The real influence behind utopian idealism in Washington

There may be modern liberal utopian idealists in the West who actually believe in an egalitarian border-less world---the present State department seems to have a few of these---but the real influence dealers in Washington behind the utopian idealists are the Wall Street lobby, the fossil fuel lobby, and the Israeli and Saudi lobbyists. It is their wills to power, their control of the Big Media, their control of the cultural Marxists and neoconservatives, (and even the academic world), which exploits utopian idealism.

Even the populist uprisings against utopian idealism which are increasing in the West may not be what they seem. Donald Trump, for example, who has excited American populists to no end, says he totally supports the goals of Israel---and what about the Big Wall Street Banks which helped make Trump wealthy?

We do need to bring manufacturing back to America, we need to protect our borders, we need to halt immigration, and we need to shatter utopian idealism, among other important things, but if these goals are now being exploited by the same exploiters of utopian idealism---well....

Expendable soldiers and gender differences

Since the neoconservatives and cultural Marxists who run our country regard our soldiers mainly as expendable resources, cannon fodder for their causes in the middle east and elsewhere, the gender equality fallacy can be useful to their nefarious schemes. Also amoral technology now has allowed either gender to push the button on missiles or on robot vacuum cleaners.

The neoconservatives and cultural Marxists may or may not themselves believe there are no differences between men and women, but it can't hurt to have the militant feminists on your side. Gender differences in body strength and emotional inclination will in the long run weaken our armies, but the neoconservatives and cultural Marxists probably figure by that time their schemes will have given them more short term gains.

And so it shall be, at least until the traditional and conservative traits of actual human nature, based in real biological differences, rises again. Human nature has evolved by way of the deepest laws of nature and is today as it has been since hunter-gatherer times: kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.  Nature, natural laws, eventually rectify the follies of men.
 

Wouldn't it be something if the Chiefs of the General Staff of our whole military had the character to resign rather than except these scientifically baseless social experiments?

The importance of beauty in philosophy and religion

“Striking physical beauty remains a social currency,” said Adrienne Bell. “Beauty is never plentiful,” said Allen Stein. “Beauty is good in all things,” said Trollope. But most importantly, beauty escapes mere ideas about beauty.

I think the best connection between beauty and philosophy relates to classical definitions of beauty as being balanced, proportioned, orderly---although great beauty does often seem to have one or two singular imperfections.

Beauty leads philosophy when the object leads the definition or idea of the object. Truth and goodness then tend to follow as being balanced, proportioned, orderly.

The artist Harvey Dunn said the first step is to feel your subject, then the idea, and last the composition. I would say that experiencing the object itself should come first, which the idea must at least conform to---is this not the way good science also proceeds? Is the general value or default state of evolution balance, proportion, and order?

Aesthetes, ascetics, militant feminists, and post-modernists who disparage beauty by trying to make it look relative and narrow can this way be defined as unbalanced and pushing ugliness, which is contrary to the whole history of life.

Think of how in arcane mysticism God is depicted or considered as a monstrous male/female androgynous creature for the purpose of conforming to a mystic idea God. That is what comes from letting religion and philosophy run way from universally beautiful real objects.

Material life evolves to supermaterial Godhood, which I think we can justly assume is a beautiful object, or objects, and not a mere idea or formula---and not even merely the inward symbolic experience of God, which can be retained but transformed in the outward path of real evolution toward Godhood.

The deeper reason why birthrates have fallen

With birthrates fallen below replacement rates in many, mainly northern countries, what came first, the fall of religion and lowering the value of having children, or the worship of machines, technology, and ideas?

I do not reject religion, but the deeper reason for lowering the value of life has been the false duality perpetuated over the last several thousand years by religion and philosophy, in considering material life as an illusion and spiritual life as reality. It is the false duality I reject, not religion.

The fact that traditional Christians are strongly against abortion was the gift of brilliant rationalizations of life put forward by religious philosophers, which saved religion and material life from turning into a celibate monastery, which was the real ethos of the religious Founders.

Philosophers took up the same worship of non-material ideas, concepts and formulas, following Plato, and to a lesser extent Aristotle, which was also the result of the false duality of separating the material and the body from the spiritual and the mind. This has now expanded to the worship of machines, artificial intelligence, and endless technology.

Nietzsche did feel that something was wrong, he saw the false duality, but he did not see the laws of nature leading to religion and science, and to the evolution of material life to real Godhood, which was the “God” only hinted at, symbolized, or experienced in the Inward Path to the God Within of traditional religions. There was no need to reject religion or to try to kill God, but here was a need to conservatively transform religion and philosophy.

That was the narrative of the history of devaluing life, which has led to present birthrates falling below replacement levels.

Here is the good news. What religion and philosophy ruined, religion and philosophy can save. Theological materialism transforms the Inward Path of traditional religions in the Outward Path of material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood. This can bring back the value of real life over artificial life, this revives the value of perpetuating life, but religiously, scientifically, and meritocractically choosing higher life in evolving toward Godhood, the sacred goal of life.

Voegelin's Gnosticism

Conservatives like to distance themselves from Gnosticism, which was defined by Voegelin as a sort of German idealism, that is, replacing reality with a reality of their own creation. But Christianity, like Buddhism, is grounded in Gnosticism, the belief that the real world of God is non-material/spiritual and the material world is ultimately unreal, or at least the material world needs to be blocked in a Great Spiritual Blockade of asceticism in order to see the God Within.

The true path out of Gnosticism is not in revolution but in the transformation---not rejection---of the Inward Path leading from the Father-Within to the Outward Path of material evolution which leads to real supermaterial Godhood, as seen in theological materialism. This brings reality and grounding to both religion and science. German idealism and Marxism were lost in the clouds, whereas “immanentizing the eschaton,” which Voegelin disparaged, is precisely how we attain real Godhood. Material life is evolving to Godhood, which was only hinted at or symbolized in the Gnosticism of most religions and in German idealism.

Is Trump the next stage of neoconservatism?

They have changed from Trotskyism to neoconservatism, and now they may be shape-changing from neoconservatism to a bogus paleoconservatism---in this case Donald Trump is their man, whatever kind of conservative he is. The neoconservatives have always been shape-changing lizards blending in with the environment to capture their prey. Perhaps the neoconservatives and their corporate fellow travelers have ravaged other nations as much as they could and now it's time to pull back, bring manufacturing home, and find new prey. Of course there would still be the total support for neoconservative causes, for example, in the middle east. Pulling out of the debate could also, secondarily, be Trump getting back at the National Review crowd who recently attacked him and who dominate the ideology of Fox News. Or maybe the National Review editors are naively being led by shape-changing neoconservatives who have blended in with their operation. If the above speculation is not paranoid, and it could be, this would be a sort of false flag operation.

(edited version)

Whitehead's process philosophy undervalues real life

Briefly looking at Whitehead's process philosophy, or theology, for the first time, it seems to me that his intriguing idea of “eternal objects” (EOs) was developed so that Whitehead could hold on to the idea of a non-material spiritual God. With my concept of Living Objects, Godhood is evolved to in the material and supermaterial world, and Godhood is reached through the “process” of the material evolution of objects. One need not cling to a nebulous definition of a non-material God.

Contrary to Whitehead (and Plato) I think reality can be reduced to the actual, thought is not wider than the real, the virtual is not more real than the possible. Whitehead seems to undervalue the potential of real life, as most theologians paradoxically do. The living objects of life, life itself, especially human life, is capable of the highest creativity, life itself contains the actual material potential of evolving all the way to a supermaterial Godhood.

We will find empirical proof of Godhood as we evolve toward Godhood. It is the material Will-Spirit, or Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within material life that essentially describes life itself, which activates life to evolve to the zenith of success in evolution, defined as Godhood. Ideals are always secondary to the objects they represent. All objects evolve (or don't evolve)) endlessly, including Godhood. But here too the definition “evolution” is not sacred, evolution is secondary to the real objects evolved.

It is very difficulty for intellectuals to keep their feet on real ground, they live too much in artificial academic towers. I think this philosophy, which I have called theological materialism, saves both dying religion and Godless science.

The material and religious justification the West requires to defend itself

"Just War" theory suggests that war is not always the worst option, there can be things such as atrocities being prevented, or actions so evil that they justify war. Augustine and Aquinas didn't reject past religion to develop the “Just War” theory, as good conservatives should do they retained but transformed religion.

But non-materialism is non-materialism, and adding materialism to spiritualism might make practical sense regarding real life, but the foundation of the great religions involves rejecting and ideally blocking all material desires in order to experience God, or at least the God or Father Within. Religious values and virtues stem from this rejection of materialism. Even religious altruism, concern for others, is based in the low religious value placed on the selfish drives of real material life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm obviously not against transforming religion since I transform religion with evolution in theological materialism. But the old rule is, don't transform or copy something unless you can improve it---if not, leave it alone. Just War theory was needed on behalf of materialism, otherwise Christians might not be around today. And regarding the older non-material Vedic religion, if the English had wanted to violently run over non-violent Gandhi, he and his movement offered no real defense. Islam too is based in Abrahamic-Vedic-non-materialism, but Islam finds the right to sacrifice many lives on behalf of a non-material religion, as if the mission of religion is to sacrifice materialism for spiritualism.

Material/spiritual duality is unreal and unbalanced, just as the old mind/body duality was unbalanced and irrational. The reality is that life is material and supermaterial---material life evolves to supermaterial Godhood. That is the material and religious justification which the West requires to morally and legitimately rise and defend itself. Material life and the desires of life are precious because they are the means to evolve to real Godhood---if we are sociobiologically/religiously guided.  Godhood was only symbolically experienced through the ascetic inward discipline of non-materialism, which is retained but transformed in theological materialism.

Will the instincts of self-preservation return to the West before we are destroyed completely?

Are we now as rotten as the Roman Empire was when the Roman Empire was destroyed by the barbarians in the fifth century? Or have the barbarians (Islamic terrorists, modern liberals, etc.) arrived too early?

The threats are real but exaggerated by those who wish to exploit the fears, eg. Big Business, Big Media, etc. And it is not “freedom” or “Christianity” that incite the barbarians, it is their basic instincts toward survival as they are being overwhelmed by the imperial overreach of the West. Their religion is secondary to their survival instincts.

In the opposite direction, the instincts for survival in the West have been overwhelmed by a passive, deceptive version of cultural Marxism (political correctness). And conservative Christians are skeptical of the instincts in general as they believe in the spiritual non-materialism of their Founder. The Buddhists had the same problem when they were overwhelmed by the communists.

Will the instincts of self-preservation return to the West before we are destroyed completely? When the instincts do return to the West, before or after the fall, they will proclaim real human nature, which is kin-centered, ethnocentric, and group-selecting over individual-selecting. This means a general return to ethnopluralism, that is, regions and states set aside for distinct ethnic cultures, which is the most natural instinctive way to curb social disruptions.

We should begin to at least talk about ethnopluralism before we are forced to establish it in order to survive at all. The constitutional principle of states' rights in the U.S. could accommodate such a change, without radical revolution.  And eventually theological materialism, written about here, could be the religious/philosophical base of our real rising, which retains but transforms traditional religion.

Values for intelligent machines?

Silicone chips versus biological neurons? Atoms versus computer bits? I think we can advance both as long as biological life and evolution come first and artificial intelligence is used in service to biological life.

Even though artificial intelligence can evolve much faster than biological intelligence that is weak argument for preferring artificial intelligence---this could even be a suicidal argument regarding life itself.

It seems likely that machine intelligence could one day dominate human life with amoral nonhuman values, if we don't carefully see that it does not.

It does not help that the process of future human evolution is virtually a taboo subject which has allowed the less courageous to think only of machine evolution.

How human values and biological evolution will prevail in a world of video game-playing nerds and individualism-obsessed libertarians, or where conservatives downplay or don't even believe in evolution, and where businessmen value wealth at any cost, remains to be seen.

This latest challenge of artificial intelligence seems to be one more thing brought about by the worship of symbols, numbers and concepts over living objects, began way back with the false duality of Plato, or before.

Ethnopluralism and the constitutional principle of states' rights

The constitutional principle of states' rights is the legal and conservative way to establish ethnopluralism, without radical revolution. Ethnopluralism and states' rights are not code words for supremacist racialism, or the old segregation of the South. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution preserves the rights of the states and individuals and could accommodate ethnopluralism if we wanted it too. By ethnopluralism I mean regions and states generally set aside for distinctive ethnic cultures, and protected by the federalism of the constitution. Ethnopluralism is the sensible legal solution to the increasing civil disruptions caused by natural competition between competing ethnic, religious, and political groups, which have always torn nations apart.

America did not, and will not, melt into a motley creed of sameness or oneness because human nature does not act that way, no matter what various intellectuals preach. In every human culture ever studied human nature included kin-selection preferences, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, with group-selection as the main unit of selection. As E. O. Wilson reminded us, within groups, selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals every time. If a culture proposes to not include these traits of real human nature the culture does not last long and always returns to these things. This view of human nature is affirmed at the core of conservatism and tradition, whereas many of these traits are missing in the modern political creeds of both the left and the right.

People with courage and influence need to rise and work for this conservative and legal solution. I see no other workable or moral long-term solution to the decline of America and the West.

Is harmonious balance the nature of reality?

What would a historical alter of philosophy contain? Not the vanity of individuals.

The borderlands between dream and reality is where genius often dwells. Madness goes over to the dream world, and normal people live in the real world, more or less.

Is there a classical harmonious balance of ideas in that borderland? A balance of objects? Or is balance unreality? Balance seems to relate more to beauty---that is, to people, places, and things.

With beautiful objects, reality seems to follow this classical conception of balance. It is ideas that tend to move away from balance and symmetry, but objects do not move away from balance and symmetry (ugly objects do).

Iconoclasm, which most religions affirm, destroys the sacred objects of religion due to spiritual ideas of God, which do not include the material world of objects---this, to me, takes the reality of a harmonious balance into that unbalanced dream world.

When projecting what the material and supermaterial evolutionary path to Godhood may be, I would start with harmonious balance, proportion, symmetry, which could include an iconography of objects---people, places, and things. 

That is, an art and religion also containing the evolution of beautiful living objects. Ideas would be secondary---even the ideas just mentioned.

The False Duality

“All things are numbers,” said Pythagoras, setting off the great false duality in human knowledge. It is one thing to say that there are hidden relationships between numbers and objects, it is another thing to call numbers sacred or to worship numbers and symbols, which many religions and philosophies do, at least esoterically.

“Concepts” follow the same duality, for example, the concept of God, or a sacred number or word for God, gave rise to idealism, or at least the negative side of idealism. Plato and his weird cave concept followed, which really split apart the world of knowledge. Vedic mystics may have done this even before Plato.

Plato asked about the relationship between physical realty and ultimate reality, presuming a difference. I say they are the same. No duality is necessary. I think even the forces of quantum physics, perhaps the last hope of the spiritualists, would not exist without a physical or material reality behind them, which we have yet to understand.

We evolve in the material world to material/supermaterial Godhood, a Godhood which is not merely a number, word, or symbol, and not even an inward experience of heavenly religious bliss. The numbers that define this evolution must be secondary to the evolutionary physical reality of the object, or objects, of Godhood, which they merely define. No duality is necessary.

Real and Ideal

The world embodies concepts and ideas, but they need to be seen as secondary to the objects they define, no matter how beautiful the concepts or ideas are. Not to do so can take us beyond life itself.

Many thinkers, such as the ancient Vedic thinkers, and Plato, and their numerous followers, see “ultimate reality” as concepts, ideas or numbers.

Following in this line of idealism are less formal ideals, such as imaginative intuition, or mystic inward experiences of bliss, like those experienced when the desires of the flesh are curbed, as advocated by Christ and Buddha.

The way to describe the ideal and the real is to define ideal concepts, ideas and numbers---as well as the more informal experiences of bliss yet to be experienced---as secondary to real living objects that concepts and numbers may or may not define. Material reality is like the sun, concepts and ideas are like an imagined moon.

 

The pursuit of artificial intelligence in our time can be seen as pursuing ideals, concepts---or X's and O's---and bypassing or even blocking the reality of the evolution of real life.

This means we should not worship concepts ideas or numbers, as Plato and the mystical Kabbalah tend to do, or worship inward experiences of bliss, as many religious founders did. Only the real living material or supermaterial object is worthy of worship, but here worship is too strong a word for anything other than Godhood.

Worship in the highest sense pertains not to concepts, ideas, numbers, or experiences, but to Godhood, that is, the actual object, or objects, of Godhood evolved to in the material and supermaterial world.

We don't need to reject inward ideals or experiences in the Twofold Path of theological materialism. The concepts and experiences of the Inward Path are conservatively retained but transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution toward the zenith of evolution, which is Godhood---the real Godhood that is only secondarily defined as the concept of Godhood.

SheForHe?

Traditionalism might suggest that the feminists lite of the HeForShe organization, promoted by the charming actress Emma Watson (and the United Nations!), needs to be countered with a SheForHe movement. But it is the Marxism, the cultural Marxism, behind feminism which needs to be countered.

The good salesmanship ( salespersonship?) of MS Watson illustrates the old idea that physical beauty has strong social currency, which remains true today. Beauty is not shallow, in spite of feminist attempts to say it is. Human nature remains much as it has always been since it was formed mainly in Hunter Gather times, and this includes being gender-defined, as well as being kin-centered, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

Why the feminist choose a form of female dictatorial dominance (have you been on a college campus lately?) to counter the male dictatorial dominance they claim to hate, is just another feminist inconsistency. The fact is, Western men have treated women better than any other men on earth. One would think any HeForShe movement would be better directed toward the Southern Hemisphere where such things as the surgical removal of the clitoris take place. But that would mean more meddling in the affairs of other nations. Freedom, Independence, and separation are far healthier than totalitarian Marxism, which still believes that human nature is endlessly malleable.

Renewing and combining the mythological, theological, scientific and artistic views of reality

How are the particular and the universal the same? When they are contained within the living object.

The universal is the activating, material force within material life, the particular is gross matter. They are never separate.

This sacred activation works within the dynamics of natural evolution and selection, which means the sacred goal is determined but the natural path provides choices.

The activating force, the Will-Spirit, or Spirit-Will, is not trying to escape matter, as the Gnostics and even some traditional religions believe, the material Will-Spirit is seeking to activate life to evolve toward Godhood, which is also material, or supermaterial.

The Will-Spirit-To-Godhood is the keeper of the sacred goal, which calls all life to evolve all the way to Godhood, over millions and millions of years.

The evolution to Godhood is a communal activity, which can be affirmed in amphitheaters once again.

But this is not the particularism of an exclusive Greek or Wagnerian nationalism, the more natural separations of ethnopluralism call for the independence of ethnic cultures and regions in accord with real human nature, which remains kin-centered and group-selecting, as we all evolve toward Godhood.

New sacred Masses can include both the traditional Inward Path, and the evolutionary Outward Path. The symbolic God-within is reached through ascetic discipline, and real Godhood-without is reached through material evolution.

The Will-Spirit is nurtured by beauty.

The past, present and future are this way joined together. 

Creativity and originality are important but secondary to the main goal of art and religion, which is the affirmation of our evolution toward Godhood.

There is a nostalgia for the sacred, which has been trampled. Sacred symbols have been transvalued into symbols designed to destroy the sacred. That is not art or religion, that is destruction.

The mythological, theological, scientific and artistic views of reality can be renewed and combined.

Defining justice in politics

The distinction John Rawls makes leaving gender, race, and wealth out of ones decisions regarding justice in politics, is an abstract idea or principle rather than an affirmation of real human nature and the real living object. That is, with Rawls and other philosophers, human nature is not really involved in defining political justice. Marxism did this too, rejecting human nature and making the idea that human beings are infinitely malleable the fictional feature of political philosophy. In other words, to these people there is no human nature. Postmodernism goes in this rootless direction too seeing values as infinitely malleable and relative.

What does politics look like when it includes real human nature? Unlike other political structures, traditional “ethnopluralism” adheres to the variety of people and to real human nature which remains  kin-centered, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, with group-selection---the origin of real altruism---as the primary unit of selection; and it discourages marauding imperialism. Political justice related to human nature calls for some sort of federalism not fascism, but with an economic nationalism that protects the independence of the regions and states, which would largely contain ethnic cultures or ethnostates. This could be conservatively adapted to the U. S. Constitution with its separation of powers and states. That creates whatever peace is possible between humans. That defines political justice.

Real beauty, truth and goodness are attained in outward material evolution

The true, the beautiful and the good have more than an “affinity” for one another, they are enclosed in evolved living objects, with an evolutionary gradation of qualities from frogs to Gods. This trio are not a separated trinity.

Ideas, mystic experiences, definitions, sacred words, are not Gods. Real living objects secondarily contain these definitions. Why are Gods more important if they have no material qualities?

The material world of desires gets in the way of experiencing the Inward God or Father, which first requires the ascetic blocking of all material desires.

Experiencing the bliss of no desires is far secondary to the real living object or objects of Godhood. Materialism is the vehicle by which life attains Godhood.

Gnosticism needs to be transformed from the inward to the outward path, while retaining the inward path. The moonlight of spiritualism needs to be transformed in the sunlight of theological materialism.

Faith is not more important than science, but they can work together---we have a long way to evolve to Godhood.

Inward spiritual religions can be blissfully pleasing, but real beauty, truth and goodness are attained in outward material evolution.

What Godhood is and is not

G-d is the essence of good, the Kabbalist's say. This does what most theologies do, basically define God as a word, an idea, a spiritual non-material concept, a virtue, or an ascetic experience. This is not Godhood. Godhood is a living material/supermaterial object or objects evolved to in the material world. The inner God of tradition can be conservatively retained but needs to be transformed from the inward path of non-material asceticism to the outward path of living evolution...Definitions of God are secondary.

Do all things aspire to the condition of beauty?

Seeking balance and order could be seen as seeking beauty, in the same way that classicism describes a preference for balance, simplicity, and restraint, but also in the way a beautiful woman is described as perfectly balanced beauty. Perhaps this could more deeply explain the ancient worship of the Goddess?

The old saying that all art aspires to the condition of music might be better defined as all art aspiring to the condition of beauty. Beauty could then be expanded to include the aspirations of religion and philosophy. The key word here is “condition.”

“Condition” would be understood as not merely an idea, sound or sight, but the condition of life itself, the virtues of a whole living object. The zenith of evolved living objects would define Godhood, containing all the classical and universal attributes of balance, simplicity, and restraint, but also truth and goodness.

This is how all things could aspire to the condition of perfectly balanced beauty.

Intelligent intuition and proof

It seems to me that beauty, truth and goodness can be revealed best through intelligent intuition. Reason and empirical evidence come along later as proof, after the intuition. But these things are difficult to define. Intuition seems to give its insights by flashing through the brain too fast to follow, picking up and synthesizing what it finds in the brain, using both sides of the brain. Perhaps reason and evidence are also part of that that flashing procedure. (We may now have brain scanners that can follow these flashes). Art critic Gail Leggio used the term “intelligent perception” as the way beauty is revealed. Truth too can be revealed this way.

It seems that being good at perceiving intuitive perceptions without the use of the formal rational process can sometimes lead to being “spiritually” adept, but here things can get hypertrophied into blurring that line between genius and madness which has often been talked about. This kind of spiritual perception needs to keep the stark realty of reason and science in view without blocking intuition. In creativity intuition is king. Intuition needs an entirely open eye, but more than that, intuition needs a courageous eye, because what you see may not be politically correct.

The entertainment world, actors, and the Big Media are thoroughly decayed

In modern times the very negative past perception of actors, for example, in the Middle Ages, was reversed and acting became an honored profession and art. The foul-mouthed Golden Globe Awards last night should at least begin to reverse the high status of actors back to being deeply distrusted and condemned. I'm no prude, but the entertainment world, actors, and the Big Media are thoroughly lost in hedonism and immorality---and some are even traitorous. Will anything at all be done about these depraved people? Or are we to continue to worship them until we collapse in our own rottenness?

Theological materialism and evolutionary polytheism

Let me speculate a bit on what could be called an evolutionary polytheism in theological materialism.

I tend to seek three things: beauty, truth, and goodness, and not necessarily in that order. Traditional art, philosophy, and religion sought these things too. I think these virtues lead to the same place: Godhood. But not a Godhood understood as a trinity God, or a dual good/evil God, and not a Godhood understood as an emanating, pantheistic, single God---these were mainly intellectual attempts to try to retain the idea of one, non-material, inward, spiritual God with different aspects. I am talking about real, living, supermaterial Godhood, evolved to in the material world, defined as the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness, I am talking about a superior living and evolving Godhood.

To go deeper into the weeds on this, the classical world saw the Gods and Goddess as the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness and often symbolized the Gods in superior human form. I can relate to that polytheistic world more than the pantheistic idea of Godhood, that is, not describing Godhood as consisting of the whole world, and not a God whose emanations create the world. I'm talking about a graded or what could now be called evolutionary reality of living objects, which have evolved to the zenith of evolution, defined as Godhood.

This is not even Hegel standing Neoplatonism on its head with “spirit” emerging at the end of what could now be called evolution. This is supermateriality which emerges from the evolution of the material world, this is real supermaterial Gods and Goddesses evolved to in the cosmos.

Polytheism developed from around the Bronze age in Greece, and in Germany and Russia, up until the evolution of the Indian and Abrahamic religions, with their strict, spiritual, monotheism. Hard polytheism believed that Gods were distinct and real divine beings rather than mere symbols or archetypes. I don't have a problem with this as long as the Gods are seen to evolve in the material world to Godhood. The Gods may or may not influence the human world, they might even exist in an evolved world in spaces we do not yet understand.

This evolutionary world of Godhood is described in the evolutionary theology of theological materialism. This defines a Godhood that can be reached with or without us, but it is probably less likely reached without aiding evolution in its upward path. The old inward God, the Father Within can be conservatively retained but transformed in the outward evolution to real Godhood.

The true and beautiful are simple, restrained and proportioned

I have an intuition, more like an instinct, that the true and beautiful are simple, in both philosophy and art. Complexity often means being unclear about truth and beauty. But paradoxically to simplify seems to mean carefully detailing the true and the beautiful, which usually means eliminating superfluous or showy details.

Looking beyond my own instincts about the true and the beautiful, this relates to the “classical” ideal preferring simplicity, restraint and proportion, which has had universal validity over time.

Much of modern philosophy, art, and poetry is full of showy complexity and is often not even concerned with truth, meaning, or beauty. Postmodernism usually claims that this is because the truth is complex, unclear, relative, and not simple, restrained or proportioned. But my instinct tells me that if a thing is unclear or not understood, not simple, it is usually not the truth, and not beautiful.

Evolutionary realism, the term I have been using in art philosophy, follows this instinct or intuition toward simplicity, restraint and proportion. This might also be applied to guiding the future material evolution of life toward supermaterial Godhood. Godhood is seen as the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness, and applying this definition Godhood would contain the zenith of simplicity, restraint and proportion.

The Supermaterial Jewel

I have found that some of the best ideas exist where others fear to tread. This leaves one open to the charge of being presumptuous or arrogant, especially if you are changing or adapting the ideas of Shakespeare, or even presumptuously trying to change or adapt ancient religious sages. Hemingway's advice to a young writer was that in art you are allowed to steal anything if you can make it better. After reading the excellent review by Carl Curtis on Shakespeare's “Macbeth” (Modern Age, Fall 2015) I rush in again to change a few things.

It could be said of Macbeth that he did not fear man or God. This might be said of Nietzsche too, but should they have feared these things? Supposedly men can, and do, whatever they want if they have no fear of the transcendent, or the moral order, or no fear of time and place.

At this point in our evolution nature determines mortality, many traditions, and the laws of nature, so fear or no fear, we can't legitimately escape these things. Why would we want to? The real supermaterial drive within nature is the material, Will-Spirit-To-Godhood, which activates life to continually, endlessly, evolve toward Godhood. This sacred inward activation works along with the selection pressures of natural evolution. The material or supermaterial Will-Spirit is far more than Nietzsche's will-to-amoral-power, and not exactly the same as the non-material, inward, Father/Spirit/Soul, symbolic, ascetic, experience of many religious sages. Power and ascetic meditation are only some of the means to aid in our evolution toward Godhood---religion, philosophy, science, art, politics are other means. In our nihilistic modern world when we blithely think we are doing what we want, the Will-Spirit is an activating force of life that should not be feared, or overlooked---it can help heal the damage done by unbalanced characters like Macbeth.

How religion and science can again mimic one another, and the fallen political world rise again

I continue to be amazed at how sociobiological views of human nature and human culture mimic conservative religious traditions. Group-selection or altruism trumped individual selfishness in religious virtues long before their was an evolutionary science which affirmed these values as having been the most successful means of human survival.

But this mimicry fades when religion projects the world of non-materialism. Here God is seen as beyond the comings and goings of the material world. So religious philosophers and theologians arose to find a way to include real life and real material living in religion. This adjustment was virtually contrary to the ascetic rejection of all material things by the founders of most religions, but apparently these transformations were necessary for living in the real material world. These adjustments also seem to be the way conservatism deals with necessary change, whereas revolutionaries tend to reject the past entirely.

Without these transformations religions would not have moved beyond the ascetic monastic life. But these attempts to make religion workable in the real material world were built on a foundation that the founders would not have approved of, and so from the beginning this created a philosophical and religious dilemma which hurt the viability of religion. This probably had much to do with the gradual fading away of religion in the modern world, as science advanced on firm material grounds.

In order to regain and continue the powerful echoing of religion and science, we need to go back to the beginning of the founders of religion and science and transform the first ascetic  inward symbolic glimpse of God or the Father into the real outward Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution. This Twofold Path can revive the powerful connection of religion and science, which is affirmed in the religious philosophy of theological materialism.

With this transformation we can religiously, philosophically, and scientifically affirm cultures and political systems that project our continuing material evolution toward supermaterial Godhood. That is, cultures and political systems built on the foundation of real human nature and the real evolution of life toward Godhood. Ethnopluralism is suggested as a way to harmonize the group-selection of human nature in a crowded world of competing ethnic cultures. To continue to try to force distinct ethnic cultures into one motley state assures social disruptions and even war. Differences need to be protected and applauded in separate smaller ethnostates protected by workable federalism. I think the U.S. Constitution, for example, with its separation of powers and states could legally accommodate this life-saving adjustment.

Religion can be conservatively retained but transformed when evolutionary science is voluntarily in service to the evolution of life toward Godhood. This is how religion and science can again mimic one another, and the fallen political world rise again.

Quote on gender

The following quote from artist Caroline Eleanor Absher on gender is too good not to pass on:

“I do believe men and women are wired differently. Women can’t help but see the world from the perspective of someone who can add a human being into it. Even if a woman doesn’t want children of her own, she is programmed to habitually nurture in a way that men often overlook/ take for granted. Modernity hasn’t quite knocked the mama bear out of us yet. It’s a chronic awareness. I am constantly thinking things like, “what if my babies exist in a world without polar bears?”

Conservative change over revolutionary change

The big difference between conservative change, and revolutionary change including modern liberals (cultural Marxists), is that revolutionaries think past traditions are like a bad nightmare, whereas conservatives define past traditions as slowly gained wisdom. Both sides want change but liberals want to wipe out the past and conservatives want to retain but reform or transform traditions. Real conservative's who want change are not wearing a mask disguising revolution, they really do find traditions wise and want to upgrade and improve them, legally.

Advocates of revolutionary militant change, wiping out the past, can rise on both the far left and far right. I place the ethnopluralism hypothesis in the conservative camp. In the United States this means affirming but transforming the legal separation of powers and states, seen in the original the U. S. Constitution, to include distinct regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures, protected by federalism. This will help establish, or re-establish, a more natural order based in the hard-wired dominant group-selection of real human nature, which can help counter the increasingly discordant non-assimilating population, now greatly increasing with legal and illegal immigration.

How religion, patriotism, and science need not conflict

The self-limitation of altruism tends to conflict with the materialism of individualism, but in the long run group-selection is more successful than individual selection, groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals, as both religion and the science of sociobiology have shown over the years.

Practical problems arise with conflicting forms of patriotism based in natural differences between ethnic cultures, and also between individual and group-selection within groups.

Right-nationalism and left-individualism seems to be a more illuminating way of describing political differences than placing libertarian individualism on the right. Individualism naturally conflicts with group behavior. A way must be found to realistically deal with this real aspect of human nature.

Patriotism and morality are not at odds when material evolution to supermaterial Godhood is grounded in the real life needs of living in real places which are patriotically affirmed. Traditional religion has a bit more of a problem with patriotism because religion is grounded in non-materialism.

We cannot have a decent world without both religion and patriotic life, but this does not mean a new anthropology is needed. It means affirming real human nature along with the sacred evolution of life toward Godhood.

 

Differences between ethnic cultures and ethnic groups can be kept in check with ethnopluralism, regions and states set aside for distinctive ethnic cultures, and protected by some form of federalism.

No conflict with traditional religions is called for in the Twofold Path of theological materialism where the inward God of tradition is retained but transformed in the outward evolution to real Godhood.

This is the future world we require if we are to survive on earth. Self-restraint and altruism work best in protected ethnostates. Ideological contracts are not enough, as we have seen in the short life of new ideology. Religion, patriotism, and science can work in harmony.

The missing link in uniting religion and science

“Selection pressures” do not alone explain our striving for moral and aesthetic goals, although this does have much to do with scientifically explaining much of human behavior. What is missing is the Will-Spirit-To-Godhood which, materially, activates within life, even deeper than selection pressures. This better explains the sacred dimension of our moral and aesthetics strikings.

Life is evolving in the material world toward supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of success in survival, but also the zenith of moral and aesthetic success. This is the missing link in uniting religion and science.

The Twofold Path 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.

I think religion will one day fully acknowledge selection pressures involved in moral and aesthetic goals, and science will acknowledge the activating Will-Spirit-To-Godhood within life. This has been done in theological materialism.

What I like best about the political system of the United States

As Daniel Bell said, the essence of modernity is that nothing is sacred. We have to overcome the French Nietzschean-Heideggerian relativism and nihilism which rules postmodern intellectuals---although Nietzsche did have a cause, the superman.

Then there is the so-called “creative destruction” of the neoconservative cabal and its marauding global corporations.

What I like best about the original political system of the United States is the separation of the institutions, separate powers, separate states, and the attempt to balance them.

This system is harmonious with real human nature, which naturally and instinctively separates itself by kin and group preferences, as the science of sociobiology---which the Founders didn't have---recently reiterated.

I see ethnopluralism, the separation of regions and states into distinct ethnic cultures, protected by federalism, as an on-going affirmation of the United States political system.

The United States this way can continue to inspire the world, and we can bring whatever peace is possible to our increasingly unassimilating and discordant country.

My last hope is that theological materialism, with its affirmation of the evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood—which need not conflict with the symbolic inward God of traditional religion---eventually will offer us the deeper long-term religious foundation going forward, which every great civilization needs.

Can anything be done about the degeneration of the patron?

In a democratic republic how can we patronize the best art and culture when our patrons tend to be the depraved swindlers and vulgar loudmouths of Hollywood and New York? It leads to thinking about the temptation of aristocracies, which supposedly patronize the very best creative people.

We have witnessed the downfall of art and culture promoted by the Big Media (and postmodern academic frauds), patronized by predatory global corporations who control the culture. Can anything be done about the degeneration of the patron if one wants to work within the system we have?

As usual I see the separation of ethnic cultures within ethnopluralism as the best chance of developing patrons with better taste. Then the plebeian-bourgeoisie newly rich will not have national and imperial power over all cultures.

With ethnopluralism distinctive cultures will have a longer-term chance to rise in their own regions, protected by federalism. This could be accommodated by the separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution. Some states could promote aristocratic patrons within a democratic republic, and even the loudmouths could have their own culture.

The real Fall of morality is the Fall from nature

It is presumptuous to call nature cruel, are we to judge nature solely by human standards? Nature is not cruel, nor is human nature. Why would we want to judge nature that negatively?

Human traditions should not be thought of as counter-nature, or counter the cruelty of nature, traditions should be harmonious with nature, when they are not, as in Marxism or global imperialism, and even some aspects of religion, then that is cruel.

It is not merely pagan or modernist to collaborate with the forces of nature, although we do not want to follow Nietzsche's amoral Dionysus. When we define nature and human nature more accurately, not as evil, we praise nature. The real Fall of morality is the Fall from nature.

How can it be idolatrous to see nature as sacred when we evolve to Godhood in the materiel world by way of nature, not by the rejection of nature? The early religious sages rejected material nature to concentrate on the God or Father Within, but that was the first symbolic glimpse of real Godhood reached inwardly, which can be retained, but transformed in our material evolution toward real Godhood.

Political philosophy and art follow the shape of nature and human nature as closely as possible if we wish to work harmoniously with nature. Marxism and global imperialism do not, and neither does Nietzschian postmodern philosophy, although they acknowledge the importance of the will-to-power in nature.

What is the contour of human nature? One phrase says it best: Group-selection, but it is a group-selection juxtaposed with individual and kin-selection, which is not always a comfortable mix. But group-selection is the primary unit of successful survival..."Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals.." (E.O.Wilson)

This is how we arrive at the political philosophy of ethnopluralism and make the claim that it is most harmonious with nature and human nature. We study trained scientists like E.O.Wilson and less known thinkers like Raymond Cattell, and Alain de Beniost, but we also examine the ideas of the paleoconservatives.

As I wrote yesterday, the affirmation of ethnopluralism, which reflects the group-selection of real human nature, will be the coming political awakening. That is, separate regions and states set aside for distinct ethnic cultures, protected by a standard federalism, which could be harmonized legally in the United States, for example, with the separation of powers and states as seen in the original U. S. Constitution.

But then we move out of rigid empiricism, while retaining science, toward the religious philosophy of theological materialism, all the while seeking to collaborate with the forces of nature. Nature is the origin of religion, politics and art.

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, which could be called low morality. High morality affirms the zenith of success as moving toward or attaining Godhood, and older morality defines God mainly as an inward personal experience.