By Eric Le Roy
Content 21+ Artem’s recent article “Borders, Bogeymen, and Billion Dollar Boosts” deserves a thorough response. I say this because in many areas his reasoning is beyond reproach and his data irrefutable. If I may presume to put a few words into his mouth (for what follows is neither a quote nor a paraphrase), I would say that the thesis of one aspect of his essay runs something like this:
—We don’t like immigrants because they make us feel uncomfortable; in fact we are afraid of them, and our fear spawns the hostility we feel. It is our defense mechanism. Therefore, we minimize their value and try to justify our prejudice. And we conveniently forget that, if we trace our family trees back far enough, all of us were immigrants at one time or another—
OK, I can buy that. In fact, it reveals the enduring base qualities of ‘human nature’, which is hard to define but repeats itself endlessly on a common level, such as: our fear of the dark; our tendency to procrastinate; our obsession with convenience; our herd mentality, our envy of those better off than we are; our innate curiosity, our compulsion to sing, dance, and create art, etc. Also, as Margaret Atwood stated in an article about Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984: “ Alone among the animals, we suffer from the future perfect tense. Rover the Dog cannot imagine a future world of dogs in which all fleas will have been eliminated and doghood will finally have achieved its full glorious potential. But thanks to our uniquely structured languages, human beings can imagine such enhanced states for themselves, though they can also question their own grandiose constructions.”
‘The future perfect tense’: what a marvelous insight. So we are creatures of a habit, to be sure, but we also have this amazing capacity to think in the abstract and to see the future as if it were the past. By the first of next week, I will have returned from Paris and will be once more in London. (But right now I am here.)
Rover doesn’t think that way. But there is one thing that Rover is sure of, and that is that a dog is not a cat. So Rover chills with the other dogs, and ‘Fluffy the Puss’ hangs her hat among the other cats. Of course they can become friends – dogs and cats – but it takes some work, usually by putting them together when they are very young. But suddenly dropping 100,000 cats into a population of 1,000,000 dogs (or vice versa) would not be a pretty thing to behold. And, let’s be real: the human, future perfect tense or not, is still an animal. And sometimes he acts like one.
As far as I am concerned – and I feel this way increasingly – it is a waste of time chastising humans for being human, and an even bigger waste of time imagining that humans will ever become much better than we are now, at least to the extent that Artem imagines us capable. It is a great folly to think that just because we have moved from drawing and quartering to the noose and then to the electric chair and finally to the ‘needle’ – that we have improved.
Even homogenized dystopian literature terms like ‘vaporised’ and ‘released’ do not camouflage the intent. That violent football matches and MMA brawls have replaced the ancient joy of gladiators fighting to the death or the special treat of watching Christians mud wrestling with tigers does mean that we have lost our blood lust; it just means that we are willing to settle for the placebo. Now, men and women seek the ‘adrenaline rush’ of walking on narrow ledges high above the street and the almost ‘SPLAT’’ near misses of bungee plunging and suped-up roller coasters because modern sapien does not have to run to the office while being pursued by prehistoric carnivores. Nevertheless, they still ‘gotta have that rush.’
No, what mostly changes is not the substances, but kinds of cosmetics used to adjust the surface ; if you want a real on-the-money comparison, let’s think about atrocities committed during times of war. The pure savagery of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars (typically saturated with tofu terms like ‘intervention, military operation, pacification of enemy aggression, liberation, and liquidation (with a smothering sauce of ‘collateral damage’ thrown into the pot) offer us nothing different from anything Shamsi Adad or Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun or General William Tecumsheh Sherman ever did. In short, it’s the same old shit.
Most ‘immigration’ in the past came about by conquest followed by slavery. (No, slavery was not invented in Africa). Before that, it was just Hunter Gatherers who got lost following the caribou across the landlocked Bering strait and woke up in South America 250 centuries later. Migration back then had little to do with ‘immigration’. When the European colonists sailed off in search of China and unwittingly found the Americas instead, they immediately set about violating the hospitality of the indigenous people in ways that we now find repulsive. Although we still do it.
So naturally they claimed that “God’ was telling them to seize the property. (‘God’, it seems, is always offering encouragement when it comes to mergers or corporate take-overs (especially hostile ones) of one civilization by another. God evidently wants us to spread ourselves out over His lovely planet, and if there is resistance, so what? For what good is there in having a God if He does not bless you categorically in your campaign of kicking ass and taking names? A series of rapes might make God blush, but, as is His way, He just turns the other cheek. Of course, sometimes, gods, like people, collide and have different ideas; then it’s a street fight worthy of the Bloods and the Crips, and may the best God win.
We have toilet paper now; the supermarket aisles are full of it. But I would wager that there are even more people wandering around with dirty asses today than there were back when Moses and John the Baptist were out and about. Some things never change, and human nature seems to be one of them. For example, the Christian bible is not much on factual history, but it has human nature down to a fine art. And to modify my analogy in a previous essay about the asshole on a flight from Boston to Seattle still being the same butt-munch when he ‘deplanes’ at his destination, well, you can say as much about the umbilical cord contacting the distant past to the present day. What I mean is, if you could go back to the Athens of Plato and Socrates, you would find the same liars, swindlers, brutes, burglars, and general cunts and wankers that you will find in the Athens of 2025 or anywhere else. If you don’t believe me, go back and try to catch Socrates before the good upstanding citizens force him to drink the hemlock. I’ll bet you old Soc will tell you a thing or two about the virtuous denizens of the community.
This applies to modern day immigration and the problems that have arisen in the sense that we should not expect (as Artem faithfully does) that humans are going to improve in terms of putting aside their primeval and tribal fears. If you come from Poopville and drive 15 miles to Pottville for a drink, and they find out you are from Poopville, the local lads will beat the hell out of you just because you are not from Pottville. I have seen this sort of thing all my life. It explains why urban gangs proliferate and are very territorial. Welcome to the human race. Hey, turf is turf, so stay the hell off ours.
The other point that Artem brings up is demographics. He does this to show that all the bad behaviour we associate with immigrants is topped by the natives (nationals) themselves. The natives are worse, but the immigrants get all the flack just because they are immigrants. This actually goes along with the question of why in America there is a much larger percentage of young black males in prison than whites. The fact is that there are many, many more whites incarcerated than blacks; therefore, one can accurately conclude that more white people commit crimes than black peopledo. And since there is a disproportionate number of young black males in prison, it leads many African-Americans to claim that it’s all down to racism. The white defenders of the status quo respond by saying, “No, it’s because an unusual number of young black men are committing most of the violent and drug related crimes based on their population demographic. They are locked up not because they are black but because of the intense criminal element in this segment of the population. And the argument rages on and on.
Artem also takes the position that immigrant criminality is targeted by the media because it draws attention and creates publicity. This is called ‘sensationalism’ and is the specialty of modern ‘journalism’ – if by ‘journalism’ you mean the lengths ‘reporters’ and ‘correspondents’ will go to in order to start a riot or perpetuate long-held grievances. Indeed, we get the same medicine from the media if a black person is killed by the police in circumstances that show blatant misconduct on part of the police or even a situation where the police response can be called into question. A similar situation involving a white person wrongly killed by police would be much less likely to get strong media attention. In short, our culture has gone tabloid. Social Media is the United Nations of Horseshit.
So what it seems we are speaking of here are matters that, while maybe not always accurate on part of those who have negative perceptions of immigrants, become less appalling and less unreasonable-sounding when we consider the nature of the beast, which is that human beings are territorial and suspicious by definition. Small towns and villages have always been known for this, and it doesn’t take an immigrant to draw these negative reactions out.
Part of it has to do, not with the fact that an immigrant is, by definition, an outlier, an outsider, but on how different the newcomer seems from the already settled population. Let’s make an analogy using aliens from some other galaxy arriving on earth. If these visitors resemble giant spiders or even beetle-like beings with harsh green lights glowing out of extraordinarily bulbous bald heads, we humans will automatically be frightened and respond accordingly – probably attempting resistance by force. The dogs will start growling, the cats hissing, the parrot squawking “What the fuck? What the fuck? What the Fuck?” – and, in short,there will be trouble.
But suppose the new arrivals are all beautiful versions of ourselves? The men debonair and friendly and manly, able to converse in whatever earth language is acquired of them, and the women drippingly winsome and seductive in their dusty-road evening voices. (Maybe with a southern American accent. Or French…or Russian…or….) – wouldn’t we scramble to accept them, pour them a drink, explain the game of football to them, and ask them a zillion questions?
I think we would. At least until a license plate disappeared from the back of a car or a child went missing. Then all eyes would turn immediately to the aliens, gossip would slither from the mouths of the earthlings, conspiracy theories would abound, accusations be made, charges brought to bear, etc. Maybe there would be violence. Well, friends, this is how we are; it’s how we are hardwired. But the lesson I am trying to get across here is that the human look-alikes would at first receive a hospitable reception whereas the cock-eyed looking ‘freaks’ would have the military rolling up with tanks and assault rifles.
For an American, an immigrant from Canada or the UK is no big deal. People from Africa, India (unless they are Silicon Valley types), and from Islamic cultures are not as warmly taken to. Well, it sounds like racism, doesn’t it? And racism is wrong. But should it surprise anyone? I think not. I believe it is just a natural and completely predictable reaction that reflects certain realities, regardless of how unfair they are.
For example, here in Bulgaria where I live, there are many Ukrainian immigrants. They are well received. For one thing, they are not trouble makers; for another, they do not sponge off the state. (It wouldn’t do them any good if they tried.) What we don’t have are many Africans, and I have never seen a single mosque in Varna. It strikes my cynical brain that the reason we don’t have the seriously desperate no-hopers here is because they know they will not get a free lunch. There is nothing here for them in Bulgaria. (Disclaimer: maybe in Sofia, the capital, there is more diversity; I haven’t been there for several years. But somehow I doubt it.)
The same is true of Romania, a country with loads of space but not much in the way of an inclination to receive a huge number of immigrants. The immigrants therefore seem to set their sights on wealthy countries where they can be hosted in a comfortable style. Too comfortable, according to many of the natives. You even have a class of people known as ‘economic immigrants’ who are not running from the Taliban but rather slithering their way into lands where business is thriving. Cunning bastards, but it’s not my job to cast judgment on enterprising spirits.
I will say that one of the problems is the smallness of Europe and the UK. There is only so much Lebensraum. When a prodigious number of foreigners, most without real prospects, pile into a small, already overcrowded nation, sparks are guaranteed to fly. It only takes half a reason. Many people who are in favor of mass immigration, simply laugh and say that the intruders are getting their own back and that it’s a legitimate payback for the colonialism Europeans forced on them in the past. They have a point. The main culprit was the British, who will argue that they brought civilization to these remote places. However, if you study history closely enough and with an open mind, you will soon grimace and gasp as you grasp what a bunch of complete assholes the British really were. Believe me , every dirty trick the Americans know and have ever used, they learned it from these Dicks.
Overcrowding brings out the worst in us. And while Artem rightfully extolls the good things that result from multiculturalism, it remains that the natives are restless, and getting worse. Artem gives many reasons why immigration is a process that ultimately benefits everyone, yet to me it’s like a person who goes to the doctor and explains he is feeling bad. The doctor examines him and assures him that everything is ok. So the guy goes home, but within a few days he feels worse and back to the doctor he heads, only to be re-examined and reassured that he is fine. This repeats itself until the patient finally dies, with the doctor still insisting that nothing was wrong and that the guy was in perfect health.
This is like what globalization clearly means. It sounds good – indeed Europe welcomed it with open arms: “Come one, come all!”, but guess what?
IT DOESN’T WORK.
If you think it does work, just look at the nation of Sweden, once a model state where the highest and most progressive level of civilization flourished. I thought about moving there myself.
Sweden is now the Shithouse of the Universe, and it is all because of immigration. With all the good will in the world, the Swedes just let themselves be eaten alive. Even the police are terrified of the violent immigrant gangs that prowl the cities.
It is a fucking disgrace. Now this does not mean that immigration is bad, only that it needs to be vetted and only legitimate people allowed in. There should be no open door policy. Even back in the good old days at Ellis Island, the Americans didn’t let everybody in. Certain standards had to be met; otherwise they were sent home.
Today, a lot of the problems come from Liberal Guilt and Woke Mentality which call for the complete capitulation of the Evil White Man. That’s really what it’s about. For years now the Left- leaning European governments have caved in to this self-abasement and encouraged it, even insisted on it. Now the tide is turning. Is that right? Is it fair? No, but when did that ever matter?
It is human. Artem, bless him, sees what ought to be and decides that this is what it can be. I, on the other hand, turn my gaze to what has been before and what is now. I have been waiting a long time to see a miracle or a sea change in the human heart, brain, psyche, and moral domain. But, as the Italian expression has it: Quando gli asini volano.
When donkeys fly.
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