Perspective

The Tao of Louis C.K.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Erik Pendzich/REX/Shutterstock (5340073i) Louis CK 'Trumbo' film screening, New York, America - 03 Nov 2015

The fall of Louis C.K. is an act of cosmic justice. Harvey Weinstein going down was almost cliché; everyone knew he was doing it and it was only a matter of time. Kevin Spacey’s collapse was probably the most amusing; the homosexual pairing his disgrace with his “coming out” and so infuriating all the gay rights advocates. But Louis C.K.’s was the most elegant, a fall from grace so perfect and so orderly it’s a PR disaster that fit into the Golden Ratio.

On the surface level, the disgrace of Louis C.K. was satisfying because of the actor’s endless virtue signaling against President Trump. “The guy is Hitler,” he moaned during the election, complaining that “we are being Germany in the 30’s.” He called Trump an “insane bigot” and a “lying sack of shit.”  The best part is when he said you shouldn’t vote for Trump if you are a “true conservative.”

This is all especially amusing because C.K. has now been exposed as a liar about his own past. Only a few weeks ago, claims he forced women to watch him masturbate were just “rumors.” Today, he admits, “these stories are true.”

But politics was only the beginning. Louis C.K. was not just a celebrity, but a kind of archetype of post-Western man. He’s a representation of what we are supposed to be – an overweight schlub, self-loathing, and ironic about everything except how wicked and evil “racism” is.

Before we go any further, it must be stated Louis C.K.’s “whiteness” is debatable. Of partially Jewish descent (though raised Catholic) and Mexican by nationality, born in the United States but raised in Mexico until he was seven, “Louis Szekely” deploys the usual “fellow White people” trick.

When performing a show in Jerusalem, C.K. identified Christians “winning everything” as the explanation for his Jewish grandfather abandoning the faith to marry a Nazarene. (C.K.’s own father converted to Orthodox Judaism). Significantly, during his Jerusalem show, C.K. also cited the Jewish year to signify the date and declared, “that’s our thing.” The Jerusalem Post characterized it as him “seemingly casting his lot in with the Jewish people.”

He has claimed non-White and “outsider” status when it suits him because of his Mexican background, preening to Rolling Stone, “Coming here and observing America as an outsider made me an observing person.”  He notes George Lopez, born in California, does not have the Mexican immigrant experience he had but will nonetheless be treated as an “immigrant.” In contrast, for himself to “become White,” he notes sarcastically: “All I had to do was completely reject my Spanish and my Mexican past, which is a whole lot easier because I’m White with red hair.”

Linking neatly to the doctrine of Whiteness as a social construction, C.K. sneers, “I had the help of a whole nation of people just accepting that I’m White.”  Of course, this pronouncement implies race is something more permanent and immutable than a piece of paper designating citizenship.

Because of his partially Jewish background and his Mexican nationality, C.K. can sometimes claim the mantle of a group considered “oppressed.” His self-image as an “outsider” is what allows him to be an “observing person” who can attack White people as a group. But because he was raised Christian, is mostly racially White and operates largely within European-American culture, C.K. can pose as “one of us” when it is time to shame white men. He may even feel “White” and have internalized “White guilt.” But the way he atones for this guilt is by shaming other white people who do gross things like vote for the hated Drumpf.

This self-loathing combined with privilege and anti-White hatred is the model for a whole form of liberalism. A wealthy White person can comfortably enjoy status and resources as long as those resources are never used in the service of his co-ethnics. Whites have a negative collective identity but no positive collective identity.

On an individual level, this leads to a hypocritical sociopathy. If you use enough rhetoric about environmentalism and “localism,” you can justify keeping the wrong sort of people out of your rich white neighborhood. If you complain loudly enough about a wall on the Mexican border, you can justify living in a secure, gated community. And evidently Louis C.K. thought that if he pretended Samantha Bee was funny or talented, he could masturbate in front of disgusted women.

More broadly, Louis C.K.’s entire model of comedy was premised on two core ideas. First, defining himself as a “White person,” Louis C.K. claimed he inherited certain privileges and a First World society. Though he cannot or will not justify this inheritance, he is still determined to enjoy the advantages bestowed upon him, until White people are, quite appropriately, replaced and punished. The humor results from C.K.’s recognition of his privilege combined with his lack of action beyond simply acknowledging it. It’s funny to the kind of White person who laughs at Jamie Foxx’s exclamation on Saturday Night Live that he “gets to kill all the White people” and somehow imagines this refers to every white person but himself.

The second premise of C.K.’s comedy is broader. As modern White people can’t justify their collective or individual existence, humor is found in the absurdity of life and mean-spirited laughter at those who claim they have found meaning through God or nation. C.K.’s comedic posture is that of a nihilist and a loser, but someone who knows he’s a nihilist and loser. This self-knowledge makes him somehow superior to those who don’t know they are losers with meaningless lives too. It’s a familiar mindset for many liberal white men – even if they’re heavily in debt, working a shit job, and frustrated in love, at least they’re somehow better than those proles wearing MAGA hats.

Louis C.K.’s key bit, something actually cited as a perfect illustration of White privilege theory, lays out these ideas. “If you’re not White, you’re missing out, because this shit is thoroughly good,” he smirks.

“Let me be clear by the way, I’m not saying that White people are better, I’m saying that being White is clearly better, who could even argue?… Here’s how great it is to be White: I can get in a time machine and go to any time, and it would be f***ing awesome when I get there! That is exclusively a White privilege!”

This is the Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like answer about why being anti-White is permissible. “It is always OK to make fun of White people, because no unhappy ending is possible,” as Lander put it.

Louis C.K. adds his own corollary that could be applied to things like the slaughter of Boer farmers – when bad things do happen to White people, they had it coming. “We’re going to pay hard for this shit, you gotta know that,” he grins, as his overwhelmingly White audience gleefully applauds. “We’re not just going to fall from number one into two, they’re going to hold us down and fuck us in the ass forever. And we totally deserve it, but for now, weeee!”

In contrast to his loving treatment of his Jewish and Mexican background, C.K. dismisses all of White history as “terrible,” presents an idyllic vision of pre-Columbian America as a peaceful paradise and indulges in speculation whites actually come from another planet. (I’m willing to entertain the latter; the noble savages C.K. patronizes thought we were the return of their gods.)

At the same time, critically, C.K. admits he still enjoys all of the technology White people have created. One of his most widely distributed bits was on Conan O’Brien, when he marveled at intercontinental plane travel and noted how even though “everything is amazing…nobody is happy.”

These wonders are distributed unequally, something C.K. benefits from but will not justify. He drives an Infinity, he notes, instead of driving a slightly worse car and saving starving people with the savings. “Every day, I kill them with my car,” he says. And if morality is based on some vague utilitarianism, then by this standard, he’s right.

One of his better bits, “of course, but maybe,” has a similar theme, noting how all great human accomplishments ultimately rely upon exploitation:

“Even today, how do we have this amazing microtechnology? Because the factory where they’re making these, they jump off the fucking roof, because it’s a nightmare in there. You really have a choice. You can have candles and horses and be a little kinder to each other or let someone suffer immeasurably far away, just so you can leave a mean comment on YouTube while you’re taking a shit.”

The purpose of such commentary serves a two-fold purpose. The audience is nudged into supporting vaguely leftist policies in the name of humanitarianism and equality. Meanwhile, the speaker himself is exempted from being held responsible for inequality. 

Louis C.K., like so many other White leftists, can enjoy his nice car because he has identified those White people who do not feel guilty, or who justify inequality, as the real problem. As he put his real motivations in an interview with Vanity Fair: “I’ve got a nice apartment and a nice car. I earned it and you can kiss my ass.

Unfortunately for Louis C.K., egalitarianism has no limits. Though he styled himself as anti-Trump, pro-Obama and vaguely anti-White, C.K. also claimed the right to speak his mind and offend people. “For a stronger person to physically assault a weaker person, there’s just no greater crime, but everyone can insult everybody,” he said once. “We don’t get along — that’s the human race. The idea of America is that we can be mean to each other.”

But that’s not America if you believe the idea of America is “equality.” It’s certainly not what most leftists believe in today. Language, law, property – all of these uphold a certain pattern of society that leftists have convinced themselves is built upon White privilege and patriarchy. If you are making offensive jokes about “marginalized” groups, even ironically, you’re engaging in violence and upholding privilege. Think of David Chapelle quitting his show because he noticed White guys laughing at his imitations of blacks in a way he didn’t approve of.

The problem for Louis C.K. is that he fundamentally shares this leftist view of society and accepts the internalized guilt of the White man.

As he put it:

White guys are fine. Nobody’s turning us down for a job. There’s nothing that’s being taken away from us. That’s a load of shit, people who think that. Most people are good people, and most people who are tasked with hiring or promoting take people at their value. That’s my experience anyway. But of course that’s my experience — because I’m a privileged White guy. As a White guy, things are pretty much always as I remember them being…Yeah, men, we’re fine. The level of privilege is so high that if we lose a little bit, there’s a panic: What’s happening to us?

Indeed, Louis C.K.’s self-loathing is all the more intense because he’s not fully White, at least not in his own mind. He’s an “outsider” to America in his own words. He sneers at White America but at the same time, he’s not really part of the “oppressed” class. He lacks the perceived legitimacy and cultural authenticity that comes with it. Though his identity and ideology is informed by Judaism, we can’t even really call him a “Jewish” comedian in the same category as Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld. If anything, he’s utterly deracinated, defined by a purely negative white identity mixed in with a bit of an “outsider’s” grudge against the in-group.

To quote Dan Friedman in The Forward, who obviously has a much more straightforward identity than CK:

CK is the spokesman of our part of our generation. Even though he barely finished high school and is now a major star he embodies the thoughtful, liberal, mostly white (hence mostly privileged) middle classes who are doing ok but, in recognizing the injustices of society and hypocrisies of our daily life, recognize how we could have done better for the world. This insight places us on the spectrum of self-loathing.

What destroyed C.K. is obviously an outgrowth of that self-loathing. It’s hard to imagine anything more inherently pathetic than forcing unwilling women to watch you masturbate.

If rape is fundamentally about power, as feminists claim and conquering marauders of the past might confirm, what could involuntary exhibitionism possibly be about? One can only speculate, but it has to be something about combining pleasure and self-degradation, while refusing the responsibility of agency. He’s not “taking” these women like some Mongol of Genghis Kahn would as an act of contempt and victory. The contempt in the action is mostly directed against himself.

Similarly, C.K.’s comedy relied upon that same self-loathing, that is why these bizarre masturbation stories somehow weren’t surprising. But just as C.K. somehow expected (even a few weeks ago!) to avoid accountability for his sexual degeneracy, his professional career also relied upon his ability to be exempted from political accountability. He thought he would be still be allowed to say offensive things in order to titillate his white fanbase. He also showed a certain sense of self-awareness about his politics.

The justification of C.K.’s comedy was that his offensiveness prompted critical thought about our society. But leftists have moved past thought; indeed, as the opposition to the Alt Right in Gainesville showed, they may no longer be capable of it. They know what is racist and evil and there is no more need to debate. Self-awareness about politics or acknowledgement of ambiguities constitutes complicity with white supremacy. After all, if we’re all agreed on the need for equality and the evils of “White privilege” and “patriarchy,” why should C.K. be allowed to make jokes about blacks, homosexuals and women?

Indeed, why should any white liberal be allowed to enjoy wealth, and status, and nice neighborhoods and craft beers and the ironic enjoyment of Pumpkin Spice Lattes? The affirmative action bloggers at The Root have a point when they identified “White allies” as the worst kind of “wypipo.” Though (hopefully) few have the same sexual issues as C.K., the same kind of reckoning that’s come to CK is coming to all liberal white people.

As Richard Spencer put it in Charlottesville, if White liberals really believe their rhetoric, they need to tear down their town, that was built upon “White supremacy.” As Eli Mosley put it at the University of Florida, if the White university professors really believe their rhetoric, they should all quit their jobs. Few of them will of their own accord, but if they are confronted, they’ll buckle under like a liberal Yale professor resigning after a black protest against Halloween costumes.

Yet they won’t quite give up that easily. Even if they succumb to the mob’s demands, they’ll be looking for a workaround, a way to keep claiming their belief in egalitarianism while still maintaining a social and economic status above other white people. Leftists have decided liberal whites will no longer be permitted the hypocrisy of accepting egalitarianism while avoiding its consequences. But Louis C.K.’s comedy was built upon that hypocrisy, and the self-loathing inherent within it. For him to have a future, that hypocrisy has to be maintained.

And we already see the strategy of how he is going to try to keep his schtick going. In his statement admitting guilt, Louis C.K. framed his actions not as the twisted perversions of a sick man, but as an outgrowth of wielding “power” irresponsibly. Indeed, he informs us that he is on a journey of political discovery, “learning” from his actions, newly awakened to the “impact” of his actions, cognizant that he was able to perform these actions because of how “admired” he was in the comedic community.

Now, newly enlightened, he’s ready to grow even more, stepping back to “listen,” presumably to feminists who will take this opportunity to feed him additional narratives. He can then use these to blame his actions on some grand theory of patriarchy rather than his being a loathsome deviant.

After all, the biggest thing missing in his statement is an actual apology to the women affected. They are secondary to his intellectual quest. Presumably C.K. is preparing his return, with his new schtick consisting of even more overt self-flagellation directed not just at himself, but at all men and all White people. Perhaps this will allow him to keep some semblance of a career.

And maybe that’s why it makes a certain amount of sense for Louis to frame his actions as a social construct. Because Louis C.K. is every White cuck, every shitlib journalist, every deracinated urbanite. They spend their lives ashamedly masturbating in the corner, torn between the conflicting and simultaneous desires for status and debasement, hating themselves every second. And yet they console themselves because somehow, some way, they think, they’re still better than us. 

Gregory Hood
the authorGregory Hood

21 Comments

  • I haven’t watched his shows since getting red pilled. I was finding his liberal condescension whiny and tiresome but I couldn’t articulate why, this article made it all click. Fantastic article.

  • This is one of the best articles I’ve read on this site. Good job. Very interesting and insightful look at what is going on in our world today.

  • “This self-knowledge makes him somehow superior to those who don’t know they are losers with meaningless lives too.”

    To be honest I can relate to this, except I feel this way towards cucks and self-righteous morons.

  • I count it as one of God’s blessings that I had never heard of this guy until a few days ago. I suspect Greg Hood’s analysis exceeds the level of self-awareness ever shown by Louis C.K. What kind of a last name is that anyway?

  • I have been saying this since the Weinstein story broke….this entire Hollywood sex saga represents the decoupling of feminism and International Jewry. It’s like Germany splitting into East/West, arguably creating/ending the Cold War on its own based on its division/reunification.

    This is not about ‘women’s rights’ or ‘patriarchy’ since this was a fruitful partnership for both and since all show business blindly supports cultural marxism, but rather the obsolescence of an archaic business model.

    These shiksas bided their time, bit their tongue and went along with the casting couch in order to be rescued from their uneventful Midwestern lives. All the while archiving, misremembering and bragging about their encounters with these Jews to be cashed in later on should the inevitable occur in their lifetime.

    Now that Hollywood is irreversibly collapsing because of technology and decentralized competition, they finally saw their chance to revolt, especially the shiksas that have ‘hit the wall’ like Rose ‘has-never-been’ McGowan, who used every ounce of her pussy juice to gain and maintain fame.

    This women’s prison look adopted by fallen starlets (Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Rose McGowan, Kristen Stewart etc) is an individual immune response to first experiencing these diminishing returns on fame, status and fortune, whereas this feminist thing is a last-ditch female collective attempt at maintaining status, even if its victim status.

    Also, Louis C.K. is part Jewish and part Mestizo. I heard him for years on O&A when he was politically-incorrect and actually very funny, but he decided to do what all Jews, and most Goys, do when Hollywood knocks…become shameless SJWs because everybody has a price.

    This is why we should have not one shred of pity for Donald Sterling or Jeffrey Tambor or any other Jews because they built, maintained and profited off this entire Cultural Marxist tightrope they forced everybody to walk, especially those who suffered from not having the means…now they have become victims of their own revolution because it is no longer 1793, but the Current Year.

    • Curious to see if the betrayed will counterattack against the feminists. The current moment is a fascinating study to see which half of the coalition is really the more powerful.

    • “I have been saying this since the Weinstein story broke….this entire Hollywood sex saga represents the decoupling of feminism and International Jewry.”

      Not sure if I agree that Hollywood feminism and Jewry will truly split, but this is an interesting idea.

      I also just wanted to say “Weimar Republican” is a great pseudonym.

      • Well this should convince you… https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/10/lisa-bloom-representing-harvey-weinstein-mistake

        Abortion queen Gloria Allred’s daughter defending fellow chosenite ahead of the shiksa backlash.

        I have also noticed that Jews will sacrifice one of their own about once a year to the goyim masses just to throw them off from any conspiracy theories. It’s very similar to how the Mayans beheaded a child every year for their sun god.

        Donald Sterling 2014
        Anthony Weiner 2011-2016
        Jared Fogle 2015

        These persona non grata Juden then go wallowing into the night without a fight, as if they broke some blood pact.. like don’t get caught, but if you do, go into exile. They go into this tonic immobility and do these public cry-fests begging for forgiveness, whereas they pull every anti-white, anti-christian defamatory lightning bolt from their quiver when a Gentile attacks them.

        Jewish Inc. all got behind Harvey Weinstein as long as they could, even Mossad did with the private investigators, until too many confluences breached their Jewish defenses…then they had no choice but to surrender each perv Jew one by one to stave off total collapse of the entertainment empire of Hollywood and corporate media, as we are currently witnessing.

  • Not to excuse that blubbery tub of deceit and hypocrisy but no man can ‘force’ a woman to watch him do anything. Even if chained there is always the option of closing her eyes and turning her head away. Whining women and infantile men, they deserve each other.

  • Don’t see the point of this article other than Schadenfreude about Louis CK getting in shit after he counter signalled Trump

    His humor is good because it hits uncomfortably close to home. Most of us are, or will be, middle-ageing losers slowly getting thinner on the head and thicker around the midsection. You can psychoanalyze this as some Jewish pathology but he’s pretty white shitlib presenting, – he’s a ginger ffs – at least in his sketches and TV series. The main shcitk of his show was that despite being a relatively famous New York comic he still struggled in the romance department, because he didn’t fit society’s genetic/physical ideal – so his alleged real life behavior of beta masturbation sounds like truth in fiction. So while his celebrity status is a bit deliberately underplayed in his show, the message is a red pill: most of us are completely average, unremarkable and expendable losers who will pass our sliver time on this earth in inglorious obscurity, kept going only by moments of delusional hopefulness or perhaps (as in the show) humble validation from at least bring a decent dad.

    • “Don’t see the point of this article other than Schadenfreude about Louis CK getting in shit after he counter signalled Trump”

      I actually agree with you that Louis’ honest and self-aware approach to comedy was an effective reflection of the times, and for that he deserves due credit.

      But he represents no ideal to aspire to. We should not let people as self-loathing and hypocritical as Louis C.K. dictate cultural norms to the masses. He embodies no higher principle other than a degree of humorous self-reflection. For all his observations he remains inert and impotent.

      The point of this article is that we can build something better.

  • Louis CK is a mischling at best who would not qualify for the Lesser Aryan certificate which is white parents and grandparents.

    I tend to disagree with calling Jews cucks. I see people often calling Shapiro a cuck. They’re not subverting Jewish interests. They’re doing what Jews have always done by subverting the host society. Judas goat is more appropriate IMO.

    Louis CK is just another example of the tragedy of miscegenation (and also transracial adoption). Race-mixing effectively damages or ruins the child’s identity. In many cases they are abused and rejected by both races. Many studies show that racially mixed people suffer more mental illness.

    Jews want the host society to be confused and mentally ill. As Karl Marx said, a people without a heritage are more easily persuaded. For Jews it’s all about power and control.

    • “The Jews are the very opposite of décadents: they have simply been forced into appearing in that guise, and with a degree of skill approaching the non plus ultra of histrionic genius they have managed to put themselves at the head of all décadent movements” – Nietzsche – “The Antichrist”

  • Insightful.
    Our world is inevitable. Our reason and logic will prevail.
    Degeneracy will erase itself one lamppost at a time.
    This is what we do.

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