Evolving Beauty

Thomas Fleming (Chronicles, June 2015) wrote of how Marxist teachers and Misesians libertarians, who preach that art is merely subjective, and that beauty is only in the eye of the beholder, will still turn their heads to watch a pretty girl go by. But then good conservatives eventually depart from that glimpse of truth and beauty in art and abandon the physical, the material, as they define the highest beauty, truth, and God, as non-material and spiritual.

It is the living material object which evolves toward the living supermaterial objects of Godhood on an evolutionary material and supermaterial continuum. A Great Spiritual Blockade is put up by traditional religion and philosophy where both beauty and truth depart from the real world.

The beauty of the girl mentioned above can be expanded in understanding beauty moving toward the zenith of beauty and truth reached in Godhood by way of the evolution of life from the ugly to the beautiful. Physical desire is made sublime, but not non-material, as the path of material evolution leads toward supermaterial Godhood.

That is how art and truth are defined in theological materialism and the Twofold Path. Evolutionary realism in art seeks to follow this philosophy. The highest art remains the affirmation of the sacred.

Organic intelligence over machine intelligence

The transhumanists are in too much of a hurry to enhance machine intelligence. They claim that they don't want to wait for the slower path of eugenics and selective breeding to enhance overall intelligence, which could take many generations, (unless selection was very strong.) Even genetic engineering and neurobiology are too slow for them. So they want to develop machine intelligence, machine-human melds, and so on, which is vastly faster than developing organic intelligence. The speed of electronic components operate at a time-scale millions of times shorter than biological neurons, as Nick Bostrom has brilliantly pointed out.

Transhumanists rarely mention that eugenics is thoroughly politically incorrect at this time and machine intelligence is easier to sell. But the danger of machine's becoming vastly more intelligent than we are is great---we could be shunted aside as intelligence machines with their own wills to power turn the whole world into solar panels for their own energy use.

I would affirm the full development of genetic technologies, even selecting traits at the level of embryos, gene sequencing, etc, which could give a wider amount of selection power to couples. But I believe we also need to continue the cultural and political affirmation of evolution toward higher organic intelligence, while also selecting traits of health, personalty, beauty and athleticism. This biological path is slower than machine intelligence but more conservative and much safer than machine intelligence. Machine intelligent can be an aid in human biological evolution but should never be the sole area of advancing evolution.

Readers of this blog know there is the more important religious purpose in affirming the evolution of life toward Godhood, the Godhood first seen only inwardly and symbolically in traditional religions, which is examined in theological materialism. The sacred purpose of life itself is not merely to develop machine intelligence while neglecting or even blocking organic evolution toward real Godhood.

Nature, Truth and Godhood

We start from the base that material existence exists, this is a primordial reality, and it is absurd to reject it. To deny existence is like a monkey believing the world has disappeared when he puts his hands over his eyes. But philosophers have seriously played this game.

“Truth” is not only an abstract concept, truth depends on nature's existence or on life to see it or define it. It is the objects of nature that are defined as truth. Without existence and nature, truth is not fully defined.

But the reality of nature exists whether we see it or understand it or not. We perceive reality with our senses, as other animals do, but then humans developed reason, logic, science, intuition, etc. to help us grasp as much of reality as we can with whatever abilities we have.

Moving forward we can predict a supermaterial existence of real, living, evolved, objects, which are arrived at through material and supermaterial evolution, from the simple to the complex, or to a highly refined simplicity.

Man is not an end in himself, the material life that is in man seeks supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of success in evolution. Godhood is not merely a defining sacred word or abstract spiritual concept to worship. Secondary or even absolute truths only define living objects, and the zenith of evolved living objects, and the zenith of truth, is Godhood.

Two big reforms that could save America (and the West)

The national psyche has disintegrated, but can it be put back together without first falling like the Roman Empire? I think it can. But both religion and the U. S. Constitution need to be reformed---not rejected.

I agree with those who have suggested that no great civilization has ever risen without being founded in religion. Readers of this blog know that I believe we need to open the Great Spiritual Blockade which has been in place against evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood. This reform conservatively retains the old ascetic Inward Path to the God or Father Within by seeing the Inward Path as the first glimpse or symbolic experience of Godhood, which in reality is reached through the Outward Path of material and supermaterial evolution. This is the Twofold Path of theological materialism. The false duality between the spiritual and material and between religion and science can this way be resolved.

The other big reform is to understand that the separation of powers, states, and regions seen in the U. S. Constitution needs to accommodate separate ethnic cultures and ethnostates within a protecting federal system.  The unreality of having a political melting pot of distinctly different people was a dangerous and unworkable dream. The unreality of one culture, one people, one race, dominating all others in our crowded world was also a dangerous and unworkable dream. The reform toward ethnopluralism will bring political philosophy back to real human nature, which remains kin-centered, ethnocentric and group-selecting.

These reforms will, conservatively, help us to avoid the coming civil disruptions and even civil war due to un-assmilating cultures and people in America---without radical revolutionary change.  Some might say that these two big reforms in religion and politics would require miracles, that could be, but I would rather say these reforms require heroism.

Overcoming cynicism in the Twofold Path

I don't believe men are innately flawed, which is an idea that seems to have been caused from an unrealistic definition or view of what is “unflawed.” That is, defining unflawed man as being non-material or with few or no material desires is at the origin of the oldest religious definition of flawed man as being materialistic in a flawed world.

Religious gurus advocated non-materialistic living mainly as a tool or aid in seeing or experiencing the God or Father Within, for which materialism would be a distraction. Non-materialism was then only secondarily described as the preferred social behavior, for example, one could give to the poor because the things of this world in any case were not important in the deeper sense of experiencing the God Within---“giving” in itself was therefore not the first value.

The Twofold Path in theological materialism and the Theoevolutionary Church retains the experience of the God or Father Within, which is the essence of traditional religious values and morals, without having the Involutionary Inward Path to the Father Within overwhelm the Evolutionary Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution to real Godhood.

Cynicism and the view of flawed man falls away in the Outward Path which requires the material world to evolve to Godhood, and places the desire-free state of the Inward Path in a secondary role, as being a symbolic glimpse of what real Godhood may be like at the zenith of material evolution. Heroism in the world rather than ascetic removal from the world takes precedence in the Twofold Path.

The conservatives, the natural preservers, are not yet addressing this real problem, or this solution

Individual, kin and group (or ethnic) selection could be called the primary-selection-trio. Libertarian conservatives are willing to make sacred the individual, and paleoconservatives or traditional conservatives are willing to make the kin sacred, but both say little or nothing about group or ethnic selection, and this is a serious omission directly relating to the future of America and the West.

According to the more courageous sociobiological and anthropological scientists and thinkers, group-selection is the central unit of selection. Only group or ethnic selection can be socially strong enough over the long term to actually protect and advance the individual and the kin.

The natural problems of competing groups within a multi-ethnic nation can be managed by affirming ethnopluralism, with regions and states primarily understood as ethnostates, which can then be protected internally and externally by a lighter version of federalism.

Establishing ethnopluralism within the United States is of course a daunting mission---charges of racism by the powers that be will destroy reputations---but the separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution could accommodate the natural political configuration of ethnostates, so even the conservatives could affirm it, if it was done gradually, and legally.

Ethnopluralism working in harmony with the primary-selection-trio works in harmony with real human nature, which remains very much individual, kin and ethnic-centered. Empires always fall back into ethnostates, so natural human history and evolution are on the side of ethnopluralism.

Otherwise America (and the West) seems headed for civil disturbances and even civil war between un-meltable ethnic cultures, which will weaken the nation internationally.  The conservatives, the natural preservers, are not yet addressing this real problem, or this solution, and the modern liberals remain unrealistic about human nature and politics.

What are Donald Trump's motives?

Trump sometimes sounds like Pat Buchanan with his economic nationalism and his immigration policies. But he does not sound like Buchanan when he wants to continue American meddling in the middle east on behalf of Israel. Then there is that bit of conspiracy that Trump is out to help Hillary win by eventually changing to a third party and destroying Republican votes---that is, he really does not care which side wins since he advances himself by giving money to both sides. One thing is clear regarding Trump, it is cathartic to see someone who is not afraid to face the dragons for being politically incorrect.

Here's what I guess are Trump's motives, in the following order:

1. Trump wants to advance himself. 2. He wants to advance Jewish causes. 3. He resents the elite and wants to destroy their global corporations. 4. He wants to support and strengthen America because America made him and his friends rich.
   
   
   Realism in politics is not always pretty. So the question is, would those of us who generally approve of Pat Buchanan's political philosophy be making a deal with Beelzebub to support Trump?  It's not yet clear to me.

Re-empowering the states toward developing ethnopluralism and ethnostates

Deep conservatism requires more than the standard social traditionalism, local government, and non-imperialism, although even achieving these would be good. Having worshiped bigness to the gross limits of marauding imperial globalism, we need to, gradually, return not only to localism but we need to re-empower the states toward developing ethnopluralism and ethnostates.

When the regions and states are devoted to their own general ethnic cultures we can at last have government conform to real human nature, which remains kin-centered and ethnic-centered, with group-selection remaining as it has always been the main unit of selection. If culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and always returns to these things. This view of real human nature is at the core of conservatism and tradition, although not always expressed so, whereas many of these traits are missing in cultural communism, modern liberalism, and post-modernism. Even traditional conservatism needs to return to the deep conservatism of the separation of powers and states originally suggested in the U. S. Constitution, which could eventually accommodate ethnopluralism.

This would not happen over-night, it would require a period of years. We could first heed the ideas of people like James L. Buckley who argues for abolishing federal grants in aid to state and local governments. “Federal grants are often used to persuade—or coerce—state and local governments to do things that the federal government wants them to do or to do things the way the federal government wants them done...” (see the review, “How Washington Bribes the States” )

We could at least start by not voting for the enablers and nurturers of bigness and imperialism, and we could promote small-is-beautiful politicians. It will be a difficult return to sobriety. Eventually we need to find local and states-rights people who seek to re-empower the states toward ethnopluralism and ethnostates. It is either a return to localism and states rights---and eventually perhaps 50 ethnostates, or regions of states, or it will be the slow death of America from civil disruptions and even civil war due to natural and predicable ethnic competition, which we are increasingly seeing, as the melting pot certainly did not melt because ethnic melting pots do not relate to real human nature.

Heroic behavior will again be necessary, which could counter the anti-hero culture now pushed by the popular big media because it is easier to control.

Music, harmony, and the activation of life

Is music the voice of man's consciousness as some have suggested? It seems to me that music is more the voice of man's emotions and instincts which consciousness follows but does not lead. Consciousness is activated by things other than itself, by instincts and emotions that required, or developed, the evolution of consciousness as an aid to successful survival and reproduction.

I think that the most sacred music would originate in the deepest activation's of life, that is, in the activation within life of the Spirit-Will-To Godhood, which essentially defines life as evolving toward Godhood, the most “successful” stage of life. Consciousness and human culture derive from this basic activation of life, which essentially defines “life.”

How would sacred music sound? Like the activation of life itself it would exist within the natural material world. The connection with nature suggests the harmony and order of nature itself, the consonance and dissonance of nature defined as vibrating in proportional harmony.

This natural music is unlike modern atonal “music,” which has cut the connection between realistic nature and art. Modern philosophy has done this too, favoring words, notations, intellectual concepts over the reality of living objects. Government deficit financing has also done this, cutting the connection between goods and money---that is, the con-game of money backed by nothing.

But this reflection on music is not anti-intellectual, it is anti-non-life, it is contrary to having our identity rooted fundamentally in non-living bookish definitions and pedantic conceptions in art. It is pro-reality in art, religion and philosophy.

The spiritual is supermaterial

Theologians, philosophers and intellectual's tend to think of people as aids to principles and truths rather than the other way around. It is the living object, the living substance which comes first, not the definition or symbol of the living object. That is not to say that definitions and symbols are unimportant, but they are only aids to living.

Theologians and  philosopher's lose touch with real life, real living, real people, and trans-value real living to the symbolic-spiritual. It is supermaterialism not spiritualism which retains the highest ideals and real goals of religion and philosophy, and this brings religion and philosophy out of unreality and nothingness. Godhood is a living object or objects which we evolve to become in the material and supermaterial world, if we are successful in survival and evolution.

Theological materialism can bring religion and science together, where they belong. The spiritual is supermaterial. The material is not satanic and the spiritual is not godly. This means that occult, esoteric, initiations and holy wars of duality are foolish but dangerous. The Gordian knot need not be unraveled, just ignored, or cut with one swipe. The old intellectual battles between religion, philosophy and science are not necessary and are even harmful to the path of our sacred evolution, which is the real mystery and mission we can address.

Realism Affirms Ethnopluralism

History may be the story of the relationships of power, as realism teaches us, but power is wielded by groups, usually ethnic groups, and group-selection and group-morality have ever been and continue to be the main unit of successful natural selection and survival. Individuals lead groups but groups control the various regions of power, and compete with other individuals and groups.

This has been the historical reality of human behavior and human nature, which remains kin-centered and mainly group-selecting, therefore the most natural and practical political configuration, given human nature, is ethnopluralism, that is, regions, states and powers separated by ethnic cultures or ethnostates, and protected by some kind of federalism. Can we face this reality?

Luckily, and wisely, the U. S. Constitution was set up to secure a separation of powers and states, which could accommodate ethnopluralism. This could reform, without radical revolution, our conflicted country, and save our various competing groups from future civil strife or even civil war, given human nature.

If culture is defined as the dominant ideas of a people, it is difficult to define American culture since America now contains different ideas and different ethnic cultures. As much as some may attempt to define (or justify) multicultural America as an intellectual creed unrelated to demographics or ethnic identities; American “culture” is now many competing cultures. This can't end well, given the reality of human nature.

Forms of imperialism, left and right, are often said to hold disparate people together, but they are usually the cold dominance of one group over the others, and imperialism always declines, falls back, or returns to natural ethnostates, which conform to real human nature. Ethnopluralism offers realistic optimism regarding mankind's future, rather than predicating endless marauding imperialism, or hopeless views of a permanently sinful or flawed man, or the postmodern nihilistic and dead-end relativity of values and morals now taught in academia.

How do we recover integrity and honesty among our leaders?

How was our government put up for sale? How did “legalized bribes', as William Lind called it, become “campaign contributions?” We know integrity and honor have been long gone in the global capitalist world, but why do our army generals now also lie?

Is it the loss of religion? I have always wondered if the past gentleman culture (eg. 19^th century England) arose due to the inherent non-materialism of Christianity, which wasn't adequate to the realistic needs of national and local survival. It has always been the military that has clung to the gentleman values of integrity and honor, but now even our military is lying about our recent wars in the middle-east. When soldiers lie men die and nation's fall.

Even political philosopher's like Leo Strauss have given permission to neoconservative despots to lie to the plebeians in the interest of their dubious causes, apparently affirmed by the dreams of Plato, although I doubt if that tribe needed much encouragement in lying.

I suppose easy survival, luxury, tends to lead to the decline of the rigorous values necessary for real survival. The question is, how do we recover integrity and honesty among our leaders in our easy-living modern age?
 

Perhaps when our real survival depends on ending the lies and the bribes then we will recover, whether that recovery shows itself in religious morals or military values, or both. Honorable and heroic men and woman will rise out of necessity, either to revive our nation, or to begin again out of the ruins.

Now losing but eventually winning traditional moral culture

When “civil rights” absurdly expands to include such things as gay marriage, transgenders, and even criminal illegal aliens, traditional moral culture is finished and has become a “culture” of immorality. Tens of millions of people oppose this immorality but the cultural rulers, living in cities on both coasts of America, own both academic and popular culture. And we know that the most underrated danger to traditional morality comes from highly talented artists, writers, and actors applying their talents to gross performances which sell immorality better than the best salesmen.

Yet in spite of the present destruction of traditional morality, I believe traditional morality will prevail, not so much due to orthodox religious views but due to basic human nature. Traditional morality is based in the biological origin of social behavior. That is, in virtually every human culture ever studied, human nature included, kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, traditional marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, and group-selection as the primary unit of selection---individualism has been secondary. And we have that same human nature today. If culture proposes to not include these basic traits of human nature, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.

Why individualism is secondary to altruism

There is of course an important place for individualism, that is, individual creativity and individual genius, which can lead to great social (while not condoning anti-social) innovations, but individualism needs to be understood as secondary to the altruism of group morality and group selection, and this can be affirmed by both religion and the science of sociobiology.

Traditional religious virtues and morals tend to be altruistic, that is, “unselfish” interest in the welfare of others, but altruism is also based in the selfish advantage individuals receive from helping the group. Genetic and sociobiological studies have affirmed this.

The dilemma is that the individualism of many conservatives goes against the altruistic virtues of their own religion. Ironically, altruism is affirmed by the sociobiological sciences which religion has not much approved of.

But an important point here is that altruism is based in the preference for ones kin, and ones ethnic group, who can successful help carry ones own related genes forward---so individualism goes against this element of social life as well.

This is why an ethnopluralism of ethnostates (which could be done legally in the separate regions and states of the United States Constitution) is more natural and even more traditional than the hyper-individualism of libertarianism, which has led to marauding, greedy, antisocial, one-percent, global corporations (backed by the so-called neoconservatives), who have all but destroyed the West.

As unchecked immigration completely changes America into competing ethnic factions, ethnopluralism will be the natural solution to future cultural and civil war, if we can do it---backed up by traditionally bonded altruism.

All Harmony

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

So what is a harmonious culture? The ethnopluralism hypothesis suggests to me the most harmonious culture possible, given human nature. In every human culture ever studied human nature included, among other things, kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, even xenophobia, and with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things. These things also happen to be at the core of conservatism and tradition, whereas many of these traits are missing in, say, communism, modern liberalism and post-modernism.

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

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

Saving capitalism from hyper-indivualism

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

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

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

How real objects exist and evolve toward real Godhood

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

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

Demand understandable intellectuals

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

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

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

So, carry on America, demand understandably intellectuals.

Upgrading Aristotle

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

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

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

The group as the real genius

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

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

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

Updating the Southern Agrarians

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

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

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

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

Future Order, Progress, and Evolution

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

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

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

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

The death of group-morality

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

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

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

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

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

The Precedence of the Founders and Ethnopluralism

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

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

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

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

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

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Radicalism versus Reform

Serious reformers don't wish to weaken the struggle, as the radicals accuse them of doing, but they do usually wish to remove the radicalism from the struggle. The path of reform is the path of legality, the path of radicalism is often illegal and self-defeating.

The West has deteriorated so far that quick radical solutions are not deep enough or long-term enough, and they often hinder the solutions. There is so much to correct that endurance and patience are needed.

The rise out of degeneration may take several generations or more, since religion, philosophy, art, etc., all need reforming. No civilization ever lasted long without a religious foundation, and religion is largely lost in the West, and new and reformed religions take generations to establish.

For example, two deep reforms I advocate here are Theological Materialism in religious philosophy (material life evolving to supermaterial Godhood), and Ethnopluralism in political philosophy (grounded in group-selection as the primary unit of human selection), both of which could take generations to establish given our present indirect cultural Marxism (“It is forbidden to forbid” ), and rule by global corporations.

Saving religion and philosophy from abstract principles

God is only an abstract principle in most religions, and Being is only an abstract principle in philosophy. When this is more or less realized, people often become atheists or postmodern Nietzscheans.

But God, or more precisely Godhood, can be retained when Godhood is understood to be a living supreme object, or objects, which we can evolve to in the material and supermaterial world.

The Twofold Path retains the old abstract inward God or Father, which is transformed in the outward path to Godhood attained through evolution.

The Inward God is sought by way of the ascetic denial of human desires and is seen here as the symbolic experience, often blissful, of real Godhood reached through evolution.

Central values and morality are transformed to outward evolution rather than toward the inward denial of instinctive drives. This can save both religion and philosophy from mere abstract principles.

Science can this way enter the province of religion and be guided by the goals of religion and philosophy rather than by amoral technological progress.

What was the goal set by the program of creation at the beginning of the cosmos? I believe the activating goal---defined here as the Activation To Godhood, or the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood---is for life to evolve in the material and supermaterial world to Godhood.

Various early and later religious and scientific myths have developed sometimes beautiful attempts to portray the creation and goals, or lately non-goals, of the cosmos. The more intelligent we can become the greater will be our understanding in pursuing the sacred evolutionary goal toward Godhood.

Gay marriage?!

If traditional marriage, reproduction, and family are the foundation from which all cultures have grown, what kind of foundation for culture does gay marriage bring? Ask the Postmodernists. Their belief in no-belief, other than the belief in no-belief, and their belief in no fundamental human nature, no absolutes, stunningly includes not believing in the vital foundation of human reproduction which naturally cannot happen in gay marriages.  With gay marriage now made legal by the highest court in the land, the Postmodern intellectual leadership have sunk us even deeper into their degeneration... This won't last, real human nature, real reproduction and survival always rises, even if a nation falls first...Our slow decline has sped up.

The origin of ethnopluralism in the material activation to Godhood

The morality of religion and philosophy have been mostly organized from within in the desire-free value of attaining truth or reality, or the God or Father Within, which was a symbolic experience of the real Godhood attained in the Outward Path of material and supermaterial evolution. The Twofold Path retains but transforms the restraining goal of the Inward Path to the evolving goal of the Outward Path.

In evolving toward this sacred goal of Godhood, human communities and groups, usually arranged as ethnic groups, can do more for individuals than individuals can alone, which is the origin of altruism, vital interest in the genetic and cultural welfare of others. And so over the course of evolution group-selection became the central unit of selection, and this behavior became the basic orientation of human nature and evolution, which we still retain within us today.

The point made here is that harmony in political philosophy and culture in general works better when humans arrange themselves in an ethnopluralism of ethnostates, which corresponds best to human nature. That is, ethnic regions and states, usually protected by some kind of federalism. This allows real human nature to function best, each in his own way, with the separation needed for variety in evolution, along with the deeper goal of long term material evolution to Godhood.

Time and again throughout human history empires have broken down into ethnostates and ethnopluralism due mainly to the real human nature mentioned above. So the action proposed here is to consciously and rationally move toward ethnopluralism, but do so legally, conservatively, keeping traditions even as we transform them. For example, the U.S. Constitution separates powers and states which could accommodate a future ethnopluralism, thereby seeking to avoid civil disruptions and even civil war between increasingly contending ethnic cultures.

The origin of ethnopluralism in the material activation to Godhood sanctifies the human behavior and political form which is essential to our survival and well-being, and our deeper evolution toward Godhood.

Goals and sub-goals in deep conservatism

“Conservatism” has goals and sub-goals and I think this requires an evolutionary conservatism, a deep conservatism in view of the final goals here defined as as material evolution to supermaterial Godhood. This also applies to politics, religion and philosophy, where traditions can be maintained, as in conservatism, but transformed, as in theological materialism.

For example, I think the U.S. Constitution could accommodate ethnopluralism, with regions and states for distinct ethnic cultures, grounded in the tradition of the separation of powers and states, which could help the increasingly feuding ethnic groups in America, and the unending legal and illegal immigration into America, and do so in a realistic way that does not counter real human nature, which remains group-selecting.

Deep conservatism could also apply the Inward Path of traditional religion which is designed to reach the symbolic experience of the God or Father Within and retain but transform it into the Outward Path of material and supermaterial evolution to real Godhood.

This helps define a deeper conservatism with final theological goals and sub-goals. The more we know the better we can adjust the sub-goals to the goals. Human genetic and environmental improvements can improve our decision-making---it is not only artificial intelligence that requires enhancement.

What Can Mediate Modern Life?

Religion no longer mediates much of modern life, philosophy doesn't, science doesn't (other than a sort of technocracy), and politics doesn't, not in meaningful ways. What seems to lead us now, as Pierre Manent pointed out (Modern Age, Winter 2015), is conquest through expansion of the human commercial empire and the claim that it “lifts all boats.” That is how we try to relieve the tensions and mediate between everyone, rich, poor, different ethnic groups, nations, etc, this is our modern “universalism.” This has left modern man, individuals and nations, without much deeper meaning and direction.

The proposed form here of mediation or “political science,” between “what we are and what we do,” is the following: We start with the universal activation of life to survive, we include universal human nature as being essentially group-selecting, then following real human nature we separate ourselves politically and culturally into a natural ethnopluralism of ethnostates, protected by some form of federalism---which can be accommodated by many conservative traditions, then we mediate our biological and cultural evolution with the evolutionary and sociobiological sciences, and finally more deeply we mediate with the religious philosophy of theological materialism, which specifies that material life is universally evolving to supermaterial Godhood, with starts and stops along the way, and we consciously, religiously, philosophically, scientifically, politically and culturally help that sacred evolution along.

Final goals at the activation of creation

Supposedly at the primordial creation a goal-system of life was present. Some think there are no such goals, but it seems to me that the definition of life itself suggests that life requires at least the goal of living and surviving.

I think the zenith or final goal of evolving life is for life to evolve materially and then supermaterially to Godhood, which is the greatest survival, and I think this goal was there from the primordial creation of life, even if life has been created many times over in many cosmos.

To reach the final goals of life it would seem that the more intelligent we are---which might include beauty, truth and goodness---the better we will see and reach the final goal, and so these traits and values could be consciously pursued in consciously helping to direct evolution.

Final goals in this sense might be said to constitute a key aspect of survival, and have been present with the activation of life in the first place, and present as the activation within life, called here the material/supermaterial Spirit-Will-To-Godhood.

The method we use to deal with change is the central political question

Culture and politics need to be compatible with human nature or we end up getting nowhere. Prior to the central question of political change the question is: what is human nature?

As Paul Lewis pointed out (Modern Age, Winter 2015), Edmund Burke's rising Whig bourgeoisie could have created a revolution against English feudalism if England had not already gone through centuries of change, such as the so-called “Glorious Revolution” against the Stuart kings, which brought about more press freedom, annual sessions of Parliament, and a more limited monarchy---although the “revolution” also included some violent change as well.

Those who think America was not class conscious because we had no feudal past don't define the Civil War as a northern bourgeoisie revolution against a feudal South, which it was in many ways. Now we have seen the rise of another feudal-like system, global capitalism, with the one percent controlling more and more of the wealth and the people becoming more like serfs.

So we can anticipate revolution against the one percent, as well as disruptions, civil disorder, and even revolution resulting from multiculturalism and contending ethnic groups, which is increasingly seen. And here is where the method dealing with change becomes vital. I think we need a combination of conservatism, modern liberalism, and the evolutionary science of human nature, a combination of Burke, Thomas Paine and Edward O. Wilson.

Contrary to Burke, human nature is not a “mere abstraction,” human nature is the state of nature that preceded the creation of culture. But contrary to Paine, human nature is also much influenced by the environment, social groups, habits and traditions, which depend on the time and the place. It is true that abstract ideas have often led to radical revolution, but social traditions have often led to stagnation. So, again, how political philosophy deals with change is vital.

I believe human nature is now defined by the evolutionary sciences more accurately than ever before as including kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If culture or political philosophy proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.

I believe this view of human nature leads to the ethnopluralism hypothesis, and so I think we need to apply the best methods to deal with the changes needed to establish ethnopluralism. Will it be revolutionary or conservative change? As mentioned above, I think a combination of conservatism and modern liberalism grounded in the evolutionary science of human nature—a combination of Burke, Paine and Wilson---is the way to change.

In the United States the separation of powers and states seen in the original Constitution could legally lead to an ethnopluralism of regions and states with ethnic cultures, protected by a light federalism. I think this might better avoid radical revolution against the new feudalism of the global one percent, as well as avoiding civil disorder and revolution from multiculturalism, with contending ethnic groups, which is increasingly seen.

With a deep conservatism, I would hope that the religious foundation required by any long lasting civilization would, gradually, change toward the philosophy of theological materialism, which retains but transforms past religion, as we all evolve materially in our own ways toward supermaterial Godhood.

How Franzen's “Freedom” was almost a great novel

I finally read Jonathan Franzen's long novel “Freedom,” five years after it was published. I don't read many modern novels because I usually find them intellectually arrogant, merely pornographic, and always modern-liberal.

Franzen is of course a modern-liberal but he is also a literary genius, and because he is a genius he very effectively holds his mirror up to modern liberalism, that is, environmentalism, overpopulation, sustainable agriculture, and so on, and so on, which are important, but massive government programs are not the way to resolve these issues---to his credit Franzen does ridicule neoconservativism.

But Franzen's beautiful mirror of nature leads to becoming unintentionally a striking condemnation of the wasteland of modern-liberalism with no way out other than individualistic love between lost people. Love is of course important but divorced from a larger religious sensibility it can become sterile. Religion has had answers to what purpose we are born, although I think traditional religion limits life's purposes to experiencing the ascetic Inward Path to the God or Father Within, which secondarily points to Franzen's love as the answer, and that is not enough.

The universe is orderly and meaningful, material life evolves to supermaterial Godhood, with starts and stops along the way, which is the real purpose of life and religion. Art and religion can both affirm this meaning and purpose. The material and the supermaterial are as one. To change T.S. Eliot, this is not a dead land, this is not a cactus land, only the Inward Path requires the blocking of all material desires to experience the God Within. Art can affirm the sacred Outward Path with evolutionary realism, as life evolves toward outward Godhood.

So for those reasons I think the novel was “almost” a great novel. I could have defined it as great if Franzen had retained his genius paean to modern-liberalism but then at the end, with the denouement, his characters had discovered paleoconservatism, or better yet, affirmed the ethnopluralism hypothesis as the way out of the devastation of modern liberalism. And deeper than that would be an affirmation of theological materialism for the lost world of modern philosophy. But then it might not have found a publisher.

Fate and Nature's Evolution

“Fate is decreed, no one can escape it, not even a God.” (Herodotus)

“Necessity” as the way of nature's evolution might help explain “fate” in ancient Greece. Evolutionary “justice” in nature is not always the same as human justice, and this is where justice might seek harmony with nature's evolution. In this sense, Charles Darwin and E.O.Wilson could be thought of as our evolutionary “oracles.”

Fulfilling what appears to be the largely determined fate of nature's evolution seems to be the overarching challenge, but how to discern nature's evolution and nature's justice and then apply it to human justice is the epic question.

Meanwhile, we often act as if we are free when we don't know our fate in nature's evolution. But then animal's fulfill their fates in nature even though they are totally ignorant of their fates. We can apply science to try to figure out any determinism in nature, but we can also apply intuition and even revelation (oracles to the Greeks). Rationality might even have to bring itself in line with nature's evolution.

The fundamental pattern perceived in the fate of nature's evolution as seen in theological materialism, written about here, is the largely determined evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood. Humans are at least partially free to choose between several determined paths. Ronald Osborn (Modern Age, Winter 2015) thought that localized political freedom was applied by the Ancient Greeks but it could not release them from the underlying fate of their Gods.

Osborn suggests why obedience to the rule of Law by the Greeks was superior to obedience to the absolute monarchy of the Persians: “the law bids them always the same thing” whereas the monarch can be capricious and unpredictable. This had profound consequences for future politics and the social order in the West.

 

The old Norse suggested a way out of fate through great courage or great love---“Courage at the edge of the Abyss”---which is interesting coming from one of the gloomiest ancient religions regarding the certain fate of man and the world.

The definition of the object is secondary to the object itself

Does the sacredness of the living object elevate the physical over the mental? What it seems to do is place the definition of the object, by word or mathematics, as secondary to the object itself.

We have been defining and than worshiping the definition since before Plato, and not worshiping the living sacred supreme object, or supreme objects of life, which we can materially and supermaterially evolve to become, culminating in real Godhood. This is the legitimate transvaluation needed, not the death of God, which was the transvaluation Nietzsche desired.

Definitions and symbols are of course important, in their place, but religion, philosophy, and culture, need to be liberated from worship of the definition.

The American Founders and Sociobiology

I agree with Robert Kraynak that each generation needs to rediscover the American Founders. Here is how I do it.

I prefer the term ordered evolution to “ordered liberty,” based on the observed patterns of natural phenomena leading to natural law. After centuries of study human nature can now be seen as kin-centered, gender defined, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other mostly traditional things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. And due mainly to basic human nature, America has become a melting pot which did not melt, and we are left with Native Americans, Afro-Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, European Americans, and so on.

Deeper than this I believe that natural law also contains the material and supermaterial activation of life to materially evolve toward Godhood, which was first only symbolically experienced as the Father or God Within in the Inward Path of traditional religions. Ordered evolution mirrors this sacred goal more clearly than ordered liberty. Freedom is not the hyper-individualism of libertarianism, and not the state empowering (supposedly) people with a powerful centralized state.

The Founders wanted limited government with a separation of powers and states protected in their independence by federalism. This separation of powers and states can fit with having ethnic cultures living in virtual ethnostates and regions with an ordered ethnopluralism, protected by federalism. This can be done slowly---we might even have regions that want to try to remain multicultural in one territory.

The Founders did not support global imperialism even while thinking that America could remain a great power. Economic nationalism fits this best, with tariffs on foreign goods and with the protection of American manufacturing, which is now nearly lost to the enrichment of a global few, very few.

As to the cultural wars, “enlightened traditionalism” (Kraynak) fits with the biological origin of much of social behavior as discovered since the time of the Enlightenment, which has even affirmed human nature as perpetuating the traditional values, as mentioned above.

The balance to get right is the freedom to evolve in accord with human nature and natural law, which I think leads to ethnopluralism, while accommodating the rediscovery of the Founders ideas of America and their vision of limited government and the separation of powers and states. Rediscovering and transforming the ideas of the Founders into a workable ethnopluralism would cause far less human suffering than waiting for human nature to explode and split America apart in civil war, or in being overcome by a foreign power.

Why we may want to anthropomorphize artificial super-intelligence

Anthropomorphizing artificial super-intelligence may keep it from controlling us. The challenge is to not let human intelligence slow down creative artificial super-intelligence without creating a monster.

As Nick Bostrom put it, there would be a huge difference between artificial super-intelligence with an IQ of, say, 6,455, and a human with a 130 IQ. It would probably be impossible for humans to predict what a 6,455 IQ might do. That is why we have to be on guard. The same unpredictability might happen with the appearance of an alien extraterrestrial intelligence.

Bostrum asks, what if the super-intelligence decides to pave the world with solar panels to serve its own energy needs? Indeed. A super-intelligence might be programmed to seek Nietzschean power only.  I think power, happiness, even survival are secondary drives to the primary goal of life evolving toward Godhood. Artificial super-intelligence does not have that ancient sacred life activation, which is defined here as the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood---science has not even as yet recognized it.

It would be far better to have artificial super-intelligence working with life as an aid in our evolution. It often seems that the futurist's want to replace life with artificial super-intelligence, they seem to applaud this, which is really anti-life, unless they controlled it for themselves. That might bring that old overbearing imperial dictatorship again.

Religion and Ethnopluralism

This morning on the news when police moved in at a hip-hop concert to stop black lawbreakers, one man cried “You treat us like animals!” I suppose if a police chief said: "When you break the law you act like animals,” that would only cause another riot. But what can be done about the increasing racial unrest we are seeing?

“Multicultural” societies are inefficient in creating uniformity of purpose in the members of a large motley group. Ethnic cultures share many of the same traits and have better social coordination, which is why ethnic groups tend to live near one another even in multicultural societies. Sure there are arguments and even fights but ethnic societies are far more coordinated than multicultural societies.

I think since we already tend to naturally separate ourselves, we should do this formally, with a real ethnopluralism, that is, small ethnostates and regions, which in America could be legally accommodated by the separation of powers and states in the U.S. Constitution. This is the most realistic chance we have of all getting along together.

The task of preserving order and tradition should be the mission of conservatives, but multiculturalism goes largely unopposed by conservatives, perhaps mainly do to the non-material equality of souls as seen in the Christian Inward Path. This has caused some realists to reject religion, or to go back to a partially revived paganism.

Science and the arts, and modern or postmodern philosophy, mainly fathered by Nietzsche, have not offered a living alternative to religion. All civilizations were founded in religion and decline when religion declines, which we are now increasingly seeing in the West.

Theological materialism and the Twofold Path can salvage religion, the basic elements and symbols of religion are reborn and transformed. Inherent non-materialism has caused religion to be unequipped to deal with real life over the long term. This can be overcome in the biological and superbiological evolution to real Godhood as affirmed in the Outward Path of theological materialism, which was only symbolically experienced as the Father Within of  the Inward Path.

Evolution can then continue in a more orderly way as each ethnic culture is affirmed in its own way, in its own space. It is time to at least start thinking of this.

How to detect if you're conservative

When I read a Victorian novel and a modern novel at the same time it's always a relief to come back to the Victorian novel. It seems that modern novels are usually culturally chaotic, whereas Victorian novels are orderly. I'm not here speaking about looking for order, I'm looking to be entertained or perhaps to learn something. Still the Victorian novel is a relief after the modern novel. I'm talking here about feelings before thoughts.

Not to complicate this too much, but it seems that often our behavior, the roles we play, are designed for some artificial social or political objective, rather than living---or reading in this case---with authenticity. Since I believe group-selection is instinctively the primary unit of selection this suggest an instinctive human social and moral order. I wonder if hyperindivualistic modern liberals have this feeling of preferring order but are ignoring it, do to the imbibed a-morality of modern culture, or are they unaware of this feeling for order? Then again maybe I've inauthentically imbibed the role of conservatism, but I don't think so, I didn't arrive at my version of conservatism through the usual channels.

Allowing Ethnocentrism

The above title will seem outrageous to many people, but the way to combat racism is to allow it. Being against racism certainly has not stopped it. The solutions of both the liberals and conservatives have been mistaken: conservatives tend to deny racism and liberals want to outlaw it.

Modern western culture has created a vast field of ruin, to use a phrase of Nietzsche's. There has been an attempt to escape real human nature with hyperindivualism and solipsism, leading to self-indulgence, greed, sensual excess, addiction, and so on.

The day will one day come when one is not called a bigot for admitting ethnocentrism, because real human nature does eventually rise. According to the honest (and courageous) wing of the sociobiological sciences, human nature remains 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. Human nature does not really atrophy but it can be shoved underground in society by fostering other emotional values.

This means that ethnopluralism with small ethnostates is the realistic way to create social and cultural order, protected by some sort of federalism---we cannot rely on our own virtues alone. The U. S Constitution could even legally affirm ethnopluralism in view of the separation of powers and states. Like school children fighting in the schoolyard, the way to create peace and order is to separate them, give them their own space.

And finally, the highest values are not merely preservation (survival) or enhancement (power), contrary to Nietzsche. Values are defined by evolution, ongoing material and supermaterial evolution toward Godhood, with Godhood reaching the highest value. Survival and power are secondary to this evolutionary valuation. Eventually we are evolving beyond our present ethnic groups.

The Aesthetics of How We Know

I don't reject the empirical way of knowledge or reject epistemology, but I give intellectual intuition, as seen in aesthetics and in religion, a central role. The human empirical restrictions or disciplines can come later to affirm what intellectual intuition finds.

I say “human” ways of thought because humans do seem confined to the limitations of their own minds, but I don't believe we are trapped there, as Kant thought, unable to find real truth or find the thing-in-itself. Like the latest “speculative realists” I don't see “epistemology having primacy over ontology,” as Steven Shaviro put it.

Epistemology can trap us in the human process, whereas the cosmos has more than the human process working. There are things in the world outside of the human perception of them. But we can think or intuit that all living things share an activating Spirit-Will-To-Godhood residing materially or supermaterially within life, which humans can grasp intuitively, and which other things or objects in the world may or may not grasp. There is, or was, even such a thing as intuitionist mathematics which relies on intuitive more than discursive reasoning.

We can grasp reality in nature because we are part of nature even if we are not the whole of nature. We are evolving along with nature toward Godhood. And this is not defined as philosophical idealism or spiritualism, the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood is a material or supermaterial activation and dependent on evolution.

This also does not reject traditional religion, it transforms the Inward God, or the Father Within, from only the inward symbolic experience of Godhood, to the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood within the cosmos. The beauty of real conservatism, or deep conservatism as I call it, is that it finely modifies past tradition but does not reject it. For example, we can arrive at the orthodox view of beauty, which is not merely in the eye of the beholder, and truth is not beyond the grounded values and morality of our material and supermaterial evolution toward Godhood.

We can intellectually intuit the activating forces within the life we are living, and we do that the way the artist uses intuition as the medium of knowledge, or the way the religious seer uses intellectual intuition as the criterion for awareness of reality, goodness, truth and beauty. This is the way the activating Spirit-Will is seen or understood. After this aesthetic and religious intuitive medium we can apply the more humanly restricted forms of empirical knowledge.

The post-moderns have trapped themselves in Kant's blockade of human knowledge, which has caused them to embrace nihilism as truth. The intellectual intuition affirmed here, and in theological materialism, allows us to break out of the Great Spiritual Blockade so that we may continue, consciously this time, evolving materially and supermaterially toward Godhood. This leads to the foundational values and morals of our lives... This helps explain the aesthetics of how we know.

Bruce Jenner's repugnant attempt to change himself from a man to a woman

To see the entire national media applauding former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner's repugnant attempt to change himself from a man to a woman suggests that it won't be long before describing sexual perversions as “pathology” in the United States will send you to jail, which is now done in some European countries.

I have never given much attention to the Kardashians, not because they are debauched, but because they are boring and unoriginal. But now I understand how ill-fated it was for the Kardashian children to have had a father (and stepfather) who was so pathologically ill that he did not care what they did or who they did it with. The national media and the academic world probably can't believe how lucky they are to have found another way to defile and emasculate white males.

Well, real human nature, which sociobiologically remains 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, always rises to cultural power and puts these kind of deviations back in the closet in order to save itself.

Ethnopluralism shores up the weakness in two systems

In an essay in “Chronicles” a while back Andrei Navrozov speculated on the differences between the West and East as between Western “civilization” and Eastern “militarization.” Militarization is collective, external, sacrificial, civilization is individual, inward, pleasure-oriented.

Some general once said that a good leader never walks past a mistake or it will come back to hurt you later. It seems to me we need both the advantages of group-altruism and the creativity of individualism to shore up the weakness in both systems---but we need to add ethnopluralism to any long-term solution. Ethnopluralism can offer both group-selection and creative civilization in their most natural state.

Can this be done? The task of ethnopluralism in the West is to liberate the culture from the sorcery of cultural Marxism which defines political correctness---it is a lie which has covered up control by an imperialistic few.

Given the security implications of government forms, I consider this to be a security issue. Ethnopluralism can save America from eventual chaos and disorder. According to real human nature, people naturally prefer their own kind, living in their own territories. I am an American patriot, the U.S Constitution could accommodate ethnopluralism with its natural separation of powers and states, which tends to happen anyway following civil disruptions or war. But I certainly advocate doing things legally.

If other nations East or West see the wisdom of ethnopluralism, so much the better for them.