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Welcome To the Journal of New Dutch Technique 

The second principle of New Dutch Technique is that there is no first principle, But you have to start somewhere so rather than an editorial, let's go straight to the first blog below... 

2/8/2025

State Capture and a Gay Rights Advocate Pastor: A Meditation

This morning I read Tyler McBrien’s excellent article in the New York Times on State Capture, Which is basically when the rule of law breaks down and the Oligarchs take over - guess which country's current dilemma he's writing about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/opinion/elon-musk-donald-trump-government.html

Excellent article and chilling.

Depressing.

The depressing thing about it is that, as I reflected upon his analysis, it seemed clear that this is merely an intensification of a process that began long ago. McBrien draws his examples from Post Apartheid South Africa and Brazil? But he doesn’t think of America’s ‘Gilded Age’ which we are merely experiencing a return to as a number of Times Journalists have noted in recent articles..

This is the fulfilment of the project of Capitalism. Pure Capitalism which is simply the law of the jungle. This is also the fulfilment of civilisation (in most of its incarnations) which entails putting people in cities so they can fence off the land and build up stores of food to feed standing armies which need to be controlled by administrators who are controlled by the ruler. The citizens, then dependent on the lord who they pay protection money to and is allowed to lord it over them. They are then slaves to his generosity. And I say his because usually it is a him.

Whether they then live in safety and prosperity or on the borderline of starvation and in constant fear depends on the personality of the monarch. And this is no different whether that is Nebachadezzer or Andrew Carnegie. It doesn’t matter whether the enforcers are Janesaries, jackbooted goosesteppers or the Pinkerton Agency. The strong do what they want, the weak suffer what they must (to quote another Times columnist quoting an ancient historian quoting the Athenians (if my memory serves me).

And all of this shows that we are just basically animals at heart. As Jordan Peterson is fond of observing (or did, at least once, to be fair, in a conversation with Russell Brand) hierarchy is part of nature. Therefore, while I am ascribing this to civilisation, I do not intend to contrast this with an imagined, pristine Golden Age in which we lived in some sort of matriarchal harmony with nature and our fellows. This is about as realistic as saying animals in the wild live idyllic lives compared to ones in zoos (and maybe the analogy is apt on more than one level, except the keepers of zoos seem to have more of a duty of care and even a genuine love for those dependent on them than do many of the Oligarchs, Administrators, Captains of Industry and Generals who hold our fates in their hands).

But to return to the theme of State Capture, the idea that America is now under threat of it, while it is valuable in so far as it highlights the seriousness of the current situation, might be deceptive in so far as it suggests that the state is going from a Golden Age into one of crisis, rather than this is a mere intensification of the status quo – the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. A situation which has been steadily increasing since the Reagan-Thatcher era.

It seems Marx is increasingly coming back into favour (along with Freud – you just can’t kill some bastards; which term I use with affection). And indeed, it does seem that, to a large degree, world history is indeed the history of class warfare. Equally, there is a good deal of truth in the idea that the history of man is the history of an intelligent animal (which is detached from the Hegelian/Marxist idea of a purpose to history) or a biological machine programmed for selfishness – selfish gene, territorial imperative, radda, radda, radda. Because, clearly, what is behind this destructive acquisitiveness is a primal, primitive desire to sit on the biggest pile of bananas one can accumulate and then try to grab those which belong to everyone else – basic Oligarch mentality. Lions guard their territory, the males fight with other males for dominance of the pride, they fight the jackals and hyenas, and leopards as well, all of whom prey on the deer, buffalo, elephants, baboons etc.

It is, very much Hobbes nature bloody in tooth and claw. All of which is recognised in the big fat book on Altruism by that French Buddhist monk, (throughout almost half of its 700 pages or so if memory serves me). But, as … (I keep on thinking of Picard – but I’m pretty much sure the author I’m thinking of isn’t captain on the Enterprise. Ricard – that’s it!) As Matthieu Ricard observes, there is another side to us. Our prosocial, altrusistic side. We are definitely animals, but saying we are just animals is like saying we’re just molecules, or energy. Well, yes, on one level we are, but just as we have different scientific disciplines to consider people as biological entities, rather than physics, so too we need to consider human beings as energy at a level of organisation which will not be illuminated if we don’t see them as having certain essential characteristics which make them distinct from mere animals – hence the human sciences (my ‘specialty’ in so far as a flaneur has one).

Interestingly (to me) the Times has another article (a very stimulating edition, this one) on a pastor who underwent a conversion from being a traditional fundamentalist evangelist, to being a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights {https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/05/opinion/coming-out-evangelical-pastor.html.  How My Dad Reconciled His God and His Gay Son). This extremely moving story illustrates someone operating out of a more evolved self (crocodiles may know a sort of love but they are essentially predators). This particular pastor, came to question his beliefs due to his son becoming aware he was gay. Sam Harris, for one, has asserted that religion makes people cruel because they follow cruel doctrines. Yet, here is a stunning example of how impoverished Harris and his supporters understanding of religion is. There is no such thing as “Christian doctrine”, just as there is no such thing as a Christian in the same way that there is such a thing as a chunk of quartz – a thing which, when you understand an example of it, you understand every example of it. Harris and co understand religion in the same way as someone who has studied one chunk of quart – and a very nasty one too – imagines they are an expert in geology. Doctrine evolves and devolves. It changes from ‘adherent’ to adherent (the somewhat ironic nature of the term should make the use of parentheses self evident). ‘Christians’ are everyone from those nutjobs who stand on street corners screaming that the gays are all going to hell along with the Jews on the one hand and on the other, the eventually LBTQetc. pastor in the article. And lets not forget to mention certain Jews, if we can count the Jews for Jesus as Christians – and my whole point is, why not? Or are we going to get into the, who is a true Christian argument. As someone whose Father was an apathetic Catholic and my Mother a skeptical Methodist, I think not!

Like any ideology, ‘Christianity’ will affect and mold the personality, beliefs and actions of those exposed to it to some degree. It can’t ‘poison everything’. It may flavour it, and at times unpleasantly, but the direction of causation is not all one way. It will just as much be altered by those who don’t like the taste of the current brand on offer. Isn’t Church of England just the Protestant version of Irish Coffee (or like adding a bit of Whiskey to your water might be a more apt analogy because who is going to pretend the was every any fun in Protestantism – and I’m speaking as someone who had a Methodist granny?) And this is what happened with this particular pastor. Suddenly he couldn’t stomach the brew he’s been getting high on any more. So he added a bit of rainbow spirit and back to business.

And why is this important and what does it have to do with the subject of state capture which I began this missive with? Well, The predators are on the ascendant again. And we need to be clear about who the enemy is and that this is not the mongols suddenly turning up to destroy our perfect heavenly kingdom. This is the mongrels (Australian term for bastard – not used affectionately in this case) who have been living among us taking over the hen house. We’ve been treating these guys as watchdogs, but we’ve been feeding wolves in woolly tuxedos (terrible metaphor but you get the drift).

The danger is not religion, radical Islam, radical Marxism, Fascists or any other shibboleth people are screaming while they are running around like a bunch of clucking hens away from the current crop of crooks in the White House – or into their arms because they’re convinced they will save them from their particular boogeyman.

It has been said that the devil’s biggest trick was convincing the word he didn’t exist. Mammon has done ol’ Nick one better: he’s disguised himself as the saviour and got elected to president. This happened because the American system has been co-opted to the extent that the current mob of deplorables seemed preferable to enough people to try him over the reigning group of deplorables. Clearly there are good people in America – people capable of acting prosocially and whose social conscious is awake. And I do not mean the ‘woke’ because that is a fever dream that part of the left has fallen into and is still struggling to wake up from. They are among the worst believer in Shibboleths and as big a problem as those terrified by ‘radical Marxists’ on the right.

This is not to say that all of the things the chickens are screaming about are not real threats and real problems. Radicals of every description are a problem and damaging someone or something. But we’re swatting at mosquitoes while the wolves are closing in. Whatever the weaknesses of Marxist Theory are, the last election, if nothing else, is a stunning validation of the basic principle that economics is at the core of human history. In the end, whatever else moved people to vote the way they did, it was their desire to have more money. And this is not a condemnation. This is to acknowledge that while man may not live on bread alone, he needs bread, damn it, and as Maslow pointed out (sort of) once he’s got bread he needs eggs, and so on. He may think it is nice to think about how you address someone and would prefer not to offend them, but it isn’t quite as important as feeding the kids. She might actually care about poor immigrants, but not as much as having a roof over her own head (not to mention those pesky kids again).

This is not to say that pronouns or immigrants are the problem, nor that the current administration is going to make people better off – it is merely to note that by allowing economic disparity to deepen over decades the elites have made people so desperate that they are just floundering around for a solution. So much so that when a really badly disguised Fenris wolf comes along and says, I’m not part of the elites, people are willing to give him a go (because, sigh, they are not very educated or discerning – maybe, or maybe they’re like, well, everything’s fucked, let’s fuck it up further and maybe, finally people will wake up – let’s Ragnarock’n’roll.)

And I don’t want to be part of the problem, so let me emphasis that I do not mean to dismiss the concerns of anyone. That is the core of the polarisation that we have been experiencing for so long which is clearly due, to some extent, to rise of the Oligarch owned and (partly) controlled online media platforms. Yes, radical Islam, racist Christians, Hindu Nationalist, Jewish fanatics and psychopathic transgender people and their lunatic supporters etc. are all problems as is uncontrolled immigration, as are white supremacists, and anyone else who prioritizes power and wealth over the common good. But many of them also have legitimate concerns. Some of them are merely psychopaths, whether true believers or opportunists; but by merely labeling everyone who threatens you, or even doesn’t support you to the letter, and screaming them down, we drive those with genuine (and even valid) concerns into the arms of those who will tell them – yes, you are right to be afraid, clearly those other people are fanatics, but things are even worse than you think…

I’m focused on America in this little story – where I’m not making a nod to Ancient Mesopotamia, mythical cave people and stormtroopers – because what happens in America affects the rest of the world. And we are all in this world together. It is not only that we are truly all brothers and sisters, we are also part of an eco-system. Trump and his ascendancy is only the avatar of our own primitivism. Einstein said Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind. Nationalism is the naive belief that somehow I can cut off my own limbs and grow stronger. Like the Black Knight in Holy Grail, it is unaware of its own fatal state. Capitalism is the embrace of inequality. It is the idea that, so long as I am rich, it doesn’t matter who else is poor. Does the lion pity the deer? No. This is the natural order. It doesn’t matter who is sidelined or diminished, just so long as America is great. Just as the streets are full of homeless without it concerning the rest of the country (certainly not Elon Musk), if America is great, and entire countries are full of people who must live like the homeless, how is that a problem?

And the problem for the human race is that America is the envy of the world. Of course, we have outliers like Australia and Canada (and Greenland) where the majority of people value the healthier social contract we have preserved to some degree. But we also have our Oligarchs who will not be content until they have everything (like Springsteen’s unsatisfied King). Australians like to think, it can’t happen here. Exceptionalism is not only an affliction of Americans alone. We have also fallen prey to the globalist, neo-liberal consensus. We are another fairly pathetic conservative-lite country where polarisation continues to grow among a populace which is mesmerised by social media. Our universities are money-making rackets, dominated by group-think where there is much conversation about critical thinking and little evidence of an understanding of the fact that this entails considering opinions which are challenging seriously and developing some balls. We have already had our political embarrassments and disasters. Here, as in the US, the challenge is to reignite conversation, listen to others, show compassion for their fears. Jesus said we must love those who hate us. Well, I’m an Atheist these days but truth is truth. If we stop listening to why people hate us and stop trying to get to know them so they can get to know us, we can’t give them a chance to see we are not that bad (or maybe give ourselves a chance to realise that are more destructive or ignorant than we though and we can grow). We don’t give ourselves a chance to see whether they are genuinely evil or ignorant. Maybe they actually do know something we don’t know. Maybe they are not evil, maybe they are just scared. Even if their fears are wrong or exaggerated, we can’t reassure or correct them if we aren’t talking.

But things are not okay. Things won’t be okay if we just get rid of your shibboleth. The basic system of inequality within nations and between nations is the cause of our troubles, more than anything else. Trump is not going to fix things in the USA, but returning the same ideologues to power who let him get there is not the answer either. We need a revolution in thinking. We need an evolution of our species. We need to stop responding like one species trying to either dominate the rest or trying to survive in a hostile environment, to acting as part of an environment in which our health depends on the health of the whole. There is only one team, people. We need to stop destroying ourselves from within.

Here endeth the lesson.Dr Johannes Scherpenhuizen is an author and artist and the philosophical method of New Dutch Technique, the above piece is an example of. Currently he is providing the art for the Human Fly for IPI comics, prior to which he taught Critical Thinking and Media and Communications at the University of Sydney.