Fascism and Aristocratic Ideology

[Jan Klimkowski]

In his masterwork, Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon's narrator writes of "the Calvinist/Puritan doctrine of the Elect (the chosen) and the Preterite (the passed-over, the damned)".

It is one of the great themes of the novel, a philosophy underpinning the nature of elite Power and Control in America.

Essentially, according to Calvinism, man is born into a state of "total depravity", and "God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those He has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen. Those chosen receive salvation through Christ alone. Those not chosen receive the just wrath that is warranted for their sins against God."

See the "five points of Calvinism" here.

This then feeds into the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination, aka the Elect, whose sins alone were atoned for by Jesus' death.

And thus we get nobility.org's:

Christian compassion does not oblige one to feel sorry for someone who has what he needs to live in a manner suited to his social level. Christian compassion simply elicits the desire to help those who lack the means to lead a dignified life according to the demands of human nature and their status. Accordingly, there is no reason for someone to feel guilty simply because he is richer or has a higher social standing than others. Nor does having less than others make the upright man suffer; rather, he is satisfied at seeing that others have more than he.