The fools paradise of abstraction

Abstractions in theology and mathematics are important but only in their right place, and the right place does not define God, truth, or reality, as actually being abstractions. Theologians, philosophers and mathematicians should be considered as artists sketching the likeness of God, truth, or reality, without then defining their sketches as actually God, truth, or reality.

Ascetics of virtually all religions put themselves in a dream-world by first ridding their bodies of all material desires and then claiming that the experiences they have in that dream-world are more real than any other reality. When objections are made to their dream version of reality ascetics claim that we cannot know their version of truth and reality unless or until we first rid the body of all desires to experience their dream-world of God, truth, or reality. But that dream-world experience of the God Within is virtually experiencing death as life and life as death.

Does this all mean that God, truth, or reality are now dead or rejected? No, but Godhood needs to be transformed from those experiences of the dream-world and reclaimed by the real world. The God, truth, or reality first experienced in the near-death experience of the Inward Path can be actually reached in the Outward Path of material evolution.

Changing from religious abstractions to scientific abstractions has brought the decline-not-fall of the West, even as high technology has advanced. Vital virtues and values have been lost. Science too has lived in abstractions, coming to believe in their abstractions more than the real material objects they have only been sketching as artists. Both religious and scientific thinkers have taken the belief in abstractions to absurd and even insane levels. Humans seem to feel safer believing in abstractions rather than in real life.

Godhood is not a religious or scientific abstraction, Godhood is a living object, or objects, which can be reached in the real world of material and supermaterial evolution. Real, material, concrete, religious, scientific, cultural, and political actions can actually rescue the worlds of religion and science from the fools paradise of abstraction.

Happy Memorial Day to Fallen Soldiers

What constitutes manliness?

This description of what constitutes manliness, from chapter 68 of the novel Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope (1815 1882), is a little dated, but I think it says it well.

“The property of manliness in a man is a great possession, but perhaps there is none that is less understood,—which is more generally accorded where it does not exist, or more frequently disallowed where it prevails. There are not many who ever make up their minds as to what constitutes manliness, or even inquire within themselves upon the subject. The woman's error, occasioned by her natural desire for a master, leads her to look for a certain outward magnificence of demeanour, a pretended indifference to stings and little torments, a would-be superiority to the bread-and-butter side of life, an unreal assumption of personal grandeur. But a robe of State such as this,—however well the garment may be worn with practice,—can never be the raiment natural to a man; and men, dressing themselves in women's eyes, have consented to walk about in buckram. A composure of the eye, which has been studied, a reticence as to the little things of life, a certain slowness of speech unless the occasion call for passion, an indifference to small surroundings, these,—joined, of course, with personal bravery,—are supposed to constitute manliness. That personal bravery is required in the composition of manliness must be conceded, though, of all the ingredients needed, it is the lowest in value. But the first requirement of all must be described by a negative. Manliness is not compatible with affectation. Women's virtues, all feminine attributes, may be marred by affectation, but the virtues and the vice may co-exist. An affected man, too, may be honest, may be generous, may be pious;—but surely he cannot be manly. The self-conscious assumption of any outward manner, the striving to add,—even though it be but a tenth of a cubit to the height,—is fatal, and will at once banish the all but divine attribute. Before the man can be manly, the gifts which make him so must be there, collected by him slowly, unconsciously, as are his bones, his flesh, and his blood. They cannot be put on like a garment for the nonce,—as may a little learning. A man cannot become faithful to his friends, unsuspicious before the world, gentle with women, loving with children, considerate to his inferiors, kindly with servants, tender-hearted with all,—and at the same time be frank, of open speech, with springing eager energies,—simply because he desires it. These things, which are the attributes of manliness, must come of training on a nature not ignoble. But they are the very opposites, the antipodes, the direct antagonism, of that staring, posed, bewhiskered and bewigged deportment, that nil admirari, self-remembering assumption of manliness, that endeavour of twopence halfpenny to look as high as threepence, which, when you prod it through, has in it nothing deeper than deportment. We see the two things daily, side by side, close to each other. Let a man put his hat down, and you shall say whether he has deposited it with affectation or true nature. The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.”

What can we expect from Trump?

It looks like Donald Trump despises the neoconservative cabal as much as they despise him. But Trump, like them, is also a shape-changer with shifting principles. What Trump really believes inwardly is very important, and we can't as yet be sure of that.

Can Trump downsize the bureaucratic monstrosity? Can he bring the military home? Can he give the power back to the regions and states? Can Trump take down the neoconservative cabal? We should never underestimate the neoconservatives who are not military characters at all but are geniuses at beguiling 99 percent of the nation into sacrificing themselves to advance only the neoconservatives.

It looks like the neoconservatives have had their run, but Trump could replace that cabal with his own plutocratic associates. If that happens perhaps the new plutocracy will at least be economic nationalists and therefore bring manufacturing back to the nation and rebuild the country internally, which will be far better then the disordered neoconservative monsters we now have.

Can Trump fix the corrupting influence of the global financial system?

Is the West really defined as a corrupting financial system, as the Chinese recently called it? Mainly yes, but it is also the West who can fix it. Who else? Not the corrupt neoconservatives, not the neoliberals, not the Clinton's, not Wall Street, not China, not Russia, not Iran. If there is anything remaining of the Western genius that created the American Constitution with its separation of powers and states it is they who could fix the corrupt global financial system.

That is how ethnopluralism arrives in the world as the next political heroism. It is not abstract “isms,” it is people who will develop ethnopluralism. Human nature certainly remains very much kin and ethnic-centered in spite of centuries of the corruption of human nature by the clever manipulation of human culture. Ethnocentrism was and is the real biological basis of altruism or group-selection, which affirms, if we are sane and reasonable, not universal communism or global capitalism but the natural separations of powers and states into ethnic regions and states.

But ethnopluralism can fix the corrupted global financial system only if it is protected by a federalism designed mainly to protect the independence and variety of ethnostates and ethnopluralism. That is obviously no small challenge, but it is the only sane and reasonable long-term way we could save the corrupted globe. Everything else has been tried.

So is Donald Trump taking the first steps toward fixing the corrupting influence of the global financial system, or is he just another oligarch with different oligarchical associates? We will see. What other choice do we have at this time?

Where the mistaken tyranny of the abstract has led us

The mind can conjure up wonderful things in waking life or in dreams but the mind is not spiritual and not non-materiel, and not free of the material world or the material senses. This applies to Plato as well all the saintly religious ascetics from India to Jerusalem. Their deep ascetic experience of the God or Father Within were peak material experiences symbolically projected, and not experiences beyond the material or supermaterial world.
 

The original Greek sense of “aristocratic" supposedly was concerned with the cultivation of moral and intellectual excellence, but that is not entirely encompassing. Moral and intellectual excellence live within human bodies containing inherited genetic traits and do not live only in the minds or character of aristocratic intellectuals. It seems that even Plato under-emphasized the cool reality that the living object is more important than the abstract definition of the object.
 

False dualities devolved from that metaphysical duality and have plagued religion and philosophy for many centuries. But traditional religion need not be rejected due to this natural human error. Religion, philosophy, and science can be transformed as real Godhood is understood to be the zenith of material/supermaterial evolution in the natural cosmos...And science is not free of criticism in developing another error flatly denying the God Within or the God Without.

The Twofold Path of theological materialism includes both the inward and outward paths but places the inward path to the God Within as secondary and symbolic of the outward path of material evolution to real Godhood.

Material beauty is Godhood shining through the thing seen

Beauty relates to the direction and high religious goals of biological evolution, which moves toward the zenith of success, described also as the highest beauty, truth, and goodness. This is not beauty beyond the material world but beauty at the zenith of the material or supermaterial world.

That is how beauty can cheer us up, beautiful women, beautiful nature, beautiful art and architecture, even beautiful philosophy or mathematics. Pessimism, glumness, desolation go toward the opposite end of the scales, toward ugliness, untruth, even evil.

Form is determined by the content of life and biology, whereas abstract art, just as spiritual ideas, tends to move away from life itself and doesn't even represent life. Evolutionary realism for this reason becomes the valid approach to art. Classical art this way sought to glorify the human form.

Art and biology are essentially seeking the content or form of Godhood by way of material evolution. The activating material Spirit-Will within, which is the material Activating Dynamis of evolving life, works in conjunction with outside evolution, and seeks absolute beauty, truth and goodness.

Material beauty is Godhood shining through the thing seen. Art is the emotional expression of that beauty. And material evolution is the means of actually attaining that beauty.

The art of the future and the past

I suppose it was bitter and lonely Nietzsche who let loose the modern artists upon the world in place of religion and philosophy. His relativity of values and power made artists think they could replace religion and philosophy, but they have done a very poor job of it. They have made balloon sculptures and sunk a crucifix in urine and called it art.

It is not art that is superior, it is reality that is superior, but art can be a comfort and an affirmation of the sacred, even if it is not superior to reality or to truth. We can escape the garbage art of today with reality first, but then reality needs another version of sacred art, which can be the art of the future and the past.

 

What will that art look like? Well reality includes the biological evolution of material life toward supermaterial Godhood, and that leaves open many themes.

Can religion elevate real life?

If we want to “confound the schools,” to use poet Fred Chappell's line about a cat, we will respect logic and reason but not worship them. The same goes for spirituality, which is, paradoxically, a cousin of logic and reason. These things usually exist only abstractly and do not represent living things. This is a very serious metaphysical error that results in what I call the Great Spiritual Blockade of evolving material life toward real, not abstract, Godhood.

But the schools can be unconfounded. Evolving material life does not exclude Godhood. That phrase needs repeating. Evolved life can lead toward real Godhood, which was only symbolically experienced as the traditional inward God or Father Within. This living religious dynamic does not reject religion or reject God, it saves religion and Godhood. The world needs religion, we have drifted aimlessly without it, but we require a religion that is based in real life not merely in abstractions, we require a religion that actually elevates life itself.

Are we afraid of death? Yes, but that fear is why we try to successfully survive and reproduce, and why we now need to trump the old logic of the schools. Does our fear of death still require us to create a deathless, abstract, spiritual heaven unconnected to real life and death? I don't think that logic is worthy of living modern man. I am an evolutionist and a conservative influenced by both E.O.Wilson and Russell Kirk. Religion won't go away, we can keep religion, but we need to transform religion and the fictional philosophy which affirms it.

How much can a system-philosophy change without destroying itself?

I think conservatism can offer more radical or revolutionary change, or transformations, of old systems and philosophies than conservatives think it can. But it might be going too far to speak of “creative destruction,” which is usually only destruction. It's not “out with the old, in with the new.” I would argue that St. Thomas radically transformed old Aristotle while retaining him, and Jesus radically transformed Judaism while retaining it.

How many truly great radical thinkers have come out of school tests, quizzes, study groups, or even expert mentorships? Most of the new technology geeks, entrepreneurs, and humanities nerds completely ignore biological human nature in their worldviews. What great wisdom or knowledge can come from that?

Inoculating too much of the new with the old can destroy the old. But I think we can fuse the old with the radically new, which is what creative deep-conservatism requires. We humans still retain the reptile and fish brain along with the new cortex. That tends to be how natural evolution works.

The Twofold Path in theological materialism is a retention of the very old Involuntary Inward Path of traditional religion, while radically transforming it in the Evolutionary Outward Path. The Inward Path leading to the symbolic experience of the God or Father Within---which was the central ascetic goal of traditional religions---is retained but transformed radically in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood. 

Theological materialism strains the old system a bit at first, but then smoothly harmonizes with it. Modern life, science, evolution, can this way be included in religion, whereas modern culture is destroying religion and reducing the world to only indulgence and debauchery. 

Rethinking Being and Godhood

“Being” or “Godhood” is not essentially “love” or “causality” or “reason,” these things can help lead to Godhood, a Godhood that---are you ready?---did not “cause” the world, but a Godhood or Gods existing at the zenith of the material evolution of the world.

Godhood is a goal, not a cause. Godhood “reasons” as we reason only far better, Godhood is a living object, or objects, alive within the natural world. Godhood is not reason, Godhood reasons.

Godhood is not “love” either, expressing “love” by way of, say, making the world come alive due to shining sacred starlight upon the world. Godhood is love in---again, are you ready?---the physical material sense, because we reach Godhood through material reproduction (now including genetic technology). This material world reproduction has been disparaged in the Great Spiritual Blockade by religion which greatly devalued material reproduction, when ironically material reproduction is the only means to reach real Godhood.

If there is “mystery” in Godhood it is in trying to define or understand a living object, or objects, far more evolved and advanced in thinking than we are. Any “wonder” regarding Godhood comes from this evolutionary goal or ideal.

“Reason” also is not “being,” reason is performed by and within living beings, including the beings of Godhood, who reason at the highest levels. “Truth” becomes not merely the abstract goal of reasoning, truth is the goal that material evolution becomes. That is, living Godhood itself is truth, and living humans themselves are far less evolved "truth." Godhood is not abstraction or spiritual truth, but is high material existence.

This way we can value real life again, as life wants to be valued, keeping the Enlightenment and Religion. Science and philosophy can unite with religion, having the same evolutionary and intellectual goals.

Why modern art is boring

Modern art, especially poetry, spends too much time trying to say unimportant things in supposedly clever and shocking ways. Juvenile smuttiness and uninformed witticisms become just plain boring.

A creative affirmation of the sacred is the best subject for poetry, music, and art in general, and that includes many subjects in many cultures for both high and low art.

Human history, in the long run, shows this to be true. So when will this philosophy of art seriously restart?

Why we can't expect a precision of the deepest truths

Theologians and philosophers have preferred abstract, non-material, non-sensual, and precise definitions of Truth and Godhood. But the reality is we cannot expect precision when we are dealing with the general movement of material evolution.

We can discern the outlines and patterns of evolution, such as the evolution from the simple to the complex, or the evolution of unconsciousness to consciousness, then from there we can discern Truth and Godhood as the zenith of these patterns and outlines in material/supermaterial evolution.

Truth and Godhood are this way seen not as a non-sensual, non-historical experience, but as a concrete, material/supermaterial experience of Truth or Godhood in evolving real life.

There is no dualism in this, there is no “participation” between a material and a non-material abstract Truth or Godhood, there is only the reality of concrete material/supermaterial evolution.

Science is this way seen as an important tool which can offer precision, say in genetic or sociobiological studies, but not precision in the deeper outlines and patterns of Truth and Godhood.

Evolution offers this natural freedom within determinism.

The absurdity of separating the world into the spiritual and material

I think it is absurd to separate the world into the spiritual and the material, and it's time to stop doing it.

Attempts to bridge the “gap,” saying as the hyperintellectuals say that the spiritual world “participates” in the material world is rationalistic sophistry, even if it comes from great theologians and philosophers.

It cannot be simple incompetence on their part, can it? It is more like demagogic politicians selling themselves to the so called boobs, who are not as boorish as they think they are.

“Being” is pretty much what we see is what we get. Our senses may not see all of reality but we see enough to tell us that the concrete material world, and later, with evolution, the supermaterial world, is all we have.

That is healthier, especially if we take up the cause of materially evolving toward Godhood.

Who benefits from the sensational coverage of these plane crashes?

I mean no disrespect to the innocent victims of the recent plane crash near Egypt, but do we need this endless, sensational, 24 hour, Big Media coverage?

Who benefits from this sensationalism? Look to those who hate Islamic radicals the most.

I doubt if these crashes are always the work of Islamic terrorists, even if they often are.

The Big Media isn't “giving the public what it wants,” it is giving the public the message, “Let's you and him fight.”

To hell with them, we should not buy it. Globalist interference rarely actually helps America.

How the “good” is completely physical and material

Not only does the “good” exist concretely within the material, physical world, Godhood exists within the physical material world as an active goal in material evolution. Godhood is the result of ongoing material evolution, and in theological materialism this is defined as the highest good in evolution.

Here theoretical physics seems to enter the argument, but I think it does so on the side of materialism, not spiritualism. To me the most basic why? of quantum behavior, of all behavior, needs to be answered, for example, “life” in all its forms, micro and macro, seems to be seeking something, and this seeking happens before randomness and probability take over. Natural life is defined as seeking something---Godhood ultimately---before the actual randomness of evolution begins. There is freedom within this determinism.

The “good” is concrete, material, physical from beginning to end, although evolution seems to have no beginning and no end, odd as this seems to mortal men.

So we can have an end to talk of dualities regarding the good. This is not the synthesis of Aristotle or Aquinas who retained the duality of the spiritual and the material. We can conservatively retain the old symbolic, inward, God but it needs to be transformed in the Twofold Path with the outward Godhood reached through material evolution.

We need to hold on to religion and truth for the future long-term direction of life, and this is the way to do it.

Where does no duality between the universal and particular lead?

This philosophical argument can be resolved by understanding that in a secondary way human nature is universal and works along with particular individuals and groups, and in a primary religious way a universally determined material Will-Spirit-To-Godhood activates within the life of particular individuals and groups. I see no real duality necessary in this structure. This seems to cancel out the dualities of eastern religions, Plato, much of the Enlightenment, on up to Leo Strauss, as well as many of the postmoderns.

The universal is also concrete, particular, and material, and even Godhood is concretely material/ supermaterial, arrived at through natural evolution, helped along by reason. Evolution defines the good, beautiful, and true as hierarchical culminating in Godhood. This calls us more to action than ascetic retirement. The religious, philosophical, cultural and political question then becomes, how do we best evolve in the world toward Godhood? For example, the ethnopluralism hypothesis stems from this consideration.

Writing about Leo Strauss in a few words

When I think of writing about Leo Strauss, who influenced the very destructive neoconservatives, I think of the quote by La Rochefoucauld that the mark of a great mind was to “say many things with few words.” This could define a good writing style.

So in a few words: when Strauss writes about liberation from historical life or from history and tradition in finding the truth, it is really, consciously or unconsciously, deceptively or not deceptively, an attempt to be free of the implications of biology and evolution, which is not legitimately possible, although we can neurotically block the natural drives. With Strauss this may have been a conscious or unconscious attempt to be free of the implications of fascism and Hitlerism, which terrified him. Great philosophers refuse to be influenced by their own terrors.

Historical life is biological life and biological life is the foundation of human nature, and human nature is being 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 successful selection.

Strauss’s philosophy seems to have in the end promoted a Jewish-dominated elite in society (I can't find the quote), which gives the lie to his stand against the power of historical tradition. How typically deceptive---although this stuff may have been unconscious to Strauss and have merely been the very natural ethnic will to power in action.

Human nature and political philosophy need not lead to fascism or Platonic imperialism, which in this crowded world is contrary to long-term survival success. We should spend our time trying to figure out how to get along together given real human nature and the tendency to form ethnocentric states. This points toward the small states of ethnopluralism, not to an imitation of Platonic imperialism, ruled by Strauss or the neoconservatives.

The influence of the Big Media and the sleaze balls who own it is falling apart and that is good

The Big Media is not looking for a virtuous or moral president

The Media destroyed the presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan who had many of the same political ideas as Donald Trump, but Pat was a virtuous and moral candidate, and Trump is less so. Now the Media is going after Trump big time---see the New York Times hit-piece Sunday, which is now denied by the woman they interviewed. Trump will probably beat both Hillary and the Media, and this means the Media will get a less virtuous and less moral president than Pat Buchanan would have been. The Big Media is not looking for a virtuous or moral president, they simply want to win at any cost, immorally, dirty, or not. So go to it Trump, they can't beat you this time! 

Meanwhile the rest of the world is witnessing this sleazy contest and asking what is happening to America? What is happening is the influence of Big Media and the sleaze balls who own it is falling apart, and that is good. Try doing it to yourself, Europe

Reviving religion and politics through the natural rights of sociobiology

Sociobiology defines the natural rights inherent in human nature in a universal and non-contingent way. A relativity of values is this way dispelled. History or historicism is not rejected but placed in a secondary position, as nurture is not rejected but is placed in a secondary position to nature.

The science of evolution from Charles Darwin to Edward Wilson supplies an increasingly precise basic definition of human nature, which is universal and can and should be applied to virtues and values in religion and philosophy. Human nature has been affirmed throughout human history as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

The meaning of history requires first the meaning of the biological origins of social behavior. To ignore biology is to fall into abstraction and symbolism, as too many theologians and philosophers do. We do not legitimately stand outside of biology, so we cannot stand outside of history. Even so, history is secondary to the exigencies of biology, and the moral relativism of people like Nietzsche and Heidegger are not valid.

But this doesn't mean that the abstractions of Plato, and more recently Leo Strauss, correctly affirm a universal natural rights. They affirm the abstractions of Truth and God which are in reality unrelated to living biology and evolution. Religious and philosophical ascetics have almost always blocked biology in defining spiritualism, Godhood, or truth.

We need not fear what happens to religion and philosophy when biology and sociobiology enter the worldview, especially when we see life as activated by the sacred drive to evolve in the material world to supermaterial Godhood. Virtues and values can be directed toward this evolutionary refinement of biology, not to the killing of biology.

Politically, sociobiology does not lead to fascism or to neoconservatism, it leads more likely to a sociobiological constitutionalism, not unlike the American Founders envisioned. Real human nature and natural rights relate very well to primary group-selection, with individual selection as secondary, which is affirmed in the constitutional separation of powers and states, or better in regional ethnostates. In the natural configuration of ethnostates human nature can be free to be as it is, kin-selecting, group-selecting, and even xenophobic, while being protected by federalism. Real religion can help life evolve toward Godhood in a variety of environments, which are harmonious with natural rights and real human nature.

Why populist Donald Trump is making our controllers so mad

No matter what the manipulated polls say, I think the majority of Americans are blinking with astonishment at the absurd cultural changes taking place so quickly in America. Transgender bathrooms? Same sex marriages? Open borders? And this added to the crazy cultural Marxism now dictated by our government, the media, and the schools? Everyone is asking, how the hell did this happen? The nefarious march through the institutions was directed by the Big Media, the academic world, and the global version of capitalism gone wild.

A minority of people who control the big media, the academic world, and the global version of capitalism have been taking advantage of these absurd cultural changes to gain advantage for themselves, against the interest of most Americans. The academic world provides the postmodern philosophical support for this mess. The academic world is weaker but smarter than the minority who run the big media and global capitalism who probably don't really believe the junk they promote---but the academic world actually believes it.

So the majority of Americans who don't believe in cultural Marxism, transgender bathrooms, or same sex marriages, are forced to do as the weaklings, the nefarious minorities, and the global capitalists tell them to do.

The only thing a healthy people can do is try to stop this crazy train of degeneration and decline. This is why populist Donald Trump is making our controllers so mad.

Defining a great thinker

If a thinker were able to best both Saint Thomas Aquinas and Friedrich Nietzsche, and their followers, that thinker would need a big ego to make such a claim, even if it turns out to be true. Perhaps a large ego is part of such a thinker?

The question then usually arises, is that claim the claim of a mad fool or a great genius? One would have to also be a fool or a genius to make the judgment about the fool/genius.

Does courage come before such a large ego? If Aristotle was right in saying that courage is the medium between rashness and cowardice then some form of reason seems to decide the courage, which would balance the fool and the genius.

So can we now say that a great thinker has a large ego with great courage? If so then genius seems to be preceded by theses traits, followed by reason. If one of these traits is missing we seem to have a less than great thinker. How much of this is nature and how much is nurture? Nature seems to lead, but such an unusual nature needs nurturing, and it will probably be an unusual nurturing. 

Synthesizing but not balancing the hierarchy of human drives

Are reason, science, nurture, and mind, more important than tradition, religion, intuition, and the material body in nature? I think tradition, religion, intuition, and the natural material body lead reason, science, nurture, and the mind.

We developed reason to enhance the natural drives, to refine the natural drives of survival and reproductive success, not to lead them, but also to refine the deeper drive of the activation of material life to evolve in the material world to supermaterial Godhood.

Rather than “balancing” these drives, it seems more illuminating to describe a hierarchy of drives. We do need all of the traits we evolved, but tradition, religion, intuition, and the material body are more important, and rate a bit higher, than reason, science, nurture, and the mind, which were developed to enhance or refine material evolution.

Too often we thinkers get lost in the weeds of the mind.

The consequences of mistaken notions of freedom and determinism

Human nature contains free will within the determinism of biology and social traditions---which is more freedom than other animals possess.

Atheists and modern liberals usually reject determinism thinking that we are almost totally free, and so they base their intellectual foundations on the least powerful (though very important) element in human nature.

Theological materialism defines a God or Godhood which even atheists and liberals (and scientists) can believe in, a real Godhood reached through material evolution, with a philosophy based in naturalism.

Theological materialism takes care to compromise, conservatively, with the determinism of both biology and social traditions by including, not rejecting, the the old inward symbolic view of God, now understood as reached through outward material evolution.

The seeming different philosophies of Marxism and neoconservatism are the same in growing out of a mistaken notion of how much human freedom we have, and the necessary balance with the determinism of biology and social traditions.

 

Ethnopluralism becomes the right balance of biology, social traditions and freedom, that is, regions and states for distinct ethnic cultures, protected by federalism, which could be conservatively accommodated by the constitutional principle of the separation of power and states.

The only compromise Trump should make in his meeting with Republicans today

Trump the deal-maker is capable of duplicitous behavior but if he compromises on economic and political nationalism he will be just another selfish individualistic politician willing to continue the destruction of the country for personal gain.

It is Paul Ryan who needs to compromise the most in the Republican meeting today with Donald Trump. Ryan's globalist libertarianism (which is neoconservative) has been destroying America, based on the faulty libertarian idea that human nature is primarily individualistic, rather than group-selecting as the primary form of successful selection, with individualism following only in a secondary way.

This affirmation of the origin of altruism, or group-selection, leads naturally to economic and political nationalism, which Trump consciously or unconsciously affirms. The only compromise Trump should make is in a slow rather than fast stride toward economic and political nationalism, which is the conservative way to change.

The satisfaction in watching Donald Trump take apart the liberal blowhards and intellectual paper tigers

It is of course most important to see Trump's political and economic nationalism surface and rise, but I must admit it's almost more satisfying to see Trump deflate and exasperate the liberal blowhards and the intellectual paper tigers.

Last night the long-necked lesbian Rachel Maddow even played the Hitler card, the same one the cabal effectively used on Pat Buchanan when he ran for president, that is, setting up a racialist as a Trump delegate. But how satisfying, and illuminating, to see that it doesn't work anymore.

And how good it is to see that Trump could care less what the effete modern liberals and cultural Marxists say about him---the people don't seem to care either. And it is also satisfying to see Trump overcome the neoconservative globalists who have been destroying the country. It seems almost too good to last.

Clarifying the clunky phrase sociobiological constitutionalism

The general meaning is in the clunky phrase sociobiological constitutionalism.

Human nature today is virtually the same as it has always been in all its dimensions in the “state of nature.” And open immigration, same-sex marriage, the concentration of power, crony-capitalism, with rootless technocrats and globalists managing it all, does not relate to the real state of human nature.

In every human culture ever honestly and rationally studied, human nature included, among other things, kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, even ethnocentrism, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection, and individualism only as a secondary form of selection within the group. If the culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.

People today are dropping out, not hippies but conservatives, seceding, home schooling, basically quitting politics rather than fighting the rootless global elitists, which hands the victory to the centralized state. What we should be promoting is ethnopluralism, which could be accommodated by the constitutional principle of the separation of powers and states.

Orestes Brownson said that if you deemphasize, or take away the states of the United States you end up with a “centralized despotism.” I believe the relationship between the central government and the states should be heavily weighted on the side of the states, even to the degree of having states or regions with distinctly ethnic cultures, or virtual ethnostates. Federalism can protect their independence. Why ethnopluralism? In our increasing crowded world that is the way we can relate best to real human nature, real human groups, and the real state of nature. Otherwise we will have either slow or fast decline, civil disruptions, even civil war, which would probably lead only to despotism.

Why the ethnopluralism hypothesis for America?

What is the disposition of a people before you write a constitution, asked Orestes Brownson. But did he fully answer the question? “Disposition” is based in human nature which creates culture, customs, and religions, and human nature is based on the largely biological origin of cultural behavior. This has been called the”unwritten law.” When laws are divided from these unwritten laws civilizations don't last long.

In our Constitution, powers are separate, and states are separate, but can be unified in the case of war by federalism. This relates very well to real human nature, which remains kin-centered, ethnic-centered, even ethnocentric, no matter what modern liberalism tries to tell us. Big government is not affirmed, even as we are citizens of both the state and the nation.

Individualism works as a secondary selection process which finds its real success in the success of the group. We are united not in individualism but in our states and nation. This is basic human nature with its mix of the individual and the social group. Our nation was created by separate states (colonies) consenting to the federal government, and secession, as in our tragic civil war, is not needed when the states are given the right power.

This explains how the ethnopluralism hypothesis now comes forward as the way to save our nation from increasingly warring ethnic cultures (and this is happening more in Europe), while keeping our constitution and our states intact. Individual regions and states can gradually be grounded in natural ethnic cultures, united by our version of federalism. No civil war, no secession, no radical revolution is necessary.

This is the way of real human nature. This is the way our civilization can last a very long time. Without it we may tear ourselves apart, and after much suffering, reform into natural ethnostates, as all fallen empires do.

How to improve the abstract mistakes of individualism and equality

I think the American Constitution can be redeemed or justified if the group-selection of sociobiology is fully understood and given priority over Lockean equality and individualism. Let me explain:

Lockean individualism is like the surface tip of the iceberg with group-selection the larger part of the iceberg beneath the sea. Human nature according to sociobiology (E. O. Wilson) contains a constant confrontation between the individual and the group, with the group, or group-selection, most successful in survival, creating social behavior, altruism etc.

Individualism and equality originally came from the Christian revelation that all men are equal under God, and the Puritans who founded America affirmed this belief.(discussed in the Spring 2016 issue of Modern Age). It was not understood that this notion would lead to a rejection of the idea of God because individualism tends to trump any conformity to any sort of group revelations from God, or otherwise.

But religious abstractions about Godhood need not lead to the rejection of the group by individualism and equality if Godhood is understood as not a spiritual abstraction but the zenith of material evolution. This is the position of theological materialism. Life evolves to Godhood in the material world and group-selection has not only been more successful than individualism in evolution, it has created our social behavior and was the original source of religious altruism.

It is group-selection inherent in real human nature which supersedes individualism, not the Christian concept of equality under God. We are equal or universal in that we all share a basic human nature which affirms group-selection while keeping individualism as a secondary form of selection within groups.

The American constitutional idea of equality and individualism, as well as the constitutional separation of powers and states, can be redeemed or justified if group-selection is given social and political priority. And this can be done without rejecting Godhood but by accepting the real non-abstract Godhood reached through material evolution, which in turns leads to ethnopluralism---constitutionally separate regions and states for distinct groups, protected by federalism.

Is basic human nature virtuous?

I think the definition of moral virtue can relate directly to human nature, which certainly is not “evil.” But the general sociobiological definition of human nature needs to be applied in defining virtue. I think this even includes the religious ethos.

The ancient world---and not really the modern world---seems to have reflected the sociobiological understanding of virtue in human nature, where manly patriotism was defined as a virtue. Aristotle wrote about virtue as a means between two opposed vices, such as courage as a mean between rashness and cowardice.

Human nature basically includes deep preferences for kin and group, including the ethnic group, and this relates to the patriotism mentioned above as virtuous. Individualism only comes in secondarily, since group-selection is the real origin of altruism. 

As to religion, I expand Aristotle's ideas that all knowledge comes from the senses to include knowledge of our material evolution toward Godhood, which activates life itself, and then adapts to outside evolution and selection.

So basic human nature is virtuous.

On evolving conservatism regarding Islam

Regarding Islam and the arguments over whether it is a peaceful or warrior religion, I think it is essentially a warrior religion, with many more verses in the Koran affirming war than peace. The point is to transform Islam, if not into a peaceful religion, at least into a religion which is not dedicated to imperialism and dictatorship over all other religions---Islamic warriors are told to be “victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” Koran 61:9.

Transforming Islam will save Islam. In our crowded world today, the whole world gangs up on totalitarian dictatorships and they do not last long. Seeking to utterly destroy Islam, as some in the West want to do, makes us no less dictatorial than they are. People, ethnic groups, religions, and distinct cultures require their own territories---not the whole world---where natural variety in evolution can take place, and be protected. But it must still be understood that peace without military protection does not bring peace.

The aim to be conservative while evolving

“Great art uses conventional plots and character types to appeal to audiences of its own time and then transforms these devices so that---intentionally or not---they appeal to audiences of every time.” (Richard Harp, on Shakespeare, Modern Age Spring 2016)

To change another statement by Ben Johnson on Shakespeare, great art and philosophy is “not of an age but for all time.”  Does not great religion and philosophy do this too, and also political philosophy? This is conservatism. 

The truth does not need to be dull. Truth wins out in the end but usually not without undergoing suffering and metamorphosis. Conventional things need to be invigorated, and not merely for the sake of change.

Life changes with evolution, that is, biological life and in the case of man social evolution. But the past is usually carried forward and transformed, not killed as the radicals and militants try to do.

As I have said here before regarding theological materialism, the big change comes in uniting the old false divisions between the material and spiritual, which has existed since even before the Judaic-Christian tradition, for example, in ancient Asia, Scandinavia, and in Native America. There has existed a Great Spiritual Blockade in religion, and in philosophy, against our evolution toward real Godhood in the material world.

There is no dualism between the spiritual and material, there is only the material and supermaterial. This can actually unite science and religion, and even politically philosophy. We are all materially evolving toward Godhood and we need to find the realistic way to do so. And this is where ethnopluralism enters the modern stage.

Now comes the big challenge for Donald Trump, probably our next president

Congratulations to Trump. Now he must remain true to economic nationalism, and not go abroad with destructive imperialism in the face of the powerful globalism which surrounds him.

Pat Buchanan must be having a bitter/sweet celebration.

Why I should not be pissed off

I'm still pissed off, but I should not be, at how California allowed Hispanics, legal and illegal, and emasculated liberals to block Donald Trump from attending his own rally. As California goes the country goes? Then we will be conquered through immigration, with barely a whimper---conquered internally not externally. We don't even allow our police to save us from our own destruction.

Who or what evil philosophy or conduct did this to us, self or otherwise? We have to name it and vanquish it. Voting for Trump might be a beginning, but we will eventually split into ethnostates due to real human nature, which will bring the most harmony and order possible for human beings. Our constitutional separation of powers and states could even accommodate it. That's why I should not be pissed.

If we tax cigarettes we should tax bad food

Serious health problems such as coronary heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, inflammation, even some forms of arthritis, are mainly caused from the amount of bad food we eat. I believe in freedom of choice, and I do not believe in Big Government, and leaving it to the individual states to decide is preferred, but that is not good enough regarding the serious national damage caused from bad food. 

 

Destroying the health of a nation is a serious attack against a whole people and it should not be allowed any more than a military attack should be allowed. A sick and diseased people will not be able to defend themselves, yet alone create a healthy culture.

 

Taxation isn't banning the providers of bad food.

Billions of dollars are spent on diseases that are mainly caused from bad food. Is the profit of the bad food industry more important than the health of a whole people? Apparently, or at least the bad food industry has the power to successfully lobby against any change. And where are the doctors in this who profit from treating these diseases?  Free choice? 

What are the healthy foods of the good food industry? Basically fresh meats (grass fed is best), fish, poultry, fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, and healthy oils like olive and coconut oil. Dairy products are not healthy, and neither are cereal grains, refined sugars and processed food. That generally defines the good and bad food industry, and if we really cared about the health of our people we would be taxing the bad food industry, thereby rewarding the good.

For the science behind these claims read Loren Cordain.