The Remnant
Ayn Rand would have called them ‘The Fountainhead’ but I much prefer Albert Jay Nock’s title for them: ‘The Remnant’.
Sadly, the same old plot line is being played out as predicted with Etheruem.
The Remnant don’t start out that way. They start as those who build in spite of the what the ‘practical’ masses say.
In his essay “Isaiah’s Job”, Albert Jay Nock explores the reasons why mankind is inevitably prone to failing en masse, precisely when it should hold to it’s principles. Only the Remnant remain.
Isaiah’s job was to go out and preach, even though ridicule and scorn were his only reward and he knew it. He questioned the command, wondering why he should speak against the masses and the leaders when it would do no good. I’m not religious, I don’t even believe in a God, but this following passage seems to be a very keen insight into the human condition:
“Ah,’ the Lord said, ‘you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it.”
Before I go into what we can do about it. Lets go over just a little outline of how most if not all human societies are built up, only to be slowly eaten away from the inside until their inner rot finally causes their collapse.
1 ) In The Beginning.
In every large movement, there begins with those who see the vision. The American Revolution provides a clear picture of this. Thomas Paine is a perfect example of the early visionaries who started a movement, and our current Dark Empire is a perfect example of where it seems to inevitably lead.
The early visionaries see the potential, and they help bring about its birth. They invest millions of their own capital of both time and money, and stand by steadfast to see it completed even in the face of ridicule and scorn. In these early days, while the pragmatists ingore the vision, because the crowd as yet doesn’t see its potential, the early visionaries also ignore the pragmatists, and continue building. They do this because they are idealists.
They have seen what the world of men has to offer; they have seen the corruption and graft, they have seen the special pleading of those in power, and they have had quite enough. It’s time to build something better. It’s time to take the power out of the hands of the weak, the simple minded, the pragmatists, the corruptible, the sociopaths with silvered tongues, and charlatans alike.
In the visionaries mind, it is all worth their effort because they are trying to build something that lasts. Its time to make something that is incorruptible, unstoppable, and incapable of third-party interference. Why? Because no matter how well intentioned, those things inevitably lead to ‘lesser evilism’ and the Slippery slope of misguided pragmatism.
The leaders of this group provide the vision, and swear they believe it, and those who want this vision to be a reality help them by becoming ardent supporters both financially and idealogically. Eventually though, comes the inevitable betrayal.
2 ) The Beginning of the End
Regardless of how it began, regardless of its other trials and tribulations, regardless even of how long the movement lasts, should the movement retain its focus and adhere long enough to its founding principles, it will eventually build a mass of wealth. This is when the true test begins.
If the structure in place has even one weakness, then at this stage it is inevitably doomed. Why? Because then come the wealth seekers; The Pragmatists. They weren’t around in the early stages, that wouldn’t have been pragmatic, but now that there is obvious wealth, now that the visionaries have proven that this Mine has gold, then they come, with all their beady eyed enthusiasm to make themselves wealthy off the labor of others.
Soon enough, they begin ingratiating themselves with the powers of this new kingdom. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and when enough wealth enters the picture, the leaders who once were as steadfast as the idealogical center, soon start to lose their own principles. If it becomes politically expedient, they sell out the original idealogy in favor of the new comers philosophy: Pragmatism. You know the end of this as well as I.
But If you wish to know the end result of that pragmatic philsophy, look at America’s political landscape in 2016. Your choices for supreme leader of the land: A criminal Socialist Hillary Clinton, or a megalomaniac Fascist Donald Trump. Could it be any clearer what happens in the old systems? What corruption and graft will end with? The west’s financial system is nearing collapse, and we have not one, but two Insane candidates to choose from. This is what lesser evilism has wrought in the old systems…what do you think it will do in the new? The very same.
Only the Remnant remains coherent and consistent. Only the Remnant has reason, logic, and evidence to sustain its course. The others will say anything, believe anything, and justify ex post facto any belief and decision so long as they secure and retain power. So long as they get their money.
3) The Remnant stand dutifully by, attempting to hold back the masses who cannot percieve their own folly.
Albert Jay Knock put it this way, “The mass man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.”
As a result, the Remnant are now scorned and ridiculed by those who once praised them. The Praise came from those who could see the wealth, but they saw only the wealth, not the principles which preceded it. They are the wealth seekers who came after the grand edifice was built. These ones, pragamatists and power seekers to a man, pretended to be of one accord with the Idealogy that helped build the wealth, but in their hearts they didn’t care about such things. Who would? Only crazy individualists and Nutty philosophers care about the principles that build wealth, they just want the money, and because they don’t understand principles, they think wealth is mere fortune, mere luck, and not the hard won reward granted by the application of principles. They destroy the fountainhead of wealth in their haste to suck it dry.
The Remnant, who brought the vision to life with their ideological belief’s, are now a liability to the ex post facto justifications being presented by those who just want power and wealth, principles be damned. The Remnant are forced out of their own home, forced out of the place they helped to create, and left bereft of hope or vision that there will ever come a Camelot that is impervious to human corruption and graft.
4) The End.
I wish there were more to tell. I wish I could end on a high note. But this cycle has repeated unbroken for all of recorded history. Look through the rise and fall of empires and its the same thing repeated every time. The American Empire being a prime example of idealogical principles, laid out in clear language through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, slowly corrupted over time until that country now is the largest threat to world peace, the largest Empire the world has ever known, with the largest prison population per capita in the world, with the most military bases around the world, and the largest military capable of destroying the entire land area of the world in less than a few days with its nuclear arsenal. I think we strayed a bit from the vision, just a little.
History is a fractal, the shapes are all recognizable, even if the exact nature of each cycle is slightly different. I suppose I should have known better, but I believed the line of ‘benevolent dictator’. I was wrong. I don’t know if there will ever be a Camelot. The use of cryptography to ensure immutable contracts, free of outside control, seemed to be the first glimmer of hope. The last hope.
Here’s hoping Bitcoin can retain something of its heart and soul, here’s hoping somebody holds the line. They are fighting their own version of this, and I’m hoping they can fight back the Masses and keep their system free of corruption.
The ethereum community certainly looks as if it will buckle under the pressure, guided there by the very people who promised to be its gaurdians.
I don’t know what happens from here. I do know that if the Idealogical center, the very people who allowed this vision any success whatsoever, are kicked out of their own community because they stuck by their principles, then we will have to leave and start again, and the community that will be left will be one without a soul, without a clear vision besides what is practical in the shifting winds of politics; and soon enough it will be worthless. You destroy the fountainhead at great folly to yourselves you pragmatists, you just don’t know it until its too late to fix it.
Going forward, the Remnant will need to go about learning from our mistakes. We principled ones will need to band together under a new banner, and continue fighting the good fight. We will need to notice that we were betrayed not by circumstance, but by our very leaders. We will need to ensure a way that no one has power over the code, or there is no decentralization at all. That is the key. Those who hold power over the code, can ‘strongly suggest’ that the system cook its own books. Such a system was broken from the beginning, which just didn’t see it until now.
