Virtue, Vehicle, and Status Quo

Posted on December 19, 2025 - December 19, 2025 by rabbitrunriot

Mutualism is the natural mode of being for people: our natural social philosophy, more or less. We can look at the natural dynamics of hunter-gatherer societies, past and present, to confirm this[1]. When the competition, fabricated scarcity, and synthetic social divisions that collectively plague modern life under liberal capitalism are eliminated, what remains — mutualism — is our natural social dynamic. Capitalism and liberalism have stolen that from us but there are plenty of intellectual exposés and angry rants that address this topic so we’re not going to waste more time on that[2].

Instead, we’re going to get meta.

There are virtues we are naturally born valuing — liberty, loyalty, compassion, reason, and truth — and then there are the vehicles society tells us are available to express those virtues — social honors, traditions, contracts, etc. Somewhere along the line, mainstream society lost sight of the distinction between these virtues and the vehicles through which they are expressed.

As an example, modern society tends to laud soldiers. Veterans of World War 2 allied armies might be respected for holding antifascist values — values which united them in their cause. The honor of being a soldier, in that era, was earned by demonstrating those virtues on the battlefield. In contrast, today, soldiers expect respect for being members of the military, regardless of the virtues and values they hold and the struggles they’ve faced. The essence of “soldier” has lost its substance of “virtue.”

For those who can see the distinction, either inherently or after some effort, between the values and their vehicles, and who dare to question the validity of those vehicles as continuing to effectively express the values they allegedly represent, there is a choice to be made. Do you accept the lie, or go against the grain?

Choosing to go against the grain — to be a genuine expression of those values which mainstream society has lost sight of in favor of vainglorious pursuits — will always be the more difficult path path. At certain points in your life, it may be necessary to tread the middle-way between them. But don’t get trapped there.

Whatever your virtues and core values are, if you participate in a society that caricatures those values in vehicles whose essence has become devoid of substance, you are submitting to living a lie at a fundamental level. Every day, when you wake up, you will more or less be lying to yourself when you tell yourself you are satisfied and happy with your life — somewhere, deep down, you will know that’s bullshit.

You’ll try therapy, drugs, alcohol, sports, sex… and everything will make you feel good… for a brief period. But nothing can sustain satisfaction and contentment because you’re living contrary to the principles you prize most. If you value truth, as most people naturally do, and your fundamental modus operandi is effectively a lie you try to sell yourself on every day, how do you think that’s going to work out psychologically?

The “powers that be” (which are not a monolith, mind you; they are not always coordinating and cooperating, but they draw from the same well of power and influence) have long since discovered the benefit of attaching the virtues to social constructs so that the latter can be weaponized for the purpose of controlling the masses. To that end, everything from armies to churches have been used to manipulate the will of the masses and direct it towards agendas they may otherwise oppose were their values, virtues, and ideals laid out plainly.

This illusion of simile — that the essence of some social construct is synonymous with and inseparable from its virtuous substance — is part and parcel of the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt would have seen it[3]. It is our responsibility, as revolutionaries, to take note of where these false equivalencies have been institutionalized, and separate the virtue from the vehicle once again so that such atrocities do not repeat themselves. This can be a difficult process and we often find that we are doing a bit more than just separating the wheat from the chaff, proverbially speaking.

In some cases, in fact, the intertwining of virtue and vehicle is so convoluted that separating the two for effective critique and evolution cannot be done without creating conflicts. These conflicts can all be boiled down to whether or not a virtue will be expressed in the context of the social lie[4] …or in spite of it. In the case of the latter, there is an implicit challenge in facing the resistance and derision of the people and institutions that will look down on the individual who questions the status quo. Those with the courage to persist will find that they are often “outcasts” and “pariahs,” and may find that their convictions cost them family, friends, and success in the world. However, the alternative — accepting the lie — creates an internal disharmony rooted in a sense (however subconscious it may be) that one is “living a lie” and the struggle becomes an internal tempest of depression, anxiety, and unfulfilled dreams of self-actualization.

Because of the proclivity of the individual to seek to define themselves — per the status quo of liberal consumerism — when individuals incorporate these socio-cultural composites of virtue-and-vehicle into their self-definition and self-actualization process, they struggle to separate challenges and critiques aimed at the vehicle from attacks on themselves, personally. Similarly, we associate certain virtues and values with people we respect, making it difficult to separate the virtue from the vehicle when a living example of their cohesion still bears heavily on our experiential worldview.

All of these things cause subjective/objective incongruence and disharmony, the reconciliation of which demands either accepting the subjective reality (“the lie” — the status quo) or rejecting it as a vehicle of virtue and value. The status quo depends on the masses’ inability to separate virtues from their social vehicles, and our psychological needs and processes complicate this process, reinforcing the very paradigms that we revolutionaries seek to challenge and overturn in service to evolution.

We can find a temporary reprieve from the stresses of evolution in certain concessions to the status quo that allow us to “cohabitate” with its proponents. Many revolutionaries, during less polarized times, end up in the punk subculture, for instance. While punk is outside mainstream and tends to be “radical and revolutionary,” it has a degree of acceptability as a subculture. However, as time progresses, evolution must continue, and eventually we are forced to confront the disharmony.

The most difficult part of this process, and of actualizing ourselves according to our own values (as opposed to within the context of “the lie”), comes when we must separate the virtue from the vehicle in a way that challenges others around us to, whether passively or directly, to at least acknowledge the discrepancy. For those “others” who have depended on the status quo for their sense of stability and security, this may create relationship conflicts.

A child raised by parents who patronize the status quo is going to meet resistance when choosing a life that disregards the status quo or actively questions and opposes it. But these virtues, and the need to express them, are not just a matter of politics and social graces; they are matters of lifestyle choices and values, expressed at every level of our being, actions, and thoughts. So, when that child, raised by parents who have followed the blueprint and believe the path to a respectable and satisfying life is by doing the same, announces that they are venturing out to be a homeless peace activist, the parents are mortified.

“We raised you better than that! Have some class and self-respect! You can’t save the world, shouldn’t you figure out how you want to contribute as a productive member of society?” This rejection of a challenge to the status quo places the burden of reconciling the conflict entirely on the child and, unfortunately, results in broken relationships and deep-seated psychological trauma.

In a group of activists, you are unlikely to not find at least one whose pursuit of justice and liberty has come at a high cost. And none will know, better, how badly western liberalism can destroy a person’s psyche than those who have lost a parent, sibling, or child to the confusion of vehicle-with-virtue. In such a case, the person who refuses to separate vehicle and virtue is effectively insisting that the world’s conception of virtue evolve to suit their needs, and that brings us full circle back to the impacts of western liberalism and consumer culture.

To be continued…

Endnotes

See a more detailed examination of hunter-gatherer society for comparison on LibCom.org.
Criticism of the social impacts of liberal capitalism and consumerism date from Thorstein Veblen’s brilliant 1899 work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, to Robert Putnam’s contemporary study, Bowling Alone.
See Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, which has been published as both an article for The New Yorker and a full-length book.
The social lie (or “the lie”) just refers to the idea that vehicles are inseparable from their virtues — a misconception which helps maintain the supremacy of the status quo.

Domestication and Schism

Posted on December 9, 2025 - December 10, 2025 by rabbitrunriot

When you domesticate a wild animal, you cannot just put it in a cage and expect it to stay content. No matter how much food you give it, it will try to escape and run away. And every time, it will make a greater effort not to be caught again.

To domesticate an animal, you must gain its trust first. Then, the domestication process becomes a continual dialectic. In order for it to be successful, the animal must feel satisfied more by continuing to participate in the dialectic than to run away. Over time, the animal will become a companion, and that trust becomes a bond.

But if you break the trust, you break the bond. Sometimes it can be mended, if it’s addressed quickly and prioritized accordingly. But the relationship is forever changed, and if there is no amicable solution, schism occurs. Schism can be avoided, however, if the relationship dynamic is allowed to evolve to resolve the inconsistency/incongruence (whether in one of its parties or the dynamic itself); otherwise, the issue that causes schism will become its own unresolved loop.

The idea of winners and losers is a fallacy of modern society: nobody wins in a schism — bonds are broken, enemies can be made, and conflict arises. Conflict sets other patterns in motion as the schismed parties go their separate ways and then, before the original conflict can be resolved, the fractalized conflicts and loops (“subs”) that spiral out from the schism need all to be resolved, first.

If the schismed parties are lucky, and they are able to reconnect after resolving their respective “subs,” they may have an opportunity to resolve the conflict, again. More likely than not, they will find it again in another party, and will continue to be tested by, over and over, until they are able to reach an amicable solution rather than a schism.

Thus, when the conflict is over broken trust, it’s essential that both parties see the situation from the subjective perspective of the other, in the context of the objective reality, in order for it to evolve and be preserved. This demands extreme and brutal self-honesty from both parties involved — something which contemporary society, capitalism, liberalism, and consumerism have all played a part in suppressing. And they’ve been quite successful.

This self-honesty must come from walking backwards through the dialectic of influences and dynamics of the inconsistency or incongruence that created the conflict until you arrive at its root. This enables you to find and amend the root problem and break out of the loop. Sometimes we get lucky and have this clarity sort of spontaneously as an epiphany; sometimes it takes time to work out through deconstruction. Either way, identifying it allows us to confront and resolve the issue. Maybe we can’t entirely have it “our way” — but we can absolutely try to synergize with the world instead of fight against it.

Conflict is not the answer.

Posted on December 5, 2025 - December 5, 2025 by rabbitrunriot

Build community. Go meet your neighbors. Find common ground — you have to build the bridges before you can walk across them and meet in the middle. But if we’re standing on opposite sides of the canyon, blaming each other and assigning responsibility for creating the canyon and building the bridge, the bridge is never going to be built, and we’ll eventually give up and go our separate ways.

It doesn’t matter which corner of the socio-political landscape you consider, you will find this problem. Because it’s not a socio-political problem, at all — that’s just the landscape it has most recently surfaced in, since politics became the dominant force guiding social relations in the modern world. The answer is more meta than that.

Our willingness to pursue (or even prefer) conflict over compromise is the heart of all our problems as a society. Our egos are individualized (and full of arrogant hubris to boot!) and concerned entirely with our subjective perception. When objective generalizations conflict with our subjective perceptions, our egos generally perceive two options: assimilate or abdicate, but there is in fact a third option: cooperation.

The issue with cooperation is that it demands a degree of humility that most individuals and social groups are unwilling to exercise. They have become too convinced of the objectivity of their subjective perceptions (and the subjectivity of objective reality), which shuts the door to cooperation in most cases. A preconceived notion or inherent disposition of the most minuscule proportions — regardless of where it comes from — is enough to impede compromise and stoke conflict.

Humility is critical in overcoming this problem at the most basic human level. If you find yourself making objective judgments of subjective situations, or assuming your subjective perception is shared by everyone (as an objective fact), then you have fallen for this ego trick. No matter how correct your objective perceptions are, and how valid your subjective assessments are, they are yours. We can share objective perceptions with others, but we will each have our own conceptions of the phenomena being perceived and our social (shared) subjective assessments within a group are based on a dialectic within our social group.

A society, collectively, can also have an “ego” of its own in this way; its own subjective perceptions of problems — a sort of group-thinking in which all members of a social group adopt the same subjective perception — and this society can also choose conflict over compromise — leading to large scale social conflicts.

The solution to these conflicts is to expand the dialectic and the social group. Find common ground with the other social group — no matter how different you think you are. This is how you prevent xenophobia — it’s literally an adverse or defensive response triggered by encountering something different while harboring the subjective opinion that different is equitable to dangerous. When we shift this perception — so that different becomes something interesting or unique, and something to be curious about — we open a door way to compromise, and the social groups’ dynamic becomes one of coalescence, not annihilation.

Do you understand? Can you read between the lines of your perceptions and experiences enough to see the realities of the situation? Or has your ego so hijacked and clouded your perception that you are incapable of the most basic human trait — finding a balance in yourself that encourages balance in the world around you? If you are, you are in good company. Capitalism and liberalism in their modern context (or, collectively, ‘neo-liberalism’), by weaponizing consumerism, have established a social dynamic that encourages isolationism and toxic individualism in people, and directly threatens social cohesion.

When people are individualized enough (in capitalism, the goal is to “win” — to make the most money — and this achieved, in theory, by being the “most special person” in a demographic where the root social value is competition) and isolation (not necessarily as individuals, by to a specific demographic group where collective thinking ensures a uniform collective conception of certain phenomena) becomes a tool to reinforce the ego with “echo chamber” methodology, we quickly build walls between ourselves and others based on fabricated “differences.”

The differences that these lines are usually drawn in accordance with are fabricated. Always. It doesn’t matter if it’s race, religion, resource scarcity, social class, … whatever they can politicize becomes a tool. We must acknowledge that the core issue here — the source of the differences that provide the subjective conflict in the individual that becomes xenophobia, and spreads to others with similar subjective perceptions — is politics. Politics has, since the days of ancient empires, been one of the primary tools for organizing and managing society; capitalism and religion are the others.

Politics is the problem. Or rather, the arena of politics as a forum for resolving social discrepancies is insufficient because — especially coupled with capitalism and the heavily-embedded consumerism that drives modern lifestyles — it encourages conflict and competition. This antagonistic dynamic results in two people or social groups (or whatever phenomena, really) trying to enforce their conceptions on the other without allowing the other to participate in the process of conception. When someone (or some group, or some phenomena of the world we live in) is compelled to participate in a system that they have no inherent influence on the operation of, this then becomes de facto oppression.

Stop participating in something that is designed to perpetuate isolationism and toxic individualism. Build community. Learn to cooperate, and deconstruct your own subjective perceptions and conceptions before you try to force other people to see them — in any instance. Even if you are objectively right, you owe it to other people — we are all equal, after all (unless you don’t actually believe that, in which case, there are bigger problems) — and capable of rationally understanding the world according to our perceptions. It is only fair to assume that others are similarly attuned to their situation, and to consider their subjective perception of the situation when it involves them.

It only takes a moment to review your motives and intentions — assuming you’re capable of being honest with yourself in some capacity — and you’ll find that conflict in your life more often gives way to compromise and cooperation. We can go a lot further together than we can, individually, and we are much more cooperative and compromising when we kill the cop that’s sleeping in our own hearts.

Build community. Stop arguing about theory and politics — that shit’s useless if you don’t apply it and let it evolve. Go meet your neighbors. Find common ground and ignore the political bullshit (might I suggest the arts, sports, or STEM hobbies?) — you have to build the bridges before you can walk across them and meet in the middle. But if we’re all standing on opposite sides of the canyon, telling the other person it’s their responsibility to build the bridge because the canyon is “their fault,” is kind of unfair. By the same token, when the canyon is your fault, you need to own it. Nobody’s going to want to come meet you in the middle when you build the bridge if they feel like you’re just going to fuck them again — you have to own and learn from your mistakes.

Don’t confuse the essence for its medium

Posted on December 2, 2025 - December 2, 2025 by rabbitrunriot

Read between the lines. These are the same.

On organized religion

Adherents of organized religions aren’t practicing a spirituality. They’re worshiping an institution.

Every single organized religion developed because practicing real spirituality, and genuinely connecting with Otherness, requires thankless and clandestine effort which the world cannot reward, because the world wouldn’t know about it to begin with. It’s much easier to establish a corporate organization and ask people to pander to the institution in lieu of making genuine effort to grow spiritually.

If you’re good enough at it, you’ll be able to convince enough people that you’re a spiritual authority, and they’ll pay you for your bullshit takes on texts you haven’t even begun to fathom the meaning of. If you get really good, they’ll listen to you, and do what you say! All to avoid “the fires of hell!”

But the results of that ignorance — that you’ll run a successful grift and take them all for a shitload of cash — will appear to outsiders like you’ve received “a miraculous blessing” and you can tell people all about how your “god” is rewarding you for your efforts. This reinforces the narrative that you’re an authority, and more people start listening to your bullshit takes on texts you haven’t even begun to fathom the meaning of. The feedback loop is born.

On the dispositional dynamics of revolutionary movements

The right-wing revolutionary movements are the subjective reactions of members of the status quo who feel their security and comfort are being threatened by an objective opposition. They cling to the status quo because, as the “in group,” they enjoy a degree of comfort; in the liberal west, this is often measured by negative liberty, and is worth defending at all costs, so any objective opposition to the ideology of the status quo is subjectively perceived as an existential threat to its benefactors, and will prompt a reaction.

The left-wing revolutionary movements are the same, but inverted. The revolutionary movement is an objective goal when enough of the population shares the subjective perception that they are oppressed. Their liberation is qualitatively measured as positive liberty, and the promise of any prospect to change one’s lot is usually believed to be worth fighting for.

In a sense, they both contribute to the other’s poor opinion of them.

The disposition of the revolution shifts with the dominant social values, perspectives, and social orientation of a population, and responds to shifts in the environment (natural, societal, etc.).

What’s this all about

Posted on October 8, 2025 - November 9, 2025 by rabbitrunriot

Hey there. I’m Rabbit – welcome to my little corner of the internet.

I’m a philosopher, a musician, and an occultist, but above all else, I’m a revolutionary dreamer. The problem with that is, more often than not, dreamers never get to become doers. But I’m sure going to fucking try until I croak.

I’m actually really bad with introductions. I ramble a lot. And I have a lot of different thoughts swirling around in my head the entire time, all competing for expression. As such, I thought it would be much easier to just make the first post here a summary of the stuff I plan to put here… if any of it appeals to you, I hope you’ll bookmark and come back…

Music and Writing

I make no claims of being talented or wise, but I’ve been told that I need to share this stuff so that was the initial purpose of this site.

Most of my writing is, broadly speaking, philosophy and pragmatism in the topical realms of anarchism and occultism, but as a neurodivergent caffeine junkie with a terrible sleep schedule, it could be anything, at any time.

If you like folk… or punk… or folkpunk?… you can have a listen if you check out Mispy Haven on Bandcamp. I don’t get a lot of opportunity to play “scheduled shows” but I can often be found playing around town. Stop and sing with me if you see me!

The Collective and Community

This is my big dream: an intentional community built for self-sufficiency and sustainability. This is not your typical “anarchist commune” — it’s bigger. The primary goal is to establish a self-sufficient, sustainable collective, operating as an anarchist commune, on 50 – 100 acres (or more!) of land, with a few dozen (or more!) others who want to try building an anarchist utopia somewhere in the hills of Vermont or the haunted woods of Maine.

We need more people — people who are genuinely willing to commit to this. If you’d like to support or join us, let me know!

Web3 for Anarchists

Technology and cyberspace have become a critical theatre for social evolution. The “social elites” know this (of course!) and have capitalized on it by capitalizing and commercializing the internet. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple have steadily been steadily establishing themselves as irrevocable cornerstones of modern life, ensuring they have a wide expanse of options to control and manipulate the masses. Web3 provides an escape from this, and that escape is the first step towards technological liberation (or digital anarchy)

Technological Liberation (Digital Anarchy)

Just like the collective and intentional community aims to establish a local, self-sustaining community in the real world, technological liberation is about the widespread liberation of individuals from oppressive technology. This process begins by adopting the decentralized and anonymized norms of Web3, but goes much further to create services to support the needs of anarchist communities — digital markets and currency, private arbitration services and alternatives to “law enforcement,” libre education and social services, mutualist networks, etc. — in a corner of the internet that exists outside the auspices and authority of technocratic elites and governments.

Practical Anarchy and Passive Revolution

In part, this builds on technological liberation, and extends the same principles in the rest of our daily lives. By deliberately choosing liberty over convenience and luxury in all domains of our day-to-day lives, we can liberate ourselves — even in the context of the state.

An Internal Paradigm Shift

Why do the fascists keep winning? I think I know. We spend all of our time as activists arguing and fighting with each other on the internet. The left cannot even collectively agree on whether or not Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City was a good thing or not (hint: yes, it was – even if you think he’s a corrupt asshole who’s sacrificed his ideals, you cannot deny that his election represents a wider shift in public perspective towards a socialist-orientation). And a lot of the stuff we fight internally about, really, is completely inconsequential. But all the while, why we’re fighting amongst ourselves, the fascists are doing things to advance their position. Stop fighting. Check yourself. Deconstruct. Then take a deep breath and come back and stand together with us.