Toxic Woo vs. the Peaceful Warrior

Sometimes, the peace-love-harmony thing can go too far.

Something started bugging me a while back.

I thought that if I thought about it long enough, I would be better able to articulate what it is. Unfortunately, I don’t really feel much better able to articulate it now, so I’ll just lay out my somewhat sloppy thoughts and let the chips fall where they may. Perhaps you have some thoughts of your own to add.

Here goes…

Bad things exist. Humans have a strong negativity bias, and so we talk about the bad things. We focus on them. Collectively, we probably focus on them too much.

This is why the media know full well that if it bleeds, it leads. This is why Substack articles bitching about something horrible get more traffic than ones that talk about sunshine, lollipops, or potential solutions to problems.

Okay, so maybe we, as a species, are too unbalanced in that direction. But it is also possible to go too far the other way…

Please understand that I respect a focus on positivity. I really do. I am trying to develop such an approach myself.

Indeed, on Monday I suggested that we all stop participating in—and then obsessing over—things we know are going to be horrible…like the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which anyone who has been paying even a little bit of attention could have predicted would have been an enraging woke-fest. A couple posts before that, I spoke in earnest about leaving all the madness behind and building new things.

A diversion away from endless negativity is good. An intentional focus on positivity, joy, happiness, peace, love, and solutions is good. But this too can be taken to extremes.

I asked my friends

Jacqueline Rendell

and

The Starfire Codes

for a term to describe it, and they suggested “toxic positivity.” That’s pretty good. Perhaps, to use the current jargon, we might also say toxic woo.

Essentially, it is the phenomenon whereby a person has gone so far down the road to Butterfly City that they refuse to even acknowledge the existence of bad things. And when you mention that a bad thing exists, they react to you as if your mention of it is what causes it to exist.

La la la, I can’t hear you. Stop making bad things happen. Basically, your mention of reality is harshing their mellow, man.

And if you’re too negative, or negative all the time, then they’re right.

But sometimes, we must look at the dark corners of reality. We cannot pretend that bad things don’t exist (either out in the world or in ourselves). We can improve our own lives, and the world, with a positive focus, but we cannot manifest away all human evil simply by retreating to a mental meadow filled with buzzing bees and frolicking unicorns.

And yet, some people do keep trying:

• Note that there are times when it is necessary to fight, and you might get an earful about how that sort of attitude is what causes violence.

• Note that, for example, some Native American tribes fought each other, and even engaged in some environmentally devastating practices, and you are violating the gauzy image they have constructed of exclusively peaceful indigenous peoples living in harmony with the land. Never mind that this Rousseauean vision is far from historically accurate. You are the one doing something bad by pointing out the truth.

• Note that property rights are absolutely essential for human harmony and flourishing and you are manifesting greed and separateness. Never mind that property rights are a clear and non-negotiable emanation of natural law. Never mind that anti-propertarian attitudes have preceded most of the worst genocides in history. Nope, by acknowledging the basic facts of reality, human nature, logic, natural law, and history, you are defecating on the beautiful vision of sharing and harmony that lives inside their heads.

And so on.

Let us focus on the first one: the need to fight.

As you know, the philosophy to which I cleave is built on a foundation of nonaggression. I have even offered careful proofs for why the nonaggression principle is natural and real. For why the initiation of coercive force is always morally impermissible. Thus far, no one has successfully refuted those proofs.

But…

People are still going to initiate coercive force. Natural rights are not force fields. The nonaggression principle is not a magical incantation. And when coercive force is initiated, the only solution is often the deployment of protective force in response.

That may not be a happy situation, but it happens to be reality. Protective force is not evil. Tragic, sad, ugly…but not evil. The initiation of coercive force—that is the evil.

Toxic woo sometimes gets confused by this distinction.

Yes, the human species needs to move beyond violence. Yes, an excessive focus on violent things is unhealthy. It may even be the case—to a degree—that an excessive focus on violence may call more violence into one’s reality. Love and peace are the ultimate answer.

But violence exists. It is not some affectation. It is rooted in biological exigencies that go back 400 million years. It’s not something you can just exorcise with a quick burning of a sage bundle.

Some people commit violence, whether we like it or not. Sometimes, the only way to respond is with protective force. Whether we like it or not.

And the person who is too toxically woo is invariably protected—and thus safe to frolic in their meadow—because “rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

So here, I would like to speak on behalf not only of philosophers who acknowledge the reality of the need for protective force, but also of the rough men who stand ready to deploy it when needed. Because sometimes it is needed.

As an anarchist/voluntaryist/ancap/whatever, I do not support the existence of the state and its enforcers. I believe the state is the source of the worst violence in history.

But even in the absence of the state, protective force will still be needed—it will simply be exerted by market-based security agents acting on behalf of customers rather than being imposed by government “authorities.” And even when it is imposed by authorities, the reality is that a fair amount of what they do does have a protective intent and effect.

Either way, the toxically positive woo-woo warrior is protected by actual warriors.

This protection does not just magically happen when it needs to. It requires intense focus on training and readiness. Muscles. Instincts. Guns. Guts.

Yet some of the most ready dudes I know are also among the most peaceful and gentle. They know violence exists, and they are ready to protect against it. They don’t like it. They do it because it has to be done.

Sure, some may think or talk about aggressive things more. That is part of their nature, and their nature is needed. (Perhaps needed by the toxic-woo types more than any other, since they are often the least able to protect themselves.) But they are still peaceful warriors. They do not harm the world by recognizing that violence exists and being ready for it.

And it is colossally uncool to react to them as if they are some sort of pariahs who are somehow keeping us from reaching some better, less violent future. As if their readiness is holding us back from evolving. In fact, the good ones are buying us time, and keeping us safe, while we try to help the world evolve. We owe them thanks.

Glorying in violence is bad. Recognizing that violence exists is not. Owning guns and knowing how to use them is not. Being ready is not.

Acknowledging that violence exists is not the same as creating violence.

A focus on peace is good and right. A deemphasis on violence is essential as well. But it is entirely unfair to treat ANY mention of reality as darkening your magical day.

I know that balance is hard to find in this life. Those heavily focused on peace become peace-centric. Those heavily focused on protection become protection-centric. If we lose perspective, however, it is easy to see the one as being at odds with the other. But they need not be.

And just like it is possible to be toxically violent, it is also possible to take the peace-love-harmony thing to toxic levels.