CYCLE NINETY-EIGHT
1. Civilization is the cradle in which culture
is nurtured. Barbarism, by contrast, is
the flame which ignites nature.
2. Christ stands between the Father and the Holy
Ghost as man between subman and superman. Man can thus go either backwards, within masculinity,
to the subman or forwards to the superman; backwards,
within Purgatory, to Hell or forwards to Heaven; backwards, within the ego, to
the subconscious or forwards to the superconscious;
backwards, within Christ, to the Devil or forwards to God; backwards, within
sanity, to subsanity or forwards to supersanity; backwards, within the intellect, to the soul
or forwards to the spirit; backwards, within nonconformism,
to fundamentalism or forwards to transcendentalism; backwards, within
materialism, to naturalism or forwards to idealism; backwards, within volume,
to time or forwards to space. Man has
this choice; woman doesn't. Woman
receives what goes backwards, whereas that which goes forwards transcends her.
3. One could paradoxically describe barbarism as
noumenal nature and nature as phenomenal
barbarism. Or,
similarly, culture as noumenal civilization and
civilization as phenomenal culture.
But the important thing to realize is that nature stems from barbarism,
no less than civilization leads to culture.
For nature is a phenomenal fall from barbarism,
whereas culture is a noumenal rise from civilization.
4. Civilization thrives at nature's expense,
like Purgatory, and hence Christ, at the expense of the World, but only culture
can lead beyond civilization to a degree which puts barbarism beneath the
heavenly pale. This is the true culture
of the '
5. To contrast the 'civilized barbarism' of a
constitutional monarchy with the 'barbarous civilization' of a parliamentary democracy
- the former relatively noumenal and the latter
relatively phenomenal.
6. Likewise to contrast the 'pure barbarism' of
an authoritarian monarchy with the 'pure civilization' of a republican
democracy - the former absolutely noumenal and the
latter absolutely phenomenal.
7. Were there fewer Irish comedians, it is
probable that there would be fewer 'Irish jokes'.
8. 'Irish jokes' are rooted in the inability of
the British to come to terms with an omega-oriented
'thickness', or centripetal subjectivity.
9. Part of the reason why the British reject too
centripetal and subjective a lifestyle is that Britain is, by and large,
exposed to more sunshine than Ireland, and accordingly its citizens are
generally more pragmatic in regard to 'pagan' values.
10. Were moral values
entirely conditioned by climate, however, one could change one's morality from
climate to climate or country to country, like a chameleon its colours. There are, fortunately, profounder reasons
for adherence to a given pattern of morality than the weather!
11. Were Ireland less exposed to frequent rain, it
is likely that the Irish would drink less than is generally the case.
12. Yet, here, too, weather is only a superficial
and apparent reason for
13. At the back of, and anterior to, the subnaturalism of solar fundamentalism lies the
supernaturalism of cosmic transcendentalism, the negative supernaturalism of
the (Jehovahesque) Clear Light of the Void, which
stands in an antithetical context to the positive supernaturalism of the Holy
Spirit of Heaven. Both modes of
supernaturalism are, however, relative to the Beyond, which is a divine
definition. In this regard, they
contrast with the subnaturalism not only of solar
fundamentalism, which is necessarily negative, but also with the positive subnaturalism of bloody fundamentalism, both of which
appertain, in antithetical ways, to the diabolic Behind. Hence the Behind, like the Beyond, can be
either alpha or omega, negative or positive, objective or subjective,
centrifugal or centripetal, particles or wavicles. Adherence to the one necessarily excludes the
other, as does adherence to either of their respective
poles. The 'God-person' who is for the
Holy Spirit of Heaven (Omega Point) cannot also be for the Clear Light of the
Void (Jehovah), and vice versa. Neither
can the 'Devil-person' who is for the Holy Soul of Hell (the Father) possibly
be for the Clear Heat of Time (Satan), or vice versa.
14. The 'subnaturalism'
of fire/soul contrasts, absolutely, with the 'supernaturalism' of
light/spirit. Devil and God are as noumenally antithetical as it is possible to be.
15. Every alpha phenomenon acquires an omega
alternative and antithesis in the course of time: television acquires a
video-tape alternative, radio an audio-tape alternative, record players a
compact-disc alternative, computers a CD-ROM alternative. And these omega alternatives grow and prosper
at the alpha's expense.
16. Television and radio, together with their tape
alternatives, stand to record players and computers, not to mention their compact-disc
alternatives, as barbarism and nature to civilization and culture respectively,
which is to say, as fundamentalist and humanist phenomena to nonconformist and
transcendentalist phenomena. Although,
strictly speaking, only radio/audio tapes and record players/compact discs are
properly phenomenal, given their planar/lunar standing in between the
solar/stellar extremes of television/video tapes and computers/CD-ROMs, which
more correspond, on account of their light-emitting properties, to the noumenal.
17. Thus from the particle alpha of television to
the wavicle omega of video tapes on the hellish
spectrum of solar fundamentalism; from the particle alpha of computers to the wavicle omega of CD-ROMs on the heavenly spectrum of
stellar transcendentalism; from the particle alpha of record players to the wavicle omega of compact discs on the purgatorial spectrum
of lunar nonconformism; and from the particle alpha
of radios to the wavicle omega of audio tapes on the
mundane spectrum of planar humanism.
18. Watching television is a little like
sucking-up, in heliotropic fashion, to the sun. In fact, it is fundamentally a feminine, and
hence heathen, tendency which reflects a mass appeal.
