All Harmony

Culture can be beautiful, which means harmonious, if the various parts of culture are working together, just as a woman can be beautiful when her looks are symmetrical and harmonious. Why is harmony and symmetry considered beautiful? In humans, it tends to indicate all around good health, in nature, it indicates an ecological harmony of the parts, which seems to enhance the survival of nature.

So what is a harmonious culture? The ethnopluralism hypothesis suggests to me the most harmonious culture possible, given human nature. In every human culture ever studied human nature included, among other things, kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, even xenophobia, and with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return 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.

How close culture, politics and religion should be is perhaps debatable, but I favor the separation of powers and states, as seen in the original U. S. Constitution, but with separate states and regions for ethnic cultures.

When the religious philosophy of theological materialism is added to the harmony of man, nature and culture then the evolution of life toward Godhood can continue with an all around harmony. Politics isn't the heart of culture, religion is (and the West has all but lost its heart), but at the heart of religion is the material and supermaterial evolution of life toward Godhood, which can also harmonize religion and science.

Saving capitalism from hyper-indivualism

Randian libertarian's think that capitalism and altruism are incompatible, which is a major mistake in their philosophy. They place the highest value in the individual and not the group, thereby devaluing or even ignoring group-morality and group-selection, which has been and remains the central unit of human selection. Ayn Rand seems to have been unknowingly blocked by experiences of violent collectivism in early life. Her hatred of altruism seems to stem from this block, as well as from her dislike of religion, and her apparent ignorance of the science of sociobiology

It is not a “constraint” or “unnatural” to obstruct hyper-greed in individual capitalists, it is the unchecked individual who is doing the constraining and obstructing of natural group-morality and altruism. When the capitalist wants all the property for himself he is as much an enemy of property as the state, which also tends to want all property, as Chesterton pointed out. The individual who is in harmony with real human nature will see that group-morality and group-selection are vital in the survival and reproductive success of both the individual and the group.

Economic nationalism and ethnopluralism can curb anti-social marauding global corporations, which have been destroying American jobs and manufacturing to enrich a tiny one-percent of greedy individuals. Capitalism always ends up in league with government power, if you let it, creating monopolies and hurting innovation and competition. Certainly capitalism achieved in a very short time in the United States the highest standard of living ever achieved in human history, but human beings remain kin-centered, ethnocentric, and even xenophobic, with group-selection as the main unit of selection. With this in mind unchecked individualism can be seen as almost always damaging to both individuals and groups. I affirm capitalism, but we have to tell the difference between social and anti-social capitalism.

How real objects exist and evolve toward real Godhood

Some epistemology...When we see two objects with our senses we may not see all aspects of the objects because we are constrained by the abilities of our senses. We see the object different than a frog or an eagle, but we still see the object with our particular senses, as they do. Only later do humans compare, integrate or segregate what we have seen with conceptions and memories in our minds. But our mind's concepts go back to the original object we saw with our senses, or should. We too often escape in our minds and we think of the concepts in our minds as more real than the object we saw with our senses---intellectuals are prone to this. Intellectual's are best when grounded in the reality of real objects, and not merely in the conceptions in their minds.

The real object is more important than the definition of the object, and this realism actually reverses many religious and philosophical views of reality, which worship concepts and sacred words and consider concepts and words as real and real material objects as unreal. Spiritualism comes from considering material objects as unreal and unreal concepts as real. Materialism comes from considering real living objects as real. Supermaterialism, as seen in theological materialism, describes material evolution evolving to supermaterial Godhood. To attain Godhood we must evolve along with the laws of real nature. This can bring science and materialism legitimately back to religion. What has come before in religion and philosophy can be retained but considered incomplete glimpses-experiences of real Godhood.

Demand understandable intellectuals

America has tended to be anti-intellectual, which has been thought of as a bad thing. But the presumptuous abstractions of many intellectuals have not been as wise as the practical populism of the people, so this seems to affirm their anti-intellectualism. To change Henry Ford's conclusion on history: intellectuals have offered more or less bunk.

It seems to me that the best and deepest ideas can be understood by a non-elite public. When an idea is difficult it probably needs more refining by the author. Sloppy writers, selfish writers, make the reader struggle through the author's unclear thoughts to make them understandable.

This is not to say that I don't believe in deep genius. I would increase the number of geniuses. And I certainly don't believe all opinions are equal. But many or most intellectuals deserve the anti-intellectualism of the people.

So, carry on America, demand understandably intellectuals.

Upgrading Aristotle

Aristotle affirmed particulars (what I call particular objects), and he saw universals (what I call abstractions), as merely aspects (what I call definitions), of existing concrete objects, so I am in good company. But Aristotle did see a metaphysical essence within concretes, and I don't, other than a non-metaphysical material activation within life to evolve toward supermaterial Godhood, which is as close to an essence as I come. I add the evolutionary religious view of life evolving toward Godhood, which is examined in theological materialism.

Reality is real objects---not religious or Platonic abstractions that are definitions only---and all obey the laws of nature, if we can perceive it. Our knowledge comes mainly from sense experience which we turn into human concepts, but knowledge also comes from inward intuitional genetic inheritance, but I am reluctant to put an abstract logical system to this creative process, although there might be one working.

Politically, ethnopluralism is the upgrade of ancient political philosophy, based on knowledge of evolution and human nature which has been coming in since Darwin and sociobiology. I tie this to the conservative tradition of localism, with ethnostates for all ethnic cultures, in harmony with group-selecting real human nature, keeping the best of the past, protected by a light federalism, while we ever evolve toward Godhood in the future.

The group as the real genius

Who is the highest type of civilized person? Are they a full combination of religious, military, artist, and scientific individual? Can such a person exist?  Very high ability in one area often comes at the expense of other areas. This may be why group-selection, group bonding, became the main unit of selection. Individualism follows in a secondary way.

This suggests that it is the culture, the group, which has that full combination of real genius among highly talented individuals. Edmund Burke thought of traditional social institutions something like this, which has been more or less affirmed by sociobiological studies of the group as the main unit of selection.

Individual genius can greatly help the group, and is often rewarded by the group, but the group is the real combined genius. When the group is declining that full combination-genius is declining.

Updating the Southern Agrarians

The Southern Agrarian's thought that with the traditional bonds dissolved society would become anarchic or be forced together by a central state. Force, not love of place and culture would hold things together. This more or less is what happened. But I don't think the Agrarian's emphasized enough the importance of ethnic cultures and groups. The other problem with the Agrarians was that they thought science was a threat and that the idea of  "progress" only dissolved traditional social bonds. They also disliked "industrialism" for the same reason.

However, the science of sociobiology affirms localized and ethnic bonding, which brings science into traditionalism, whether it is accepted or not. The loss of religion due to science is also updated, which is a central theme of this blog: we evolve in the material and supermaterial world to the Godhood only symbolically experienced as the God or Father within of traditional religion. Science this way enters religion and conservatism.

The ethnopluralism hypothesis, which proposes regional, state, and local control against big-government central control, along with the bonding of separate ethnic cultures and the right of states within our federation, is in line with real human nature, which is kin-centered, even xenophobic, and group-selecting. But the measure of any political system is related to its evolutionary path, which leads to the bonding of groups and cultures, keeping the best of the past as we evolve toward Godhood.

Theological materialism describes religion as bringing ourselves in harmony with the evolutionary intention of life to evolve toward Godhood, and it seeks to define our role in this sacred path. The idea of "original sin" kept the Agrarians from affirming science, evolution and progress. When Godhood is understood as that which we evolve to become in the material and supermaterial world, then "progress" certainly enters religion. 

Future Order, Progress, and Evolution

Timothy Fuller (Modern Age 2015) writes of  J.S. Mill, who thought that order preserves the various goods, while progress increases the good. Order supplies stability and preserves what good has already been attained, but order is more the staging area for subsequent advance. Both order and progress can be good, but order is subordinate to progress, keeping open the way to the next stage of improvements. The danger is that we humans become too relaxed with what we have so far achieved and we slack off.

We need a catalyst for reaching toward a new level of achievement. Christianity once supplied that catalyst for new levels of moral achievement, but it no longer does. The next religious stage of progress comes from our material/supermaterial evolution toward Godhood. We need to take better care of our destiny, keeping open the way of evolution, while employing conservative order as an instrument in the service of evolutionary progress.

"Progress includes order but order does not include progress." Order stands as part of the prerequisites of good government but not for its essence. Order is seen as part of the means of progress. In theological materialism, conservatism, paleoconservatism, relates to the structure of order, and material/supermaterial evolution is the means of progress---that is evolutionary reform not radical reform.

In religion, this defines the Twofold Path of theological materialism, and in government, ethnopluralism defines the next stage of conservative order. This brings the order and human nature of ethnostates to the separation of states and powers seen in the original U.S. Constitution, as well as the more sacred and constant evolution of all ethnic groups toward the Godhood first only symbolically seen as the God Within of traditional religion. 

The death of group-morality

The absolute liberty of the individual has all but overcome other values in the U. S. and in the West and it is destroying us. Deep studies in sociobiology, as E. O. Wilson has recently and bravely pointed out, have shown that group-selection comes before individual selection in survival and reproductive success. With our if-you-don't-like-the-program-turn-it-off  hyperindivualism, public morality has all but disappeared. This is the biggest problem I see with the libertarian's who are otherwise quite sane.

I find it interesting that those who do sustain group-morality, especially ethnically, find individualism easier to exploit or dominate, and they tend to promote individualism for others or other groups but not for themselves---they see the success that comes from bonding together.  Humans can be diabolical can't they?

Translations of nothingness and new affirmations of the living, evolving, object

It is true that art translates the laws of nature into images and language, but so does religion, philosophy, and science. Is the translation good, is it true? Some abstract religions ban visual representation of the sacred, but then they also ban material life in general, and art and truth disappear down the spiritual hole into nothingness. I believe this leads to a God that does not really exist. Yet Godhood can exist in material or supermaterial form which life can evolve to become.

This means sacred goals, sacred paths, need not disappear in radical, postmodern, Nietzschian minds. The affirmation of the sacred can continue to inspire in art. And truth can be represented by real evolving living objects in philosophy and science as well as in religion. Empty translations and empty abstractions need to fade away in this evolutionary reform. Too much has been made of the distinction between the object in itself and the object humans see, which is often the desire to prove the existence of something that does not exist.  We see enough of real objects, we see most of real objects, and we will see and know more of reality when we evolve higher consciousness and higher intelligence.

The Precedence of the Founders and Ethnopluralism

Clyde Wilson writes about the war of independence and the establishment of 13 free and independent colonies in North America (Chronicles, April 2015). Wilson reminds us that each colony developed its own society.  The debates over the ratification of the U.S. Constitution were often against the centralizing of power and keeping the independence of the states. The best men feared "consolidation." The United States was a plural---the United States are, not the United States is, was the universal usage, as in the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson was not an advocate of "one nation indivisible," he would not be called a nationalist, it was the principle of self-government that was important to Jefferson. The union could be changed, it was not eternal. Toward the end of his life Jefferson wrote that it would be better for Virginia to secede than to succumb to the centralization pushed by Northern interests.

The states united together did not forfeit their sovereignty, they were not reduced to one and the same people. The union was "a compact between separate communities." An alliance was created in 1776, not really a "nation." When Jefferson looked westward he saw American's creating  a new self-governing commonwealth joined in such a way as they wished.

This precedence, this character, this tone and guiding belief in affirming non-centralized states (but with a lightly protective federalism, and in today's world with a protecting economic nationalism) could be applied to ethnopluralism, and could be done with conservative reform, not radical revolution. We have gradually learned more about real human nature over the years and we see that human nature remains biologically and often culturally kin-centered, ethnocentric, group-selecting, even xenophobic, which means that in our crowded multi-ethnic world we will need to find a way to accommodate ethnopluralism, to keep whatever peace and harmony is possible between humans.

Establishing, or reestablishing, virtual ethnostates in the United States, where distinct ethnic cultures can thrive and evolve as they wish will probably happen anyway as multicultural empires always break back down into ethnostates. It would be better to do this consciously, rationally, rather than by way of civil war, given human nature---and our Constitution, with its separation of powers and states, could accommodate a natural and moral ethnopluralism if we would choose to do so.

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