In this tweet,

Thank you @opdempsey. I have been worried that certain utopians would try to create a new war in Europe for some time . I never thought Putin would be stupid enough to give them their opportunity. https://t.co/54QT3rmIOj

— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) May 1, 2022

related to this very interesting article from 2014:

The Foul Tornado

Mr Peter Hitchens refers to ‘certain utopians’ wishing to create war in Europe today, 2022:

This seems to speak to the question of the causes behind the escalating war in Europe today, 2022. I argue here that by laying the blame at the door of ‘certain utopians’ he leaves something out? I suggest that the key driver for the creation of war today is an out of control capitalism that has both a) given Fascist Masters power; and b) captured the social psyche: creating a self-destructive narcisssitic perverse monster.

Whilst he (justifiably and importantly) implies human choice and agency, albeit of a utopian kind, he doesn’t mention the systemic causes driving the drift to extreme right-wing politics and the demand for more war.

This systemic cause is, (following Marx and Lacan), capitalism and its incitement to limitless barbarism and the totalitarian social psyche. This incitement operates through the irresistible lure of surplus-value (of many kinds including financial, but more of everything), as if for free, an illusion offered by the capitalist model of the exploitation of waged Labour, that triggers a radical shift in the operation of the psyche into an unbearable narcissism.

This narcissistic turn in the masses, conditions the masses to accept, and even desire and find a kind of pleasure in, the hate-speech used by Fascist Masters (who abound in right-wing politics today) to incite hatred of all kinds.

This capitalist power and it’s supremacist arrogance demands violent surplus-value: more war and destruction of what is deemed an alien threat to ‘our way of life’. This destructive drive consummates and consumes (Mura), feeding the demand for an always de-compensating, hypertrophic and self-destructive libidinal excitement.

So what?

Doesn’t this mean that today, to be effective, any anti-war movement must also be anti-capitalism. It must act against capitalism and its reactionary progress towards self destruction. Even though this will lead to a continuing battle between left and right.

I have no confidence that an anti capitalist movement will succeed, I think things have gone too far. However, if mankind survives these cataclysmic times it feels better to speak out and resist the barbaric drives even if, like the Dissenters and Levellers we fail. The middle classes criticize but Fascist minded governments stop listening – this is not the sign of a happy society.