EVOLUTIONARY SPECTRA
There are
those who sing the praises of democracy, but they don't realize that, for all
its advantages, democracy is essentially a middle-class phenomenon which, like
novelistic fiction, canvas painting, and symphonic music, stretches from a
late-stage grand-bourgeois age to an early-stage petty-bourgeois one ... as a
kind of materialistic hybrid in between autocracy and theocracy, and that, with
the emergence of a late-stage petty-bourgeois age, it becomes effectively
anachronistic, though subject to extensive modification ... in the interests of
an attempt to bring it into line with an age of pseudo-democracy, that form of
democracy germane to state socialism, with its so-called People’s democracy.
For people's democracy, despite its
proletarian implications, is essentially a late-stage petty-bourgeois
phenomenon, existing at the tail-end of a democratic spectrum, beyond the pale
of genuine democracy but not, on that account, a chronologically inferior
development! On the contrary, simply a
more contemporary one, relevant to the second-half of the twentieth century -
like colour photography, colour film, and rock music. Pseudo-democracy is, in effect, the
antithetical equivalent of Cromwellian dictatorship,
a form of political dictatorship posing as democracy, no less the end of the
middle spectrum of social affairs than Cromwell's dictatorship was its
inception, back in the seventeenth century, when the English bourgeoisie
revolted against royalist autocracy.
Socialism, by contrast, signifies a revolt against democratic pluralism,
with its capitalist base. However,
capitalism and socialism are not, contrary to what is commonly supposed,
antithetical. Rather, socialism is the
antithetical equivalent of feudalism, with capitalism coming in-between.
However, the middle, or democratic, spectrum
is flanked by two others, which we may characterize as an autocratic spectrum
beneath (if we imagine these spectra of evolutionary development lying parallel
to one another in a horizontal course), and a theocratic spectrum above, the
former beginning in pagan antiquity under aristocratic auspices, and the latter
beginning with an early-stage grand-bourgeois epoch in Western Europe, the one
manifesting in authoritarian monarchism, the other in Roman Catholicism. Let us take each spectrum separately.
Beginning with the ancient kingdoms of
rural antiquity, authoritarian monarchism (royalism)
signified worship of the God-King, the nearest equivalent on earth to the
Creator or, as Christians prefer to say, the Father, whose status, at least in
theory, was omnipotent, the ultimate tribunal over life and death, the maker or
breaker of men. Gradually, as evolution
progressed, the powers of the monarch were curbed, and by the seventeenth
century Cromwell was able to lead a successful revolt in England against authoritarian
monarchism which resulted, albeit briefly, in the dethronement of autocracy and
its replacement by a democratic dictatorship.
Since then the powers of the monarchy have
been further curbed in all Western societies, with the result that it has
become - where still surviving - constitutional, or subject to parliamentary
sanction, the reigning monarch little more than a figurehead of state, bereft
of independent power, and consequently functioning in a pseudo-autocratic
context. We may contend that
constitutional monarchy is the norm for those societies which have retained an
autocratic spectrum while being centred, as in Britain, on a democratic one,
and that pseudo-autocracy is, by and large, a late-nineteenth/early-twentieth
century phenomenon, the autocratic spectrum coming to an end with an
early-stage petty-bourgeois era, after which time the extension of the first or
bottom spectrum will take the form of a military dictatorship, as germane to a
late-stage petty-bourgeois era, and thus become quasi-fascist, as in so many
Third World countries since World War II.
Of course, where a constitutional monarchy
is already deeply entrenched, as in
Can one therefore speak of a military
dictatorship as being reactionary from a democratic point of view? Certainly it signifies a reaction, very
often, from the middle-spectrum democratic traditions of the imperial power to
the bottom spectrum of autocratic tradition, though not on monarchic
terms. Rather, military dictatorship is
more contemporary than democracy, a development paralleling the tail-end of the
middle spectrum in pseudo-democracy, as pertaining to Marxist-Leninist states,
both of which relate to late-stage petty-bourgeois criteria.
So, paradoxically, there is more
progression than reaction to a military dictatorship in recently-liberated
This brings me to a discussion of the
third and highest spectrum, namely the theocratic one, which began on
early-stage grand-bourgeois terms in the form of Roman Catholicism and was
superseded, in those nations destined for democracy, by Protestantism, that
democratic religion, equivalent to drawing in art and to the concerto in
music. Unfortunately, due to historical
pressures, Roman Catholicism became increasingly autocratic, a religious
complement to authoritarian monarchy, and was subject to a revolt by the
bourgeoisie, whose Protestant triumph led to the persecution of Catholics and
their relegation to second-class citizenship throughout the era of bourgeois
hegemony, roughly from a late-stage grand-bourgeois to an early-stage
petty-bourgeois age, spanning the 17th-20th centuries.
With the dawn of a late-stage
petty-bourgeois era, however, Fascism made its appearance on the top spectrum
as the antithetical equivalent of Roman Catholicism, a necessarily
anti-democratic ideology with a religious mission, though less one favouring
the development of a True World Religion, the successor to all old-world
religions, than one partial to Roman Catholicism, if more so in Italy than
Germany, while retaining a quasi-religious status for itself as vested in the
dictator, who became an approximation, in effect, to God. If Roman Catholicism found its aesthetic
equivalent in stained glass, then fascism had light art, that successor to
drawing on the penultimate section, as it were, of the top spectrum, the
section preceding holography, which would be relevant to the proletariat, and
no less so than Social Transcendentalism, the means to the True World Religion,
the successor to fascism and ideology, so far as I am concerned, of 'Kingdom
Come', necessarily hostile to both royalism and
military dictatorship, liberalism and socialism, Protestantism and fascism
(considered as a late-stage petty-bourgeois movement), because beyond and above
all of these, the principal exponent of truth!
Social Transcendentalism would be beyond
antithetical equivalents because extending the top spectrum into an absolute
stage of evolution, a stage antithetical, in constitution, to the authoritarian
monarchism of the bottom spectrum, before bourgeois relativity intervened in
the form of parliamentarianism. Beyond
all bourgeois relativity, no less than autocratic absolutism was beneath it,
Social Transcendentalism would open out towards the superhuman millennium and,
consequently, the eventual supersession of man by his
post-human successors, the only way towards definitive salvation, the only way
forward. No proletarian humanism, like
socialism, but a post-humanist concern with evolutionary progress towards
future transformations in advancing life, man being something that, in the Nietzschean dictum, 'should be overcome'.
Humanism pertains to the middle spectrum,
not the third, which has little respect for ethics once it reaches that stage,
as with Social Transcendentalism, where truth is attained to and systematically
endorsed. Only the
Protestant part of the top spectrum kow-tows to ethics, as during the hegemony
of the age of democratic relativity.
Social Transcendentalism, even more than fascism, is 'beyond good and
evil', those antithetical attributes of the Christian civilization. Only that is 'good' which furthers truth, and
every act must be judged according to this criterion. Only in truth does man aspire towards the
Holy Spirit, only in the context of pure awareness.
The ethical good act has nothing to do
with divinity, considered in its ultimate sense. Goodness pertains to Christ, the temporal
divinity between the two absolutes of alpha and omega, the strong and the true,
the Creator and the Ultimate Creation. Neither strength, which pertains to the bottom spectrum, nor
goodness, that ethical compromise between the extremes, can have any place in
the absolute phase of the top spectrum.
Neither a worship of the Father nor an emulation of the Son will prevail
in that society dedicated to the realization of truth. Only an aspiration towards the Holy Spirit
can have any value there, and only that which brings such an aspiration closer
to ultimate realization is 'good'. We
have lived long enough in the world of the Strong and the Good. Now we must live for the truth!