Coincidance - Principia Discordia

106 COINCIDANCE
continued to proliferate. It seemed to me, and still seems to me, that
sado-masochism plays a far larger role in "normal" psychology than most
commentators realize; my fascination with the theories of Dr. Wilhelm
Reich is largely based on the fact that he explored this subject with more
insight and courage than most Freudians, who are aware of it but prefer not
to notice or speak about its political implications.
Let me make it clear that I am not the same kind of "pacifist" as Gandhi or
Joan Baez. I am not as "moral" as those noble souls, and certainly not as
dogmatic and self-righteous; I do not feel comfortable sitting on a perch of
assumed "moral" superiority and lecturing down at the "sinners" below me. 1
have always had a basically scientific worldview (however eccentric it is is
some respects) and have never believed in metaphysical "evil." I tend to think
that all the violent sadism in the world, which horrifies me emotionally, is
still perfectly natural and is the inevitable product of the past 3 billion years
of evolution. 1 suspect that all viable planets pass through similarly bloody
stages in the evolution upward to higher and higher consciousness. I am
almost entirely lacking in "morality" in the conventional sense, and find it
hard to despise any organism—fish, reptile or mammal. Since I am also a
relativist rather than an absolutist, I have no hesitation about being violent
in self-defense, and Gandhi and Ms. Baez would regard me as a very sinful
chap indeed.
My brand of pacifism is based, first of all, on my own emotional
repugnance for cruelty toward women and children (modern warfare being
increasingly destructive to civilians, including women and children). Such an
emotional prejudice is admittedly personal and subjective and not expected
to move anybody who sincerely likes the idea of bombs and napalm
dropping on defenseless populations; but my pacifism is also based upon
factors which 1 believe can be proven to be in the rational self-interest of all.
That is, I agree with Einstein and Bertrand Russell and the whole band of
radical scientists who assert that we are very unlikely to survive a nuclear war.
Even here I am a heretic. I think we as a species might possibly survive
one nuclear war, if it is a short one and limited. 1 believe Hermann Kahn is
right in claiming that such a limited nuclear war is statistically slightly more
likely than the Holocaust predicted in professional pacifist agit-prop.
Nonetheless, it seems obvious to me that we cannot survive a series of
nuclear wars—at some point, the death of Earth will become inevitable—
and I am not sure that even a limited nuclear war will remain limited when
one side sees that it is losing, in short, I think if we are to survive, we have to
ban warfare eventually, and the risk gets worse every year as more and
more scientific brains work on the problem Bucky Fuller defined bitterly as
"delivering more and more explosive power over longer and longer