"...a bit of Hitler and Stalin in everyone..."
In Everyone Everywhere. The Last Two & Half Years Proves It For All the World To See -- If One is Willing To See it. Some Seem to Have Difficulty Doing So...
While at my usual daily stop at Lew Rockwell’s site, I came across this post featuring Jordan Peterson, Canadian clinical psychologist, author, and professor speaking with Piers Morgan, English broadcaster, writer, and television personality.
A Bit of Hitler and Stalin in Everyone
In the context of a conversation about Putin (Putin is Hitler, of course) and Ukraine, Peterson makes the very correct assertion that “there’s a bit of Hitler and Stalin in everyone.” Morgan is incredulous. “A bit of Hitler in everyone? Really?”, Morgan asks. The look on Peterson’s face… “There’s more than a bit,” Peterson reiterates to which Morgan then stupidly repeats, “Really?”
How is this kind of response possible in a grown man? A worldly man? A man who reports on life and people? Especially one who purports to know just a little bit more than the rest of us about how the world is supposed to work? A man who lived through the last 2.5 years along with the rest of us. Given all that characterized these 30+ plus months — the unending dogma, the ubiquitous force, the non-stop propaganda, the state-sponsored terror, the forced medical interventions, the economic destruction, the assaults on individual choice by friends, families, colleagues, strangers — over the possibility of getting a respiratory infection — Morgan expresses surprise at Peterson’s assertion?
Really, Piers?
This incredulity suggests Piers truly does believe that the “totalitarian” lives only in those obviously evil people — you know, the famous ones of history and true crime stories — and not in every single human being. That would be really, really silly, but perhaps Morgan is truly unable to consider it resides in all of us.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. This is a news event for Piers?
Virtue as Defense Against Evil
Of what use would the Virtues be if all any of us needed to do was identify the evil that only exists in those other people to which Solzhenitsyn refers? What need to come up with the warnings for all of us called the “Seven Deadly Sins” if they only applied to other people — the ones the rest of can ferret out as “evil”? Of course, that’s absurd.
What use is the pursuit and practice of the
if the vast majority of us are “good” by default or conversely incapable of evil or being “little” totalitarians? Worldly temptations tempt only those who are evil to begin with? The rest of us are beyond the need for reminders such as this from the Apostle Paul?
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8
Paul urges us to think about the Good — surely because we need the urging, the reminding, yes, so we can act on it, live it out? Virtue is its own reward, someone once said. That’s true. But what else? Focus implies purposeful effort…Not what comes naturally — at least not without lots of practice.
So, what need do we have to focus on “whatever is noble”? Because we all have it in us for the false, the ignoble, the immoral, the will to power that can and often does lead to our own and others’ destruction and suffering.
Does Morgan’s incredulity suggest then that for evil to “count” it comes down to scale? You know, like what Stalin highlighted when he said, “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” Is it scale that “elevates” the status of an act to evil vs. the act itself, Piers?
The Totalitarian Spirit of the “COV!D” Operation
If you have read anything of Peterson’s or listened to his lectures or interviews, you would be familiar with his tales of “small scale, everyday evil” by “everyday” people, the destruction it causes and its ripple effects. Peterson addresses this in the clip via his point about the “totalitarian spirit” being “replicated at every level of society.”
Take this 2.5 year global totalitarian freak show, for instance. Over a respiratory infection? Brought to us — using terror, Piers — by all the “leaders” of the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Virtually all nations — “free” and unfree. “Democratic” countries committed to democracy and freedom and whatever. Locking people down, forcing medical interventions as a condition of freedom, and uniformed thugs on the payroll obeying orders beating the crap out of anybody who disobeys. Warning: Disturbing images
“America”
The totalitarian spirit replicated at every level of society — across the world. Here’s a montage of humans from around the world at the mercy of the uniformed ones who clearly do not have one bit of Hitler or Stalin or the totalitarian in them. Nope. Not one bit. At all. Warning: This video is very disturbing. Actually, they all are.
Meanwhile, here in the land of the free,
we’ve got this schmuck (Sorry, Mom. He said it first.) An immigrant to America who took an oath to the Constitution, first as an immigrant and later as elected governor, who declares, “Screw your freedom!”
Honest to God, you can’t make it up.
Of course, that idiot has nothing on the governors of all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico who ordered lockdowns, issued “stay at home” orders, forced businesses to close, etc. Did they not all say essentially the same thing?
Then there are the “everyday folks” like doctors and nurses who followed orders — I mean, protocols — to provide only the permitted “treatment” and forbid all others; all the “leaders” of colleges and universities who forced experimental needles on their students and staff; all the businesses who denied entry to those who declined a medical treatment (the snot pouches) in order to buy groceries, get a haircut, etc.;
all the “leaders” of American corporations who refused to make religious accommodations as required by law and forced experimental needles (with liability immunity for their manufacturers) on their employees and candidates;
all the hospitals and certifying boards who threatened doctors who could and wanted to treat people; and all of these “everyday” people here, here, here, and here. The totalitarian spirit in all its “glory”.
There’s more, of course, but I’ll stop. All of this in “America”. No evil in people here, no little totalitarian twits finding their outward expression here. Nope. None.
Yet Piers Morgan expresses shock at Jordan Peterson’s assertion about a “bit of Hitler and Stalin in everyone.”? Really, Piers? How absolutely and utterly absurd. And disconnected…
“This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” - William Shakespeare
Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung called “this thing of darkness” in all of us the “shadow” or our “shadow selves”. I call mine “my evil twin.” We’ve all got one.
How do any of us keep our “evil twins” in check?
By acknowledging them.
By tempering them through self-mastery.
By living by the rule that tells us to not do to others what we would not have done to ourselves.
By following the wisdom of the ages that advises us to think about the noble and good and the pure and lovely.
By giving thanks for what we have for its own sake and in so doing keep envy at bay.
By living by the maxim that nobody owes us anything — especially the undertaking by others of medical interventions for our health!
By living courageously and refraining from making others make choices based on our fears.
By recognizing the divinity of every single person and their inherent right to make their own choices free from coercion.
Disallowing the inherent right of choice free from coercion is the very definition of evil. Indeed, it is one of the defining features of all atrocities — large and small — throughout history. It has come at the hands of all manner of tyrants, but only and always through the indulgence of the “bit of Hitler and Stalin” in all of us. The totalitarian spirit replicated at all levels of society.
Are you listening, Piers? Are you paying attention? At all?
Spot on correct.
The phenomenon of “a little bit of evil“ in every human being is obvious and has been demonstrated throughout all of human history. It was most recently seen before the “pandemic“ in places like Nazi Germany and in every communist country, indeed in every totalitarian country. Each of these instances there were many people willing, indeed even eager to participate in not just the enforcement of, but in the commission of atrocities. When the particular totalitarian system they operated was destroyed or was it dismantled the overwhelming majority of the “petty“ tyrants simply went back under their rock if you will; went back to living “normal lives“ Without a visible trace of the evils that they had participated in. And they acted as if nothing ever happened.
The fact that so many people in modern society cannot grasp this, or will not grasp this reality is a measure of just how detached they are from reality; how delusional they have become because of the extraordinarily high quality of life that we have been fortunate to experience in our lifetimes . Unfortunately for them, and certainly for the rest of us this era of exceptional standard of living, quality of life, and freedom is about to end. Chaos and destruction await, and we must all realize that not only have we all played a hand in this - by allowing the major criminals to run amok, but that the “petty” tyrants played a much greater role in what is about to come.
The banality of evil indeed.