ON ANTITHETICAL EQUIVALENTS
1. Autocratic - democratic - theocratic; one
might even say: horses - carriages/cars - motorbikes, if one wanted to
establish approximate correlations where such modes of transportation were
concerned. Certainly there is something
autocratic (aristocratic) about using a horse for transportation, just as there
seems to be something theocratic (proletarian) about the use of a
motorbike. And coming in-between these
two extremes is a middle-of-the-road mode of democratic (bourgeois)
transportation in carriages/cars.
2. Of course, the carriage preceded the car,
which only came into its own during a late-stage petty-bourgeois era, when
streamlining (artificial beauty) reached unprecedented levels of perfection
and, as a corollary of this, road performance was greatly improved - an
evolutionary progression commensurate with the attainment of crude
pre-classical black-and-white photography to colour photography or,
alternatively, of crude pre-classical black-and-white film to colour film.
3. Now just as there was a progression, on the
civil side of four-wheeled transportation, from carriages to cars, so there was
a like-progression, on its commercial side, from carts and/or coaches to vans
and/or lorries, not to mention from horse-drawn
coaches to buses and/or motorcoaches on its public
side.
4. As regards the theocratic (proletarian)
spectrum of transportation, one could contend that bikes (bicycles) preceded
motorbikes in a like-progression from the manual to the automotive. Elsewhere in my writings, I have contended
that mopeds should be conceived as following motorbikes in the evolution of
two-wheeled transportation, and I believe that, despite a strong temptation to
place them in-between bikes and motorbikes as a kind of cross or transition
between the two, this contention remains valid, largely on the grounds that we
are distinguishing between a late-stage petty-bourgeois mode of transportation
and an early-stage proletarian mode, the latter of which presupposes a 'fall'
(forwards) from full automation to semi-manual manipulation within the higher
context of a less materialistic body design.
5. With regard to scooters, which I equate with
a late-stage petty-bourgeois mode of transportation, there seems to be valid
grounds for placing them at the tail-end, as it were, of the autocratic
spectrum, as a kind of successor to the horse, commensurate with such other
pseudo-autocratic or quasi-theocratic phenomena as military dictatorships,
sculptural light art, funk-jazz, and quasi-poetic philosophical writings. In other words, as a mode
of transportation diametrically opposite - though not antithetical to -
motorbikes, which, in returning to political analogies, can be regarded as
fascistic.
6. So if scooters and motorbikes are on the
extreme spectra of a late-stage petty-bourgeois era, they may be regarded as
flanking the modern car, that socialistic mode of contemporary road
transportation. A genuine antithesis can
only be established, it seems to me, between the inception and culmination or,
alternatively, relative inception and relative culmination of opposite
spectra. Thus horses and motorbikes
would constitute an example of the latter, as between, say, early-stage
grand-bourgeois and late-stage petty-bourgeois modes of transportation, whilst
a more absolute antithesis could be inferred between, say, elephants and
mopeds, or their future successors.
7. This contention concerning the nature of
antitheses obliges me to revise a previous evaluation, appertaining to certain
earlier works, which posited apes and Supermen as antithetical equivalents and,
by a similar token, trees and Superbeings as a more
extreme manifestation of the same type of antithesis. Anyone familiar with my more recent work,
namely that which concerns the division of human evolution into autocratic,
democratic, and theocratic spectra in a sort of disjointed progression, will
sooner or later discern the anomaly in regarding apes and Supermen as
antithetical equivalents or, more correctly, Supermen as the antithetical
equivalent of apes when, as I have elsewhere pointed out, such an equivalent
can only be inferred to exist between antithetical parts of the same spectrum.
8. Now if civilized human evolution begins in
the autocratic and culminates in the theocratic, as I happen to believe, then
anything pre-human or pre-civilized can only be conceived of as pre-autocratic,
whether we are alluding to cavemen, apes, or trees, and, similarly, anything
post-human or post-civilized can only be regarded as post-theocratic, whether
in the guise of technological personnel, Supermen, or Superbeings
(millennial supervisors, human brain-collectivizations,
and new-brain collectivizations respectively).
9. An antithesis, then, can only be established
between opposite spectra, so one is obliged to conclude that pre-autocratic
apes and post-theocratic Supermen form an antithesis, as, on more radical
terms, do pre-autocratic trees and post-theocratic Superbeings.
10. By contrast, an antithetical equivalent
should only be inferred to exist between phenomena on the same spectrum, such
as, say, late-stage grand-bourgeois Cromwellian
revolution on the inception of the democratic one, and early-stage
petty-bourgeois Leninist revolution at, or just before, its tail-end, these
revolutions in large measure owing their motivation to the parallel theocratic
schisms signified by Lutheran Protestantism and Marxist Communism respectively,
which form a similar antithetical equivalent, albeit one less radical than that
between early-stage grand-bourgeois Roman Catholicism and late-stage
petty-bourgeois Fascism.
11. I like to distinguish between middle class
and bourgeoisie in the sense that I equate the former with
spiritual/professional commitments and the latter with material/commercial
commitments, so that a distinct dichotomy can be inferred to exist, in any
relative society, between these two disparate categories, as between electron
equivalents and proton and/or neutron equivalents.
12. Proceeding from a class-evolutionary
viewpoint, I should therefore have to distinguish between upper-middle-class
priests and grand-bourgeois feudalists, middle-class vicars and bourgeois
capitalists, and lower-middle-class gurus and petty-bourgeois socialists.
13. Similarly, an artist may be described as
middle class and a scientist, by contrast, as bourgeois. In the present century, the chief distinction
will be that between lower middle-class artists and petty-bourgeois scientists,
though where, say, the seventeenth century is concerned, the prefixes 'upper'
and 'grand' would be more appropriate.
Whatever the case, I have no hesitation in maintaining that the middle
classes are superior, morally and socially, to the bourgeoisie, to the degree
that spirit is superior to matter.
14. Proton autocrats - atomic democrats -
electron theocrats. Autocracy is a
stemming from the Father, democracy a Christian compromise, and theocracy an
aspiration towards the Holy Spirit.
Autocracy signifies a proton-proton reaction (between monarch and populace),
democracy an atomic compromise between reaction and attraction, and theocracy
an electron-electron attraction (between leader and masses). Autocracy fades away with the emergence and
development of democracy, theocracy only comes properly into its own with the
decline and eclipse of democracy.
15. A fading autocracy (constitutional monarchy)
is a pseudo-autocracy, a not-yet-independent and absolute theocracy (Roman
Catholicism), a pseudo-theocracy, its endorsement of the Holy Spirit
considerably diluted by 'autocratic' compromise with the Blessed Virgin, a
concession to beauty rather than to truth.
Genuine theocracy can only emerge as an aspiration towards truth, in
concentrated awareness. One might say
that pseudo-theocracy indirectly aspires towards truth (perfect essence)
through beauty (perfect appearance), a highly contradictory and paradoxical
situation! And yet
still preferable to any autocratic stemming from ugliness.
16. Autocratic academies - democratic
universities and/or technical colleges - theocratic seminaries. Between academies and seminaries (or their
future Social Transcendentalist successors) one finds the democratic, humanist
institutions of universities and the socialistic, post-humanist institutions of
technical colleges and/or polytechnics.
Certainly the age is partial to the development of the latter, though
the former still exist in abundance throughout the civilized world, even if
their status is in decline in most Western countries, where technical
considerations are taking precedence.
17. However, a genuinely theocratic country would
abolish university education and demolish obsolescent theological colleges,
replacing them with its own higher institutions of theological learning, as
germane to Social Transcendentalism, and thus the truth. It would doubtless subordinate technical
colleges and polytechnics to theological ones, though
by no means neglect their welfare, since technological studies will continue to
be an important branch of post-humanist learning.
18. There would, however, be
no academies left in existence. For if
democratic institutions are unacceptable to a theocratic society, then
autocratic ones would be nothing less than totally irrelevant! But, of course, a society that is essentially
theocratic, even if on a pseudo-theocratic basis, will not have too many
academies in any case. Rather, they
pertain to autocratic democracies (or democratic autocracies), like
19. To be sure, ambivalence is part-and-parcel of
British dualism, of the bourgeois, Christian compromise. If the People are not technically sovereign
in Britain's Constitutional Monarchy within the United Kingdom, then they are
at least intermittently and, in practice, sovereign, since they are free to
elect representatives to parliament who, in the paradoxical order of such a
liberal democracy, will both represent and govern them, depending on the
political bias in question.
20. Such an ambivalent, ambiguous situation has
been the norm in Britain for some three centuries, and it will doubtless
continue to be the norm until such time as history may decide otherwise. The British could not, in all honesty, move
towards a social democracy, even if some of them wanted that. Far too many of them don't and, besides, even
most Socialists are tarred by the parliamentary brush. They speak of a gradual progression to
Socialism, but in reality no such gradualism could bring about a social
democracy in a society run along republican lines. Probably a majority of the so-called
Socialists would not want that, in any case, since they are British and
therefore too set in their political and social thinking, as well as accustomed
to compromising with the opposition and (no less shamefully from a genuinely
socialist point-of-view) with the nobility!
21. If most democratic peoples are destined to
remain democratic in the short-term, though, eventually, on a more socialistic
level than that to which they have hitherto been accustomed, then those peoples
who may be described as essentially theocratic must remain theocratic, though
on a higher level than hitherto!
22. The ultimate
revolution in Eire must accordingly ensure progress from Roman Catholic
theocracy to Social Transcendentalist theocracy, but such a revolution will not
be achieved without a struggle with the State.
As a political religion, Social Transcendentalism will be privileged to
use the Church in its battle against the State.
For once it wins the support of the Church, it
will have sufficient moral authority to defeat the State. Then it will be in a position to build the
Meditation Centres appertaining to its own religious integrity, which is
nothing less than, potentially if not at this point in time literally, that of
a True World Religion or, at any rate, the relative (LSD-induced visionary
awareness) phase thereof, serving as a precondition for the absolute (hypermeditative) manifestation of the True World Religion, the literal
practical manifestation of it, to flower in due course.
23. But no flowering, no classical Become without
a preceding romantic Becoming in Social Transcendentalism, the internal
apparent phase leading to the truly essential phase in the course of
evolutionary time - a situation corresponding to a progression from the proton
new-brain to the electron superconscious.
24. From the Republic of Ireland to the Irish
Social Transcendental Centre, from nationalism to ideological identification,
from the tricolour to the abstract emblem (Y-like in design) of the Second
Coming and/or True World Messiah. If the
true Irish people have been selected as a new 'chosen people', it is because of
their theocratic bias, their ethnic suitability to embrace and expand a higher
theocracy, to effect the wider dissemination, through word and deed, of Social
Transcendentalism, to be the root motivator of a projected Federation of Social
Transcendental Centres stretching across the British Isles, Western Europe, and,
eventually, farther afield. An Irish Social Transcendental Centre would
know when and where to proselytize the truth of the True World Religion, as
well as how!
