The Irresistible Rise of Mediocre Man: The War On Excellence

Dante wondered where to put the angels that supported neither God nor Lucifer when Lucifer tried to overthrow God. These neutral angels were no longer fit for heaven, but nor were they fit for hell. Lucifer certainly didn't want them. Only one place in the universe would accept them - the no-man's land of hell's vestibule, through which the damned must pass to get to hell proper. The vestibule was simply a neutral, dead piece of land between the gate of hell and the river of hell, across which lay hell itself. The neutral angels were trapped for eternity in this neutral ground, rejected by heaven and hell alike. This wasn't the hottest place in hell. In fact, it wasn't really in hell at all. It was the most pathetic and forlorn place in the universe. It was neither one thing nor the other. It was home to no one.

To this ghastly cosmic interzone, Dante dispatched all human souls that never took a side, never stood behind a banner, never embraced a sacred cause. He regarded them as just about the worst souls of all. These were the "Ignavi" - the neutral, the lazy, the apathetic, the opportunistic, those whose only cause was themselves, those that never made any commitment to anything but their own self-interest.

Those people caused a shudder in the medieval mind of Dante. What would he make of today's world, and especially the USA and Europe, where the Ignavi are now more or less the only type of people you ever encounter - people ruthlessly committed to their own greed, selfishness and narcissism ... libertarians, anarchists, relativists, subjectivists, empiricists, nihilists, agnostics, predatory capitalists, and the like. People that despise the State, society, and government, and are only interested in their own needs and wants. People that reject the absolute, objective Truth. People that believe that everyone has their own path and their own truth, and that the only thing to do is to listen to your own propaganda, your own opinions and beliefs, your own interpretations, your own experiences. By doing that, you will become "enlightened", they say.

This was exactly the position adopted by the neutral angels. They didn't look to God or Lucifer or any cause greater than themselves. They decided that they themselves were the truth, and that they should never look beyond themselves. That has now become the default position of the human race, and it has ensured the irresistible rise of Mediocre Man, the most pathetic, self-serving type of person who worships himself but has absolutely nothing to give the world other than crushing averageness, pettiness and triviality. He is the perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Nietzsche called these self-servatives "Last Men", and he regarded them as the abject final product of the human race, the total opposite of his beloved Supermen.

We have now entered the Age of the Last Men. Social media is their medium for spreading their tedious garbage everywhere, destroying everything of quality, merit and excellence, drowning everything in a beige, soulless blanket of muzak and middling pointlessness. The medium is the message and the medium is that which empowers the irretrievably mediocre and gives them an unstoppable, irresistible voice that drowns out everyone else. You can't hear those with something meaningful to say because of the meaningless noise and static of the mediocre posting their selfies and their inane comments about their selfies.

Humanity is now at a crossroads. The endgame is being played out. It's time to step up. It's time to choose a side. If you want to avoid hell's vestibule, you must rally behind a banner and give it your all, give it your heart and soul.

As Nietzsche said, "Whoever, at any time, has undertaken to build a new heaven has found the strength for it in his own hell."