A
THINKER AT LARGE
"You can't have
the best of both worlds," Derek Reilly said, relapsing into an idiomatic
truism. "I would describe myself as
a spiritually courageous person, but I have to pay for such courage with an
unusual degree of physical cowardice. So
it is with most men of my stamp. What
you gain on the spiritual roundabout, you must lose on the material
swings!"
Very true! And, knowing Reilly, he doesn't regret having
lost anything on the latter, never having spent much time on them anyway! His is an extreme constitution, and one very
much in line with the bias of the times.
One can't do better than to be spiritually courageous. Are not Mahler, Shostakovich, Martinu,
Vaughan Williams, Honegger, and Prokofiev among his favourite composers?
* * *
"We shouldn't
concern ourselves with bourgeois civilization," Pat O'Grady said, speaking
to no-one in particular. "As
transcendental revolutionaries we needn't admire anything bourgeois, least of
all such works of art or philosophy or whatever as were produced in fin-de-siècle
To be sure, O'Grady is the kind of man
who would be useful to have around in the proscription office of a
revolutionary state, mercilessly castigating alien class-influences, and
consigning to the rubbish bin of history all those works of literature or
philosophy or whatever that would be irrelevant to the proletariat and of no
consequence to the bureaucracy. I can
just imagine him saying: "Freud?
Away with him! Huxley? To the Devil with him!
* * *
"A liberated
female shouldn't be confounded with a barbarous female proletarian,"
Jennifer Hanlon said, amidst a flurry of surrounding laughter. "The former is essentially petty
bourgeois, and so pertains to an extreme relative civilization, whereas the
latter exists in absolute states or, alternatively, as a manifestation of the
barbarous majority within the confines of bourgeois/proletarian
civilization. Someone who's a barbarous
proletarian, given wholly to external values, is unlikely to develop into a
liberated female. On the contrary, she's
potentially a female superman, the post-sexist designation for women in an
absolute civilization, such as will one day arise from the ruins of its
barbarous precursor. Only when the
proletariat become truly civilized by adopting transcendentalism, or people's
religion, will women effectively become female supermen ... in relation to male
supermen, their masculine counterparts.
And, unlike liberated women, female supermen will be liberated even from
sex, as traditionally understood and practised in relative terms."
I have no doubt of that fact, since
relativity of any description, including the homosexual, would be out-of-bounds
in an absolute civilization, where people would indulge in personal sex, as
involving some kind of absolute pornography or plastic inflatables/vibrators,
depending on their basic sexual orientation and/or gender. Propagation would thereby become an
artificial matter, subject to administrative control. Consequently there would be little or no
sexual discrimination, since even female supermen must be treated like and
regarded as men - unlike liberated females, who continue, despite their
liberation from certain traditional constraints, to regard themselves as
women. In sexual relations, they're
particularly prone to fellatio. They may
also be open, if cohabiting with a lower type of petty-bourgeois materialist,
to periodic anal violation. It's
doubtful that very many of them would be into male pornography. On the other hand, proletarian barbarians are
more given, when not masturbating, to conventional heterosexual relations,
though this may not exclude 'fringe' oral sex.
Their civilized successors, in the transcendental civilization to-come,
will almost certainly be more partial to vibrator stimulation.
* * *
"You can't fight a
modern war with antiquated weapons!" Derek Reilly cried, turning upon
O'Grady with schoolmaster-like resolve.
"Bullets will become anachronistic before long, tanks and
field-guns no less so. What we should
concentrate on developing are powerful laser beams and/or guns, with a range
and accuracy, not to mention impact effectiveness, outclassing all materialist
weapons. To get the better of a
reactionary enemy, now as before, it would be necessary to have a fighting
force equipped with more sophisticated weapons and capable of using them to
maximum effect, which is a question, after all, of technique."
So it is, though I would rather have a
good army equipped with traditional weapons than a poor one equipped with
revolutionary ones! However, Reilly has
a point, and I would be the last to deny the potential value of laser weapons
for defensive warfare. Ships, of course,
are a shade time-worn, but planes, particularly jet fighters, shouldn't be
underestimated, since, unlike tanks and artillery pieces, they suggest some
degree of technological transcendentalism.
I would certainly put more store by a corps of jet fighters equipped
with air-to-ground missiles. Better
still if they had laser beams to-hand.
As for laser guns, I would ensure that the nation's revolutionary corps
were given priority over the regular army in the supply of such weapons!
* * *
"When people say
that transcendentalism is no different from yoga or Buddhism, they're talking
nonsense," Pat O'Grady said, somewhat later that evening and to everyone
within range. "There's no concern with
petty-bourgeois happiness or yoga exercises with transcendentalism, which, by
contrast, corresponds to an absolute stage of spiritual development in the
cultivation of self-awareness, as pertaining to the future proletariat. Besides, transcendentalism implies knowledge
of the limitations of meditation on the human plane to achieve total
transcendence, and therefore couldn't lead to the kind of ascetic fanaticism so
characteristic of oriental sages traditionally.
People would be given an evolutionary perspective as to exactly where
'humanist' meditation fits in and by what it will be superseded, come the
post-human millennium. They won't suffer
from false expectations concerning their prospects of salvation through
naturalistic means of cultivating spirit alone.
They will learn that man is but a link in the evolutionary chain who
must some day be 'overcome', to coin a Nietzschean term, once technological
progress makes possible the establishment of his millennial successor, the
Superman, who will in turn be superseded, and so on, until evolution attains to
a climax in the Omega Absolute, the ultimate spiritual transcendence."
All very true! Transcendentalism isn't simply Buddhism or
Hinduism in a new guise, but potentially a true world religion transcending all
so-called world religions ... of a provincial cast. People will do regular stints of
transcendental meditation (meditation which transcends feelings in its
exclusive concern with self-awareness) in specially-designed meditation
centres, where they will be supervised by meditation masters, the proletarian
successors to petty-bourgeois gurus.
They will also acquire an evolutionary perspective, as O'Grady wisely
calls it, and thereby learn some facts about the nature of religious evolution
and its future transformations, embracing post-human life forms. To keep them in ignorance about much of this
would be to treat them as if they were irresponsible, dull-witted children....
Though it wouldn't be necessary or indeed possible to impart everything that
was known or written about transcendentalism to them. For those who were especially keen to learn,
there would, I am sure, be no shortage of relevant information available. For the rest, a basic grounding in
transcendentalism should suffice. And I am
confident that additional cultural ingredients, as it were, along the lines of
some atonal electronic music, abstract poetry, and non-representational
holography ... would prove appropriate, provided, however, that they were kept
in subordination to the essential ingredient - namely, spiritual
contemplation. Probably these cultural
aspects of transcendentalism would be scaled-down and superseded, in the course
of time, by a more puritanical approach to self-realization, as involving
meditation alone.
* * *
"Naturally, a
state moving towards proletarian civilization would have to take measures,
sooner or later, to curb and possibly terminate human indulgence of animals,
particularly pets like cats and dogs," Colin Dunphy said, in response to a
remark made by Jennifer Hanlon about dog's noise in her neighbourhood. "While the pagan root remains intact, as
it effectively does throughout the duration of bourgeois/proletarian
civilization, it's of course natural and socially acceptable for people to
indulge a love of animals. But a society
that was evolving towards a transcendental framework could not encourage any
such indulgence, because where there is, or will be, an exclusive orientation
towards the Divine Omega ... conceived as transcendent spirit, there can be no
sympathy for that which stems from the Diabolic Alpha in animality - the pagan
root having been, or in the process of being, extirpated from human affairs, as
transcendental man turns his back, so to speak, on 'the Creator' and aspires
ever more ardently towards the attainment of an ultimate creation. So one would not encounter anyone walking a
dog down the street in the transcendental civilization, since such a mode of
behaviour, which betrays commitment to an animal, would be incompatible with
transcendental ethics and morality."
I am sure he is right, though if
anyone did have the nerve to be seen with a dog after such behaviour had been
rendered morally unacceptable, he would run the risk of drawing police
attention and of having to pay the penalty in consequence - possibly internment
for corrective education. Certainly all
'unnecessary' animals, or those which weren't considered strictly essential to
human survival, would be put under ban and duly removed, as evolutionary
requirement dictated, and Dunphy may be right to suggest that such a radical
policy ought to be carried through while the revolutionary state was evolving
towards a transcendental civilization rather than actually in the
civilized framework. After all, all
forms of liquidation correspond to a mode of barbarous behaviour.... As to the
animals concerned - dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, rabbits, budgerigars, parrots,
etc., it might be more expedient to ban
them by degrees rather than all at once, beginning, say, with fierce or large
dogs and proceeding to the less conspicuous pets in due course. Whether one could impose the same
transcendental criteria on the rural areas as on the towns and cities ... must
remain open to conjecture; though I, for one, would be prepared to allow
country folk to hold-on to such pets as they may possess longer than their
proletarian counterparts in the cities, if only on the understanding that,
eventually, all such pets would have to be abandoned, especially with the
elevation of greater numbers of country-dwellers to a proletarian status as
villages were expanded into towns and towns into cities, due to a combination
of local development and decentralized urban accretions designed to speed-up
the urbanization, as it were, of villages and towns. A more enlightened generation, some decades
hence, would probably think no worse of the liquidation of a dog or a cat than
contemporary generations think of the elimination of troublesome insects, like
flies or wasps.
* * *
"One thing that
our revolutionary proletarian state will have to do, before long, is to ban
horse-racing and greyhound-racing," Terry Shannon said, turning to Derek
Reilly, who happened to have an ear conveniently cocked to the same
wavelength. "Neither of those
naturalistic sports, employing animals, could be encouraged in a society
gravitating towards an exclusively transcendental framework, with no respect
for the pagan roots of life. Artificial
sports would, however, be another thing, and probably some form of motor-racing
will survive and continue to exist for many decades hence.... Though even that,
together with all types of competitive sport, would be subject to gradual
curtailment and eventual proscription, as proletarian humanity evolved further
along the road of co-operative transcendentalism, scorning all forms of
competition, particularly when physical.
However, as for horse- and greyhound-racing, we need not expect them to
survive the relative epoch of bourgeois/proletarian civilization."
I wouldn't want to disagree with that
assumption, since, like pets, these sporting animals could be described as
'unessential' to human survival and incompatible with a society exclusively
orientated towards the Divine Omega.
Personally, I take no interest in either horse- or greyhound-racing, and
would no more be seen at a race meeting than in the company of a dog. The spectacle of so many beasts thundering
round a racecourse has always struck me as infinitely boring, unworthy of the
attention of anyone with claims to spiritual insight or intellectual
originality! I would much rather watch a
motor race, where the artificial predominates over the natural and proceedings
consequently have the ring of modernity about them. Curiously, Shannon made no mention of
athletics, which involves natural force no less than animal sports, and in
which category I include boxing and wrestling.
Should athletics survive a relative, bourgeois/proletarian epoch, I
wonder? If I had any say in the matter,
I would be no less inclined to put athletics under censorious scrutiny than
animal races, deeming it incompatible with the artificial, co-operative
criteria of a society moving towards or actually in a transcendental context.
* * *
"But what you
don't seem to realize, Sean," Jennifer Hanlon said, responding to a remark
I had just made, "is that most people can't listen to music unless it is
humanized by some vocal ingredient of utilitarian import, usually romantic or
sexual, which becomes the focal-point of attention. Purely instrumental music generally fails to
arouse their interest, because it demands more aesthetic sophistication than
most people, with their utilitarian integrities, possess, being, in essence,
transcendental. They have to hear
something they can relate to their everyday sexual lives, and nothing serves
this need better than a love song."
"Nothing serves this limitation better, would be nearer the
mark," I commented on a ruthlessly objective note. "Though with me it's just the opposite,
since I can't relate to love songs but have to listen to instrumental music -
the purer and more serious, the better!
And I have to listen to it through headphones, which give one the
impression that the music is taking place in one's head rather than coming at
one from outside. Nowadays I despise
stereo speakers, deeming them too 'apparent'.
Indirect meditation through focus of awareness on aural stimuli cannot
be better served than via headphones, and the aural stimuli cannot do better,
in my opinion, than to be electronic and, preferably, atonal, albeit of an
atonality serialized according to strictly classical principles."
I could tell that Jennifer was puzzled by
this contention, though she did her best to appear impressed. What I hadn't told her, however, was that
such music would only be created on a consistent and regular basis in the
future, when the transcendental civilization got properly under way and all
forms of acoustic tonal music, not to mention its atonal counterparts, had
effectively been rendered obsolete.
