Once upon a time in England, a bunch or Earls named Æthel[1]...something got together. And one Æthel-something was like, “Guys, can we talk about the Vikings?!” And another Æthel-something was like, “OMG, the frickin’ Vikings, right!” And another Æthel-something was like, “You guys, for real, I heard at Lindisfarne they went crazy – like berserk. These guys are nuts; I don’t think we Anglo-Saxons can withstand them, even if we allied with they Cymry.” And another Æthel-something was like, “You guys, did you know they fight with axes made specially for battle…battle-axes?” And they kept talking about how tough the Vikings were and how getting axed is a bummer, when another guy came in, named Æthelred, and he was like, “Guys, don’t worry about the Vikings...I took care of it!”
“What?” “How?” “Impossible!” said the incredulous Æthels. But Æthelred was undeterred. He told them, “Guys it was easy. All I did was pay them an enormous, crippling sum of silver and they left!”
“Whoa!” said one Æthel. “Genius!” shouted another Æthel. “This calls for a celebration,” cried another Æthel. “Make Æthelred king of all the Æthels” proclaimed another Æthel – but they weren’t so hot on that idea, so they didn’t. But they did party-it up, Saxon-style. For they knew that for good and for all the Danes would never return.
Oh wait, I told it wrong. The Danes did return. A lot. Cause the funny thing about rapist, murderer, extortionists, is that they tend to A) not keep their word and B) not respect weakness. It seems counter-intuitive that when you prove that you’re unwilling to fight an aggressive person who wants to take your property that if you give him your property he still tries to take more. Oh wait, that’s not counter-intuitive. It’s…what’s it called…oh yeah, intuitive. It’s, actually, exactly what you’d expect!
But, I mean, it’s not like there had ever been a civilization that faced destructive pillaging invaders that could have served as an example for the Saxons. Oh, wait, I’m Historying wrong again. There were lots of examples. And all the examples of paying subsidies and tributes went badly, in the long run, for the civilized state paying them. Strange though it may seem – taxing your people nearly to the point of starvation to pay off an extortioner who’s only going to come try to extort you again, or break their word and invade you anyways, seems like bad Kinging…or Earling…or Ætheling…ing.
So, actually, there’s really only one reason to pay an extortioner, and that’s to bide time to build up to be strong enough to fight him, later. Except, with the money you pay him, you make him stronger and you weaken yourself. It’s a catch-22 (only without airplanes, but, incidentally, also about war).
Now, right about now, you might be wondering what on earth I’m talking about. I mean, 11th Century English History is thrilling, but what’s it got to do with today? Much in every way. You see, as the cancel-culture grows stronger and more brazen in the public sphere there is going to be increasing pressure put upon non-conformists to toe the party line. The thought-police who are currently patrolling the blogosphere and twittertopia are looking, ever looking, prowling about like lions (one might say) seeking someone who says something that they can “problematize”.
The Woke witch-hunters are watching, always watching; like Argus Panoptes, they are semper vigilans! But it isn’t simply the watching and the Wokeness. It’s the intellectual extortion. Moreover, it’s the smug, virtue-signaling, sanctimoniousness of the intellectual extortion that only can come from a true Disciple of the Danes.
Like the Vikings of old, today’s Danes seek not gold or silver or land – but they do seek to terrorize people into handing over their capital. Granted, the capital isn’t (always) money. But it is capital. The plunder the Woke-raiders seek is complicity in their incoherent religion. They demand – not ask politely – demand that anyone and everyone who disagrees with them either change their mind or be deplatformed or be silenced. The same people who justify riots and looting (you know behavior that ACTUAL Vikings engaged in) because “a riot is the voice of an oppressed people” are the same folk who demand that anyone who dares to dissent be deplatformed because speech that incites hate IS violence.
Actual violence is just vox populi, but the voice of a non-Wokeist is malicious violence that must be stifled. Sure, rioting is loud – but it’s just the people singing…the song of angry men. And if you’re not willing to hop on the barricade then you’re l'ennemi du peuple! “Get the guillotine, comrades! Here’s someone who says people with penes are men! The fascist swine!”
Of course, this brings us to the very simple and observable truth that most people are cowards. Most people are not willing to lose their jobs or face doxxing or the full attention of the outrage-mongers over theological/ political issues. Most people really would rather just be told what to say and think and get on with their lives than stand up and fight.
And therein lies the problem. Paying the Danegeld doesn’t make the Danes go away. It just encourages them to keep coming back for more and more and more. You can never pay a Viking enough money for him to stop raiding and pillaging and raping and plundering. Vikings like doing that kinda stuff and it makes them super rich. Think of all the sweet sweet furs and copper armbands you can buy if you capture Wintanceaster! #iflookscouldkill #slay #deadguyduds. And the thing about the Wokesters is that they really, really like witch-hunting. They really, really like exerting power over people.
It has to be a helluva rush to be able to abuse someone, to vilify them, to destroy them, to publicly shame them, to force them to capitulate, make THEM apologize AND feel virtuous, the most virtuous, all at the same time! Does it matter if the attacks are true? HAH! As the great playwright, spy, political commentator, arms-dealer, and all-around fascinating guy, Beaumarchais[2] once said, “Calomniez, calomniez; il en reste toujours quelque chose.”[3]
The new Woke witch-hunters, the Social Justice Vikings, they don’t care about being polite and having civil discourse. They don’t want civil discourse. They want capitulation. They want kowtowing. They want groveling submission. They want abjection and degradation and subjugation because that is the goal. The goal is power for its own sake. You can’t pay off a Viking because the payola just gives him more of what he wants and makes him more capable of taking more. The Dane doesn’t want SOME of your silver. He wants it all. The Wokeist doesn’t want partial, or moderate, or even majority agreement. He wants all your agreement. He wants you to give in in every sense and to hand over your intellectual capacity to him so that he can tell you what to think. He will give you the new orthodoxy. He will give you the new creeds and dogmata. He will tell you what to wear, what to eat, what to drive, what to do, how to drive, how to raise your children, how to talk, how to think, how to have sex, how to go to the bathroom, where to live, when to live, when to die. The Wokeist will teach you that 2 and 2 make 5. He will make you love Big Brother.
Let me say this clearly and unequivocally so that no one can mistake me. The τελός, the end-goal, the final-cause, the reason for the power grab IS the power-grab. The power grab is both the journey AND the destination. Wokeism seeks power for power’s own sake. It wishes to control people for no other reason than to control them. Don’t be fooled by the ludicrous claims that equity is the end goal. It is not. Because no society is equitable where people cannot freely speak their consciences. No society is equitable where babies are murdered by the millions. No society is equitable where people are forced to pay for the sins of their fathers. No society is equitable where some people are favored not for merit, but because of their status as aggrieved victims of a fictitious system. Equity is not the goal. Equity is a stalking horse. The goal is power. It’s a tale as old as time, a song as old as rhyme – about the Dragon and the Beast. Seeking power for its own sake is demonic. And I mean that very literally.
I mean that when these Woke witch-hunters attempt to make everyone bend the knee and mouth their maxims they are making like Mephistopheles. Satan seeks power for its own sake. The Proud seek power for its own sake. It is no mystery why Tolkien portrays the Satanic as Monadic in his work. It’s because he understood that at the core of the demonic psyche is the wish to expand self-hood through the diminution of other selves. Lewis writes about this in Screwtape Proposes a Toast (though THAT must soon become banned reading!). When a person seeks power as power because it’s power they are behaving like Beelzebub.
Giving in to this kind of demonic demagoguery is not only destructive to democratic dialogue and discourse – it also dares the Danes to be more daring! The Wokeist Social Justice Warrior will always push for more and more capitulation and uniformity of belief. When one gives in, when one says the mantras and repeats the creeds, when they say the Secular Shahada, it just makes the Wokeists stronger and everyone on the side of not-living-in a-totalitarian-hellscape weaker. Worse and worse, saying a lie to avoid being harassed leaves people humiliated and feeling shabby and dingy. To give in is cowardly and robs us of our integrity.
Do not be fooled. Giving in to the outrage-mob will not make them leave you alone. As Kipling pointed out, once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane:
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"
Notes:
[1] I don’t know what the deal was with using ligatures; but apparently ligatures and roads were the only things the Anglos-Saxons wanted to keep in England from the Roman times. It was the cool new way to write on vellum! I mean blackletter hadn’t been invented yet, and that’s like impossible to read. Which makes it fun…as a joke. And Christianity, they kept that, too. But seriously, look at the names, everybody is an Æthel something…at least the nobility. Boys AND girls. Which is kinda lazy since Æthel means “noble”.
[2] Seriously, Beaumarchais is the most interesting guy in a century of incredibly interesting people. If you don’t know about Beaumarchais, check him out.
[3] “Calumnize, calumnize, something always sticks.”