Virginia Woolf's famous quote that "around December 1910 human nature changed" is usually read as a bold declaration of cultural modernity. The Fr. Nikolaos Loudovikos, however, in his book “Analogous Identities: The Creation of the Christian Self”, gives it a much deeper content..
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He argues that human nature has indeed changed, not suddenly or biologically, but in the way in which man understands and constitutes himself. This change has deep historical roots, reaching in the 20th century the culmination of an “ontology of the self-referential subject”. This subject does not perceive itself as an existence born and developed within relationships, but sees itself as an autonomous will, capable of freely constructing identity, nature and ultimately reality. It does not simply wish to change the conditions of its life, but claims the right to question every limit of human nature, even the very materiality of the body.
According to Louis, this narcissism culminates in "annihilation of human nature into a pure fantasy of power", in an imaginary spiritual omnipotence and omnipresence. As he mentions in his book, Luc Besson's film Lucy offers a characteristic artistic rendition of this fantasy. The heroine gradually transcends body, space, time and every human limitation, until she transforms into an almost immaterial omnipotent consciousness. The perfection of man is thus identified with the disappearance of the human.
The pleasure of deprivation
Even more worrying is the next phase in the evolution of this phenomenon, which Louis describes as post-narcissism. Modern narcissistic pleasure is not necessarily pleasurable. On the contrary, it can be painful, ascetic, and self-punishing. The deepest pleasure can be associated with the relentless deprivation of both psychological and physical pleasures. Narcissism, in other words, no longer simply says: "I enjoy because the world serves my ego"On the contrary, he can now say: "I enjoy my own deprivation, because it proves that my ego dominates even the body, its pain and its needs.".
And I affirm my ego and my sovereignty over myself and the world and my absolute freedom, through suicide, according to Dostoevsky’s shocking description. Also, here we must remember Max Weber’s “ascetic capitalist”. This man works incessantly, accumulates without enjoying, disciplines the body and constantly postpones gratification. Deprivation becomes proof of his worth. And the culmination of deprivation can be destruction and self-destruction, to be precise, “magnificent self-destruction”.
In today's society, the same logic can manifest itself as relentless productivity, self-surveillance, exhaustion, and obsessive self-improvement. The postmodern individual in the West does not necessarily seek to live better, but to prove that he owes nothing to nature, to the body, to others, or to the history. It wants to be self-created, self-existent and omnipotent within its own inner core. But this is an omnipotence of emptiness. A superhuman nihilism. An anthropotheism of self-annihilation.
That is, it contains an intense self-manipulating element, which when transferred to a collective level creates a very peculiar and dangerous invisible level in the collective unconscious. A pervasive sense of omnipotence, self-denial of hatred, for oneself, others, and nature. It reaches the cult of self-destruction. Absolute autonomy, therefore, can be transformed into a denial of the very conditions of life. Because life is relationship, dependence, vulnerability, exchange and change. The subject who wants to abolish all dependence ends up turning against his own nature.
The dark charm of the Apocalypse
At this point, Ludwig's problematic meets Freud's concept of the death instinct. The death instinct (Thanatos) should not be interpreted as a simplistic claim that man consciously wishes to die. Observing the behavior of people in World War I War, Freud noticed something more complicated. Human behavior is not always guided by the pursuit of pleasure and self-preservation. On the contrary, humans repeat traumatic experiences, return to destructive situations, and often act against their own best interests.
The death drive can be understood as a tendency towards disconnection, immobility and the dissolution of living relationships. In this sense, omnipotence and self-destruction are not necessarily opposites, but can be two sides of the same coin. The self-referential subject is likely to prefer the destruction of the world to the admission that he cannot fully dominate it. This connection acquires terrifying relevance if transferred to the field of nuclear strategy.
Nuclear deterrence contains a fundamental paradox from the outset. In order to prevent an adversary from destroying one, one must convince him that he is prepared to carry out an action that will destroy him as well. The effectiveness of deterrence therefore relies on the production of a credible readiness for mutual self-destruction. This does not mean that every form of nuclear deterrence is madness. It does mean, however, that its rationality has as its hidden foundation a “convincing irrationality,” as Schelling, the Kissinger and others.
The nuclear “player” must be presented as rational, but at the same time determined enough to, under certain conditions, cross the threshold beyond which any rational calculation loses its meaning. The technocratic language of nuclear strategy can conceal this contradiction. Concepts such as “escalation dominance”, “escalation management”, “exchange of blows”, “nuclear victory”, etc. transform the extermination of millions of people into an abstract technical variable. This language does not simply describe reality, but protects the speaker from the moral, spiritual and biological reality of what he describes.
The self-destructive tendency, then, will not necessarily appear as a paranoid decision to end the world. It is more likely to be hidden in a sequence of seemingly logical deterrence propositions of the type: “If we don’t respond, we will lose our credibility.” “If we don’t escalate now, we will be in a worse position later.” “A limited nuclear strike will restore deterrence.” “We must prove that we are willing to accept the cost.” “Retreat would be worse than destruction,” and all the rest.
Eschatological fundamentalism
Each of these positions may, if examined in isolation, seem rational. Their sequence, however, can lead to the abyss. No one explicitly decides to commit suicide. He simply decides not to lose his credibility, prestige, identity and position within the Story. Self-destruction emerges as the “logical” sum of individual decisions. In the case of American society, eschatological fundamentalism adds another worrying parameter to the nuclear equation.
As Professor Manousos Maragoudakis has analyzed in his study of American fundamentalism, significant parts of American society perceive politics and history through a Manichaean and Armageddonian (pseudo)Christian reading. This does not mean that American nuclear policy is mechanistically determined by religious beliefs, or that the entire American society desires the Apocalypse. However, it shows us that there is a powerful symbolic vocabulary available, within which global conflict can acquire eschatological meaning and from something unthinkable or even undesirable to be subconsciously transformed into something desirable, especially if combined with the underground fermentations in the collective unconscious that we mentioned above.
When the opponent is not seen as a competitor, but as the embodiment of absolute Evil, compromise ceases to be a strategic choice and becomes a moral betrayal. When history is seen as heading towards a final confrontation, disaster can be interpreted not as a failure of politics, but as the confirmation of a prophecy. And when a nation perceives itself as the chosen instrument of History, recognizing boundaries can be experienced as a denial of one's own identity.
Thus, the Theology of Power, the self-referential subject, the post-narcissistic idealization of deprivation, the death drive, the Manichaean eschatology, and the technocratic language of nuclear weapons can constitute a peculiar self-destructive “rationality.” We are not talking, then, about an absence of logic, but about a distorted logic, trapped within a pathological perception of man and History.
The new nuclear era
The danger is heightened by our entry into a new, highly complex nuclear era. Deterrence relations are no longer limited to the relative simplicity of the US-Soviet duopoly. Multiple nuclear actors, cyber operations, anti-satellite weapons, artificial intelligence, “post-nuclear” super-weapons, “microscopic” nuclear and a number of others create an extremely complex and opaque environment in which the new Cold War will take place. War, which we hope will remain cold...
Especially in the conditions of limited information and suffocating time pressure, in which decisions in major international crises are usually made, decisions do not arise only from objective calculations but are shaped by deeper narratives of identity. Who we believe we are, who we believe the enemy is, what retreat means to us, what costs we consider acceptable, and what future we believe we are entitled to. The greatest threat, therefore, may not be a leader who consciously wishes to destroy the world, but an entire system that has learned to experience its willingness to sacrifice everything as the ultimate proof of determination, freedom, and power.
The nuclear age is the ultimate expression of anthropotheism. Postmodern-postnarcissistic man declares himself the administrator of the end of the world and considers his ability to bring about the Absolute Destruction to be the foundation of his security. The question is whether he can actually control the Apocalypse or whether, behind the technocratic coldness of deterrence, he has already begun to desire it without even realizing it.
source/photo: https://slpress.gr/idees/o-psixologikos-mixanismos-diolisthisis-se-piriniko-polemo/
photo EPA/HANNIBAL HANSCHKE
