The hierarchy of means and ends (reblog from Sept. 2013)

Nietzsche first caused me to see that unhappiness and happiness were means more than ends. Philosophy can move far off into unreality when it misses this important concept---think of communism claiming to seek happiness for absolutely everyone at all costs. But religion can make this mistake too in seeking only unending bliss ( the beatific vision ) in the Inward Path to the Father Within.

Decay, decadence, unhappiness, these things happen naturally, to try to rid society completely of these things is unnatural. We need to try to save what is healthy and evolutionary, that is the realistic task.

Looking to deeper causes we find that nature and evolution use happiness and unhappiness as a means to encourage survival and reproductive success, just as good tasting food encourages you to eat, not for the sake of the good taste of the food but for the sake of survival.

Deeper still I believe is the material Spirit-Will To Godhood which activates all life, all happiness, unhappiness, even all survival and reproductive success to evolve toward Godhood, and it works along with the outside forces of evolution and natural selection.

Getting this hierarchy of means and ends right is the religious, artistic, philosophical, political and scientific sacred task.