PROGS AND DOOLITTLES

An uniquely insightful slab of meat

by James Lawrence

I must confess to a certain unedifying, if only occasional, habit: poring over the stories of people who got themselves hurt or killed through breathtaking displays of stupidity. Such online rubber-necking is popularly catered for by the Darwin Awards website; but I tend to find more cause for morbid fascination in the antics of a class of people who might be termed 'Doolittles'.

The Doolittle, as the name suggests, is a person who thinks that he or she can make friends with dangerous wild animals. A common pattern is for the Doolittle to experience a long run of luck with this unwise show of affection, which gives rise to an inner conviction of his or her "special connection" with the predatory species of choice, before the fantasy is dispelled in a few violent moments and with a great deal of blood. Unfortunately, what might be a case of individual natural deselection often results in the death or injury of sane bystanders, for Doolittles are hardly shy about dragging other people into their lunacy.

One example of a Doolittle would be Dr. Erich Ritter, who had most of his calf bitten off after standing for more than an hour in shark-infested water...to prove that sharks aren't really dangerous. A more serious case was that of Sandra Herold, who pampered her 200-pound pet chimpanzee and treated him as a "son", until he decided to go on a rampage and rip off her female friend's face. But if there is a King of the Doolittles, it is probably Timothy Treadwell, who went on regular expeditions in a wildlife sanctuary to live with grizzly bears - and ended up, together with his less enthusiastic girlfriend, furnishing a live supper for a bear that attacked his unprotected camp.

It strikes me that Doolittles, for all of their back-to-nature fantasies, are decidely un-natural products of a peculiar kind of modern human society. For one thing, I notice that they are invariably of white European descent; to go out into the wilderness and play pat-a-cake with dangerous predators does not seem to be a general human need. It also seems to me that their psychology does not exist in isolation, but forms the more extreme end of a spectrum - the rest of which fills up with progressives intent on flooding European countries with aggressive, unassimilable Third Worlders, who have long been perceived by them as "noble savages" analogous to the Doolittle's "pets".

Challenging conventional narratives about sharks

If this is the case, then Doolittles - by virtue of being a more extreme manifestation of the psychological type - can teach us a great deal about progressives. So let us first jot down, in  no particular order, the distinctive characteristics of the Doolittle:

• Close, chummy, affectionate behaviour towards wild animals, and efforts to close the human-animal gap by assimilating one to the other (Treadwell not only claimed to "love" the bears, but went as far as to identify himself with them; Herold dressed her face-eating chimp in human clothes and fed him on lobster);

• A tendency to downplay the very obvious dangerousness of wild animals, and blame humans for being overly paranoid, jumpy, aggressive etc. (e.g. Ritter's "theories");

•  Conceited personal fantasies about possessing a "special connection" with wild animals or a "special ability" to handle them safely, which is of course denied to the majority of human beings (in truth, this is an illusion created by the tolerance of the animals);

•  A moralistic and contemptuous rejection of other human beings (e.g. Ritter's belief that everyone except him was wrong about the dangerousness of sharks, and Treadwell's practice of acting like a bear to scare away tourists), which can develop into a self-aggrandising 'saviour act' towards the animals (Treadwell claimed to be "protecting" the nationally protected Alaskan bears, and fulminated against "poachers" who apparently did not exist)

•  A willingness to 'proselytise' for Doolittleism and thus put others in harm's way.

Now let us measure these against the corresponding traits of progressives, which should require only passing reference here: their assimilation of non-whites to Europeans ("jihadis are economically disaffected") and sometimes of themselves to non-whites (Rachel Dolezal, Tom MacMaster); their downplaying of the violence and friction created by mass immigration; their moralistic accusations, suspicions and blame-games aimed at ordinary Europeans; their 'white saviour' self-image (whether they admit to having it or not); their indifference to the consequences of inflicting their personal beliefs on others (on this last point, Doolittles are considerably more admirable, as many progressives never choose to live anywhere near their non-white wards).

What might we derive from this comparison to illuminate the common psychology behind progressivism and Doolittleism, and thus make it that little bit easier for us to "know our enemies"?

First, we see a general degenerative tendency of the modern West: the intolerance for all necessary boundaries, differences, and distanced respect, and the desire to subsume all of this under an insufferable, vulgar, forced chumminess and affection. No further commentary is needed here.

Second, we find the paradox - or hypocrisy - of someone who goes out of his way to pretend that a thing is normal and harmless, when he is in fact attracted to that thing precisely because it is "exotic" and "dangerous". We should never take this pretence of normal relations seriously. After all, we have just identified a common psychological thread running through both progressivism and Doolittlism, the one pertaining to animals and the other to non-white humans; and this alone should imply that white progressivists are carrying around a massive amount of hidden supremacist baggage, most of it probably traceable to the Rousseauist "noble savage" tradition, in their interactions with non-whites. If they saw their political allies as normal human beings, rather than as savages-cum-pets, they would likely have far less tolerance for their antics (see: "the racism of low expectations").

Don't ever let a progressive tell you she doesn't dream of this

This is why, in verbal altercations with progressives, harping on the differences that make blacks or Muslims or whatever group unassimilable to white society never has much effect. The progressive knows that they are fundamentally different, that they will never be reconciled to the majority of whites that he despises, and this is precisely why he takes up advocacy for them. Just as Timothy Treadwell would not have achieved any prominence had he chosen to promote close human relations with badgers, few progressives get a kick out of rubbing the Right's nose in Japanese immigrants.

Third, and most importantly, we come to the single most important psychological trait underlying the progressivism-Doolittleism spectrum: a self-aggrandising, arrogant, fantasist pride, which is of course the root of all sin.

We have noted the tendency of Doolittles to vastly overestimate their ability to control, placate and befriend dangerous animals, and to read one-in-a-million "special connections" and similar fantasies into their relations with them. Well, the same process is at work in the minds of white progressivists, who ache to be seen as possessing special insights and bias-free perspectives on the cultures, needs and problems of non-whites. Given the nature of the meliorist, manipulative managerial society described by Sam Francis in Leviathan and Its Enemies, it is no surprise that the ability to understand (and thus, potentially, manage) these alien peoples inevitably becomes a marker of high social status.

Of course, status is no use if everyone is allowed to have it; and this is why both Doolittles and progressives invariably end up castigating and othering the majority of "normal people" (whites for progressives and human beings for Doolittles), who are seen as uncomprehending morons perpetually scheming to harm the noble savages/cuddly free-range pets.

This should be borne in mind whenever we see progressives do outrageous things like chaining themselves up to apologise for slavery, or patiently and attentively lapping up the worst brayings of non-white insolence and ingratitude towards "white allies". To us, who prize the values of 'lions' over the manipulations of 'foxes', these antics look like straight-up cowardice and submission - and we heartily mock them for it with epithets like "cuck", "white sub", and so on. While we should keep using these and other insults to stigmatise progressives, we should be aware that this sort of thing will not puncture their self-esteem, which is rooted in the distance from normal whites that they supposedly gain from such behaviour: they see themselves as going the extra mile to open themselves up to the wisdom of the noble savage, and thus getting a status jump on the unfashionable "white saviours" and "voluntourists" who do not make such extensive efforts.

The pride of the 'white sub'

If we really want to give progressives an unpleasant time, we might do so by puncturing their Doolittle-esque fantasies, by emphasising the paltriness of their efforts to reject white society:

"I think any white person who thinks he has unearned privilege, and feels guilty about it, is probably right about this. Of course, you can't speak for everyone else who happens to be white. But I certainly support your giving up your personal privilege to people less fortunate than you."

"How many refugees have you sponsored to live on your property? What, you can't afford it? Then why do you assume the rest of the country can?"

"Wouldn't you do more good if you went to volunteer permanently in the Third World, rather than having Third Worlders come here to make your latte coffee like colonial servants while you pat yourself on the back?"

These are not just verbal barbs; they reflect an underlying truth, which is that progressivism and Doolittleism both thrive on part-time engagement. Just as the 'Grizzly Man' learned some unpleasant truths about bears the first time he visited them at a time of food scarcity and discomfort, progressives would quickly lose their faux-reverence for non-white immigrants if they lost the ability to interact with them at times and places of their own choosing. While progressives are presently allowed to move and swim in white society one day and then turn around to attack it the next, we must create a paradigm forcing people to make a binary choice between one or the other.

One modest suggestion for a hypothetical nationalist government: threaten to deport all refugees taken in by the previous Cosmopolitan regime, but introduce a clause allowing them to stay if native well-wishers agree to billet them on their own property and at their own expense. If the Good People hold fast to their purse-strings and refuse this offer, then their subsequent protests and virtue-signalling can be met with the proper derision. If they take it up, then most of them will soon learn the value of the reactionary clarion call: "Everything in its proper place".