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We were looking at the discourse
That preceeds genocide in genocidal states
And the enhancement of a sense of victimization
On the part of one of the groups
Usually the group that's going to commit the genocide
First of all their sense of being victims
Is much heightened by the demagogues
Who are trying to stir up this sort of hatred
So they basically say:
Look, you've been oppressed in a variety of ways
And these are the people who did it
And they're not gonna stop doing it
And this time we're gonna get them before they get us
It's something like that
And so there's something very pathological
About the enhancement of victimization, which is... well...
See this- the- the problem as-
As far as I- I'm concerned with it is
It's not thought through very well
Because there's there's a point that's being made
And the point is that
People have been oppressed and they suffer
And that's true, that point
But that's- but then the proper framework
From within which to interpret that I believe is
That's characteristic of life
Ye-ye- you can't take it personally in some sense
And you can't divide the world neatly into perpetrators and victims
And you certainly can't divide the world neatly into perpetrators and victims
And then assume that you're only in the victim class
And then assume that that gives you, like
Access to certain forms of redress let's say
It gets dangerous very rapidly if you do that sort of thing
So, for example, one of the things that characterized the Soviet Union
And this is particularly true in the 1920's, but- but afterwards, so
The Soviets were very much enamored of the idea of class guilt
So, for example, although it was only about 40 years previously that the serfs had bin emancipated
They weren't much more than slaves, right? And so that was the bulk of the russian population, they were bought and sold along with the land
So, they had been emancipated and- and some of them- many of them had turned into independent farmers and some of them had become reasonably prosperous because, at least in principle, I presume a certain proportion of them from being crooked but I presume a larger proportion of them from actually being able to raise food and of course at that time the bulk of the food population was produced by these relatively successful peasant farmers and relatively successful would mean maybe they had a brick house or something and maybe they had a couple of cows and maybe they were able to hire a few people
And so, you know, it- it wasn't like they were massive land owners or anything, but I talked to you a little bit about the Pareto Principle and the notion that in any domain of activity a small proportion of people end up producing most of what's in that domain of activity the same was true in Russia with regards to these peasant farmers, some of them were extraordinarily efficient and they produced most of Russia's food
And when the communists came in they described those... those land holders as parasites essentially, predicated on the marxist idea that if someone had extracted profit from an enterprise, that they had basically stolen that profit from... from... from the people, say, that they had employed or otherwise oppressed
So you could be a member of the Kulak, K-U-L-A-K, K-U-L-A-K, you could be a member of the Kulak-Class
And then, because you were a member of that class you were automatically guilty
And so, what happened was- and you gotta think this through to really understand what happened
So, what happened was the intellectual communists were sent out- in cadres out into these little towns, to find people who would help them round up the Kulaks
Now you gotta think about what a small town is like, because... so, imagine you're in a town and there's three or four people, or maybe ten people or something like that, who are a little more successful than everyone else and a certain number of people are gonna be fine with that and maybe even happy about it, because they regard those people as particularly productive and as stalwart members of the community, regardless of their flaws
But there's gonna be some people who are not happy about it all, that are gonna be very resentful about it and jealous, and so those are gonna be people whose characters I would say are of the less positive type
And so when the intellectuals came in and described the reason that these people should be treated as parasites and profiteers, then it was the resentful minority in those towns, and that would be the kinda guy that hangs around in the bar all the time and is completely unconscientious and fails at everything and then blames everyone else for it
The intellectuals came in and said: This is unfair, that this happened to you, you've actually been victimized and now it's your opportunity to go have your revenge
And so that's exactly what happened
Now in some of the villages sometimes the peasants would actually surround the- the- the- the- the farmsteads of these more successful people and try to defend them but that never worked out for very long
And so then these mobs, these angry mobs would go into the farmhouses and strip the place right down to nothing
And they packed these people up and sent them on trains with no food out to Siberia, where there was no place to live
And so they were packed into houses, you know, maybe they had a squaremeter each to live in and... well their children died of typhoid and and and many of them froze to death, many, many people died – millions of people died – as a consequence of the Dekulakization
The Dekulakization
The Dekulakization
The Dekulakization
Millions of people died as a consequence of the Dekulakization
At least as a consequence of its total effect
So what happened then was that, uh, the- there wasn't any food produced and so then six million Ukrainians starved to death in the 1920's, which is something you never hear about, right? You never hear about that. Why do you never hear about that?! That's a question worth asking
You know, it's an absolute catastrophe
They used to- So these people were starving right to the point of cannibalism, right, I mean, it was ugly, as ugly as anything you could possibly imagine
If you were a mother and- and- so you're supposed to hand over all your grain in to the central committee, mostly for distribution into the cities, you didn't get to keep any for yourself
And so maybe then afterwards if you were a mother you'd go out into fields that had already been, uh, harvested and you'd pick up individual grains of wheat, if you didn't turn those in they'd sho- that was death for you, so that's how far it was pushed, so
Well, so that's a little story about how victimization- how the idea of victimization and- and perpetration can get out of hand extraordinarily rapidly and so whenever people are beating the victim drum, you know, they'll cover that up with with uh empathy roughly speaking we're speaking on behalf of the oppressed it's like maybe you are but maybe you're no saint because you know you're so sure that you're a saint and you're only speaking from the position of good
Highly unlikely
Highly unlikely
Highly unlikely
Highly unlikely
Highly unlikely
Highly unlikely
credits
released September 5, 2021
📖 Spoken Word by Jordan B. Peterson
🔈 Mix, Mastering & Visuals by 2mørVs
🎶 Production, Arrangement & Instrumentation by 2mørVs
Alan Watts has a deeply calming way of talking lightly about the most fundamental sekrets (sic!) of our universe, and we wove his talks about the web of life into this web of music. 2mørVs
The first time I took part in the making of a JBP record and also the first time he recorded lyrics especially for one of the songs, I feel very blessed for being a part of this! 2mørVs
