201. Certainly I have been discussing centrifugal
shirts more in terms of long-sleeved than of short-sleeved varieties ... as
pertaining, I would argue, to the realistic (relative) and materialistic
('absolute') 'bodily' spectra in question.
Yet if the naturalistic (particle absolute) and idealistic (wavicle absolute) 'head' spectra are also to be considered,
as applying to Fascist alpha positions and to Ecologist and Anarchist
middle-ground positions, then whether or not a short-sleeved shirt is worn in
conjunction with a cravat (if undone at the neck) or a tie (if done-up at the
neck) will determine the ideological status of the shirt (or person) in
question, be it Democratic Fascist (with cravat) or Dictatorial Fascist
(without one); Ecologist (with tie) or Anarchist (without one), and all in
relation to the muscle shirts and vests of the Communist and, hence, moral
Left.
202. As a sort of footnote to the above, it should
be possible to distinguish T-shirts with long sleeves from the short-sleeved
variety on the basis of a kind of Democratic Socialist/Totalitarian Socialist
division, reserving for muscle shirts and vests (at any rate those of a
manifestly centripetal order) a sort of Democratic Communist/Transcendental
Communist distinction on the basis that such a division is rather more
curvilinear than rectilinear (unlike the Socialist one) and therefore
appropriate to a 'head' as opposed to a 'bodily' ideological integrity. Thus short-sleeved T-shirts are still
'bodily' and, hence, Socialist because rectilinear, whereas muscle shirts and
vests suggest, in their comparatively curvilinear design, a 'head' or, more
specifically, psychic connotation applicable to communist persuasions.
203. Either one is for some form of centralized
regulation of the economy or one is against it, whether absolutely, like a
Conservative, or partly, like a Liberal, in the interests of private
enterprise. One is either for a
centripetal, centralized, and therefore moral society, in which the State or
some equivalent institution regulates things, or one is for a centrifugal,
decentralized, and consequently immoral society in which, to some degree or
another (depending on the prevailing capitalist ideology), private enterprise
is encouraged to flourish. To want the
best of both worlds, private enterprise and State regulation, is to
be amoral, like a Liberal. To want only
private enterprise is, from an omega centripetal standpoint, to be immoral - in
short, an overt capitalist. Only he who
wants a centralized regulation of the economy is truly moral and therefore
Socialist or Communist, depending on the degree of his morality and the type of
society in question, be it 'bodily' or of the 'head'.
204. Yet to want centralized control in only one
context is not enough, since it is no use agreeing to centralized regulation of
some things but not of others, agreeing, say, to State regulation of the
economy but rejecting any notion of centralized interference in the arts,
sciences, sexual morality, religion, or whatever. He who is in favour of a moral order, in
which centripetal criteria obtain, must be in favour of it all along the line,
if he is not to be an hypocritical amoralist for whom
some things are better left decentralized and, hence, private. Thus the artist, musician, writer - all those
who pursue a creative vocation - should submit to centralized regulation of
what they may or may not create ... if moral progress is to become manifest in
every sphere of life, not just in some.
He who is for a socialist economy but against socialist literature ...
is not a moral Socialist but an amoral hypocrite pursuing his own brand of
private enterprise, and is thus no better, in effect, than a Liberal. And what applies to a socialist economy should
apply even more to a communist one, particularly to a transcendental communist
one, where not the State but the Centre would regulate society in the name of
Social Transcendentalist salvation and the divine integrity of the People as
Holy Spirit. A free enterprise in
literature or art or music or science or whatever that ran contrary to the will
of the Second Coming would be incompatible with the most moral society, which
would have a God-given duty to uphold the ultimate morality in the interests of
the People's spiritual salvation, thereby safeguarding the omega 'Kingdom of
Heaven' from the threat of worldly or other kinds of reactionary subversion.
ALPHA OMEGA
1.
// 2. ()
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
/ /
3. || 4.
()
| |
_____| _____|
205. The above diagrams show the distinctions in
saluting between the centrifugal (open hand) idealistic Right and the
centripetal (clenched fist) idealistic Left in the one case (1 & 2), and
the centrifugal (open hand) naturalistic Right and the centripetal (clenched
fist) naturalistic Left in the other case (3 & 4), with feminine and
masculine implications, as pertaining to an alpha/omega dichotomy
respectively. It should be remembered
that although Hitler, for instance, adopted the wavicle-biased
raised arm salute (1) from Mussolini, he also, and rather frequently, resorted
to the bent arm salute (3) which, so I contend, indicates a particle equivalent
commensurate with the more democratic kind of fascism (nazism). Thus if the antithetical types of idealistic
saluting are effectively Creatoresque and Holy Ghostian in their centrifugal/centripetal contrast, then
the antithetical types of naturalistic saluting are Satanic and Antichristic respectively.
206. It is perhaps quite logical that Mussolini's
Fascism should have preceded Hitler's Nazism in its coming to power; for did
not the Creator precede Satan?
207. The hand that slaps a
face is centrifugal, whereas the hand that, clenched into a fist, punches a
face is centripetal. Alpha
and omega of (feminine) gentlemen and (masculine) men.
208. If it is moral to drink from a can, as I
believe it to be in view of its phallic and therefore centripetal connotations,
then it can only be immoral to drink from a bottle (vaginal and, hence, of a
centrifugal connotation), and amoral to drink from a glass (which is to a
bottle what a skirt is to a dress). The
bottle is alpha, the glass worldly, and the can omega. Thus whereas it would be logical - indeed
desirable - for a Conservative or a Fascist to drink from a bottle, it would be
illogical and nothing short of absurd for a Socialist or a Communist to do
so. Socialists and Communists should
stick to cans and thus confirm their moral bias. Similarly, Socialists and Communists should
stick to cigarettes (assuming they smoke at all) and leave cigars to the amoral
and pipes to the immoral, since cigars and pipes are to smoking what glasses
and bottles are to drinking, and should accordingly be left to those who are more
politically qualified to smoke them. A
Socialist with a pipe in his mouth would be a contradiction in terms, as would
a Conservative or a Fascist with a cigarette.
Pipes are no less centrifugal and, hence, feminine than bottles, whereas
cigarettes are centripetal and therefore masculine - as, up to a point, are
cigars.
209. In relation to chips, jacket potatoes are
immoral and baked and/or boiled potatoes amoral. This is because chips are centripetal and
'phallic', whereas jacket potatoes, particularly when open and stuffed with
cheese, onions, a sausage, etc., are centrifugal and, hence, 'vaginal', baked
and/or boiled potatoes being a kind of compromise coming in-between the two
extremes - the one moral and the other immoral.
Thus whereas the moral man will prefer a diet of chips, the immoral man
will be content with a jacket potato and the amoral man with baked and/or
boiled potatoes. One could argue that
while, politically speaking, chips are socialist and/or communist (depending on
the type), jacket potatoes are fascist and baked
and/or boiled potatoes liberal - using that term in a broadly middle-ground
sense. Indeed, we can exactly correlate
potato categories with the drinking and smoking categories discussed above,
proceeding from the immoral alpha-stemming category to the moral omega-oriented
category via the worldly amoral category, as follows:-
IMMORAL AMORAL MORAL
bottles glasses cans
pipes cigars cigarettes
jacket
potatoes baked potatoes chips
Thus, strictly
speaking, the man who drinks from a bottle and smokes a pipe should prefer
jacket potatoes to other potato formats; the man who drinks from a glass and
smokes cigars should prefer baked and/or boiled potatoes to the alternative
potato formats; and, last but in no way morally least, the man who drinks from
a can and smokes cigarettes should prefer chips to either of the alternative
potato formats.
210. In such fashion it will be possible for us to
distinguish people across the broad spectrum of alpha-stemming (immoral) and
omega-oriented (moral) alternatives. For
the truly integrated man will be morally together in his habits, and the more
enlightened he is, the more morally together will he be. Thus the enlightened chip eater would find
potatoes and jacket potatoes no less beneath his moral pale than ... drinks in
glasses and bottles would be beneath the moral pale of the can drinker (not
necessarily alcohol), or cigars and pipes ... beneath the moral pale of the
cigarette smoker (not necessarily tobacco), and would eat, drink, and smoke on
the level of chips, cans, and cigarettes.
The test of a moral society is whether it acknowledges such a moral
disparity or whether, in open-society fashion, it strives to block notions of
moral hierarchy which run contrary to the traditional norms.
211. The man who is atomic and an integral part of
dualistic civilization will be more or less balanced between the 'I' of the
personal self and the 'I' of the impersonal, or transcendent, self - in short,
between person and persona. The fact of
his two 'I's' means that he will often confound the
one with the other and speak of each as if they were interchangeable or even
identical. In writing, such a man will
mix autobiography with art; for his 'ego' is both personal and transcendent
(albeit to a limited extent), and he cannot conceive of the one without sooner
or later conceiving of the other in identical terms, i.e. as 'I'.
212. However, with the man who is not an integral
part of dualistic civilization but potentially or actually more attuned to a
transcendental civilization, no such ambiguity normally exists; for such a man
will relate more to his impersonal 'I' than to the personal one, and to such an
extent, in the more evolved cases, that the latter will have been transmuted
into a 'he', having become all but eclipsed by the former, so that instead of
'I' standing for both person and persona, or private and professional selves,
it will stand for the persona alone, which will tend ever more radically towards
the goal of self-transcending awareness in the ultimate 'I' of God. In fact, one has not started on the path to
self-transcendence unless the personal 'I' has become 'he' and, therefore,
clearly distinguishable from the impersonal 'I' of the superconscious
persona.
213. Conversely, the man whose impersonal ego, or superconscious mind, stands to him (his personal 'I') as a
'he' ... is as far removed from the possibility of such salvation as it is
humanly possible to be; for he is centred in the personal 'I' and regards that
which is not personal as outside himself and effectively as 'he'. The painter
214. Only when the impersonal self is uppermost, and
to the extent that the personal self becomes 'he', can it be said of a man that
he is moral and, hence, transcendental.
The man balanced between person and persona is simply amoral,
oscillating between the 'I' of the subconscious and the 'I' of the superconscious in an egocentric compromise which is akin to
Christianity and its doctrine of the 'Three in One'. Such a man may understand the world but,
being amoral, he will never understand the Holy Spirit! If he is superior to the immoral man he is
decidedly inferior to the moral one, in whom persona has eclipsed the person to
an extent which makes him truly 'born again', or transvaluated
(to use a Nietzschean equivalent).
215. What particularly distinguishes mankind from
the animal kind is its capacity for self-transcendence, its ability to escape
from the personal self through an absorption in something conceived as superior
to and greater than itself. A man can
lose himself in a painting, but a dog never!
Unlike human beings, dogs are tied to the natural world, and hence to
the personal self, to an extent which precludes even an indirect
self-transcendence: the sort of transcendence afforded man by art.
216. Yet if man is superior to dogs and, by
implication, all other animals in this way, he cannot know true
self-transcendence while he remains rooted in the personal self, in other words
while the impersonal self (the persona) of the artist or professional is
effectively a 'he' outside the personal self, or even, albeit to a lesser
extent, when the individual is balanced between his two 'I's'
in a kind of bourgeois compromise. For
indirect self-transcendence keeps one chained to appearances and is only
acceptable and intelligible on the basis that such a self-transcendence, be it
through art, literature, music, drama, or whatever, will be the norm so long as
the personal self prevails and man has not yet evolved to a transvaluated
state, in which such a self has been eclipsed by the transcendent, or
impersonal, self.
217. All art is thus spiritually false, because
conceived on a materialistic basis in response to this basic limitation of untransvaluated humanity.
I am the personal self and therefore the impersonal self is outside me
... as art or music or literature, a 'he' or an 'it' distinct from the personal
me, and consequently I can only get lost in this other self on an external
basis ... through art, which, if genuine, is a reflection of something greater
than myself rather than a reflection of myself, i.e. the personal self. Such a reflection would no more be genuine
art than the reflection of my face in the mirror, since art must transcend the
personal self if it is to be fine and not bogus or decadent, like so much
contemporary so-called art.
218. However, what of the man who has transcended the
personal self and is rooted or, rather, centred in the impersonal self of the
persona? Clearly, such a man no longer
relates to art, since it is a crutch for those rooted in the personal self and
only a mode of indirect self-transcendence in consequence. This liberated man has no need of such
crutches; for he is capable of walking free of them in the interests of a
direct self-transcendence achieved through absorption in the impersonal self of
the superconscious, whether through mind-expanding
drugs like LSD or, more directly, through transcendental meditation. For him, by contrast, the personal self is
outside his true self, a 'he' which must be eclipsed by the impersonal self,
the ultimate 'I', if salvation is to come genuinely to pass, no matter how
humbly, initially, in relation to a definitive heavenly condition. This man despises art because he is the
freest and most enlightened of men. His
self-transcendence, or transcendence of the personal self, is directly through
his spirit rather than indirectly through the materialistic medium of some art
form external to himself. For him, art
is bourgeois and therefore unworthy of his attention. Art, too, must be consigned to the rubbish
heap of history, since it is irrelevant to true self-transcendence. And too often it is not even an indirect
reflection of the higher self but a direct reflection of the lower self, and
thus doubly irrelevant! A man is not
liberated from the personal self until he is above art.
219. We should distinguish between a strictly amoral
integrity, which is middle ground, and an oscillation between immoral and moral
extremes; for whereas the former corresponds, in subatomic terms, to neutron
neutrality, the latter corresponds, by contrast, to proton and electron
alternations, and therefore is only loosely amoral. In fact, compared with neutron amorality, the
proton/electron amorality is dynamic rather than static, a positive, or active,
amorality as opposed to a negative, or passive, amorality - a mode of amorality
one would more closely associate with contemporary America than with Britain, and
certainly more with Catholicism than Protestantism. Indeed, whereas the Protestant Christ is
rather neutral in terms of His amoral stance before the world, the Catholic
Christ tends to oscillate between immoral (Father) and moral (Holy Spirit)
extremes. For it cannot be denied that
our immoral - amoral - moral triad extends to the Trinity, and that, in
relation to the Holy Spirit, the Father is immoral and the Son amoral, as
pertaining to their respective atomicities
(proton-proton reactions, proton/electron compromise, electron-electron
attractions).
220. Thus while Christ is dynamically amoral in
Catholic Christianity, He is statically amoral in Protestant Christianity; the difference,
in effect, between romantic and classic, or pre- and post-worldly extremes
vis-à-vis a worldly mean.
Doubtless racial factors enter into this distinction, since
Protestantism is largely Nordic, whereas Catholicism is mainly Celtic (Latin)
and, to a lesser extent, Slavic. The
body is less disposed to a proton/electron oscillation than the head; indeed,
it corresponds to the nucleus of the world, and finds its political embodiment
in Liberalism, using that word in a loosely pluralistic sense. On the other hand, within liberal, or
parliamentary, politics, it is clear that there are two kinds of amorality, and
especially is this so of British politics: namely, the middle-ground 'neutron'
amorality of Liberalism in the strict party-political sense (whether called
Liberals, Liberal Democrats, or anything else), and the oscillatory
'proton/electron' amorality between capitalist Conservatism on the one hand and
socialist Labourism (Fabianism)
on the other - hitherto the chief twentieth-century mode of political amorality
in Britain. Only in a socialist society
can such amorality be transcended. For
as soon as one does away with capitalism, there is no need of two or more parties,
since pluralism is largely a consequence of economic disparities and could not
exist where only moral economics, and therefore a moral political order, held
sway. Where you have a free-electron
order, there can be no question of amoral compromises with proton equivalents,
still less with a 'neutron' position in between centrifugal (decentralized) and
centripetal (centralized) extremes. The
atom is transcended in the political nuclear fission which makes for a
free-electron society, and, lo and behold, morality comes absolutely to pass!
221. Books are relatively centrifugal phenomena
which open-out in a fan-like way, and consequently they are less moral than
immoral or, at best, amoral ... on account of their peculiar construction. The longest and therefore biggest books are
obviously the most immoral, whereas the shortest, smallest books are the least
immoral. Doubtless tapes are the most
moral (because centripetal) means of conveying verbal information to people,
and any writer who values morality will sooner or later want his work transposed
to tape. But, of course, only short
works can be fully transposed to tape without there being too many tapes
involved, and consequently it is unlikely that the writer of long books would
get his work on tape, which is probably just as well, since, morally speaking,
it would be illogical for one 'so far gone' in book immorality to seek
redemption in such a centripetal fashion.
Only the writer of short books is morally entitled, it seems to me, to
have his work transposed to tape and thus morally upgraded for the benefit, in
decades to come, of a morally more sensitive and demanding public. In short, a petty-bourgeois/proletarian
overlap as opposed to a grand-bourgeois kind of large book isolation in
irredeemable bookishness, the product of a deeply centrifugal mentality, like
that of John Cowper Powys - author of some of the longest novels in the English
language.
222. A white man is only truly above racism on the
day he discovers that he would be prepared to take a black or a coloured woman
to bed.
223. The trouble with woman is that, in consequence
of her comparative (in relation to men) physical weakness, she is more disposed
to hit a man when he is down than when he is up!
224. Yin and Yang, feminine and masculine,
appearance and essence, protons and electrons, centrifugal and centripetal,
nature and civilization, illusion and truth, fact and fiction - a whole range
of polar dichotomies which are in constant friction as the world devolves from
the alpha absolute and evolves towards the omega absolute in the unfolding of
its destiny. In comparative terms woman
is an illusory fact and man a truthful fiction, since the one is a Given and the other a Becoming, like nature and
civilization. The Given
devolves from cosmic doing (proton-proton reactions), whereas the Becoming
evolves towards supercosmic being (electron-electron
attractions), and the world is the devolutionary/evolutionary atomic stage upon
which the tragicomedy of human struggle is played out. Of course, women can and do take part in the
Becoming and men, by contrast, in the Given, but that
is rather the exception to the rule within strictly worldly parameters. Most women, now as before, are more of the
Given than of the Becoming, just as most men are more of the Becoming than of
the Given, and so it will continue until the world comes to an end and all the
Given gives way to doing in the 'Kingdom of Hell', and all the Becoming, in
turn, makes way for being in the 'Kingdom of Heaven'. For with the triumph of the masculine ideal,
everything feminine will pass from the world and only doing and being remain, a
soulful doing and a spiritual being, as germane to Democratic Communism and to
Transcendental Communism respectively - fire and light of post-worldly
absolutes.
225. Just as the best literature is ever fictitious,
so the worst literature is ever factual; for fiction pertains to the masculine Becoming whereas facts are rooted in the feminine
Given. Yet fact and fiction are more a
dichotomy of the world, i.e. a relative dichotomy, than a dichotomy outside the
world, i.e. an absolute dichotomy, as between that which, as Doing, precedes
the Given and that which, as Being, succeeds the Becoming - in other words,
illusion and truth. Therefore the
absolutely worst writing will be illusory, whereas the absolutely best writing will
be truthful, so that illusion and truth may be said to flank fact and fiction
as alpha and omega flank the world.
Generally speaking, factual writing is realistic and tends to educate;
fictional writing is materialistic and tends to entertain; illusory writing is
naturalistic and tends to mystify; and truthful writing is idealistic and tends
to enlighten. Of the literary arts, one
might say that drama is comparatively factual, literature (novels and short
stories) comparatively fictional, poetry absolutely illusory, and philosophy
absolutely truthful. Though this is by
no means always the case in practice!
226. However, it would seem that a major elemental
antithesis (vertical) can be said to exist between realistic fact (the given)
and idealistic truth (being), whereas a minor elemental antithesis (vertical)
may be said to exist between materialistic fiction (the becoming) and
naturalistic illusion (doing). Poetry,
particularly in its oral manifestation, is the earliest of the literary arts
and leads to drama, as doing to the given.
Philosophy, particularly in its theosophical manifestation, is the most
recent of the literary arts and stems from literature, as being from the
becoming. Poetry - drama/literature -
philosophy: a devolutionary/evolutionary equation between poetry and drama on
the one side (doing - the given), and literature and philosophy on the other
side (the becoming - being). Illusion - fact/fiction - Truth.
227. Thus it can be said that one devolves from
illusion to fact, but evolves from fiction to truth. Devolves from poetry to drama, but evolves
from literature to philosophy. The
alpha-stemming devolutionary types will prefer poetry and drama to literature
and philosophy, whereas the omega-oriented evolutionary types will prefer
literature and philosophy to drama and poetry.
Because poetry is, to all intents and purposes, the oldest of the
literary arts and philosophy the youngest, drama and literature come
in-between, as relevant to a more relative and therefore worldly age. And this according to an alpha-to-omega, or
horizontal, perspective, as opposed to an elemental, or vertical, one, wherein
we proceed upwards, as it were, from drama to philosophy via literature and
poetry, and therefore can speak of drama as the lowest and philosophy as the
highest of the literary arts.
228. The very contemporary phenomenon of
'factitious' novel-writing, or novels based on fact rather than conceived in a
properly fictional vein, suggests to me a literary decadence wherein true
fiction is rendered impossible by dint of the author's overdependence upon
fact, whether autobiographical or otherwise.
Instead of progressing towards truth, as the best fictional writing
should, such 'factitious' writing indicates a regression to fact, to the given,
and often becomes overdramatic. Instead of finding an increasingly masculine
emphasis, one finds in these overly realistic novels a strongly feminine
element which, whether or not because they are more usually written by women,
drags literature back and down towards drama and other kinds of factual
writings. The best and most progressive
novels, by contrast, will tend upwards and forwards from fiction to truth, and
it would be scant exaggeration to say that, at their most evolved level, they
are scarcely distinguishable from philosophy, since more concerned to enlighten
than simply to entertain or, worse still, to instruct.
229. Between the Poet who
mystifies and the Philosopher who enlightens, there is all the difference in
the world between the alpha of illusion and the omega of truth. But strictly between them is
the Dramatist who seeks to instruct and the Novelist who seeks to entertain.
230. Using Spenglerian
distinctions with regard to historical epochs, viz. 'Historyless
Chaos' (naturalism), 'Culture' (realism), 'Civilization' (materialism), and
'Second Religiousness' (idealism), it could be argued that the Poet is par excellence the
writer or, at any rate, literary artist of 'Historyless
Chaos'; the Dramatist par excellence
the writer of 'Culture'; the Novelist par excellence the writer of
'Civilization'; and the Philosopher par excellence the writer of 'Second
Religiousness', even when, as is often the case, poets, dramatists, novelists,
and philosophers write out-of-epoch, as it were, albeit within terms roughly
corresponding to their rightful epoch - as to a certain extent did the poets
Yeats and Pound, who were great mystifiers in an age
of entertainment, i.e. fiction.
231. Poets and playwrights are often in league
together, as, for that matter, are novelists and
philosophers. Indeed, it often
transpires that, when playwrights and poets are not one and the same person,
the Playwright looks up to the Poet as to a superior type of writer, just as,
when they are not one and the same, the Novelist looks up to the Philosopher in
such fashion. Yet to look up to an
omega-oriented philosopher is one thing; to look up to an alpha-stemming poet
quite another! For in the former
instance one must be transvaluated to a degree,
whereas in the latter instance one can only be untransvaluated
and thus fundamentally alpha stemming oneself, albeit on a more devolved basis.
232. In the context of English civilization, the
progression or, more correctly, regression/progression from Chaucer to
Shakespeare and from Dickens to Russell (Bertrand) is one, corresponding to the
Spenglerian epochs, from the most outstanding poet to
the most outstanding playwright, and from the most outstanding novelist to the
most outstanding philosopher. For, in
its unbroken continuity, English civilization tends to embrace the four epochs
in question, viz. 'Historyless Chaos', 'Culture',
'Civilization', and 'Second Religiousness' - from the early Middle Ages through
the Elizabethan period to the Victorian era and, with the twentieth century, to
the age of Socialism and, consequently, an inceptive or rudimentary mode of
'Second Religiousness'. (Arguably
Communism, and in particular the Transcendental Communism I have described
elsewhere, is the more evolved and, hence, truer manifestation of 'Second
Religiousness'.) Thus Chaucer and
Shakespeare on the one hand, but Dickens and Russell on the other, with Chaucer
and Russell alpha illusion and omega truth respectively of this particular
civilization, but Shakespeare and Dickens the 'factual' and fictional worldly
giants coming in-between. Poetic doing, the dramatic given, novelistic becoming, and
philosophic being.
233. In ancient Greek civilization we have the poetic
alpha of Homer and the philosophic omega of Plato, but no real worldly
antithesis in between - largely because there were no novelists in ancient
Greece, though plenty of dramatists, of whom Sophocles and Aeschylus are among
the better known.
234. No less than Doing extends into the Given,
Being can be found in the Becoming. As
Doing devolves into the Given, so Being evolves out of
the Becoming. When Doing is most itself
and alpha stemming, it manifests in speech, that is to say, in the oral transmission
of poetry; for poetry was spoken long before it was ever written or read, and
such speech corresponds, particularly when most passionate, to a strictly
alpha-stemming integrity commensurate with cosmic as opposed to worldly
parallels, insofar as speech is a thing of the head rather than of the body,
and the head - at any rate in its old-brain/subconscious manifestations -
corresponds to the cosmos as opposed to the world, i.e. the planet earth. However, with drama, even when poetic, we
have a devolution of Doing from the absolute to the relative and its subsequent
absorption by the Given; for dramatic acting corresponds to the body and thus
to the world, and even poetic drama - undoubtedly the highest kind of drama -
will be less a thing of the head than poetry-proper, and therefore a diluted or
corrupted form of 'poetry' which exists, in relative doing, within the bodily
context of the Given. Now the more
factual the drama the less poetic it will be and consequently the more purely
dramatic, with Doing firmly subordinated to the Given, which manifests through
physical gestures as bodily will. Poetic
drama is thus an accommodation of Doing to the world, and the more worldly the
drama, i.e. the more it approximates to the Given, the less speech there will
be and the greater, in consequence, will be the degree of physical action. Or, alternatively, the more speech will be
subordinated to bodily action, serving merely to explain or justify it.
235. Conversely, the Being
of literary becoming will be firmly subordinated to the Becoming, i.e. the
narrative, when literature is most true to itself and thus predominantly
fictional. But the more truthful, and
hence philosophical, literature becomes, the less subordinate Being will be to
the Becoming until, at the utmost level of philosophical literature, it
threatens to break away, as from the relative to the absolute, and so attain to
an outright philosophical independence of becoming, which is to say, the
narrative unfolding of fiction. Yet even
philosophical literature is predominantly literary and thus essentially a
manifestation of the Becoming rather than a vehicle for Being, just as, to take
an opposite case, poetic drama (the highest kind of drama) is essentially
dramatic and thus a manifestation of the Given rather than a vehicle for
Doing. Literature cannot transcend the
Becoming without ceasing to be literary, and so if Being is to become manifest
in the world it must take an overtly philosophical form, where Truth can be
developed to the utmost limits of its intellectual realization, and this
Being-oriented philosophy will be as much above and beyond philosophical
literature as ... Doing-oriented poetry was above and before poetic drama.
236. Therefore as we pass from fiction to truth with
Being-in-the-Becoming, so we pass beyond fiction to Truth with the
Become-of-Being, which requires a philosophical presentation. In the Philosopher, Being attains to its
fruition, and he is both the ultimate writer and the end of writing. Beyond him there can be only the fuller
realized Being … of pure spirit through meditation. The Philosopher is the omega writer, and the
ultimate philosopher, or ontological theosophist, most especially so! His Truth stands in sharp contrast to the
Illusion of alpha poets, as Being to Doing, or the Holy Spirit to the
Father. The omega philosopher is all
essence, and the alpha poets are all appearance. He is thought, and they are speech. He is centripetal, and they are
centrifugal. He is moral, and they are
immoral. He is the End, and they are the
Beginning. By contrast, novelists are
the-Beginning-of-the-End and dramatists the-End-of-the-Beginning, bearing in
mind the evolutionary and devolutionary distinctions which exist between them. Now if alpha poets are
immoral and omega philosophers moral, then (worldly) dramatists and novelists
are alike amoral - the former more usually in a negative (tragic) sense and the
latter more often in a positive (comic) sense. Thus a cosmic immorality to
a feminine worldly amorality on the devolutionary side (of poets and
dramatists), analogous to the distinction between dresses and skirts, but a
masculine worldly amorality to a supercosmic morality
on the evolutionary side (of novelists and philosophers), analogous to the
distinction between trousers and one-piece zipper suits.
237. Poetic naturalism to dramatic realism;
novelistic materialism to philosophic idealism.
For naturalism and realism are no less the poetic and
dramatic norms ... than materialism and idealism the novelistic and philosophic
norms. The most poetic poetry
will be naturalistic and the most dramatic drama realistic. The most novelistic (narrative) fiction will
be materialistic and the most philosophic philosophy idealistic. The further poetry is from naturalism the
less genuinely poetical will it be, whilst, at the opposite extreme, the
further philosophy is from idealism the less genuinely philosophical will it
be. In a relatively alpha-stemming
(poetic) age, philosophy will be comparatively illusory and thus a sham by any
strictly philosophical criterion.
Conversely, in a relatively omega-oriented (philosophic) age, poetry
will be comparatively truthful (in the metaphysical sense) and thus a sham by
any strictly poetical criterion. Drama
and literary fiction (novels) are only possible in a worldly age or
civilization. For realism and
materialism cannot flourish in either naturalistic or idealistic ages, as
pertaining to alpha-stemming and omega-oriented extremes.
238. To see realism as a revolt against naturalism
and idealism as a revolt against materialism, insofar as we are dealing with
four broad periods of historical time which correspond to the Spenglerian distinctions between 'Historyless
Chaos' and 'Culture' on the one hand, and ... 'Civilization' and 'Second
Religiousness' on the other hand.
Clearly, the first period is naturalistic because pagan, cosmic,
pantheistic, animistic, etc., whereas the second period signifies a humanistic,
and hence realistic, revolt against naturalism which takes the form of
Christianity and its anthropomorphic associations. Such a revolt is more marked in Protestantism
than in Catholicism, and one could describe Protestantism as an anti-realist
realism, in view of its traditional hostility to the Catholic Church. It is certainly true that Protestantism
indirectly paved the way for the liberal, capitalist materialism to follow,
with the development of 'Civilization' (in the Spenglerian
sense of that term), and if capitalism is the alpha of this third historical
period then Socialism must assuredly be its omega, a kind of anti-materialist
materialism which sets itself up against capitalism much as Protestantism set
itself up against Catholicism, and which can only have the effect (so I firmly
believe) of indirectly paving the way for the Social Transcendentalist idealism
to come - an idealism which will usher in the fourth period, corresponding to
'Second Religiousness', on an appropriately Transcendental Communist note. Our age is on the verge, it seems to me, of
such an idealistic breakthrough, and while Democratic Communism may be more
socialist than transcendentalist, nevertheless a truly transcendental type of
Communism is in the making and will one day lay claim to its rightful place in
the world, to usher in the 'Kingdom of Heaven' on earth and the 'reign' of the
Second Coming. Such idealism will be as
superior to realism as materialism to naturalism. For truth is no less superior to fact than
fiction to illusion, or, in Spenglerian terms,
'Second Religiousness' is no less superior to 'Culture' than 'Civilization' to
'Historyless Chaos'.
For whilst a parallel certainly exists between Being and the Given on the one hand and the Becoming and Doing on the
other, Being is no less superior to the Given than the Becoming to Doing. Better the idealistic being which evolves out
of the materialistic becoming, than the realistic given which devolves from
naturalistic doing.
239. With that said, however, all that remains is for
me to correlate each of the above categories with its corresponding element,
i.e. earth, water, fire, or air, in order for our elemental spectra to be
complete in both a vertical and, as here, a horizontal sense. Thus as naturalistic Doing precedes the
realistic Given, it should follow that Doing correlates
with fire and the Given with earth, since fire connotes with naturalism and
earth with realism. Similarly we may hold
that, as the materialistic Becoming precedes idealistic Being,
the Becoming correlates with water and Being with air, since water has a
materialistic connotation and air an idealistic one. Hence, to compare the two, we may argue that
fire, earth, water, and air is the order of elements corresponding to Doing,
the Given, the Becoming, and Being, and that, whilst each element co-exists in
the world with the others, there is still an overall historical sense in which
we have a regression from fire to earth and a progression from water to air,
which corresponds to the evolutionary/devolutionary distinction between Doing
and the Given on the one hand, and the Becoming and Being on the other
hand. Which is no less a regression from
heat to darkness in the one context (devolutionary) and a progression from
coldness to light in the other context (evolutionary), since heat is to fire
and darkness to earth what coldness is to water and light to air - the
qualitative aspect of an elemental quantity.
240. Therefore whereas naturalistic Doing is hot and
the realistic Given dark, like fire and earth respectively, the materialistic Becoming
is cold and idealistic Being light, like water and air respectively. Considered in a horizontal sense, heat and
light are the qualitative antipodes of life, with darkness and coldness coming
in-between. Heat is illusion and
darkness fact. Coldness is fiction and
light truth. Or, rather, fire is
illusion and earth fact. Water is
fiction and air truth. For heat is agony
and darkness fear. Coldness is hope and
light joy. Quantities connote with
quantities and qualities with qualities, and the two should never be
confounded!
241. Fire is the element of poets, whose Doing is illusory.
Earth is the element of playwrights, whose Given
is factual. Water is the element of
novelists, whose Becoming is fictional. Air is the element of philosophers, whose Being is truthful.
242. It is ridiculous to equate Socialism with
internationalism, as though only Socialism were
internationalist. Countries have been
international for centuries ... almost since the beginning of nation-state
time, since it is impossible for nations to exist in 'splendid isolation' from
one another as so many independent units.
The only difference between now and then was that in the past the
relationship between countries was more competitive and violent than it
generally tends to be these days, and although wars and other forms of
international violence have not ceased to occur, nonetheless we live in an age
when international exchanges are normally conducted on a more co-operative and
peaceful basis than was formerly the case, with a result that the world is
slowly becoming positively as opposed to negatively internationalist, which is
to say internationalist in a co-operative or socialist fashion. Yet competitiveness still exists and will
doubtless continue to do so for as long as capitalism and other forms of
alpha-stemming immorality prevail, which will probably continue to be the case
for some time to come, bearing in mind the relative nature of the world and,
indeed, all human life. However, this is
not to say we can't ever get to a stage when only co-operation prevails (since
that would be to rule out all possibility of moral progress), but, rather, that
the struggle against centrifugal immorality can only be long and hard, given
the facts of atomic existence. Probably
there will always be some degree of capitalism even in the best of (socialist)
worlds, though more in the form of low-key private enterprise on or off the
'black market' than in the form of widespread capitalist freedoms in countries
as a whole. For as long as capitalist countries
continue to exist, there will be no true co-operative internationalism but only
competitive internationalism or, at best, a compromise between co-operative and
competitive economics.
243. Colour television can only have the effect,
after a while, of breaking down and counteracting our dependence on print. For the more one watches colour television,
the less one will want to read a book (with its black characters on a white
page). Only a black-and-white television
can be expected to psychologically harmonize with print, and, to reverse the
argument, one could maintain that for compulsive bookworms who yet have some
time for TV, a black-and-white television is probably a better idea than a
colour one - provided one wishes to retain a respect for print!
244. However that may be, if it is doubtful that
colour television and momochrome print go together,
there can be no doubt that colour books, i.e. books with polychrome
reproductions, will harmonize with colour television, and probably be the
favourite if not only reading-matter of people habituated to watching it. And, doubtless, such books are as technologically
superior to conventional books with black print on white paper as colour
television to its black-and-white counterpart.
Doubtless, too, we should associate colour magazines with video,
regarding them as a kind of extrapolation from colour books and a suitable form
of reading-matter for people who prefer video to television.
245. I find it difficult not to believe that a man's
sexual ego is primarily conditioned by the size of his penis, so that the
bigger the penis the bigger the sexual ego and, conversely, the smaller the
penis the smaller the sexual ego, with due gradations of what may be termed
average sexual ego coming in-between.
Similarly, it seems just as credible to believe that a woman's sexual
ego will depend to a quite significant extent on the size of her breasts, so
that small breasts will make for a comparatively small sexual ego and large
breasts, by contrast, for a comparatively large one. Doubtless men with small sexual egos will
generally prefer the company of like-minded women and, conversely, men with
large sexual egos the company of women whose sexual egos are correspondingly large,
since like is attracted to like and it is rather unlikely (no pun intended) that
a man with a small penis would wish to impose himself upon a woman with large
breasts or, alternatively, that a man whose penis was large would turn a blind
eye to a woman with large breasts in preference for one whose breasts were
scarcely perceptible. Yet, exceptions
notwithstanding, it cannot be denied that sexual egos are physically
conditioned, since sex is itself physical and like begets like. Neither need we suppose that a small sexual
ego is necessarily a misfortune or that a large one is inevitably fortunate. The person with a small sexual ego is more
likely to have a large intellectual or spiritual one, and to look down upon the
sexually egocentric person as a sort of semi-beast incapable of true
intellectual or spiritual accomplishment; for it cannot be denied that men with
small penises and women with small breasts are usually endowed with big heads,
metaphorically speaking, and pride themselves less on being physical than
spiritual. One could even go so far as to
say that unless a man has a small penis or a woman small breasts, there is
relatively little prospect of his/her achieving anything much in the way of
intellectual, cultural, religious, or artistic endeavour, since these things of
the spirit presuppose a spiritual predilection, which in turn presupposes a
comparatively small sexual ego - else where or how would one find the time or
inclination to dedicate oneself to them?
Truly, the highest men are not born to fornicate but, rather, to avoid
fornication, and, as Baudelaire aptly says: 'The more a man cultivates the arts
the less he fornicates'. Yet, for my
part, I say: that man will better cultivate the arts who,
for physical reasons, has a small sexual ego to begin with!
246. Work stems from doing; play aspires towards
being. Work, as a rule, is centrifugal
and objective; play, by contrast, centripetal and subjective. Work is a curse that has to be escaped from
... through play. For only in play does
one come to know the '
247. Since I have equated work with Doing and play
with Being, I should now like to distinguish between natural work and
artificial work on the one hand, and natural play and artificial play on the
other, reserving for natural work the equation with Doing and for artificial
play the equation with Being, but introducing two new equations in the form of
natural play with the Given and artificial work with the Becoming, so that,
from a simple doing/being antithesis between work and play, we progress to the
more comprehensive antitheses between Doing and the Given on the one hand, and
the Becoming and Being on the other, with natural work and play appertaining to
the former antithesis, but artificial work and play appertaining to the latter
one. Therefore if natural work is alone
equated with Doing and, hence, an inherently alpha-stemming naturalistic age or
society, commensurate with Spengler's 'Historyless Chaos', only artificial play should be equated
with Being and thus an inherently omega-oriented idealistic age or society such
as will correspond to Spengler's (period of) 'Second
Religiousness'. By contrast, natural
play should only be equated with the Given and, hence, with a realistic age or
society corresponding to Spengler's 'Culture',
whereas artificial work should be equated with the Becoming and therefore with
a materialistic age or society commensurate with Spengler's
'Civilization' - the modern age par excellence, in which artificial work is the
work and the industrial worker the representative figure.
248. Although natural work (manual labour, farm
labour, etc.) and natural play (sex, sport, etc.) still of course exist, we
live in an increasingly artificial age which has its fulcrum, so to speak, in
artificial work (mechanical, industrial, technological, commercial), in
accordance with materialistic criteria.
Such an age is akin to a second alpha in that it reflects, on higher
terms, the first alpha age (of natural work), and stands in opposition to the
first omega age (of natural play) as a kind of historical fall from the Given
to the Becoming or, which amounts to the same, from realism to
materialism. If a second omega age is to
emerge it can only do so at the expense of this second alpha age, and in terms
of the most artificial play in which Being attains to full maturity as idealism
supersedes materialism in the interests of universal salvation. Such artificial play, commensurate, amongst
other things, with synthetically-induced visionary experience, will be as superior
to the materialistically-compromised artificial play of television and video as
essence to appearance or, in natural terms, visions to dreams, and lead towards
the ultimate Being of a truly divine play in which no compromise with work of
any description would be either desirable or, indeed, possible. For work is ever immoral in relation to play,
which, at its most Being-oriented heights, attains to the true morality of God.
249. Burial of the dead stands between the
alpha-stemming funeral pyre and the omega-oriented cremation as a kind of
worldly norm suitable to a bodily (as opposed to a head) people and/or
age. There are two types of burial: on
land and at sea, and whereas the former is realistic, the latter is
materialistic. In fact, burial on land,
i.e. in the earth, stands to the funeral pyre as realism to naturalism or, in Spenglerian parlance, as 'Culture' to 'Historyless
Chaos', while burial at sea stands to cremation as materialism to idealism, or
'Civilization' to 'Second Religiousness'.
Therefore realism and materialism are flanked, here as elsewhere, by
naturalism and idealism respectively - Doing and Being as alpha and omega
extremes either side of the Given and the Becoming, or, in concrete terms,
burial on land and burial at sea. Ours
is an age when all kinds of waste, human and non-human, is dumped into the sea
- people being, for the most part, either buried on land, i.e. in cemeteries,
or cremated. Doubtless as land becomes
increasingly expensive and more sought-after for other purposes, not to mention
in shorter supply as the population continues to increase, burial will be
totally eclipsed by cremation, and especially would this be the case in a
post-worldly and therefore omega-oriented age, when all forms of burial,
including the dumping of non-human waste at sea, would be frowned upon as
incompatible with the moral requirements of such an idealistic time - a time
when waste is for the most part incinerated rather than buried or dumped, and
the Becoming duly gives way to Being.
250i. And they asked him:
What is evil? And he replied: That which, as the negative Given,
engenders or is engendered by pain.
ii. So
they asked him: What, then, is good? And he replied: That which, as the
positive Given, engenders or is engendered by
pleasure.
iii. And they asked him:
What is weakness? And he replied: That which, as the negative Becoming,
engenders or is engendered by humiliation.
iv. So
they asked him: What, then, is strength? And he replied: That which, as the
positive Becoming, engenders or is engendered by pride.
251i. And they asked him:
What is ugly? And he replied: That which, as negative Doing, engenders or is
engendered by hate.
ii. So
they asked him: What, then, is beauty? And he replied: That which, as positive Doing,
engenders or is engendered by love.
iii. And they asked him:
What is illusion? And he replied: That which, as negative Being,
engenders or is engendered by sorrow.
iv. So
they asked him: What, then, is truth? And he replied: That which, as positive Being, engenders or is engendered by joy.
252i. Truth is the appearance of joy; joy the
essence of truth.
ii. Beauty is the
appearance of love; love the essence of beauty.
iii. Strength is the
appearance of pride; pride the essence of strength.
iv. Goodness is the
appearance of pleasure; pleasure the essence of goodness.
253i. Conversely, evil is the appearance of pain;
pain the essence of evil.
ii. Weakness is the
appearance of humiliation; humiliation the essence of weakness.
iii. Ugliness is the appearance
of hate; hate the essence of ugliness.
iv. Illusion is the
appearance of sorrow; sorrow the essence of illusion.
