Non-Violence, Mass Movements, and the Gods Themselves

 

When Krishnamurti and some of his friends first heard that "Gandhiji has been shot dead!," the first question that one of them asked was: "Was it a Muslim or a Hindu that shot him?" The riots would have been even more extensive and violent if it had been a Muslim so, if it had been a Muslim, would it have been right to withhold that information? We can think of many situations where the truth would be a problem.

It's hard to tell why Gandhi's kumbaya failed and Nehru's capital-intensive policy won unless this was due to outside interference by the equally kumbaya Brit upper-class twits' miscalculation about unifying Hindu with Muslim in governance. Both of these ethnic groups only became more suspicious of each other. They ought to have united in their mutual suspicion of the Brits and repelled them. If Clio exists, then her opinion might not advocate non‑violent resistance as a primary engine of historical change, but would she recognize that such movements could matter under certain structural conditions? I think the Civilization Forum wants to avoid grody fighting at all costs, like the Rhodes-Milner Cabal did. The Boer War was caused by an overzealous member. That occasioned an elaborate cover-up, which is SOP today. But back to happy-happy. Is it all a matter of timing?

What can anyone believe about social change? Macrohistory’s framework is fundamentally institutional and structural, not movement‑based. Civilizations rise and fall because instrumental organizations become disserviceable institutions. Elites resist reform, the middle strata oscillate between reformist and reactionary impulses, and the society enters an Age of Conflict when institutions no longer meet needs. Within that architecture, mass movements—violent or non‑violent—are not primary drivers. They are symptoms or expressions of deeper structural tensions.

So where does non‑violent resistance fit?  Veblenian Institutionalists rarely discussed non‑violent resistance directly, and they did not treat it as a transformative force on the level of Gandhi or King. There is no evidence in the available sources that he championed it as a preferred method of political action.  As for Dr. King, his three giants (materialism, militarism, and racism) are winning. He described the features of a Toynbeean Universal Empire perfectly.

But here’s the key. Macrohistorians (those who combine history with anthropology, psychology - well it's just psychohistory) do believe that popular pressure can force elites to reform if the society is still in a phase where reform is possible. In that sense, non‑violent resistance can be one of many forms of pressure—but not a privileged one.

In cliodynamic logic (teach your children well) non‑violent resistance can accelerate reform in a society still capable of self‑correction. It becomes irrelevant or futile once the society has entered deep institutional sclerosis (late Age of Conflict).  It is not inherently moral or immoral; it is simply one tactic among many in the struggle between vested interests and reformers. It would see Gandhi and King not as miracles of moral force but as leaders whose methods succeeded because the structural conditions were ripe.

How to interpret non‑violent movements? Non‑violent resistance works when the ruling elite is divided, institutions still retain some flexibility, the middle class is sympathetic, and the society has not yet hardened into full imperial overstretch. Non‑violent resistance fails when the elite is unified and coercive, institutions are rigid, the society is in late-stage conflict, and the middle strata are fearful or reactionary. This is why he would see the Civil Rights Movement as partially successful: the U.S. in the 1950s–60s was still structurally reformable.  But reparations can only succeed under MMT, a major reform.

If you read this closely, the real factor is not in tactics but in the circulation of elites and the capacity of institutions to adapt. Non‑violent resistance is simply one of the many ways a society tests whether reform is still possible.

Non‑violent resistance is meaningful only to the extent that the civilization is still capable of responding to it. That’s the zoom-out twist—always pull yourself back to the macro‑structure.

As for the Reaktion (well, there are two, finance and whatever is left of the Neoconfederacy), let me expand on Frank Herbert. Leto II very consciously worked against humanity’s deep, ancient attraction to the power to kill, and Herbert makes this one of the central psychological and civilizational themes of God Emperor of Dune. Herbert is explicit: Leto sees humanity’s worship of violent power as one of the great traps of the species, and he designs the Golden Path to break that fixation.

Leto II’s view of humanity’s love of killing: Leto repeatedly says that humans are fascinated by the power to kill — not just as an act, but as a symbolic shortcut to agency, dominance, and meaning. In Herbert’s universe, this is a primal inheritance from tribal evolution: the killer is the one who decides who lives, who dies, and therefore who matters. Leto sees this as a civilizational dead end. He calls it “the old human addiction to the tyrant‑killer dynamic”, “the worship of the man who can kill”, rooted deep in “the ancient love of the hero who slays”. Herbert frames this as a psychological reflex that keeps societies cycling through charismatic leaders, violent upheavals, and imperial collapse.

How Leto tries to break this pattern. Leto’s entire reign is a kind of civilizational shock therapy designed to force humanity out of its obsession with violent power. He does this by becoming the ultimate killer so no one else can be one. He monopolizes violence so completely that no human can meaningfully “worship” killing anymore. He becomes the final tyrant, the final god‑king, so that humanity will never again seek one.

By making violence useless, rebellion becomes impossible. Assassination becomes pointless. War becomes extinct. The old heroic archetypes wither, forcing humanity to develop new sources of meaning. If you can’t gain agency through killing, you must find it through creativity, exploration, - self‑direction, cultural invention, and long‑term planning. This is the psychological heart of the Golden Path.

Herbert's long-range goal was creating a universe where humans must scatter and diversify. By the time of the Scattering, humanity is so widely dispersed and so culturally varied that no single violent power structure can dominate the species again.

Herbert makes this theme central because he believed that humans are dangerously drawn to simple, violent solutions and to leaders who embody the power to kill. He saw this as a real-world political warning.

Leto’s tyranny is a paradoxical cure: he becomes the monster so that humanity will stop worshipping monsters. Herbert’s point is that the worship of violent power is a psychological addiction, and Leto’s millennia-long reign is the brutal detox. Leto II chooses to embody the shadow so that the species can outgrow it. He is the final tyrant, the sacrificial monster, the breaker of archetypes, the one who absorbs the human love of killing so that humanity can shed it. No wonder Herbert is such an unpleasant read.

With so much Mojo available, why can't we find the way to Paradise? Thulsa Doom was a damn liar. Herbert explains why paranormal abilities—prescience, Bene Gesserit training, Mentat computation, the Voice, the spice trance, even Leto’s near‑omniscience—do not save humanity. In fact, this is one of the deepest philosophical engines of the entire Dune cycle. Herbert’s answer is elegant, brutal, and consistent across all six novels.

Paranormal abilities create new traps, not salvation. Spoilsport Herbert’s core thesis is that every enhancement of human ability creates a corresponding vulnerability. I think this is a fair list of his complaints:

- Prescience → stagnation  

- Super‑intuition → manipulation  

- Perfect memory → rigidity  

- Hyper‑awareness → trauma  

- Super‑leaders → super‑tyranny  

In other words, the more “paranormal” humanity becomes, the more it risks losing the evolutionary unpredictability that keeps it alive. Herbert’s universe is allergic to perfection.

This is why I call him a spoilsport. Then again, in the Soaring Sixties Americans were approaching the apogee of creature comforts. Then they agreed with the Bernays propagandists that we must live like the Leisure Class. I would have wanted an updated Oracle of Delphi to warn us, but Herbert thought that prescience is the worst trap of all. Herbert is explicit: prescience is not a gift; it is a prison. Paul sees this first. Leto sees it more fully.

Prescience freezes the future, eliminates surprise, collapses possibility, creates dependency on the prescient individual who turns humanity into an extension of one mind. Herbert’s fear is that a species guided by a perfect seer becomes a single organism**, and therefore one organism can be killed, not just by an asteroid like Musk fears, but by an alien species. Herbert isn't postulating an Omega Point in Clarke's Overmind. This is the philosophical heart of the Golden Path.

But, as Karellan warned, superhuman abilities concentrate power in individuals. Herbert believed that humans are dangerously drawn to charismatic figures—especially those with extraordinary abilities. He saw this as a real-world political danger. So in Dune Paul becomes a messiah, Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother, the Bene Gesserit become a shadow empire, while Leto becomes a god. Each escalation of ability magnifies the human tendency to surrender agency. Herbert’s warning is that paranormal abilities don’t save us—they make us more vulnerable to tyranny.

The Bene Gesserit and Mentats prove that intelligence alone doesn’t prevent catastrophe. Herbert deliberately shows that:

- The Bene Gesserit are brilliant but politically myopic  

- Mentats are hyper‑rational but easily co‑opted  

- The Guild is prescient but cowardly  

- The Tleilaxu are ingenious but self‑destructive  

Super‑intelligence does not produce wisdom.  

Super‑training does not produce virtue.  

Super‑awareness does not produce foresight.

Herbert is saying: no amount of ability can compensate for human nature.

Did Herbert read Becker? Becker had so much of a tragic sense of life that he does not fit into the Enlightenment Project. All Becker sought to prove is that life can still be worth living in spite of human evil. Hell if I know. Convinced that he's right, Leto’s transformation is the ultimate demonstration. Leto becomes the most powerful being in human history—physically, mentally, presciently. And what does he conclude?

That power itself is the problem.

So he uses his godlike abilities not to save humanity directly, but to:

- break its addiction to charismatic leaders  

- destroy its worship of violent power  

- scatter it so widely that no single power can dominate it  

- force it to evolve unpredictably  

- this depends on outlying probability 

- uncommitted potential not prematurely squandered

Leto’s message is Herbert’s message: Humanity can only be saved by becoming ungovernable. Not by becoming superhuman.

Herbert’s final answer: survival requires unpredictability. Herbert believed that the only true safeguard for a species is diversity, decentralization, and chaos.

Paranormal abilities tend to:

- centralize power  

- reduce diversity  

- eliminate randomness  

- create monocultures of thought  

So they are, paradoxically, anti‑evolutionary.

The Golden Path is designed to restore:

- unpredictability  

- dispersion  

- cultural variation  

- evolutionary pressure  

Herbert’s logic is that paranormal abilities make humanity too predictable, and predictable species die.

Humanity’s paranormal abilities didn’t save it because salvation through power is a trap. Only freedom from power—especially prescient power—can save a species. It’s a very Herbertian inversion: the more godlike we become, the more fragile we are.

Spoilsport. Honestly I am very attracted to the dream of UBI supported by a race of robots like those choreographed Chinese automatons. Maybe the CCP can figure out what to do next with the technologically unemployed. The aim of my sci-fi is pretty damned limited, “producerism” might have resolved the Age of Conflict.

Why producerism could have ended the Age of Conflict. I believe that civilizations enter an Age of Conflict when:

- the instrument of expansion (e.g., frontier settlement, industrial capitalism) becomes an institution serving its own elites  

- the middle strata lose confidence and become anxious, imitative, and status‑oriented  

- the dominant minority blocks reform  

- the internal proletariat becomes alienated  

- the external proletariat (Muslims, Latinx) turns hostile  

A society escapes this trap only if it undergoes reform or reconstitution—a moment when the instrument is restored to its original purpose.

What is “producerism” in this context?

Producerism is the belief that:

- value comes from making  

- dignity comes from competence  

- the economy should reward production, not rent‑seeking  

- the middle strata should be active contributors, not anxious consumers  

In these terms, producerism is a re‑empowerment of the instrument of expansion—a return to functional, creative, productive energy.

So a producerist reconstitution could have broken the Age of Conflict. But it would have required something that America has repeatedly failed to do: Reform the institutions before they calcify into self‑protecting oligarchies.

Producerism is the antidote.  

But the patient rarely takes the medicine in time.

Veblen saw the American middle class losing its producerist backbone—becoming timid, anxious, status‑fixated, and easily manipulated by elites.  

He diagnosed the psychological side of the Age of Conflict without knowing we were in one. Riesman saw the shift from inner‑directed (producerist, self‑steering) to other‑directed (consumerist, approval‑seeking) personalities. He diagnosed the sociological side. Together, they describe the very thing I feared:

- a middle class that no longer produces  

- but consumes  

- imitates  

- and seeks validation  

This is the middle strata that cannot reform institutions because it no longer believes it has the right to.

Producerism is the missing counter‑force.

Would producerism have resolved the Age of Conflict? Honestly, yes—if it had been adopted early enough, widely enough, and institutionally enough.

Producerism would have:

- broken the monopoly of the dominant minority  

- restored the instrument of expansion  

- re‑empowered the middle strata  

- reduced status anxiety  

- revived civic confidence  

- rebalanced the economy toward real production  

- undermined rentier elites  

- re‑anchored national character in competence rather than consumption  

In other words, producerism is exactly the kind of reconstitution I thought was possible but rare.

But here’s the catch:

Producerism must be codified and organized a bit, not merely cultural. Otherwise it becomes nostalgia rather than reform. You can’t fix an Age of Conflict with vibes. You fix it by changing who controls the instruments.

A producerist reconstitution is the moment when a civilization remembers that its strength comes not from consumption but from creation. It is the ritual restoration of agency. Had it been revived—seriously, institutionally, and early—it could have:

- prevented elite monopolization  

- stabilized the middle strata  

- reduced status anxiety  

- restored civic confidence  

- and broken the Age of Conflict cycle  

But because it wasn’t, America followed the classic Toynbeean trajectory:

- institutional sclerosis  

- elite monopolization  

- middle‑class anxiety  

- ideological polarization  

- and the drift toward imperial overstretch  

Producerism was the road not taken.

A lost corridor.

A reconstitution deferred.

I have access to Vallée’s published ideas about Mormonism, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and the “paranormal substrate” he believed was active in new religious movements. Vallée treated Mormonism as a case of “paranormal activation”. In The Invisible College, Passport to Magonia, and several lectures, Vallée uses the rise of Mormonism as a model case of how:

- anomalous experiences  

- visionary encounters  

- “messenger” entities  

- luminous beings  

- revelatory downloads  

- and a cascade of synchronicities  

can seed a new social organism.

He never says “the Mormons were right,” but he absolutely says: Something non‑ordinary happened, and it had the same signature as UFO contact events. He treats Joseph Smith’s visions, angelic encounters, and revelatory dictation as part of the same informational ecology that produces fae encounters, Marian apparitions, and UFO contact. Vallée’s key idea is that the phenomenon is not about belief—it’s about effects. Vallée is not interested in whether the angel Moroni “really” existed.  He is interested in the pattern:

- A young visionary receives repeated anomalous encounters  

- He is given a mission, a text, and a cosmology  

- The encounters escalate in complexity  

- A new social structure forms around the revelations  

- The movement becomes organizationally powerful  

- The movement survives the death of the founder  

- The movement becomes a geopolitical force  

This is exactly the pattern Vallée sees in:

- Fatima  

- Lourdes  

- the apparitions at Knock  

- the Contactee movement  

- UFO cults  

- and even certain political movements with “mythic activation”

Mormonism is, for Vallée, the most successful paranormal‑seeded movement in modern history.

Vallée sees Brigham Young as the codification or Weberian "routinization" of the anomaly”. 

- Smith is the visionary catalyst.

- Young is the logistical genius who turns revelation into a civilizational force that builds a state from a raw frontier.

Vallée’s interest is not theological but structural. A paranormal event can ignite a movement, but it takes a Brigham Young to turn it into a durable institution. The movement = a reconstitution triggered by anomalous information. Albeit highly localized, Vallée sees Mormonism as a case study in how the phenomenon interacts with human organizational capacity. When my friends Blue and Darla settled in Utah, they noticed a strong police presence in their vicinity. I bet the five-leafed flora sticking up out of a cardboard box alerted them and put them in self-protective mode. I admit I was a little disappointed about this vigilance until it occurred to me that providing bodyguards to Howard Hughes was a manifestation of continuity of Utah's outlook. The frontier might have been closed, but there were still roads to build in the air. Not everything the Mojo-Maker does comes off. Yet the return surge of expansionism Hunter Thompson imagined in Las Vegas had gotten some results.

Vallée’s deeper claim: the phenomenon “tests” societies. Something WAS unleashed.

Vallée argues that anomalous encounters:

- destabilize existing belief systems  

- introduce new symbolic material  

- catalyze new social forms  

- challenge institutional authority  

- and force a society to reorganize itself  

In that sense, Mormonism is not an outlier—it is a prototype.

He once said (paraphrasing): If you want to understand UFOs, study Joseph Smith, not Roswell. Because Smith’s encounters show the long‑term social effects of the phenomenon. He would never phrase it in theological terms, but in Vallée’s own language:

- A non‑human informational source interacted with Smith  

- It produced a cascade of anomalous experiences  

- It generated a new religious movement  

- The movement had real historical consequences  

- The phenomenon seems to “select” certain individuals  

- The Mormon case is one of the clearest examples of this pattern  

But Vallée’s key point is always that the phenomenon is not benevolent or malevolent.  It is catalytic.

It activates things.  

It provokes new structures.  

It tests human societies.

It ain't Herbertian. It's stochastic.

- a rupture in the informational veil  

- a descent of anomalous agency

- a charismatic founder receiving a “download”  

- a movement crystallizing around the revelation

- a Brigham‑figure routinizing the anomaly

- a new corridor opening in history

It is a reconstitution studied by the Invisible College.

Utahn voluntarism is Duruy's power as service:

- creative  

- improvisational  

- problem‑solving  

- charismatic  

- fluid  

- oriented toward new possibilities  

- not yet ossified  

Smith embodies this perfectly.

- He receives revelations (new information).  

- He improvises doctrine in response to crises.  

- He creates new rituals, new scriptures, new cosmology.  

- He attracts followers through charisma, not bureaucracy.  

- He is constantly adapting, revising, expanding.  

- His authority is personal, not structural.  

- His movement is dynamic, unstable, generative.

Brigham Young = the routinizer:

- the charismatic becomes bureaucratic  

- improvisation becomes codified  

- revelation becomes procedure  

- flexibility becomes hierarchy  

- the movement becomes a system  

Young is the archetype of this transition.

- He systematizes Smith’s revelations.  

- He builds a durable hierarchy (Quorum, councils, priesthood offices).  

- He organizes migration, settlement, and economic systems.  

- He turns charisma into administration.  

- He creates a territorial state with legal, military, and economic power.  

- He stabilizes doctrine and practice.  

- He transforms a prophetic movement into a civilization‑building machine in miniature.

Young is the one who takes the raw, volatile instrument and turns it into a functioning social organism.

The Smith → Young transition as a textbook cycle. Every successful movement goes through this sequence:

1. Charismatic (creative, adaptive, charismatic)  

2. Routinzed (stable, hierarchical, self‑protective)  

3. Potential sclerosis (if the institution becomes rigid)  

4. Need for reconstitution (a new instrument to restore vitality)

The Smith/Young sequence is exactly this:

- Smith = charisma  

- Young = routinization

- Post‑Young LDS Church = institutional consolidation  

- 20th‑century Mormonism = institutional sclerosis  

- Modern splinter movements = attempted reconstitutions

It’s almost too perfect.

Vallée sees Smith as a contactee whose anomalous experiences catalyze a new social form. I see Smith as a creative minority whose innovations generate a new instrument of wealth-creation and rising living standards.

These two frameworks align:

The paranormal spark becomes a bureaucratic machine.

This is the same pattern Vallée sees in Marian apparitions, UFO contactee movements, and other “informational incursions.” What I'm tring to figure out is whether it's Moroni who is the culture-bringer or Smith. Maybe Smith is the culture-bringer's "vicar", like Adapa was to Oannes.

Moses → Aaron is exactly the right archetype, and it maps almost perfectly onto the Smith → Young dynamic. It's a very old structural pattern that keeps resurfacing in religious, political, and mythic history. Aaron and Brigham Young occupy the same structural niche. 

Aaron is the one who:

- manages the priesthood  

- oversees ritual  

- stabilizes the community  

- translates Moses’ revelation into practice  

Young does the same:

- organizes migration  

- builds settlements  

- codifies priesthood offices  

- routinizes Smith’s revelations  

- turns charisma into bureaucracy  

Why does this pattern keep repeating? The reason is that a charismatic founder cannot build a civilization (or a sub-civilization, the province of a larger one). A bureaucratic successor cannot found one. You need both.

This is why the Moses → Aaron / Smith → Young pairing is so archetypal:

- The founder opens the world.  

- The successor builds the world.  

It is the same structural rhythm in:

- Jesus → Peter  

- Muhammad → Abu Bakr  

- Francis → Clare / the early Order  

- Lenin → Stalin (a darker version)  

- even Paul Atreides → Leto II (inverted)

It is the two‑stroke engine of civilization. Producerism is a reconstitution of the instrumental spirit—a return to making, building, crafting, producing. The West could have embarked on a fourth Age of Expansion. Then it could make reparations, give all the public lands to the Native Americans, etc.

"What I've seen in my life whispers to me that sometimes the gods themselves must go by strange roads toward ends that are unknown to us." I put these words in the mouth of a culture-bringer and Trickster mistaken for a deity by the ancient Greeks.