Multiversal News Agency
Religion Department
Sub-department Alpha 4, Gamma 7
Timeline 1.5.8.32.99^3 (Worst Timeline Ever)
I recently interviewed a complete rando, John Smith, about the well-known, entirely human practice, called “kissing-ass”. Unlike the philosopher of this same timeline, Harry G. Frankfurt, who wrote a well-researched, academically sound, and insightful book on bullshit, called, On Bullshit, this guy just pulled this shit out of his ass in about an hour. Turns out you don’t have to have a degree in philosophy to know that kissing-ass is bad for humans. I can’t personally verify that because I have a degree in philosophy.
The following is transcripted and abridged from an interview done on [dates redacted].
John Smith, you wrote a groundbreaking book about the roles of ass-kissing [hereafter used interchangeably with kissing-ass] and sychophantic behavior in the downfall of society.
You’d be surprised, but it is actually one of the best documented aspects of human history, that it’s not so much the warlords and dictators, and generals, etc., that are the ones who have utterly corrupted and destroyed human civilizations over time, it is all the normal people who look up to the absolute worst pieces of shit of all time, and valorize their behavior. It turns out that we can conclusively prove that if no one went along with doing the bad things that bad people want to do, the bad things would not actually happen. They just can’t.
Really, so no one can actually make an adult do something they don’t want to do?
Yeah, well, you’d be surprised, but usually no, you can’t actually make an adult do jack shit they don’t want to do. Now, that’s surprising, because all the time people say they are doing things they don’t want to do. But that’s not really true. What they mean is they are doing things they only want to do because of instrumental or external goods, and they don’t appreciate the intrinsic goods of the activity itself. For instance, a person may say they dislike their job, and they don’t want to do it. What they mean is the actual activity of their job–e.g., technical support–they don’t enjoy doing for its own sake. Maybe, for example, they aren’t a natural problem solver. Maybe their boss is a total piece of shit. But what they do want and enjoy is the money they make–money itself, being a merely instrumental good that is valued because it secures other goods we enjoy for their own sakes.
“Maybe their boss is a total piece of shit.”
John Smith, in suggesting why people don’t want to go to work.
We do have fancy words for some exceptions, though. They’re called coercion and manipulation. We call it coercion, for instance, when someone puts a gun to your head and “makes” you do something you wouldn’t otherwise do. Arguably, without actual mind control, it turns out human beings do still have the option to resist, but we do call that choice coerced. It turns out that, if you accurately measure the millions and millions of terrible, horrible things that human beings do to one another, a very tiny, just miniscule percentage of them happen due to coercion. Now, there are more morally complex situations we could talk about here, but for now, we’ll leave it at that.
Manipulation, however, is a much bigger player in the “percentage of horrible deeds done” calculus. In our context, manipulation means that some person with some power, authority, or influence, promises that doing a terrible, horrible, obviously cruel and bad thing to another person, will somehow benefit you! Oftentimes, we find that the benefits don’t really have to be actually beneficial, they just have to feel beneficial to the people who are doing it. Turns out, a lot of fucking dumb humans will do absolutely the worst things to other people for the wonderful feelings they get out of them. Maybe they get a feeling of safety, or superiority, or security, or being on the inside of a group that has lost both its mind and its soul to collective delusion and cruelty. (It should also be noted that some people are just spiteful and cruel people and actually just get off on human misery itself.) It has in fact, been conclusively demonstrated that some people will support any atrocity done to another human being–that if done to them, mind you–they would wail and cry out to God for deliverance, and never shut up about the injustices done to them–but they would do that godforsaken act to another just because they get some solid feels out of it. They don’t need anything else. In fact, they will also do, support, empower, the absolute worst shit in the world, that also hurts them, if at least it hurts someone they’d like to be better than.
“Some people are just spiteful and cruel people.” No matter the truth, many of you will just go on refusing to accept this is possible.
Really? There’s non-scientific evidence that human beings are that motivated by spite and the desire to be superior to another group of people?
Oh, absolutely. There’s also a shitton of nonscientific evidence that human beings, instead of growing up to be whole human beings who actually love themselves and other people, are rather small, craven, inwardly-bound wretches who feed off spite, anger, and meanness to people who are different than them. Pretty sure the scientific evidence for these things also exists, but we’re not interested in that today.
So is this behavior just limited to the people who surround and prop up wealthy and powerful dictators? It is not in fact, found, in the average person who goes to work, participates in church, temple, or whatever their religious community is, and has a couple of dogs and a cat?
Oh, absolutely not. These are the people who are the absolute fucking worst, and the cause of all the other shit in the system. These people are the real ass-kissers. What do you think they do when someone wrongs them, or wrong someone they love?
Confront the person who wronged them, and explain to them, with kindness, but also directness, maybe some anger and hurt, what it is that they’ve done, and why they shouldn’t have done it?
You’re an idiot. No one does that. What people do is they find the person in whatever family, job, or community they are apart of who they perceive to either be the most vulnerable, or the most reasonable, or otherwise malleable, and they try to force that person to take all the responsibility for the shitty behavior of a person who already is, or else is rapidly becoming a shitty person, in part because no one will say a godforsaken word to them about their behavior. Instead of requiring the person who has done wrong to actually take responsibility for their actions, we demand from those who are wronged that they either put up with being wronged, or that they actually make up and adjust themselves because assholes gonna asshole.
“Assholes gonna asshole”, John Smith, Year of Our Lord, 2025.
But surely you don’t mean this behavior happens in families?
Oh, it happens every fucking day in families. “Families” is where people learn all of the ass-kissing, brownnosing, dick-worshipping, psychopathic behavior in the first place. Parents, closely followed by church, are the OG dictators. “Family” is where children learn that they do not matter, and that “love” is a word that family members use to make you shut up and do what your abuser or neglecter wants you to do. Do you really think that if you grew up enjoying what it was like to have your soul intact, that you would be so eager to sell it for some imagined pleasure at harm done to other people? The first little baby sycophants are made to simp for mommy and daddy because mommy and daddy can’t handle shit. No criticism, no being wrong, can’t apologize–their egos are sooo fragile. And they refuse to grow or learn or change. And they fuck up their children so badly they don’t really know the difference between love and hate by the time they become adults. Haven’t you heard of the whole “going no contact” with your parents? The reason why people do this is not because they’ve been mistreated, it is because their families refuse to acknowledge they’ve been mistreated, and people eventually cannot stand to live in an alternate delulu universe for not one second longer. They are worn out just trying not to be fucking invisible and used.
I…um…I need a break. [I took a break for five minutes because I couldn’t stop crying.]
So that’s what it’s like in this timeline? You don’t actually hold people accountable for any of their behavior?
I mean, every once in a while a person makes a token effort to hold someone accountable for wrong they’ve done. But, let’s look at the white people for a moment, since they are a goddamn cultural tragedy at the moment. White people are like, “what about the black on black crime”? [overt mocking tone] But I say, how is it that this group of people by far has the most advantages in the country, but they do absolutely nothing good with the privileges they have? I swear, if you had a graph–and I do, I have so many fucking non-scientific graphs–you could plot the relationship between privilege and absolute fucking uselessness (particularly, but not exclusively, moral uselessness) and there would be the strongest fucking correlation you’ve ever seen in your whole effed up life. But these white people, they just use the shit they have to enrich the rich, to pass along money and goods they stole generations ago from people of color, to other white people, and then pretend like they did the “Protestant work ethic” thing, and are only enjoying the fruits of their hard work and labor.
But I digress. I was talking about the cultural-tragedy-fascist-making-machine that is white culture in the US of A in 2025. Other people want to blame that on Christian nationalism or evangelicalism, but it isn’t Christian nationalism or Christian evangelicalism that is making Nazis. It’s the white people–it’s white Christian nationalism, and white evangelicals who are the MAGAs and Trump worshippers. Black people aren’t doing it. Shockingly, black people are not usually white supremacists. I mean, you can find one or two of them that are because stupidity knows no ethnic boundaries just as patriarchy knows no gender. Black church is another can of spiritual worms I’m not qualified to go into, but black people did not vote Trump into office. They overwhelmingly rejected him. And the ladies–go ahead, black women–you were not fooled for a moment. You know a snake when you see him. If we’re gonna do illegal shit here in Year of Our Lord, 2025, I say, let the immigrants stay, give them the due process they deserve, but strip the vote from white people until they give up fascism. I think we’d all be better off.
“If we’re gonna do illegal shit here in Year of Our Lord, 2025, I say, let the immigrants stay, give them the due process they deserve, but strip the vote from white people until they give up fascism. I think we’d all be better off.”
John Smith, on hearing that Trump deployed the National Guard against the American people contrary to the law. Not in the best interest of the citizens, and in disproportional response to the relatively peaceful protestors in Los Angeles–for no reason other than to get his jollies up and convince the most gullible people in the history of the world (i.e., MAGA) that there is lawlessness that only he is willing to put a stop to. Next stop, martial law.
I digress again, we could talk for ages about how the forces of culture and religion intertwine, and how they mostly suck right now…. What did you say? This is the worst timeline you’ve ever heard of? I can only hope so. Anyway, we were going to talk about how white people do accountability. Or really, I should say, how white people don’t do accountability.
Oh, I actually have some interesting multiversal data about that. It turns out that postmodern white cultures in this timeline actually ranked in the top 10% of cultures most resistant to accountability in the entire multiverse, and WASP+C, particularly in the United States of America, actually ranked in the top 1%. Congratulations, you’ve actually made the history books outside your own timeline!
I wish I could say I was surprised, but I am not. Well, now I’m too depressed to want to talk about this anymore, but I was going to say before that white people mostly teach their children not to hold people accountable. Only make waves if it benefits you, and it usually doesn’t benefit you. There’s really no institution that the average white person will tell you to challenge for misusing its power unless that institution starts actually murdering and raping people as part of “business as usual”. Then, maybe, but no guarantees, oftentimes spinelessness trumps all other qualities. But occasionally, a person here or there will actually want to stand up for people who are being wronged to the actual people to wronged them.
“There’s really no institution that the average white person will tell you to challenge for misusing its power”. This undisputable fact is challenged by no one in the known multiverse.
Moreover, the capitalist-consumer identity that all Americans, but especially white Americans as the primary beneficiary of privilege in this society, pass along to their children really means that people only think that buying power is important. It certainly trumps human dignity. Institutions are not built to respect and foster the dignity of every human person–they are meant to respect the power of the almighty dollar. But most white people are okay with this because they think they can win at it. People are usually happy to play games they think they can win. What they don’t know, is no one fucking wins this game, and it doesn’t matter because the game sucks, and isn’t a game. It’s life. But people have been mostly persuaded that the only goods that really count for anything are economic goods. I am not sure if that is because those goods are easiest to measure, or because it is one of the rules of the not so secret capitalistic death cult that nearly all Americans participate in, whether they are aware of it or not. You know, that’s kinda like what charismatic Christians call spiritual warfare. Or what they would call it if they actually possessed spiritual insight or cared about anything important. But mostly the church is pretty fucking useless because its obsessed with shit that doesn’t matter and doesn’t even see the stuff that does.
Can you give me an example of the church being preoccupied with something that doesn’t matter?
Sure: the church is rigidly obsessed with imposing an out of date and woefully superficial sexual ethic rather than seeing that opposing or at least inoculating their members against the capitalist death cult that runs much of the world might be a trifle more important thing to focus on.
I think we’ve gotten off on a tangent here. Can we go back to talking about accountability? I’m paraphrasing here, but you’ve indicated that the state of accountability in your timeline is…well…abysmal. What about in religious communities, since we have been talking a little about some forms of Christianity? My records show you have lots of Christians in this version of the United States. I understand there is a “civil war” of kinds going on between three movements (we might cover this in another article), the liberals, the evangelicals, and the fundamentalists. So they don’t treat each other well, but they at least treat the people in their own communities well, don’t they?
[At this point we had to take a ten minute recess because my interviewee laughed so hard he threw up.]
Oh, for crying out loud–you call yourself a reporter? I have never met someone so naive. No. People in religious communities prey first and foremost on the other people in their own religious community. Which is why more people exit churches than join even though people would love to know Jesus. And I said P-R-E-Y, not P-R-A-Y. Only the evangelicals and the fundies really know how to pray, but they all prey on one another. Due to historical circumstances that we hardly have time to get into, the whole of Christendom has been corrupted by ego and power mongering. Especially the power mongering. The fundies and evangelicals are actively turning into Nazis–well, fascists, to be precise, but definitely a lot of them are white supremacist neo-Nazis, because that is how a white supremacist do in the USA. But part of the patriarchal power structure that they are so desperately devoted to means that they protect wrong doers if they see that person as “advancing the cause of the kingdom”. So, to give an example, members of a church might be more reluctant to criticize or hold accountable their pastor, elder, or a leader in the church because they think it might embarrass the church or make them look bad to unbelievers, or even to other members of the church.
But…doesn’t that just create a haven for authoritarianism? For people who are comfortable abusing their power? And [consults data] doesn’t the Bible give specific directions about the need to hold people in the church community accountable?
[Five minute pause as interviewee laughs until he starts crying uncontrollably.]
At first it was funny to me that you thought people who go to church read the Bible and do what it says. Then I saw how that was sad, and I got stuck there.
It definitely creates a haven for authoritarianism. They’ve created a whole tribe of little dictators who abuse even the smallest amount of authority they have over other people. And then those assholes convince the members of their congregation that they are holier or better people if they put up with that shit. They might call that kind of cowardice and complicity gentleness, or meekness, or kindness. And you can kinda see how all this Christian language gets married in the culture to patriarchy and white supremacy. White women are probably the people this works on the best. They’ve been conned for centuries into conflating going along with their oppression with holiness and gentleness.
It also creates an environment where Christian leaders can be the absolute worst without anyone having any expectations that they might be psychologically at least functional, let alone well-rounded and mature grown ups. Most of these communities don’t tolerate well rounded and mature grown ups well. They need insecure and desperate people who refuse to stick up for themselves, and are looking to religion to laud them for this particular form of self-abandonment. Or just oblivious people. Or people with no expectations because they’ve been treated so terribly in the past that “not awful” is the same as “amazing” to them. But yeah, Christians are some of the worst kiss-asses out there because they have spent hundreds of years being trained in conformity, mindless obedience, fideism, superficial devotion, and a thousand other vices masquerading as virtues. And they don’t do this because they believe in the kingdom of God–they do it because it makes people easier to manage. Of course, a lot of people sincerely believe that these terrible things are good…but come on, how long does it have to smell like shit before you go wash your hands of it?
Well, I want to die now. Is that the point of your book?
No. The point of my book, like the point of so many other books–including the Bible, in fact– is that the world is the way it is because of the choices people make. It isn’t determinism, it isn’t the will of the gods. It is the choices of human beings. Which does mean it doesn’t have to be this way. We could make a different world. If we want to make a different world, it will involve every single person. You cannot blame Trump for being an asshole and a dictator, and then abuse the little personal power and money you have. You cannot blame the cowards in leadership in our Senate, and the sellouts in the Supreme Court, if you yourself are a coward and sell out in the smaller things in your life. The little things matter, and they build to the bigger things. These people in leadership have no business being there because they have no integrity. Choose to be more than them, choose to work at integrity every day. Start with compassion. You cannot be an asshole to yourself and kind to others. It will not work. If you think it does, you are merely self-deceived. If you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of people out there with a pretty superficial view of what kindness means. They are usually superficially nice or at least restrained in their words, but their actual actions are profoundly cruel to themselves and others.
You cannot think that your own actions are insignificant. You cannot think that failing to hold people accountable in your life is meaningless. You cannot think that your personal abandonment and bullying of the people in your life that have been mistreated is meaningless. You have to stop making excuses for the shit that people do. You have to tell the truth. You need to be willing to sacrifice SOMETHING–maybe not EVERYTHING–but certainly SOMETHING to have some fucking integrity, to do the right thing, to treat a person with compassion and respect even if that means going out of your way a little bit. You need to start now, if you’re not already doing it. You need to do a little good (at the very least) every day.
Have some hope. Without hope, we will do nothing and things will be the same or worse. Since the losers in charge right now keep inventing worse forms of evil, I would bet on worse. So, no, just giving up and dying isn’t an option, but I understand why you might feel that way.
Okay…okay, I will try.