My New Year's hope

“The slowness of the good”

I think the above quote by David Harned applies well to the evolution of life toward Godhood, in developing cultural, political and scientific programs directed toward this great goal. Religion can give foundation to this sacred long-term mission. But great patience is required in the long social movement through the institutions, that is, patience backed by courage. That is my New Year's hope.

Policing ones own people is not a given in the case of Bill Cosby

Even given the injustices done to blacks, the virtue of justice has been largely missing from blacks regulating their own people, which is seen, once again, in the case of Bill Cosby. Black leaders have not spoken out against Cosby's serial sexual abuse. Even if all the drugged women who have come forward (50?!) consented to the abuse, you would think Cosby's hedonistic immorality would at least be condemned.

It seems to me that this lack of social responsibility by blacks toward their own people has had much to do with why they have remained for so long in the lower reaches of society. Ethnocentrism, even blind ethnocentrism---otherwise know as “racism”---is natural to human behavior, but policing ones own people, apparently, is not a given.

Thoughts on the modern definition of beauty and ugliness in art

If I agree that the human voice can express emotion, and that music fundamentally seems to imitate the human voice, music can this way also refine the human voice and make of it sublime music. But “music” can also express the opposite, ugly, painful sounds, as atonal (disordered) music often does.

Modern art in general has refused to label disorder, pain, disharmony or ugliness as low art, and refused to label order, pleasure, harmony, tonality, reality or traditional beauty as high art. Music and art in general might this way be labeled either noble and sublime, or ignoble and absurd.

It is difficult to believe that people actually prefer sounds or sights of pain and disorder to sounds and sights of pleasure and order---just as beautiful people are usually preferred to ugly people. This makes it seem that people who claim to prefer ugliness, pain, disorder and atonality are not telling the truth, or have other motives. What might they be?

Promoting art that patronizes disorder, pain, and disharmony is probably related to the desire to destroy the culture or the people who affirm order, pleasure, and harmony. In other words, modern “art” is not about art, it is about destruction, it is more like political and cultural propaganda. Interesting that postmodern philosophy would agree with this, but for Marxist reasons.

Later followers of the anti-life art perspective might not have the same destructive motives as the original purposeful tone-deaf philosophers of ugliness, and may somehow be taught to like ugliness and disorder, or pretend to like it, especially if their educational success depends on it.

Ethnopluralism, or how altruists beat selfish individuals

Nietzsche said “ morality is essentially the means of making something survive the individual.” Today that is called altruism, interest in the welfare of others, which Nietzsche was not fond of as a policy, to say the least. Nietzsche thought altruism hampered great individuals and creators of values. Ever the rebel, Nietzsche said that all great men have been criminals, in the sense of creating their own values.

I think truly great men transform past errors without destroying traditions. The science of sociobiology has found that within societies selfish individuals beat altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. And so group-selection became the primary successful unit of human selection, although there is always that uncomfortable dynamic between the individual and the group.

Wise political structures need to include the behavior of real human nature, which is the main reason why I think ethnopluralism has become the best revived political structure. That is, preferably small states for distinctive ethnic cultures, with their natural ethnocentric altruism, and some sort of protecting federalism between the states and other nations, perhaps not unlike the one envisioned in the original U. S. Constitution, with a few amendments.

Compare this political recommendation with the damaging or useless rants of the presidential electioneering going on right now, and you see how far we need to go.

Consciousness

It is easier for me to understand “consciousness” if I define consciousness as having real access to or being aware of inside and outside things, even if our senses are taking in more than we are aware of at any given time---if we aren't aware of things, we wouldn't call it consciousness.

“Unconsciousness” would then resemble ignorance. If we aren't aware of things we are ignorant of them. To call something part consciousness, subconscious, or unconscious, rather than ignorance, seems to confuse the definition.

“Higher consciousness” would mean having conscious access to more things than lower consciousness, inwardly or outwardly. That is, inwardly more knowledge of the self, and outwardly more knowledge of the world. Intelligence would be a subset of consciousness.

Most living things on earth would have less consciousness than humans, and non-living things would appear to have no consciousness. A God, or Godhood reached in evolution might have access to virtually all things in the world, inwardly and outwardly, which could relate to the old idea of “absolute consciousness.”

Bias against the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon roots of the English and American order

Thomas Jefferson mainly wanted to see a renaissance of Anglo-Saxon institutions in America, with such things as the separation of powers, which was the real bases of English freedom---Jefferson was not primarily representing the Enlightenment ideas of Locke and Rousseau. Why is this fact, which can be backed by good scholarship (see "The German Roots of American Order,” by E. Christian Kopff, Modern Age, Fall 2015) not better known?

I think modern liberal and neoconservative intellectuals (and even many real conservatives) do not admit that human nature is at root biased toward kin and ethnic group, although some of them, like Leo Strauss, promote their own group, however subtlety, over other groups, even while claiming to speak the “universal” truth in promoting an “American creed” or a “propositional nation” of universal "reason," which is in fact biased against the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon roots of the American order.

The intellectual abstractions of Plato, the French Revolution, and Leo Strauss deny or block the more important real conservative fact that political institutions grow from customs, conventions and the ethnic history of a people (and I would emphasize the genetic traits) cultivated over many generations. Ideas are of course important, but distinctive people create distinctive cultures.

Is it the lack of courage to admit the truth of natural bias toward ones group in human nature? Is it ignorance? Is it fear of being called a "racist?" Is it deception? It is a serious problem and a big pain in the neck at any rate, and I'm pleased it is being talked about, however underground.

Realist Utopian

I think we we can be realist utopians, a term studied by philosopher Raymond Geuss. The way I see it, we can realistically, without wishful thinking about human nature or politics, seek things we do not yet have, but seek them realistically. The evolutionary sciences of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and genetics can keep us grounded in rigorous science, while we think about future evolution all the way to Godhood.

It seems to me that conservativism objects to utopian thinking mainly when it does not correspond to their utopian view of heaven. Theological materialism does not reject past religious views of heaven; in the Twofold Path it retains but transforms the inward view or experience of heaven, or the God Within---which both Christ and Buddha were mainly concerned with---to the real Godhood which can be reached, realistically, by material and supermaterial evolution.

Reviving and transforming religion and art

We need not repudiate reason and science, we can expand it out toward future evolution, and we can very much include religion and art in a kind of romanticism within science. This is evolutionary realism based in both science and art, inspired by the philosophy of theological materialism, and not merely romantic grandiosity.

If we study the evolution of man, then the evolution of man allows us to study our evolution toward Godhood in the cosmos. This can revive, transform, and extend religion. Religion has obviously been dying in the West along with the general decline of the Western world.

Man long ago saw God inwardly in the ascetic Inward Path by denying material desires, now we do not block life, we relax life into the dynamics of material evolution. This is not revolution this is evolutionary transformation.

William Blake said “Damn braces. Bless relaxes,” but we do not “damn” the traditional blockade of material evolution in the Inward Path, which was designed to experience God inwardly, we retain but transform the Inward Path with the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

(This response was inspired by a short review of Romantic Art, by Gail Leggio, in American Arts, Summer 2015)

High and Low Art

High art seems to have grown out of low art. Folk music was refined into classical music, playful dialogues became Shakespeare, novelties and amusements in silent film became art films, and so on. I see nothing wrong with low art becoming high art, and nothing wrong with them being separate, but with the following conditions.

Should high art look down its nose at low art? High and low art can both affirm high morality, in their own ways---in the best civilizations they tended to do that (Ancient Greece, Rome, and India, the High Middle Ages, England from 1688 to 1832). Today both high and low art create works that are decadent and degenerate because they fulminate against high morality.

What is high morality? As the evolutionary scientists say, morality has always been marked by its conscious or unconscious affirmation of what is successful in survival and reproduction. High morality affirms the zenith of success as moving toward or attaining Godhood, with traditional morality defining God mainly as an inward personal experience.

Theological materialism retains but transforms the traditional inward experience of God---which required blocking material drives---toward the outward material evolution of life to real supermaterial Godhood. High and low art affirm this morality, not by excessively moralizing but by creatively illuminating.

Natural or artificial evolution?

Can the dynamics of evolution and natural selection be replicated in voluntarily improving the biological and intellectual standards of the human species (eugenics)? Not exactly, so far, but the dynamics of natural evolution could be followed generally, if we can more accurately define the dynamics.

The artificial intelligence pushed by the trans-humanists seems to be grounded in the belief that natural evolution is entirely random, accidental, for them the evolution of human beings has little or no real direction or purpose other than successful survival and reproduction, if they even admit that. Improving human beings biologically and intellectually is also deeply politically incorrect which blocks such talk and makes the advance of non-human intelligence easier to promote.

The key here for me is that while evolution can be random, it is not entirely random or accidental. Life has been evolving toward increasing consciousness, intelligence, beauty, complexity, and toward the social altruism of group-selection, or goodness, and even evolving toward power. Few people ask the question why are we driven toward success in survival and reproduction? (Francis Heylighen has been one of the few modern scientists to examine purpose in evolution.)

Just as the pleasure or happiness derived from eating food is driven by the deeper requirements of successful survival, the drive to survival and reproductive success is driven by the deeper need of evolving toward Godhood as the zenith of success and purpose in evolution (so contrary to many philosophers happiness is a secondary goal). Naturalism in evolution can therefore include the activation toward higher evolution.

Can perfection be reached? No, just as perfection in evolution is never final, at least not until Godhood is attained, and even then evolution continues endlessly with no ending and no beginning.

The evolution toward Godhood this way includes religion. We need more than science, we need a religious philosophy that sublimates science, as theological materialism does. Raymond Cattell made a brilliant attempt at including religion in science, but he rejected traditional religion, whereas theological materialism retains but transforms traditional religion in the Twofold Path. Teilhard de Chardin also tried to include evolution in religion but evolution for him moved toward a completely non-material God, which is the antithesis of material evolution. It seems to me that even wave/particle quantum change, which some have claimed to be spiritual, is like water changing to ice and then back again to water---it is somehow a material change, and not a non-material dynamic.

Life has been evolving outwardly toward the Godhood first seen inwardly, and our sacred mission is to help it along the way.

Why I prefer evolution to the dialectic

I prefer evolution to the dialectic in understand change. This way you avoid talking or thinking only in terms of ideas.

Ideas need to relate to real objects. The object then becomes more important than the mere idea of the object.

This also avoids the either/or blockade of Kant and Kierkegaard. The either/or dilemma is this way seen as a dilemma of ideas only, whereas the real object cannot be merely a choice of either/or.

This points toward materialism and away from spiritualism and idealism. But it does not reject Godhood, at least not in theological materialism.

Godhood becomes the supermaterial zenith of successful material evolution, and not the non-material spirit of the Vedas, Plato, or Hegel. And the nothingness of modern philosophy becomes a mere idea.

Theological materialism, ethnopluralism, and divine purpose

Marxism, the left, and modern liberalism do not really believe the multiculturalism they espouse, all the world must become exactly what they are.
 

Real respect for variety and diversity comes with ethnopluralism, where there are many ethnic groups, many races and cultures, living in their own territories.
 

One evolutionary religious philosophy and one political philosophy actually affirm this variety and independence: theological materialism and ethnopluralism.
 

Federalism, the modern form of subsidiarity, can offer protection for these differences in ethnic groups and ethnic states.
 

But there is an overall direction and purpose in life and therefore in theological materialism, which is applied in ethnopluralism: the successful evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood.
 

This divine plan can be guided over great time by international sociobiological research centers, voluntary, open to all, and advised by the religious philosophy of theological materialism.

Evolutionary Realism: Art Rising From The Dead

Evolutionary realism follows or synthesizes evolution, it is art in harmony with nature evolving, or devolving, or staying the same before evolving again.

Nature is not a total mystery and art should not be a total mystery. The rules of evolution in nature have become increasingly clear since Darwin, and so should the rules of art. 

Art should not deconstruct nature, it should follow nature.  Art lies to itself if it thinks it can be free of nature. Art needs to affirm nature, and then art can project nature as nature evolves into the future, without abandoning nature.

The inward activating instinct of life, defined here as the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, is not monstrous or Dionysian, it has a rational goal activating life to evolve toward the zenith of success in life and evolution, which is real Godhood.

The artist and the philosopher can project both inward and outward life, both the Involutionary Inward Path to the symbolic God Within, and the Evolutionary Outward Path to real supermaterial Godhood, which is the balance sought.

The phrase “the object is all” suggests that the human imagination should not think itself greater than the object it sees, which has led to distorting or even rejecting the real object. That is pure idealism or non-material spiritualism. Reality is lost this way.

There is a difference in evolutionary realism between imaginatively projecting the future direction of material evolution and abandoning the the object and material evolution entirely.

This abandonment of the material object in favor of a non-material ideal has been going on since the time of the Vedas, or Plato, or since the formation of traditional religions. This pure idealism or spiritualism has caused a Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving to real Godhood in the cosmos---not outside the cosmos.

Theological materialism is a new model for theology, science and art which does not reject traditional religion but conservatively transforms it. The inward experience of God or the Father Within is transformed in the outward evolution of material life to real supermaterial Godhood.

Spiritualism imagined itself more important than materialism, which is an anthropomorphic and even narcissistic position to take. It was the lack of imagination viewing the world the way strict scientific empiricism viewed the world which led to the rebellion against a boring and incomplete materialism.

The rules in nature and evolution allow the rules within evolutionary realism to project future evolution. Abstract expressionism thought nature was without rules, and so did postmodern philosophy, and so they abandoned nature and evolution in favor of anarchy, nihilism, and relativity.

Art becomes increasingly insane the more it abandons nature and real human nature. Artists and intellectuals did not like the biological view of human nature and its role in the origin of cultural behavior, it did not fit their Marxist preferences.

The rejection of the real life instincts has been suicidal, and so art and philosophy have become suicidal, which leads to defining art and culture as death, or death as art and culture.

We need to evolve in harmony with the laws of real nature, activated by the material and then supermaterial Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within life. This can bring art and science legitimately back to religion. 

What has come before in religion can be retained but considered as incomplete glimpses or inward experiences of real Godhood, which all life strives to evolve toward in the cosmos. This is the affirmation of the sacred in art which has always defined the greatest art.

A new vision in art and philosophy, which have been blind in modern times

Purpose, beauty and truth can return in art, along with change, based in the natural material evolution of life toward Godhood. This brings together or synthesizes orderly traditional art and changing modern art. 

Change is related to purpose by way of evolution. Change and purpose need not be separated as Nietzsche and his postmodern followers tried to do.

Godhood is here considered supermaterial rather than spiritual, but the yearning for Godhood can return. The dualities are no longer necessary or valid between matter and spirit or mind and matter.

Artists and philosophers have been too long lost in nihilism, but evolutionary realism backed by theological materialism finds them and brings them back.

This is a new vision in art and philosophy, which have been blind in modern times.

Debating fools: is the present media unstoppable in its destructiveness?

The Founders did not imagine the power and technology of our present big media. Whoever controls the media today controls the present, past and future. That is power. Dictators know the power of the media which is why they control it.

So now we have to watch CNN'S Wolf Israeli-First Blitzer do his standard lets-you-and-him-fight, as he directs the Republican candidates who idiotically compete to see who can promote destabilizing war in the Middle-East, or anywhere, the most. Meanwhile truly unlikable Hillary Clinton and her unctuous husband move closer to the White House, again.

The fact that there is no big, countering, paleoconservative, economic nationalist, states-rights media (Fox News cable is part of the neoconservative cabal therefore not conservative) suggests that the big corporations who own the media are free to destroy Western traditions and national borders, apparently so they can gather more power in the collapse.

Will the West have to fall before it rises again? Will Western militants rise out of desperation and do more harm than good?  Are there really no big money paleoconservatives who can establish a powerful counter media? Is the present media unstoppable in its destructiveness?

How to oppose the destruction of the West

Various cultural and racial groups have been increasingly destroying the West by declaring that anything that opposes their agenda of cultural Marxism on the left, and neo-conservativism on the right, are hateful and evil. On the left their agenda promotes non-Western cultures, non-nuclear families, atheism and religious minorities, women over men, homosexuality, and non-White races. On the right the neo-conservative agenda promotes imperial Western globalism. They have criminalized virtually any opposition to their agenda.

The wise way to oppose this destruction of the West is to refrain from attacking various cultural and racial groups and instead call for life-saving ethnopluralism. This could be done while affirming the conservatism of the original U.S. Constitution, which separates the powers and states and protects their independence with federalism---the Constitution could accommodate the separation of competing or even warring ethnic cultures into ethnic regions and states. If a region wanted the destructive dream of cultural Marxism possibly they might, as long as they stayed within their borders.

 

Ethnopluralism harmonizes with real human nature which remains strongly kin-centered, ethnocentric, and group-selecting.  Supporters of ethnopluralism may still be slandered as haters, racists, and so on, but ethnopluralism clearly saves and respects cultural and ethnic differences, and so it takes the moral high ground. Human history shows that the various forms of imperialism always break back into ethnostates, purposefully or unpurposefully. The line of defense and the way to oppose the destruction of the West is drawn here with ethnopluralism. What are the chances of success? Human nature and history are with us, but whatever the outcome, it is the healthier action to take.

Thoughts on transformed virtue

Transformed virtue: strength and courage in ever seeking to evolve toward higher consciousness, intelligence, and beauty, with the zenith of these things residing at the zenith of material/supermaterial evolution, or Godhood. (Theological materialism).

The old virtue: strength and courage as good. (pre-Christian, post-Christian Nietzschean).

Post-pagan virtue: the suppression or sublimation of strength and courage in seeking the inward experience of God or the Father-Within, or high non-material reason as good. (Vedic, Socratic, Christian).

This historical transforming of virtues has resembled Hegel's dynamic of thesis, antithesis, but the synthesis is material/supermaterial and not “spiritual” (which is supermaterial). Upward material/supermaterial evolution replaces the “dialectic” toward the non-material spirit, and also replaces power for power's sake in the value system.

Virtues seem to reveal the degree of biological, psychological, philosophical, religious and political health of a people or culture.

Are great men Nietzschean radicals or evolutionary conservatives?

Nietzsche wrote that all great men are criminals in the grand style, but they were not petty or pitiful; they felt adrift from all ancestry, conscience, and duty in trying to find the means to their great goals.

But that describes the radically powerful man. Truly great men felt adrift from past tragic errors of ancestry, conscience, and duty, they wanted to boldly fix them, or deeply transform them, not desert or destroy them.

Would Nietzsche have become more conservative had he lived longer? It is difficult to believe that one of the most courageous thinkers in human history could be intellectually biased with resentment against traditional power and authority, or consumed with jealously against a successful artist like Wagner.

The reign of the anti-hero

The truth-telling hero and the lying anti-hero were the standard in Western culture until after the two World Wars when both high and low culture mutated from the hero to the anti-hero.

That was no small change, the lying anti-hero conquered in the popular media and in the academic world. Now heroes who tell the truth are seen as simpletons and liars are seen as geniuses. You have to watch family and G-movies to find any truth-telling heroes, although they are usually presented with gagging syrupy sweetness. And in the academic world post-modernism preaches that it is naive to think in terms of heroes and anti-heroes since there is no real right or wrong.

These preferences seem to relate generally to the northern and southern hemispheres, or it could be the difference between warrior and non-warrior cultures, where warrior cultures are taught to shoot strait and tell the truth, and non-warrior cultures do good business in the bazaars by lying.

Even so, I'm not advocating that one or the other of these conquer, they are both biologically and culturally activated and are best separated with ethnopluralism where human nature can more harmoniously proceed.

Ontology Meets Epistemology: Unblocking the Great Spiritual Blockade

(A response to “A Priori and Ab Initio,” by Cologero, Gornahoor, 2015-12-07)

In theological materialism there is the real world of becoming and the same secondary world which attempts to define a world of non-becoming, or being, with principles, equations and sacred words. This secondary world of definitions is what has been called “being.” It has been wrongly considered (or trans-valued) as the real world, and the real world has been considered unreal. The principles defining life do not come first, actual forms of life come first. Principles, although important, are vastly secondary. We do not need to distinguish a world of being from a world of becoming.

There are not “two natures” of metaphysics, there is one physical order which includes the higher evolved super-physical order. The split between the material and the spiritual, between Samsara and nirvana, Heaven and earth, Yin and Yang, does not exist. The material in reality defines the spiritual. For example, the experience of nirvana of Buddha, and the experience of heaven or the Father Within of Christ, were just that, a peak experience in the physical mind (or the higher Mind-Soul) after much ascetic discipline in blocking or overcoming material desires. We can conservatively retain the preliminary Inward Path experience of the God Within, but it needs to be transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

The physical world and the world that defines the physical world are not opposing worlds, they are the same world. It is possible to have, or be, a material object without defining the object, or without finding a principle which defines the object, but defining the object can help to better understand the object, providing the definitions are mainly accurate or real. Godhood is not a principle. Godhood is a material object or objects at the supermaterial zenith of material evolution. And evolution continues endlessly with starts and stops along the way. There is no first beginning and no final ending, but this cannot yet be proved scientifically, religiously or philosophically any more than a final ending or first beginning can be proved. At this point in our evolution intellectual intuition lets us see that there is no ending and no beginning.

Priests, philosophers, intellectuals, and to a lesser degree scientists, have put up a Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, which must be unblocked if we are ever to revive the Western (and Eastern) world, or if we are ever to reach Godhood.

The difference between multiculturalism and ethnopluralism

“Multiculturalism” and “diversity” as defined in the West today insidiously promotes the equality of political correctness. That is, people and cultures are only the result of different environments, not biology, which can be corrected with cultural Marxism. College campuses strongly promoting “diversity as strength” in reality create distinct groups that stick together and fight one another. Social goals depend on the power to make them happen, and since power is never equal, equality never works.

Variety is good in evolution, but “multiculturalism” creates sameness or unsuccessfully attempts to create sameness. Whereas ethnopluralism actually protects and champions variety, and acknowledges distinct differences between groups inherent in real human nature, which require their own space, their own ethnic culture, and their own ethnostate. Various forms of federalism can then protect the whole.

Healthy morality is essentially the cultural or religious means of helping life continue to live and evolve, and ethnopluralism needs to be affirmed if we are to continue to survive and evolve, ultimately to Godhood, without tearing each other and the earth apart.

What conservatism misses in trying to fix higher education

In the West today it is the uneducated that seem educated in protecting the permanent things that are so necessary to the survival of any country. Why don't conservatives promote the science of sociobiology in the humanities departments of our colleges and universities as a way to help save the permanent things? Mainly because conservatism has been religiously based in the anti-materialism of religion, whereas sociobiology is based in the naturalism and materialism of science.

Teaching students the debauched and degraded idea (at $40 thousand a year) that there is no determined human nature, and that authenticity is defined as acting any way they please (as long as it is politically correct), has meant the virtually permanent and conservative qualities of real human nature are missing. The science of sociobiology has once again taught us that human nature remains as it has always been: kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other conservative things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

The bridge between religion and science is developed in the philosophy of theological materialism, where conservatives and traditionalists can retain the old ascetic spiritual experience of the Inward Path to the God or Father Within but see it transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood. As Russell Kirk said, men cannot improve a society by setting it on fire: they must seek out its old virtues and bring them back into the light.

Singular-ethnicity, ethnopluralism, or ideological denial?

Why does “racism” always appear in human history? A singular or imperial ethnicity, or totalitarian racism is what usually appears, but also a more sneaky singular-ethnicity with the great chutzpah to disguise itself as anti-racism. And then of course there is the modern ideological denial of any kind of ethnicity or biological origin of cultural behavior, such as Marxism or modern liberalism. But even conservatives and traditionalists more or less deny ethnicity, even as their traditions tend to uphold the old ways of a singular-ethnicity.

What are we to make of this mélange of views and denials? As I say here often, over many decades of honest and courageous work, scientific sociobiological studies have found that real human nature remains 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. It has been the singular or imperial forms of racism that have caused most of the devastating wars throughout human history.

How do we deal with this ethnocentrism? The ethnopluralism hypothesis presented here affirms ethnic regions and ethnostates for distinct ethnic cultures, protected internally and externally by some version of federalism. The United States Constitution with its separation of powers and states could even accommodate ethnopluralism.  Ethnopluralism allows evolution to continue with the variety and the time that evolution prefers.

This seems to be the way for us to civilize the beast without perverting or destroying human nature and human history. Human beings are capable of this life-saving behavior---we better be.

How group-selection runs deeper than Nietzsche's individualism or asceticism in religion

To update Nietzsche's pioneering idea that morality is essentially the means of making something survive the individual, which Nietzsche did not approve of, it is the altruism inherent in group-selection that was and is the means of allowing life to survive the individual.

This means that the individualism of Nietzsche (however great the individual) and the individualism of modern libertarianism do not go deep enough in examining human nature. As the great E. O. Wilson said, “Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals.” And so the social conquest of the earth emerged.

This has meaning in defining human nature and political philosophy, where kin-selection and group-selection more naturally favor ethnopluralism, ethnic cultures, and ethnostates, and not one-world globalism, melting pots, or the hyper-individualism of libertarianism.

Even the deeper ascetic side of most religions favors the individual path to the God or Father Within by ultimately rejecting all material life, which created problems for later philosophers of theology in affirming social and political life while attacking materialism.

This contradiction is resolved in the Twofold Path of theological materialism where the Inward Path to the Father Within is conservatively retained but transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood, which requires the long-term protection of both individual-selection and group-selection, as life continually evolves toward higher things.

What has really been causing the increasing number of Islamic terrorist attacks?

The endless attempts to make all people get along in harmony, as one equal people, no-matter how distinctly different they are, has never worked, even when great force was applied. Long-lasting traditional religions and powerful political ideologies, such as Marxism, have failed to make people live together in peace and equality. Any relative peace and harmony possible has come with people who share the same genetic and cultural disposition.

In every human culture ever studied, human nature included kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, and ethnocentrism, even xenophobia, with group-selection as the main unit of selection. If a culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.

For example, if I take a bold and honest look at what has really been causing the increasing number of Islamic terrorist attacks (therefore a politically incorrect look) I see the struggle for access or control of oil by big global corporations and the constant nefarious schemes of the neoconservatives and the Israelis. And these three powerful sources often agree in their deceitful purposes. Does that not define a conspiracy?

Powerful lobby groups who work for these groups help elect and control politicians and the media, and this generally means the use of slander, libel, and all manner of dirty tricks against anyone who does not agree to their schemes. Islamic terrorism will not be stopped and relative peace and order will not be restored until this deceit and conspiracy is understood and stopped.

But I do not advocate all-out war against these people. I advocate ethnopluralism, which acknowledges the very natural drives of different groups to reach for dominance and success---which is part of real human nature---but separates distinct ethnic groups and cultures into ethnostates, and then protects the states internally and externally with some sort of federalism.

The world has tried to become a melting pot into one stew of people, which refuses to melt. So we are left with all the different ethnic groups and cultures endlessly scheming against one another for dominance. Ethnopluralism finally acknowledges this reality, and in doing so offers the world the best chance for long-term peace and order.

Then perhaps we can get on with the sacred mission of evolving, with variety, each in our own way, toward Godhood, guided by international sociobiological research centers, open to all, and by the religious philosophy of theological materialism. Other philosophies have not worked, and we are steadily moving toward extinction.

What is real decadence?

Nietzsche thinks (“The Will To Power”) that when society rejects war and conquest it is a sign of decadence, leading to democracy, rule by shopkeepers, etc. My response is that when a society accepts and affirms ongoing upward evolution then that prevents real decadence---that is, real decadence is the renunciation of higher evolution.

Peace and some middle class values can this way be seen as preventing decadence since ongoing evolution usually requires long periods of peace and stability so that new and improved genetic mutations can be retained and perpetuated, which the culture and the military then protect and defend.

Morality can this way be recognized as not only enhancing successful survival and reproduction but seen as the means of real evolution surviving the individual and provincial time. To maintain evolution requires many generations dedicating themselves to its cause, each is a link in the long chain of upward evolution. Healthy morality, religion, science, politics, culture, are defined around this perspective or worldview.

Evolutionary ethics, conservatism, happiness, and the secondary nature of power

Growth and evolution are a “right” that life has always demanded, at least from within, as nature and evolution change life from without. But the steady survival and evolution toward higher things has required the order of conservatism over time, otherwise evolutionary advances would be lost, as they often are with social chaos and disorder.

Ethics do not aim arbitrarily at the restraint of power, as Nietzsche's suggested, ethics aim at the teleological goal of life evolving toward Godhood. If there is a damaging blocking taking place it is the Great Spiritual Blockade and renunciation of life evolving to Godhood.

Power is a secondary to the goal of Godhood, contrary to Nietzsche. Power is not freedom, the essential purpose of power is as an aid in the evolution of life toward Godhood. Power, like intoxication, is only the illusion of freedom.

Ethics are born in the evolution of life toward Godhood. What is good is the continual evolution of life toward higher beauty, truth, goodness, intelligence and higher consciousness. This does not necessitate the destruction of things that are not higher evolved. Evolution works conservatively over time, keeping the best of the past, while life is being transformed.

Life, the living organism, growth, and striving after success in survival and reproduction is central, but successful survival and reproduction does not completely define the goals of the material activation of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood. Evolving life ultimately seeks the zenith of success, which is Godhood.

Life does not always reach Godhood but Godhood is the activating goal of all the striving and growth and evolution, not power, and not happiness, although power and happiness are a secondary part of advancing toward Godhood.

Conservatism and Eugenics

Real conservatism affirms change by keeping the best of the past while steadily harmonizing the new in the old. But when it comes to “eugenics,” that is,  the science of improving human hereditary qualities through selective breeding, conservatives follow the modern liberal line of thinking of progress as destroying the old order with the new. But healthy eugenics, like natural evolution in general, is conservative, keeping the best of the past while synthesizing the new. For example, the human brain retained the reptile and mammal brain as the human brain evolved on top of these earlier versions.

The question is asked by both liberals and skeptical conservatives : who defines the beautiful, the true and the good as we evolve toward higher versions of these things? Why depart from the traditional conservative answers to these questions? Nature suggests that radical revolutionary change and destroying the old order to build the new is rarely successful. In nature consonance and dissonance are usually resolved in harmony, not in disorder. Even ecology is defined this way.

A “reasoned and temperate progress “ as the old conservatives used to say, is the wise way to evolve. The stability of conservatism in general helps maintain evolutionary new mutations which would perish without that stability. And indeed, how much evolution, the timing of evolution, depends on the circumstances of the nation, or the small states or ethnostates within the nation and the world. Humans couples have been increasingly using genetic studies and new gene technology in the selection of their offspring. Raymond Cattell's Beyondism began the scientific study of the religious regulation of the pace of evolution, which we extend.

The universe is orderly, even if we don't always understand the order. And we are evolving in the material universe toward supermaterial Godhood, which is defined as the zenith of truth, beauty and goodness, and exemplified as the highest consciousness and intelligence. The old experience of the Inward God or Father Within is conservatively retained but transformed in the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood. Like great art, eugenics is the affirmation of this sacred perspective.

How material essence precedes existence in the reality of the self

The word “life” defines our essence well, as matter with the capacity of metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, reproduction, but includes one more deeper definition: in theological materialism the internal-essence or meta-essence of life is called the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, and it is material, or supermaterial. Things defined as “spiritual” are usually just that, definitions, sacred words with no real life or essence of life in them, they are openly and proudly non-material.

I affirm the traditional statement “essence precedes existence” as long as essence does not mean non-materialism. Essence is existence. When you say “existence precedes essence,” which is beloved of existentialists and implied in post-modernism, that is not much different from the loose idealism of Marxism or even modern liberalism, leading to the idea that human behavior is infinitely malleable since their is no essence or human nature.

The reality behind the “self” does not discard the material world as being only a deception. That kind of thinking has for many centuries led to the Great Spiritual Blockade of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood. This view is the Platonic and Orthodox religious view which turns reality on its head and says only the non-material is real.

The essence of life, the activation of life, that is, the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, must in reality face the exigencies of evolution and natural election on its evolutionary path toward Godhood. But the Inward Path of traditional religion and philosophy is nevertheless conservatively retained as preliminary insight transformed in the Outward Path.

The impossible task liberals have demanded of the police

Most people know that schoolyard combatants need to be separated, but if they later continue to fight---even after the liberal teachers demand love and togetherness---then what? The reality is that people with distinct differences may never get along, even when totalitarian force is applied, and for whatever peace is possible, a permanent separation is needed.

The hard reality is that in every human culture ever studied, human nature has included kin-selection preferences, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, and ethnocentrism---even to the point of xenophobia---and group-selection has been the main unit of selection. If a culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and always returns to these things. These things also happen to be at the core of conservatism and tradition, whereas many of these traits are missing in, say, communism, modern liberalism, and post-modernism.

When Teddy Kennedy needed to prove his liberal worth with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 it vastly and purposefully increased the number of people from the “third world” who were distinctly different from Americans, and who when they arrived naturally preferred their own kind. Now 21 million illegal immigrants from Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, etc. are following the same behavior, they don't fully assimilate because human nature will not let them fully assimilate.

And today once again the black/white battles of the 1960's have returned, with the hated police in the middle. This has created the impossible task liberals have demanded of the police, to try deal with distinctly different combatants who will not really get along.

The hard reality which Americans and the West will have to face is that whatever peace is possible in the world requires the separation of distinct people and distinct cultures into regions and states, which defines ethnopluralism. The United States Constitution with its separation of powers and states could even accommodate this solution. It is hoped that modern liberals will one day see that this is the most humane way to deal with real human nature. I'll bet the beleaguered police already sense this is true.

If they can sell cultural rubbish than we can sell the sociobiological view of human nature

“ Democratic sentiment in America is little more than a reflex of market imperatives.” (Jack Trotter, Chronicles, Oct. 2015)....I agree with that quote, and I say that if they can sell cultural rubbish than we can sell the sociobiological view of human nature, which can logically lead to independent regions and states, or ethnostates, for ethnic cultures, and the return to conservative values in general, which are in harmony with real kin-selecting and group-selecting human nature.

The media in general, particularly the entertainment industry, have been the main sellers of the various brands of cultural rubbish, such as homosexuality, radical feminism, license for all sexual acts, wide open national borders, and so on, but big business, the academic world, and politicians have followed the money and pushed the same cultural rubbish. This is what democracy has become.

So who owns the media, who rules the academic world, who runs big businesses, who are the venal politicians? Can they be reformed without a radical revolution? I am optimistic that reform, not revolution, can happen. As I wrote here yesterday: “life,” that is, metabolism, growth, reproduction, implies strong direction toward an end, at least toward survival and reproductive success, or evolutionary success in the world, no-matter what obstacles are presented, and life has had many extremely difficult obstacles to overcome. Do we have a choice?

I believe that the best solution to future political catastrophe calls for ethnopluralism not nationalism, federalism not fascism, but with an economic nationalism that certainly protects the independence of the regions and states, which would be largely ethnostates. This could be conservatively (therefore not radically) adapted to the U. S. Constitution with its separation of powers and states.

But I also believe our recovery needs to be deeply grounded in the religious philosophy of theological materialism if it wants to be more than stale preaching or more than a market strategy. As I have also  written here often, history is material evolution moving toward not a spiritual but a supermaterial Godhood. This is optimistic, not pessimistic news. History can be seen as a process of emancipation, but not emancipation from the material world, which is devolution toward spiritual nothingness. Materialism evolves to supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of materialism, with starts, stops, and backward-going along the way, and our sacred mission is to help life and nature evolve toward Godhood.

Thoughts on freedom, determinism, and the sacred goal of life

The word “life,” that is, metabolism, growth, reproduction, implies direction toward an end, at least toward survival and reproductive success, or evolutionary success in the world. I think the essence of life can be defined only secondarily as the “will to-power,” but primordially as the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood. The deepest drive of “life” is toward evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of success in life.

Yet even when life attains Godhood in evolution there is probably not the immortality which life desperately and naturally desires, because there seems to be no beginning and no end to the cosmos, there is only the starts and stops of ongoing life and evolution toward ever higher forms of life.

What does this say about “freedom?” It implies that although there may be different paths in life which give us free choice, they are choices within the determinism that defines the action of life itself. That is, the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood drives life from within, to which evolution adds its own outside natural selection.

It would seem that only death itself makes us “free” of the drives of life and the actions of evolution, but this is a freedom that healthy life does not prefer, even if ascetics have desired such a condition while still alive, which has been the Great Spiritual Blockade of material evolution toward real Godhood. The spiritual blockade brought only the Inward God seen or experienced by ascetics, after ridding the body of all the desires of life, which is an insight that can be retained but transformed in the Outward Path of evolution toward supermaterial Godhood.

Ethnopluralism and the limits of altruism

The assault against the West, internally by the controlled media, modern liberalism and neoconservatism, and externally by economic globalism and large numbers of migrants, leaves us with the choice, as Chilton Williamson pointed out, of not accepting huge numbers of migrants and virtually destroying them, or accepting them and destroying us.

This great dilemma brings forward all kinds of disagreeable political reactions and possibilities, from the revolt of the citizens leading to non-democratic action, to the real death of the West due to a suicidal misreading of the limits of altruism.

I think the best solution to future political catastrophes calls for ethnopluralism not nationalism, federalism not fascism, but with an economic nationalism that certainly protects the independence of the regions and states, which would be largely ethnostates. This could be conservatively adapted to the U. S. Constitution with its separation of powers and states.

Perhaps most importantly, unlike other political systems, ethnopluralism adheres to real human nature, which remains strongly kin-centered, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, among other traditional things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection, and it discourages all forms of marauding imperialism.

We can never accept the death of the West.

Real history and religion are not emancipation from the material world

Modern thinkers only seem to be opposite Hegel in thinking that we are moving in a pessimistic direction. Hegel is not optimistic or realistic when in the end his philosophy turns back to Plato's world of rejecting materialism as a negation, and seeing his highest God as pure non-material “spirit.”  That describes devolution not evolution in theological materialism.

Reality seems to be the opposite of those who think that consciousness eventually loses it physical or material properties, which the old and new Gnostic's believe. Plato and the Eastern mystics were largely responsible for turning reality upside down, which influenced the Judaic-Christian world and Islam. Aristotle, the first Western scientist, seemed as if he would affirm materialism against his great world teacher, but in the end he too rejects materialism in defining his God, which influenced the philosophy of Aquinas.
 

Being “self-aware” does not have to divide us from ourselves, as the old and new Gnostic's believe. There is no “fall” from grace based on the idea that knowledge of our “true self” is non-material. We have to move beyond the Great Spiritual Blockade to real Godhood, which as conservatives we can retain but see as the first incomplete, inward, view of outward Godhood in the Twofold Path.

Some say that science is only a method of inquiry and not a worldview, but science does end up with a worldview consisting of the reality that science finds, or believes it finds, in the world. Human reason and science alone may not be able to grasp the complete nature of things, but they can be an important tool in affirming what intuition usually finds first.

History is material evolution moving toward not a spiritual but a supermaterial Godhood. This is optimistic, not pessimistic news. History can be seen as a process of emancipation, but not emancipation from the material world which is devolution toward spiritual nothingness. Materialism evolves to supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of materialism, with starts, stops, and backward-going along the way, and our sacred mission is to help life and nature evolve toward Godhood.

Is there a solution to the ongoing cultural, religious and ethnic destruction?

Essentially, it is not violent Islamic militants, black radicals, sadistic police, neo-fascists, the Jewish lobby, or the global one-percent who are the root cause of our ongoing cultural, religious and ethnic destruction, the root cause is the un-mixing, non-integrating, un-assimilating behavior of real human nature, which remains deeply kin-centered and group-centered.

Even though assimilation and one-worldism are preached daily as the only solution, these groups are simply too different from one another to get along well, or assimilate. The only long-term solution I have been able to see that would stand a chance of stopping the ongoing cultural, religious and ethnic destruction is the natural separations of ethnopluralism. That is, regions and states set aside for the various cultural, religious and ethnic groups, and then actually protecting their independence with some sort of federalism. I even think that the U.S. Constitution with its separation of powers and states could adapt to ethnopluralism.

When considering an even deeper solution to our destruction, I agree with the Carl Schmitt line that “all modern political teachings are secularized theological concepts.” I affirm the religious philosophy of theological materialism, which can religiously and philosophically help organize our future evolution on earth and out into the cosmos over the very long-term.

My view of deep-conservatism

I support limited government, private property, and private virtue as necessary to maintaining a healthy society. But I have a problem with economics being set free from real national interests and I believe in putting tariffs on foreign products to protect manufacturing in the United States, which has been all but destroyed by greedy global capitalists.

I also emphasize the separation of powers and states more than most conservatives, to the degree that I think regions and states eventually need to contain evolving, distinct, ethnic cultures and far more independence than they now have, although I think the states need to be protected in their independence by federalism, and I think we need a strong protecting military---“diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.”

I agree with the philosophy of non-inference in the affairs of other nations, I reject imperialism, although I think we can do business with the world. I have been influenced by conservative thinkers like Russell Kirk and Pat Buchanan, but I reject neoconservative thinkers---biology is more a “universal” element and defines reality more than the Platonic abstractions of Leo Strauss. I have also been influenced by sociobiologist E.O.Wilson, and by social psychologist and futurist Raymond Cattell.

I don't agree with conservatives in their disbelief in the perfectibility of man, which derives from the incomplete traditional religious rejection of materialism, although “perfectibility” needs to be understood as evolving beyond man. I agree with conservatives that religion is at the foundation of any long-lasting civilization, although the theological materialism I affirm retains but transforms the inward, ascetic, non-material understanding of God to the outward material and supermaterial Godhood reached through material evolution.

This religious view of conservatism brings science and the material world back to religion, where they have only been partially accepted by conservatives. Nothing requires a more long-term conservative philosophy than the very long-term material evolution of life to supermaterial Godhood, where the best of the past is retained as we continue to evolve toward the highest truth, beauty and goodness in the cosmos.

Non-assimilation offers a solution in the Middle East and everywhere

Assimilation has deep cultural, biological, and psychological components. The real antidote to most of the world's problems is not globalism, centralization, counter-revolution, cultural imperialism, military intervention, or massive immigration, the real antidote is devolution, separation, and moving from the big to the small. Distinct characteristics set people apart, as the solid evolutionary sciences have been telling us for many years, and it is overdo time to acknowledge our unassimilable differences.

Not only in the Middle East but in Europe, Russia, even China, as well as the United States, we will eventually need to devolve and separate into small states, ethnic cultures, or ethnostates, with some sort of protecting federalism---for example, ethnopluralism applied to a three-state solution in warring Syria, or a long overdo two-state solution in Israel/Palestine.

Those who support massive immigration, cultural imperialism, and globalism, are recognizable enemies of world peace and order. This is not advocating isolationism, we can deal with one another, but not through the forced assimilation of people and cultures which cannot be assimilated. Devolution, separation, and ethnopluralism are the most sane, rational, and even emotionally satisfying long-term solution.

When means are mistaken for ends in religion and philosophy

Nietzsche was right in saying that life is only a means to something, although I think he got the sacred ends somewhat wrong. Life is not only the means to “power,” which was Nietzsche's claim, life is the means for material life to evolve toward the sacred end of supermaterial Godhood. “Happiness” is the other choice thinkers make as the most basic motivation, but happiness is a secondary reaction which only uses happiness as an incentive for deeper goals.

The conscious world is only a small slice of what lies beneath, which first Nietzsche and later Freud understood. Consciousness itself arose to enhance the deeper goals of evolutionary success, including the deepest motivation and goal of the evolution of life to Godhood, which is described in theological materialism.

The means have been misunderstood as the object itself, without looking for the end that explains the necessity of the means. Nietzsche understood this, but he didn't quite affirm the most basic activation of the evolution of life toward Godhood, that is, the Godhood first insufficiency glimpsed in the religions which Nietzsche dismissed.

Our values need to relate to the conditions that preserve and enhance our ongoing evolution toward Godhood, then the means are not mistaken for the end. Religion need not be rejected but transformed from the ascetic God-Within of the Inward Path, to the evolution of life to real Godhood in the Outward Path.

The Return Of Teleology

Theological materialism affirms teleology. The end-goal of material evolution is supermaterial Godhood, which was formerly seen as attaining the God or Father Within in the Inward Path. There is a material end-goal and purpose, beyond human limitations.

This is a spatial, temporal, material/supermaterial Godhood, and not as Eastern sages, Plato and Christian mystics believed, not an Idea, or sacred word, not a sacred vision alone, which can now be seen as preliminary to the Godhood-goal of material evolution.

The zenith of beauty, truth and goodness is not merely apprehended in a vision, they are the highest realm of value and morality in the evolution of material life. Conscious life needs to be guided toward these highest ends, even as unconscious life is guided toward these ends.

Religion, philosophy, art, science, politics, etc. can be oriented toward the highest realms of material evolution, reality and value. The best work in these fields will know the sacred goal of evolving life.

Awareness of the return of teleology comes about through the process of applying all the methods of gaining knowledge, from rationalism and empiricism to pragmatism and even the super-sensuous intuitive apprehensions of mysticism.

But the high, united, goal of beauty, truth and goodness, defined as material or supermaterial Godhood, is not the unchanging “permanence” defined in Tradition. Life is seen as endlessly evolving ever beyond into higher realms of value, reality and Godhood, with stops and new starts along the way.

How seeking Godhood unites religion, art, and material evolution

At this stage in our evolution, Godhood is almost a mystical goal, but this vision helps carry us forward in material evolution to supermaterial Godhood, which we can affirm in religion and art. This is not a spiritual goal, it is a material or supermaterial goal, it is a sacred goal grounded in the reality of the material world.

Beauty can be a leading guide in religion, art, and evolution by seeking ultimate beauty, truth and goodness, and thinking of these sacred things as united in Godhood, at the zenith of evolution. This is not merely the Idea of beauty, truth and goodness, as in Plato---and as in the traditional religious mystical vision---this defines the real living objects of evolved Godhood.

We can know Godhood with this scientific-intuitive-artistic way of seeing and knowing in religion, art, and in material/supermaterial evolution. This is the worldview of theological materialism.  This is how seeking Godhood unites religion, art, and material evolution.

Love and Immortality

I think Plato was almost right when in the “Symposium” Socrates suggests that love or Eros is more than the desire for the beloved and is actually the longing for the immortal “good.”  This, according to Plato (Socrates) accounts for the desire for generation and reproduction. Physical reproduction is inspired by the Beautiful, which is a sacred Idea in Plato. Then he goes on to say that any kind of creation follows this same desire for immortality.

I say Plato “almost” got it right because I believe that the non-material definition, or the sacred word or Idea of “good” is only secondary to the real living object defined as good. We evolve in the material world toward the ultimate or zenith of goodness, beauty, intelligence, truth, etc, which is defined as the supermaterial object, or objects, of Godhood.

It seems to me that both Nietzsche and Freud were limited in their definitions of love as the power-drive (Nietzsche), or the pleasure-drive (Freud). Love and reproduction, essentially, strive toward evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness, intelligence, higher consciousness, etc. This can help guide us in the direction evolution seems to want to go.... It could also suggest a new kind of evolutionary therapy, or psychotherapy, related to the essential drive of life (the material Spirit-Will) activating life from within to evolve toward supermaterial Godhood.

How reality and ethical and aesthetic values coincide in theological materialism

What is most real is most valuable. According to the classic Whitney Oates examination, Plato thought this way, which is a solid way of seeing, but I think Plato turned reality upside down and worshiped unreality or non-life, whereas theological materialism regards life over and above the Idea or definition of life.

Ideas such as courage or truth are important but they only define the real thing. Definition is secondary to the real thing. “Pure existence” is only two words of a non-material Idea in Plato, whereas in reality pure existence is more likely the highest evolved living object. The same criticism applies to the traditional religious definitions of God and spirit, they are ideas and definitions only and are not considered material objects.

This does not rule out or reject Plato or traditional religion, but it defines the sacred religious Ideas of God as only the first glimpse of real Godhood, which is, in reality, evolved to in the material and supermaterial world, as defined in the Twofold Path.

If we can only know that which does not change, as Plato and other religious founders define Ideas, then we cannot know anything since everything changes in evolution. We can know changing evolution by applying the various forms of knowing, from rationalism and empiricism to pragmatism and skepticism and finally even mysticism. But ideas only define this process and are not the objects of evolution. In projecting the direction of evolution we can utilize these ways of knowing, but finally also we can apply intuitive vision.  In seeking reality and truth virtually every method is permitted.

The Uncomfortable Reality of Ethnic-Determined Politics

The fragmentation within countries now increasing across the world is largely due to ethnic-determined politics. Ethnic-determined politics is the difficult reality of real politics, but it is less difficult than other political philosophies which are often not much more than intellectual fantasies about what determines politics, such as class-determined or nation-determined politics. Definitions of imperialism, one-nation, one-country, and ethnopluralism, are not the same. The word country is a geographical designation with internationally recognized borders. A nation is associated with a group of people sharing a culture, language, and history. I use the term ethnopluralism to describe the reality of ethnic-determined politics. Real human nature remains kin-centered and ethnic-centered, with group-selection as the main unit of selection.

Ethnic-determined politics does not rule out the affirmation of a protecting federalism, and ethnic-determined politics need not negate democratic republics, it could actually strengthen them. For example, the separation of powers and states in the U.S. Constitution could accommodate ethnic-determined states and regions. Ethnic character, tone and guiding belief already determines much of the cultural ethos. The charge of “racism” has largely been the deceptive, and sometimes naive, attempt of one ethnic group to dominate another. Even when force has been used by empires to block natural ethnopluralism, it is only for relatively short periods of time before they break back into various versions of ethnostates.

As E. O. Wilson has brilliantly and poignantly pointed out, humans are conflicted by their prehistory of multilevel selection between the individual and the group, these are the forces that created us, we are suspended in unstable and constantly changing positions between the two forces, and we must find a way to balance these forces. In the same way we need to find a balance between ethnic cultures and ethnopluralism. This is what we are, and ethnopluralism is the real base of conservative politics, although the religious base is even deeper.

Looking beyond reality to miss-define reality

When we look through the world of “appearance” we should not look beyond life and beyond reality to define reality, as too many philosophers and ascetics have done. Whitney Oates mentions the Greek Sophist Gorgias who went as far as to write a book called, “On Nature, or the Non-existent.” Even supreme wisdom has to be embodied, it does not stand alone outside the world.

This world is not the reflection or appearance of reality, this world is reality, including Godhood which we evolve to in this world. Defining this world as being less valuable than a “non-material” world has blocked our material evolution toward supermaterial Godhood.

Think of the amazing ethical and aesthetic experience that supreme wisdom would bring if wisdom was embodied in a supremely beautiful and supremely evolved body. Ideas, formulas, words are of course important, but they are not Gods and they should be considered secondary to the things they define. Ethical and aesthetic values need to relate to the real material world and not to the non-material world---this means that religion, philosophy and art need the reform of theological materialism.