Cartman's Wager
Analyzing a desperate attempt at salvation from a dementia-addled lunatic
We may have just been given a rare glimpse into Cartman’s dementia-addled brain suggesting that he is worried about his eternal “soul.”
Almost every single day for over a decade the world has been held hostage by arguably one of the worst humans to ever hold high office.
It is not by dint of his achievements or high character that he is worthy in any way of our collective attention, it is only a function of aspects of our nature in large groups that can possibly explain his success in garnering so much importance.
Somehow, this retrobate has been given the highest, most powerful human office in history: commander in chief and president of the world's sole super power, an office which furnishes him an incomprehensible amount of power over global economic, military, and social outcomes.
It is not for nothing that the world is suffering from CDS or Cartman Derangement Syndrome. It has no choice or escape from him. Every gesticulation, every incoherent, rambling utterance, every flip flop random decision made by this creature is memorialized, broadcasted, analyzed, and virtually monopolizes all international dialogue.
Again, not because they are interesting or profound but because they are consequential. Literally billions of lives hang in the balance.
Historians, sociologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, and political scientists will be tasked with attempting to explain the phenomenon for decades and centuries to come.
Long gone are the days when most of us could just get on with the sometimes quiet, sometimes loud toil of living, confident that somewhere mostly anonymous adults were tending to the machines, keeping the clocks wound, and performing the bureaucratic tasks necessary to keep our societies functioning and relatively safe and stable.
In addition to fulfilling all of the psychiatric criteria of the dark tetrad personality: sadism, narcissism, machiavelianism, and psychopathy, this abomination is also a profoundly ignorant individual.
Anyone who knows anything about any subject relevant to being a president (or merely a moral and curious being) of a super power can clearly see that he knows nothing, is incapable of learning or preparing, is too stubborn to listen to anyone or anything beyond his id; a nebulous Freudian concept which reduces to his instincts, needs and desires for immediate self-gratification.
The world is at the mercy of the shifting wind and whims of an 80 year old who was constantly scolded and lectured by a domineering amoral father obsessed with money and power and emotionally neglected by an absent mother; a spoiled silver-spoon fed trust fund baby whose only disadvantage in life was inheriting half a billion dollars.
According to him, his greatest achievement in life is having been a "brave soldier" in his own "personal Vietnam" by avoiding sexually transmissable diseases in the 80s.
This homunculus has no idea what truth means and clearly has no need or respect for such a concept. He lies and deceives as comfortably as he breathes over things both big and small.
He is, however, a master at not only creating his own reality but persuading large swaths of the population to share his private Idaho although it is not recommended that anyone attempt to reside in that fragile, constantly shifting ecosystem. It is a universe built for one. The fault lines are subject to collapse at any moment under anyone else’s feet and it is impossible to find any solid mooring upon which to support one’s moral or intellectual weight.
It's a reality built on quick sand and hot air forever receding and reconsistituting itself into different forms.
But today, we got a glimpse into the "soul" of this ogre, this dark elf, and it's an interesting case study. It may have achieved self awareness at this late stage in its life for maybe the first time, at least in public.
This insight might even explain his most recent whirling dervish dance with a Russian dictator.
We know this cartoon character has never been a spiritual or moral man. He cannot cite a single line from any religious text and there is every empirical reason to presume he has lived as an atheist his entire existence and has only disdain for morality and the norms of civil society.
But the below quote from a recent television interview may be the closest we have ever gotten to seeing this thing actually contemplate its existence, even being self deprecating, thoughtful, and reflective.
While it is likely that he is simply pandering to his evangelical Christian base who believe in these supernatural claims, it is nonetheless telling and possibly informative.
It appears that Cartman has succumbed to Pascal's Wager, a common religious apologetic.
This well known argument suggests that it is less risky to believe in a divine Judge Judy in the sky than to not believe as the potential cost of disbelief is infinite and results in hellfire and eternal damnation. Belief, however, provides the opportunity for an exemption, a cosmic get out of jail free card, an out, a chance at not only salvation but also eternal bliss.
Pascal's wager is certainly not a compelling moral or ontological argument for religious belief but Cartman's wager suggests that this man may be actually worried that he is worthless and fears his anihilation.
His suggestion that he is "not doing well" and is "really at the bottom of the totem pole" is a glaring admission that he believes he has lived an immoral, vacuous, and superficial life of no consequence and without value.
I suspect that he hopes to achieve his own personal salvation by acquiring a symbol that he holds in high regard, the Nobel peace prize.
This quote follows a feigned concern for the daily loss of life in Ukraine.
While there is no reason to believe that he cares about any human life besides his own, it does seem to suggest that he believes in some notion of salvation and seeks to acquire it before his time comes to an end.
If he can only summon up his imagined super power: the so-called “art of the deal,” just this one time and be credited with bringing an end to this war, maybe, just maybe, Santa Claus may forgive him his sins and provide him with a gold medal in his Christmas stocking instead of coal for all eternity.
For a man that has every material possession one could acquire, this final and most cherished of possessions; an inanimate, yet anthropomorphized object of intangible value that he can coddle and cuddle with in the afterlife might just spare him eternal damnation.
Whatever the motivation, if an end to this war were to be brought about and if it could be justifiably attributed to his actions alone, credit would and should be afforded.
It’s just all quite dubious to presume at this point. If anything, he has clearly made it worse until now by sending such mixed and weak messages to Putin (like this quote) that he would have no reason to not carry on trying to achieve his objectives, knowing that the current world order seems entirely incapable of doing anything about it.