These posts explore the themes developed in my monograph, Narcisso-Fascism, which is itself a real-world test of the central concepts of the Biocognitive Model of Mind for psychiatry.
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About 20 years ago, I met a Polish chap who, naturally enough, was keen to talk politics. Of the opening days of World War II, he said: “The Poles aren’t the only people who used cavalry to attack tanks. However, they were surely the only ones who thought they could win” (it turns out that was a myth). However, the one lesson we learn from history is that nobody ever learns from history: it seems the Europeans have decided there isn’t enough chaos in the world today and are getting ready for another bout of tilting at tanks. In a recent interview on Pascal Lottaz’s excellent channel, Neutrality Studies, Norwegian professor Glenn Diesen described what at first glance is a bad attack of war fever spreading across the continent. However, it now seems to be little more than panic among the power elite of the EU that they’ve been exposed as chumps. As Trump’s increasingly erratic behaviour makes the previously unthinkable idea of an American withdrawal from Europe seem very thinkable, the von der Leyen clique that controls the EU is running around saying war with Russia is inevitable within five years. Diesen reports that the insufferable Jacob Rees Mogg has even said that Britons need to prepare themselves for the chance to die for Britain (at 09.25):
... but now something has happened. (the European leaders) have taken it over completely. They are in full ownership of this warmongering. Even now that the US pulling back (from confronting Russia, the) Europeans are quite eager to continue. So what has happened to them? I think some of it’s just human nature, when humans going to war, some basic impulse kicks in... 04.32.
He repeats this several times: “... the problem is that there’s an instinct also in human nature which is when you face an external threat, you seek internal solidarity.” At about 22.00 (paraphrased): “If enough people are chanting Let’s go to war, go to war, they will eventually internalize this and they will begin to pursue it. It’s human nature ... it’s incredibly dangerous. ... I don’t even think they can control the narrative anymore.”
The question then arises: Why? What’s going on? Wasn’t the EU formed to make reruns of the World Wars impossible? Yet here they are pushing the (very unwilling) populace into accepting the idea that a gigantic and ultra-high tech war with a vast and immensely wealthy, nuclear-armed country that has all the resources to conduct war that Europe doesn’t have is not just necessary but inevitable and, above all, joyously exciting. Are the Europeans completely mad? Despite the mind-bending risks, and for all his undoubted scholarship, Dr Diesen doesn’t have an answer beyond “Well, that’s human nature.” Financially, Europe is in deep trouble. Since the US blew up the Nordstream II gas pipeline providing cheap Russian natural gas to power Europe’s energy-hungry industrial base, the problems have multiplied.
It was also the US that forced Europe to stop using the cheap and extremely good IT and telecoms technology supplied by China’s Huawei and others, replacing it with American products that favour the American tech giants and their branches in the CIA; and the US that attacked Iran who closed the vital Strait of Hormuz that supplied 60% of Europe’s liquid fuels; and the US-, Israeli- and UK-backed Saudi regime that attacked Yemen’s Ansar Allah who promptly closed the Red Sea which provided most of the rest, forcing Europe to buy US natural gas and oil at grossly inflated prices ... With friends like America, you would wonder why Europe thinks they need to make an enemy of Russia, the same Russia that offered peace if Europe stopped trying to integrate Ukraine into NATO because, as everybody knew, that meant NATO nuclear-armed bombers on permanent high alert sitting on runways a few km from the Russian border. Unfortunately, Dr Diesen can only shrug and say “Well, that’s human nature.”
If that’s not enough trouble, the well-known commentator, Prof. John Mearsheimer of Chicago University reports that a similar game is playing out on the other side of the planet. The rise of China from broken-down third world country to global super-power in barely 45 years is truly remarkable. It totally eclipses Germany’s post-WWII Wirtschaftswunder, its economic miracle that has since run into the sand. While 90% of the world’s population are enormously impressed with China’s example, it hasn’t gone down well with the American power elite. Dr Mearsheimer reports that, in 2017, the US under Trump began to implement a policy of containment, to prevent China reaching equal or even superior status to the US in any respect. To this end, maintaining support for Taiwan as a separate political entity became paramount: without Taiwan, he says, containment of China would be impossible (here, at 26.45). He continues:
As I tried to make clear, the United States is a mortal enemy of China. Since 2017, an intense security competition has set in between the United States and China (28:34) ... When the Trump administration decided to adopt the policy of containment in 2017 (31:22) ... and the United States is a mortal enemy of China (33.20).
This has immediate significance in Today’s Fantabulous Theme, the AI explosion: “The United States is working overtime to see if they can gain an advantage over the Chinese in terms of developing AI” (35:06). Even though he has the technological sophistication of a five year old, Trump himself is 110% behind the AI drive, totally ignoring dire warnings from insiders that AI has the ability to destroy all human life within ten years, or even five years. No, says Herr Drumpf, the AI industry can supervise themselves. Unlike those terrible non-violent demonstrators in the streets, our wonderful Tech Bros don’t need government restrictions, do you Elon? Of course not. How come? Because China. The crafty tech bros have whispered in Trump’s right ear (the same one that doesn’t show any evidence of a bullet hole) that if China gets ahead in the AI race, then it’s goodnight America, those godless commie Chinks will use it to isolate and crush and deindustrialise God-fearing America. So the pleasantries of Pres. Xi’s recent trip to DC notwithstanding, Mearsheimer says, the US actually sees itself locked in an existential war with China:
As we move forward, what is likely to happen is that President Trump’s relationship with the Chinese, with Xi Xinping, and the American relationship with China, if anything, is likely to deteriorate over time ... where the United States and President Trump in particular, have friendly relations with the Chinese on the surface, is going to be seen as an anomaly ... and the present situation where the rhetoric is quite friendly, certainly on the American side, that’s likely to disappear (52:37).
This is not encouraging. The significance, as he says, is that despite the very real risks, there is no will to cooperate on restraining AI development. In international relations, Prof. Mearsheimer is probably the leading theoretician in the school of “offensive realism” so we have to listen to what he says, even as gloomy as this. However, when we look for explanation, it isn’t forthcoming. Why, for example, does the US regard China as its “mortal enemy”? Mearsheimer’s thesis is that international relations are anarchic, therefore nations have to struggle to exert local hegemony in order to protect their interests. The current dispute with China is just another example of the same concept playing out, a case of dominate or be dominated.
Now technical optimists may be inclined to dismiss Mearsheimer’s concerns, saying “We went through all this angst with nuclear weapons in the Cold War and we survived, AI is just another version of worrying about the end of the world.” There is an element of truth in that, just enough for the cavaliers to grab hold of and think it’s enough to let them swim against the tide but the nuclear arms race and the AI race are not in the same class. The crucial difference is that nuclear weapons couldn’t switch themselves on one night, change their programming and decide to launch themselves on a defenceless city just to watch the fireworks. AI can do exactly that. It is technically feasible for an AI program to take control of a biological laboratory, develop a lethal virus against which humans could have no defence, and release it. That’s not science fiction. That’s why AI has to be brought under control immediately, but the people who are running it, the Musks and Zuckerbergs and Bezos’ and Altmans and Thiels and all the other emotionally palsied psychopathic misfits, can only smell money and power. Despite anything they say, AI is not being developed for the betterment of you and me.
AI exists for military and surveillance purposes, and for cyberwarfare; that’s where the money comes from and that’s where the trillions will be made. Any talk of AI being useful for spotty schoolboys to write their essays is to deflect attention. Autonomous vehicles aren’t being developed to make cheaper taxis and delivery trucks and so on, the technology exists for the battlefield and aerial and marine drones; all the talk of a robotic taxi that will come to your door is pure PR. When it comes for an explanation of this, the eminent theoretician, Dr Mearsheimer has nothing to say. He correctly notes that international relations are anarchic but he doesn’t say WHY. His concept of offensive realism is therefore not a theory. It is pure description with no explanatory value at all (strictly speaking, that probably means he isn’t a theoretician but we’ll leave that to the academics to fight over). To turn it into a formal theory, he needs something like Dr Diesen’s dream of “human nature,” the one he regularly invokes but for which he offers nothing beyond “Boys will be boys.” That is, two of the most widely-regarded authorities in international relations are unable to offer an explanation of humanity’s self-destructive folly.
All of the swirling madness and wickedness they describe can be explained by a single human factor, the drive to dominate, coupled with its counterpart, the urge to avoid being dominated. Those twin urges are hardwired into each and every human being but some people never learn to control them, do they, Donald? All the international problems today, and many national problems, come down to this point alone: one group is trying to dominate another, and the other side is resisting. That’s it. So simple. So the correct explanation of Prof. Mearsheimer’s doctrine of offensive realism is the reverse of what he says: international relations are anarchic just because nations keep struggling to exert hegemony over their neighbours, and the neighbours aren’t having a bar of it. The US and Israel had no grounds whatsoever to attack Iran. Moreover, they haven’t offered any; all talk of an Iranian nuclear weapons program is total bullshit, as the US Director of National Security and everybody else said. The attack was just because Iran stood between them and total domination of West Asia. And don’t doubt for one moment that if Iran had been broken apart as Libya and Syria and Iraq were, Egypt and Türkiye were next on the list.
Trump says this over and over again: “We have to be Number One.” It’s called full spectrum dominance and that is what they mean: total control of all humans and their activities at all times in all places forever. China is not the mortal enemy of the US. Chinese as a whole are quite sympathetic to the US because of the assistance they were given in the war against Japan. Likewise, the average Joe Bloggs in the US doesn’t hold any resentment against China or Chinese, just keep those excellent TV screens coming. No, all talk of “mortal enemies” is simply the power elite in the US, the political-military-industrial-financial-academic and fascist religious elite, who can’t stomach the idea that Good Ol’ Uncle Sam has had his day and needs to step aside.
Similarly, the gaping hole that Prof. Diesen identifies in the explanation of world affairs, the bit he leaves blank as “Human Nature,” is fully explained by the principles behind the concept of Narcisso-Fascism: like every other animal studied – birds, mammals, reptiles and even fish – human group behaviour is controlled by the hormonally-determined drive to dominate and avoid domination. In evolutionary terms, this started as a breeding strategy: testosterone induces dominance behaviour, and the dominant male gets to leave more offspring than the submissive, but what was once a routine biological fact now has human behaviour in its grip. Crucially, the people who are doing it don’t know this. They, all the immensely clever and rich and powerful people in the cabinet rooms and board rooms and war rooms and research labs, they think they’re being just sooo rational and aware and up to the minute when they’re acting like a pack of dogs in the street, leading the world to destruction. They say AI has 10% chance of ending human life in ten years? Did you hear that? These people are out of their minds, except they’re not, they’re very sane and dangerous idiots. An idiot is a person who, confronted by evidence that contradicts his opinion, discards the evidence and keeps his opinion. When the big tech clowns are faced with the choice of coming second in the AI race or a 10% chance letting an agent loose that can develop lethal viruses, they say “Bugger the risk, full greed ahead to make sure those slippery little Chinks don’t beat us.” Yes, it oozes racism but racism is just one variant of the dominance drive.
It all goes back to biology, to the universal testosterone economy. Mearsheimer doesn’t know this, Diesen doesn’t know it, Musk would laugh and say “All power to my dick,” Trump is too stupid, Albanese couldn’t spell ‘testosterone,’ and Netanyahu would say “Of course, God has told us we’re meant to be Number One so we’re killing all these Arab vermin to do His will.” I think Xi Xinping would be concerned to know about this, all he can see is that America wants to throttle his country whereas he thinks China is entitled to its natural role in the world. Putin would understand it, he knows all about foreigners trying to invade and crush his country and, having issued a thousand warnings, isn’t going to stand for it.
So why is Europe pushing the idea of War, Glorious War? I think they’re caught in a trap of their own making. The US hates Russia as a competitor and because Russia won’t allow them to pillage the country as they do everywhere else; therefore, Russia had to be lured into a war in Ukraine to bankrupt it; Europe wanted to convince the US they were loyal vassals so they beat the drums and sent lots of money and weapons to Ukraine; then the US did the dirty on them, as it does on everybody (just ask the Kurds) and lost interest so, instead of admitting they were fooled by Obama and Trump and Biden and the rest of the Potomac Chorus, to prove they’re adults who need to be taken seriously and not just a pack of pampered poodles snarling from a fat American lap, they announced they’re going to take over and wallop those subhuman Russians.
What these clowns hope to achieve is nowhere stated, let alone how they think they’ll achieve it. The fantasied delight of forcing the Russians to a grovelling surrender drowns any questions about how they can do it, what it will cost and, above all, what happens when the Tovariches send them packing, as they have done to so many invaders. If Afghanistan was the Great Imperial Game, invading Russia is the Great Western Delusion. No doubt Europe’s leaders are now down at the barrack stables, quivering with excitement as they watch the cavalry being led out by troops in their finery. “This time,” they pant to each other as they gulp their champers, “mark our words, this time we’ll send those Russian tanks straight back across their border. They’ll be sorry.”
No, we’ll be sorry. The rich will escape to their mountain or island retreats but the poor pick up the bits, as with this 23yo Yemeni man who sent a brief video to a Greek journalist (start watching at 26.00minutes for a bit of background). All this noble young man is saying is: Leave us alone. That’s not just humanitarian, that’s biological, that’s why he will not be defeated, and all power to him. Unfortunately, our so-called leaders and experts just don’t get that vital point.
If any of the things that we value are to survive, the problem must be solved. How it can be solved is clear; the difficulty is to persuade the human race to acquiesce in its own survival. I cannot believe that this task is impossible (Bertrand Russell, The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War, in Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Oct 1946; emphasis added).
For a rather bitter laugh, watch this 10min video: Lords of War: Meet America’s War Profiteers.
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My critical works are best approached in this order:
The case against mainstream psychiatry:
McLaren N (2024). Theories in Psychiatry: building a post-positivist psychiatry. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. https://bookshop.org/
(this also covers a range of modern philosophers, showing that their work cannot be extended to account for mental disorder).
Development and justification of the biocognitive model:
McLaren N (2021): Natural Dualism and Mental Disorder: The biocognitive model for psychiatry. London, Routledge. At https://bookshop.org/
Clinical application of the biocognitive model:
McLaren N (2018). Anxiety: The Inside Story. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. At https://bookshop.org/
.Testing the biocognitive model in an unrelated field:
McLaren N (2023): Narcisso-Fascism: The psychopathology of right wing extremism. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. At https://bookshop.org/
.The whole of this work is copyright but may be copied or retransmitted provided the author is acknowledged.