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People are deeply hostile to the reality, no matter who you are, that fulfilment and happiness and ‘living a worthwhile life’ essentially come down to a very simple recipe.
Marry young(ish) to someone of good temperament, have a reasonable number of children (three or more), work a job you can somewhat stand, have some kind of spiritual life. Above all, tend to a dense circle of friends and family who you trust and who trust you, who live nearby and who you see often. Save a little money if you can. Try to do good by those who care about you.
This advice is proven over countless generations. It applies to almost all people, everywhere in the world. It is attainable for everyone in the global middle class and above, which is everyone here and certainly everyone writing political commentary on the internet.
But it’s also kind of scary, because if it’s that easy to be happy and fulfilled despite living in a decadent, empty, atomized, soulless, blah blah blah modern hellscape (etc etc), then why aren’t you doing it? Masturbation about joining Wagner or the Foreign Legion or fighting a war against China or leading The Revolution is much more interesting, because the very fact that these things are unlikely to happen means that they confer no obligation or even pressure to improve.
The fact that the recipe for happiness is so easy is precisely what makes it so terrifying, because it means failure to achieve it is usually our own fault.
You say this and yet a lot of the spite is generated precisely by the inability to realize this vision.
You brush away in a single sentence all the legitimate reasons why living a good life in in fact nigh on impossible for most people today.
I would bet a small fortune that if the author could get what you describe with reasonable effort, he wouldn't be where he is.
But of course since virility axiomatically requires an internal locus of control in all things, it's his fault that he fails even as his entire society is stacked against the very idea of this simple happiness. Sucks to suck, git gud.
Where you err in my view is in what to do about this. The rational answer here isn't to try harder to live the good life in the face of insurmontable obstacles like a dupe. It is in fact to destroy society or escape it.
Systems that refuse to do what is necessary to sustain themselves deserve to die.
And this is true at all scales.
You’re not going to realize this vision if you’re doing ketamine and cocaine and having “polyamorous” “relationships” in your 20s
Look at the Mormons for the most extreme example. No, actually this is attainable. You just have to actually follow the rules.
Not everyone has the luxury of tradition, religion, family or even any sort of belonging. Mormons are immensely privileged and the least central of examples.
Try to get a traditional relationship as the average Western 20 something now, see what happens. Fucking try.
There literally aren't places for you to even look for those things anymore. And most of the people who advertise themselves as available are degenerate in the ways you describe or other worse ones. This is true of both sexes. And, unfortunately, of large portions of those that are still nominally religious.
I've followed the rules my whole life, I've met dozens of people who did. The rules don't lead anywhere anymore for most people except lone misery. Because the institutions that backed them are not there anymore.
Everyone is desperately trying to replicate the radio call that brings about the cargo plane with the home, the car, the wife and the kids. The intricacies of which buttons to press in what order, and the significance of every gesture are subject to great debate. But it's not working. Nobody's listening on the other side.
what stops someone from joining the mormon church? If you dont have tradition you can buy into some, after all converting new people is a big part of the Mormon tradition with the missions that guys go on.
Are we to believe that sincere belief in God (let alone LDS mythology) is something that one can just improvise out of convenience? Are we furthermore to believe that the boons shall even come without sincerity?
Buying into a tradition is not impossible. But it is by no means easy or practical for most people, otherwise the zoomer tradcaths would have manifested their cargo planes by now.
I still wonder to this day how right and how wrong DeGobineau was when he said that civilization is incommunicable.
You can certainly try to believe.
By which I mean, behave as if God's existence is more probable than you currently think it is. Try praying, in earnest (or as earnestly as you can when you think it is very unlikely anyone is listening). Try reading scripture with an openness to the possibility that there is something valuable and true there to learn. Try going to a church: don't pretend you already believe, but be open to the possibility that your mind could be changed.
If there are particular logical issues that prevent you from being open to the possibility of God's existence, then take time to research them. There are a great many very intelligent and well educated Christians out there: is it really the case that you know something they never realized? It's more likely that there is an answer to whatever objection you have. Be open to the possibility that the answer may be right.
If God doesn't exist, then all this will cost you is some of your time and energy. If He does exist then you may gain all the worldly good you were searching for (family, happiness, meaning, community) and the far greater good of salvation from your sins and hope for eternal life.
I can understand an atheist who has no desire to be religious deciding not to go through all that effort, but if you're an atheist who does desire to be religious then the cost-benefit ratio seems pretty good.
You can, but it won't work if you have any intellectual honesty about your own beliefs.
What about atheists who have been through all that effort?
I've seen this kind of advice before: "Believe hard enough and you will." It sounds like clapping your hands for Tinkerbell, or the New Agey "manifest your desires (by wishing real hard)."
I can see how "Give it a try, maybe it will suit you" might work for someone agnostic who's never really thought about religion before, but it's not going to work for someone who has, in fact, spent time trying it and concluded there was nothing there. And advice that amounts to "pretend you're a believer so you can score a trad wife" seems pretty unethical to me.
I'm someone who probably wouldn't have trouble living a Mormon or Catholic or Muslim lifestyle. But there is no way I could go through life pretending to actually believe what they believe.
I do not, and never have, advised anyone to pretend that they believe something they don't. That would be dishonest, and dishonesty is a vice.
I don't see how the advice I gave "wouldn't work" if you have intellectual honesty about your own beliefs. You do not need to believe in God to attempt a prayer, or to attend a church, or to read the Bible with an open mind.
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