that there’s no anything without motivation. It’s a fallacy to have imagined finite moody natures can forever check the general desire to malinger. On a local level, any successful microculture needs something motivating to believe in. A way of life with real responsibility and skin in the game. That’s intrinsic. It starts with motivated individuals and grows organically. Carefully though. It has to align with natural human instincts. Belief in the wrong things can be devastating. Discernment never stops being essential. The good, the beautiful, and the true are a fine start. You know they’re not of the beast. They’re simple enough to be widely accessible. And best of all, you can see them with your own eyes and feel them in your own soul.

Same with a counterculture. Now that’s another topic.

Luciana-Frigerio, Create, book sculpture