In Search of a Premise

According to Cicero, the very fact that the Romans had acquired an empire proved their wisdom. Success makes philosophers of us all.

Absolutely Respectful

The lack of a universal standard is exactly why the various local customs, despite their stark contrasts with each other, ask to be respected in absolute terms, not the reason why they ought to be ignored and destroyed. What do we plan to replace them with? Reason, empire, Christ, the Church, communism, fascism, capitalism, liberalism, selfishness, chaos, equilibrium, heat-death?

Strangely Diverse

Nietzsche, who despised the ideal of equality, adopted and adapted the teaching that unavoidably assumed it as a foundation. That explains to a great degree his strangely diverse appeal.

Longing for Sobriety

The reality of the modern human perspective is that it has been subjected to a rational development of ideas founded upon a dubious but now unconsciously accepted premise. A belief in universal morality as a concept or form leads by logical necessity to the commitment both to equality and to the interests of the individual (see “Selfishly Inevitable” on 1/1/06). I pose to myself a series of questions at this stage. Do equality and the interests of the individual define the moral paradigm of our age? Is the modern moral condition healthy, or are we in trouble? Is this chaos? If so, are we prepared to give up the spirits to which we are so addicted and to find out once again what mere water tastes like? We have put our faith into intoxicants, whether we call them gods or godless patterns of perfection. Anyone who refuses to gulp them inevitably suffers the moral criticism of the tipsy. I myself do not particularly enjoy condemnation, but I can no longer tolerate having to hold my nose in order to drink the false ideals of a foolishly inebriated society.

Mass Destruction

The followers of a universal morality are more destructive than its creators. The creator in many cases was a rebel, who would be the first to take a stand against his own conception in its massified form.

We Need to Talk about This

Small groups depend on individuals, large groups depend on committees. When the end of mankind is at hand, the one and only thing we will know how to do is to call a meeting.

Inconsistency? Or Adventure?

I believe in evolution, I do not believe in God, and I prefer Christian to liberal morality. Liberal morality has no more claim to evolution than Christianity does, and to me Christianity seems more life preserving. But evolution puts an undeniable block on the authority of Christianity. So where are we? I go back to my first statement. I am unwilling to finish it with "and I embrace liberalism." Here is where I break from the evolutionists that I admire, and here is where I am ready to lead into an unknown.

Acclimatized Heroism

Most of us acclimatize ourselves regardless of the environment. The true exception, by contrast, does not adapt and leaves himself vulnerable to the elements as a result. Is he under-evolved biologically speaking? Is the thoughtless follower the real hero of Darwinian theory? He is certainly one of them.

Bravo!

Our temporal pride is reaching its summit. We have become good simply because of the age into which we have been born, and without any qualification other than the ability to listen to the moral zeitgeist, as Richard Dawkins calls it, or perhaps the ability to listen to Dawkins himself, we can sit in judgment of those who have lived before us. Let’s try a metaphor, for metaphors are the best teachers when the truth is elusive. We are singing the final aria of the opera known as human progress, and as long as we trust in science and reason, overcome our selfish replicators, and methodically wipe away any traces of our past misbehavior, we will hit every note. O tempora, O mores!

Parallel Worlds

Men hate women and women hate men. We might therefore imagine a perfect situation in which we are safely segregated from each other, with an unqualified sharing of resources and overall power. There is Men’s World and there is Women’s World. We are of equal status; we are at peace; and nothing is threatened by our having to deal with each other on a day to day basis. We would have carefully regulated centers of reproduction of course, where we would discretely perpetuate our species in test tubes. What do you think? What would you suggest as the penalty for those who would inevitably get caught sneaking across the borders and coupling under the cover of night? Death? Exile? Marriage?

Nature as Teacher

When it comes to learning, inertia is a law of nature.

A View from a Greek's Eye

In the end, “might makes right” will undermine those in power; and those who claim to be masters according to the law of nature, or of God, will someday find themselves as slaves according to the same law.

Abstract Attack

Polytheism was the religion of organic abstractions. It was life-preserving insofar as it worshiped those aspects of nature, including war, which were eternally recurring. Ultimately the attempt to attack and remake those abstractions attacks what is eternal in life and thus life itself.

Convicted and Doing Time

Sometimes what is true is known only by a conviction that relies on time for its justification.

The Genetic Pot

Caesar's greatest rival was Pompey, and Pompey's was Caesar. Neither struck the blow that killed the other, but both did it in their way from a distance. For a while, however, in their rise to power, they were allies. Pompey, though the elder, was Caesar's son-in-law. As we attempt in this day and age to find a larger morality developed from the kin selection and reciprocal altruism that evolved in our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we should never lose track of the individual stakes involved and forget that certain men, like Richard Dawkins, are playing for a much larger pot than most.

Insensible Graft

Polytheism is the worship of the abstract and eternal in the sensible world. People have always lusted and loved, so let there be Aphrodite. Platonism, on the other hand, wants to know, what is love? And when it gets in reply only examples instead of a universal definition, it locates the abstraction in another realm; and other-worldly philosophies, abhorrent to the sensible world, are born. Today we are attempting to graft back onto the sensible world the abstractions originally removed from it. But the abstractions have been so totally altered by their stay in the other world that they bear no resemblance to the world they are supposed to represent. Our only recourse is to change the world so that it resembles the abstractions. Do we wonder why we can no longer recognize the obvious?

Simple Obstruction

It is not lack of purpose but lack of fulfilled purpose that kills us. This is a subtle but profound difference. Our society is set up in such a way that our plainest purposes are obstructed, and we are sent on a mission of complicated redefinition of purpose as a result. But we are not as complicated as all that. We are forced into complexities and complexes that we would never meet under circumstances simpler and more human.

Where's the Logic?

It is commonly held among modern philosophers that we human beings do not really have free will. Every choice that we make, so they say, is dictated by a personal nature that we did not choose and by circumstances beyond our control. From this premise comes the argument that we ought not to punish criminals, because they cannot act otherwise than they do and are therefore not responsible for their actions. Do you see a flaw in this? Why do we as punishers have an option when the criminal does not? Wouldn’t we simply punish him or pardon him according to our circumstances and our unchosen nature? If we are able to choose, so is he. The premise cannot withstand the argument.

Willfully Real

Even if you believe in the truth and believe that there is an eternal truth, you are still left with the question, is truth living or is it mechanical? Let us say that the answer does not really matter. In either case biological reality is subordinate to it. The fear behind a truth more mechanical than alive is the fear of randomness and purposelessness. But life and death themselves are fixed and regular. Mechanical truths are no more random in their manifestations than living ones. Your purposefulness lies in your will. No theory of where it came from can either add to it or take away from it.

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

I am a modern Western man. I am weak. I have neither people nor property. Please give me an occupation that will sustain me and possibly enrich me, and I will live out my life in obedience to your ideals rather than to the volition which is my only personal possession.