Periodically my inbox doth runneth over, and since many of these questions are legitimate, it’s time to share. I apologize in advance to these letter writers for periodically maiming their texts to keep only the words relevant to the questions I answer here. I consider myself lucky to receive such email, or at least most of it, because it means that people are thinking and fighting over these issues in themselves, much as I have in myself, over time and experience, trying to find meaning and reality in an unreal modern world.
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:05:52 +0000 (GMT)
From: worldsshell <[email protected]>
Subject: The “inherent”.
To: [email protected]When you talk of the “inherent” do you mean the same thing that the neoplatonists,jung,yeats,mystic traditions,etc hint about??? That there are transcendant fixed ideals that can be apprehended in various degrees for those that are able to unconciously/conciously tap into them? Would this then show how many of the elite in different cultures/civilizations share similarites in the ultimate essense of their philosophies and expressions?
Forgive me if these questions/assumptions are completely off the mark. Even a simple ‘yes/no’ as an answer would suffice. They have been asked because I myself have felt these when admiring various seemingly irreconcilable pieces of Art… yet in each of them there is something there that is the same! And it pulls on one’s soul!
What a great question; thanks for asking. The inherent, in my view, is two things: first, it is the “ultimate reality” of which many psychologists and philosophers speak, and second, it is the set of eternal wisdoms which deal with the recognition of that inherent. I think it’s the second meaning you are referring to in the sense of Jung and mystic (hermetic/alchemical) tradition, at least. It’s hard to define it as “fixed” but since the conditions of life in the most universal sense will never change, it is to some degree fixed.
When I speak of the inherent, I mean reality as it is defined when one overcomes mind/body dualism, which also translates into spiritual dualism (earth versus the world of Gods/heaven), and other subjective/objective splits in perception. Over enough experience, one realizes that natural laws are consistent and thus a few simple instructions allows the universe to create itself from nothing, or the pattern of a fern leaf to grow from a single basic shape. This is the genius of the universe, in my view; it’s a clean cascading hierarchy of concepts which produces reality as we know it, a supremely simple and logical organization. Human conceptions rarely approach this form of design.
You can find this hinted to in many places. Nietzsche’s “Will to Power,” Burroughs’ “Algebra of Need,” and of course the source of the ancient mystical writings, the Vedas (Sanskrit is the parent tongue of German, and India the original proving ground of Indo-European philosophy; the Vedas predate both Hinduism and Buddhism, and are echoed in mystic/hermetic traditions because, after the rise of Christianity, it became a fatal error to speak such beliefs in public, and even those who adapted them to Christianity in slight degrees, such as Eckhart and Luther, faced public confrontation). Life is a mechanism, and what’s brilliant about it is that it doesn’t create a predefined direction where everything is either all well or all bad; it’s up to us, as agents of life, to determine our own future. Nature gives us a blank canvas, and a powerful role model.
Interestingly, this philosophy remains relatively consistent throughout the ancients. In the Iliad, Greek heroes have a sense of destiny being shaped by their own hands without succumbing to the fatalism of their enemies, which is hinted as having an Asian origin – it is likely that Asia found its own form of Christianity, or a fatalistic and dualistic mystical-devotional tradition, thousands of years before the West, and this produced the characteristic fatalism of the Asian spirit as well as consuming the ancient kingdoms of China and Japan, although the latter took far longer to fall. The Aeneid, the Roman continuation of the Iliad-Odyssey tradition of Homer, states:
First, then, the sky and lands and sheets of water,
The bright moon’s globe, the Titan sun and stars,
Are fed within by Spirit, and a Mind
Infused through all the members of the world
Makes one great living body of the mass.
From Spirit come the races of man and beast,
The life of birds, odd creatures the deep sea
Contains beneath her sparkling surfaces,
And fiery energy from a heavenly source
Belongs to the generative seeds of these,
So far as they are not poisoned or clogged
By mortal bodies, their free essence dimmed
by earthiness and deathliness of flesh.
This makes them fear and crave, rejoice and grieve.
Imprisoned in the darkness of the body
They cannot clearly see heaven’s air; in fact
Even when life departs on the last day
Not all the scourges of the body pass
From the poor souls, not all distress of life.
Inevitably, many malformations,
Growing together in mysterious ways,
Become inveterate. Therefore they undergo
The disciplien of punishments and pay
In penance for old sins: some hang full length
To the empty winds, for some the stain of wrong
Is washed by floods or burned away by fire.
We suffer each his own shade. We are sent
Through wide Elysium, where a few abide
In happy lands, till the long day, the round
Of Time fulfilled, has worn our stains away,
Leaving the soul’s heaven-sent perception clear,
The fire from heaven pure. These other souls,
When they have turned Time’s wheel a thousand years,
The god calls in a crowd to Lethe stream,
That there unmemoried they may see again
The heavens and wish re-entry into bodies.
(Aeneid, Robert Fitzgerald, pg 186)
Some years after the Vedas, which were preserved orally to avoid corruption, as it keeps people from referred to a flawed book as “absolute proof,” the Bhagavad-Gita was written, and it, many years before the Odyssey or Aeneid, describes the same spiritual tradition:
Some say this Atman (Godhead that is within every being),
Is slain, and others
Call it the slayer:
They know nothing.
How can it slay
Or who shall slay it?Know this Atman
Unborn, Undying
Never ceasing,
Never beginning,
Deathless, birthless,
Unchanging for ever.
How can it die
The death of the body?Worn-out garments
Are shed by the body:
Worn-out bodies
Are shed by the dweller
Within the body.
New bodies are donned
By the dweller, like garments.Not wounded by weapons,
Not burned by fire,
Not dried by the wind,
Not wetted by water:
Such is the Atman.
Innermost element,
Everywhere, always,
Being of beings,
Changeless, eternal,
For ever and ever.…Death is certain for the born. Rebirth is certain for the dead. You should not grieve for what is unavoidable. Before birth, beings are not manifest to our human senses. In the interim between birth and death, they are manifest. At death they return to the unmanifest again. What is there in all this to grieve over?
…
Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same: then go into battle. (Bhagavad-Gita, Prabhavananda/Isherwood, pg 10)
You can see in these an adualistic sense of “Heaven” and “godhead” as a ground of reality that is built in the same world as this; it is a mechanism of this world, and not a contrary world. It seems like a semantic split from the Christian “Heaven” and single God as a pure force in contrast to this world of sin, but note the absence of good/evil rhetoric and of Heaven being a contrary stage to life; rather, Heaven is the ground of life and an element from which it is formed. This is the root of the ancient philosophy which was converted into a fantasy fairytale by Jewish and Christian mystics!
If one is mean-spirited, and believes modern “science” to be absolute, this can be seen as a simple description of consciousness and life being properties beyond the individual, which never originated in the individual; thus, when the individual dies, these same forces are manifested in new life forms. This leads to the question, is the individual consciousness reincarnated, or a new individual produced with the same consciousness that was originally granted to the first individual? It doesn’t matter, at least until we face death, as the basic theorem is sounder than anything offered by modern “science” or Christianity.
This, in my view, is a spiritual-mystical translation of the inherent: consciousness and life itself are not originating in the individual, but properties of the universe of which each individual has a share. When one sees life this way, one is not only “beyond good and evil” but beyond worry for the individual spirit, as it is shown as connected to the heavens in the same way trees are connected to earth, water and sun.
From: Warren Huniger <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 21:13:14 -0800
Subject: a questionI have a question after reading the Metal Cult, or Metal Christ article about the “all academics are drunks, drug addicts or perverts” comment. I spend a lot of time volunteering with academics (only because it is required to get reference letters and experience for grad school), working with profs and grad students, and in my experience most of them are very stange, kind of insane and neurotic, and their research is pretty useless, so that comment really made me laugh. Can you elaborate on that comment? Do you think that there’s something in the psychology of academics that makes them this way?
-Warren
Vancouver, CAN
A great question; forgive me for editing out the rest of your well-written email. I admit to hyperbole, but the germ of my comment remains accurate. Academia is both a boon and a terror. It’s a wonderful thing because it escapes reality as most of us see it, but a terrible thing because it is marionetted by the same forces, yet without knowledge of how most live and the issues they face. Further, academics are more than others thrust into facing the issues of philosophy in this time, thus they tend to have a need for oblivion exceeding that of normals.
Your average academic goes through high school and finds that studying books is to her taste. She goes to college, and excels where others are only interested in beer, fornication and football; she may partake of this as well, but usually, is a bit quieter and grounded in the practical nature of her career, e.g. becoming an academic. As college ends, the aspiring academic must not only pass her final classes, but must apply to grad school, and thus is accepted and, after a summer job in a computer lab, attends. Now there is two to seven years of additional schooling, possibly with part-time jobs usually connected to the university, and then three years of being an assistant professor until the wait for tenure begins.
Tenure is where academics are fully birthed. The times for it to arrive vary, but trust in this: office politics must be played, and student politics must be played. Our aspiring academic must garner enough praise from students and colleagues, and must avoid offending any group that could raise a fist to block her proposed tenure, such that she is eventually granted tenure, which is immunity from being fired unless something grotesque and usually illegal is done. Tenure is designed to allow experienced academics, and only those, to speak their minds freely, and it’s a good concept, but is subject to the laws of this world as is all academia, namely that schools must market themselves to students and other academics, as incoming fresh blood (and the eventual endowment contributions those bring ten years after graduation) are what keep the University alive.
Because we live in an impossible time, when the utilitarian principle is applied to all things, academics are thus charged with a neurotic mission: find truth, and teach profitably, which includes both not offending people and finding something trendy, new-sounding and revealing to a crowd of people who have nothing in common but basic intelligence and the ubiquitous jobs that require them to look for meaning in tiny slices of “profundity.” I’d drink too. The best academics, in my view, are not only drinkers but potheads, because no matter how you slice it, alcohol depletes your higher thinker while pot stimulates it – the results may not be “profound” but the mind has been given a workout. Many are perverts, because perverts are the ultimate type of passive personality and they seek positions of unquestioned power so they can force others to heed their will. I’ve found that most multicultural appointees fit this description, which is what you get for trying to force other cultures into a model not fitting their heritage: sycophants.
Ultimately, my answer here won’t be helpful, but it is this: in a world where, because of Christianity or industry or egalitarian utilitarianism, one cannot speak the truth freely, look for the the crypto-doctrine – meaning that which hides itself behind the esoteric because saying the truth in public gets one shot, flogged or makes one unemployable. Academics aren’t just working a job; they have ten years of expensive education riding on their not getting fired for saying the wrong thing. Find the most alert ones and very patiently, carefully try your ideas out on them. They’ll tell you when they can go no farther, but will point you to resources. Or they may be brainwashed, in which case, say nothing controversial, as you will make an enemy. Remember, these are people who make their living finding great profundity in whether or not there was homoerotic imagery in the “poetry” of Maya Angelou (a political appointee herself), and what its implications for gender-based language are – have some mercy, as they’re both more neurotic and more intellectualized than the average person.
I’m not the only one to note that academia as an industry is destructive to actual learning of any practical application:
Asked by whether he would encourage people to enroll in schools of education, the distinguished author and scholar Mihai Nadin (“The Civilization of Illiteracy,” “Anticipation,” et al.) replied:
“I would not. I would rather they forget studying education as it is a subject in the modern university today. Education is part of the system of the institution and every institution is focused on its survival. I have never heard of an institution which by itself decided to close its doors. This does not happen. An Ed school is not going to hand over the keys tomorrow at 12 and say: let’s do something else. So, I think I would rather encourage that they start an alternative form of education.
“I made very nervous a group of important guys in Germany dedicated to issues of education when I quoted a metaphor from Thomas Mann. He said the only important issue for mankind was how does the cocoon become a butterfly? What this means is that you have free yourself from one condition before you can get to a new condition. So, my message was, let’s blow up the university. You had the students applauding to the sky and you had the administrator saying: ok, we lynch him. I received messages from other academics who said that if I worked for a corporation I would have been fired; you don’t say things like that…
“I tried to answer about 100-150 e-mails until I stopped because I saw this repetitive pattern where the e-mail all kept talking about the retirement they would not give this up even if they knew that what they were doing was not right.
“My claim is that the institution of education as we know it is an extension of the industrial society. Its necessity today is no longer beyond being questioned. No one would say we have no problem in schools — everyone accepts that we have a problem. But, having said that, look at all the answers given. Let’s look at continuity. Let’s build on what we have. Let’s improve. There is still a lot to be done. No one is willing to say there is a need for a totally different form of human interaction that will in turn be reflected in a different way of disseminating the knowledge society needs.
“Today we are looking at education as we have 10,000 seats empty, if we fill them we are a very good university. That is not what education is about. Giving a piece of paper to show someone studied something at some time? We are talking about people getting involved in practical experiences at a much younger age than before and we act if nothing has changed. People get involved in practical experiences completely independent of what they learn in schools to the point where they ask themselves: why did I waste my time in school. I didn’t do anything with what I learned. So, if we are honest about it we have to truly look for alternatives. What should that something else be? We are experiencing a situation where the efficiency of the university lags behind the rest of society. The university instead of promoting progress now blocks progress.”
Asked what hope he has, Nadin’s answer was:
“Being the most optimistic person you have ever met I have hope that those who need education will start to take their education into their own hands. The new generation has tremendous energy. With every student I meet there is a determination to make a living because this is difficult. To be young to day is very challenging. Change is so fast you have to ask why you need to be educated. They need something else… I think the greatest challenge we have today is that each of us can be treated as an individual and not as what we were expected to be. In other words each of us has a potential and it is the first time in the history of mankind that potential can be brought to fruition.
For more by and about Mihai Nadin, visit http://www.nadin.name/.
From: Daniel Prins <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2004 08:33:50 +0100
Subject: Some questions regarding the siteI have been reading your site for a while now, and want to thank you for creating it. Despite the fact that I don’t understand some of it, I found that the things I do comprehend make a lot of sense after the initial knee-jerk reaction is over. I also really like the new essays you’ve been doing the last month or so, especially But why did you name it ANUS? and Caste. There are still some things unclear to me though, and I’d really appreciate it if you would answer the following questions:
1: As a nihilist, you reject all outer moralities imposed by human ideas, such as Christianity. Instead you propose that we make this society one in which heroism, eugenics and societal / communal needs are placed above socially accepted behaviour, materialism and individualism. Why do you feel that these things are ‘better’, so to speak, than the current system we are using?
2: Related to the previous question, what do you feel is the highest goal in life, the goal that needs no reason but is a reason for itself? I’ve seen you discount happiness of a person, and state that one should strive to improve one’s physical and mental capabilities, as well as one’s character. Do you feel that this is the most important thing for any person to strive for?
3: I can comprehend how we should not worry about death, since death is inevitable, no one really knows what death is truly like, and death is a necessary part of life, since there would be no life within a very short period if no animal or human ( that’s repeating myself, but…) would die. However, I do not understand the malign for people who wish to remove both physical and mental pain. Pain is always experienced as a negative thing by the non-masochistic. No one likes having pain. Would the world not be improved then, by limiting the amount of pain in it?
4: Speaking of improving the world, I do not fully comprehend your thoughts on utopia’s. You state that if a utopia would be created, it would always result into entropy after a while. But isn’t having a utopia for a short while, and striving to keep it as great a good thing? Professional sports players for example have a peak as well before they can only go downhill, as do stars. That does not lessen the beauty of either one at its peak, does it?
5: Another thing on utopias, surely you dislike the world as it currently is, infested with so many worthless people and so many logical fallacies manifesting themselves through interbreeding of the races, lack of respect for one’s heritage, Christianity and the other monotheisms, liberalism, egalitarianism, WP apocalyptic hate cults, macs, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and on and on and on. If you could change the way people would behave and our entire political and economical system, how would the world look like? I’ve seen some similar questions in interviews with you, and from what I understand from your answer, it would be a sort of very small scale communism. How does science ‘progress’ ( I know you don’t like the word, but I can’t think of anything else in this sentence ) if everyone concerns themselves only with their village? Will their still be some form of monetary system or will everything be done on a basis of “I’ll fix your pc if you deliver me a couch”?
Couldn’t this world vision be called a utopia itself?
6: In the metal section, there is a best of list both for death and black. Do you feel these ratings are more than an opinion, do you feel they are ‘objective’? If so, what standards do you apply to the rating of music, and why are those standards superior to simple “because it fuckin, rocks, dude!” opinions?
It seems this turned out to be a little longer than I was initially planning, but oh well. Thanks in advance for the answer.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Prins
The Netherlands
What a feast of good introductions. Hell, I could make a site index page from your questions alone, linking to bits of text here and there. One thing I’ve really screwed up is not preserving interviews, email exchanges, forum posts and the like in a single place with such an index page. But thanks for the good pitch – I’ll do my best, point by point:
1: 1 and 6 are the same question; why are some things better than others? I’ll say this: there is no absolute better or worse, but, there is an “ultimate reality” in which some things are more effective than others. Thus, based on my experience and knowledge, I pick music and ideas that work better than others in adapting to this reality. If one aims for healthy and intelligent survival, therefore, they are “better.” It’s trendy in this time to suppose that whatever form one picks for one’s own survival is “equal” to all others, but this can be disproven by simple formulae: someone who decides that taking heroin is the best lifestyle will end up dead, as will someone who decides that unprotected anal with any comer is the best possible lifestyle. Between this extreme and a traditionally virtuous life there are many shades, but this doesn’t change the basic truth that reality is real, and we adapt to it in varying degrees and are rewarded with more options depending on those degrees. (If you see a parallel here to esoteric knowledge, you’re on the right path – reality reveals itself to those who seek it in varying degrees dependent on their abilities.)
Regarding metal, I try to make my reviews objective, but the “best of” lists are pure experience talking. I have written about metal and presented it via radio for more years that any other source I know of, and I’ve succeeded in doing that; the radio shows I’ve done and web sites were popular among the people I regard as intelligent, and unpopular among those morons in Cannibal Corpse and Pantera tshirts (I’ve now met a few smart Pantera fans, and it occurs to me that without experience of metal in general, they have appeal, but they’re basically a rock band; they took what Exhorder and Prong were doing and adapted it to Metallica-style speed metal, using harmonies and melodic fragments common to Southern rock. An excellent product, and meaningless and moronic as “art.”) So if this is a trip you can follow, enjoy – and if not, see how you feel about it in a few years, because you’re judging the work of time more than the man (“me”).
As to why I think a heroic society, and one based on reality including recognition of our individual smallness and that our abilities are determined by natural selection, is better, the answer is simple: it’s closer to reality. Christianity is an illusion and under the Pax Judaica it has imposed, we’ve destroyed forests, culture, and appreciation for the finer things in life. If you want an absolute justification, or “proof,” of why it’s better to have a forest, you’re lost in logical, objective terms because you’ve failed to recognize that knowledge isn’t absolute, and doubly failed, because you have failed to recognize that our current system cannot justify itself in the absolute, either. There are preferences in life, and you are rightly judged by them, both by others and by nature. It seems to me evident that those who want to live in fantasy land and destroy forests are mental defectives, and those who wish to live in harmony with nature and produce a society that always moves toward better, higher, braver, stronger, gentler humans are of a higher grade of person. Christianity and “progressive”/”utopic” visions surmise otherwise; in their view, all individuals are equal and have no room to evolve, but by following the trend of the day we can move “forward” in some linear history at the end of which is technological-mystical-devotional utopia. Once again, listen to experience here.
In fact, I think one sign of our decline as a species is that we require “proof” in an absolute sense that one thing is “better” than another, as if life is linear – which it is not. Quantitative measurements fail where qualitative measurements triumph; I can’t compare two nice days linearly without being ludicrous, because on one it may be snow-covered and beautiful, and on the other hot and breezy, but either way, both were beautiful and to linearize them is to place a preference on a single attribute shared among them. Objectively, rationally speaking, nature doesn’t work that way; Christianity, utilitarianism and commerce think otherwise, but those forces haven’t been around long enough, and, judging by history so far, won’t be. The signs of decay are obvious, probably more so in America than in the Netherlands. I’d suggest coming here, getting a normal job, renting a normal apartment, and meeting normal people and seeing what their lives are like. It might be quite an eye-opener.
2: “life, the goal that needs no reason but is a reason for itself” is its own highest goal. To adapt to the forces that created us, and to keep improving. “Happiness” is an illusion, since no one is happy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year; they’re “happy” when overall their lives are going well, and that means living in a sane society, having comfortable shelter and food, and fulfilling one’s own destiny. If you’re a painter, paint; a writer, write; a warrior, fight; a plumber, fix; a farmer, farm; this alone will fulfill you. To search for “happiness” is to presuppose that since heroin is the happiest feeling in the world, we should all do heroin (or metaphorical equivalent), and thus be islands unto ourself. Forget it; the individual doesn’t exist outside the whole, and the whole is only known through the individual. Do what has meaning, but don’t be fooled by palliatives such as “happiness” which suggest life has no meaning, thus the best you can do is to achieve comfort and convenience as your highest goal. That takes meaning away from life itself, and places it on the means by which one achieves significance, and not that significance. Philosophically, it’s akin to taking heroin.
3: “Would the world not be improved then, by limiting the amount of pain in it?” – the world doesn’t need improvement. Through both pain and pleasure we achieve significant things, and what matters is that achievement, not our suffering. To assume “improving” the world is to linearize it, and to quickly fall into the binary good/evil of Christ. Back to the heroin; it at least is healthier than being Christian (exceptions: Eckhartian, Emersonian, Schopenhauerian and Hitlerian Christianity, which is Christianity in name only and is more appropriately called “Vedic adualistic European Christian-flavored transcendent idealism” – interestingly, all of these thinkers found the same belief and wrested it from Christianity against the will of the undifferentiated crowd).
4: Utopia as a concept is the idea that a perfect or near-perfect society can be made; it is in no way similar to trying to reach an athletic peak. Utopia is like presuming there is such a basketball game that goals are only scored for the “right” team. Utopia assumes that history is a linear course to an ideal civilization, in which the world is “improved” by limiting suffering. My view: suffering is necessary to achieve meaningful things, otherwise they would exist by default. Our universe is brilliant because it does not have a linear mindset, and thus allows for both suffering and pleasure, where if there were only one condition there would be no meaning to anything, as both pleasure and pain would be the same. Utopia, or the “progressive” worldview, ultimately aims to “civilize” nature and to reform it in such a way that there are no bad notes, no sufferings, and no wrong choices. I have another word for this: bland. It’s numbness enshrined as grace.
5: “If you could change the way people would behave and our entire political and economical system, how would the world look like?” I wouldn’t elect for communism, but there would be a small-scale civilization that would not solely be motivated by money. The full quote about money is that “The love of money is the root of all evil,” and in my view, love of money is found in both capitalism and communism, as both organize themselves around money. My civilization would be organized around local communities taking care of themselves; everyone would have a place, and be guaranteed a living, unless they were so grossly incompetent or depraved that in the best estimation of the elders the person in question had repeated proved themselves to be a genetic error, at which point they’d be sent to join the shock troops and gain glory by dying in battle. I think most people want to have a comfortable life, but if given the choice, will gain more wealth and possessions than they need; better to give them what they need. I think most people, if you batter down their illusions with sound argument, will discover that what they seek is not wealth or power but a sound living, a family, and the ability to fulfill their personal destiny, whether it’s in the creation of something epic, great feats of war, or just being a good village blacksmith and a person esteemed by all who know him. This removes the insane “competition” for dollar bills and shiny cars that seems to fascinate people these days, and replaces it with natural living in which the real issues of life are given prominence. You notice most people these days are neurotic and, deep inside, quite unsettled? My system would remove that in all but the insane (and I’d put them to the sword for their own suffering and the good of society anyway).
Hopefully I’ve answered all your questions, which you did a great job of asking. Unfortunately, each one is an essay in itself, so I had to kind of give you the shorthand. However, that has been for me the best way to learn; when I think of the esteemed minds in my life, they’ve generally handed me pointers and let me discover things for myself, so that the victory and satisfaction is all mine; not to compare myself to those (!) but with luck I’ve done something of the same.
From: Dr_Rock <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:55:59 -0300 (ART)
Subject: A question of clearnessBasically I have the same points of view regarding “nihilism”. But for MANY OTHER reasons, living here in Europe (a Continent that has become SO distant from your country in these last 4 years or so, and I’d invite you to travel from France to Scandinavia if you can…) we couldn’t go further together at the same road.
Regarding instead other issues of your points of view, you probably take America as the centre of the World (politically I’d agree, but socially and historically I wouldn’t).
Talking about “Race” it’s hard to believe that a Society to remain efficient (as you told about Sweden), must to be as pure as possible. Not only America had have a huge wave of immigration but we here in Europe as well, specially now that immigration to America is so difficult due to the 9/11 event and foreigners are heading to France, Germany and Britain MORE THAN EVER. Like same gens that provide weak heritage, mixed gens provide a stronger one, the same can be used a whole society. We LOVED American culture until the 80s ’cause at that time so many innovations were brough up thank to that great melting pot it WAS. Now, sadly, the music changed.
It’s clear that our big problem is the OVER POPULATION and that the Earth can’t afford more than six billions human beings, but we’re now living in a giant web (that involves ALL the Continents) that we can’t do without it anymore.
Your thoughs are not so easy to the big public (consider that there are so many among it that could join “our society”) and you probably could put a web page introducing you creeds in a more clear way.
For exemple, I still don’t know your exactly political direction. It doesn’t have to be Rep OR Dem, you see? Or your clear religious or atheist status?
Pls, forgive me if I was somehow unkind but is not my intention and actually I’d like to understand a bit more it. I’m looking forward for your answer.
Whoah – first, I appreciate your letter, but let me make this clear: I don’t regard anything as the center of universe. Wherever I am, that’s what I know. Right now, I’m based in Texas, which is unfortunately still part of the United States of America; it’s my opinion that Texas is different enough that it has its own culture and should have self-rule, and not be part of anything, whether Europe or America (although, remember that in our Civil War, Texas was more closely allied with France than with the Northern part of America).
The great American melting pot changed – well, do you think this change was sudden, or that it was the product of something waiting to happen? After all, the philosophy of a society decides its outcome. If I set up a civilization based on heroin addiction, it will surprise no one when it collapses because we all die from AIDS, bodily neglect and overdose. Who’s to say the “melting pot” is in fact a triumph? Indeed, history – the only form of real “proof” of efficacy we have – melting pot societies have occurred in the final days of collapsing empires, and have rapidly degenerated to third-world status. You might claim that’s unfair, or mean, or amoral to say, but let’s get back to reality here – it is what happened, and it is what’s happening.
America as a melting pot has become a different place than it once was, both culturally and ethnically, since things like that tend to go together. It was a Northern European style country until right before the civil war, when impoverished part-Semitic Irish and Italian castoffs flooded the country. Then, around 1900, it began gaining the bulk of its population from Eastern European countries and the South of Europe. Not to say any of these are “bad” in their own right, but we know from history that mixing tribes of the same race produces people without any clear culture, and with a confused mental evolution. England’s in the same boat. Note that both England and America are exhibiting classic signs of the decline: loss of political consensus, loss of cultural consensus, pleasure seeking replacing achievement. Unlike racists, I don’t blame this on racial admixture; I think racial admixture is a symptom of it, and that it originates in a bad philosophy, and that this is the same bad philosophy that produced the melting pot. Note that it’s a taboo to express a “racist” opinion in America today; is such a taboo a sign of a “healthy” melting pot to you?
“Like same genes that provide weak heritage, mixed genes provide a stronger one, the same can be used a whole society.” I’d like to see an example of this in history, if you have one. As far as I can tell, you’ve reduced the world of genetics into a linear state in which there are two possibilities: mixing races, or inbreeding. Not to break the news too gently here, pal, but there’s a lot more possibility than that. Inbreeding occurs in very small groups, and even the most “homogenous” European populations have vast internal diversity that exists without any external admixture. Further, even “homogenous” populations are constantly in evolutionary status, thus produce favorable mutations to the point where comparing them to inbreeding even on that basis alone is laughable. I’ve heard the popular line that we must mix races to avoid inbreeding, but when pressed for proof and with historical evidence, every single person bleating out this crowd-pleasing dogma has backed down. I’d like to know what makes you think this way. Note that NASA, the American space agency (I should say “outer space”; our inner space agency is California), determined that were a mission sent to Mars, it would require 200 individuals of the same race to avoid inbreeding, even if it were cut off from earth forever. That’s a conservative government estimate. Having a “homogenous” (meaning: ethnic-cultural) population doesn’t mean you have to marry your sister. Come on, back to reality here, and stop being silly.
On clear political direction, or religious direction, you’ve given me in each two options that I wouldn’t subscribe to. Clearly I’m not monotheistic, but I do have spiritual beliefs; maybe looking here or in the works of Schopenhauer, Evola, Nietzsche and the ancients will help, but my spiritual belief isn’t written down anywhere; if you must put me down as anything, call me an untutored tree-worshipper, because of all things on this earth, I love the forest, the seas, the plants and animals, the best. If you came to Texas in wildflower season, and walked alone without distractions among the fields, I think you’d see what makes me believe. Political direction? Anti-modern; post-utilitarian, and while I would vote for Nader, that’s a compromise and doesn’t represent what I’d do to make society better, which it seems to me is the root of the question about politics: what do you believe makes a better tomorrow than what we have today?
If you don’t mind (unfair of me to ask, since you’re not here), I’d like to take the racial question further. I believe we should affirm the presence of natural selection in producing both (a) better humans, specific to an ethnocultural society, and (b) specialized humans, specific to an ethnocultural society, but I hate crass racism. In fact, I think both racists and anti-racists are jerkoffs looking for a reason to stroke their own deficient egos; the racists want to dominate other races, so they can feel better about their own lives; the anti-racists want to dominate all cultures and replace them with an oversocialized culture that doesn’t ever point out the shortcomings of the individual (any time a better way is shown, the previous way is revealed to now have a shortcoming, since we have two options: better or less-better but known), and thus feel better about their own fears of self-insufficiency. Let me lay those fears to rest: everyone has a place, because what we’re fighting for here is the next generation.
Also, let me defecate on the head of crass racism here, a bit further. There are a lot of people I love, and some are African-Americans, and I like that term for people of African origin better than certain vernacular words because I believe a gentleman grants respect to all races; part of respect is realizing that they might do things a different way, that way will by nature never fit into one’s own culture, but it deserves respect nonetheless.
This is similar to a healthy approach to homosexuality; I respect them by not believing they’re inferior, and by giving them a place to be homosexual; they respect me by respecting my right to, in the context of myself, be repulsed by such behavior and want to raise my family apart from it. I think, in gay communities, rampant gayness should be the norm, and should be praised; I think in family-oriented communities, sexual behavior should be something discovered and sorted out by each individual adolescent, while being given an example of “normal” sexuality: loving, chaste, families where people are not so mystified by sex that they view it as more important than the goal of sex, namely love, respect and family. When you think about it, quality marijuana is a better rush than sex, and lasts longer to boot (you can screw for hours, but in most cases, neither partner desires this). People who are obsessed with the feeling of sex are drug addicts of a different form. While Christians divide sex into a linear good/bad, it makes more sense to divide it into realistic and not realistic, and people who are either obsessed with avoiding sex, or with cheapening it, are both insane.
Race is similar. We’ve all evolved differently, even the different tribes and nations of Europe. Each of us is a history of traits, including mental traits, shaped by our culture. In any given culture, those whose inherent tendencies match the values of that culture succeed; those who don’t match are less likely to breed successfully. Over time, this produces a shared cultural values system, which in turn produces philosophical and political consensus, and this is the basis of every great civilization that has ever existed (although most are in decline at this time, and race-mixing is one symptom of this decline). Without consensus, there is no agreement to move upward and become better, so civilizations decline by settling on a pale imitation of that, such as “Social Darwinism” by which we decide those who earn the most money – not those who do the best job at a given task, but those who make the most money from their task, regardless of how well it is done – are the most valued in that society. This is clearly declining, as bad products often make the most money (Macintosh, American cars, junk food, fast food, cheap heroin), and with this kind of thinking ends the desire of a society to better itself, and it is replaced by a desire to be comfortable during the decline – convenience.
Because we have evolved differently, not only is race-mixing insane, but caste-mixing is insane; if you merge a family of leaders with a family of carpenters, you’ll either get a leader who in the role of a carpenter or a carpenter in the role of a leader, but either way, the inclinations of that individual will be mixed between their ostensible task and what they’re actually inclined to do. In my society, the castes are equally valuable, but their specializations are preserved. It takes a different intelligence to be a carpenter than a leader, and a leader makes a crappy carpenter, but both tasks are necessary for the civilization. Hence caste and not class. Class ranks us linearly by money; caste doesn’t rank us, but helps us specialize by task and ensures that each has a respected, honored, necessary place guaranteed to them, unless of course they are grossly incompetent or perverted. Does that help?
I love my African-American friends as well as my “white” friends (really: different Indo-European tribes, including Indians, for whom “white” is a broken general category). I esteem them as individuals and respect them in the highest way, which is to say I don’t expect them to be like me or to fit into an Indo-European society. You can say that African-Americans are more likely to commit violent crime, or that African-Americans are less likely to find social status, that there are intelligence differences between the races, or even that African-Americans lag behind in intelligence, or are products of a different evolutionary path which valued different forms of intelligence, but it doesn’t change my love for my friend, or for myself: I believe I should be able to live in an Indo-European society of my ethnocultural tribe, and be surrounded by only Indo-Europeans, and go visit my African-American friends in their society on weekends, and exile race-mixers from either society to the middle east, which is where race-mixing has traditional had the greatest number of adherents.
In short, I believe the question of “inferior” or “superior” races is an issue for assholes to debate, and I don’t want any part of it; the races are different, and have different types of ethnocultural societies they prefer, and that objectively is clear, but “subjectively,” I prefer a society of my own kind, with shared ethno-cultural values, and I don’t view that as insulting to African-Americans or any other ethnic group; in fact it’s the opposite: the highest respect I can grant to any group is to insist that they be separate and be allowed to do things their own way, since otherwise is to presume that my way is better, and thus to impose it upon them as an “improvement” over what they are. That’s crass racism, no matter how much we disguise it as Judeo-Christian liberalism. I don’t have any use for racism, but I do believe in eugenics, as it is one of the foundations of a society which is always moving toward higher goals.
Heredity is more important than inculcated values, but this applies not only to races, but to tribes, to castes, to local groups and to individuals. One problem I have with the racists is that they believe all individuals are equal, presupposing their origins in a certain general racial group; that’s insane to my mind. Not every “white” person is someone I’d let survive; in fact, at this point in history, most “white” people need to be killed because they’re worthless, brainless, spiritless products of industrial existence and have nothing to contribute. My sword is unsheathed for them, because, among my tribe where there is ethnocultural consensus, these people are inferior, simply because: they suck. They’re not very smart, they don’t have good character, and they lack the impetus to do anything but go to do-nothing jobs and boss others around with rules written on sheets of paper. Off with their heads, and let’s murder their children too: nothing good comes of such a seed. Hell, we have seven billion people on earth, and all but a few million are worthless followers. Fewer people means more forest, more fish, more ecosystem and more animals; what are we waiting for?
Eugenics is very real. One either establishes an ethnocultural consensus and refines every generation toward a better version of this, producing smarter-nobler-healthier people, or one stagnates and because time marches on, devolves, becoming less adapted to the changes in environment that fluctuate in cycles as a means of encouraging evolution. I prefer the heroic outlook, which is to realize the individual is not a world in itself, but a small piece of the whole, and thus to place individual pretense and safety as secondary to having a health and positively-evolving society. Eugenics is very real. It’s not the only question, but it’s a necessary tool of a society which achieves logical ethnic-cultural unity. And ultimately, everyone benefits, as the children who are born in the future are smarter, healthier and of better character, thus they struggle less with low self-esteem than the bloated products of mixed-caste, mixed-race, low-achievement breeding. Put this way, you have to ask yourself, what would you rather do, doom future generations to insufficiency or make sure those children are well-bred and happy? I prefer the latter, and I’m not the only one, but among those who fear their own failure more than they aspire to fulfilling their life’s destiny, you find a prevailing opinion: all genetics are okay, all individuals are okay, just don’t do anything that might show any of us in a bad light, please!!! — that is the way of the coward, and the undifferentiated crowd, and any type of evolving person has no use for it.
This is just a taste of the philosophies that make life meaningful. Right now, people cower in fear of many things, and as a result, have built a society based on convenience under the pretense of avoiding suffering and making everyone “equal.” This is the public veneer, but underneath it, the real motivation is utilitarianism: from fear of our own worth, we hand judgment over to the crowd; the price of this devil’s bargain is that we can never again choose a direction, least of all a higher direction, because it will “offend” someone or make them feel inferior. And the effect is manifest: where’s the Beethoven for this age? The Nietzsche? The Michelangelo? The Caesar? All we have are sniveling cowards for leaders and “artists” and “philosophers” who write about trends so they can profit and have houses in the suburbs. The signs of decline are evident, and while race isn’t the cause, it’s a symptom and one that we can fix. Further, it’s important to realize that racial separation is not an issue by itself, but part of a general program of breeding that includes division by tribe, caste, and finally, eugenics applied to individuals themselves.
Dividing by tribe allows each tribe to have its own way of doing things; this is the only way to achieve the consensus necessary for any kind of upward-mobile society. It is this alone, and not some ego-stroking belief in being “superior” or “inferior” for being member of a group, that is the reason for racial separation – not racial antagonism. I’ll continue to care about my gay, African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish friends, but I will also continue to care first and foremost about myself and my people, for whom separation is required for survival. Don’t let the crass racists confuse you – you can acknowledge your own preference for your own people without falling into hate, bigotry, and other forms of masturbatory self-image enhancement.
From: Bill Johnson <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:52:48 -0600
Subject: I will pray for you….You are lying to yourself, as well as those that visit your website. You speak against religions that promote only good and evil (Christianity and Judaism), yet AntiChristianity is dual in nature as well. The only exception is that you are for evil, not good. Unless of course you are agnostic, which would make sense of your mindless babbling.
Oh, Bill. You seem to be lashing out, out of control, when if you really had faith in your God, there’d be no reason to respond. Anti-Christianity is not my religion, but I’m definitely opposed to Christianity, in the same way I don’t believe the Magical Unicorn from Uranus is going to save humanity and keep our souls clean and spring-fresh scented. I don’t have any need to believe in Christianity; there is nothing in my experience which suggests I would even think of believing in it. They only reason I write about it is that it and other bad values systems are destroying my world, and I rather like this place, so I’m acting against them, while simultaneously asserting better values elsewhere. And what are you doing?
This definition may help: “Dualism is the metaphysical doctrine that there are two substances, i.e., distinct and independent types of being, one material and the other spiritual.”1 If you read it, you can see that my distrust and hatred for Christianity isn’t only rooted in its division between good and evil, but the absolute world – and yet fantasy world – upon which it bases this distinction. From that philosophical notion alone come all of the ills of Christianity.
In essence, Christianity tells us that reality isn’t real, and we should let go of the reigns and pretend everything that happens on earth is OK-fine as long as we get into heaven, which, conveniently, we do by being pacifistic and passive in our response to others; it goes back to that whole “let whatever happens on earth be fine” approach. Further, it promises wonderful things, glorious and emotional things, that obviously make no sense. Eternal life? Milk and honey? These are extremes and absolutes, not a realistic approach to spirituality. Even worse, it grants the same equally to all people if they just walk in the Church door, thus proclaiming them enlightened; in essence, Christianity is spiritual Communism, and it removes any incentive we have to work toward being better people, smarter people, and having better character.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Bill. I don’t consider you evil, or a bad person, or judge you as inferior for your beliefs; I recognize they occur because of convenience and perhaps some well-founded fears (mortality, self-esteem) you may have. That won’t stop me from, when this society collapses and the Vandals are at the gates, as is sure to occur, running you and every other Christian I find – man, woman, child, hamster – through with my sword, and walking away whistling as the blood feeds the crackling flames. You are spiritual blight and political blight upon this world, and the only way to respect someone with such degraded beliefs is to let them keep those beliefs, but kill them, so that they can die for something they find meaningful. That’s fair play, as even you will acknowledge.
However, I think we should recognize, you and I, that your letter contains some factual errors and some insinuations of error that are underhanded to say the least. I don’t hate Christianity soley because of its good/evil dichotomy; I hate it because it is a mental error, an inaccurate philosophy, and a misleading illusion. Hating Christianity isn’t “dualistic” (LOL) any more than not keeping cobras under the bed is dualistic; it’s an artifact of perception that you divide the world into people who keep cobras under the bed, and people who don’t. And although you see the world as divided into Christian, atheist and agnostic, I see a palette of philosophies and am picking the one that’s most adapted to reality, shade by shade, hue by hue. I don’t see that philosophy as being “AntiChristianity,” although of course, since I don’t come from a paranoid and binary good/evil worldview, I’m not inclined to making that philosophical error either. If it’s babble to you, I can live with that, but for the rest of us here who haven’t yet given up hope and run to the comfort of a degrading illusion, I present these words so they can decide as they are able.
And I ask again – if you really were as confident in your beliefs as you assert you are, implying that I’m “lying” and all, why did you write this letter? Who are you trying to convince? Best of luck, Bill. And that’s all for our broadcast tonight – thanks to our loyal readers; tune in again next time for more vitriol and hopefully, reality discussion, from me your faithful host. Good night.