Before the internet gained popularity, if you did something disgraceful, basically only very few people would hear of it, and once they did, they would soon forget it. Nowadays, your friends know it, your family knows it, your colleague knows it, your boss knows it, strangers know it, your great-great-grandson knows it — everyone knows it, and they are not going to forget it. The internet is a magnifier of everything. It preys on everyone’s misconduct.
Wait. What’s wrong with that? If a voracious capitalist pinched his man by working him on a non-stop 24/7 basis, it could be reported worldwide through the internet. Sounds great, right? But why does the internet in the end discourage people from doing anything special, lest this very medium seize upon them? The internet has been rendered, in the hands of our controllers, as a tool for surveillance. What it serves is to single out people whose behavior is peculiar to common thinking, and condemn them mercilessly. Look at modern people: everyone is defensive, conservative, too afraid of being instantly and globally exposed as “uncommon”. This fear of exposure leads our society into anti-heroism, where everyone prefers normal to abnormal, common to uncommon, defensive to aggressive, sitting to standing, obedience to resistance — and above all, nothing to something. “Nothingness is always better than somethingness” is a Chinese proverb used to dissuade one from making any trouble. However, since the world has long been infested, in the words of Lenin, with “irreconcilable class antagonism”, i.e., the super rich (First Class) and poor (Second Class), is this theory viable? Get real.
The core message of the internet can be summed up as “Don’t do anything uncommon, peculiar, or strange. The last thing you want to do is to try to become a hero; if you do, then make sure you succeed. Otherwise, everyone will know it, and you will be laid bare in front of the whole world forever, so don’t risk it!”. That’s why people prefer gaping from the sidelines to intervening when things go wrong. To decide to intervene is to accept that if you fail, no glory awaits you. Your bravery is rewarded with nothing but invectives. What kind of man will stand up and jump in? Why take this risk, especially when the victim is someone you don’t know? Alongside consumerism, triviality, celebrity, and sport, almost none of us has any inner drive to do anything special, let alone become a hero. Humanity is definitely drifting towards a land where the hero is punished rather than glorified.
Heroism is ever tied to words like special, uncommon, strange, and at worst, trouble. It would be impossible for heroism to function without stirring some sort of trouble. Look at Hitler, Mao, Lenin, and Robespierre, all those great revolutionaries in history; they were all causing tremendous trouble for the contemporary rulers. They stood forth, cried, shouted, and instigated, doing their utmost towards the overthrow of the existing regime. Imagine if they had not posed any trouble, if they had obeyed every law from A to Z, if they had not behaved in a way outside predictable thinking: would their names have been carved inside so many people’s minds? Wake up! To become a hero, you must dare to shine where others shrink. You have to be outstanding, not common. Normality is anti-heroism. Surely our world is “normal enough”. We need more abnormality.
Abnormality
Historically, abnormality, to some degree, has shaped our world. What is technology? What is human progression? In its essence, it’s all about abnormality. It’s all about people who step out of normality to think abnormally. Think of our ancestors. If they had not been so “abnormal” as to contemplate using stone or bronze for weapons for hunting, instead of wrestling with beasts by their own flesh hands, humanity might still be locked in the pre-stone age. Again, had Steve Jobs been so “normal” and common-thinking as to accept Windows as the best possible platform, could Apple ever have come into existence? If everything remains normal, no doubt we will be stagnated. Our world is molded and progressed utterly and necessarily by abnormality.
Normality is sterile, fruitless, and unfulfilled. Why are the super rich so rich? It is because someone among them or their predecessors had the guts to think and act abnormally, contrary to the common workers (they are still very afraid of losing it!), who normally go shopping on holiday, normally go for re-education at night school (because they’re brainwashed into believing education could make them rich), normally watch television, normally play football, normally get married, normally live their normal life until death. You cannot find a single particle which is not normal in their life. On the other hand, the rich abnormally and constantly think of how to destroy their competitors, trick the consumers, adulterate their products, buy some advantage elsewhere, and monopolize every lucrative business. You see the difference between them? The poor normally think of how to more fully enjoy their slavery, by securing a more highly paid job, while the rich think of how to enslave others, as master. The poor use their hard-earned money to buy unnecessary things, trivial and petty; not things which can enhance their intellect and value — tools they can use to free themselves. They waste time thinking on how to work more and gain more, while the rich work least and gain most. That’s why the poor are permanently under their command. Pessimistically speaking, the poor are too honest, and they work too hard; they give too much and receive too little. They cannot think for a second whether it is worthwhile. They carry out to the fullest what their bosses most despise, and exactly because of it, their life is an agony.
Again, heroism means someone, perhaps by risking his or her own life, stands forth and does something which nobody else dares, for the sake of another. No doubt the internet has done almost everything to frighten and very little to encourage. How many will take these words and run with them? We all know that after reading our site, most won’t, simply for fear of reprisal from their “friends”, even if deep in their hearts they agree with us. We don’t need these sheeple! Here is the first and mightiest barrier on the road to heroism: Public Pressure. But to say that you must overcome Public Pressure doesn’t negate the value of counsel of others. What it means is that you cannot blindly follow what you are told. Rather, before following someone’s advice, you have to think first. To be a hero, first you must be confident enough to persist for what you want, even when you are the only one on your side. However, once you learn that you are wrong (if you refuse to learn then you are no hero), you have to be open-minded and brave enough to change your stance. Clear enough? Since Public Pressure is so powerful that everyone is susceptible to it, why not just make use of it? Good Public Pressure. If Wall Street traders found that no woman or man were willing to date them, would their lives be so ruined that they were forced to quit their jobs? The contest between Good Public Pressure and Bad Public Pressure is on. Which side are you on?
