Saying "No" to the Global Boot Party
How, and by what standard a human being is to conduct themselves thru life is a never ending subject amongst our species, animated and labored as we are by the alternate blessing & curse of our intelligence. If the answer we happen to give to such a question is not satisfactory to everyone, it should be recognized that, owing to the different types of human beings that exist, it cannot and should not be an answer for everyone. People are not the same, so what nourishes us psychologically and spiritually cannot be the same. At the very least, our answer will be a profound confession of our own nature.
My own answer to how one should conduct oneself in a world where all values and institutions are seemingly decaying and self-destructing is the same answer I give to how one should conduct oneself in a world where all values and institutions are prospering and thriving: live according to your own self-direction and value, if you are able!
People often speak of values as if they are a given thing that one is taught by others who at some mystical point in the past received them from a deity, or possibly as something one can discover within themselves if they are properly trained, or give their hearts to the “Lord”. In either case, values are presented to us as completed formulations that can either be had or not had. Such a view ignores the fact that values evolve from a dynamic process, and can continue to evolve if the individual is willing to engage in the work of self-discovery, and to continue learning about the nature and requirements of certain paths thru the objective world.
The divide over values in our country expresses itself in our political division, which has exhaustively been cast as conservative vs. liberal, individual vs. collective, selfish vs. selfless. To give a very old yet recently emergent spin on this divide, we need look no further than the growing "alternative spirituality" scene, which casts the value divide as the Right Hand Path vs. the Left Hand Path
Nietzsche asked the question – “Can you give yourself your own good and your own evil, and hang your will over yourself as your highest law?” Those who can honestly answer “Yes” to such a question are (whether they know it or not) adherents of what is often called the Left Hand Path. The Right Hand Path, on the contrary, involves the following of definitions of good and evil as given by one’s society, and hanging an externally determined group-will over oneself as one’s highest law. It should be obvious that the majority of the world’s religions and moral codes are modes of the Right Hand Path.
It is easy to see how the Left Hand Path is not for everyone. It is not supposed to be. It is a discernable fact that many follow, and few lead. This realization achieves even more clarity when one contemplates how many are able to lead and follow themselves, as opposed to following others. Our present culture, despite its verbiage to the contrary, does not promote self-leadership, for it is counter to its interests and instincts. Our age is one of decay and destruction, which requires ‘following’ to be a virtue of the highest order. No one likes to admit this to themselves, however, and everyone fancies his or her self an “individual” and thinks they are “being different” when they join a crowd of like-minded people. The formless pariahs, who lack all self-direction and who cannot even live up to the physical health of the ‘animal ideal’ they fancy themselves embodying, want to rule the world, and seek cultural and global domination accordingly, not from any superior vision or ability, but simply because they have an ego large enough for it, and come from a society that tells them it is their right to do so. Even the stupid have a will to power, and all too often they have the strongest form of it. Having said all that, the best thing about our time is that it is also an age of transition; an Age of Metamorphosis.
I hear many voices opposed to what I am saying. “Does not the doom of our age lie in the fact that all too many say ‘do what thou wilt’, and accordingly go it alone, oblivious to community and the better good, sticking it to everyone for their own selfish gratification?” I have had this question asked of me more than once, by more than a few people. The answer is “no, the doom of our age does not come from those who lead and determine themselves, but from those who are unable to do so”.
Only the irrational equate selfishness with the need to walk over corpses to achieve one’s goals. The rational know how unnecessary, destructive, and counter-productive such actions are. One cannot be Pro-Self while invoking vengeful and destructive forces against oneself at the same time. The self-destruction involved in pursuing even the semblance of short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival is the very definition of “selflessness”.
The premise of the view that equates selfishness with irrationality comes from a total misunderstanding of what is actually involved in the rigorous process of determining one’s own values. The individual who follows the Left Hand Path must connect with the higher reason that is accessible to everyone with an average level of human intelligence, and even for those with less, for it is just as much a function of “character” as it is of intelligence. In this context, “higher reason” is that state of mind where reason and instinct, stability and transformation, stasis and change, the actual and the potential of one's being, and self-preservation and progressive growth meet. The self-determined individual must not only discover the workings of the Objective universe and the laws by which it operates, but also discover their own inner Subjective universe and its creative requirements, the “higher laws” by which it evolves and transcends itself. Then, from the crucible of an ongoing, never-ending exploration of the inner and outer realms, one must forge a dynamic union of the Objective world and their own Subjective universe.
Even more, one must actively bring oneself more and more into being by a vigorous process of self-examination and selective emphasis that involves a sloughing off of that which has passed itself off as one’s own conscience and values for many years, yet has in fact been added on and inculcated by a lifetime of brain-washing by the herd of one’s own culture, as well as an alchemical “solve et coagula” – a shattering and recombination of one’s own psychic components – that brings one’s true Self forth in progressive stages of psychic evolution. Life and death are initiations that never end.
From such a dynamic union all true values are born. By “values” I do not mean the artificial proto-values that serve one provisionally and developmentally in the earliest stages of life (the values of one’s parents, clan, and society which are bred into one automatically, and serve as self-preservational tools for the tribe) but the profound operating code and hierarchical ordering that one must discover in oneself -“as oneself”- in order to be an authentically self-possessed, self-directed person. The true difference between the Right Hand and the Left Hand Path is the amount of work involved; whether or not you do your own work, or accept the earlier work that was done by long dead people you will never meet; work that may or may not be relevant to the requirements of your own soul.
The people of our time who ride roughshod over everyone else in order to achieve instant gratification at the expense of long-term growth and sanity are not the products of the rigorous process that produces one’s own personal ethics and values, but the exact opposite. They are followers of the ethic that our culture teaches them in its actions. It is well known, even by those who will not admit it, that our culture preaches one thing and does another.
As for America being a Christian nation, it is the biggest lie of all. The altruism of modern Christianity has been redirected by conservative political activists and fundamentalist culture-warriors into a self-sacrificial ideology that promotes global economic & military conquest, conformity, self-righteous judgmentalism, intolerance, and the blind pursuit of a narrowly conceptualized vision of what wealth and worldly success can be. Although Christ commanded his followers to "render unto Caesar", he did not advocate patriotism of any kind, and recognized no national boundaries. The acquisition of wealth runs counter to the ethic he promoted, as does the existence of a military. Violence for any reason was expressly condemned, even to the point of a refusal to defend oneself. In short, a "Christian Nation" would be everything the United States is not - non-national, non-militarist, and non-bigoted. In real world terms, the United States continues to stand and thrive precisely because it is not a Christian Nation. The ethic of altruism is promoted in our culture simply to brain-wash the populace into sacrificing themselves for the ill-conceived goals of those who fancy themselves our "leaders".
The multitudes that create our corporatist culture of dishonesty, duplicity, thievery, and short-term gain for long-term bankruptcy are precisely those who follow the lead that our society is giving them. Monkey see, monkey do.
Those who have the intelligence and the intestinal fortitude to construct their own values and self-direction out of the crucible of their own dynamic examination of themselves and the world around them are not the cause of the worlds’ present misfortune, but its hopeful future, if it is to have one at all. The men and women of reason know that it is not necessary to screw other people over to prosper, that it is in fact detrimental to one’s own long-term success and livelihood to defraud other people; that it is self-destructive to harm and destroy other people as a means to achieving one’s goals; that one reaps the harvest of doom and death when they sow it as a means to gratification.
In a culture of disintegration it is the Right Hand Path followers of an external standard of conduct that spread disintegration, not the “selfish” Left Hand Path followers of personal virtue, who will take no part in the orgiastic global Boot Party that the herd is conducting upon itself.
-Werbinox
My own answer to how one should conduct oneself in a world where all values and institutions are seemingly decaying and self-destructing is the same answer I give to how one should conduct oneself in a world where all values and institutions are prospering and thriving: live according to your own self-direction and value, if you are able!
People often speak of values as if they are a given thing that one is taught by others who at some mystical point in the past received them from a deity, or possibly as something one can discover within themselves if they are properly trained, or give their hearts to the “Lord”. In either case, values are presented to us as completed formulations that can either be had or not had. Such a view ignores the fact that values evolve from a dynamic process, and can continue to evolve if the individual is willing to engage in the work of self-discovery, and to continue learning about the nature and requirements of certain paths thru the objective world.
The divide over values in our country expresses itself in our political division, which has exhaustively been cast as conservative vs. liberal, individual vs. collective, selfish vs. selfless. To give a very old yet recently emergent spin on this divide, we need look no further than the growing "alternative spirituality" scene, which casts the value divide as the Right Hand Path vs. the Left Hand Path
Nietzsche asked the question – “Can you give yourself your own good and your own evil, and hang your will over yourself as your highest law?” Those who can honestly answer “Yes” to such a question are (whether they know it or not) adherents of what is often called the Left Hand Path. The Right Hand Path, on the contrary, involves the following of definitions of good and evil as given by one’s society, and hanging an externally determined group-will over oneself as one’s highest law. It should be obvious that the majority of the world’s religions and moral codes are modes of the Right Hand Path.
It is easy to see how the Left Hand Path is not for everyone. It is not supposed to be. It is a discernable fact that many follow, and few lead. This realization achieves even more clarity when one contemplates how many are able to lead and follow themselves, as opposed to following others. Our present culture, despite its verbiage to the contrary, does not promote self-leadership, for it is counter to its interests and instincts. Our age is one of decay and destruction, which requires ‘following’ to be a virtue of the highest order. No one likes to admit this to themselves, however, and everyone fancies his or her self an “individual” and thinks they are “being different” when they join a crowd of like-minded people. The formless pariahs, who lack all self-direction and who cannot even live up to the physical health of the ‘animal ideal’ they fancy themselves embodying, want to rule the world, and seek cultural and global domination accordingly, not from any superior vision or ability, but simply because they have an ego large enough for it, and come from a society that tells them it is their right to do so. Even the stupid have a will to power, and all too often they have the strongest form of it. Having said all that, the best thing about our time is that it is also an age of transition; an Age of Metamorphosis.
I hear many voices opposed to what I am saying. “Does not the doom of our age lie in the fact that all too many say ‘do what thou wilt’, and accordingly go it alone, oblivious to community and the better good, sticking it to everyone for their own selfish gratification?” I have had this question asked of me more than once, by more than a few people. The answer is “no, the doom of our age does not come from those who lead and determine themselves, but from those who are unable to do so”.
Only the irrational equate selfishness with the need to walk over corpses to achieve one’s goals. The rational know how unnecessary, destructive, and counter-productive such actions are. One cannot be Pro-Self while invoking vengeful and destructive forces against oneself at the same time. The self-destruction involved in pursuing even the semblance of short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival is the very definition of “selflessness”.
The premise of the view that equates selfishness with irrationality comes from a total misunderstanding of what is actually involved in the rigorous process of determining one’s own values. The individual who follows the Left Hand Path must connect with the higher reason that is accessible to everyone with an average level of human intelligence, and even for those with less, for it is just as much a function of “character” as it is of intelligence. In this context, “higher reason” is that state of mind where reason and instinct, stability and transformation, stasis and change, the actual and the potential of one's being, and self-preservation and progressive growth meet. The self-determined individual must not only discover the workings of the Objective universe and the laws by which it operates, but also discover their own inner Subjective universe and its creative requirements, the “higher laws” by which it evolves and transcends itself. Then, from the crucible of an ongoing, never-ending exploration of the inner and outer realms, one must forge a dynamic union of the Objective world and their own Subjective universe.
Even more, one must actively bring oneself more and more into being by a vigorous process of self-examination and selective emphasis that involves a sloughing off of that which has passed itself off as one’s own conscience and values for many years, yet has in fact been added on and inculcated by a lifetime of brain-washing by the herd of one’s own culture, as well as an alchemical “solve et coagula” – a shattering and recombination of one’s own psychic components – that brings one’s true Self forth in progressive stages of psychic evolution. Life and death are initiations that never end.
From such a dynamic union all true values are born. By “values” I do not mean the artificial proto-values that serve one provisionally and developmentally in the earliest stages of life (the values of one’s parents, clan, and society which are bred into one automatically, and serve as self-preservational tools for the tribe) but the profound operating code and hierarchical ordering that one must discover in oneself -“as oneself”- in order to be an authentically self-possessed, self-directed person. The true difference between the Right Hand and the Left Hand Path is the amount of work involved; whether or not you do your own work, or accept the earlier work that was done by long dead people you will never meet; work that may or may not be relevant to the requirements of your own soul.
The people of our time who ride roughshod over everyone else in order to achieve instant gratification at the expense of long-term growth and sanity are not the products of the rigorous process that produces one’s own personal ethics and values, but the exact opposite. They are followers of the ethic that our culture teaches them in its actions. It is well known, even by those who will not admit it, that our culture preaches one thing and does another.
As for America being a Christian nation, it is the biggest lie of all. The altruism of modern Christianity has been redirected by conservative political activists and fundamentalist culture-warriors into a self-sacrificial ideology that promotes global economic & military conquest, conformity, self-righteous judgmentalism, intolerance, and the blind pursuit of a narrowly conceptualized vision of what wealth and worldly success can be. Although Christ commanded his followers to "render unto Caesar", he did not advocate patriotism of any kind, and recognized no national boundaries. The acquisition of wealth runs counter to the ethic he promoted, as does the existence of a military. Violence for any reason was expressly condemned, even to the point of a refusal to defend oneself. In short, a "Christian Nation" would be everything the United States is not - non-national, non-militarist, and non-bigoted. In real world terms, the United States continues to stand and thrive precisely because it is not a Christian Nation. The ethic of altruism is promoted in our culture simply to brain-wash the populace into sacrificing themselves for the ill-conceived goals of those who fancy themselves our "leaders".
The multitudes that create our corporatist culture of dishonesty, duplicity, thievery, and short-term gain for long-term bankruptcy are precisely those who follow the lead that our society is giving them. Monkey see, monkey do.
Those who have the intelligence and the intestinal fortitude to construct their own values and self-direction out of the crucible of their own dynamic examination of themselves and the world around them are not the cause of the worlds’ present misfortune, but its hopeful future, if it is to have one at all. The men and women of reason know that it is not necessary to screw other people over to prosper, that it is in fact detrimental to one’s own long-term success and livelihood to defraud other people; that it is self-destructive to harm and destroy other people as a means to achieving one’s goals; that one reaps the harvest of doom and death when they sow it as a means to gratification.
In a culture of disintegration it is the Right Hand Path followers of an external standard of conduct that spread disintegration, not the “selfish” Left Hand Path followers of personal virtue, who will take no part in the orgiastic global Boot Party that the herd is conducting upon itself.
-Werbinox
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