The natural moral path to peace, in harmony with human nature

Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that human nature was pure, simple, peaceful and happy in its “natural”state, there was no original sin, and it was society that corrupted this peaceful human nature and therefore society needed to be destroyed or changed. This great error in defining human nature led to the French Revolution, Communism, and eventually to modern liberalism and political correctness or cultural Marxism, which is mainly where we stand today in the West.

The traditional religious view of human nature blamed the lower part of human nature for evil things, essentially due to original sin, which the higher part of human nature had not conquered with the Virtues designed to do so. Avarice, conflict , ethnocentrism, aggression, etc. must be universally conquered by the noble virtues. The good, the true and the beautiful need to be instilled in families and societies in order to conquer the lower part of human nature.

In the sociobiological view of human nature, which examines the biological origin of social behavior, which I affirm in a general way, human nature was evolved mainly in hunter-gatherer times and remains largely the same today. Human nature is universally 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. As you can see, there are traditional and conservative aspects to natural human nature, and it relates very little to Rousseau. But ethnocentrism and natural hierarchies within groups, for example, are not considered evil or the lower part of human nature, as both traditional religion and Rousseauians tend to define it.

This suggest that when we look for a “moral path to peace” as Claes Ryn termed it, (The American Conservative, December 2014), we need to harmonize sociobiologically defined human nature with our social and political structures. This advances some form of natural ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures, and protected in their near-independence by some form of federalism. I prefer the term ethnopluralism to cosmopolitanism because it more directly defines what cosmopolitanism requires if it wants a solid bonding foundation in human nature for international states and regions related to the primacy of group-selection. Altruism, the original creator of group values, was evolved within the particular groups and is far less a universal altruism. If the whole world is threatened then altruism is extended to the world, but the most natural conditions of altruism within human nature is designed for ones own group.

Cooperative competition between regions and states and ethnic cultures can be thought of as universal in its scope along with the longer term evolution of the whole human species with variety toward higher and better forms. In our crowded world, imperialism does not harmonize with the real human nature of group-selection, one ethnic group attempting to dominate all others destroys variety and natural borders, and never lasts for long, and so it is rightly universally condemned.

This is the natural moral path to peace, in harmony with human nature, and so it stands the best chance of being successful.

The synthesizing of theological materialism

Christianity began as an inward religion of ascetic and monastic denial of material desires in pursuit of the experience of the God or Father Within. Then gradually over time the natural activations of life were accommodated by the religion, reaching its epitome perhaps in the use of reason to define God, along with the ascetic experience, which allowed the church to grow among the population. This was in the conservative tradition of bringing the new (really old pagan philosophers like Aristotle) into old Christianity. The monastic ascetic life was only for the few, the virtues now defined in the religion balanced the material desires of living life with the needs of experiencing the God Within, and the Church became more socially influential. But growth was, frankly, based on the loss of the purity of following the Inward Path.

The religious philosophy of theological materialism does not have this contradiction between the inward and outward life, it does not have the antagonism between material and non-material life. The Inward God of Christ (and Buddha) is understood as the dawning religious experience of the real Outward Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution. The Inward God is transformed into the Outward Godhood reached at the zenith of evolution. The great historical schism between the material and spiritual, and between the scientific and religious worldviews is closed. In the Twofold Path science is openly embraced along with religion, the evolution of life toward Godhood is enhanced by such things as the science sociobiology and by genetics. A conservative ethos prevails in bringing the new into the old.

In theological materialism the Western world of material progress is supported against the great denials of the traditionalist schools mainly of the East. Their ascetic denials created a great spiritual blockade against the evolution of life to real Godhood. The Twofold Path, the Inward and Outward, are finally synthesized in theological materialism, which gives precedence to the material Outward Path of evolution to Godhood, while retaining the first knowledge of the spiritual Inward Path to the Father Within.

Exhuming biological motives

Humans have of course always been devious in hiding their motives, as the Machiavellian political philosophers have pointed out, but in modern times seeing only the superstructure and not the structure, seeing the tree and not the roots, has been the standard blindness of our cultural and social philosophies. The biological motives activating culture are buried or denied validity, and this causes big problems. Over-complicated political and social philosophies build their superstructures without considering the biological foundations, which is like the well-known story of building ones home upon sand where the slightest storm can topple it.

We should be able by now to face the mainly biological origin of our social behavior. The science of sociobiology desperately needs to be introduced into the Humanities departments. In every human culture ever studied, human nature included kin selection-preference, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, and group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If our cultures propose to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things. Many of these traits are neglected in our over-complicated political and social philosophies, and in post-modernism.

Human nature and our biological motivations fit best with some form of ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures to flourish. That is the uncomplicated biological truth buried and needing to be exhumed. The Machiavellian games we have been playing have harmed us more than helped us.

Adjusting paleoconservatism

I consider myself a paleoconservative, but I don't think we can return the nation to its former political-cultural ethos, although I think we can still affirm the Constitution and the separation of powers and states. We can retain federalism and representative rule but regions and states will need to be thought of as ethnic regions and ethnostates. That is, we will need to gradually affirm ethnopluralism, which harmonizes with real human nature and group selection as the primary unit of selection.

I see this as the only way to prevent continuing civil disturbances between the distinct ethnic groups and cultures which have enveloped the nation due to open borders, unchecked immigration, and modern liberal social policies. This is the way to deal with the increasing fragmentation and barbarization of our country, and the decline of the West. The way to harmonize with people’s natural preferences for their own kind and cultures is to let it flourish with ethnopluralism.

Otherwise, if we don't have a natural separation of people and powers, in order to prevent social disorder, peace will probably end up being maintained with some sort of military takeover, or autocracy, which is a short-term and unhealthy solution to social problems.

Cooperative competition is humanly possible, which is the civilized way to deal with differences. All ethnic groups, not just one, can be involved in our evolution, in healthy variety, as we all evolve toward higher species and eventually toward Godhood, which describes the basic religious worldview of human life for the future.

What is the disguised worldview behind the political satire of our popular comedians?

Watching an interview with Seth Rogan and Liz Winstead, at Harvard University of all places, I asked myself what is the disguised worldview behind the political satire of our popular comedians? It is not merely funny directionless negativity.

There are several layers. Political correctness has of course been loosely absorbed as their general education, that is, being careful never to offend any group of people in society who are believed to have a disadvantage. But beneath that superficial level of political correctness they promote pure hedonism, individual hedonism, group morality is attacked, traditional Western and Christian morality is mainly attacked. Black or Jewish culture is never or rarely satirized, it is championed---indeed, this is their will to power, all other cultures are attacked. Non-black and non-Jewish comedians, like Winstead, always follow this lead, even though they are attacking their own cultures.

This pro-Hedonism, pro-Jewish, pro-Black perspective is behind the political satire of the Daily Show and the Seth Rogan slob movies, if you can call attacks designed to fragment traditional Western culture a “worldview”---which is, as Andrei Navrozov called it, the barbarization of Western culture.

I don't find that very funny.

Techno-imperialism

The obsequious altruism of the techno-colonialists, like Zuckerberg and his Facebook cabal, trying to put every human on line, by telling us that the internet improves the economy, enhances education, leads to better health outcomes, etc., is no doubt true, but Facebook mainly wants to grow its revenue and make all people in the world into consumers and marketing targets, meanwhile promoting their libertarian versions of modern political correctness. It's almost enough to turn one into a Luddite.

The border-less world of techno-imperialism moves humanity away from real and basic human nature, which 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.

We need to contrast biological intelligence with artificial machine-intelligence, we are not forced to become cyborgs, or some combination of human/artificial intelligence, and we are not forced to accept non-biological artificial intelligence ruling over us, as the nerds tell us we must. Behind the attempted replacement of the traditional kind of heroes with techno-nerds, now being sold to us across the Media, is the disguised will to power of the nerds, and they are not heroic.

The growth of computers does not automatically mean that biological evolution will be superseded by technological evolution, computers are still autistically intelligent zombies, as someone defined them. It is healthier to affirm a bio-conservative position on bio-engineering and trans-human evolution as we evolve toward Godhood, while being only aided by machines and nerds, and not ruled by them.

How theological materialism harmonizes the fields

Theological materialism can sit at the center of the main disciplines of religion, science, philosophy, psychology, art, politics, and it can harmonize these fields.

In religion, Godhood is retained but the God or Father Within experienced in the Inward Path of traditional religions is transformed in the Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution to real Godhood. This in turn can bring theological materialism in line with science and philosophy, and with the science of evolution as studied in sociobiology and genetics, as we move toward higher stages of evolution toward Godhood.

Added to philosophical naturalism in science and philosophy, and its materialism, is the religious inward activating drive of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, which is also material or supermaterial activation, and is then shaped by outside selection and evolution. In psychology this activating force is seen almost as a Super-Id directing and defining essential life and its drive, which needs to be balanced with the rest of the mind, the body and the culture.

Art and political philosophy follow as an affirmation of the sacred evolution of life toward real material/supermaterial Godhood. Real culture is given conservative sociobiological validity. This means that human nature, affirmed throughout human history as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection, can most naturally harmonize with some form of ethnopluralism. That is, regions and states set aside for distinct ethnic cultures to flourish, protected with a federalism thereby helping to prevent the increasing civil disturbances between different ethnic groups unsuccessfully trying to live together in the same place. In the U.S., the Constitution could affirm this with its separation of powers and states.

This is how theological materialism can sit at the center of the main disciplines, harmonizing the continued cooperative evolution of all life toward Godhood.

I've been having eye problems. I'll be out for while, and back as soon as possible.

Both the subjective and the objective wrongly distance the object

(Worth repeating, from September 23, 2014)

 

I think subjectivism, the idea that all knowledge is subjective, or is individual feeling, and that there is no objective reality, helped lead to the distancing of the real living object from religion, philosophy, science and life itself. Concepts, definitions, forms became more important than the object defined, which was considered only relative to the viewer. Even God became merely a concept, a word, a form and not a real object.

But objectivism, the idea that objects do exist outside of the mind, and that subjective feelings are distortions, also distanced the real object from religion, philosophy, science and life itself. The formulas became more important than the object itself.

I see it differently, not as object versus subject, but as object versus the abstraction of the object, whether that abstraction is subjective or objective. This means that Godhood and Being in religion and philosophy can center on the real living object, the supreme object, or objects, of Godhood and Being and not merely on the abstractions and definitions of God. God became distant from the object even to the point of becoming non-material! Both subjectivism and objectivism led to this.

Perhaps in some ways primitive man had a better conception, or rather non-conception, of God than modern man. But when Godhood is understood as the goal of material and supermaterial evolution, than the object can take its proper place ahead of the definition of the object.

Posted by Kenneth Lloyd Anderson at 8:23 AM No comments: Links to this post

Police, the justice system, and minorities

Responsible Black leaders are not seen in the Media telling Blacks that the reason police are in their communities is because Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery. The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic. Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks, forty five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black, Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa. Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.

(From “The Color of Crime,” 2005, New Century Foundation)

The revival of science and religion together in our evolution

The exclusively spiritual and material-denying values of the Inward Path to the experience of the God or Father Within is the main reason for the long decline of Christian civilization since the height of the Middle Ages, in spite of valiant intellectual attempts to try to justify some value in non-monastic living.

The way of revival calls for the symbolic experience of the Inward Path God to be transformed into the Outward Path evolution of material and supermaterial life to real Godhood. In the Twofold Path the Involuntary Inward Path to the experience of the God Within is transformed into the Evolutionary Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution of life to real Godhood.

This also affirms the conservative evolutionary rather than revolutionary dynamic of bringing the new into the old, seen in both long lasting religion and science, and not destroying the old for an untried new, which rarely works or lasts long.

This can bring a revival of science and religion together, applying sociobiological knowledge and new genetic knowledge toward our evolution to higher consciousness, intelligence and noble behavior, on the heroic path toward Godhood in the cosmos. This is the vital upsurge of meaningful life needed and shared by all of us in a world of growing hedonism and nihilism, even if we are eventually and naturally separated into ethnostates.

In the process of our evolution, machine intelligence has the potential to evolve considerably faster than biological life can evolve, but this does not mean that we should abandon the sacred goal of biological life evolving to Godhood. This will bring a contention between advocates of machine enhancement and advocates of biological enhancement. Intelligent machines can serve slower evolving biological intelligence, but it would simply be suicide to be centered only on superintelligent machines. Some of our brightest minds have been intimidated by a devious political correctness into replacing biological evolution with machine evolution---courage here is needed---the sacred purpose of life depends on it.

Political correctness as insanity

Look through any college alumni quarterly, or attend any of their public ceremonies and you will be overwhelmed by gushing political correctness. It really is a new religion. They have no other religion.

Adherence to the politically correct form of cultural Marxism, continual reform toward absolute equality in all things, social, ethnic, economic, etc., with intolerance of not being tolerant of political correctness as the only intolerance allowed. This new religion is then broadcast throughout the popular media, dumbed down a bit.

Political correctness exceeds any ordinary, usual, or expected human behavior, which is one definition of insanity. Mental disorders are characterized by symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations that indicate impaired contact with reality.

This will change, because it has no resemblance to real human nature, which in every human culture ever studied included, among other things, kin selection-preferences, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, loyalism, ethnocentrism, and group selection as the main unit of selection. If the culture proposes to not include these basic elements of real human nature, the culture does not last long, and it will always return to these things.

The evolutionary process of defining the truth

I think we should include emotion and intuition in cognition to find the truth, and not merely logical mind-only dominance, which has usually ruled the sources of truth in religion, philosophy and science. William James suggested something like this.

Truth facilitates successful survival, but truth is not merely successful survival, nor is it merely Nietzsche's relativistic will to power, especially if ultimate success in survival and reproduction lead to the evolution of life to Godhood in the material/supermaterial world.

Then Godhood becomes the goal of truth as well as the highest success in survival. The goal of truth becomes the truth of Godhood, the living object, or objects, and not merely an idea or definition or logical formula, and not merely survival or power.

Revitalized religion and psychological therapy

Nietzsche pointed out that physiological confusion can lead to psychological error. This can apply to religious, philosophical and cultural error in general. How so?

Considering the material world evil and greatly inferior to the spiritual world---including the begrudging religious okays of material life under certain conditions, due to the fact that only non-attachment from material desires leads to the experience of the God or Father Within---this is a basic and very old physiological/psychological error, other than when applied in the Inward Path.

Considering ideas more important than living objects is a philosophical error. Considering all people as equal is a cultural error. These stem from the physiological/psychological error of demeaning the material world. It is not enough for psychological therapy to try to release the individual passions and instincts with no direction other than hedonistic freedom, or with demands of equality.

Evolutionary and teleological physiological/psychological/genetic goals exist, life is activated from within by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood and shaped from without by selection and evolution, and it is this that we need to harmonize with. We are instinctively evolving, almost as a Super-Id might activate us, toward higher species on the path to Godhood.

This is the physiological/psychological/religious/cultural way we can correct the errors. Revitalized religion and new psychological therapy can affirm this harmony, and this sacred dynamic, for all people.

Who has a problem with stereotypes?

I remember one of the Buckley's writing about preferring to socialize with anyone but the Germans. Other than playing to the anti-German media in the West, this suggests that we prefer to socialize with our own kind. I find this to be in harmony with real human nature, and there is nothing wrong with it.

Stereotyping says such things as: the Irish like both fun and sadness, the Scandinavians like stoicism, neither fun nor sadness, Germans are straight forward, Southern Europeans seek more indirect communication. Jews are thought of as money-grubbers. In warrior societies little lies can get the whole group killed, which might relate to the old truth-talking warrior mentality of Germanics.

I feel comfortable with the straight forward Scandinavians and Germans, but it can be fun to be entertained by the Irish. When I go further south into Africa I find that more direct instincts seem to rule, mannerisms mean as much or more than speech, which can be refreshing.

Variety is good, evolution counts on variety, and stereotypes are often generally accurate. Who has a problem with stereotypes? Perhaps we should look to who benefits from trying to rid the world of stereotypes?

Internationalists, globalists, and their fellow travelers benefit, at least in the short term, from a border-less world of sameness, which is why the internationalists block the idea of ethnic variety so strongly. When no differences and no stereotypes are allowed they can maintain more control, and they use the media to sell this sameness to the people, who are buying it.

But sameness never works for long, group-selection, ethnic preferences, always comes forward---as now seen in Ferguson Missouri---and we need to find ways, such as affirming the separations of ethnopluralism within regions and states, to accommodate it.

On the ethnic violence last night in Ferguson Missouri

It has taken many centuries to arrive at a sane and rational definition of real human nature, but alas, this long sought wisdom conflicts in many ways with long established religious, philosophical and modern social codes, which are widely promoted by the popular media and the academic world.

Real human nature, among other universal traits, is not only ethnocentric it is xenophobic, having become that way in hunter-gatherer times because it was vital to survival success, and this aspect of human nature remains very much with us today. 

Some time in the future people may see the folly and madness of trying to force distinctly different ethnic groups and ethnic cultures to live together in harmony and peace. But human beings may not be wise enough to rationally and consciously separate themselves into ethnic regions and states, with each region protected by some version of federalism, so the separations may come about as they have always come about in human history, through violence and secession.

It is a tragedy if we cannot, for example, conservatively apply the original U.S. Constitutional separation of powers and states to validate this ethnic return to real human nature and the best chance we have for realistic peace and harmony. 

Defending an always evolving aristocracy

It is usually not said that aristocracy does not depend on wealth or civilized taste alone but also on genetic qualities. Good genetic qualities lead to intelligence which in turn can lead to a financial aristocracy, but then education and civilization are required to make a real aristocracy.

Although I am more or less a populist on the right believing in localism, and the separation of powers, states, and people, I can't be against the inequality of wealth, the level of civilization, or genetic qualities, I am not a socialist or Marxist. But the genetic lag between people and cultures, which is one of the main causes of problems between people and cultures, can in fact be addressed with humane genetic and eugenic actions for all who desire it.

But the goal is not merely to develop a wealthy and civilized human evolving aristocracy, but to continue evolving on earth and out into the cosmos toward Godhood, which is defined as the highest material and supermaterial aristocracy, the highest beauty, truth, goodness, consciousness and intelligence. This evolution toward Godhood defines the sacred goal of life.

As to “heroes of the mind,” they need to be linked to the evolution of life, human life, and to the evolution of higher species on the path to Godhood. That is the first supposition of human history and the most worthy goal of religion, philosophy, art and politics. It all starts from this natural basis. Compare this goal to the consciousness, thoughts, and conceptions of modern intellectuals.

As I have suggested here before regarding high art, we drifted away from didactic and moral art as we became more literate, but as evolutionary psychologists have pointed out, story-telling had survival benefits in the Pleistocene, and it still does, when we relate beauty to real biological life, evolution, and religion. There is no need to use a hammer to didactically or morally inspire in art, past aristocracies have shown us that art is usually best when it is subtle. The idea of Godhood attained in future evolution has sacred artistic and religious value, but it also has survival and reproductive value. And great art has always affirmed the sacred.

A Deeper Realism

Raymond Cattell's best argument against war, at least for evolutionary ends, is that it is the quality rather than the size of the group that should be the basis for natural selection, whereas in war, size has counted. In another sense of this idea, special forces now prove this point about quality over quantity in the fourth generation warfare we will now be engaged in.

This for me underlines the realist position on war and the strategic position of the U.S., which was reiterated by Barry Posen: the U.S. is enormously powerful, geography favors the U.S. due to ocean barriers and relativity weak neighbors, and we will best procure our security with a slow transition back to Realism, and away from the liberal and neoconservative idea of hegemony in the world, trying to maintain unipolar world dominance, which does not take into account identity politics, ethnic, national, and religious, which are most powerfully against a unipolar world.

The neoconservatives have taken the Hellenized position of a universal elite who think ideas can transcend tribes, cultures and epics, but this never worked well with America. Like Rome, we were, or used to be, too pragmatic for the idealism of Greek philosophy, we wanted to build roads more than philosophy.

Nevertheless, we need to build more than roads, philosophy needs to get back to philosophical naturalism. I believe Western religion also needs to affirm theological materialism. We are realistically evolving to Godhood in the material and supermaterial world, and we need long term realistic strategies to do so, in which war is to be avoided---as mentioned above, it destroys quality and favors quantity. And we need to take into account identity politics, ethnic, national, religious, which are most powerfully against a unipolar world. Ethnic or racial imperialism will eventually give way to ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures and protected by some sort of federalism. Then we can all best get along. That is a deeper realism.

Being in Becoming

“Why has the image of the other world always been a criticism of this world?” Nietzsche

Nietzsche wrote about the annihilation of being and the courage and strength it takes to overcome the resulting nihilism, and then developing a world of becoming, and deifying that world. This is part of what theological materialism has affirmed, but we have not created a world of becoming without God or religion, as Nietzsche and his postmodern followers tried to do, and we have taken seriously the conservative thinkers who retain the old but also make the old new. We have admired the synthesizing brilliance of St. Thomas Aquinas who brought the new (really older) pagan philosophers (Aristotle) into the old Christian world. In theological materialism the Twofold Path does this for the post-Nietzschean world.

The God, Father Within, or Being of traditional religion, which is experienced through the ascetic discipline of ridding the body of material desires, is transformed in the Becoming of material and supermaterial evolution toward real Godhood. This is a divine, fateful and real world we can believe in, and it does not invent a religious world outside this world which is deeply critical of this world. Its virtues, values and morals derive from both religion and science, closing another great gap.

Now that America as we have known it no longer exists, a new conserving perspective will be needed

Immigration in the United States was deviously changed years ago from being in favor of Europeans to being in favor of the Third World, and also mass illegal immigration by the millions continues to this day.

The Left apparently loves this, being ignorant of the fact that as ethnic groups change the culture changes, and it will not be the peaceful cant-we-all-get-along culture that modern liberals dream of.

So...a new conserving perspective will be needed to keep the nation from civil war, or from an order-imposing dictatorship of communists or fascists. I prefer to see ethnopluralism develop within regions and states adapted to the various ethnic cultures that inhabit them, virtual ethnostates, which can then harmonize the best with real human nature and group-selection being the primary unit of selection.

Ethnopluralism could also synchronize with the separation of powers and states of our Constitution, so it can be done legally, and with our protecting federalism to keep ethnic or tribal warfare in check.

The existence of a variety of ethnic groups in ethnic regions, taking many paths, is actually good for evolution, good for business, and increases the chances that higher evolution will take place.

If we are wise and courageous, and moral, then the knowledge we learn separately can be shared across states and ethnic groups. This is no longer a world where only one-ethnic-imperialism can rule successfully.

That is how we will all best get along. And most importantly, I believe we all have a sacred mission to evolve toward Godhood.