Epilogue: Escape from the Demoralization Porn Plantation
“I invented the game because I believed it could prove my thesis that an uninformed majority will always lose the battle of information to an informed minority”.
Dimitry Davidoff, inventor of the Werewolf game, Moscow State University, 1986.
“God talks to human beings through many vectors: wise people, organized religion, the Great Books of religions, through art, music and poetry. But nowhere with such detail, and grace and joy, as through creation. When we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine.”
Robert F Kennedy Jnr, April 2023
My mother died on a Saturday morning at the end of December 2017.
Every time I walked into her room to check on her - and it must have been 20 to 30 times - she looked different than the last. Lighter, as if the pain and the irrelevant were being stripped from her. She even managed to smile. Then, in a brief rattle and flurry, she was gone.
A few days after she was buried I took an early evening summer’s flight back to London out of Cape Town. Robert Mugabe had been just forcefully vacated and Jacob Zuma looked like he was going too. The city’s academia - those festering groups of sneering self-righteousness and black pandering - had themselves a new snuff film obsession: a drought. “We’re all going to die!” squealed the Welsh valley dwarf Max du Preez - an ally to the trans community and a subspecies of Sutenbastud whose hatred of white people is cute to observe in that he only makes his own blood run cold. He has managed to influence the impressionable editor of News24, Adriaan Basson, who echoed his master’s sentiments about the drought, disappointed that there was not a white person loitering to blame. As it happened that year Basson and his fellow guilt-stricken Afrikaner Pieter du Toit had composed an embarrassingly shit book about Jacob Zuma. Mugabe wasn’t dethroned through some divine justice returned from sabbatical - paying the price for authorizing all those pissed savages to rape and machete the country smallholding by smallholding. Of course not. He was hogging the stealing, and it was time for other comrade savages to have a turn. Same with Zuma, but Basson’s excitement at his prospective replacement in Cyril Ramaphosa was turning him into Stephen Hawking - that is to say, left in his wheelchair in the sun by his carer, wriggling, saying the same thing over and over and over.
Feeling exhausted and a little pissed off, I stared out the window of the plane, pausing Bill Evans playing “Here’s That Rainy Day” on my earphones. The southerly take-off afforded us a view of the extent of the great mountain, starting with the broad rock face beneath McClear’s Beacon, the sight from my mother’s bedroom window. The pilots banked right over Cape Point, but stayed relatively low and hugged the seaboard. I noticed how quiet the plane was, and how gently reassuring it looked, filled with the beams of the sunset. We started a more aggressive ascent over the west coast, and soon the stressed-out, tan-colored fields made way for an Atlantic whose shimmer was still visible from our increasing height. How could this one, strange, dangerous, confusing, magnificent place be so intimate to so many of the world’s problems? Where is this going, who is influencing who? Were we just deeply unlucky or some kind of macabre test? So many things wrong, such a small, beautiful country.
*
The work of Sutenbastud through the decades is visible in many ways but seeing it through the decay of cities first is useful as it presents another example of South Africa being ahead of the curve. What happened to Johannesburg city - the managed decline of a once sophisticated, prosperous destination - has happened to San Francisco, Oakland, New York (again), Malmo, Los Angeles, and parts of Paris, Melbourne and Dublin. In each of these places, ultra-progressive logic was deployed as an excuse, or presented as an item of “equity”. It is visible in schools. In the late 1990s and early 2000s in South Africa, a brilliant television series called “Yizo Yizo” highlighted the scourge of teenage pregnancies and teacher-pupil sexual relationships in Soweto schools. Two decades later, the places where the parents of children attending schools in the mold of “Yizo Yizo” could only dream of sending their offspring - South African private schools - are steadily being captured by DEI forces imported mainly from the US, prompting the question: which is worse? Sutenbastud is clearly apparent in the arrangement of news we absorb, statements from the musicians and actors we listen and watch - the supposed motivations behind the designers of the clothes we wear and sometimes even the food we eat. Of course, the places where it doesn’t exist are canceled or banned or legislated against enough to resemble the crumbling cities - the books with trigger warnings or the claims that the singers Morrissey and Eric Clapton are racist.
In response, two streams of general thought have emerged, claiming to explain why the West is going as it is. Either there is a vast conspiracy executed by a predatory elite, or our expectations have overestimated the competence of the people we’ve elected into power. The conspiracy versus cock-up paradigms are not new, but they are both increasingly desperate, filled with consequences we would have never considered as recently as a decade ago. And if you didn’t know better and now had to make a choice - both are entirely reasonable, legitimate positions.
The former - conspiracy - is given a rough time of late. Supposedly the preserve of the “far right”, it suggests, then concludes, that there’s really little point in resistance to major schemes and initiatives because the game is close to being fully rigged, which was always the intention. But contrary to the squeals of bad actors - chiefly prestige media - condemning such views, there is enough compelling evidence to prove that indeed a relatively small number of groups are enacting a grotesque agenda in the pursuit of different kinds of profits via culture demolition and minority persecution. There are many examples to list; when a man who once made shitty office computer software starts lobbying, or possibly bribing institutional, supposedly democratic officialdom so that his choice of leader for “world health” is appointed…to bark that any criticism of that move is racist or conspiratorial is a position that ventures beyond the realm of dishonesty. But as we’ve said before, they know that, and they know that we know.
The cock-up model is on us, I’m afraid. And it doesn’t just relate to the generations of hopelessly inadequate, often greedy, stupid and corrupt individuals we excitedly elect in the hope that we can preserve the good we’ve learned: we’re also guilty of believing that people like Elon Musk will solve the problems. We fill our boots with statements, podcasts and we look for subtle messaging that these people are aware of the catastrophe, going to figure it out. And the more we do this - throw our evaporating trust toward the alternative to the status quo - the more we delude ourselves.
In particular, this stream of thought - cock-up - does not just possess enough capacity to delude, but to poison too. In our grasp for the opposite, we watch and listen to endless repeats of the people we consider “our side” demolishing the profiles they call “woke.” We give special attention to self-proclaimed prophets of free speech. Us white South Africans are especially partial to black conservatives. This is what you could call the demoralization porn plantation: the endless searches and feeds and posts filled with Pakistani Muslim men in the UK masturbating in front of cornered young white teens, or Somali immigrants spitting in the faces of elderly Swedes on public transport - and the tide of lively comments to both demanding that people like this be executed. We listen in fury or anticipation to Dr. Tedros explaining how proud he is of the DEI scam, or “Dr” Jill Biden claiming that “democracy” or “decency” is on the ballot paper. We charge ourselves with dopamine but have no idea of where we’re going; if there is a destination to these exercises, then it’s most likely to the composing of an inflammatory remark on social media - which is then reported and deleted, rounding off a spectacular waste of time. Both views of the West, as it is, are entirely permissible - but to supplement either with demoralization porn is asking to become depressed and purposeless.
But the reality. We have always believed that we should not stoop as low as our adversaries - subsequently, we have no slow march of our own, just influencers…and for $X a month, you can get access to the Daily Wire’s premium content, where the American black conservative Candace Owens mulls over the idea of poisoning wells in Africa, or to Charlie Kirk, or Steven Crowder, or anyone who makes a living perpetuating examples of extreme folly. But I’ll tell you what you already know: they don’t have answers. Whilst these people are being funny or controversial, England’s Churches and community halls are emptying, or selling to councils to be turned into mosques. Whilst the likes spike and subscriptions increase, the pencil-pushers in our major corporations continue to ruin the concept of work, either by useless measurement methodology or imposing disabled Sudanese girl boss day on everyone every day.
*
When that flight landed in London and I waited in the “others” queue thanks to a passport contaminated by the excesses and stupidity of the ANC, I remembered what I’d thought in the early hours of that morning crossing the Mediterranean- something that has stayed with me ever since but not just stayed, has embedded itself as prime confirmation. Our beautiful country, all that we are, was - is - something of a test. But not as an attempt at multi-racial, multicultural cohabitation, but rather controlled demolition, where violence and deprivation squared up against a desire to control, and even when violence and deprivation had torn society’s fabric and ripped the country’s heart out as it beat, control remained. This, which has happened gradually, has never been more compelling to the Western predatory elite today.
In February 2023, I was asked by Alec Hogg at a conference in the Drakensburg what the feeling of the ANC and South Africa in London was. It’s a question that doesn’t appeal to me - it didn’t appeal to me back in 2014. I’ve spent nearly 10 years being asked it, mostly by finance nerds or tech bros in the City, who do so with a blend of glee and regret. My answer is always: it’s the same in the UK. Most often my response is countered by the old “well, things still work there” fallacy. But they also worked for a while in South Africa post-1994. Until they didn’t.
And they won’t, under people like Keir Starmer, or Sadiq Khan - because they haven’t. For want of a better expression, the United Kingdom is circling the drain: just as the ANC cannot deliver textbooks or build bridges, the United Kingdom has been administered by too many unscrupulous con artists for it to offer any reasonable prospects. There is nothing to distinguish people like Caroline Nokes in the “one nation” grouping within the Tory party from people like Fikile Mblalula or Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams or Jamie Raskin or Ed Markey in the US. In the UK, the conservatives are heading for demolition in the forthcoming general election; it shouldn’t come as surprising that over 50% of this “one nation” group are reportedly considering departing politics, eyeing the tech and renewable energy sectors for non-exec board positions where salaries for 4 meetings per calendar year can exceed £80k.
*
All I could ever try and do here was to document a series of encounters and perspectives, littered with some history, about a profile I believe partially or solely responsible for the circumstances we in the West find ourselves in. Seen this way Sutenbastud is powerful, evil, and influential - but also clumsy and useless. I needed a bit more insofar as the technical components were concerned and happily that arrived in 2023, in the form of Professor Matthew Goodwin’s “Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics”.
It is a sensational book, and much more. Through detailed analysis, Prof Goodwin reveals things I couldn’t - especially as he explores Sutenbastud’s more updated iteration. Here he documents the features of the professional, managerial class he projects as Britain’s new elite - where they were educated, the echo chambers they have established, and especially seizes upon why these people pursue luxury beliefs as an item of class distinction. In it, I saw every single person that I’ve documented in this book. Almost every single situation too.
What was more telling, however, was the response to the book. And Prof Goodwin played out of his socks here, laying a trap, waiting for his subjects to walk right in. He monitored reviews and responses on social media, most of which were dismissively critical, then lumped them all together in a document post and simply composed “touched a nerve?” If Sutenbastud came from the United Kingdom (influenced, as in the United States, by Europeans), then Prof Goodwin’s work has it bang to rights.
With this book in mind, reading his was almost dreamy. But then sleep-kicks within the dreams: you’re able to determine that if this class of elitist is Britain’s worst personality, and it is, then this influential country has become addicted to the worst personalities. It’s the worst people here that are over-promoted - the chunky jewelry businesswomen with bowl haircuts popping off about climate change and diversity. It’s the worst people here who are portrayed as “ethical” and “virtuous” - the carpetbagging, hunter/gatherer lawyers, the civil service, the bent charity industrial complex, the vicious disc jockeys or television presenters of Indian descent but married to white enterprise software salesmen (“abolitionist in the streets, conquered in the sheets”). And it’s the worst people here who are always on the receiving end of awards and honors - the ultimate disguise for the most intolerant, censorious, and opportunistic. But of all the terrible things Sutenbastud now does, the pursuit of luxury beliefs is the most egregious. Why is it doing this? Prof Goodwin expresses that it is not necessarily because it hates ordinary people. Of course it does but more - it is a way of consequence-proofing themselves.
I more or less finished the book in October 2023, in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, a few days after those Hamas degenerates launched a series of attacks on Israel. There was sorrow to be felt on various fronts, not least for the kidnapped victims, or the families massacred by the barbaric murder of children. I could literally hear a country’s collective groan in anticipation of the useless Ronnie Kasrils, the former South African Minister of Intelligence / Defence who played a role in Jacob Zuma rape charges, to enter the fray with shameless support for the heinous barbarity of the terrorist savages. With its condition perilous enough, the West certainly didn’t need yet another Marxist shithead mouthing off for Palestine, trying to make comparisons to South Africa’s apartheid, augmenting substantial grief with twisted logic. I sympathized with moderate Jews here because they were about to be taught a lesson that they will no doubt never forget.
When George Floyd died, many moderate Jews - particularly in America - enlisted themselves as allies to the BLM movement. They did everything documented in this book but (I believe) they did it from a genuine, well-intentioned place. Unlike scumbag chancer corporations like Unilever, or Forrester, moderate Jews saw injustice, a subject congruent with the emphasis they invest in memory, and not opportunity, and when they declared, “Black Lives Matter”, they did so in a combination of solidarity…and naivety. I don’t think it was conditional but when those savages parachuted into a rave and onto a kibbutz, Jews deserved friendship, and to an extent it arrived - from decent people who are capable of acknowledging tragedy and calling out wickedness. But it didn’t come from the place they had stood shoulder-to-shoulder in 2020. No, these inchoate monsters cheered the carnage, with BLM’s Chicago chapter celebrating the occasion with the image of a savage in a parachute that it posted onto “X”.
This depraved, sick hostility against Jews and Israel spread across the US, with universities volunteering to kick first. It was revealed that the British perfumer Jo Malone’s hyper-privileged son was the convener of a Palestinian solidarity concern at Harvard University, later to become one of the worst offenders insofar as harassment of Jewish students was concerned. This diseased institution, led by diseased people appointed on complexion alone, hinted at Sutenbastud’s future positions on life and speech for the young in the future West in a simple but devastating imposter: antisemitism/antiwhiteism, fine - “anti-black” racism/ “Islamophobia” - bad.
If you, like me, came from that broad grouping once known as the “left”, where you admired the likes of Tony Benn or Alan Johnson or respected institutions like the BBC and called anyone who didn’t believe in green energy a bigot, then got sick of the cuckolded men or unerved by the neurotic women and turned to another space called the “right”, where you were intrigued for a moment before people like Amber Rudd or the consultant class forced upon you judgment sobriety, then came to your senses and realized that you were completely alone…then maybe your memories were stirred by these events. Perhaps once you supported the ANC’s “affirmative action” policies, dismissed the concerns of Afrikaans people, or jeered the news that yet another farmer had been butchered as arbitrary. If you had done something like this or similar, and acknowledged how wrong you were but were strong enough to resist the reminders so they couldn’t come for you the moment you tried to close your eyes at night, you have made one of the most important journeys in the world today. Possibly without knowing. If you can admit having been wrong - if you can be frank about your experience and commit to using what you’ve learned to help or entertain others - then there’s no reason why you should fear anything in the world but God. You’re completely - dazzlingly - free.
In Ross Ashcroft’s 2012 documentary “The Four Horsemen”, the singer and political commentator Dominic Frisby narrates how the world is being led to disaster by a combination of toxic fiscal policies. It was one instance in media that suggested the war on terror was a ruse for central banks to create larger pools of debt, so naturally it was panned by The Guardian and Time Out - the choice of magazine for London’s Romanian gypsies to eat their sausages off. It was obvious why it didn’t please the critics - at the end Frisby states:
“…to really understand something is to be liberated from it. Dedicating oneself to a great cause, taking responsibility and gaining self-knowledge is the essence of being human. A predatory capitalist’s truest enemy, and humanity’s great ally, is the self-educated individual who has read, understood, delays their gratification…and walks around with their eyes wide open.”
If I were to cautiously push, I’d say that it is the same profile required today, but with more. More urgency, more commitment - and more defiance. What do I mean by that? There are two things I think about here, or rather, one that leads into another.
At the beginning of 2022, I chanced upon a group of Hungarian university students visiting London. They weren’t here to shop. They didn’t come for the, erm, “diversity”. They came to look at buildings, to listen to some Baroque, but most of all, they had come on something of a pilgrimage, to trace the life of a man who died just before coof in 2020. I knew this man. I met him once, read most of his books - and tried to defend him when was the subject of cowardly injustice. This was Sir Roger Scruton.
Sir Roger was at the center of the worst indictment of conservative politics, arguably in history. In 2019, he was visited at home by a rat-faced, fish-lipped, worm-tongued Sutenbastud reporter called George Eaton, for an interview with Eaton’s employer, The New Statesman. Eaton possesses all the worst qualities in today’s wanker media profile - he’s like Max du Preez, Adriaan Basson, Verashni Pillay and Nikolaus Bauer squeezed into one squirming, lactose-intolerant tick. Eaton deliberately misquoted Sir Roger and published lies. Without affording him the courtesy of a response, a group within the “one nation” conservatives then piled on, and later that day Sir Roger was relieved from the non-paid government job he had been appointed to, advising Britain on how not to destroy its architectural inheritance by building more brutalist housing. Less than a year later he was dead.
Great thinkers are compensated in quirky ways. In Hungary, Sir Roger is a national treasure and in Budapest, there’s a coffee/book shop named after him: “Scruton We Are The Place”. Initially just a venue for like-minded people to meet and discuss one of Britain’s greatest thinker’s works, it has extended into something of a movement and now features jazz and classical music every day of the week, as well as presentations and speeches on philosophy. You could argue Hungary’s obsession with a man GEN Z here in the UK has little to no knowledge of is similar to how Serbia loved the English comedy “Only Fools and Horses”, or how Japan celebrates an obscure South African karate champion by making video games of the fighter. But it’s more than that.
Meeting those students in St. James Park after work that evening reminded me of how Sir Roger’s work helped me form a clearer picture of Western society’s foundations - and the expectations it had of me. I had turned to him to help me learn more about England because I didn’t want to be yet another foreigner living in London without knowing what this country meant. Immediately I was struck - as everyone always is - by the simplicity of his writing, his choice of few words - and his ability to craft magical sentences that are somehow immediately relatable to present circumstances. Then later I began to feel a deep peace whenever I read, as if I was staring into the deep, beautiful green of the English countryside in summer. Whenever I finished a book, I would think about what I’d just read with conviction: “This astonishing world”. But it wasn’t just about philosophy, history or religion; soon it had extended and become about measuring and absorbing, not necessarily man’s multiple life searches, more the preparation of. Sir Roger’s understanding of the life forces here, the history, the inheritance, and the brains and hearts and memories wrapped around them, is a kind of meditation - a calling to a world that answers when asked the right questions.
“We’re graduating next year,” one of the students told me, “I’m going to work in finance, not for a bank or anything like that.” Later, the thoughts I had about this random encounter wouldn’t vacate. These young people had an advanced sense of the world, alongside enhanced memory. They felt it could speak, and they were learning how to ask the right questions. I doubt you’ll find any of that group of confident, well-mannered young people going to work for banks that celebrate George Floyd day, or media companies where the stomping of HR landwhales through the company’s corridors haunts their dreams at night. If they did, their stomachs would turn in on them. They had been given something they were determined to build on and when I thought about that - about cycles and meaning and foundations - about never giving a penny more to companies who hate you or the search for or discovery of that great cause that shifts effortlessly into a happy existence lived in defiance of Sutenbastud’s destructive collectivism and sneakiness - I remembered my mother, and how she in her little way had done the same.
She turned an obsession, formed in adolescence, with South Africa’s natural beauty into a job. She became a successful tour operator and used the platform to spread her unashamed adoration of her country to the world. It formed a state of thought so firm and uncompromising that no propaganda from Al Gore or the grotesque Michael E Mann (fraudulent hockey stick) could ever enter, let alone confuse or corrupt it. It was a purpose lexicon - always growing, burning without flickering, and wherever she went that day in December 2017 - I’d like to think the stars - she left with unwavering awe of the thing that made and fascinated her, gave her hope, filled her understanding, answered the right questions and offered re-assurance and succor in the moments she might have found herself isolated. Meaning built on meaning. Nothing else.
*
Thank you for reading. I will soon post the entire book, at which point the Substack will revert to regular columns. Wishing you all the best for 2024.