The Whole Show: My Hill to Die On

All moral, historical, political, biographical and other ‘interpretations’ should lead us directly from the superficial to the complete apprehension of the same thing, the single image of reality which the work of art is.
- Northrop Frye

1. The Rise of a Woke Religion

2020 will go down as a notable year. It will also be among our most difficult to explain to posterity. ‘Pandemic, panic and protest’ does well to summarize this last US election year. Politics has taken on a religious fervour all throughout the Western world. It reminds me of ‘the Troubles’ in Ireland with its ability to divide families against themselves.

I can create some outline as to how we got here, where we need to go, and how to get there. Depending upon the reader, this will require some willing suspension of disbelief. As we can only adapt our internal world of ideas one at a time, this task will likely prove impossible for those with a more leftist bent.

I offer no pretence of an unbiased viewpoint. As Charles Darwin noted, “How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service.” Thus I hope to be biased toward the service of greater Truth. At the very least, I hope to acquire it for myself. 

Let us begin by looking superficially at the growing chasm dividing families in the West. The word ‘woke’ is used by some as an insult, whilst their intended targets take it as a compliment. Those insulted use their own word ‘deplorable’ as an insult, and their intended targets also take it as a compliment. How very strange indeed.

Good and Evil are fundamental categories, used in judgement of those less fundamental. Good being that which we would see prevail, and Evil that which we would see destroyed. Clearly that which the Woke would see destroyed, the Deplorable would see prevail, and vice versa. Thus the same broad categories are inucing opposite affects in these two groups of people. 

What are these broad categories? I’d suggest the Self (or Consciousness), the Arena (or Nature) and the Other (or Culture) as useful to the discussion. Every man will categorise each of these as Good, Evil or neither. 

The Woke are inclined to see Nature as Good. Her abundance obstructed by an Evil Culture which actively destroys her. To add to this conundrum they see their own subjective state (Consciousness) as undesirable and blame it upon the Other, those who merely conform to the Evil Culture. Even the great Ernest Hemingway complained by saying, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” 

Whilst Deplorables are also inclined to see Nature as Good, they see Culture as additional Good, as deriving abundance from Nature. Consciousness too is a further Good, as both a subjective state and in maintaining and creating Culture.

We Deplorables did not arrive in a single bound, but by long trial and error and from the same starting point as the Woke. As Northrop Frye wrote, “We are all born into a sea of liquid chaos as a man falls into the sea; and we must either sink or swim to land because we are not fish.” 

We certainly are not fish, and whilst we’ve made many generalisations, they illustrate that free will has been exercised and has delivered us to opposed ways of being. We must acknowledge that we are each the sum and sequence of our reactions to experience. 

We all claim rationality as our authority. However, the man who protects the consistency of a few ideas against a sea of anomaly cannot manifest the authority of one who maintains the consistency of thousands, and who regularly admits anomalies by the psychological exaptation of those thousands. Yet the former attacks the later as inconsistent, as he confuses intelligence for wisdom much as Hemingway did. 

The Woke claim to be atheists, yet use the term ‘white privilege’. The concept is awfully similar to ‘original sin’ just without any possibility of salvation. They use ‘cancel culture’ to punish what they perceive as heresy. And yet they attack not particularly religious folk for ‘being religious’ and for being conformed to old ideas. If old ideas are wrong, why are they constantly rediscovered such that they can persist across time? 

How did we end up here? A place where our common ground has disappeared, and where religious instinct has been lowered into the political domain. As increasing parts of our Western populations could no longer discern the utility of old foundational assumptions about life and the cosmos, they’ve assumed them wrong, then started out with their own. A great many have ended up with worse assumptions than they started with, whilst more still have found their way back to those which shall continue to persist.

If atheism cannot avoid but descend into a vicious form of pagan religion, then we must understand woke guilt and the projection of this guilt upon those traditionally regarded as Good. This "phenomenon of rising guilt becomes both a byproduct of and an obstacle to civilizational advance. The stupendous achievements of the West in improving the material conditions of human life and extending the blessings of liberty and dignity to more and more people are in danger of being countervailed and even negated by a growing burden of guilt that poisons our social relations and hinders our efforts to live happy and harmonious lives." - Wilfred M. McClay, The Strange Persistence of Guilt

Words from Churchill’s first speech as Prime Minister are appropriate here. “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.” The current challenge to the West is as real as that of World War II.

This challenge will take place in the political realm and will have very real economic consequences, the extent of which could bring about an end to the West as we know it. We must understand this challenge and how to defeat it. We must not only defeat it in the immediate political arena, but we must fix all those institutions where it has already taken root and done damage. We must bring Liberals into a broad coalition, and figure out how to build and maintain institutions with them. An important part of this will involve reviving religious institutions, and in so doing, relegate the Woke to some dim corner of History.

2. The Defiance of Marxism

Turning now to focus upon the political challenge posed by the Woke, which takes the form of an updated Marxism, where instead of dominant and oppressed labour classes, there are dominant and oppressed social classes. This reappearance indicates that Marxism, or at least it’s essential resentment, is a part of the human condition with which every individual must contend.

Neo-Marxism posits that there is a part of society that oppresses the rest for their own benefit. That part of the oppressed class supports the status quo only because of false consciousness, that a revolutionary reconstitution of society is required, and that an eventual disappearance of class antagonisms exists within the forthcoming utopia. We shall look at correcting this misrepresentation of reality elsewhere. First, we shall look at how Marxism has made it’s advance.

Liberalism (broadly speaking) is committed to freeing the individual from coercion by larger groups, such as the state. Here we need to differentiate between classical Liberals and modern (lowercase) liberals. Liberals recognise, and often discover for themselves the reasons for the prevalence of various networks of win-win exchanges, which we shall call Institutions. On the other hand, liberals see many of these Institutions as coercive and archaic. Irrational leftovers of an unenlightened culture seeking to escape the hardship of existence with mere ritual, tradition and conformity.

Marxists on the other hand, have a tendancy to endorse the use of coercion in pursuit of a reconstituted society. That is a belief that the ends will justify the means, a belief that finds common ground with liberals aound certain issues.

Since the Enlightenment, Liberals have decreased in proportion to liberals, who in turn have ceded this slowly shifting common ground to Marxists. Same-sex marriage is a recent example of an Institution deformed again, as has occurred to it many times before, including by the legality and ease of divorce. Slowly, one by one, these Institutions are deformed, disappear or are taken over by Marxists and aimed toward their own ends. Not only has this happened to ancient Institutions like marriage, but also to more modern Institutions like the university. In their deformed state, universities not only indoctrinate students in Marxist ideology, but do so whilst imposing an external cost on others. That is, the students get their ‘education’ while we’re paying the cost of it, with a great many taxed against their conscience.

We have in recent years arrived at the point where Marxists have now turned upon their liberal allies, all while many Liberals have realised that protecting Institutions simultaneously protects the individual, and shall henceforth be broadly referred to as Conservatives. The undignified removal of liberal Brett Weinstein from Evergreen College illustrates my initial assertion. The individual remains Weinstein’s primary concern, whilst a reconstituted society is the primary concern of his Marxist students.

During this last US election cycle, liberals have increasingly been forced to choose between Conservatives and Marxists, and will overwhelmingly break with Conservatives in order to preserve their precious individualism. These liberals do not see Trump as the head of a Petersonian hierarchy, but as a compromise with the unenlightened but individualistic. Exposure to Conservatism and time may be all that a full conversion requires.

Conservatives generally understand that the absolute unity (of Truth) must act through the particular. That is, Truth acts primarily through persons. Hence, giving rise to a popular President and the associated liberal criticism of Conservatives for ‘desperate Trump worship’.

Conservatives now need to make a case for Institutions to liberals. This case needs to rid the liberal mind of their failed appeasement policies such as political correctness, which act only as a facade concealing and protecting corrupted institutions. Victor Davis Hansen brilliantly observed that many are still “clueless that Trump serves as some sort of sharp planer ripping off the thin, shiny mahogany veneer pasted over our particle-board establishment.”

The double impeachment of President Trump bears witness to the fact that Marxists have never accepted him as legitimate, even after his initial electoral victory. Conservative claims of election fraud — whether real or imagined — illustrate that a centuries long held recognition of mutual legitimacy has come to an end within Western culture.

No longer can Conservatives be satisfied by electoral victories, but must begin to restore Institutions to their former glory. We must restore the utility and effectiveness of Institutions at mediating and thus satisfying the desires of highly varied individuals. This is a highly meaningful task, and this case must be made by Conservatives to their own, whom we must challenge and give a purpose to fulfil.

3. The Institutional Case for Liberals

As an economics student I learned of Say’s law, the idea that production is the source of consumption, and believed it in a sincere but naive manner. So much so, that I could only scoff during a class where the professor warned that every successful entrepreneur had failed seven times (on average) before finding success. I couldn’t believe that to be the case, and certainly not for myself. After all, one merely had to produce something, and the ability to consume and spend would quickly follow. I was certainly capable of producing, especially as I wasn’t much interested in conforming to and appeasing expectations. In fact, I was rather desperate to be free of such expectations.

Fast-forward to only one year later, and I was in complete agreement with that warning of almost certain failure. Pursuing independence, I had started up in business whilst studying, but could never sell enough product to justify even half the marketing spend, no matter the avenue or approach. I had an ‘elite’, holier-than-thou attitude about my failure. I believed that I possessed the vital knowledge, and therefore it was the character of others that needed retooling. I considered my worldview, my very character as infallible. Perhaps I even saw additional truths as increasingly inconsequential. So, what could possibly bring me to total agreement with the lecturer whom I had scoffed at? And what could do so in a matter of minutes?

I had seen Say’s law posted online. I was angered, even mocked by it. That’s certainly not true I scoffed — production does not allow consumption. However, it got me to reflect on past events in terms of barter. That is, instead of considering the consumption-side of the economic equation, I focused on the production-side, all in an effort to justify my initial instincts to myself. Considering various scenarios such as easily picked flowers for hard caught fish, it dawned on me that in many instances I’d rather keep the efforts of my own labour, rather than exchange for something of lessor value. Further, I realised that in a barter system, that the amount I produced would necessarily limit my ability to consume. That I would have to choose between 3 of 10 desirable exchanges, even if I was very lucky; and that this was also the case for everyone else.

Production allows consumption so long as another party is willing to exchange their labour for yours. Otherwise they will exchange for something else or save. Further, the proportion of people willing to exchange needs to be greater than the cost of reaching them. That all said, Say’s law holds in a subtle way, bar a few disclaimers. So subtle that one can scarcely tell the tale. I wondered whether Say was lazy with his words, or I in reading them, or a third in retelling them? Money, I realised, merely extends and conceals barter, and in proportion to one another. Nevertheless, I arrived at the crucial realisation that I was not yet in possession of the vital knowledge.

I have told this story in service of my aim, which is to further convince liberals of the dignity of the individual. Firstly, that no individual can succeed in twisting reality to his conceptions, his mere will, and will fail in the attempt. Sure he may succeed in making an attempt, as Mugabe successfully attempted 'transformation' in Zimbabwe, but he certainly failed to produce the ends aimed at. Secondly, I am suggesting that wherever you find people acting together without being acted upon, that their acts must necessarily embody some vital knowledge that you cannot yet understand. Especially in those Institutions (read organic groups) that have stood the test of time. That sort of success requires much experience, many failures and corrections, and an ongoing and reciprocal co-adaption between people and reality.

I am not suggesting that you merely submit or conform yourself to traditional ideas that you could not believe even under duress. In fact, I am certain that the way to true belief (knowledge) is through desire. Indeed, William Blake warned that we should “sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” However, we shall worry about psychology and pathology in the final chapter.

For now, I am simply suggesting that what you don’t yet know, is always much more important than what you already know. That each of life’s lessons is greater than the previous, with the greatest for last. That additional truths are not increasingly inconsequential, but increasingly significant.

Ultimately, I want liberals to understand that in the absence of coercion the whole Truth becomes effective, general wealth is generated, and human dignity achieved. Outcomes become greater than their originating intentions. Conversely, operating with coercion, with the attitude that the ends will justify the means, results in destruction, in outcomes antithetical to their originating intentions. Dystopia results from an intended utopia, as the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We shall explore the reasons here and in the next chapter.

Now we should turn specifically to Institutions, their functioning and their corruption. Consider again the central commitment of Liberalism; the freeing of the individual from coercion by larger groups. Are all groups coercive? And if not, what constitutes coercion? What is liberty, or the absence of coercion? I shall answer these questions in reverse.

Thomas Jefferson described “rightful liberty” as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” Ayn Rand adds further clarity explaining that, “In civilised society, force may only be used in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.”

Thus, we can softly define coercion as the use of ‘force’, a rather vague concept requiring further definition. Perhaps it is clearer to describe coercion by its effects. The use of force requires that parties become involved in exchanges to their detriment. That is to find yourself on the losing side of a win-lose exchange, and lose the result of your labour for something of lessor or no value.

Additionally, coercion is the lost opportunity of entering instead into a mutually beneficial win-win exchange. To illustrate this idea, consider the common desire for freedom of expression. Censorship is the related coercion, in that it represents the lost opportunity to exchange mutually beneficial ideas with others.

The act of theft demonstrates that coercion does not require a group, and such acts are often considered to be criminal. The imprisonment of a thief necessarily requires the use of force, yet only against a party who initiated its use. Coercion quite simply, requires that one party take the fruits of some others labour.

Group coercion requires redistribution of labour gains from individuals via a proxy. Historically, this has been done as redistribution via government taxation, hence the famous American dictum that ‘taxation without representation is tyranny.’ But even unfettered taxation naturally limits the coercive element in society, especially as the tax base is repeatedly diminished. Additional coercion must then be conducted as redistribution by diluting the purchasing power of producers. That requires the creation of money without production, money that competes with earned money, which receives a smaller share of total production. This is illustrated below:

Such effects are often blamed on capitalism by those unaffected, and who meanwhile attack the middle-class for supporting Trump and being mislead by the ‘false consciousness’ of bringing jobs back from China.

We must remember that the cost of coercion is not incurred only by those whose means are stripped from their hands, but borne by those who exercise it, in forms of psychology that obstruct subjective satisfaction - or dignity.

Coercion by groups can occur in three ways. Forced participation in an inorganic whole (universal healthcare), forced participation in an organic whole (marriage), or forced exclusion from an organic whole (censorship). The first two are more widely understood, whilst atomisation is much less so. Alexis de Tocqueville perhaps clarified this democratic despotism best explaining that, “[He] does not break mens wills, but softens, bends and guides them. He seldom forces anyone to act, but consistently opposes action. He does not destroy things, but prevents them coming into being. Rather than tyrannise, he inhibits, represses, saps, stifles and stupidities, and in the end he reduces each nation to a flock of timid and industrious animals, with the government as it’s Shepard.”

It is this democratic despotism that modern Conservatives must focus their energy upon. As should be clear by now, not all groups are coercive. As such, Conservatism includes the Liberal goal of freeing the individual from coercion by larger groups, and it goes further still. It seeks to promote and protect organic groups from coercion by inorganic groups of atomised individuals. It seeks to protect societal gains, won over centuries, for it is far easier to destroy than it is to create.

Society is indeed a contract…it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
— Edmund Burke

Both the university and marriage are legitimate institutions, both of which have become corrupted and corrupted in different ways. Marriage has been corrupted by atomised individuals forcing their inclusion into an organic group. University corruption takes the form of one group imposing an external cost on contemporary or future taxpayers, and which society at large may pay via inflation. The big question now, is how do we go about returning Institutions to their former glory?

4. Conserving Causation

The goal of Conservatism is to free the individual from coercion by inorganic groups, to protect and promote organic groups, and the gains to productivity and production that they create across both time and space. That whatever power comes from the top must be allowed to rise from the bottom.

Conservatives must offer an alternative to Marxism as a part of their very Being. One that prompts re-evaluation in even the most ardent Marxist, and which wins from them a majority of middle ground liberals. Additionally, it must be effective, that is Conservative principles must be in effect despite the great many who will remain unconvinced.

Hence, Conservatives need to distinguish between the persuasive effort and the effective effort. The first is the effort to persuade our opponents; the second involves the effort required to enact our ideals, realistic though they are. Returning to Ayn Rand once again, we must remember that it is our justified civil duty to use force upon those who initiate its use.

We shall begin examining the persuasive effort, and return later to the effective effort. Thus, let us remind ourselves of the Marxist position once more. It is the worldview whereby one part of society oppresses the other, that many of the oppressed accept this status quo due to false consciousness; that a revolutionary reconstitution of society is required, and that a disappearance of class antagonisms will follow in the forthcoming utopia.

My initial reaction is to reject these Marxist tenets outright. Perhaps, not the tenets so much as the associated vocabulary of ‘white privilege’, ‘social construction’, ‘anti-racism’ and ‘social justice’. Typical Conservative responses to such arguments invoke (in Marxists) perceptions of cold capitalism, pure individualism, and the apathy of those satisfied bysociety and justice; rendering it a purely passive Conservatism.

Putting aside our initial reactions, we should express a much more proactive Conservatism. In order to achieve this, we ought to address Marxist complaints head on and with nuance, from which we can derive and exert a concise counter view.

I was a member of the short-lived Australian Conservatives party. Their primary principles included personal responsibility, free enterprise, limited government and civil society. I cannot help but see these principles as solutions to each of the Marxist tenets, themselves mere problems utterly devoid of anything nearing a solution.

Upon further inspection one could claim ‘limited government’ as a Conservative solution to ‘oppression’. ‘Personal responsibility’ as a solution to ‘false consciousness’; ‘free enterprise’ as allowing a constantly ‘reconstituted society’, and ‘civil society’ as a ‘utopia’ to strive toward, one free of antagonisms.

Limited government restricts oppression by proxy, leaving citizens free to build win-win networks. Personal responsibility leaves those operating under false consciousness to be wrong, allowing them the corrective experiences to change their minds. Free enterprise allows the constant and incremental reconstitution of society as inefficiencies arise. Civil society allows citizens to act together without being acted upon, negating the need for a delayed utopia.

Further, we must use a better political fulcrum. Instead of discussing politics using the outdated neocon-neoliberal divide, we ought to represent the middle class against ‘the establishment’. This approach explains the successes of Brexit and Donald Trump, and must be further refined.

The establishment represents those satisfied with the status quo - globalist 'elites' who are ‘too big to fail’. They are globalist in that they place international organisations (like the UN) above country, and believe "patriotism a mere conviction that ones country is superior for being born in it." - George Bernard Shaw. It is not competence that makes them 'elite', rather the term describes an attitude and "habit of equating appearances, credentials, and demeanour of not necessarily talented people as proof of excellence and deserved authority. Where you live, what school branded you, what title, past and present, you can parlay, whom you know, and whom you married somehow have ended up far more important that what you have actually done." - Victor Davis Hansen.

Our contemporary middle class "is not a small marginal class, but a large, multiracial, multiethnic class containing equal numbers of men and woman." - George Friedman. This middle class coalition must disrupt the status quo in order to "restart productivity growth, and rebuild an effective government and public life." - George Friedman. Slowbalisation has decimated industry and middle class prosperity. To add insult to injury, they are currently being censored by elites (think 'big tech'), and treated like they know nothing, are nothing and do nothing.

It is this fulcrum that we must use to leverage public discourse into converts, who will not come from the establishment itself, but from among their army of sycophants. These Marxists and liberals regularly demand that Conservatives justify their stances. Too often we appease them and are shut down before even making a start. Instead we should start posing the questions, and see whether they can justify their obstinance. I believe that this is all we can do with any level of success on the persuasive front.

As an example, consider arguments concerning corporate welfare. Could a few questions get a Marxist to admit that instead of taxing businesses more we ought to tax citizens less? And would that allow us to concede that closing corporate tax loopholes would be in the common good too? Perhaps, but we should not expect too much, for we are talking about two completely seperate conceptual universes.

We shall turn now, and examine our effective efforts. An approach that the Australian Conservatives party lacked. First, we must acknowledge that the Marxist problems and their Conservative solutions, are not isolated but parts of an interdependent whole.

That is to say that there is a causal structure behind both our problems, and our solutions. That singular causes can produce a plethora of effects, and vice versa, whereby a multitude of causes produce a singular effect. These causes/effects form a causal pyramid, with the singular most cause (and effect) at the top, the greatest plenitude at the base, and a series of levels in-between. I know not what is at the top, nor the bottom, just that they are commonly referred to as God and quantum mechanics.

Consider the following as the levels of the pyramid, starting with the base: praxeology, axiology, epistemology, politics, economics, nature, metaphysics and ontology. We will return to these in the last chapter, but consider these definitions for now:

Praxeology — the individual’s arrangement of external objects toward his own ends.

Axiology — the individual’s arrangement of internal representations toward his own ends, i.e. values.

Epistemology — the individual’s level of overlap between the external and internal worlds, i.e. psychology.

Politics (and Economics) — the pivot between creation and destruction, between Self, Other and the Arena.

Nature — universally applicable, eternal laws unalterable by mankind.

Metaphysics — the existence of a reservoir of potential, and movement toward actualisation, i.e. Aristotle and Plotinus.

Ontology — the absolute unity, as a destination, and which acts through persons, giving rise to ‘Petersonian’ hierarchies. That is the realisation that the potential works in us, even as the actual works on us, i.e. Religion/Christianity.

The point in our pyramid — our causal structure — is to fell a tree with fewer blows of the axe at the right spot, rather than through thousands of poor blows. The point is greater efficiency, so we must first identify the right spots to target.

One may seek to explain a phenomenon like depression downward from a single cause (God/sin), or upward from the most abundant causes (physics/brain chemistry). Alternatively, one may understand both the upward and downward as dialogue, as interdependent and reciprocal. This provides the opportunity to provide “middle-out” explanations, for lack of a better term.

George Ellis explains that, in order “to characterise some specific causal effect as top down, we must demonstrate that a change in higher level conditions alters the sequence of processes at lower levels.” That would be to show that a different epistemology/psychology alters serotonin levels, thus reducing depression, which does not deny the efficacy of antidepressant medicines and their bottom up effects in the short term.

Middle-out must then describe different cultural (read universal) conditions as changing processes at individual levels. Different political conditions, monarchy versus popular sovereignty for example, leading to different economic conditions — feudalism versus liberal capitalism.

Let’s put some meat on these bones by considering the chart below, showing the disconnect between productivity and compensation beginning around 1971. What higher level, universal condition was altered at that time?

Many will recognise that the gold standard was ‘temporarily suspended’ in 1971. It’s abandonment the result of debasement while the US abused their position of reserve currency status, and initiated by Charles de Gaulle withdrawing France’s gold. Since, middle class economic conditions have stagnated as Keynesianism (money creation/debasement) was gradually unleashed with the added assistance of digital banking.

As we’ve entered the 2020s, we’ve seen this Keynesianism slowly morph into MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). The stock market is no longer an accumulation of wealth, so much as a mere accumulation of claims upon a much more limited wealth. The same can be said of all assets classes except that of commodities.

This altered economics exerts its own bottom-up effect on politics, as we’ve seen the Republican party split, one part attempting to represent populism/Trumpism (the red line folk), and the other part representing RINO/neocon/establishment types (the yellow line). The Democrat party has split along similar lines into progressive and establishment factions.

There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
— John Maynard Keynes

How ironic that Keynes saw (and didn’t see) the evil inherent to his own system. The debasement of fiat currencies makes coercion simpler and far more extensive, than by the means of taxation. One may understand he history of Rhodesia between UDI in 1965 and Zimbabwe in 1980 as a war fought to prevent coercion by taxation. The history of Zimbabwe after 2000 is then an extension of coercion by currency debasement. It is clear that coercion acts in failed states to repeatedly diminish the total output of society, whilst coercion in successful nations acts to inhibit further gains to total output.

It is at these spots that Conservatives must strike to effectively ‘fell the tree’. Conscious efforts should be made to reduce coercion via the proxies of taxation and debasement. A simple voting franchise should be established, and lost by those who benefit from taxation without themselves making a contribution. Laws should be passed to prevent government and central banks from debasement. Further all investment and savings should be a matter only of maturity transformation for the various commercial banks.

Such conscious efforts will likely fail in our zeitgeist, but ultimately the elites will be unable to accomodate the future, and this provides our opportunity. Our efforts will be preparation for the period after an unconscious ‘flick of the switch’, whereby the bottom up effects initiated in 1971 reach up to their own cause and ‘switch it over’, causing a trophic cascade. The downstream effects of such an event will be positive at all levels for many, many decades. That is to say that currency and financial collapse will return us to extended barter largely free of coercion. This return to sound money will be temporary if we are unprepared and cannot keep it.

The greatest part of this effective effort will be coordinated between Conservatives, who must avoid falling into purity traps. We must remember that tradition is dynamic and ‘is not the slavish imitation of the past. Tradition cannot be inherited, and can only be obtained by hard labour." - T.S. Eliot.

Our woes with social media provide an opportunity to advance Conservative cooperation. That is, instead of using social media primarily to convince opponents, we should employ such tools toward publishing for the purposes of sharing amongst ourselves what used to be called a liberal arts education, or colloquially as common sense. That is a recognition of the value of broad knowledge rather than mere accumulation in a specific field. "The ability to see consequences far removed from the technical issues." - George Friedman.

The humble can see in another’s vocation, an inexhaustible richness and complexity right at hand. Hence, a willingness to learn and teach will make us far more competent than our adversaries who take out loans to attend Ivy league schools for a cattle brand. The successful establishment of such institutions should lead to the granting of powers of accreditation. Powers equal to those of corrupted universities.

Such an approach to publishing "would primarily train people to think in Christian categories, though it would not compel belief and would not impose the necessity for insincere profession of belief." This in turn would lead to "small and mostly self-contained groups attached to the soil and having their interests centred in a particular place", unifying "the active and the contemplative life, action and speculation, politics and the arts." - T.S. Eliot. Our end should be a society wide reengagement with tradition, brought about through "ritualised relationships and obligations to family, friends and larger groups. Human beings are bound by traditions and traditions turn into rituals." - George Friedman.

The middle class should be "satisfied with nothing less than a Christian organisation of society, which is not the same thing as a society consisting exclusively of devout Christians. It would be a society in which the natural end of man - virtue and well-being in community - is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end - beatitude - for those who have the eyes to see it." - T.S. Eliot.

5. A Tale of Two Pathologies

John Milton observed that, “The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” Such is the pervasive nature of one’s worldview. Consider the analogy of eye glasses. When looking through glasses we don’t question the quality of the glasses themselves, rather we are only interested in what we can see through them. The difference with worldview is that we have some choice before us at all times, and our decisions have the power to distort or clarify our glasses or vision. This incrementally and ultimately renders people obscure to each other. We do not “choose between an image of total freedom or total determinism”, because we “can only choose within the world we can see.” — Iris Murdoch. And we can only see what we already know and believe. Incremental and reciprocal expansion (or contraction) between limited choice and the world we can see, determines the extent of our vision and capacity for action.

“This life's dim windows of the soul,
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
- William Blake 

Each individual is the sum and sequence of their choices, with initial choices being the most significant as in a nonlinear system adapting to feedback. Because of this, Conservatives ought to strive for T.S. Eliot’s vision of “a society in which the natural end of man—virtue and well-being in community—is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end of man—beatitude—for those who have eyes to see it.”

How do we go about understanding psychology, especially pathology? I have found insights from Carl Jung’s work (especially ’Psychological Types’) useful here. First, let us acknowledge two initial decisions (or orientations) and thus two paths to the supernatural end of man (or what we’ll call centroversion). This initial choice is between extraversion or introversion. Extraversion refers to an affinity for the object, for impression upon the psyche by the arena (the external world). Whereas introversion refers to an affinity for the subject, for expression in the arena by the psyche (the internal world). 

Secondly, let us acknowledge three obstacles common to both paths; the persona, the ego and the anima/animus. These are obstacles of representation, and thus of choice. They get their power from the need for, or rather the fact of identity. Identity stems from the mental model of one-self, which necessarily determines the relationships between self, others and the arena. This representational situation of identity gives rise to the attitudes mentioned in the first chapter. The allocating of Good, Evil or neither to these broadest categories of existence.

Jung details further assumptions which determine the interrelation between four psychological functions. These are basic, disparate and necessary assumptions which give rise to various personality types, and the variation between individuals. All of these fundamental assumptions, when successfully utilised, will converge upon the same endpoint. We shall use Erich Neumann’s term for this endpoint, ‘centroversion’, as Jung’s own ‘circumambulation’ is a tad unwieldy, and ‘beatitude’ unpalatable to the secular. 

Before his student gave rise to the term ‘centroversion’, Jung explained it as “when an almost perfect state has been reached, when in fact the introvert has attained a world of ideas so rich and flexible and capable of expression that it no longer forces the object onto a procrustean bed, and the extrovert an ample knowledge of and respect for the object that it no longer gives rise to caricature when he operates with it in his thinking.”

Jung used Goethe’s own words as an illustration of this state; “As a contemplative man I am an arrant realist, so that I am capable of desiring nothing from all the things that present themselves to me, and wishing nothing added to them. I make no sort of distinction among objects beyond whether they interest me or not. On the other hand, in every sort of activity I am, one might almost say completely idealistic; I ask nothing at all from objects, but instead I demand that everything shall conform to my conceptions.” 

We will return to centroversion and it’s trajectory, but we must now consider the sources of pathology, whereby feedback renders the psyche increasingly less adapted to its function. Returning again to Jung’s key insight, we can see that there must be two types of pathology; extraverted and introverted. Introverted pathology attempts to force objects to fit into the scheme of it's own mere representation. Extraverted pathology single-mindedly attempts to bind itself to joy’ as explained by William Blake in his poem ‘Eternity’.

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.
— William Blake

Thus, in our post-religious era those suffering from introverted pathology produce a secular totalitarianism, whilst those suffering from extraverted pathology produce a hedonistic nihilism. Relativism expedites the aims of both pathologies, removing ideological opponents in one instance and in focusing attention on the present in the second.

The first psychological obstacle is that of identification with the persona, the persona being that which is a product of a dialogue between the Self and the Other, and thus subject to the limitations of consensus and obedience to expectations. The initial introvert is likely to avoid this obstacle with relative ease, simply due to the location of the Other within the Arena. He is likely to be far more obstructed by his ego (located internally) than will be the extravert, and will fall into the trappings of a Will philosophy. Very often this Will finds itself obstructed by tradition, or Culture which it regards as the comforting conformity of fools.

The extravert is more prone to the trappings of persona because the location of the Other is within his beloved Arena. Relativism becomes necessary for their hedonistic aims, which renders them incapable of discernment and apathetic toward anything that does not immediately expedite their satisfaction. He seeks popularity by assuring others that he sees no more than they do, while reducing non-consensus views to the level of caricature. Thus he remains blind to the fact that fate is not furnished by consensus, but by consent between individuals.

“The Copernican Revolution of modern philosophy removed the notion of certainty from the inside to the outside.” — Iris Murdoch. This coalition of secular totalitarianism and hedonistic nihilism has become well established, against Culture and wielding relativism to dismiss those who can claim internal certainties, while insisting only upon their own external certainties. Hence their general attitude of 'we must stop you from your aim so that we may reach ours.'

A great part of Western populations has spent 2020 lurching from one hysteria to the next. The relations between the pathological has become increasingly cult like, whereby participants initiate, indoctrinate and reprogram one another. The pathological have sought consensus at any cost, preventing dissent and appraisal of alternatives. Increasingly they have developed common fears which have spiralled into a panic. Feeding off of each other’s emotional reactions has caused the panic to escalate.

These forms of psychological pathology are best observed in students of our contemporary universities. The representation and represented are kept completely seperate during the course of study, which rapidly results in either hyper-extroversion or hyper-introversion, depending on the original orientation. 

Such forms of hypertrophy are increasingly difficult to escape the longer they persist. I’ve experienced this very phenomenon whilst studying civil engineering by pure theory; I became increasingly resentful of others as I become increasingly hyper-extroverted.

Contemporary students don’t need to demonstrate any mastery over reality, least the minimum required to earn a living, instead subsisting on easy money from parents, taxpayers and banks. Often after completing their studies, they feel most jobs to be beneath their ‘expertise’ and are further placated by a welfare state willing to fund their desperate evasion of productive participation in society.

This sad state of affairs is analysed implicitly in Kevin Carey’s book ‘The End of College’. “It wasn’t until recently that truly damning evidence of the hybrid universities educational shortcomings became widely known. Even then, the alarming findings from the US Department of Educations study of college graduate literacy — the majority of bachelors degree holders are unable to read at an advanced level — so contradicted the popular image of universities as dedicated centres of learning that they seemed unable to penetrate the popular consciousness.” The reason this issue cannot enter popular consciousness is because the persona/ego possessed approach university not as education, but as a luxury good. Much like a Rolex, where the aim isn't to tell the time but to tell others what to think about you.

What if anything, can be done to deprogram our friends from the cult of Woke and release them for more cheerful occupations? Could a common event - such as a financial collapse - achieve this for most? Possibly. Unfortunately my mind returns to knowledge of incremental choice and the momentum in falling downward. Perhaps a common experience could offer up a powerful enough choice to those long wrong, however this deep hope emphasises the importance of our containment efforts outlined in the prior section.

Any event powerful enough to provide such a remedy would have to be economic. It would necessarily require the collapse of the current fiat monetary system, which sustains false hierarchies. Without such a monetary system, the pathological will be unable to sustain their personas, nor their egos. They would be forced into a reckoning through pure scarcity. It seems that the false pursuits of man contain the seeds of their own remedy as required decades, even centuries later.

Unfortunately until such time, these “technocrats will continue to assert that their expertise, credentials, and merit (false hierarchies) make them the morally legitimate power in the West.” — George Friedman. We must resist them through the implicit power of centroversion, of increasing unity between the capacity for choice and competent action. For “if we lose this culture war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, History will record with the greatest astonishment that those with the most to lose did the least to prevent it happening.” — Ronald Reagan. Let’s leave pathology and return to centroversion of convergent individuals.

Whilst this conflict may appear to be political, it is in fact religious. Many religious differences have their seed in the choice between discrete truths and truths that form part of a whole. The metaphysical realisation is that this whole is evolving. That is to say that things are not fixed in Nature, that things are created. That there is a reservoir of potential, and a destination for all that is actualised. The ontological realisation is that the whole (or absolute unity) drives the process of actualisation (creation or destruction) by acting through persons (the particular). Creation begins in a vision of unity, whilst destruction has its origins in relativism.

One may rightly ask what are the steps to toward the greatest of realisations, and I can only hope to be right so far as my limited age permits. I cannot make incremental choices for anyone, nor would I want to remove such magnificent mystery from the lives of others.

Returning again to the levels of our causal pyramid mentioned in the prior chapter. Centroversion begins at the base and proceeds through experiences driven by praxeology, axiology, epistemology, politics (cosmology of Persons), economics (cosmology of Nature), metaphysics and ontology. Consider these definitions for now:

Praxeology — the individual’s arrangement of external objects toward his own ends.

Axiology — the individual’s arrangement of internal representations toward his own ends, i.e. values.

Epistemology — the individual’s capacity to create an overlap between the external and internal worlds, i.e. psychology.

Cosmology of people (Politics) — the universally applicable pivot between creation and destruction.

Nature (economics laws within) — universally applicable, eternal laws unalterable by mankind.

Metaphysics — the existence of a reservoir of potential, and movement toward actualisation, i.e. Aristotle and Plotinus.

Ontology — the absolute unity, as a destination, and which acts through persons, giving rise to ‘Petersonian’ hierarchies. That is the realisation that the potential works in us, even as the actual works on us, i.e. Religion/Christianity.

One must nest prior levels of experience within each new level of realisation. That is the prior levels must become automatic whilst remaining effective. That is we must achieve our external aims while satisfying our values. These values must not upset our psychology and so on. I must remind you “that ‘all is one’ is a dangerous falsehood at any level except the highest.” — Iris Murdoch. The centroverted must remember that “you and I have the ability, dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.” — Ronald Reagan.

You move from one knowledge structure to the next one which includes the previous one and it is better. And it’s better because it covers more territory.
— Jordan B Peterson