Does the average, the herd, hate the truthful innovating man, as Nietzsche believed they did? Nietzsche thought the average, the middle-class, defend themselves on two sides, against decadence and criminals, but also against those who rise superior to the average level. Nietzsche claims his philosophy is not individualistic but aims at an order of rank where the herd keeps its rule within the herd but the leaders have a fundamentally different valuation of their actions. I don't agree with this Platonic sort of perspective, which the Straussian neoconservatives also seem to have. I think both Nietzsche and the neoconservatives could have used a good dose of the science of sociobiology and the bio-cultural advantages of altruism.
As I have said here before, the middle needs to defend itself against decadence and criminals but it also needs to drop its objections to superior people---but it needs to be able to judge when superior people are decadent and criminal and when they are not. The average conservative position is “experience must be our only guide, reason may mislead us” (John Dickinson, Founding Father), which shows a fear of superiority. We need both the experience of successful survival and the innovative reasoning of superior thinkers.
How do we do this? Raymond Cattell suggested that the middle conservatives need to obtain the services of psychometrics, sociobiology and genetic specialists to help us distinguish between good genius and bad genius. Good geniuses (and good leaders) use their superiority to help the average as well as advancing superior people with superior innovations. Group selection is the continuing natural law, individual selection follows. For those conservatives and liberals who are concerned about how we might define the direction of our upward genetic and cultural evolution, this defines the base of an Ordered Evolution. When Godhood is the goal of evolution this worldview can be based in the sacred.
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