Ethnopluralism and chaos theory

If we take Ray Audette's ingenious comparison of mathematical chaos theory to the human diet and then hypothetically apply it to political philosophy we can find that ethnopluralism is the initial political system best suited to human nature, with the most predicable and healthy results. A ball placed on a hill may roll into any surrounding valley depending on, among other things, slight differences in the initial position, which supposedly can be predicted with very precise mathematics. When we change the initial variables with political behavior not suited to our still existing original  human nature, which was developed largely in hunter-gatherer times, we get unhealthy, random and unpredictable results.

Audette's diet research found that the original variables of our diet, which can predict the optimum health for human beings, was a diet rich in proteins and fat (good fats not modern fats) and low in carbohydrates. This diet has been more scientifically validated with the Paleolithic diet of Dr Loren Cordain and others. When we changed our diet in the Neolithic age to a high carbohydrate diet low in protein and fat then human health began to deteriorate, and this deterioration continues today, the random modern diet so different from the initial diet cannot predict good health.

Hypothetically applying this theory to human nature and human social and political philosophy, we find that the original variables of human nature, developed largely in hunter-gather times, included being kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. This led to a general ethnopluralism in the world, with the healthiest possible predicable results, because it related to real human nature, the initial condition, the initial variables of mankind. New political structures introduced which went against the initial variables, such as supposedly strictly egalitarian communism, led to the unhealthy, unpredictable results we see today.

Ethnopluralism of course does not mean there will be no competition between peoples, but it gives us the best chance at having predicable cooperative competition between different people, because we are working with real human nature and the initial variables of human behavior. Such practical political structures as light federalism can help keep the peace between small states. This also happens to be the best social structure for continuing our evolution, with variety.

Why save religion?

The decadence of the Inward Path religions, which includes Christianity, that is, their asceticism in seeking the God Within by blocking life and the real material world, can be transformed, not by throwing away the Inward Path but by including the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood. The ecstatic love-experience of the Father Within now needs to be seen as a symbolic-experience of the real Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution.

The Inward Path is the theme, the Outward Path is the music. But great art alone can't save us from our decadence, as Nietzsche tended to believe, but religion transformed can, religion revitalized, brought into the real world with Godhood at the zenith of evolution in the world.

Why save religion? Aside from the importance of the conservative view of human nature, ask sociobiology, it tells us of the bonding of religion, the group-orientation of religion, the catharsis and passion of religion, and the human survival importance of these things. People need to know where they are going and need cooperation in getting there, over the long term, which is made sacred in religion, and our evolution to Godhood is a very long term goal requiring Ordered Evolution. Science alone can't do this, it needs the discordant concord of religion, the cooperative competition of the Twofold Path.

Divine goals

A goalless divine existence for nature is shared by both pagans and scientists who see the world more as the rhythm of natural life, a dance, rather than traveling toward a divine goal. This helps explain the let-it-flow, laid-back attitude of modern pagans, and the confident sarcasm of the scientists regarding goals toward the divine in nature.

Christianity and other monotheistic religions, and the more ecumenical traditionalist school, do see a goal to existence leading to the divine, although it is an inward goal to the God Within.  Modern pagans seek the sacred  more in nature, although it is a cyclic nature with no divine end-goal. I agree with the Christians and disagree with the scientists and pagans, but our goal of evolving to outward Godhood is not the traditional goal of monotheistic religions, although we include the Inward Path.

At the same time I presume that science will one day affirm a natural evolutionary goal within the philosophy of naturalism, the goal of Godhood in nature and evolution, that is, life seen as evolving toward more and more consciousness, intelligence, complexity and beauty all the way to the zenith of these things, which is Godhood.

Spengler might say that this striving toward a beyond goal has to do with the Faustian spirit, especially among northern people, but I say it is the activating Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within all life, later shaped by outside evolution.

Religion revised beyond the philosophical quarrels

With intellectuals so “besotted by centuries of philosophical quarrels,” (Nietzsche's term), it's exciting to bring in the science and art of sociobiology to take a sober look at human nature in relation to religion and philosophy.

Religion and philosophy have led us down the road to nonentity, Being as nothing, God as beyond the real world, or God and Being as a word game.

The original eastern or Buddhist ethos of Christianity has changed into what is today called Christianity. Jesus taught the Father Within, that is what he taught, which is reached inwardly by ridding the material body and mind of all material desires.  St.Paul transformed the inward teachings of Jesus into the outward Church, with more life in it.

Imagine the reception of eastern and western gurus preaching an end to desire for young people, or pushing death to young lions full of life? No, the Inward Path alone without the Outward Path is the misdirection of the tired and weary, as Nietzsche told us in his vain attempt to utterly destroy religion.

Yes, we can keep the Father Within, the new has to harmonize with the old, but this time the God Within is understood as a symbol-experience of what real Godhood may be like after attaining Godhood through material and supermaterial evolution.

When we applaud sociobiology and the material-supermaterial evolution to Godhood are we taking symbolic inward religion to a crude reality? No, we are bringing the appalling stew of religion and philosophy into beautiful, classical, noble, and yes, material simplicity.

Ethnopluralism: a prediction comparing the ends of 19th and 21st century empires

According to John Willson the central insight of historian John Lukacs was that a sound understanding of human nature precludes the need for a philosophy of history. Bringing this idea deeper I would say a sound understanding of sociobiology precedes (not precludes) defining human nature and a philosophy of history. This leads to defining human nature as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. In the 21st century this understanding of human nature will probably lead to affirming  ethnopluralism, which is rooted in human nature, beyond the ability of man to manipulate for any length of time, as history has shown us.

With this in mind we could see another upheaval in the 21^st century not unlike the period at the end of empires in the 19^th century, when conflicts led to many new independent states carved out of old empires---but one hopes less violent. This time it will be present nations, and whatever is left of their empires, devolving into an ethnopluralism of ethnostates, which will mean the return to political configurations that better reflect human nature and natural law. Light federalism can keep the peace among regions and ethnostates. In the U.S. the states can affirm this as harmonious with the Constitution. The small “fourth generation” warfare we see across the world may be a preamble to this devolution.

Although ethnopluralism will have its own problems being born, as did the nations of the 19th century, this will bring a healthier, more evolutionary world. Who will contend against this natural movement?  They and their arguments will lead the opposition to a healthier world.

The right kind of Burke

I could have used the right kind of Burke, not the Rousseauan sort of individualism and dislike of society taught in our universities, but the Burke of Russell Kirk, and more recently Jesse Norman. For example, when I discovered how the biological origin of human nature and cultural behavior had been buried beneath cultural Marxism I overcompensated in the typical way with revolutionary thoughts of righting the wrongs. I could have used the real Burke's sane voice.

Burke's voice and the voice of the paleoconservatives helped me to affirm my ideas on Ordered Evolution, which Burke would have called Ordered Liberty. I eventually understood that human societies are not built in a day (duh!), and how there is a long partnership between the living, the dead, and the future. The nature/nurture discussions of sociobiology were anticipated by Burke's idea that humans are driven by emotions and customs as well as logic.

I wouldn't want to claim Burke regarding the theological materialism and evolutionary religion I came to affirm, which is certainly a big paradigm shift, but the Twofold Path includes the Inward Path of Christianity, and revolutionary causality became evolutionary causality, largely thanks to Burke's realistic prudence.

The Assent to Conservatism in the Inward and Outward Paths

The Father Within or God Within is the tool of meditation, it is the secondary yet important ancient ascetic way of ridding the mind and body of all desires, which gives the symbolic inward experience of what real Godhood is like when we evolve to Godhood in the material and supermaterial world. This is the assent to the conservative tradition, seeking the Father Within while transforming the Father Within in the Outward Path of evolution to the real Godhood as defined in theological materialism.

The Father Within is the strongest expression of of the Soul through the body, and sexual reproduction is the strongest expression of the Spirit-Will through the body. Notice both are defined as within the materiel body. The Spirit-Will is the zenith of the Soul and the Soul is the zenith of the mind, their location is within the supermaterial brain and body. The goal of Godhood in the Outward Path makes sacred evolutionary reproduction, and the goal of the Soul blocks or divorces sexual reproduction from the body and from natural evolution in order to experience the Father Within. This is the Twofold Path.

Why not reject the secondary Father Within in favor of the primary Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood? That would damage the vital connection with conservative tradition. The Father Within is a sacred reference point helping us to understand and attain real Godhood in evolution, and it also helps us avoid deadly revolution...Without a transformation of the Inward Path to the Outward Path, while still retaining the Inward Path, I think religion might die in the future.

How I affirm sociobiology

What has modern life retained of the 3.7 billion years it took to develop human nature? Any biological or cultural system that did not promote successful survival and reproduction became extinct and human nature is what we have left from the winnowing process. Those retained traits should help us define natural law and human culture---assuming we stop denying the traits of human nature which developed over thousands of years.

Of the three brains which we retained, one evolved upon the other, we tend to try to culturally block the first two, the reptilian and the basic mammalian brains, in favor of the newer, less powerful, rational brain. For example, we try to rid ourselves of what we are, of our territorial, traditional, ethnopluralistic tendencies. But the "primitive" brain remains more powerful than the rational brain, which explains the cause of many of our neuroses. This has given rise to sociobiologically derived psychology (evolutionary psychology), which we hope doesn't drift into political correctness.

Thousands of years of grouping into ethnic communities and states and nations indicate that ethnopluralism is a natural process and to try to artificially tamper with this is to try to make human nature disappear. But the natural laws always reassert themselves and we return to the political configurations of real human nature, sometimes violently if human nature has been suppressed too much.

If the “deconstructionists” had said that all cultural and political practice was shaped by traits explained by sociobiology, one might agree with them, but instead they avoid biology and tend to say that culture was shaped by political considerations, in the manner of Marxism. or selfish power drives rather than by group selection. It turns out that many of the old traditions were in sync with human nature, they need only be brought up to date with an evolutionary conservatism, and with a philosophical (and I believe religious) sociobiology.

This is where the political philosophy directed toward a ethnopluralism  of ethnostates dwells, which follows human nature as described by sociobiology, with theological materialism added giving teleological goals to evolution and human life.

More nature in religion and philosophy

There is religious inspiration in the process of nature when we are not so much centered on the abstracting word-games of much of religion and philosophy. Abstractions, words, definitions need to relate more to natural objects. This can help open up the seasons, the moon, the stars, the universe, and most importantly biological evolution---the currents and rhythms of our real world. The pagans and neopagans do this well, the monotheistic religions not so well. As Gus Dizerega put it, pagans try to live in harmony with the world, rather than seeking salvation from it. Perhaps we would have fewer problems with despoiling our environment if we found actual religious inspiration in nature.

Bringing nature into religion comes about naturally when Godhood is seen as the zenith of the evolutionary continuum from the material to the supermaterial. Godhood remains in the natural world and does not denounce or detach us from the world, as do religions which see only a transcendent, non-material God, or a philosophical ontology that sees Being (God) as “time,” or as Nothing. Life needs to be sacralized, not debased, since it through life that we evolve to Godhood. Those who would reject the Spirit-Will from the body reject the vehicle by which the Spirit-Will inwardly activates life to Godhood, shaped by outward evolution. This is the religious and philosophical transvaluation---not destruction---of existing values which even Nietzsche seems to have undervalued.

On truth-tellers

Lying seems related to not having power. When one possesses superior military power one tends to lie less. This was Nietzsche's psychology, the will to power as the cause of the lie, which included morality for Nietzsche. I think he should have distinguished between unnatural non-evolutionary morality and natural evolutionary morality.

In very ancient Indo-European culture it seems that power was originally in the warrior caste but was later transferred to priest Brahmans (unless they could manage divine twin leadership). This was probably dangerous for the truth, yet was part of maturing civilization. Diplomats became great liars depending on the power possessed by who they represented.

Nietzsche talked of the affirmative power of Old Testament Judaism and the Koran of Islam as being “religions for men” with contempt for the sentimental and “woman's religion” of Christianity, the religion of the oppressed. Nietzsche didn't seem to see that all the great religions ultimately divert attention to the non-material Involutionary Inward God. What would Nietzsche have thought of the non-ascetic Evolutionary Outward Path of theological materialism, which transforms the Inward Path to the material Outward Path of evolution without extirpating the Inward Path?

Can there be truthful courage in the face of not having power? It takes intellectual and physical courage to speak truth to power, it even seems to approach masochism if speaking the truth damages one, and when one can hurt the very people one wants to help, at least in the shorter term.

Truth-tellers are special people and these are the people I want to study, in any field, assuming we can recognize them, since they are usually ahead of their times. I want to pay attention to what is natural and not counterfeit-natural. It seems that either the truth is paramount for people and culture or it withers away. I want to get on with the true and natural evolution of life to real supermaterial Godhood in the cosmos.

Why intelligence was developed in the first place

Modern philosophy but also ancient philosophy always quickly moves far away from the reason intelligence was developed in humans in the first place, to help in the creation of more effective survival responses to the changing environment. Do philosophers now leave it to technology to deal with finding more effective ways to survive? Is survival thought to be so easy now that finding effective survival responses are no longer important?

What we see of life on this planet shows otherwise. Survival may be easier but philosophy and intelligence are still needed to find effective survival responses to the modern world, because our survival is not a sure thing, and we are going in multiple often conflicting directions with little serious thought of the future.

This is a central reason why I think philosophy has to affirm sociobiology, I have called it philosophical sociobiology, but whatever we call it, this is what is needed to bring philosophy back to earth, to real life, to real objects, to survival and reproduction, to finding more effective survival responses to the environment, to help cultures and religions harmonize with real biological human nature and the natural world---the main reason intelligence was developed in the first place.

Both progressive and conservative

I think the original U. S. Constitution of the Founders can harmonize with a political order based in natural law, which includes natural human nature as recently reaffirmed by the science of sociobiology. This is how real unity and order are developed. I think about the old social order of unity between church and state and culture, and how that unity has been lost---however, our views of human nature do need to affirm variety, smaller states, ethnopluralism, this is the natural condition which makes real order possible. Huge multicultural states become warring factions within the state. The Founders seemed to have understood this in seeking a balance of various virtually independent states and powers, with the whole protected by their light version of federalism, which was its main task.

Human nature affirms the group over the individual as the main unit of selection, this was the way we survived and still survive. This is not being against individual freedom, it is for harmony and order by affirming what human nature actually is. I think about living in a small state which is voluntarily and democratically assisted by the science of sociobiology, with a culture that also affirms our evolution to Godhood, while living alongside other small states with ethnopluralism and variety, protected from outside hostilities by a light federalism. This seems to be both progressive and conservative. It is conservative in attempting to follow natural law and human nature from which real tradition and order have always developed, it is progressive in affirming ongoing evolution---but with an Ordered Evolution---grounded in religion, seeking to evolve all the way to Godhood in the cosmos, the God first seen only inwardly by the great religions.

Bringing the real causes out of the shadows

The hopes and dreams of the socialists/liberals could be called childish if they weren't so damaging to culture and human nature. Even capitalist free-enterprise can be damaging if it bends to special interests and doesn't insist on meritocracy. These schemes to applaud those who do not achieve at the expense of those who do become a kind of neurotic illness, or as Nietzsche put it, “a will to the denial of life,” resentment of all that is successful.

But the flat reality is biology takes precedence over politics and economics. People manipulate socialism/liberalism/capitalism and use it for their own often narrow biological wills to power. Look at the way the media uses demagoguery and slander to enhance its own power. Power can be acquired by lying. Politicians have known this for centuries.

However, even though biology is at the origin of cultural behavior it is secondary to the primary activation of life seeking to evolve to Godhood. This is the foundation beneath biology, survival, reproduction, politics and economics. But theologians have often manipulated or even denied biology and evolution in their zeal to experience the Father Within, moving away from the primary biological and super-biological causes, as the socialist/liberals/capitalists have done. The task is to identify and bring the sacred mission of our biological-superbiological evolution to Godhood out of the shadows of the Inward Path and into the light of the Outward Path, to restore Godhood and future religion.

The outsider position affirming a direction in evolution

Those who believe in the complete randomness of evolution, the vast majority of scientists, often make dismissive comments regarding any kind of direction to evolution, usually in footnotes to show its unimportance to the text, but then the footnote’s are often emotional and long, protesting too much. I find the arguments that evolution is “non-purposive” and random as closed as the religious arguments denying evolution, information is lacking in both arguments.

A few men have had the courage to claim some sort of internal direction, or a development toward complexity in evolution, Ken Wilber and Francis Heylighen are two thinkers who do have courage in discussing a direction in evolution. Philosopher Wilber said, evolution is “the opposite of chance or randomness in the universe. It's evidence of a force that is pursuing against randomness in the universe... Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory holds that all of these transformations upward were just the result of chance and randomness. But there is no way in hell that the universe went from atoms to Shakespeare out of random stabs. This is an extraordinary driven process. The astrophysicist Erich Jantsch referred to evolution as “self-organizing through transcendence,” which is a good way to think about it...” (Conversation in Enlightenment, Issue 47, 2011 -p-48)

Scientist Francis Heylighen wrote, “ ...it is assumed that evolution is largely unpredictable and contingent on a host of uncontrollable factors, which may steer its course in any of an infinite number of directions. However, it is noted that directions in which complexity increases are generally preferred...Though fitness is relative to the environment, it has two components that can increase in an absolute sense, internal fitness (strength of linkages between components) and number of environmental perturbations that can be counteracted. Increases in these two components tend to be accompanied by respective increases in structural and functional complexity...Still, it can happen that systems evolve towards a simpler organization, although this seems rare. It is most likely to occur when the system enters a simpler environment, as when an organism becomes an internal parasite or moves back from the land to the water, but these are obviously unusual examples which go against the general trend of environments becoming more complex. The net effect will tend to be that the new ecosystem, formed by environment together with the newly added system (parasite, cave fish, aquatic mammal, etc.) will become more complex than it was before the appearance of the simplified system... ("The Growth of Structural and Functional Complexity during Evolution”)

I see evolution moving inevitably in a pattern, even though it has its random elements, and the pattern has a discernible direction, in spite of instances of stagnation and retreat, toward “higher and higher more effective living forms,”as Cattell put it. The goal of evolving to Godhood need not deprive us of either science or religion. Defining the Spirit-Will as internally activating life toward evolving toward higher and higher forms and eventually to Godhood, shaped by natural outside evolution, may be a bit further than these men want to go, but we go there. I think such a drive and direction will one day be acknowledged by science. and religion.

Notes comparing Hegel and beyond

History essentially relates to evolution and evolution relates to evolutionary religion. Ethnopluralism seems to be an improved version of Hegel's state---smaller, local, closer to human nature. The material Will,  or Tirips, not God, drives life from within toward Godhood, and evolution shapes life from without. Evolution and the Tirips are not God, they help develop Godhood. Evolution replaces Hegel's dialectic, which may not work as smoothly as thesis, antithesis and synthesis, although it more or less works that way. Devolution is not part of a duality, it is simply backward going, non-development, or development away from complexity.

Absolute Truth is obtained only in evolving to the zenith of evolution, beyond humans, absolute truth is not an abstract spiritual concept or idea, it is an ideal object evolved to. Evolution itself is not seen as the drive to truth, but Tirips, which activates life and evolution from within can be seen as the drive toward absolute truth and Godhood---here we can also think in terms the greatest success in survival and reproduction.  Life rises from simple consciousness to absolute consciousness contained in species beyond the human species. The God Within or Father Within is not absolute consciousness, it is a symbolic-experience of real Godhood which can possess absolute consciousness. Everything is subject to more evolution.

The limitation of reason lies in the limitation of the object who is reasoning. Reason can never be greater than the evolutionary level of the reasoning object. This means the goal is not first absolute reason, the goal is Godhood which does absolute reasoning. The object who is reasoning comes before the reasoned definitions of things. Does this lead us only to supercomputers? We need to think in terms of naturalizing technology, turning technology toward our divine evolutionary goals, that is, biological and superbiological goals, aided by artificial technology, not artificial technology as the goal of evolution, not cyborgs as the goal.

Religion and culture should not hobble the Faustian spirit, we seem destined to be galaxy travelers, and beyond. The earth needs to be saved, but it is ultimately a launching pad out into the cosmos toward Godhood. If there is a better religious philosophy I'd like to hear it.

How to save religion

“One must desire the means when one desires the end.” (Plato)

 We do not want the Inward Path to become the “corrupter of the will”” as Nietzsche defined the priests, and we don't want to discard the priests and religion, as Nietzsche also wanted to do. We have listened to the wise prudence of conservatism, we want to save religion and priests with the transformation of the Inward Path to the Outward Path, seeking the real Godhood of material-supermaterial evolution, which was first seen as the symbolic-experience of the God Within or the Father Within. This is the Twofold Path. We, all groups, can unblock the Great Spiritual Blockade of life leading to a biological and cultural renascence, as we begin to evolve on earth and out into the cosmos toward Godhood, retaining but transforming the past. Grandiose? Of course, but that is better than triviality regarding future life.

Speculations on paganism

Theological materialism could be seen as having a very ancient lineage if, and that's a big if, pagan “immanence” is defined as the divine in the world and not transcendent, which seems to have been the pantheist position. This is different from the panentheist position which sees the divine as transcendent from the world as well as immanent in the world. The material immanence of the divine might be older than the transcendent view. Could the Cro Magnon's have been immanence-believing pantheists affirming a natural material Goddess giving birth to the world, as seen in their many “Venus”carvings?

Hinduism and Native American paganism, to name two, have an unbroken tradition going back to the beginning of human beings, whereas European Paganism was wiped out by the state and church. Neopaganism rose again in the West, but with a bit of a Christian influence.

Ironically, modern science and naturalism seem to be in this ancient material-immanence camp, although they claim no divinity in or outside the world. Theological materialism sees the world as containing material order but also beauty, intelligence, power and truth, with divinity defined as the highest evolution of these things, or the zenith of material and supermaterial evolution, immanent, not transcendent, in the world.

As in the oldest pagan world hypothesized in this note, the object itself, the living object, and not the symbol or definition of the object is featured in theological materialism, a tree is a tree with divine life in the tree, and Godhood is real living Godhood and not merely a symbol of something else. The written word, faith, the inward transcendent God were elevated in the great religions to the point of worshiping the non-object transcendent, eventually at the expense of material life and ongoing evolution toward real Godhood.

Future Political Thoughts Against Bigness, and Pro Evolution

Rand Paul probably comes closest to understanding that bigness in government and business is bad, but he makes the grave philosophical and sociobiological mistake that libertarian's usually make of embracing an almost anarchic individualism over the needs of the group. Pat Buchanan's economic nationalism, which made America wealthy beyond compare, would not appeal to Rand, but we also realistically need to protect America jobs and American ingenuity from foreign and domestic abuse, as well as to protect free commerce between the states---a light federalism can do this.

Whatever this movement is called politically, small-is-beautiful, etc., it eventually needs to voluntarily move toward a realistic ethnopluralism, with independent states and regions free to evolve in their own fashion, which harmonizes with all we have learned in human history about human nature and natural law. Accepting cultural and ethnic variety and differentialism---not the motley multiculturalism which does not work and causes civil strife, and not one-race imperialism---may appeal to the left, ethnic independence should appeal to the right, and the Constitution could affirm it.

To sustain this political movement over time we also need religion, and here the aspiration is to have theological materialism (as seen in the Theovolutionary Church) voluntarily affirming internationally objective sociobiological research centers, aiding in our evolution toward Godhood in the cosmos, the Godhood first seen inwardly as the Father Within.

Politically I suppose Rand Paul may be the best we can do at this time. But it's not enough.

The pernicious transvaluation and transformation of “bigotry” by political correctness

“Bigotry” has been transformed and transvalued by political correctness (cultural Marxism) into being against natural law and against human nature. This means that human nature, affirmed throughout human history as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection, is now being defined as “bigotry.” The laws set by nature itself  leading to defining natural law and human nature are being defined as bigotry.

Human nature has specified human loyalties in this order: self, kin, ethnic group, locality, state, region, nation and world. This is the order that harmonizes with real human nature, as recently reaffirmed by science of sociobiology. This means that ethnopluralism, with a light federal system insuring the independence of small states, regions and ethnic groups, needs to be seen as being in harmony with natural law and with human nature. For example, this means that those who now stand for heterosexual marriage and against gay marriage, and those who affirm their own familiar ethnic groups without hating other ethnic gropus, are not bigots. This also means we should be protecting ourselves economically with economic nationalism.

The pernicious transvaluation and transformation of the meaning of bigotry, human nature, and natural law---promoted by the media and the academic world---needs to be reversed. History has shown time and again that when cultures move away from natural law and human nature they are pulled back, sometimes rudely, to real human nature and natural law---and revolution often does more harm than good.

Hierarchy of values

The will-to-power and the will-to-happiness are secondary, contrary to Nietzsche and the Greeks. There is something more important, deeper, that drives these values, which is the activation to survival and reproductive success. In this Nietzsche underestimated Darwin and sociobiology.

However, there is something even deeper, more important, more vital than the drive to survival and reproductive success and that is the Spirit-will-to-Godhood, which activates the very essence of life, pushing life forward from the inside, as life is shaped by outside evolution, activating life toward evolving to Godhood, where the Absolutes, or near-Absolutes, can be attained, that is, the zenith of beauty, intelligence, character, happiness, and so on.

Human nature, culture, civilization, and religion need to harmonize with this hierarchy of values, this theological materialism, which means a materialization of the spiritual, retaining but transforming the symbolic-experience of the Inward God of religious tradition to the real religious Outward Godhood of evolution.

The film version of “On the Road”

I finally saw the film version of Jack Kerouac's “On the Road,” (2012,Walter Salles directed), which relied more on the original manuscript than the published book, which might have made the reception of the published book different since the level of thrill-seeking hedonism is much darker than the book. And this relates to the main thoughts I had from the film.

Thrill-seeking hedonism can be more easily justified if one agrees with Carl Jung's Spirits=Spiritual idea that seeking alcohol/drugs is a disguised desire for the Spiritual, many of the Beat Generation, and their Hippie followers, did eventually seek spirituality in Eastern religions, although Kerouac became trapped in alcoholism.

Hedonism and recklessness in literature and the arts often ties in with the natural rebellion of young people trying to make their way in a society they did not create. But seeking the bliss of the God Within or the Father Within can be seen as another concentrated form of hedonism, a spiritual substitute for alcohol/drugs. The way out of the dead end of  hedonism is not another form of hedonism, a way out comes from transforming the blissful God Within of the Inward Path to the Outward Path and the evolution of life to ascending levels of Godhood.

The Outward Path---which needs to be seen as the fulfillment of the Inward Path, and the real attainment of the God first seen inwardly---does not lack in thrill-seeking and adventure, since materially evolving to Godhood requires classical courage, heroism and intelligence, even beyond what is required wild poetic car trips across the country.

Freedom and determinism

If we define “heaven's command” as nature's command, as well as the command of human nature, we then are talking about the largely biological origin of social behavior, as defined by sociobiology. And if we define “earthly power” as the freedom we may have within our biologically determined nature, then we may see that we don't have as much freedom as most ideologies demand.

There is more an ignorance than a tension between what is free and what is determined, that is, ignorance of the natural and biological commands that keep us within determined parameters of nature and human nature. The idea is to try to set up our cultures so that they take into account the various few free paths we do have, leaving room for whatever creative freedom and variation we have, without trying to do what our determined nature can't do.

Religions don't need to impose order on nature, nature already imposes its order on us, which we need to know so that we may understand how much freedom we actually have to successfully aid in our own evolution in nature to Godhood. Both science and religion help in this mission.  We have to admit that the pagan religions seemed to understand this balance with nature better than the monotheistic religions, which too often viewed nature as evil, largely do to an exclusively transcendent view of God beyond nature.

How evolutionary religion outranks Dionysian art

Nietzsche thought that “spiritualizing” the senses made them artistic, not having much time for religion. But when spiritualizing is seen as a material evolutionary development then spiritualizing can be seen as a religious thing---we evolve from the simple to the complex, form lower to higher life in the Outward Path to Godhood. The spiritual in this way is really the material evolving to the supermaterial. Art still follows religion, as art performs the task of affirming the sacred.

To Nietzsche, nature is immoral in relation to traditional religions, but nature can be seen as moral in relation to evolution, nature can be virtuous again as we evolve materially toward Godhood. When Schopenhauer threw away real life in becoming a virtual Buddhist, Nietzsche tried to revive life again with the will-to-power, but with a will of no end goal, no teleology. Nietzsche's art was a Dionysian celebration of the tragedy of amoral existence. In this way Nietzsche seems to have corrupted the will almost as much as Schopenhauer. Religious, moral, and artistic health are defined in the evolution of life, in nature, to Godhood.

The language of art and literature

I think art and literature need to use a language most people can understand to allow the cultural communication to take place, otherwise art may communicate only to the few, as does much of modern art and literature where you have to first know the arcane language, the overall culture be dammed.

For me this means evolutionary realism, poetic realism, not unlike idealistic classical realism yet steeped in naturalism as studied by sociobiology, that is,  real nature, real human nature, but with the subjects infused with the upward climb of evolution toward Godhood, and with Godhood portrayed as the beautiful supermaterial zenith of material evolution, if that can be done. This way religious art remains ultimately the highest form of art, as an affirmation of the sacred.

Ethnopluralism contains both conservative and progressive elements

Who will have an easier time accepting  ethnopluralism, modern liberals with their multiculturalism, or the right with their imperialism and supremacism? Acceptance of ethnopluralism seems about equal for the left or right given the strengths and weaknesses of each political scheme. The natural right to differences will appeal to the left, ethnic independence and separation should appeal to the right.

Multiculturalism tried hard to make distinctly different people live happily within the same space, and it almost always ended in civil war or separation---even force can't make distinctly different ethnic groups get along well together, and religion has not accomplished this either.

Various political philosophies, but also various religions, need to stop proselytizing about being the only one, the only right, and accept cultural and ethnic differentialism. Federal systems can insure the independence of the varied states and regions without the central state becoming more powerful than the separation of powers.  The original U.S. Constitution seems uniquely harmonious with ethnopluralism.

The sameness of human beings can be seen in all ethnocentric life seeking to live and evolve to Godhood, but this needs to be understood as being best accomplished over time with ethnopluralism. International research centers proficient in sociobiology can objectively help all groups and states. Evolution can be realistically pursued in terms of cooperative competition.  Humans are capable of this.

Defining conservatism as ordered evolution

According to Nietzsche, Rousseau thought man perfects himself as he approaches nature, and Voltaire thought man perfects himself in proportion as he leaves nature. I think both Rousseau and Voltaire were right in this sense: evolution takes what man is and gradually changes man, perhaps eventually evolving beyond the human species. Idealists and utopians usually move away from what man is, away from human nature, in their projected cultural schemes, which is not only impossible to do but may be neurotic or even insane due to feelings of revengful powerlessness.

Nietzsche (and later sociobiology) thought traditions developed around what was needed for successful survival and reproduction in past times, but not for present times, which is where problems with the new arise with traditionalists. But real tradition, or real conservatism, values both what was necessary in the past and also includes a place for change, as Burke and others more or less pointed out. That is, conservatism doesn't throw out the basic traits necessary for survival, real conservatism imagines culture as a whole heritage attained by humanity up to our time, whereas the fanatic, the revengeful, the powerless, imagine a complete break from the past.

I think evolutionary religion can lead the way in affirming what the other cultural fields still lack: philosophical sociobiology. Ordered Evolution, not revolution, is the way to evolve, all the way to Godhood in the cosmos. Evolutionary change within order. That is how I define conservatism.

What kind of progress?

It is the kind of progress that we need to get right. Do we want to develop only artificial intelligence or do we want to develop more intelligent biological human beings, and beyond? Transhumanism tends to want to bypass the political incorrectness of biological developing increasingly intelligent human beings in favor of developing artificial machine intelligence. 

Nature is the source of reliable laws if we can discern them. Religion, philosophy and science don't impose order on nature, nature imposes whatever order there is on them. The concern is that we don't develop a machine utopianism which rejects human nature and biology and rejects the past in favor of only the future, which many utopias do. 

What we have is more a drive to seek to exist, which is a vital activating force of life. Devolution and barbarism are always a possibility, as conservatism warns us.  But not because evil dwells in hearts of men. Devolution and barbarism mainly happen because human biological evolution is not made conscious within the culture.  This is the base of a new bioconservatism. New beauty, intelligence and healthy character can come when evolution is seen as a natural development within the sacred forces of life. This is where theoretical science, philosophy and religion may dwell in the future, helping us to evolve to Godhood in the cosmos with biological enhancements from eugenics and genetic engineering. Artificial machine intelligence as a tool, not a goal.

The metamorphosis of the media

Light comedies in the evening can relax me, but over the years television comedies have become so raunchy and obscene, even during family prime time, that they only make me angry. It is the conscious destruction of the traditional values of normal citizens that drives me crazy.

Why do the popular media producers want to destroy traditional values? I think of Nietzsche's diagnosis of the metamorphosis of the will to power. First justice is demanded at the hands of those who hold power. Then freedom is demanded.  Next they demand equal rights largely to prevent competitors from growing power. And we now have the latter stages of this metamorphosis involving the total destruction of the values and the power of those who once held power.

This is what happens with multiculturalism.  A more practical way is to affirm an ethnopluralism of different states and regions, protected internally and externally by a light federalism.  The U.S. Constitution could  informally or formally accommodate this with it with its separation of powers and states.  The media won't like it, but who cares?