How progress need not be a dirty word

The centralization of state capitalism and state socialism are both unhealthy. The redistribution of wealth and the lifting of all boats is not real progress since they lead to the mess the West has made of its civilization, with its progress-as-consumption propagandized by the global capitalists. However, the answer to the ideology of progress-as-consumption is not to reject progress but to accept the steady biological evolution of man toward Godhood. That is progress affirmed by nature itself. So why doesn't the left and right accept this evolutionary view of progress? It seems mainly do the religious interpretation of flawed and fallen man---at least with conservatives.

I believe the traditional religious view of fallen man is a misinterpretation that exclusively features the God or Father Within rather than Godhood Without which is reached by material and supermaterial evolution. Experiencing the God Within has required the blocking or cessation of all material desires, as the religious founders instructed, and blocking material desires is not exactly life-affirming---it might even be considered hedonistic since experiencing the God Within exclusively in the Inward Path, without the Outward Path, can be individually blissful. The inward view also led to the idea of equality since material things were not considered important, and even sinful.

Godhood needs to be reinterpreted as the traditional Inward Path of asceticism transformed and realized in the Outward Path of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood. Both paths can be conservatively retained in the Twofold Path.

We can also retain “free enterprise,” which initially led to the highest standard of general living in human history, but our “standard of living” can now include steady progress in biological human evolution---eventually even beyond the earth---toward Godhood. This is how progress need not be a dirty word. Let our progress be voluntary, even as our biological evolution becomes our sacred foundation. Great civilizations need a sacred religious foundation, and with this reform, religion can be saved, while real progress can be continued.

The Constitution could accommodate the saving grace of ethnopluralism, without secession

There are some who worry that ethnic hostilities, unchecked immigration etc. within the United States will eventually cause the downfall of the nation, and they therefore call for the secession of states and regions, creating two or more countries. While I also see the coming ethnic civil disruptions, I  think that the legal separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution could accommodate ethnopluralism in a less radical and conservative way. We can keep the nation and Constitution intact but adapt it to our unassimilating ethnic cultures. Although this probably would not happen quickly, we can give power back to the states in accord with the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which expresses the principle of federalism as the foundation plan of the original Constitution---that is, the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution and remaining powers are reserved for the states or the people. It is fortunate that our Founding Fathers set up the separation of powers and states in the Constitution which could accommodate the saving grace of ethnopluralism---if we really wanted to do it, and have the wisdom to do so.

The conservative (and sometimes liberal ) movement of localism also affirms this natural legal separation. Here is a good  interview from July in the American Conservative magazine which shows how localism prospers even in a age of globalization: "A World of Cities" by Alan Crawford.

The Great Spiritual Blockade of Reality

Intellectuals often overlook or even block their emotions. Some of this could be an element of the genetic qualities of our brains, we may have overcompensated in the evolution of our minds over our bodies.

This helped lead to misunderstandings and false ideas which we see in religion and philosophy, where two modes of being, the phenomenal world of the senses, and the world of spirit were wrongly contrasted, where ideas and the spiritual were given priority over the material world.

Reason is a tool of the body not meant to block the instincts and emotions, but meant to help us understand and help direct the instinctive brain, which is far older and in many respects wiser than the rational brain. This is one of the main tasks of religion, science, and the humanities, to harmonize in a natural and realistic way the mind and body.

Contrary to Plato and many other thinkers the unreal world of spiritual forms and ideas get their reality from the real material world. Ideas are only copies of material or supermaterial objects, not the other way around. Mathematical formulas and definitions are only half truths without being first represented by real objects. Even the forces in quantum science are not non-material or spiritual, they are the secondary effect of material things (electrical?) which help create the quantum forces, although we still need to discover more of what they are and how they work.

The one “faith,” the main abstraction, allowed in this perspective is the instinctive and rational projection of the evolution of the material world to supermaterial Godhood. But even here it is the phenomenal world we are speaking of since supermaterial Godhood is grounded in the real world defined as the zenith of material evolution. This is not the same as the God of dualism, and not the same as the idea-God defined as not existing in the world of material phenomenon. This false duality in religion and philosophy can be brought back to realty in the religious philosophy of theological materialism.

The revealed religions center on an Inward God not an Outward God. The Inward God is the mirror image of the Outward God (opposite Plato) which can exist as a supreme supermaterial living object, evolved to in nature. Both Paths are contained within the Twofold Path of theological materialism. The Spirit-Will and Godhood are not immaterial entities, as they are in Aristotle, Aquinas and even Darwin.

Mind concepts exist as computational constructions in the brain and are not independent of the brain. The mind is the brain, as naturalism suggests, but the mind includes, at its zenith, the Spirit-Will-to-Godhood, but this is supermaterial and not immaterial. The Soul-Mind is where the mirror image of the outside God exists, and the Spirit-Will activates Soul, mind and body as its vehicle to evolve to Godhood. The Spirit-Will carries on through or within material reproduction, propagation, natural selection and outside evolution, potentially all the way to Godhood, which is the sacred goal of life.

Defining political configurations as collectivism versus individualism rather than right and left

Libertarianism would this way be defined as radical but not militant international individualism, and fascism would be militant but mainly national collectivism. Communism would be mainly a militant international collectivism.  With its “cooperative individualism” (Clinton Rossiter term) and its group morality, conservatism would be in the middle between collectivism and individualism but leaning toward individualism.

According to sociobiological studies, group-selection is the main unit of selection, and I therefore think we can combine ethnopluralism, or ethnic collectivism, with American conservatism, given that the separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution could accommodate regional ethnic states, protected by federalism.

Ethnopluralism calls for a sociobiologically affirmed conservatism, where group-selection is understood as the main unit of selection, taking into account cooperative individualism within the states, and a cooperative ethnopluralism protected by federalism within larger territories. We could then better avoid civil disruption within states and nations from competing ethnic cultures, which is virtually inevitable given that human nature remains group-selecting and even xenophobic. With ethnopluralism we could also better avoid selfish individualism and militant forms of collectivism.

It would probably only confuse things if we turned things around and defined collectivism as on the right, including both fascism and communism, and individualism on the left, including libertarianism, and a middle left-leaning conservatism. Ethnopluralism would be seen as between right collectivism and left individualism, with individualism understood as secondary to group-selection within natural ethnic states. But it's probably easier just to define political configurations as ranging between  collectivism and individualism rather than right versus left.

Plato's Error

Plato turned from the outside concerns of the pre-Socratics to the inside concerns of traditional religion, and that was a philosophical and theological error. “Know thy world” became “Know thyself.” This error continued the error of the old religions in turning away from the real world of the phenomenal senses toward the spiritual world of ideas. Plato essentially rejected the reality of the real world as surely as Nietzsche rejected the reality of the spiritual world. Saying that the Idea of things is more real than the object it defines was, frankly, ridiculous, but there it took root, in the first university of Europe, and it remains in the universities and seminaries of the world.

Plato should have transformed the inward path rather than essentially rejecting the outward path. And Nietzsche should not have rejected the inward path but transformed it in the outward path. After much ascetic discipline in blocking the desires of the instincts so as to see or experience the God or Father Within---whether called God, Logos or Reason---it remains a symbolic experience of the real Godhood which can be reached through material and supermaterial evolution. This understanding is seen in the Twofold Path of theological materialism, and it can help mend the many antagonism of “duality,” between matter and spirit, science and religion, and so on.

Authenticity and the Self

I define “authenticity” different than Heidegger and Sartre, who define the authentic self as the anxiety we feel when we acknowledge death, or define authenticity as the self-choices we make in a life of meaningless freedom.

I think we have to define the “self ” as fully as we can before we can define real authenticity. But even once we manage to define human nature this alone does not define the most “authentic” behavior.

Human nature is among other things, kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. These traits were developed over hundreds of thousand of years of evolution primarily to enhance success in survival and reproduction. But survival and reproduction are secondary to the sacred goal of survival and reproduction, and that goal is for life to evolve to Godhood.

The “lower-self” is the self of human nature, including ones personality. But life is activated from within by the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, which is the “middle-self.” Even the activating Spirit-Will is not defined as the complete self because it too seeks Godhood by activating life to evolve to Godhood, which is the “upper-self,” and the true self.

Human nature and the activating Spirit-Will within human nature are this way seen as the incomplete self with incomplete authenticity, and Godhood is seen as the complete self with complete authenticity. This is defined in theological materialism.

It is also important to define authenticity (although incomplete) as being what we are at any given time and at any given development, whether or not it is the lower, middle or upper self. As we grow and learn and evolve, this becomes part of what our authentic self is, which we should show at any given time with authenticity, even if it often takes courage. This gives proper respect to life as it is in time, without overbearing pride, arrogance, or hubris. Over much time and with much evolution we may actually become fully authentic and the true Self by attaining Godhood.

How did postmodernism dominate so quickly?

I continue to be amazed at how something as insane as postmodernism could dominate the academic world so quickly. The postmodern idea that everything is socially constructed (but not postmodernism?) is almost psychotic.

This has led to such bizarre things as transgenderism being promoted as natural, even if it requires years of extensive, painful and expensive surgery. It has also led to the overall destruction of standards of excellence in education with affirmative action, which overlooks the reality that we can't have both excellence and equality at the same time (as Clyde Wilson pointed out in Chronicles).

The only explanation that seems plausible to me for this freakish victory of postmodernism in the academic world is that the Nietzschean relativism and power philosophy of postmodernism was not successfully countered by the academic traditional conservative Christians, because they could not fully accept their best defense of the broadly biological origin of social behavior, taught by the scientific synthesis of sociobiology. Traditionalism could not affirm religion as essentially having been a better way to socially bond groups together for successful survival and reproduction. They could not see beyond their definition of God as being outside the world of power and material desires, and postmodernism won the academic war between Nietzsche and religion.

Readers of this blog know that the religious philosophy of theological materialism and the Twofold Path affirm the sociobiological perspective, which is seen in the evolution of the material world to supermaterial Godhood. The symbolic experience of the traditional Inward God is transformed into real Outward Godhood attained in material/supermaterial evolution. This counters both Nietzsche and postmodernism.

Can We Prevent Our Demise?

Watching the debate between the republican candidates for president last night was alarming given the demise of the West which we now face. Nothing was said about this great tragedy.

Srdja Trifkovic has predicted (Chronicles) that by the second half of this century there is a fifty/fifty chance Europe will be be no more, mainly due to the lack of immigration control. Can the United States prevent the same decline?

Those who benefit, at least in the short term, from unchecked immigration and the destruction of the West remain powerful. The question is how do we stop them?

I don't believe we can stop them by a revival of fascism or communism, although that may happen for a time in an attempt to create order out of disorder. The world is now too crowded with distinct, competing, ethnic cultures for a single dictatorship over all to be successful. Eventually human nature will reassert itself and break back up into a natural ethnopluralism.

Human nature takes its shape from the genes and from the reaction of genes to the environment, but the shape does not venture beyond the shape of the genes. There have been many cultural schemes which tried to go beyond the shape of human nature and they did not work and caused greater suffering.

Human nature 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.

This natural view of human nature strongly suggests that ethnopluralism is the best way to prevent the demise of the United States and the West, with ethnostates for distinct ethnic cultures, protected by some sort of federalism.

It is fortunate that our Founding Fathers set up a separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution which could accommodate---if we have the wisdom to do so---the saving grace of ethnopluralism.

It is a long road from here to there given the appalling presidential candidates we now have, right and left, but nothing is more important than preventing our demise. If we survive we can continue the sacred evolution of life toward Godhood.

Once again we must balance Apollo and Dionysus

It seems that the new (but perhaps older) northern god Apollo brought patriarchy to the old southern Furies of matriarchy in Ancient Greece, and this can perhaps be seen developing in the tragic dramas. Dionysus seems to have been part of that old matriarchal theology.

A more ordered rational Apollo superseded the more instinctive, emotional Dionysus---or call it a transformation, retaining the old in the new, which is the old dynamic of conservatism, rather than a radical or militant revolution.

Then Christianity came to the West and reformed (really blocked) Dionysian instincts, replacing the more instinctive “eye for an eye” of Judaism with the blocking of the desires of the flesh so as to experience the bliss of the mindful God or Father Within (not unlike Buddhism).

A new natural balancing was therefore required, because both the later Greeks (Socrates) and Christianity went too far in blocking the instincts of the old Dionysian Furies. But then Friedrich Nietzsche, in his final thinking, went too far and virtually killed Apollo in affirming Dionysus, rather than conservatively synthesizing or transforming emotional Dionysus into ordered Apollo.

So once again we must balance Apollo and Dionysus by transforming the Furies of Nietzsche and Dionysus into the ordered Apollonian evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood. Ordered evolution replaces the old conservative term "ordered liberty" in a deeper conservatism.  

This sacred evolution is the task of theological materialism and the Twofold Path, which can work with modern science. The Involutionary Inward Path to the God Within is transformed---and not rejected---in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood.

A Conservatism Beyond Carl Schmitt

I don't mount an attack against the Enlightenment or against pluralism, unlike most on the Right. And I don't see the political leader as being allowed to make dictatorial decisions, other than with temporary emergency powers, preserving the constitutional law and order---but that exception should never prove the rule. I think we can preserve the Constitution while retaining pluralism, or more precisely ethnopluralism, and not replace the constitution with some form of dictatorship.

Unlike Schmitt I think ethnopluralism can be seen as founded in the “primordial condition.” The primordial affirmation of ones own ethnic group and ethnic culture relates to primordial human nature and the human preference for ones own people, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. This need not overrule constitutional federalism and the separation of powers and states in the U.S. Constitution, indeed it affirms it. Our modern day crisis is more and more like the crisis of the Weimar republic which eventually led to militant revolution and dictatorship from the right (Hitlerism) and from the left (Leninism).

Unlike the far right and far left who seem to prefer dictatorships, and unlike most conservatives, I defend our Constitution and the separation of powers and states but I see our Constitution as affirming the ethnopluralist solution to our present and future civil and ethnic disruptions, without leading to the destruction of our Constitution and a dictatorship of the left or the right.

Unlike Schmitt I do not see a hopeless, endless, human battling that is solved only temporarily by dictatorships (see “Agonistic Politics,” Chronicles, July 2015). I see not agonistic politics but ethnopluralistic politics, with a federalism protecting states and regions with distinct ethnic cultures and ethnic people, which could be conservatively accommodated by the separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution.

What are the obstacles to ethnopluralism? The promotion of universalism on the left and dictatorship on the right. Both define their enemies as “absolute enemies,” leading to thinking of the enemy as non-human and even as vermin (now ISIS does this). Hitlerism, Leninism and even ultra-orthodox Judaism tend to consider the enemy as vermin and therefore they shatter the order of any natural ethnopluralism.

Last but not least, no great civilization rose or sustained itself without being founded in religion, and ethnopluralism can be founded in the theological materialism of the Twofold Path, which affirms the material evolution of ethnopluralistic life, to supermaterial Godhood.

How the Twofold Path Harmonizes Religion, Science, Evolution and Morality

When Ayn Rand has a character in one of her novels say that “thinking is man's only virtue” she cuts man off at the head, not unlike the way the ascetics (whom she hates) cut off the body and all material desires, but keep the head for experiencing the God or Father Within. In this way both reasoning science and feeling religion create incomplete humans.

I think that life created thinking as secondary to life and that life created thinking to advance itself, and for the same reason the desires of life were necessary for successful survival, reproduction and evolution. I believe ongoing evolution is man's primary activating drive and that the continued upward evolution of life is the essential, sacred, purpose or reason for successful survival and reproduction in the first place.

This means that which advances evolution is good and that which does not can be evil. The fact that evolution and devolution take place in the cosmos all the time does not mean that the two are relative regarding good and evil or that there can be no good and evil. Life does not have a legitimate choice in the matter---we deny reality, existence, and life itself if we say evolution and devolution are neither good or evil merely because they both always take place.

Human culture can reflect this activating drive of evolution and can be good or evil depending on whether we are evolving or devolving. When religion, philosophy or science deny or reject this primary activation of life and culture it may sever or terminate life, or can throw man into a goalless, meaningless, chaos. The most success in life, the most success in survival and in reproduction comes in reaching Godhood in evolution.

The Twofold Path in theological materialism harmonizes the mind and body, and religion and science, with the sacred goal of life evolving in the material world toward supermaterial Godhood. The traditional God or Father Within experienced in the Involutionary Inward Path is retained but transformed in the material evolution of real life to Godhood in the Evolutionary Outward Path.

Instinct, Emotion, and Reason

Emotions are also tools of the mind along with the cognitive tool of reason, but many thinkers virtually cut off emotions. Both emotions and reason are needed in finding the truth through a process of synthesizing them. To cut off emotions is to seek only half the truth. Intuition seems to come out of the zone of emotions, and intuitions can often be the first glimpse of creativity and truth.

The laws of causality in nature can be blocked or rejected by the emotionless hyper-rationalism of many thinkers in religion, philosophy and science, which is why they seek ideals and goals that have little to do with nature, or human nature, other than as the unconscious subterfuges of men.

Those who feature the mind in religion, philosophy and science often block the instincts. We are not computers, and this is why we should not be ruled by computers (or computer engineers) in forming our most important values. Emotions are validated by reason, but reason is still a tool of the instincts and emotions, just as computers are a tool, and not the other way around.

When the whole body is considered, then reason can be seen as more of an effect than a cause. Reason alone is a half-brain. The unconscious mind, intuition and emotion are more meta-rational or super-rational, and not really irrational.

This synthesizing of instincts, emotions and reason seems to be the process involved in seeing the material Spirit-Will within life activating material life to evolve to supermaterial Godhood, which is at the foundation of theological materialism.

The zenith of success in evolution and religion

Existence over consciousness, object over definition, that is the basis for describing being (ontology) in theological materialism, that is the procedure for acquiring and defining knowledge (epistemology), and hopefully truth.

This does not mean that consciousness and definition are unimportant, it means the object is more important than the definition of the object.

We acquire knowledge not by reason alone, but by intuition, innate ideas, and however. The Age of Enlightenment, the age of reason in the 18^th century was great, but it was great in the way a computer is great, computer reasoning is a tool and not the final arbitrator of all morality and the human condition.

Religion encountered error too much on the non-reason side, and science encountered error too much on the reason-side. We require both to find the truth.

Life developed intuition and reason to advance itself, not the other way around. But life did not develop these things only for the sake of successful survival and reproduction, important as they are. I believe it is the will to evolve to Godhood in nature that defines and activates the basis of existence, consciousness and causality---that is the zenith of success in evolution and religion.

Saving the West

I understand that the moral and artistic world of the West depended on Christianity, but it was a Christianity infused or transformed by pagan philosophers like Plato and Aristotle through the work of great thinkers like Thomas Aquinas. The loss of Christianity, has taken place along with the loss of Western culture because the two are interconnected. Theological materialism is the next way of infusing and transforming Christianity (and even Eastern religions) to help save the West. Conservatism conserves by renewing traditional ways.

The wide expanse between the spiritual and the material which Aquinas and others tried to harmonize while retaining the basic duality, is finally closed in theological materialism. The duality which has continued between religion and science can also this way be closed. We evolve in the material world to the supermaterial world of Godhood by way of evolution in the Evolutionary Outward Path. Traditional religion saw or experienced God or the Father-Within internally in the Involutionary Inward Path only by ridding the body of all material desires. In theological materialism the Inward Path is transformed in the Outward Path by affirming material evolution toward supermaterial Godhood.

This transformation comes not as some modern physicists have attempted to save religion by turning the quantum world into the spiritual world, but by the opposite, by seeing the spiritual world as the supermaterial world. One day a new theory will reveal the deeper material reality behind the subatomic world. Quantum mechanics is a form of materialism yet to be defined. Some form of matter is all, even beneath energy and the quantum world. Perhaps this relationship of small to big can be better explained as some electric force working within materialism.

The material world need no longer be reluctantly affirmed, or rationalized, because the material world is evolving to the supermaterial world of Godhood. This sacred evolution requires real material political structures, such as ethnopluralism, which consciously affirms and saves distinctive ethnic cultures in protected ethnostates, in accord with real human nature, which remains ethnocentric and group-selecting, as we all evolve toward Godhood.  Western civilization can this way be saved.

How To Deal With The New Dark Age Upon Us

First we have to acknowledge that we are entering a new Dark Age, as the migrant conquest-through-immigration of Europe and the United States continues, unstopped by the ruling class, who don't want to stop it. Once we acknowledge that Western civilization is disappearing then we may be able to move beyond hopelessly trying to revive ourselves with unworkable ideologies, such as a universal borderless world controlled by bankers and global capitalists, or ruled by communist and fascist dictators.

Our best conservative thinkers have acknowledged the Dark Age upon us, but their plan seems to be to drop out, hunker down, and teach the old ways to their children. But there is one political hope left and that is to work toward the natural separation of ethnopluralism, and this means a return to real human nature, which remains ethnocentric and group-selecting. Ethnopluralism could be accommodated by the separation of powers and states wisely projected in the U. S. Constitution. All forms of imperialism, whether banking, communist, or fascist, have always ended up breaking back down into natural ethnostates in any case. Ethnopluralism is the most practical, conservative, and civilized way to live in our now overpopulated world of naturally contending cultures... The West need not be over yet, or the rest of the world.

Even Paleoconservatives Believe America Is Lost, But it Need Not Be

Paleoconservatives are now predicting the cultural cleansing (Clyde Wilson term) of traditional America, along with its demographic destruction. What bothers me is that they seem to have no real answer to the destruction.

The solution is not more marauding, more neoconservative, free trade and global capitalism, and not imperial Marxism or one-race fascism, the solution is to now interpret ethnopluralism as possible within the separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution, protected by federalism.

We are increasingly facing civil disruptions and even civil war between contending cultures in America, which is only natural since real human nature is ethnocentric and group-selecting. What could be keeping conservatives from moving toward this next saving step of ethnopluralism? I fear that one of the deeper reasons is the traditional conservative concept of “original sin,” that is, the belief that humans are permanently flawed.

But even this can be understood in a conservative way by seeing that original sin derives from the ascetic Involutionary Inward Path designed to experience the God or Father Within, which requires blocking material desires and defining material desires as sinful. But this does not account for the Evolutionary Outward Path.

The Evolutionary Outward Path of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood requires evolving material life. This is the Twofold Path which conservatively retains but transforms the Inward Path to the Outward Path. Alas, this theological materialism seems to be too much for conservatives to absorb at this time.

Even so, ethnopluralism is worth promoting, even by those who believe in original sin, since there seems to be no other realistic or conservative way that is in harmony with real human nature to save America---and the West.

What does the return to normal mean?

My guess is that about 50 percent of the human cognitive and emotional function is inherited, that is genetically determined, and 50 percent is learned through nurture and the culture. We are not born tabula rasa, with blank emotions and a blank mind. 

I define human nature the way some sociobiologists define human nature, that is, human nature includes kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, and with group-selection as the main unit of selection.

If a culture proposes to not include these elements of human nature, the culture does not last long and eventually returns 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, post-modernism, hedonistic modern liberalism, and marauding global capitalism.

So this suggests that we are existing under abnormal living conditions and even a time of emergency. If we wish to survive, yet alone prosper, we need to return to human nature and to the cultural conditions that reflect real human nature. It is as if the laws of causality have been blocked. 

The return to normal means the return to kin-centered and ethnic-centered cultures. But this return to normal need not mean radical revolution, or radical counter-revolution, because ethnopluralism, the 50-state and regional solution, can be accommodated by the separation of powers and states in the original U.S. Constitution, along with normal economic nationalism---protected internally and externally by a light federalism.

This could bring the return to normal human cognitive and emotional functioning, normal human nature, normal human cultural conditions, and normal human health. Who wouldn't want that?

Apparently those who benefit from the great lie.

Why the capitalist world is not wise about its own future

Supposedly the capitalist world cares primarily (often only) for making money, and now most of the capitalist world supports such modern liberal causes as gay marriage, border-freedom, tax-free exports/imports, no censorship, etc, etc, because these things are now supported by future customers between the ages of 18 and 34. But since these liberal causes do ultimately destroy the societies and nations which the capitalist world wants to do business with, one would think the concern with making money in the long-term would reject modern liberal causes and support a more long-term conservative order. But the hyper-individualist libertarian philosophy supports or rationalizes this short-term thinking.

So we can conclude that the capitalist world is short-term thinking and unwise about its own future. Individualism is important and can be very creative, but group-selection is and always has been the primary unit of human selection. Even the billionaire needs the group and a healthy nation to survive and prosper---certainly his descendants will in the long-term. “Duty” toward the people and the nation is directly related to group-selection, so it makes trans-valued sense that the libertarian Randians hate the concept of duty and worship selfish individualism. This is a major mistake which has led to the selfish, marauding, imperial sort of globalism we now see. The end-goal of successful survival for the group, including the individual, determines the means of duty and group-morality, which both Kant's duty-as-no-reward-thinking, and Ayn Rand's hyper-individualistic selfishness seem to have missed.

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.

Back soon

I've been gone due to a family illness.  Back as soon as possible.