Op. 37
A TRUE EXTREMISM
Short Prose
Copyright © 2013 John O'Loughlin
_______________
CONTENTS
1. Free-Electron Sexuality
2. A Vertical Integrity
3. Creative Extremes
4. For Truth
5. Leader's Transcendentalism
6. A True Extremism
7. A Permanent Cross
8. More Plastic
9. Supernatural Upgrading
10. Centrist Sexuality
11. Writerly Print
12. Supernatural Travel
13. Six Thinkers ...
14. Five Speeches ...
15. Thus Speaks the Social Transcendentalist
_______________
FREE-ELECTRON SEXUALITY
"I
must say, I'm fascinated by this theory of yours, Terry, that homosexuality
corresponds to a pseudo-electron equivalent," the professor remarked,
turning a pair of seemingly enlightened eyes in my direction. "A kind of higher
materialist petty-bourgeois sexuality."
The professor's wife smiled deferentially
through prim lips. "And one that
apparently compliments the higher spiritual petty-bourgeois sexuality of
pornographic indulgence, which corresponds, by contrast, to a free-electron
equivalent," she averred, showing herself to be no mean learner either.
I nodded confirmatory encouragement and
waited for one or other of them to continue.
"A homosexual materialist and a
pornographic spiritualist," the professor mused, smiling to himself. "Why, one might alternatively expect
homosexuality to appeal more to LSD trippers and pornography, by contrast, to
the practitioners of transcendental meditation, seeing as one can distinguish,
in each case, between a pseudo-electron and a free-electron indulgence!"
The professor's wife cast me an admiring
and vaguely expectant look. "Then
one ought to argue that anti-artists who produce a pseudo-electron literature
would be partial to homosexuality, while their free-electron counterparts, the
pure poets, would prefer pornographic sexuality," she remarked, as though
it were an everyday occurrence.
I nodded again, this time, however, in an
attempt to express the most unequivocally tacit endorsement of the good lady's
argument.
"Well, if that's the case," the
professor responded, turning towards his wife, "one ought to equate
avant-garde classical music with a homosexual bias, since Terry tells us that
such music conforms to a pseudo-electron status, while reserving for modern
jazz an equation with a pornographic bias in view of the fact that it conforms,
so we are told, to a free-electron status."
The professor's wife smiled her guarded
approval of this suggestion through newly moist lips. "And one might just as well contend that
avant-garde painting pertains, in its pseudo-electron status, to the homosexual
side of things, in contrast to light art which, through its free-electron
integrity, suggests an affinity with pornography."
I nodded my affirmation of this further
contention and remarked: "Yes, there is definitely a logical consistency
about all this; though one shouldn't forget that in a relatively post-atomic
civilization things are also relative within themselves, not just across the
board with regard to, say, the distinction between avant-garde classical and
modern jazz. These two art forms are
also relative - as between a steady rhythmic root and notational pitch
expansions in the case of avant-garde classical, and between flexible rhythmic
accompaniment and improvisatory pitch expansions in the case of modern
jazz. Although we can speak of the one
as essentially a pseudo-electron equivalent and the other as a free-electron
equivalent, there is a proton side to the first and a pseudo-electron, or
neutron, side to the second, in accordance with their respective extreme
relativities. And the same of course
applies to the distinction between avant-garde painting and light art, art
forms which divide into sub-relativities between canvas and abstract painting
in the context of, say, abstract expressionism, and between plastic tubing and
neon lighting in the context of light art - in other words, between a
subordinate materialistic and a dominating spiritualistic ingredient, the ratio
of the one to the other varying with the type of art and/or artist in question.
Needless to say, each art form, whether
painterly or post-painterly, is divisible, within relative civilization, into
antithetical atomic biases, so that we can differentiate between
pseudo-electron painting and free-electron painting in regard to abstract
expressionism and abstract impressionism (more usually known as post-painterly
abstraction), as well as between different types of light art, whilst at the
same time acknowledging that, in the relativity of these things, avant-garde
painting as a whole becomes a pseudo-electron equivalent in relation to light
art as a whole, which we can have no hesitation in describing as a
free-electron equivalent."
The professor and his wife stared
penetratingly into my face, as though at some art object, smiled their
gratification for the privilege of receiving such esoteric information, and
nodded what appeared to be simultaneous approval of my argument.
However, I could only continue:
"Coming back to sex, we will therefore note that both homosexuality and
pornography are relative within themselves, the one materially so, with regard
to the relationship of two male bodies, and the other spiritually so, with
regard, as a rule, to either two photographed participants of different sex
and/or to one participant of female sex whose body is either completely or
partly on display, with particular reference to her cun
..., I mean, vagina. Such is the way of
things in an extreme relative civilization, like
Both the professor
and his wife appeared quite astounded, their lips pursed and their heads gently
shaking from side to side. It seemed
that this speculative declaration was too far above them to be properly
intelligible or sympathetic to their manifestly petty-bourgeois mentalities,
which, in any case, could only relate to magazines and the employment, therein,
of adult models. Probably they would
forget all about it in due course!
A VERTICAL INTEGRITY
Philip
Brennan had been standing for over an hour in the company of most of the other
guests to a conference of senior Social Transcendentalists, held in the main
office of the party's Dublin headquarters, and was beginning to tire a little
on his feet, though not without a quiet satisfaction that he had so far avoided
the ignominy (as it was fast becoming known to those in the know) of taking a
seat in one of the few available upright chairs. Usually that ignominy was reserved for
females and youths, who were regarded as less qualified than men to spend long
periods of time in a vertical position.
Had the Leader not himself declined to sit down in order, no doubt, to
set an example to his followers? For,
assuredly, most of them were aware, by now, of his views on sitting, which he
regarded as a bourgeois habit unworthy of proletarian emulation; though he was
hardly a bona fide proletarian himself!
However, his views on sitting, as on lying and standing, were
representative of Social Transcendentalism, which sought and adhered to the
truth about everything, in the interests of evolutionary progress towards a
more absolute society.
For sitting was relative, a kind of
compromise between lying and standing, in which one part of the body, namely
the thighs, was horizontal whilst another part, namely the trunk and head, was
vertical, this in turn significant of a compromise between the feminine and the
masculine, the mundane and the transcendent.
For in case anyone had any doubts on the matter, the horizontal and the
feminine were aligned, and sharply contrasted with the vertical and the
masculine, which was how they would always remain.
But not for men, for a society dedicated,
more specifically, to revolutionary change in the name of masculine
progress! If the ancients, with
particular reference to the pagan Greeks and Romans, spent more time lying or,
rather, reclining than sitting or standing, that was because they were
essentially feminine in character, a people stemming from nature, like animals,
who also spend the greater part of their time - indeed almost all of it - in a
horizontal position. Not having attained
to a dualistic compromise, the ancients were content to spend most of their
time, days as well as nights, lolling about in pursuit of carnal indulgence. When not dozing or sleeping, they had been
wolfing fruit, swilling wine, and philandering, not to say fornicating. They had even read scrolls and listened to
music in a reclining posture, as often as not dozing off in the process. So much for the ancients!
Fortunately, however, man went on to make
some progress during the succeeding centuries and, with the rise of bourgeois
consciousness, became less a reclining animal than a sitting one - indeed,
became properly human. No longer
absolutely feminine, and thus horizontal in his lifestyle, man developed a dualistic
compromise between the feminine and the masculine, a compromise reflecting his
religious progress towards the transcendent, which necessarily acquired the
form of a partly transcendental inclination, as germane to Christianity, that
anthropomorphic allegiance between Hell and Heaven, the centrifugal alpha and
the centripetal omega. So now man,
properly so-considered, was between the horizontal and the vertical as he sat
in his chair, one part of him seemingly stemming from the natural and another
part of him seemingly aspiring towards the supernatural. Of course, this development had passed
through a number of stages, from chairs with slanting backs to chairs the backs
of which were almost straight and, in some of the more up-to-date examples,
totally so. And, then, the amount of
time men had spent in their variously-constituted chairs varied with the
individual's social standing and the epoch in question, the European grand
bourgeoisie, nominally aristocratic, spending much less time seated than their
bureaucratic successors of more recent date.
However, this wasn't because they spent more time standing, but, as the
Leader was only too keen to remind us, because they remained enslaved, in
varying degrees, to pagan precedent - the early grand-bourgeoisie most
especially so! There were still too many
things which could be better done reclining than sitting, and we need not doubt
that the people in question had no qualms about thus doing them. So much for the medievalists!
When we come to the moderns, as the Leader
(having briefly drawn our attention to the bourgeoisie ... with their dualistic
compromise reflecting a lifestyle more balanced between horizontal and
vertical) referred to petty-bourgeois man, we arrive at a procedure the
converse of that favoured by the medievalists, with their grand-bourgeois
integrity. We note a gradual loosening
of the connection between men and chairs.
For even though the backs of modern chairs are usually vertical, there
is still a concession to the horizontal with the seat, and this concession,
though in many instances tempered by diagonally-slanting seats, is precisely
what, consciously or unconsciously, petty-bourgeois man happens to be in
rebellion against, if only relatively so and, hence, on a rather intermittent
basis. His extreme relativity favours
the vertical, so he inclines to spend more time standing than sitting, whereas
his class predecessor, the bourgeois, spent as much time sitting as both
reclining and standing - indeed, probably spent more time sitting, since that
would have accorded with a uniquely bourgeois compromise. Of course, one can divide the petty
bourgeoisie into early and late stages, thereby inferring two distinct classes,
and contend that if the late-stage petty-bourgeoisie preferred to spend more
time standing than sitting, then their immediate class predecessors probably
preferred to spend as much time as possible sitting with a straight back in the
straightest possible type of chair.
Moreover, one could argue that the grand bourgeoisie
...
No, rather than dwell on them, one would do
better to bear in mind the Leader's contention that proletarian man, that
successor to the moderns, should be prepared if not to completely avoid
sitting, during the barbarous phase of his society's evolution, then to
completely avoid doing so during the subsequent civilized phase, when all truck
with the relative, and hence the
horizontal, would be strictly taboo, man having become so masculine by
then as to be indisposed to any degree of compromise with the feminine, society
having become absolutely post-dualistic and thus exclusively orientated towards
the attainment of a supernatural goal.
Such was the absolute fate in store for proletarians in the civilized
phase of their transcendental society, as championed by Social
Transcendentalism in general but by the Leader in particular. In the meantime chairs, although not strictly
taboo, would remain discredited objects, things to which one could succumb in
the event of physical tiredness, albeit not without a degree of shame! Gone were the days when chairs could be
complacently accepted and utilized on an intermittent basis. The Leader had ensured that much!
Well, Philip was still feeling tired and
exposed, in consequence, to the temptation to slump into one of the nearby
upright chairs which stood against the wall to his right. These chairs assumed the appearance of
ignominious traps at such times, and one of them had already claimed a victim
in the form of a young female whose apparent nonchalance suggested the
probability that she was less well-informed than most as to the moral nature of
her behaviour! However, whilst a young
female of around twenty would have reasons of her own for sitting down, Philip
knew that, if he wanted to remain a candidate for promotion in the Leader's
eyes, he would do better to gently shift his weight from one leg to the other,
as though marking time.... This, to all appearances, was exactly what one or
two other comrades were already doing!
Meanwhile the Leader had taken centre
stage, so to speak, in order to address his followers about an innovation which
he hoped to introduce into meditation centres in due course. Clearing his throat with guttural relish, he
thus proceeded: "As you all know, the practice of meditation has
traditionally been carried-on while sitting cross-legged on the floor. Orientals have long maintained this practice
and, since the introduction of meditation-centred religion to the West, most
petty-bourgeois devotees of transcendentalism have likewise been content to sit
on the floor or, alternatively, on a bed or a chair. Now while this mundane habit may be
appropriate to Buddhism and other such traditional oriental religions,
reflecting the devotee's continuing allegiance to the Ground, that oriental
equivalent of the Creator, Social Transcendentalism couldn't possibly endorse
it, since we are dealing here not with a continuation of tradition but with a
total departure from it, as relevant to an absolutely post-atomic integrity. Therefore we cannot meditate while sitting on
the floor, because such a mundane posture would connote with Buddhist
relativity, and we are beyond any such dualism.
Neither can we meditate while sitting on a chair, which, besides bringing
us into contact with the floor, would impose a degree of horizontality upon
that part of the body resting on its seat, just as the legs of those who sit
cross-legged on the floor are far from being in a vertical position. No, and neither can we meditate while
standing on our feet, since, besides tiring us, such a posture would keep us
anchored to the floor and detract, moreover, from our commitment to
meditation. So what should we do? I'll tell you what! We must meditate suspended in a vertical
position a few feet above the ground, as though levitating, and thus free of
mundane allegiance. This is the only
acceptable posture for a Social Transcendentalist, and it will reflect an
absolutely free-electron status symptomatic of post-atomic civilization. So, clearly, we must design meditation
centres in such a way that people can be hoisted free of the floor when they're
due to meditate, a procedure requiring the installation of special
chest-to-crotch harnesses suspended from some scaffold-like apparatus under the
roof of the building which can be raised or lowered by remote control,
according to the demands of the occasion.
Thus instead of squatting on the floor, like primitives, those who
practise meditation in our meditation centres will be suspended from aloft in
comfortable body harnesses that will enable them both to forget about their
body weight and to assume a more transcendent posture - one relevant to the
exclusive verticality of a proletarian civilization, beyond all dualistic
compromises."
Ah, how the phrase 'to forget about their
body weight' appealed to Philip Brennan at that moment, now that he had been
standing on his feet for over an hour-and-a-half! He was certainly unable to forget about his
own, or to completely detach his mind from the tempting proximity of those few
straight-backed chairs to his right, which made him slightly envious of the
seated young woman whose morals appeared to be less rigorously applied than his
own. If only such harnesses as the
Leader had spoken of were to be found in his office! But, of course, meditation and ideological
meetings were two entirely different things.
Perhaps, however, a day would eventually dawn when some scaffold-like
apparatus would be installed even for the latter, indeed for any meetings
between people, so that instead of standing on tired feet or succumbing to a
chair - that bourgeois anachronism - one would automatically step into a body
harness and be hoisted aloft, to conduct one's tête-à-tête, or whatever, in a
comfortably vertical position, a truly-civilized posture. Well, there was at any rate a degree of
comfort in the thought, and Philip Brennan needed all the comfort he could get,
now that the meeting was over and the Leader had left the office, presumably to
slump into a chair himself. It was at
least a relief for Philip Brennan to know that he was not the only one in need
of a seat at this moment!
CREATIVE EXTREMES
James had
loved her passionately as a youth, when they had worked in the same office for
a time, but only from a distance, because her love had been bestowed on someone
else, a fellow-worker who was either quicker off the romantic mark or just less
inhibited than himself. He suffered his
unrequited love for her throughout the years following her departure from the
firm, and when he also departed to become an apprentice author, his life had
grown accustomed to solitary nights and friendless days. Being alone in his lodgings was no great
burden on him. On the contrary, it was a
logical step from his previous loneliness.
And so he wrote for years, throughout the
greater part of each weekday, until the number of typescripts - writing first,
typing later - piled up in his room, and his notebooks, in which the works were
drafted, grew to fill a large drawer. He
considered himself, above all else, a philosopher, a seeker after the Truth, a
pioneer of new insights into life and the world. He was too serious-minded to be content with
fiction, his solitude and unrequited love not having conditioned him to become
an artist in the usual objective sense.
He was resigned to philosophy, even when he realized that it was the
most intellectually-demanding mode of writing and the least commercially
viable. Better to be a philosopher, he
thought, than to have remained a clerk.
Besides, I'm no ordinary philosopher.
More a revolutionary pseudo-philosopher than a traditional type.... Not
that he discovered this fact all at once, but only when the time was ripe. A pseudo-philosopher was somehow superior to
a genuine, or academic, philosopher, more a man of essence than of appearance,
a metaphysician as opposed to a physicist, an original writer rather than 'a
chair'. In similar vein, a pseudo-state
was somehow superior to a genuine state, a matter of the people rather than either
the land or country considered from a nationalist point of view. Pseudo-democracy could likewise be considered
superior to genuine democracy, giving maximum representation to the electorate
- a qualitative absolutism.
Yes, James Riley realized all this and so
much else as, year after year, he scribbled the time away in his single room
and noted the progress of his work from a bourgeois relative stage to an early
petty-bourgeois relatively absolute stage, and even, in due course, to a late
petty-bourgeois absolute stage of creative and ideological integrity. If he had begun as a philosopher or, more
correctly, a philosophical novelist and essayist, he had progressed quite some
way beyond that point by the time he came to evaluate the ideological/creative
status of his various stages of philosophical endeavour. Why, he had recently abandoned even the
pseudo-philosophical in his evolution towards a quasi-poetic integrity, a lower
phase of his late-stage petty-bourgeois writings, relevant to a new ideology in
the form of Social Transcendentalism, which pertained to the future development
of a proletarian civilization. Gone were
the days when he could take academic philosophy seriously! All that appearance-mongering was not for
him. Even the pseudo-philosophical
endeavour was now effectively a thing of his past, a passing phase in his
evolution to higher things. It always
amazed him when he looked back over his early work and noted the intellectual
distance between that and his latest work.
Was it possible that the same person had written both?
Ah, but even if such a question had to be
answered affirmatively, there could be no denying that the persona relevant to
each stage of his creative evolution had continuously changed for the better,
for more radically extreme positions.
The persona was not him, no! But
it had developed at his expense and to a degree he scarcely imagined
possible. Certainly there were times
when he wanted to disown it, to turn away from and abandon it, like an
alienated husband about to divorce a petulant wife. Was he not, after all, a petty bourgeois, for
whom the comforts of the home were more important than the struggles of the
street? He could not deny that fact,
even though he was less than confident that he could escape from his persona
and return to a more relative style and content. He found it hard to believe that, with the
inevitable termination of his quasi-poetic writings in due course, he could
return to being a philosophical novelist and literary philosopher. Had he not said everything there was to be said
within that context? Besides, wasn't
being a philosophical novelist a waste of time these days, an anachronistic
grand-bourgeois approach to the novel in an age of petty-bourgeois poetics?
No, philosophical novels weren't for him,
not now! His revolutionary urban
conditioning would never allow him to return to that level
again. Even the poetic novel was beneath
him, an early-stage petty-bourgeois art form more suited to the first-half of
the twentieth century than to its second.
Besides, he had never been a poetic artist but a philosopher and
philosophical artist turned pseudo-philosopher and, more recently, quasi-poet,
the latter still being a type of philosophical writer, a continuation of his
collectivizing tendencies from essayettes at the beginning
to a novelette or, rather, medium prose at the end, as a sort of climax. Whereas the artist made progress, over the
generations, by evolving from the novel to the poetic novelette and even, in a
late petty-bourgeois age, to the poetic short-story, the philosopher made
progress by evolving from essays and dialogues to philosophical short prose and
the philosophical novelette, attained to a petty-bourgeois status with the
abandonment of the older genres for the newer ones, used either collectively or
separately. Thus arose the extraordinary
paradox that whilst a philosophical novel was a grand-bourgeois approach to
literature, an approach more appropriate to a late grand-bourgeois age like the
mid-seventeenth century, a philosophical novelette was a petty-bourgeois
approach to philosophy, one more relevant to a late petty-bourgeois age like
the second-half of the twentieth century.
So the contemporary philosopher, or
pseudo-philosopher, was effectively a 'novelettist',
just as the contemporary artist, or pseudo-artist, was a short-story writer,
both of them co-existent with the modern poet, a largely metaphysical and/or
experimental creator, the most representative of the age.
But James Riley - our mysterious subject of
intellectual inquiry - didn't exactly fit into any of these late-stage
petty-bourgeois patterns; he was neither a contemporary philosopher, artist,
nor poet, but a Western outsider, an Irishman of fundamentally catholic descent
writing on behalf of a future civilization and in terms which set him radically
apart from all those who fitted into contemporary Western civilization, terms
uniquely collectivized, as befitting his assumed Messianic status. He had always been something of an outsider
in any case, even where love and sex were concerned. Not for him to write philosophical
novelettes! His work had to be both
anachronistic and revolutionary at the same time, if it wasn't to be mistaken
for late petty-bourgeois philosophy.
Hence his retention of the aristocratic aphorism, the early grand-bourgeois
essayette, the late grand-bourgeois essay, and the
bourgeois dialogue in the formal composition of his pseudo-philosophical
collectivized literature, early petty-bourgeois short prose and late
petty-bourgeois medium/long prose usually bringing the volume to a modernistic
climax. Only with his progression to a
quasi-poetic collectivized literature did he axe the aphoristic root, thereby
symbolically setting his work free from aristocratic moorings. The other genres had stayed relatively in place,
defying petty-bourgeois convention.
As for the artists with their novels, he
knew he would never become one of them, since he preferred extremes, had an
Irish bias, one might say, for the absolute.
He would rather become a poet than return to that middle-of-the-road
genre more suited to moderate temperaments than his own. Was not the novel a passé
genre compared with film, that late petty-bourgeois/early proletarian successor
to fictional literature, as much a successor to that as early grand-bourgeois
plays had been its predecessor. Films
were the truly contemporary 'literature', an extension and transformation of
fiction co-existent with modern poetry.
However, film - except possibly when conceived in video terms - would
not be suited to a proletarian age in a genuinely transcendental
civilization. It was an extreme
relativity, not a relative absolutism.
It signified the abstract climax to a fictional tradition. By contrast, plays signified the concrete
beginnings of a fictional tradition, as in Shakespeare, an early
grand-bourgeois extreme relativity following-on behind philosophical
absolutism, that truly aristocratic mode of intellectual endeavour better
suited to the ancient Greeks and Romans than to those fated to develop relative
civilization in the Christian West, which has always been primarily a literary
civilization, not so much given to philosophic or poetic extremes as finding
its golden mean in novel-writing, that quintessentially bourgeois genre -
analogous to painting - in between the extreme relativities of plays and films
respectively.
But if novels are passé,
plays were utterly obsolete and anachronistic by late-stage petty-bourgeois
criteria ... as pertaining to the contemporary West,
with particular reference to
But who would be the antithetical
equivalent (if one can speak of such a thing where absolute extremes are
concerned) to, say, Thales or Phythagoras
or Heraclitus?
Certainly no contemporary philosopher, even if contemporary philosophy,
in the strictly academic sense, is antithetical to ancient philosophy ... to
the extent that it entails a critique of language as opposed to a critique of
nature, and is therefore relatively artificial.
No, the absolute antithesis to such ancient philosophers would only be
found in a transcendental civilization, a necessarily poetic absolutism germane
to the proletariat. Certainly, one could
speak of certain late-stage petty-bourgeois poets as being antithetical to
later Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, who were less absolute or
more relative, as you prefer, in relation to the earliest philosophers. But only in a transcendental civilization
would the absolute antithesis to pagan absolutisms emerge, and it would
probably take an abstract anthological form, replacing the individual with the
collective, and thus contrasting the collectivized poetic with the
individualized philosophic, the essential with the apparent, the One with the
Many.
Yes, there poetic endeavour would attain to
its climax, transcending intellect. And
James Riley, the creator of a quasi-poetic collectivized literature, was
intimating of this transcendence on his own collective terms, interpreting life
and art for his future followers in order that they could be completely
confident in the correctness and inevitability of their creative
predilections. The modern Irish were
nothing if not poets. Even he had begun
his writing career as a poet of unrequited love, the noblest kind of love
poetry, he now mused, though he hadn't realized it at the time!
FOR TRUTH
The Leader
paced backwards and forwards in front of us, deeply immersed in reflection, and
I thought for a moment that he would take the seat offered him by one of our
comrades. But, to my surprise, he turned
away and, raising his eyes to survey us all, recommenced speaking, his voice
clear and firm, the channel of fresh inspiration from above. What puzzled him, he said, was how people had
come to equate Fascism and its Social Transcendentalist successor with the
Extreme Right. For, in reality,
theocratic Centrism (his use of the latter word, which he pronounced Centerism, implied a markedly radical implication which
contrasted sharply with the conventional use of the term as applying to
moderate democratic positions) was no more extreme right than autocratic royalism had been extreme left or, for that matter, extreme
right.
As expected, there were plenty of smiles in
the room with this utterance, and even one or two muffled laughs or would-be
guffaws. Even I was tickled by it.
No, it was difficult to see, he proceeded,
how an extreme movement, one pertaining to the theocratic spectrum, could have
anything to do with either left- or right-wing designations, since they
applied, after all, to the democratic spectrum.
Probably, he went on, the application of the term 'extreme right' to
Fascism was simply in order to distinguish it from Communism as an extreme
left-wing ideology, which, incidentally, it was, rather than as a product of
logical reasoning.
Here more amusement broke loose, but he quickly
calmed it down by continuing with words to the effect that, objectively
considered, the Extreme Right began with the Cromwellian
revolt against autocratic royalism, resulting in a
form of democratic dictatorship which in turn led to a parliamentary system of
government the essence of which was division between the Right and the Left,
Tories and Whigs, the one in part stemming from the victorious roundheads, the
other in part stemming from the defeated cavaliers, additional bourgeois
factors increasingly coming forward to shift the balance of power from a kind
of artisanal/feudal opposition to a monopoly
capitalist/liberal capitalist opposition, and from that to a small-time
capitalist/democratic socialist opposition, with successive evolutionary transmutations
from Whigs and Liberals to Fabians in more radically left-wing alignments
against a progressively less-extreme right-wing opposition. The culmination of this gradual shift from an
extreme right in Cromwellian dictatorship to an
extreme left within a two-party system was, the Leader assured us, the
emergence in certain countries of a communist system of one-party rule by the
Extreme Left, more extreme by far than the democratic socialists of countries
like Britain and France, and necessarily hostile to all such compromises
between the Right and the Left. So if
the democratic spectrum began with the extreme right-wing dictatorship of
Cromwell, its culmination could only be with the extreme left-wing dictatorship
of Lenin, each dictatorship leading, in due course, to democracy, the first to
relative, or bourgeois, democracy; the second to absolute, or proletarian,
democracy - a progression from liberal to social democracy along a spectrum
which, coming in-between autocratic and theocratic extremes, is the only one to
which the distinctions of left and right can reasonably be applied.
So any reference to Social
Transcendentalists as extreme right wing could only be subjective and
contingent, an expedience, the Leader assured us, on the part of democrats and
Marxists alike. In truth, we were
neither right nor left but above any such distinction, just as, prior to the
emergence of bourgeois parliamentarianism, the monarchy was beneath it, ruling
in an authoritarian manner on the principle, expressed or unexpressed, of
'divine right', a strictly non-sectarian rightness.
However, such 'divine right' was founded on
the galactic-world-order of central star (monarch), peripheral stars (peers),
and planets (populace); though the Galaxy, as the Leader had on occasion
pointed out to us, was far from being literally divine, that is to say, divine
in the sense of pure spirit, as germane to electron-electron attractions. On the contrary, it signified the
proton-proton reactions of pure soul, the central star no less than peripheral
ones, such theological abstractions as were subsequently made distinguishing
central from peripheral stars in terms of the Creator and the Devil, the latter
most especially relevant, so the Leader maintained, to an abstraction from the
sun, which is (or was) literally the root of all evil in the world, since the
closest star to it. Not that he made the
mistake of confounding theology with science, the abstracted Father with the
literal First Cause, the abstracted Satan with the Sun. Hell and Heaven remained, for him,
theological postulates, corresponding to cosmic realities - the nearest thing
to hell on earth being a raging fire, the nearest thing to heaven on earth
being a profoundly peaceful meditation experience. But if proton-proton reactions already
existed in space in the guise of stars, then it was the business of evolving
humanity to ensure that the cultivation of spirit went ahead on earth so that,
one day in the distant post-millennial future, electron-electron attractions would
arise from the ultimate life form, the new-brain collectivizations
of the Superbeings, and proceed towards other such
transcendences in space, some of which may well have been there for centuries
or longer, presuming upon the existence, elsewhere in the Universe, of more
advanced planets than the earth - planets, I mean, where the post-human
millennium had been established long before its eventual establishment here.
But, of course, such transcendences, our
Leader had informed us, would no more constitute the culmination of all
evolution than planets or small stars constituted its inception. They would simply amount to contributions of
pure spirit - spiritual globes - on route, as it were, to the distant culmination
of heavenly evolution in the ultimate spiritual globe ... of the Omega Point,
the sum-product of all convergence. The
establishment of God as the Holy Spirit, the ultimate
globe of pure spirit, was seemingly too far into the future for us on earth to
have any knowledge about or intimation of when it would literally come
about. All we can do as progressive
theocrats ... is work towards our own fulfilment in ever-increasing expansions
of spirit, of greater awareness, bringing ourselves nearer, by degrees, to the
envisaged future goal of all evolution, the quality of which would be ineffable
from our point of view, the quantity of which ... an unknown factor because
beyond and above all quantification, not really quantitative at all but ...
absolutely qualitative in its noumenal perfection.
Ah yes, I came back from these divine
reflections with a near-beatific smile on my face for the man or, rather,
divinity who had taught us all this, who was the soul of our party, the guiding
spirit of our movement! There he stood
before us, nodding his head at the amused response which his latest wisdom had
engendered among his faithful followers, my comrades in arms, despisers of
democracy in all its phases. He was the
arch-despiser of democracy, for whom the concept of
mass political sovereignty was but a passing phenomenon which would soon be
entirely redundant, like, for that matter, public ownership of the means of
production, its economic concomitant. He
represented political sovereignty for us, his followers, and we were pledged to
obey him, this embodiment of the Holy Spirit, this manifestation of the Second
Coming, whose word was Truth. Superior
in wisdom and insight to both Hitler and Mussolini, his crudely theocratic
predecessors, his word was Law and we, drawn to the Truth, could not but be
eager to implement it, to carry out such instructions as he gave us. Not for us to impose our will upon him, as if
he were merely a representative of our democratic rights and we
alone, as people, were politically sovereign!
He led us and we were only too willing to follow, knowing ourselves to
be honoured in this way, to work for the ultimate victory of theocracy over
democracy, in order that real progress towards a post-human millennium could be
achieved, thanks to our efforts.
Yes, no less than the other comrades
gathered round the Leader today, I was eager to serve evolutionary progress by
carrying out such instructions or tasks as were received from 'On High'. Our conviction of absolute rightness gave a
certain exuberance and even ruthlessness to our dealings with enemies of
theocratic enlightenment, be they bourgeois or proletarian, moderate left or
extreme left, moderate right or extreme right.
Political salvation resided in the Leader, and the Way to ultimate salvation
from the flesh resided in our following his instructions to the letter. We were proud of what we had already achieved
in this respect and were convinced that, no matter how many obstacles lay in
the way of Truth and Progress, we would be capable of overcoming them. And the Leader, sensing as much, imparted to
us his confidence in us as servants of the Truth. Such Truth, as he had just reminded us, had
nothing to do with left or right, but solely with God. Soon even people's democracy would be
consigned to the rubbish bin of history, and extreme left-wingers along with
it. Salvation!
All
Hail the Saviour,
May His Will be Done,
In Kingdom
Come,
This day and evermore.
Amen!
LEADER'S TRANSCENDENTALISM
"Of
course, the theocratic spectrum is more complex than I have hitherto let
on," I said, turning to party comrades 7 and 22, as we awaited the moment
to proceed along the tunnel and climb onto the vast rostrum that awaited me in
the stadium tonight, "since there is a lacuna in it between autocratic
Roman Catholicism and the inception of democratic Protestantism. If it began in the former, then the emergence
of the latter signified a subdivision of the spectrum, a kind of parallel
development to it which, in countries where Protestantism caught on, pushed the
Catholic spectrum into a subordinate position, even if, in the relativity of
things within an atomic framework, it was permitted or able to continue. So from approximately a late-stage
grand-bourgeois age to an early-stage petty-bourgeois one, from the late-seventeenth
to the early-twentieth century, Catholicism survived as the main, or absolute,
manifestation of the theocratic spectrum, albeit in a subordinate capacity to
this relative manifestation of theocracy which, as Protestantism, continued to
dominate the age, being the ideological justification behind democracy."
As both party comrades appeared to be
engrossed in what I was saying, I continued, following a brief glance at my
digital watch: "Thus if the main theocratic spectrum is imagined as
beginning in blue, it became grey during the age of democratic hegemony, when
the relative heresy of Protestantism dominated the West with its pink
spectrum. So the subdivision, running
parallel to the main theocratic spectrum, is garishly dominant while the age of
democracy holds sway. But then, as if
through Providential intervention, a new age suddenly erupts, what I have
elsewhere called a late-stage petty-bourgeois age, and it is fundamentally
hostile to democracy because more absolute in character, time having brought
evolution closer to a proletarian age.
Now suddenly the main part of the top spectrum comes alive again with
the emergence of Fascism, giving it a new look in a navy-blue/black
combination, the antithetical equivalent to the royal blue, so to speak, of
Roman Catholicism. No matter if Fascism
was eventually defeated by democracy, its emergence threatened the democratic
status quo and it went on to defeat certain of the democracies during the
high-point of its ascendancy. At last,
after centuries of subordinate status, the main part of the top spectrum had
come to life again and, in the guise of Fascism, waged war with the middle
spectrum, including the communist tail-end of it. For even the heretical manifestation of the
theocratic spectrum in pink Protestantism is subject to supersession,
with the emergence of a late-stage petty-bourgeois age, by a red
Marxist-Leninist part, the theology applicable to people's democracy, which
extends this heretical spectrum towards absolute criteria while yet opposing
its relative predecessor. As surely as
Catholicism led to Fascism, Protestantism led to Communism, whilst autocratic royalism continued to fade and wither into military
dictatorships."
I could tell, as I glanced at my watch
anew, that these two comrades were all ears for such information, which was
grist to their Social Transcendentalist mill.
One of them appeared to be on the point of speaking, but I cut any
prospect of that out by adding: "Yet if Fascism leads, via
Neo-Catholicism, to Social Transcendentalism, as germane to an absolute
theocracy, then Communism most certainly doesn't lead to anything else, since
it signifies the tail-end of that heretical spectrum in the furthermost reach
of humanism, devoid of any concerns with an aspiration towards the Holy Spirit,
Protestant materialism pushed to its ultimate conclusion in communist
atheism. Thus, on the middle spectrum, a
shift from relative to absolute democracy, the inevitable outcome of the
Christian notion of the equality of all souls, an attempt to establish a more
equal society, with sovereignty alone vested in the proletariat, who are more
equal to one another than the people of a relative democracy, divisible between
bourgeois and proletarian elements. Such
is life on the tail-end of the middle spectrum, which owes its materialist
integrity to the tail-end of the heretical subdivision of the theocratic
spectrum in Communism, a necessarily false world religion, being but an
expansion of the Protestant faith.
However, no such heresy prevails here, since we're most decidedly on the
true part of the top spectrum, no longer as Catholics but as absolute
theocrats, idealists with a Social Transcendentalist faith, and harbingers of
the True World Religion. Here political
sovereignty is vested in the true Second Coming, who leads from above, dragging
the masses after him, bringing them closer to divinity, inspiring them with his
teachings, goading them toward higher things, always assisted by his trusted
followers, who form an elite of faithful men, serving his Truth in order that
the masses may be ennobled and improved in the course of time. Only democrats serve the people. They are the people's representatives, for the
people are politically sovereign. Here,
however, party comrades serve me, as the embodiment of Truth, and I lead the
people as sovereign, the antithesis to autocratic rulers, an aspiration towards
the Holy Spirit, not a stemming from the Creator, a spiritual leadership as
opposed to a sensual rule. And those who
serve me well will be rewarded!"
Party comrades 7 and 22 smiled now, and I
felt obliged to consult my digital watch again in order to ensure a prompt
appearance at the appointed time. I was
in a speaking mood and eager to get out of this room and along the tunnel
leading, via the processional stairs that would be flanked by rows of my
uniformed followers, to the rostrum, from which I would calmly survey the
seething mass of people in the stadium below, their heads bathed in the myriad
neon lights which issued from the roofs of the surrounding stands, a veritable
cathedral of light in which the whole stadium became an appropriate setting for
such spiritual illumination as I would generously bestow upon the
near-hypnotized multitude, whose hunger and thirst for spiritual nourishment....
To be sure, I had studied National Socialist precedent carefully and knew just
what to do, in this receptive atmosphere, to renew and strengthen their faith!
Already the music, processions, and banners would be having an effect,
softening them up, lifting them beyond the narrow confines of their individual
selves, making them drunk on the mass - the nearest approximation on earth to
the indivisible unity of transcendent spirit, the goal of evolutionary
striving.
Yes, I loved the crowd and they loved it
too, and loved their Leader and his closest followers and all the banners
fluttering in the wind, the black abstract emblem of the Second Coming on a
white ground, symbolic, in its Y-like abstraction, its inverted CND-like
uprightness, not only of the Holy Spirit, but of Centrist trusteeship of the
means of production for the development and spread of Truth. Social Transcendentalism was by no means
socialist, in terms of public ownership of the means of production, as relative
to a democracy, though most especially a people's democracy, where the
proletariat were sovereign and consequently owned the means of production
through the State, the organized bureaucracy of the people. Not the ownership of the means of production
by the people for the people, but the ownership or, rather, trusteeship of
those means by the Centre for the Truth, the development and spread of the True
World Religion, which could only be to the lasting advantage of what was best in
the people - namely their spirit. Social
Transcendentalism was certainly beyond Socialism, not a phenomenon of the
middle spectrum, and therefore above criteria applying to democracy. If it was social, or socialistic, it was in
terms of the way it sought to treat people fairly, using such economic wealth
as industry produced in the interests of evolutionary progress, which implied a
decent standard of living for the people in order that they would be able to
take their spiritual aspirations seriously.
There could be no question, however, of
Social Transcendentalism striving to serve the people for the sake of people's
service, as if they were politically sovereign and should consequently be
served on their own account, divorced from a truly religious perspective or
objective. On the contrary, Social
Transcendentalism served the advancement of Truth, and that demanded that the
people be led towards a better future, towards the penultimate heaven of the
post-human millennium as a prelude to the ultimate heaven ... of the
post-millennial Beyond. Truth had no
interest in the people for themselves, only in their spiritual potential. For that alone pertained to the theocratic
spectrum. That alone would liberate them
from the flesh!
Suddenly a hand on my shoulder startled me
out of my reflections and reminded me of the body. I glanced down at my wrist and saw that it
was time to move. Party comrades 7 and
22 were on their feet and already heading towards the door that led through the
tunnel into the stadium. I smiled my
appreciation of this fact, now that the moment had at last arrived, and led the
way out of the room.
A TRUE EXTREMISM
Leader's
transcendentalism is really more the antithesis of ruler's royalism
than its antithetical equivalent, which would have to pertain, by contrast, to
the same spectrum, namely the autocratic one.
Yes, Comrade 5, the nearest one gets to an antithetical equivalent of
ruler's royalism is with a military dictatorship,
where sovereignty is vested in the reigning general or colonel or even,
occasionally, officers of inferior rank, and a situation may arise whereby the
masses serve an elite ... in a kind of submission to Nietzschean
criteria. That's right, Comrade 10. Nietzsche's philosophy was partly conceived
against the backdrop, as it were, of a military dictatorship, namely
Bismarck's, and consequently tends to uphold a kind of neo-royalist position of
aristocratic radicalism, with the masses conceived as but means to the nurture
and development of the higher men, be they Supermen or whatever.
I agree, Comrade 23,
there is much more than the influence of a military dictatorship to Nietzsche's
philosophy. But, even so, that cannot be
discounted! Anyway, an antithetical
equivalent to ruler's royalism will tend to place the
interests of a ruling elite above those of everybody
else, just as the interests of the king and his nobles took precedence over the
populace in the age of feudal autocracy.
Monarchs rule in their own interests.... Well, the antithesis to a ruler
is a leader, as pertinent to a fascist or a centrist society, and he exists on
the third, or theocratic, spectrum, the spectrum centred on the Holy Ghost
rather than, like the autocratic one, on the Father. He leads the people in their spiritual
interests.
No, Comrade 4, he doesn't serve or
represent the people, like a people's representative on the spectrum in-between
autocratic and theocratic extremes, which pertains to democracy, and hence to
representative's parliamentarianism. He
serves only Truth, and this requires that he leads the people from the
Centre. They do not exist for his own
aggrandizement or material enrichment, as in a royalist or neo-royalist
society. On the contrary, they exist to
be improved, and this is the antithesis of royalist autocracy - an antithesis
only being possible between the first and third spectra, as between the Father
and the Holy Spirit. As for Christ, He
pertains, in His humanism, to the democratic spectrum, the tail-end of which
signifies a more absolute people's sovereignty in the guise of Communism, the
ideology of the Antichrist. By contrast,
the continuation of the true part of the theocratic spectrum from Roman
Catholicism and Fascism leads to the Second Coming, and thus to the ideology of
the True World Messiah, as appertaining to Social Transcendentalism.
Yes, Comrade 27, such an extreme
ideological position entails an anti-tribal perspective, since there is no
contiguity between the first and third spectra, and tribalists
- be they Celts, Bantus, Nagas, Bedouin, Gypsies, or
whatever - pertain to the first.
Yes, Comrade 92. Tribalists, nationalists, and transcendentalists. No connection between the first and the
third, and so, wherever the third emerges, tribalists
are beneath the pale. Only a theocratic
society can be truly closed in relation to what is beneath the pale. A communist society has no anti-tribal policy
because Communism is only extreme in relation to the moderate part of the
second spectrum, an extreme middle-of-the-road ideology rather than an extreme
closed-society perspective, since its allegiance to the democratic spectrum
implies contiguity with the bottom one, if from an extreme point of view.
You're right, Comrade 63, a communist
society is more closed at the top, with regard to evolutionary progress towards
the post-human millennium - Lenin's 'No God-building, comrades!' comes to mind
here - than at the bottom, whereas Fascism and its ideological successor,
Social Transcendentalism, is closed at the bottom, to first and second spectra
influences, but virtually infinitely open at the top ... with a perspective
stretching, via the post-human millennium, all the way to Heaven. Communism is closed to aspirations towards
the Holy Spirit, being but the furthest reach of democratic humanism. It opens out to democracy and capitalism, if
on a negative basis, as an ideological opposition to democratic precedent in
the world at large - Communism against Protestantism (Marxism against
Calvinism). It liquidates bourgeois
exploiters, but not tribalists.
That's right, Comrade 14, it culminates in
a dead-end of proletarian atheism, an extension of the Protestant heresy of
Christian relativity, a more extreme relativity, you might say. Whereas we Social Transcendentalists are
opposed, like our fascist precursors, to everything relative, be it Protestant
or Communist. And
opposed, moreover, to absolutism on the autocratic spectrum, not to mention to
earlier absolutist manifestations of our own. It would be ironical for Social
Transcendentalism to come to power solely through democratic means when it's a
theocratic ideology and therefore not directly connected with the democratic
process. In fact, a veritable
contradiction in terms!
Yes, Comrade 28, Mussolini's ascension to
the dictatorial leadership of the Italian people was more theocratic than
Hitler's rise to power over the Germans, Hitler being obliged to partly rely on
democratic methods - a not-altogether surprising fact, given the Protestant,
democratic integrity of most North Germans!
Had he been seeking power in a more ideologically homogeneous state,
like
No, Comrade 41, the traditional Provisional
Sinn Fein attitude of a ballot paper in one hand and an armalite
in the other strikes me as having been significant of a compromise with the
majority democratic population of Northern Ireland. The Social Transcendentalist attitude in the
South of
Ah, as you say, Comrade 35! But those who are genuinely democratic would
wish to retain sovereignty for themselves.
Only a people who were essentially theocratic would be prepared to use
the democratic system to further theocratic interests, and thus transcend
democracy! Well, none of you need me to
remind you of the ethnic essence of the majority population of
Yes, maybe you're right, Comrade 16! As long as we know what's best for the
majority population of
A PERMANENT CROSS
He
remembered his doctor looking at him in sceptical surprise and saying:
"Why, you're not a nutcase! You've
got musical taste and culture and ...!"
Michael had discussed classical music with
his doctor on a previous occasion, but had gone along to the surgery, this
time, for some anti-depressants in order to combat a depression the doctor knew
all about, and the latter had kindly scribbled out a prescription for tryptizol or dothiepin or some
such soothing drug. But he hadn't been
encouraged to pay a visit to a specialist at the nearest mental hospital. Indeed, he had been dissuaded from pursuing a
more intensive course of treatment, though, god knows, he knew that something
more was needed than recourse to mild anti-depressants! In fact, he had long been of the opinion that
his depression was due to overlong confinement in an urban environment, the
city he inhabited more as a foreigner blown in from the provinces than as a
genuine native, an outsider as opposed to an insider, and a fundamentally
Catholic one at that! The doctor was
clearly an insider, a native Londoner sceptical of depressions caused by environmental
incompatibility, doubtless on account of his own environmental
compatibility. A kind of sophisticated
proletarian was how he saw his doctor - jolly, rotund, prone to self-inflected
accidents, hooked on valium, which he swallowed more,
apparently, to keep himself calm than to ease depression; though if he had one
it was evidently attributable to some other source than environment - possibly
matrimonial or hereditary.
But whilst, as a patient, Michael was of
the opinion that environment was chiefly responsible for his depression,
he had never claimed that it was solely responsible. Simply the root cause that
led to certain effects conducive to depression. Like, for instance, being alone in one's room
most of the time because the outside world was too obnoxious to encourage
socializing and, in any case, appeared bereft of the types of people who would
have appealed to one's sense of friendship, its inhabitants being either mostly
of the simple or yobbish proletarian varieties, or of the stand-offish and
unintelligible immigrant varieties, with but a scattering of petty bourgeoisie
and bohemian intellectuals thrown-in for good measure. And being alone of course meant that one
wasn't talking or copulating, two things which, providing they were indulged in
regularly enough, served to release pent-up tensions and keep one relatively
free from depression.
Yet if the environment was a cause of these
effects, which stood like a thistle on a jaded stalk, it was also a direct
contributory factor to his depression, not only in the sense that it was too
artificial and built-up for his liking, or too squalid and ugly, too smelly and
polluted, but, worse still, too noisy and thus a constant source of tension -
tension which entered his head in the form of noise and stayed there, he having
no social or sexual way of releasing it again.
So he was in a kind of tension trap, with noise - in the extremely
disagreeable forms of dog-barkings,
worker-hammerings, door-slammings, pop-screechings, kid-shoutings,
phone-ringings, car-hummings,
radio- and/or TV-blarings, etc. - going into his
head, but no noise - in the more agreeable forms of speaking, grunting,
laughing, singing, etc. - coming out of it.
All one-way traffic, so to speak. And coupled to this, a lack of deep steady
sleep, in part attributable to increased tension and intellectuality within a
highly artificial environment, in part doubtless deriving from his solitary and
sordid lot, a lot compounded by the poverty of a social security allowance
which, to say the least, further inhibited socializing, there being relatively
few contexts where one could meet people free-of-charge, and still fewer women
who would want to meet anyone who lacked the means to date them regularly,
particularly someone whose sartorial appearance left something to be desired on
account of his poverty!
No, Michael knew well enough that females
were highly appearance-conscious, linking a smart exterior with financial
affluence and an unsmart one with a want of financial
solvency, thoroughly worldly in their estimations of men, a consequence, no
doubt, of their fundamentally materialistic natures, which induced them to
attach greater importance to externals than to internals, to the flesh than to
the spirit, to appearances than to essences.
Not all women of course, but still too many of them too much of the
time! And particularly within an
open-society context, and one, moreover, that existed in a traditionally
materialistic country like
Well, Michael had not gone along to the
doctor in order to lecture him on ethnic characteristics or to give him an unprecedentedly bold lesson in free speech, but simply to
acquire some anti-depressants which, from previous experience, he knew would be
of minimal avail against the depression that was a permanent aspect of his life
and had more than a few cogent causes, not least of all the isolation of an
intelligent Irishman in a major English city!
He knew, too, that his writings would never be accepted by the English,
since too honest and radical for their middle-of-the-road, bourgeois taste and
lack of understanding of anything that transcended the literary mask, like his
philosophical collectivized writings and poetic autobiographical writings, not
to mention his revolutionary politico-religious ones. The English were always somehow false and
lying, he, a true son of
Ah, Michael had not allowed his depression
to prevent him from working on his own, necessarily superior terms - terms
which, through various literary or anti-literary or poetic stages, had brought
him to Truth while the majority of British writers continued to wallow in
illusions and lies, superficiality and dirt, after their commercial
fashions! Unlike them, he had never
'kissed the bourgeois' arse', to paraphrase Goebbels,
but gone his own way, the way of Truth.
He had quite admired their better authors, men like Aldous
Huxley and Christopher Isherwood, Anthony Burgess and
Lawrence Durrell, but had never identified with them,
preferring to regard most of his work as a continuation beyond Joyce and
Beckett, at least technically ... with regard to a developing absolutism in
poetic truth. He could no longer take
the novel genre seriously, since he equated it with bourgeois limitations both
thematically and technically. A democratic art-form, lacking the inspiration of true genius as
much on account of its pedantic technical considerations as of its restricted
subject-matter.
For true genius of expression demands the
maximum concern with content and the minimum concern with style or
grammar. It cannot emerge if there is a
lack of inspiration on account of one's being bound to technicalities which
necessarily impede the flow as well as inhibit the development of Truth. Great insights, the product of inspiration,
mostly come 'on the wing', not when one is at rest or bogged down in
stultifying pedantic considerations! The
more you gain on the grammatical roundabout, the less you can have on the
conceptual swings. The more positive
truth you desire, the less concern you must give to technicalities, which
merely conform, after all, to the proton and/or neutron side of writing, its
materialistic as opposed to spiritualistic, or electron, side. The British make for good novelists but,
contrary to literary myth, relatively poor poets, since they are never
sufficiently free from technical considerations to soar to the heights of
imaginative freedom. Having Irish blood
in their veins, Burgess and Durrell are less literary
than poetic and produce better or, at any rate, more poetic novels in
consequence. James Joyce and Samuel
Beckett are more poetic again, and it's unlikely that any major Irish writer
could ever be less than highly poetic, granted a free-electron
predilection. He had seen the age of
English writing superseded, in
But a revolutionary leader had to write,
and Michael had written as much as anyone, Lenin included, on subjects and in a
way that Lenin would never have contemplated, being too much the politician for
anything so theocratic as poetry. A Social Transcendentalist leader was an
altogether different proposition from a Bolshevik or a Communist one, closer,
in essence, to Hitler and to fascist leaders generally - men who scorned mere
politics and literary philistinism.
Michael was also a writer in the higher sense, not just a political or
revolutionary propagandist. Probably
more a writer, if the truth were known, than a revolutionary. A writer who imagined
himself a revolutionary rather than a revolutionary who also dabbled, à la Trotsky, in writing. A kind of literary schizophrenia, an illness
probably shared by such illustrious writers as Gide
and Camus, Malraux and
Sartre, Koestler and Mailer, who were expected and
inclined to be political but were never quite sure to what extent or exactly
where the demarcation line between literature and politics actually stood. Was it perhaps a failing of a certain type of
writer that he imagined himself capable of major participation in revolutionary
politics? Or a
madness? That political
participation was a writer's dream, the grass being greener the other side of
the professional fence, every profession having a kind of connection with some
other, to which one was more than likely to be drawn? So after a writer, a
fascist or communist dictator?
Was that the only way one could, as it were, progress? He had often thought so, and was still of the
opinion that a revolutionary dictator was more likely to come from the
intellectual class, particularly on its literary side, than from any
other. Certainly a Social Transcendentalist
would have to be highly literate, if his sovereignty as embodied Holy Spirit
was to be justified. No mere labourer or
philistine politician! Michael had no
reason to doubt his sanity on that account,
even if he wasn't altogether sure that he was sane to imagine himself a
potential dictator, when he had spent so much time scribbling literary or
poetic truth!
But was Social Transcendentalism merely a
figment of his imagination, a mere literary game? He didn't think so, couldn't bring himself to
believe that he was merely concocting imaginary worlds for literary
appreciation. He had gone too far and in
too much depth and earnestness to be a mere purveyor of political
fictions. He knew that what he stood for
was the Truth, and that the Truth would have to prevail in the world in future
if it was to be redeemed. He was no fool
to doubt the authenticity of his Truth.
But whether or not he would actually implement it ... time alone would
tell. At least he didn't feel that he
was in need of a state psychiatrist on account of his uncertainty in this
matter, though his mental health might well have profited from some psychiatric
attention. The depression was still
there, and if it was a Cross he had to bear on account of his solitary and
celibate lifestyle, then so be it!
Writers were more often than not depressive, if
not manic, in any case, since too much alone.
It was a professional hazard and drawback, not something of which to be
cured if one wished to continue in one's chosen tracks, since writing could
only be done in solitude or, at any rate, without professional assistance from,
say, a colleague. Most serious writers
sooner or later took to drink as an antidote to depression on a kind of
intermittent or temporary basis. Also
tobacco of course, another sensual indulgence to counter the enforced
asceticism of solitary intellectual activity, to sensualize
the brain, soak it, drag it down from its too tense and rarefied heights, if
only to watch the TV or listen to discs.
Such it was for him, and he didn't think
himself altogether unique in this respect, even if there were writers - authors
really - who fared better on account of their wealth and social life, always a
friend or wife around with whom to talk, not really alone all that much, too bourgeois
to want the heights. But madness, mental
illness, depression, delirium - so prevalent these days, and not simply among
writers and would-be revolutionaries, either!
He considered himself essentially sane, despite his depression. But there were others who had regular need of
psychiatric attention, were, in fact, more often mentally ill than physically
ill. He had thought about this
negatively, in regard to his own problem in the past, but now he was beginning
to see it in a positive light. After all,
why had psychology and psychiatry taken so long to materialize? Why was it only this century that they really
came into their own, so to speak, as respectable medical professions? Surely the answer to these questions had to
be: because it was only in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries
that, in certain parts of the world and in certain individuals, the human
psyche had become sufficiently evolved to permit of a looking back and down on
the subconscious from the vantage-point of the ego and/or superconscious
- in short, because until then humanity had been insufficiently advanced to be
either capable of or particularly interested in any such psychic scrutiny.
Well, what applies to the subconscious may
well apply to the brain in general and to mental illness in particular, so that
the growth of interest in the former and increasing prevalence of the latter
were but reflections of the ongoing sophistication of the age, its coming to
maturity on terms that stressed the mental at the expense of the physical, the
brain at the expense of the body. He had
little doubt that, paradoxically, the expansion of mental illness was a symptom
of evolutionary progress; for if bodily illness had hitherto been the human
norm, might we not be approaching a time when it would be the exception and, by
contrast, only mental illness be the human norm - a humanity grown beyond the
merely physical and become ever-more deeply engrossed in the mental and
spiritual, a humanity which had passed from the body to the mind?
Ah, there were sufficient grounds in this
hypothesis for optimism about the future, for seeing in mental illness not a
sign of decay and pessimism, but, on the contrary, of growth and optimism
concerning the evolution of mankind away from the body and ever deeper into the
mind. Could it be, he wondered, that a
day would come when all or most physical illnesses would be attributed to
mental causes, to psychosomatic origins?
Would humanity reach such a pitch of evolutionary sophistication that
doctors and surgeons would become redundant, their dedication to physical
illness no longer necessary, the psychologists and psychiatrists ruling an
absolutist roost, and so attending to the prevalent and, in a sense, only
morally respectable types of illness of that age?
Michael wasn't entirely prepared to rule
out such a possibility. For it seemed to
him that psychology and psychiatry were complementary aspects of a growth
industry, the spiritualistic and materialistic sides, as it were, of the
diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, and that the ratio of mental to
physical illness could only change in the course of time, the former developing
at the expense of the latter, in accordance with the evolutionary requirements
of a more absolutist age, an age when the representative medical practitioners
would be psychologists and psychiatrists, in contrast to the norms of an open
society where, to all appearances, doctors and surgeons constituted the medical
norm, and to such an extent, in certain countries, that their psychic
counterparts were still regarded with if not contempt then, at any rate, deep
suspicion, as if their vocations were somehow irrelevant to the established
order, beyond or outside the pale of representative medical practice, a kind of
emerging poetic threat to a novelistic status quo, not to be taken too
seriously, but scarcely to be underestimated, either!
Perhaps this would apply more in
traditionally democratic than in traditionally theocratic societies, where the
materialistic was always so much more the accepted norm? Certainly a closed society derived from the
latter kinds of societies would reverse this situation or, at any rate, expand
the psychic side, and maybe to a point where psychologists and psychiatrists
would greatly preponderate, with but a minimum quantity of bodily doctors to
deal, in the main, with accidents and emergency cases, they being regarded as a
left-over from bourgeois society, corresponding, in their reformed status, to
the 'Social', and hence inferior, side of Social Transcendentalism, the
ideological integrity of a truly theocratic closed society, necessarily placing
maximum emphasis on the noun. Probably
by then only mental illnesses, he reasoned, would be socially respectable,
contrary to the current open-society situation, which inclines to regard mental
illness from a bodily, materialistic point of view, and thus to apply such
derogatory expressions as 'nutcase', 'fruitcake', and 'lune'
to those so afflicted. Just as his
doctor had done with regard to himself, albeit on the assumption that he
couldn't possibly be one, since stable and healthy and ... interested in
serious music!
Well, at the time, Michael had been almost
relieved to hear this, though he knew that his depression was a kind of mental
illness and was more serious than perhaps the doctor, with his limited
knowledge of such things, had supposed.
Yet now, when he reflected on his situation from a higher vantage-point,
he was almost disappointed in the doctor for not having credited him with more
sophistication and thereby acknowledged his superior afflicted status. Indeed, now he was almost proud to be in some
degree mentally ill and thus one of the elect of suffering, no mere physical
democrat but a psychical theocrat, as he had long conceived of himself. He might not be a 'nutcase' in any flagrantly
exhibitionist or delirious or violent or deranged or abusive or
non-communicative sense, but at least he was prone to mental rather than simply
physical ill-health, if on a comparatively low-key and tolerable basis. This was, he supposed, the price one paid for
one's genius as a writer/thinker, the degree of sophistication and spiritual
insight to which he had attained being impossible without a commensurate degree
of physical solitariness and social simplicity.
Yet it was also a mark of his inherent
sophistication, his status as one of the spiritual elect for whom mere bodily
ill-health would have been demeaning, a kind of left-wing affliction more
suited, he supposed, to a person of anti-natural inclination and/or
temperament. If he was not mad in any
seriously permanent sense, he was yet capable of mental ill-health and not
simply on an intermittent basis either!
It was his shadow self, the price he paid for the light of his
truth. Better of course to be mentally
well than mentally sick; but if one had to be ill, better to be mentally sick
than physically sick. He was part of a
long tradition of great minds whose common lot had been mental ill-health. Like Nietzsche, Strindberg, Baudelaire, Hermann
Hesse, Ezra Pound, and Wilhelm Reich, Michael Somers
would carry his cross until the end - the end, in his case, of the World.
MORE PLASTIC
There was
too much wooden furniture in his room for Keith Toland's
liking these days, now that he was becoming increasingly enamoured of plastic,
which, in contrast to wood, he equated with a supernatural bias. He found himself day-dreaming, on occasion,
of a room in which all the furniture was made of plastic or, at any rate, some
kind of synthetic material transcending nature.
His room was largely bourgeois, he thought, and lagged behind his
ideological development. Ideally, he
would have preferred to bring it into line with his current tastes or, better
still, move into an unfurnished flat which he would then proceed to furnish
from scratch ... in the most supernatural fashion - plastic everywhere. The room he rented was fully-furnished, no
possibility of the Licensor allowing its wooden contents to be thrown out. Besides, he knew that, in his current
financial position, he couldn't afford to buy the sort of furniture he had in
mind. It was just a pleasant dream, a
suggestion of what he would do if given half the chance.
But there were small things that he had been able
to afford, and they were invariably made of plastic - his second-hand portable
television, for example. Not a bad
little set, though monochromatic unfortunately, which he associated with an
anti-natural and probably bourgeois constitution. Still, a black plastic exterior was
something, better, at any rate, than a wooden one! Then there was his hairdryer, as plastic as
his stereo headphones and, latest purchase of all, headphone radio. There was a plastic wallet, a plastic comb,
pen, typewriter, zipper jacket, pair of moccasins, rubbish bin, shaver, and
watch - this latter a black digital. He
ate lunch off a plastic platter with plastic cutlery, and drank milk from a
plastic beaker. His record-player had a
predominantly plastic exterior and his LPs were of course vinyl, which is a
strong plastic-. They were beginning to
shame him, however. He wondered whether
there wasn't something inherently liberal if not conservative about records as
opposed to cassettes, which, on account of their more idealistic constitution,
he supposed to have a comparatively radical right-wing essence. Records were played horizontally, whereas
cassettes usually slotted vertically, if sideways-on, into the cassette deck,
symptomatic of a masculine bias, he thought.
Probably he would gravitate from records to cassettes, if given the
opportunity. He had enough records
anyway, and was fast running out of space.
Cassettes were smaller and ... more plastic; they didn't come in
cardboard covers.
For the time being, however, Keith was
resigned to his records, record-player, and headphones. He preferred listening to music through
headphones anyway, and this had led him to the purchase of a headphone radio
set, which he considered to be a marked evolutionary improvement on his old
radio, even though it was also of plastic appearance. Probably he would get himself a pair of
headphones for his television before long, just to complete things and bring an
absolutism to bear on each of his listening habits. Instead of coming at one from outside the
head, as appearance, sound seemed to come at one from inside it, as essence,
and this constituted, to him, a far more theocratic way of listening-in,
suitable for an ongoing transcendental age.
With people living in ever-closer proximity to one another in large
residential conglomerates, it was imperative to minimize noise and thus
cultivate a headphone exclusivity. Probably a time would come when listening to
music or speech without headphones would, in any case, be unlawful. At present, with walls and houses fairly
materialistic, it wasn't particularly necessary to put what might be called
'relativistic listening' under ban. Such
a ban would be irrelevant, in any case, to an open society. But with the future development of less
materialistic and more transcendental types of accommodation, with
comparatively thin walls, it followed that 'absolutist listening' would become
obligatory, in order to minimize neighbour disturbances and, more importantly,
encourage an increasingly theocratic lifestyle, suitable to a closed
society. A headphone absolutism would
then be the rule rather than, as at present, the exception.
Keith knew from experience of certain
neighbours, past and present, in his own lodgings that there were more than a
few noise fools still at large. Time
would eventually catch-up with them, as with everyone. And as if this thought prompted it, he
glanced down at his digital watch in order to consult the time:
To be sure, there was a definite
evolutionary progression from the plastic winder to the plastic digital, as, on
lower terms, from democratic to anti-democratic watches, though perhaps
devolutionary progression would be a more applicable description there! Whatever the case, a watch, no less than
outer clothing, could tell one something about a man's ideological leaning
and/or class integrity. The same could
even be said of spectacles, which appeared to reflect, in their different
constructions, various stages of ideological evolution and corresponding levels
of class allegiance. Why, he himself was
- and had long been - the wearer of a pair of round-lens, metal-rimmed glasses
which, in spite of the metal, he now supposed to indicate a bourgeois
democratic allegiance, to his slight embarrassment. It seemed to him that opticals
had evolved from the absolutist autocratic level of the monocle, a single lens,
to the relative right-wing democratic level of metal-rimmed spectacles, from
where a further evolution had taken place in the form of plastic spectacles, as
germane to a left-wing democratic level, before the emergence of communistic
one-piece spectacles, such as suggested a pair of goggles stretching, in a
gentle curve, right across the face, and which thus appeared absolutist within
a democratic context - both eyes covered, after the fashion of conventional
spectacles, the lens plastic, the frame metallic. Clearly, he didn't want either a pair of
plastic democratic spectacles or a pair (if that's the correct word) of
plastic/metallic anti-democratic ones.
If he ever abandoned 'granny glasses', it would have to be in a
theocratic direction, which of course meant the purchase of contact lenses -
something Keith could, as yet, ill-afford.
However, he could speculate, and did so on
the basis that hard-lens contacts were somehow petty bourgeois or neo-oriental,
meaning transcendental in a contemporary Western way, whereas the soft-lens
variety suggested a more radically transcendent bias appropriate, he supposed,
to a Social Transcendentalist allegiance. Thus, ideally, a pair of soft-lens contacts
for someone who dressed in all-black and wore a plastic digital watch,
confirming a radically theocratic ideological integrity. Probably the future would witness the
emergence of a one-lens contact fashion; a soft lens, in other words, for one
eye only, antithetical, in its interiorized absolutism, to the exteriorized
monocle absolutism of autocratic allegiance.
Did not the monocle lead to dual lenses minus wings, to pince-nez,
the frame of which had to be clipped onto the nose and held or perched there
without reference to ears? A kind of
absolute relativity preceding the development of spectacles-proper, which
reflected a more extensively relative, and hence democratic, integrity, a
right-angle formed between lenses and wings, the frame no longer simply a
support for lenses but embracing, in addition to a nose clip, a pair of
metallic wings, one for each ear. Well,
if autocratic precedent was anything to judge by, why shouldn't contact lenses,
which simply fit over the eye, be superseded, in due course, by a contact lens
... in response to the requirements of a more absolutist theocratic age? A progression from the relativistic
absolutism, as it were, of a Social Transcendentalist stage of theocratic
allegiance to the absolutist absolutism, so to speak, of a
Super-transcendentalist stage, when, if justice is to be done, the world will
tend towards a theocratic unity, thus completing human evolution not only with
regard to optics but to everything else as well!
Yet that is still a good way off, and most
people with a theocratic leaning can do no better, in the meantime, than to
purchase and wear a pair of contact lenses, preferably of the soft-lens
type. Keith was looking forward to doing
this, in order to be able to harmonize his appearance and essence, or
ideological integrity, all along the line.
At present he was thinking as a Social Transcendentalist and looking,
with regard to spectacles, like a right-wing democrat! Something had to be done about this, and the sooner the better! He was no longer the bourgeois naturalist of
some years ago, but a proletarian supernaturalist,
for whom the absolute was of paramount importance.
And what applied to optics applied no less
to sex, where, by contrast, a supernaturalism had long reigned supreme in his
solitary life in the form of a voyeuristic/masturbatory appreciation of
heterosexual pornography, derived from various quality men's magazines, which
seemed to constitute a sexuality complete in itself. His indulgences were, on the whole, very
moderate, no more than once a week, and he usually made sure that his
concentration was focused on the vagina of any specifically congenial models,
in order to keep his sexuality as supernatural as possible. Deviations embracing the rump and/or anus he
regarded as a left-wing form of theocratic sexuality, permissible though not
essential to the main supernatural trend.
He knew himself to be predominantly right-wing, and hence straight. He would occasionally joke to himself that
there was only one alternative to being right: namely wrong. And this applied no less to right-wing
communist sex, involving homosexual pornography, than to left-wing theocratic
sex, though, obviously, even that was preferable to the left-wing communist
variety, such as involved the sodomitic violation of
man by man. If homosexuals were 'bent',
then those who used homosexual pornography for voyeuristic/masturbatory
purposes were still 'bent', only slightly less so, since given to the
appreciation of a perverse theocratic dimension, endemic to this kind of
pornography, which suggested a Leninist influence. Better a right-wing communist integrity, in
his opinion, than a left-wing (Marxist) one.
But better by far a right-wing theocratic integrity! He was glad that his sexuality was
supernatural rather than anti-natural, 'hetero' as opposed to 'homo'.
But he was becoming dissatisfied with
pornography alone, which seemed to put too great an idealistic strain on
him. He wondered whether, in view of his
other preferences, it wasn't time to purchase a plastic inflatable, a so-called
'sex doll', in order to have access to a more bodily and apparent form of
supernatural sexual activity. Some of
the sex dolls on the market were relatively inexpensive, no more than £30, and
came with a variety of sexy lingerie to stimulate one's lust and enable one, if
desirable, to approach sex with rapist's intent. Of course, for those who could afford it,
there were all sorts of additional qualities, back passage and talking mouth
included. But he knew that he was a long
way from becoming a connoisseur in such matters and that a more modest start
would probably be to his advantage, enabling him to feel his way by degrees. There were, after all, certain advantages in
possessing a plastic inflatable. She
(it) couldn't turn one away, pleading ill-health or a period or business
obligations or an indifferent mood.
There would be no B.O. or farts or back-chat or bad breath or scratchings or bites.
One wouldn't have to worry about getting her pregnant or of contracting
a venereal or other disease from her.
There would be no contraceptive expenses and no need to date her on a
regular or, indeed, any basis. In fact,
one wouldn't even have to dress her, if fetishism was not in one's line or one
regarded clothing as irrelevant to the sexual act, a further unnecessary
expense. And one could make love to her
in any old fashion one pleased, never fearing an objection or criticism.
To be sure, the plastic supernatural was
certainly preferable, on a number of counts, to the fleshy natural, and anyone
who considered himself a supernaturalist would sooner
or later have to come to terms with sex dolls, if he wanted to remain
consistently theocratic and not regress to or remain the victim of a
naturalistic and democratic mode of sexuality.
There was a place for copulation as well as masturbation in Social
Transcendentalism, provided they were artificial and, hence, supernatural. Artificial copulation would correspond, in a
manner of speaking, to the 'Social' side of this radical theocracy, artificial
masturbation, or masturbation induced by a pornographic stimulus on computer
disc and preferably availing itself of the services of a plastic gadget ...
such as would contain the spermatic discharge, to its 'Transcendental' side,
no-one required to be absolutist on the higher, or pornographic, side, each man
having a personal bias one way or the other, some doubtless balanced between
the two sides, himself very much given to the transcendent. Though, of course, a pornographic absolutism
would become the ideal, if not the norm, in the course of time, as Social
Transcendentalism was duly superseded by Super-transcendentalism, its more absolutist goal.
And what applies to men (become supermen) also
applies to women who, in a radically theocratic society, would be encouraged
(as quasi-supermen) to utilize plastic vibrators as their apparent, bodily
equivalent to sex dolls, an essential side of sexual activity, doubtless
manifesting on the level of late-teenage computer pornography, co-existing with
this lower side and eventually completely superseding it, with the emergence of
Super-transcendentalism. As to communist
sex, whether of the Western Left or the Eastern Right, not a chance! A closed society of Social Transcendentalist
integrity would place it under ban. Only
the supernatural would be respectable.
And Keith knew this better than anyone else. Yes, he would get a plastic inflatable before
long, if only for very occasional use.
Then there would be a little more plastic in his room, perhaps even
enough, if the lino was also taken into account, to tip the balance away from
wood. At least there wasn't very much
steel in evidence, 'granny glasses' notwithstanding!
SUPERNATURAL UPGRADING
You've got
this thing about the natural and the anti-natural, not to mention the
supernatural and the anti-supernatural, which you equate with moderate right
and left wing, extreme right- and left-wing respectively. Being something of a poet, you like to melt
away the borders between subjects and make them overlap, interpenetrate,
relate, in a synthetic, and hence theocratic, perspective. You believe, in accordance with the
prevailing Zeitgeist, that everything can and should be politicized, not
just sport and religion but ... well, sex, clothing, watches, spectacles, and
... what would appear to be your latest concern - namely food and drink. You claim that there is an ideological
significance to everything, every little aspect of our civilized behaviour
conforming to some class and/or ideological position. Only the philosophical poet would seem
qualified, with his supernatural bias, to penetrate the surface of our customs
and reveal their ideological depths, their inner essences. You are such a being and you dig deeper than
most in your quest for the essence of things.
Now you are claiming that food and drink should also be scrutinized from
a supernatural, or theocratic, point of view, since eating and drinking habits
are no less revealing of a class and/or ideological position than ... well,
sexual and sartorial ones.
These days you favour meat derived from
birds - turkeys, chickens, capons. You
claim that such meat appeals to a transcendental taste, birds being flying
creatures (though doubtfully very gracefully so, in the case of the
above-mentioned ones!), whereas lamb, pork, and beef, extracted from sheep,
pigs, and cows respectively, suggest a more down-to-earth or stolid quality
which you apparently fight shy of in your transcendental wisdom. For the past year you have eaten virtually no
other meat but turkey and chicken, with the notable exception of a little lamb,
pertaining to your doner kebabs, on Sundays, and some
cod - if fish be meat - on Fridays.
Usually you eat small roast potatoes with your winged meat, not
particularly ideal, you claim, but tolerable all the same, since suggestive, in
contrast to large roast potatoes, of a petty-bourgeois as opposed to a
bourgeois equivalent. At any rate, still
recognizably naturalistic - unlike chips, which are made from lacerated
potatoes, or spuds sliced into elongated segments, and which appear, in their
fried skins, quite divorced from the natural - indeed, bearing in mind their
genesis, positively anti-natural, so many 'proton' segments cut from the
'atomic' unity of a potato, a progressive devolution to separate pieces. Why, you're so convinced of their
anti-natural and hence left-wing status, these days, that you've seriously
contemplated giving them up altogether, even though you only eat them once a
week, in conjunction with cod. You feel
that, while they may be relevant to industrial proletarians, they're something
of a slap in the face to you, a man who is very consciously transcendentalist
in his ideological integrity. You would
rather eat something more supernatural, like mashed potatoes, which, in
contrast to chips, suggest an 'electron' whole of undifferentiated unity. Probably mashed potatoes are theocratic,
whereas roast potatoes are democratic and chips ... anti-democratic in one degree
or another, depending on the size, e.g. length and breadth, of the chips in
question. Clearly, while some are
arguably democratic socialist, others, more slender and elongated, could be
described as radical socialist, conforming to a kind of Marxist
equivalent. You can abide the former to
some extent but not, apparently, the latter.
And not those which have been indented in a wavy fashion either,
suggestive of solomonic
columns! You tend to endow them with a
Marxist-Leninist equivalent, the waviness bringing them closer, in your
estimation, to the supernaturalism of mashed potatoes, as if a theocratic
(Leninist?) dimension had been infused into a fundamentally anti-democratic
constitution, making them superior to the purely Marxist, or plain, chip, but
still inferior, for all that, to mashed potatoes, particularly the most
synthetic pre-cooked mash which comes in a plastic packet and only requires to
be heated in some boiling water before being eaten. Now you feel that such take-away mash is the
best form of potato, superior to both the natural and the anti-natural in every
way. Eaten in conjunction with frozen
food generally, it would constitute a significant ingredient in a theocratically-biased dinner, suggesting a dematerialized
spud appropriate to a supernatural requirement, the antithesis to the subnatural, autocratic spud of a jacket-potato menu. Not for you the jacket potato! You would probably prefer to eat wavy chips
than that, even if they are communist, albeit on seemingly right-wing (Leninist)
terms. Rather the democratic roast
potato than the autocratic jacket potato!
Though better again the theocratic mash.
Nevertheless your eating habits don't always keep pace with your
ideological development, probably because you tend, in spite of your theocratic
ideals, to regard the personal and public selves as distinct, and to a point
where the more progressive the latter becomes, the more regressive or
reactionary appears the former, as if to compensate you for your professional
extremism. Can you never break away from
relativity? It seems doubtful.
However, now that you've 'come clean' about
your food preferences (at least with regard to meat and spuds), you might as
well continue by recording your preferences in drink, attempting, as you
proceed, to outline a class and/or ideological position where drinking habits
are concerned. For instance, it is known
that you won't drink beer because you equate it with an anti-natural, though
specifically Protestant, bias and are inclined, by contrast, to see in wine a
Catholic alternative ... suggestive of a natural, or early natural,
constitution. You prefer grapes to hops,
the sweet to the sour, a positive taste to a negative
one. But even beer is preferable, in
your opinion, to the more extreme anti-natural drinks that seem to derive from
it in some way, like ginger beer or shandy or tinned
lager. You find lager even more
distasteful than beer, the analogy with fizzy piss always coming to mind when
you're induced to drink it. For you,
wine is right wing and beer ... left wing, the one stemming from or endemic to
a conservative tradition, the other liberal, if not, in its extreme
manifestations, radical socialist. But
you don't much care for cola either, probably because it also suggests an anti-natural
constitution, if one that transcends the anti-natural in some degree and which
could, in consequence, be accorded a partly supernatural status on the
strength, for instance, of the fizzy upsurge of air bubbles.... Would the
notion of an anti-supernatural equivalent be totally irrelevant here? You don't think so, since it seems that some
'super' element, like the fizz, has been brought to bear on a fundamentally
anti-natural taste, the artificial concoction of the actual cola drink. Of course, these artificial drinks are
morally preferable to lager and beer, not to mention shandy
and ginger beer. But, ideally, you would
rather have a supernatural drink, a natural drink upgraded, as it were, to the
fizzy status of the theocratic, like, say, a lemonade or some alternative
fruity drink that would seem to have succeeded both lemon and orange squash,
which, on account of their naturalism, may be accorded a democratic equivalent.
Yes, you don't particularly mind these
squashy drinks, but are prepared to regard their fizzy counterparts as morally
and ideologically superior, suitable to those with a distinctly supernatural
bias, for whom lemons and oranges would presumably be taboo. And that, you would claim, applies to raw
fruit in general, apples and pears included.
You always prefer flavoured yoghurt, particularly a strawberry or a
raspberry one, which has transcended natural fruit on a supernatural
basis. You don't care too much for
anti-natural fruit pies, where the filling, particularly in the case of apple,
has been cut into tiny segments, reminiscent of chips. There are, however, certain contemporary
apple pies that appear to be supernatural in some degree, on account of the
filling being liquefied, and you regard them as reflecting an anti-supernatural
bias, superior to the chunky apple pies.
But while you used to eat such liquefied apple pies, you now eat only
yoghurts, which you regard as more suitable to a transcendental taste. Similarly, you prefer liquefied cheese to
either cheese slices or chunks, though you're still occasionally to be found
eating slices, as when you buy a doner kebab with
cheese.
But that brings the subject back to food,
and you were expatiating on drink, with especial reference to the supernatural
and, in the case of cola, anti-supernatural, which you equated with a
right-wing communist bias. You don't
care for spirits, like gin and whisky, since they suggest, in their
unadulterated constitution, a subnatural and
virtually autocratic integrity, beneath the pale of a theocratic taste. Yet you do like milk and drink it regularly,
though it's the most natural of all drinks and somewhat inferior, in
consequence, to milkshakes, those supernaturally flavoured milk drinks that you
used to guzzle as a boy. These days,
flavoured milk can be purchased in supermarkets, large and small, and you would
do well to buy some in future, to complement your yoghurt-eating habits. It won't be shaked
though, so if you want a truly supernatural milk drink, replete with bubbles,
you'll have to visit a milk bar or get a mixer in order to shake your own
flavoured milk. If you start to drink
lemonade and orangeade, you might as well drink milkshakes too, and so bring
all your drinking habits into line on the supernatural level. Yet you had better avoid the anti-milk drinks
like tea and coffee, which dilute the milk to such an extent that it is no
longer recognizable as milk but subordinate to the tea or coffee - the
actual hot drink. Most such drinks are
anti-natural and, hence, left wing in one degree or another; though whipped
coffee (with cream) is partly supernatural and therefore of an
anti-supernatural equivalent, preferable to plain coffee. Hot drinks predominantly made from milk are,
of course, less anti-natural than those in which hot water predominates. A cold whipped coffee may also be partly
supernatural, like a coffee-flavoured milkshake. At any rate, the chances are that it will
betoken a right-wing communist, as opposed to a left-wing socialist, integrity,
preferable to a plain (unwhipped) coffee, but still
inferior, for all that, to a genuine milkshake, whether or not
coffee-flavoured. For a cold whipped
coffee is still a coffee, i.e. a drink in which milk is subordinated to, and
thus diluted by, the coffee, whereas a milkshake is a flavoured milk
drink. You can't fail to perceive the
distinction, which is, after all, between the anti-supernatural and the
supernatural. Though
it is admittedly less apparent than between the anti-natural and the natural,
such as you have been referring to with regard to coffee and milk.
Certainly, it seems that you prefer the
natural to the anti-natural, while reserving a place of honour for the
supernatural. You don't envisage people
gravitating from the anti-natural to the supernatural; though it's just
possible that the anti-supernatural will bring anti-naturalists closer, in due
course, to a supernatural position, from which a transcendental upgrading may
be effected ... compliments of the supernatural themselves. You are probably right about that, as about
most other things, Mr. Crosby.
CENTRIST SEXUALITY
A Social
Transcendentalist's favoured sexuality is not atomic, as between a proton woman
and a bound-electron man, still less anti-atomic, as between two men, but ...
post-atomic or, which amounts to approximately the same thing, of a
free-electron integrity. There is, to be
sure, a relativity involved, but it is decidedly post-atomic, as between the
particle and wavicle sides of the electron. Social Transcendentalists are absolutist but,
paradoxically, in a relative kind of way.
They should alternate between the two sides of the electron, as between
plastic inflatables, or 'sex dolls', and computer
erotica - the former confirming a bodily (particle) approach to sex, albeit one
that is supernatural; the latter confirming a mental (wavicle)
approach to it, again of a supernatural bias.
For women or, rather, quasi-supermen, vibrators should be substituted
for 'sex dolls' and, in respect of mental sex, masculine rather than feminine
erotica, that is to say, erotica involving a male model, should be the order of
the day. Probably late-teenage juvenile
erotica will come to replace the adult varieties in the course of post-atomic
time, confirming a supra-natural as opposed to a merely supernatural integrity,
as appropriate to a Centrist civilization.
It is to be hoped that, with the second phase of the post-humanist
millennium ... pertinent to Super-transcendentalism, such erotica will
supersede any inflatable/ pornographic relativity, bringing supra-natural sex
to a mental (wavicle) climax in ... pornographic
absolutism. Thus whereas supermen will
still have recourse to bodily sex, superbeings, their
hypermeditating successors, will be above it, though
not as far above it, paradoxically, as the superhuman brain collectivizations
of the ensuing post-human millennium!
Be that as it may, the gradual progression
away from natural sex will be endemic to theocratic Centrism, which will
champion a supra-natural rather than a merely supernatural sexuality. If there is a link between plastic digital
watches and sex, it could only be with regard to a mature teenage erotica, that
comparatively new genre - relative to computer disc - succeeding the strictly
adult varieties such that utilize persons of twenty-one or over. Nevertheless supernaturalism is morally
preferable to naturalism, being a kind of petty-bourgeois sexuality in contrast
to bourgeois sex, a fascistic as opposed to conservative integrity. It is the antithesis to subnatural
sex, such as involves recourse to masturbation in a merely physical context -
independently, in other words, of pornographic stimuli. Such purely masturbatory sex would be deeply
frowned upon from a supernatural and/or supra-natural point of view, just as it
is avoided, if not frowned upon, by naturalists, with their atomic
compromise. Even the Catholic Church,
that grand-bourgeois subnaturalism, condemns
masturbation as the sin of Onan; though there are
undoubtedly priests who are - or have been - its victims, living, as they do,
in a subnatural way in priestly celibacy. No doubt, this keeps them closer to the
Father, as does their ankle-length cassocks, those dress-like garments
confirming a superfeminine integrity ... symptomatic
of a deep-vaginal symbolism. Decidedly
the proton side of things, against which the state, and hence bourgeois
naturalism, rears its atomic head, as particle electrons set about wavicle protons in a heterosexual relativity of
give-and-take, the man's penis sexually active within the woman's receptive
vagina, corresponding to the DC side of atomic electricity, a direct-current
flow of copulation culminating in orgasm.
If subnatural masturbatory sex was (is) DC in
reverse, a taking rather than giving, then natural sex most definitely drives
it ahead into the woman, who gratefully receives the proffered charge of
spermatic release, becoming part of the DC in orgasmic response.
But heterosexual relationships, like
electricity, are relative, as between DC and AC, or alternating current, and we
may equate the latter with conversation, that two-way give-and-take, as
questions and answers, information and opinions, flow back and forth between
partners. If DC corresponds to the
Church, including the Protestant one, then AC is equivalent to the State and,
in typical bourgeois relations, it will predominate over the former, cementing
the physical relationship with the shared impressions and beliefs of the mental
one, the former corresponding to the Protestant Church, the latter to its
political concomitance in the Democratic State, itself divisible into give and
take, capitalism and socialism, plutocracy and bureaucracy.
However, as the State evolves, it follows
that the AC will increasingly predominate over the DC in marital and other
relationships, so that, from a liberal balance between give-and-take, we find,
through Democratic Socialism and/or Social Democracy, a progressive imbalance
on the side of taking, relative to an escalation of bureaucratic socialism. And the same applies to sexual relationships,
as physical sex goes into decline, one way or another, and conversation becomes
increasingly prevalent, even to the point where it apparently necessitates a
switch from women and men, in heterosexual relations, to men only, as
homosexual criteria take over, with the sexual concomitant of the further
decline of physical sex in outright anal violation (assuming any physical sex
may still be said to apply at all) with this point of AC hegemony,
corresponding to a Marxist bureaucracy of preponderant taking. Not, in all fairness, that this AC
near-absolutism is all-pervasive in contemporary Western or, indeed, any other
society. For while
homosexuals very definitely exist, they're not in the majority where sexual and/or
social habits are concerned. If
they are equivalent, in political terms, to a Marxist purism, or left-wing
Communism, we should not forget that all other shades of political, not to
mention sexual, identification still exist in the West, particularly in
Britain, with its unbroken democratic traditions stretching back several
centuries. Similarly, Marxist
bureaucracy, as applying to the Welfare State, co-exists with Conservative
plutocracy, and will doubtless continue to do so until history may decide
otherwise.
However, if the development of alternating
current at the expense of direct current has characterized the State's
evolution, we will find that the emergence within the modern, pluralist state
of Centrist, or supernatural, tendencies has given a new lease-of-life to DC,
with particular reference to the sexual use of pornography and plastic inflatables, so that sexual giving has come for some
people, still perhaps a minority, to replace either DC/AC relativity or AC
absolutism, if, indeed, 'replace' is the correct word. In other words, they consistently partake of
a supernatural giving vis-à-vis the artificial sex-partners of their choosing,
whether with regard to a particular pornographic model or, alternatively, their
favourite, if not only, plastic inflatable.
Conversation between the supernaturalists and
their artificial partners is necessarily ruled out (at any rate, as a rule),
and a superior DC absolutism than the subnatural
masturbatory purism is the inevitable result, corresponding to a fascistic
integrity. And yet, if a petty-bourgeois
folksy integrity suits some people - at present only a comparatively small
minority - it should not be forgotten that a specifically petty-bourgeois
right-wing sexual integrity will also suit some people, probably not such a
small minority, in which DC tends to predominate over AC, or physical sex over
conversation, though not simply in terms of coitus but, rather, with regard to
oral sex, especially fellatio, which, in contrast to cunnilingus, confirms a masculine
bias, suitable to a petty-bourgeois age.
Having one's penis 'sucked off' by a liberated female is not only a
pleasurable experience for the person concerned, but one that reflects male
domination and, hence, the ascendancy, within a relative context, of the
neutron side of an atomic divide, inducing an 'intellectualized' sexuality
germane, in all probability, to an Ecological, or 'Green', political integrity.
Which is, after all, quite distinct from
the bisexual anal-violation of a social democratic integrity and, so I contend,
antithetical to the grand-bourgeois relative subnaturalism
of a bias for cunnilingus, that Whiggish predecessor
of heterosexual naturalism. No doubt,
there is still a fair amount of tongue-oriented vagina-grovelling sex going on
these days, whether because the people involved are - or consider themselves to
be - grand-bourgeois types or whether because, whoever they may be, they are
simply ignorant of the ideological implications of their behaviour ... I leave
for others to decide. Suffice it to say
that cunnilingus is not indicative of a masculine superiority and/or ascendancy
but, on the contrary, is relative to a pre-bourgeois subatomic age, so that its
continual indulgence smacks of the anachronistic, not to say absurd. A truly right-wing petty-bourgeois sex, in a
liberal society, will always favour fellatio, appropriate to an Ecological as
opposed to a Whiggish orientation. And it could be argued that a penis in a
woman's mouth is a good way of preventing conversation, even if one cannot, in
the relative nature of such a sexual integrity, keep it there all the sucking
time but must succumb, sooner or later, if not to actual copulation then, at
any rate, to actual conversation, whether or not about sex ... I again
leave for others to decide. Only an
extreme right-wing petty-bourgeois sex, relative to heterosexual pornography
and/or inflatables, will be permanently elevated
above AC relativity!
However, having stressed the fellatio
aspect of Ecological sex at the expense of the coital aspect, and the
cunnilingus side of Whiggish sex in the same way, I
should belatedly point out that coitus is not the only side of Conservative
sex, there being an oral side to it as well which, though such an argument may
seem academic, we can estimate as approximating a balance between cunnilingus
and fellatio, applicable to a bourgeois relativity. Thus moderate heterosexual sex also has its
vaguely supernatural, or wavicle, side, albeit one
stressing a balanced dualism appropriate to an atomic integrity ... in which
proton-wavicle cunnilingus and neutron-wavicle fellatio complement the particle/wavicle relativity of actual copulation. Now actual copulation, whether conventional
or otherwise, isn't something that can be divorced from other stages and types
of 'fringe' sexual activity either, even the most extreme, including the
supra-natural recourse to plastic inflatables, which,
if it doesn't reflect a fascist integrity in bodily sex, must surely reflect a
Centrist one, germane to a new civilization; though if inflatables
and soft-core juvenile pornography would co-exist during a Social
Transcendentalist phase of such a
civilization, there would be a shift towards a wavicle
absolutism with its Super-transcendentalist phase, thus rendering recourse to inflatables obsolete, as hard-core juvenile pornography,
still of course relative to computer discs and involving consenting mature
teenagers, increasingly came to the fore.
Such supra-natural sex might alternatively be defined as supercultural, and I propose a new terminological strategy
for distinguishing between the relative and absolute phases of Centrist
sexuality, viz. supra-natural for the former and supercultural
for the latter.
Furthermore, one should distinguish more
closely between the supernatural and the supra-natural; for it seems to me that
supernatural sex, corresponding to a petty-bourgeois folksy integrity, can
likewise be divided into two phases, viz. a supernatural relativity between inflatables and soft-core adult pornography and, again at
the risk of seeming unduly academic, a supernatural absolutism involving
hard-core pornography alone, this latter tending to induce masturbation and
thereby weakening the urge to copulate. So a classical fascistic sexuality, beyond the relativity of
sex-doll copulation. Could it be,
I wonder, that plastic inflatables modelled on adult
women, with large breasts, correspond to a petty-bourgeois folksy sexuality,
whereas a proletarian folksy or even folkish sexual
integrity would require, in conjunction with soft-core juvenile pornography,
that inflatables were modelled on teenage girls of
between, say, sixteen and nineteen years of age, and thus had small
breasts. Again, the distinction may seem
academic, but it is, after all, between the supernatural and the
supra-natural. So I shouldn't be at all
surprised if sex dolls came, in the future, to level with supra-natural
requirement.
But if the supra-natural is above and not
just beyond the natural, then we need not doubt that it is the antithesis of
that which, in pagan civilization, was beneath the natural, viz. the
unnatural. Some people will doubtless be
puzzled by such a term, but I use it to distinguish between the subnatural before the natural, pertinent to extreme
grand-bourgeois criteria, and the very subnatural
sexual behaviour which, with regard to pagan civilization, confirms an
aristocratic integrity more beneath than before the natural. Thus while supernaturalism leads to
supra-naturalism, so, at the opposite extreme, does unnaturalism
lead to subnaturalism. Yet, contrary to fascist and centrist
integrities, the relative does not lead to the absolute, as from
supernaturalism to supra-naturalism, but the absolute leads to the relative, as
from unnatualism to subnaturalism,
germane to a stemming from the Father rather than, as in the former case, an
aspiration towards the Holy Ghost.
So, to take the grand-bourgeois extremism
appertaining to Cromwellian parliamentarianism first,
we may note a progression from subnatural masturbation,
with or without accompanying fantasies, to subnatural
intercourse with young teenage girls ... in a kind of juvenile
paedophilia. But beneath this, and
preparatory to it, we will find an aristocratic extremism, appertaining to
pagan criteria, of unnatural masturbation ... induced by erotic sculpture,
leading in unnatural relative time to paedophilia, or the sexual violation of
children, particularly young boys. Which
would probably apply more to the ancient Greeks and Romans than, say, to
certain very early pagan peoples, like the Egyptians and Assyrians, who would
probably have been more given to bestiality, or intercourse with animals,
particularly sheep, goats, dogs, and mules, though still disposed to children
on occasion.
However, whatever the literal case,
unnatural sex would have preponderated over natural sex for a majority of men;
although, judging by the fact of procreation, they evidently still had time for
natural sex as well! These days, by
contrast, such unnatural intercourse (not to mention its subnatural
successor) is beneath the bourgeois pale and subject, if indulged, to
prosecution. We cannot reasonably expect
either bestiality or paedophilia to be condoned, and it is extremely unlikely
that intercourse with children will ever be legalized. The majority of people may not, as yet, be
supernatural, still less supra-natural, but we're heading towards a
supra-natural age when 'girlish' sex dolls and mature juvenile pornography will
be the rule, as much above natural sex as erotic sculpture and paedophilia ...
were beneath it.
Of course, these days there is quite a lot
of left-wing homosexuality about. But
sodomy, or sexual intercourse between men, is distinct from pederasty, or the
anal violation of children - specifically boys.
It's an anti-natural, not an unnatural, sexuality, deplorable from a
supernatural (not to say supra-natural) point of view, but still relative to
the age, and seemingly perfectly permissible within a liberal society. Only in a Centrist society would it, together
with its right-wing counterpart of homosexual pornography, be illegal and
subject, if pursued, to suppression.
But, then, so would a number of other sexual integrities, including,
ironically, the supernatural. And as the
supra-natural increasingly came to the fore, so, as if to complement it, would
artificial means of reproduction, entailing, amongst other things, the use of
sperm banks and artificial insemination, thereby permitting adults to live
absolutely independent lives on the level of supra-naturalism. The final sexual revolution may not be
destined to occur for some time yet, but when it does ... being revolutionary
will entail more than merely political extremism. The true revolutionary is extreme all
along the line, and he must struggle mercilessly against sexual reaction
... no less than against every other kind of reaction!
Thus speaks Neil Tobin, sexual spokesperson
for the Social Transcendentalist revolution.
WRITERLY PRINT
I have to
confess that I'm not purely a 'typer', or author who
types-up his work without reference to a manuscript, but a writer or, more
correctly, scribbler who later types-up what he has scribbled. Generally, I scribble in the morning and type
in the afternoon, typing-up the morning's scribble. I pride myself on this arrangement, since it
makes for variety and is beneficial to my health, particularly with regard to
my eyes and stomach, which would become respectively strained and ulcerated,
were I to make a point of typing all day, like some authors. For me, there is too much physicality in the
use of a typewriter, even the small portable one I use, so I prefer the usually
more relaxing medium of scribble, which I also find more intimate.
I always scribble with a black felt-tipped
pen, not only because I like its facile motion across the page but, no less
importantly, because it confers a kind of supernatural bias on my scribbling
and is appropriate to such scribble. Why, you may wonder, do I scribble and not
write, meaning to write clearly and carefully, if not beautifully. The simple answer is that, being a supernaturalist, I prefer truth to beauty, and scribble is
the best and most suitable way of conveying the Truth. In other words, it makes no claim to beauty,
to belles lettres in a
merely technical sense, but enables one to pursue one's ideas at maximum speed,
the very speed necessary for the acquirement and development of a high degree
of inspiration commensurate with the rapid flow of one's thought. Write carefully, with special attention to
the formation of the lettering, and you get bogged down in technicalities,
sacrificing truth to beauty, or essence to appearance.
No, I am no 'belle-lettrist',
in any sense of that term, but a confirmed scribbler, and have been so for some
years now, to the general advantage of the Truth. Those who pursue truth must abandon beauty,
and not merely in their style or technique ... but in their lifestyle
generally. Hence the
absence of women in my life and its consequent freedom from enslavement to the
Beautiful. Had I acquired a
beautiful woman some years ago, when I almost did, I would never have got to
this. I may not even have become a
writer in the first place, or, if I had, it would probably have been on a less
supernatural level than that to which I'm now accustomed. However, speculation aside, I know for sure
that the pursuit of truth requires the abandonment of beauty, and the nearer
one gets to the Truth, the more must one abandon the Beautiful, since
the formless and the formal are ever antithetical.
You may have perceived, reader,
that my work is formless, and this, too, is appropriate to its
supernatural status. Instead of
proceeding from A to B or M and back to A again, like most authors, I proceed
from A-Z, with little or no hint of a recapitulation. You can believe me when I say that it took
some time for me to get to this level, to completely abandon my starting-point
and wind-up my work with an approximately antithetical culmination. It's as though, having begun in the Father or
some diluted equivalent thereof, I must end in the Holy Ghost, maintaining a
forward-tending momentum throughout the work's duration. Such work is not literary, my friend, but
poetic, and if I was once a philosopher, I have since veered towards the
opposite extreme in accordance with my Irish temperament, which fights shy of
literary endeavour, that middle-of-the-road creativity more suited to the
atomic British. For me, it is philosophy
or poetry, not fiction, which, by contrast, I equate, whether in the novel or
novella, with a democratic proclivity, in contrast to the autocratic and
theocratic essences of the extreme disciplines.
Well, I'm no autocrat, and it is debatable
whether my philosophy was ever genuinely autocratic. Certainly, I now consider myself a theocrat,
and theocracy means, besides poetry in an anthological context, Social
Transcendentalism, or the ideology of the Holy Ghost. I have scant regard for autocratic theocracy
or for democratic theocracy, just as I have scant regard for the use of crayons
or pencils in writing, the first of which I regard as subnatural
on account of their waxy constitution, the second of which I regard as natural
on account of their lead constitution.
Could it be, I wonder, that, in contrast to pencils,
fountain pens conform to an anti-natural constitution by dint of their
reliance on ink, which, unlike wax and lead, is an artificial phenomenon? This would imply that, while pencils were
right wing, fountain pens are left wing, albeit of a liberal rather than a
radical persuasion. For if there is one
thing more anti-natural, or artificial, than a fountain pen, it can only be a
biro, which contains its own synthetic ink and channels it, through a
ball-point tip, more sparingly and pointedly, as a rule, than ever the nib of a
fountain pen can do, if indeed 'channel' is the correct word here. At any rate, there is less mess with a biro
and, compared to a fountain pen, it is relatively easy and economical to use. It's also more absolute, in that one doesn't
refill the slender container but simply throws it away once the ink has run
out. This saves a lot of time and
inconvenience!
So where does it stand in the evolutionary
spectrum - extreme anti-naturalism? Very extreme anti-naturalism? Certainly more anti-natural than the fountain
pen, but doubtfully of a truly radical or, if a political analogy be
permissible here, communist persuasion.
More like a Democratic Socialist vis-à-vis a Liberal distinction,
something left wing within a democratic, or atomic, writerly
system. After all, one still writes with
a biro, even if in a scribbling fashion, and the same, of course, holds true of
fountain pens and, though I loathe to admit it, felt-tip pens, which must also
fall within a democratic writerly framework, if on a
relatively supernatural and, hence, very right-wing basis.
Is there not, however, something beyond the
ball-point pen which would correspond, in its extreme anti-naturalism, to a
communist equivalent? Doubtless you have
all heard of typewriters, and if my logical intuition is anything to rely on,
then I think we have hit upon the truly anti-natural, anti-democratic mode of
conveying verbal information, which doesn't so much write as print, and thus
signifies a 'fall' (forwards) from the joined lettering of natural writing or,
for that matter, moderately anti-natural (biro) writing and/or scribbling ...
to the disjointed lettering of print. At
least, this is generally the case; though there are, I believe, typewriters
which can actually write, albeit in a highly orthodox and stereotypical kind of
way, and we may accord them a crudely supernatural significance. However, the majority of typewriters,
including my own, print, as do young children and as adults used to do in
comparatively backward times ... such as the early Middle Ages, when writing
was unheard of and only a relatively small number of people even knew how to
print, that is to say, to write in a disconnected way. And these were the favoured people, the
learned, monied, powerful, and industrious men of a
largely subnatural age who, not surprisingly, had
access to a subnatural mode of writing, commensurate
with the particle side of a proton absolutism, each letter separate and
distinct, reflecting this particle apartness - an autocratic norm.
But, of course, man progressed to joined
writing, i.e. to writing-proper, in the course of time, and we may see in this
development a naturalism commensurate with the wavicle
side of a proton-biased atomic relativity, as germane to the Church and, in
particular, the Catholic Church, which conforms to an attractive atomic bias
... in contrast to the reactive proton bias of the preceding particle
kingdom. Wavicles
signify an indivisible unity, and words become wavicle
equivalents, on the protonic level, when the
lettering of which they are formed is joined together in writerly
prose. Obviously, such a procedure must
be naturalistic, effected by hand though guided by
mind. There is mind, too, in the subnatural mode of writing, e.g. printing, but such as
there is would be more concerned with concentrating attention upon appearances,
or the style of the lettering, than on essences, or that which was being
communicated through it. A lot of
evolutionary time must pass before men give the greater part of their attention
to content, and as we approach the modern age, an age par
excellence of scribbling, we can rest assured that concern with essence over
appearance has reached a high-peak, if not in the case of scribblers like
myself the peak, confirming the utmost writerly
decadence. For writing is, after all,
essentially an apparent phenomenon, since it stems from a proton tradition, and
whilst appearances have their essences, and hence writing its content, the
essence of the proton is ever apparent.
Paradoxical and confusing, I know; but incontrovertible
nonetheless! Much more concern with
content over form, and my writing would become illegible and therefore thoroughly
decadent from a naturalistic point of view.
Probably it would be illegible to most people now, and even I
occasionally have to strain my brain in order to decipher it, assuming my
memory is at fault. Fortunately by
typing-up in the afternoon what I have scribbled in the morning, I retain in
memory most of what I 'wrote', and this greatly facilitates the deciphering of
my text. Were I to leave a gap of three
or more days between scribbling and typing, the latter would undoubtedly prove
a more difficult, if not impossible, task than it does at present!
As a rule, however, my typing is fluent,
and this is all the more remarkable in that I am self-taught, not to mention
prone to ulceration of the stomach. Yet
the typewriter - and I use the term generically - is in some sense a decadent medium
of communication, corresponding to the particle side of an electron-biased
atomicity, which signifies an evolutionary 'fall' (forwards) from wavicle precedent, as from the Church to the State, and in
particular the republican state, with especial reference to people's
republics. Certainly the production by
the typewriter of disconnected lettering indicates a 'fall' from the joined
lettering of naturalistic writing, which is the essence of such writing, whilst
also reflecting a progression, with regard to appearances, from the natural to the
artificial, as from writing to typing and, in a certain sense, the bound to the
free, or the production of independent artificial lettering (characters) which
are free, as it were, from the constraints of a proton-biased determinism -
just as, in a wider context, republican man is free from the domination of the
Church, and never more so than in a communist state. Probably, if ideological inferences or
analogies are to be drawn, a manual typewriter corresponds to a Marxist status,
whereas an electric typewriter corresponds to a Marxist-Leninist status, as if
the addition of electricity conferred a kind of spurious, and hence Leninist,
theocracy on the fundamentally anti-democratic, egalitarian nature of the
typewriter and, no less importantly, typeface in question. An improvement, no doubt, on the manual
machine, but still leaving something to be desired!
And what, from a supernatural viewpoint, is
that something if not joined artificial lettering, and thus a return to a wavicle status, albeit one antithetical to the
proton-biased wavicles of naturalistic writing. Yes, I am of course alluding to electron wavicles, such as would conform to a radically theocratic
status applicable to a supernatural age or society. Now we may believe that if a manual writerly typewriter corresponds to a fascist status, then
an electronic or, preferably, battery-run writerly
typewriter would correspond, by contrast, to a Social Transcendentalist status
- the use of batteries signifying a more theocratic correlation than electricity
by dint, one can only suppose, of the absence of wires, leads, plugs, etc. So an artificiality that served a higher, wavicle end, the production of the
most supernatural lettering, germane to a free-electron integrity.
Ah, I have to admit that my little manual
typewriter is a long way from that! But
perhaps this is another reason why I disdain its use on a full-time basis,
preferring to scribble in the morning and type-up the result in the afternoon,
as if afraid or unwilling to completely part company with naturalism, and hence
my Catholic roots, at the risk of becoming unduly or extensively
anti-naturalistic and thus Marxist - a not-untypical Irish position, rarely
appreciated by the materialistic British!
Not once, in all these years of scribbling, have I ever entirely parted
company with my scribble and proceeded to type from scratch in an absolutely
typing framework. There is nothing of
the Shaw or Priestley about me, no left-wing allegiance. If I prefer to scribble than to write, and to
use a black felt-tipped pen instead of a pencil, not to mention biro, it's
because I identify more with the supernatural than with the natural and choose
to push the natural in a supernatural direction, conscious of the ideological
limitations imposed upon one by the inherently democratic medium of writing,
which necessarily makes for a constricted supernaturalism analogous, in a way,
to the supernaturalism endemic to the use of painterly art for transcendental
ends, as in Mondrian, Kandinsky,
Rothko, Vasarely, and other such 'supernatural'
abstractionists. Theirs is a
transcendentalism within a democratic, or canvas/painterly, tradition, in
contrast to the fascistic transcendentalism, as it were, of the light artist or
the Centrist transcendentalism, if you will, of the holographer,
that ultimate type of visual artist who is destined, one way or another, to
dominate the future. Much as I would
like to utilize a writerly typewriter, I have to
write with the tools available to me, and I can't say that I particularly mind
this, having grown accustomed to the art of pushing a plastic pen, not to say
resigned myself to my 'printerly' portable. I am no slave to electron-biased atomic
particles and would rather people know that I also scribble, in a decadent
proton-biased wavicle style, than suppose me to be
solely a typing author, like the great majority of so-called writers, no matter
how ignorant they may be of the ideological implications of a typing
absolutism. I conform, you might say, to
the compromise between church and state of the contemporary Irish republic:
though while this is so in technical appearances, in conceptual essences I'm
all the time agitating against such a compromise in the name of electron-wavicle absolutism ... as germane to Social Transcendentalism. Such are the paradoxes of which relative
lives are made!
Also paradoxical is the distinction between
what might be described as the apparent and the essential means of
communication, relative to the dichotomy between, say, speech and writing. Clearly, naturalism is not simply a matter of
writing (I use the term in its classical bourgeois sense) but also, and more
obviously, of speaking, and when we speak to another we talk. As it happens, I talk very rarely, being
something of a loner and, hence, supernaturalist. But talking is as important to most people as
writing, and those who write - as opposed to scribble
- invariably talk. Talk, then, is the more
natural of the two modes of communication, and if a Christian dichotomy between
Satan and Christ is in order here, then talk corresponds to the Devil and
writing to the Son. Yet beneath talk -
and perhaps prior to it - there is (or was) what you may call speaking to
oneself, a subnatural indulgence germane to a
proton-particle absolutism, and above talk - and in a sense subsequent to it -
there is (or will be) what you may call speaking to an artificial self, such as
a tape-recorder or a cassette-recorder, the former equivalent to a fascist mode
of supernatural speech, the latter commensurate, so I believe, with a Centrist
mode of supernatural communication, whether intended for industrial,
commercial, professional, or relaxational
purposes. Such supernaturalism is
absolute, a recording of a voice that can be replayed and listened to at a later
time, whether by the same person or another.
And it must contrast with the anti-naturalism of relative voice
recordings and/or transmissions, as in intercoms and telephones, which
invariably transform the natural voice as it is broken up into electronic
signals and conveyed along wire to the recipient at the other end of the
line. If a distinction between
anti-natural Marxist and anti-supernatural Marxist-Leninist ideological
equivalents is to be made, then the dialling phone probably corresponds to the
former and the press-button phone to the latter, although the battery-operated
digital phone would approximate to the supernatural, being more
transcendentalist, irrespective of the relativistic context of phoning which,
increasingly these days, acquires a quasi-absolutist character in conjunction
with the use of blank cassettes (for absences) and taped recordings (for
messages).
Be that as it may, voice transmissions of
whatever kind, including the use of walkie-talkies, correspond to the apparent,
superficial side of verbal communication between people. In contrast to the essential, profound side
... of 'literary' communication, the wavicle as
opposed to the particle side. And we
find such a distinction in most other aspects of human experience, including
the sexual, where it takes the form of a coital/oral dichotomy, specifically in
bourgeois heterosexual relations ... as germane to an atomic age and
society. Elsewhere, in my evolving
oeuvre, I have defined the archetypal Social Transcendentalist sexuality as
implying a compromise between sex-doll copulation on the apparent, or 'social'
side, and mature juvenile pornographic voyeurism on the essential, or
'transcendental' side, this latter, pertaining to computer discs, a
late-teenage sublimated oral equivalent intended for the head. Similarly, I could define the archetypal
Social Transcendentalist verbal modes of communication as implying a compromise
between cassette and/or digital speech on the apparent, particle side and ...
electric and/or battery writerly-typing on the
essential, wavicle side, with the emphasis, so far as
possible, on the latter. Could it be, I
wonder, that aural communication is destined to wither and die as
supernaturalism evolves, in the course of Centrist time, into supra-naturalism? Yes, I believe so, though this isn't to say
there is any guarantee that 'literary' communication will continue throughout
the duration of the next civilization either.
Probably it, too, is destined to make way for something higher, born
from the essential and completely transcending all appearances, even 'literary'
ones. The ultimate
verbal communication between men, the antithesis of early pagan sign language,
a developing telepathy as the utilitarian complement to a developing awareness
in beatific spirituality. Now
that, after all, is something above all thought, the pure awareness of absolute
mind, the wavicle side of the electron, the superconscious at its most refined, a true essence of
nonverbal being!
Yes, even superior to telepathy; though we
need not seek to underestimate the direct transference of thought from one mind
to another. For
telepathy is not, to say the least, an everyday occurrence, and few of us can
lay claim to such an achievement.
Yet is there any reason, on that account, why it should not become a
norm of communication in the more advanced future, when appearances, even on
the level of writerly typing, should become
increasingly taboo? As far as verbal
communication is concerned, telepathy would signify a stage beyond such means
to one that completely transcends appearances, even on the most refined wavicle level. For
if writing is intended to be silently read, to be thought through as if an
indirect form of telepathy, then the direct transference of thought would likewise
maintain a silence, transcending all recourse to speech. This silence would surely complement the
peace of hypermeditation!
Whatever transpires to being the case, I do
know that wavicle communication is going to gain in
importance in the decades ahead, and at the expense of the particle side of the
electron, with particular reference to printerly
typing. Already one finds, in various
contemporary magazines, the use of an italic print as a stylistic mean for
certain pages, and if this is not indicative of a transitional status from
disconnected print to connected print, or writing-proper, relative to a
quasi-theocratic leaning, then I'm at a loss to explain it! Telepathy may yet have to wait a while, but writerly print is just around the corner.
Now just as joined natural writing is
easier to read, when clear, than subnatural printing,
making for a quicker transmission of verbal communication, so joined
supernatural typing will be easier to read than the current anti-natural
printing of the contemporary book, magazine, letter, etc., confirming an
upgrading of intellectual activity, commensurate with the Centre, and the
consequent return to a wavicle essence - the true
antidote to republican print!
Thus speaks Shay
SUPERNATURAL TRAVEL
It is said
that we live in the age of the train, and, judging by the number of trains on
the rails these days, such a claim cannot be far wrong, even though most people
would probably give priority to the plane.
At any rate, the twentieth century is the age of the train that runs on
two rails, whether across the surface of the land or deep underground, and we
may believe this fact is inherent in the relative nature of an atomic society,
which likes to do things in pairs. The
monorail, it would seem, is something for the future, since suggestive of an
absolute trend more applicable, it may well be, to a Social Transcendentalist
age than to a liberal or democratic one.
I like the idea of the monorail train quite
a lot, and I am confident that it will function both above ground,
on an elevated line, and beneath ground, like the contemporary
underground. Though not every country
will desire the latter, for reasons I shall shortly outline. It is well known, for instance, that
For what is an underground system? Not simply a mode of mechanized transport,
but, like all other artificial phenomena, a mode of transport corresponding to
a specific ideological equivalent, in this case ... a Marxist one. Yes, the fact is that the underground system
signifies a plunge into a democratic or, rather, anti-democratic absolutism,
much as submarines signify a like-plunge compared with
a surface vessel, such as a destroyer or a cruiser. We may argue that, to a degree, the one
precedes the other, the relative the absolute, and that, just as surface ships
pre-date submarines, so trains pre-date underground trains, as a land/air
relativity preceding a tunnel absolutism and, moreover, as a relativity between
trains running in opposite directions on adjacent, parallel tracks ... preceding
an absolutism of independent underground trains running along the single tracks
of a given tunnel, isolated from those heading in the opposite direction, which
likewise have a tunnel to themselves.
In the underground, then, we perceive a
'fall' (forwards) from the relative to the absolute, as from above-ground
liberalism to beneath-ground radicalism, equivalent to a communist status. Now when this fact is properly appreciated,
it won't surprise us to find that the Irish, with their theocratic bias, do not
possess an underground system and probably wouldn't want to build one even if
they could afford to, bearing in mind the ideological implications of such a
system - implications that may have been grasped intuitively rather than
rationally by the modernity-wary Irish!
A fact that would apply no less to the building and staffing of
submarines, which are likewise Marxist and also scorned by the Irish, who
prefer gunboats and corvettes, corresponding to a petty-bourgeois liberal
integrity.
We may therefore presume that, unless
These days, however, I dislike the
underground on principle and make a point of avoiding it. I have been on surface trains once or twice
in recent years, but would not wish to cultivate a habit with them either, partly,
I suspect, because of the expense, yet partly also for ideological
reasons. If I were asked to stipulate an
ideal mode of rail travel, I would have no hesitation in replying: overhead
monorail travel, as equivalent to a Social Transcendentalist ideological
integrity, and therefore applicable not to an anti-natural bias, nor even an
anti-supernatural one, but to a supernatural bias, such as I trust Ireland will
develop to a greater extent in the near future.
Yes, for if surface rail corresponds to a
liberal, or democratic, ideological position, then air rail, as we may call it,
would certainly conform to a radically theocratic integrity, as appropriate to
a people who fight shy of democratic and, in particular, Marxist criteria,
being heir to a Catholic tradition. Such
a transcendental absolutism would be the logical successor to the current
diesel/electric trains, and would doubtless permit of greater speeds, each rail
running separate from rather than parallel to another, as in the underground
system, with any given train travelling backwards and forwards along its
particular rail. Probably, on second
thoughts, the ideal way of designing monorails would be to have one above the
other, so that a vertical as opposed to a horizontal arrangement was
established, in accordance with transcendental criteria. Thus neither train on any specific route
would ever see the other, since each of them would be on different levels of
track, and stations would have to be designed accordingly ... with platforms
one above the other, though not necessarily on opposite sides of their
respective rails but, to save space and enable stations to be built along the
most vertical lines, one directly above the other, with the trains' doors
opening on opposite sides, depending on the direction of the train in question,
but only on one side in each case.
Who knows, such suggestions may yet bear
fruit, once qualified people get down to working out the details of a viable
two-way monorail system of overhead transport, the lower rail itself some yards
above the ground, the higher one several yards above that, with no possibility
of either train colliding. Certainly
safer than the parallel type of tracks, which more accords with a democratic
society, where a horizontal compromise is never far away and collisions are always
possible. As are derailments, a
misfortune I can't conceive of happening to a monorail train, sunk deeply onto
and around the rail, almost hugging it from either side, as if afraid to part
company. Yet, for all that, more
flexible than the conventional twin-track train, which is obliged to slow down
to accommodate bends in the track and would almost certainly become derailed if
it leant over too far on either side.
There is something ponderous and materialistic about such a train,
whereas the monorail alternative would suggest a wavicle
lightness and swiftness applicable to the supernatural. Thus it would form the transcendental
complement on land to hovercraft at sea, which skim across the water's surface
in a like-supernatural capacity, greatly preferable to surface ships, with
their liberal equation. As yet, however,
monorail and hovercraft are, alike, something of a rarity, even in the most
advanced industrial/technological nations.
A full appreciation of their significance has still to come, as it
surely must during the twenty-first century!
Thus speaks Peter Sloane, transportational spokesperson for the Social
Transcendentalist revolution.
SIX THINKERS SPEAKING TO SIX LISTENERS
WHO IN TURN THINK ABOUT THEIR SPEECHES
"I've
gradually come to the conclusion that rock is the European and, in particular,
British equivalent of jazz, the nearest most European musicians ever get, or
desire to go, to what is, after all, America's principal form of music. However, unlike jazz, rock is an atomic
music, whereby a bound-electron equivalent, viz. melody and/or harmony, is
harnessed to a proton equivalent which, as a persistent beat mainly issuing
from the drums, tends to impose or maintain a rhythmic bias on the music
overall, thereby making for a proton-biased atomicity. Unlike pop, rock is fundamentally a
petty-bourgeois art form and one, moreover, with a high regard for vocals,
whether in a supporting or, more usually, a lead role. Generally these vocals, which pertain to the
neutron aspect of its overall atomic integrity, will be dedicated to romantic
concerns, sometimes of a reverential nature, more often of a rebellious one, as
might be expected from a proton-dominated atomicity in which there is both a
straining at the proton leash, as it were, and a simultaneous hint of
complicity, partly expressed in the instrumental solos, with this negative
atomicity.
"Rock can, however, extend in two
directions - either down towards a classical bias or up towards a bias for
jazz. In the one case we get
rock-classical, with its strong melodic and rhythmic integrity, whilst in the
other case we get jazz-rock which, though still melodic and highly rhythmic,
shows greater respect for improvisation and, thus, intermittent solos from
whichever lead instrument. At best, such
jazz-rock becomes a pseudo-electron equivalent in relation to modern jazz.
"As for jazz itself, that relatively
post-atomic music which I tend to equate with a free-electron equivalent, it is
unquestionably the highest music of the age, somewhat on the level of American
light art rather than, as with rock, closer to European avant-garde
painting. If a political analogy can be
drawn, then one could contend that, in modern jazz, a Republican equivalent,
viz. the free-electron soloist, 'does his thing' to the deferential
accompaniment of a Democratic equivalent, viz. the pseudo-electron
percussionist, their co-existence and mutual co-operation confirming the
relatively post-atomic nature of mainstream bourgeois/proletarian civilization. Indeed, one could extend the analogy by
contending that the soloist is akin to a liberated male and the percussionist
to a liberated female, their relationship mirroring the 'free sex' of a typical
unmarried couple.
"However, not wishing to get bogged
down in such analogies, I should add that, while modern jazz is the highest
type of contemporary music, there also exists a tendency for certain jazzmen to
extend their musical commitments down towards rock and so produce rock-jazz,
which, as the American equivalent of jazz-rock, can alternatively be termed
'fusion', to distinguish it from 'progressive', the European extension of rock
towards jazz. Such 'fusion music', it
need scarcely be emphasized, will be less free than modern jazz, since more given
to vocals and/or melody, harmony, and a monotonously persistent beat. By comparison with modern jazz, it will be a pseudo-electron music and will approximate, in some sense,
to rock. There is, of course, a
co-existence of jazz with rock in contemporary
I like the
way the first speaker distinguishes between rock and 'progressive' on the one
hand, and ... jazz and 'fusion' on the other - a distinction, in effect,
between the European - in particular British - tradition and the American one,
which is regarded by him as pertaining to a different integrity - namely a
relatively post-atomic integrity rather than, as with Britain, an essentially
atomic one. Thus rock, a proton-biased
art form, stands to 'progressive', its bound-electron alternative, somewhat in
the order of the Labour Party to the Conservatives in modern Britain, whereas
modern jazz, corresponding to a free-electron equivalent, stands to 'fusion',
that pseudo-electron development, somewhat in the order of the Republican party
to the Democrats in America. Certainly
an interesting theory, if a little rigid overall! One cannot deny that many 'progressive'
musicians in
*
"It
would be out of the question for quasi-supermen to dress in furs in a
transcendental civilization since, unlike liberated females, they will be
considered a masculine phenomenon, not be discriminated against as women. Besides, furs are so naturalistic, so damn
pagan! They make their wearers look like
animals, albeit sophisticated and attractive ones. Certainly quasi-supermen will not be partial
to furs, nor to stockings, skirts, dresses, high-heels, necklaces, et
cetera. Nothing that could be considered
feminine would be worn by them.
"Ah, how I look forward to such a
post-sexist age! How refreshingly
different it would be from the usual dichotomies of an open society! There would be nothing stemming from the
Diabolic Alpha in that closed society of the future; for it would signify an
exclusive aspiration towards the Divine Omega.
Consequently there would be no furs and no ... oh, what a long list one could
draw up here! There wouldn't even be any
anti-naturalism. For the natural world
would have been superseded by the artificial, which would serve as a base from
which to launch a truly supernatural aspiration, from which the cultivation of
pure spirit would proceed as never before!
Yes, instead of a proton/electron antagonism, as in open societies, one
would find a pseudo-electron/free-electron co-operation, the artificial being
put to the service of the supernatural, or supermen."
I used to
like furs on women as a youth, because they appeared to denote class and
affluence, but these days I think I would be more inclined to sympathize with
the second speaker's viewpoint. He made
no mention, curiously, of the moral dimension accruing to the acquisition of
fur from various animals - foxes, bears, weasels, etc. - and I can only suppose
this subject doesn't particularly interest him, else he would surely have
alluded to it. However, one can't argue
with the assertion that fur coats would be irrelevant to quasi-supermen, those
civilized proletarian women of the future, since a post-sexist society could
not countenance such feminine attire, especially when one bears in mind the
degree of its naturalness, about which, curiously, he said scarcely a
word! Though I suspect the likening of
wearers of fur coats to animals, the fact that they remind one of bears and things, was intended to imply as much! No doubt, furs on women are only relevant to
an alpha-stemming society, and we need not be surprised by the fact that the
majority of fur wearers are bourgeois types.
I liked his distinction between the anti-natural and the artificial, the
former being against the natural while the latter is pro-supernatural, a base,
as it were, from which to launch a truly supernatural aspiration. Anti-naturalism would seem to accord more
with atomic societies, since effectively a bound-electron equivalent, whereas
the artificial, functioning as a pseudo-electron equivalent, seems to accord
with post-atomic societies, including the contemporary American. He lives, it seems
to me, for the future development of an absolutely post-atomic civilization, as
germane to an omega-orientated society.
*
"Spectra of evolutionary development in the arts - such a
fascinating idea! Proton philosophers, atomic novelists, electron poets. Then philosophers who rebel
against academic philosophy, becoming anti-philosophers, pseudo-electron
equivalents. They rebel as petty
bourgeois against bourgeois philosophy, with its ethical focus: Schopenhauer
against Kant, Nietzsche against Schopenhauer, even, in some sense, Marx against
Hegel. They prefer a metaphysical to a
physical line, essence to appearance.
They co-exist with petty-bourgeois academic philosophy, which signifies
the upgrading of appearances from the humanistic to the artificial, ethics to
language, as with Wittgenstein. But they
extend beyond this extreme reach of philosophy, undergoing, in the process, a
transformation from negative to positive, from anti-philosophy to pro-poetry. They become, in the course of time, pseudo-philosophers,
bringing metaphysical philosophy to its culmination in a collectivized format,
a petty-bourgeois level less stemming from the bourgeoisie, as with academic
philosophy and its anti-academic antagonist, than aspiring towards the
proletariat on the highest terms, that's to say, in a pseudo-electron context
of metaphysical expression, free from the aphoristic root.
"Yet why stop at philosophy? Doesn't literature, in the strictly
novelistic sense of that word, likewise undergo a parting of the ways and thus
witness a petty-bourgeois rebellion against its fictional heritage? Yes, most assuredly! This rebellion takes the form of a turning
against the fictional on autobiographical terms, is championed by
anti-novelists who, like Henry Miller, prefer to tell the story of their lives
than to create silly and possibly inconsequential fictions. Whereas the anti-philosophical development
was predominantly a European and, in particular, German phenomenon, the development
of anti-literature finds most of its support in America, almost as if it
signified a turning against the European tradition, even as affecting American
literature. And like its philosophical
counterpart, it co-exists with the end of the bourgeois fictional tradition and
the transformation of such a tradition into a uniquely illusory or, rather, illusional guise - co-exists, in other words, with the
continuation of literature along petty-bourgeois lines.
"But just as we can note a distinction
between anti-philosophy and its pseudo-philosophical successor, so a
distinction soon becomes apparent between anti-literature and its successor
in pseudo-literature - the higher, experimental, non-expressive literature of a
later and superior phase of petty-bourgeois evolution, such as largely pertains
to the mainstream contemporary civilization of America, and which outstrips the
illusional tradition stemming from bourgeois
fiction. This higher literature,
championed by pseudo-novelists like William Burroughs, aspires towards a
proletarian absolutism, brings literature the closest it has ever been to pure
poetry while yet still remaining prose.
This pseudo-electron literature of the later petty-bourgeoisie parallels
the pseudo-philosophy of the metaphysical collectivist and finds its aesthetic
equivalent not in abstract sculpture, as with the pseudo-philosophical, but in
the furthest reach of abstract art, particularly with regard to abstract
expressionism.
"That leaves, then, the progression of
poetry from a traditional pseudo-poetical bound-electron status, such as
continues to apply wherever poetry is conceived in expressively materialist or
descriptive terms, to a revolutionary free-electron status via the rebellion of
anti-poets who, like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, turned against the
pseudo-poetical tradition appertaining, in the main, to Western Europe, with
its emphasis on appearance and description, and did so, needless to say, on
largely autobiographical and/or occult terms.
"Such a rebellion, however, was soon
to bear revolutionary fruit as the emphasis changed to metaphysics, with the
development of a pure poetry along relatively free-electron lines, a poetry
which alternated between metaphysical expression and poetical impression, as
relevant to the extreme relativity of late twentieth-century America, and which
was championed by poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso,
who pertain to the later phase of petty-bourgeois culture. After such pure poetry, the literary equivalent
of light art, the evolution of poetry can only be from the relatively pure to
the absolutely pure, as achieved through an exclusive concern with the
impressive, with pure impression, a development which should pertain to the
next and final civilization in the history of man, which, as a proletarian
phenomenon, will avail itself of computer discs."
I like the
way he speaks of a progression from the 'anti' to the 'pseudo', from
anti-philosophy to pseudo-philosophy, anti-literature to pseudo-literature,
anti-poetry to pseudo- or, rather, pure poetry, moving all the time from what
he considers to be the proton roots of literature to its future climax in the
most free-electron terms. Very
systematic thinking indeed! He doubtless
despises academic philosophers, considering that, to him,
they are more often than not proton types who pertain to an aristocratic stage
and manifestation of literary development.... Though I'm not convinced, myself,
that philosophy is as bad, or alpha-stemming, as he chooses to depict it! The rebellion against bourgeois Kantian
philosophy seems, not altogether surprisingly, to have begun in Germany, with
Schopenhauer and (later) Nietzsche, and continued to develop alongside a
petty-bourgeois stage of academic philosophy until such time, apparently, as
pseudo-philosophy came to the fore as the logical successor to the
anti-philosophical tradition, a higher type of petty-bourgeois philosophy which
leaves the academic tradition behind, since the latter is unable to extend beyond
a lower petty-bourgeois stage, being aligned with appearances and, therefore,
stemming from a proton root. It is the
furthest straining at the leash, so to speak, of an academic tradition, whereas
pseudo-philosophy extends towards a proletarian absolutism from its roots in
anti-philosophy, that pseudo-electron equivalent. Does such pseudo-philosophy become genuinely
free, however? Apparently not, since it
must express metaphysical ideas and thus remain intelligible. Yet when it gets to the stage of abandoning
the aphoristic root, as it seemingly does on the level of the highest
pseudo-philosophy, then it almost becomes genuinely free, is virtually a
free-electron equivalent in relation to anti-philosophy. Likewise, the progression from
anti-literature to pseudo-literature is one that outstrips the tail-end, as it
were, of the novelistic tradition, as mainly pertaining to Western Europe, and
takes an illusional twist on the level of a
bound-electron equivalent. This
progression from autobiographical novels to largely experimental,
non-expressive novels signifies a development from lower to higher
petty-bourgeois stages of literary evolution, and is especially relevant to
contemporary America, with its relatively post-atomic bias. Apparently, this pseudo-literature, like its
negative forerunner, corresponds to a pseudo-electron equivalent, though the
third speaker makes no mention of the fact that, like abstract art, it can also
entail a free-electron status when primarily concerned with religious issues of
a transcendent nature, as in the novels of Jack Kerouac. But, of course, when one is simply
distinguishing between different stages of literary development, from academic
philosophy through to poetry via novels, then one's scale of reference
necessarily differs from what it would be in the event of each stage being
considered in isolation, so that, willy-nilly, pseudo-literature becomes a
pseudo-electron equivalent in relation to pure poetry, that ultimate art form,
about which the third speaker has some enlightened views. Certainly, one should distinguish once again
between the negative and the positive stages of this largely American
development, the anti-poets turning against the European tradition of pseudo-poetry,
with its emphasis on appearance and description, as relevant to a
bound-electron equivalent. Whether they
should be regarded as pseudo-electron or as free-electron equivalents, however,
is not clear, though I suspect he had the former in mind, since he speaks of
the emphasis changing, with pure poetry, to a concern with metaphysics, as
germane to a free-electron bias - a supposition which would suggest that the
later petty-bourgeois stage of poetic development doesn't simply stem from the
earlier stage, but pertains to a new spectrum of poetic evolution - one
directly leading towards the ultimate pure poetry of an absolute civilization,
which would avail itself of computers.
If that is so, then one need not doubt that pseudo-philosophy and
pseudo-literature also pertain to separate spectra of literary evolution from
their negative forerunners. Truly a
complex affair!
*
"We
should distinguish, I believe, between soul and pseudo-soul, not to say between
pseudo-spirit and spirit. Thus we will
be distinguishing, on the one hand, between that which is uniquely soul and
that which is basically spirit conditioned by soul, and, on the other hand,
between that which is basically soul conditioned by spirit and that which is
uniquely spirit. Soul, as we all know,
pertains to the body, is the occult side, as it were, of the physical, the wavicle aspect of the flesh. Soul is what we feel, and we
can feel either negative or positive feelings, depending on the context. We can describe negative feelings as occult,
strictly appertaining to the proton content of the flesh's atomicity, and, by
contrast, positive feelings as pseudo-occult, since appertaining to the neutron
content of the flesh's atomicity - in other words to pseudo-soul. However, if soul is never alone in the body,
its greatest preponderance over pseudo-soul is in the flesh, where negative
sensations somewhat outweigh positive ones in intensity.
"From sensational depths, however,
soul proceeds through emotional middlings in the
heart to feeling heights in the old brain, becoming, all the time, more diluted
with pseudo-soul until, by the time it reaches the new brain, it is distinctly
pseudo itself, functioning on the level of thought, as conditioned and
promulgated by awareness, i.e. genuine spirit, and therefore akin to
pseudo-spirit. By contrast, pseudo-soul
acquires more positivity the higher it ascends until,
by the time it reaches the old brain, it is the strongest feeling, the
pseudo-occult preponderating over the occult, whether as happiness or
love. Here soul co-exists with bound spirit
as subconscious, as spirit conditioned by and in some degree enslaved to
soul. For whereas soul is feeling and,
at least in the old brain, also visionary appearances, spirit is awareness, or
consciousness, and the awareness of the subconscious is distinctly sensual, as
we discover when we sleep and contemplate dreams through bound spirit.
"Yet if spirit is bound in the old
brain, it's most decidedly free in the new one, where it exists as superconscious, as awareness untrammelled by feelings
and/or thoughts, and thus pertains to the supernatural, the psychological side,
as it were, of the natural, with particular reference to the new brain. This free spirit co-exists, as I've said,
with pseudo-spirit, the transmutation of soul from the occult in the old brain
to the quasi-supernatural in the new brain, where it manifests in thought, as
conditioned by the majority electron content, functioning as awareness, of that
brain. Thus soul expands from the flesh
to the old brain, pseudo-soul likewise, where it co-exists with bound
spirit. Free spirit exclusively
appertains to the superconscious, where it co-exists
with the pseudo-spirit of the new brain.
Although existing in the new
brain, free spirit is not of the new
brain. Appertaining to the supernatural,
it can be cultivated to the point of transcendence and so become entirely free
of the natural.
"Evolution will witness the subsequent
detachment of noumenon from phenomenon, of superconscious from new brain. The reformed neutron content of pseudo-spirit,
together with the atomicity of new-brain materialism as a whole, will be
escaped from in the course of millennial time, as free electrons emerge from
the earth's most artificial (post-human) life-form ... to expand into and
converge towards other such free-electron transcendences in space, conceived as
the setting for the post-millennial Beyond."
I like the
distinction the fourth speaker draws between bound spirit as subconscious and
free spirit as superconscious, the one enslaved,
during sleep, to soul; the other free to condition thoughts, which pertain to
pseudo-spirit. He could have emphasized
the fact that such freedom is relative as opposed to absolute, since spirit
only becomes truly free when wrapped-up in self-contemplation, as appertaining to
meditation. Nevertheless the use of
spirit as will to condition thought, to order and regulate it, bespeaks a
freedom of sorts, if only relatively so.
Not surprisingly, this distinction between pseudo-spirit and spirit,
thought and awareness, anticipates the social distinction which must soon arise
between quasi-supermen and supermen, the former as pseudo-electron equivalents,
the latter as free-electron equivalents.
Conversely, at the alpha or pagan end of the spectrum, his distinction
between soul and pseudo-soul, negative and positive feelings, calls to mind the
pre-atomic distinction he occasionally makes - for I have heard him speak on a
number of occasions - between superwomen and quasi-superwomen, whilst in
between the two extremes one finds the atomic distinction between apparent
soul, as dreams, and bound spirit, as subconscious, mirroring the heterosexual
stage of evolution whereby men and women co-exist on separate terms within an
open society, in which marriage is the norm.
Returning, however, to his argument, one can understand how in a
post-atomic society, whether relatively or absolutely such, the new brain comes
to acquire greater importance, since the focal-point of psychic activity has
shifted away from both the flesh and the old brain to a mounting concern with
the development of spirit. Undoubtedly,
whilst a relatively post-atomic society will place more emphasis on the
conditioning of pseudo-spirit by spirit, its absolutist successor will favour
the cultivation of pure spirit, as appropriate to a genuinely post-atomic
age. Transcendental meditation will
supersede LSD tripping, leading, inevitably, to the post-human millennium and
beyond when, as he maintains, free electrons will emerge to converge towards
and expand into other such transcendent noumena in
space. Turning right away from
pseudo-spirit, genuine spirit will become divine, the superconscious
at length escaping from the new brain, the supernatural arising not from the
natural but from the most artificially supported and sustained of life forms -
the new-brain collectivizations of the superbeings!
*
"Bourgeois
painting, surrounded by and encased within its wooden frame, marks the
mid-point in the evolution of art, the dualistic compromise, as it were,
between sculpture and holography. Either
side of this representational art-form one finds the largely pagan mural,
conceived in naturalistic terms, and the largely transcendental
abstract-painting of 'modern art', that antithetical equivalent of the mural
which, exhibited against a wall rather than - as with murals - on one, is
usually free of a frame. If the mural is
higher/later grand-bourgeois, then 'contemporary' canvas art is very much
lower/earlier petty-bourgeois.
"We have started in the middle, so let
us now proceed further outwards to embrace the art forms either side of the
above-mentioned ones, which, of course, are vase modelling on the one hand and
light art on the other, the former lower/earlier grand-bourgeois, the latter
higher/later petty-bourgeois; the one particularly relevant to the ancient
Greeks, the other to their antithetical equivalents, the modern Americans. As vase modelling, even with its painting, is
closer in essence to sculpture than to either murals or framed paintings, so
light art is closer in essence to holography than to either 'modern art' or
framed paintings. Amphora art stems from
sculpture no less than light art aspires towards holography, the aristocratic
and proletarian extremes, respectively, in the evolution of art.
"So that brings us - does it not? - to
the beginnings of art in pure sculpture, usually conceived in stone, and to the
culmination of art in pure holography, as a projection into enclosed space of
an image/design through refracted light.
Whereas the former is utterly materialistic and mundane, standing on the
ground or, in its earliest manifestations, carved from the bare face of
mountain rock, the latter is utterly spiritualistic and transcendent, seemingly
floating free of material connections, suspended, so to speak, in the void as
an intimation of pure spirit, such as would be compatible with an absolutely
transcendental civilization, the refinement of holography from representational
to abstract levels taking place there as a matter of chronological course.
"Where does one find the earliest
manifestations of fine art? In Egypt, that cradle of pagan civilization, where the largest and
most materialistic sculptures were chiselled into existence, carved out of the
towering mountain rocks or set free to stand on the ground like a reformed
rock, a formful boulder. And, not altogether surprisingly, such pure
sculpture was very often created in animal or semi-animal forms, beasts being
closer to nature and therefore closer to the Creator than men, more fundamental
than their evolutionary successors. Ah,
such diabolical art!
"Where, by contrast, will one find the
latest and highest manifestations of fine art?
Hopefully, in Eire, should it become the champion of a full-blown
transcendental civilization given to the creation of the most pure holography,
abstract and transcendent. Certainly, pure holography must spread from
there to every country on earth, as civilization becomes truly universal and
all mankind are disposed to contemplation of the ultimate civilized art - that
of the people."
Yes, one
looks forward to the development of abstract holography, that ultimate art,
which should be formless rather than formful or,
rather, formal, like ancient sculpture.
The fifth speaker is certainly correct to imply that such art could only
be championed by an absolute civilization, since contemporary holography,
pertaining to the relatively post-atomic societies of the bourgeois/proletarian
West (with particular reference to America), is generally representational, and
therefore relative. It's on a level with
original anthological poetry and modern jazz, a level contiguous with the
finest light art which, ironically, is non-representational or, rather,
abstract. Certainly, at its best, light
art is closer to holography than to painting, just as, from a converse
viewpoint, the vase art of, for instance, the ancient Greeks was closer, in
essence, to sculpture than to murals, even though it involved the painting of
tiny figures on the curvilinear surface of the vases. Such vases stemmed from formal sculptures no
less than contemporary light art aspires towards the formless holograms of the
future.... As for so-called modern art, I would never have considered it the
antithetical equivalent of murals had not the speaker pointed out this
fact. Murals were naturalistic and on a
wall, whereas avant-garde painting, by contrast, is non-representational and/or
abstract and distinct from a wall, painted on a lightweight canvas which, as a
rule, is free of a frame, that wooden surround suggestive of a sculptural
connection. Indeed, bourgeois paintings
would seem to stem from sculpture rather than - as with the best and most
progressive modern art - to aspire towards holography. A quintessentially
middle-of-the-road development in the history of art's evolution, both
materialistic and spiritualistic at the same time. But then, with modern art, the beginnings of
a transvaluation of values, the severance of painting
from sculptural/representational connections, as it is conceived, upon a frame-free
canvas, in increasingly non-representational terms, becoming, with the
transformation to light art (and even a little while before that), an
unequivocally abstract intimation of spiritual truth, and the relatively
post-atomic forerunner of abstract holography.
Of course, one should not overlook the fact that modern art in Western
Europe and modern art in America signify two distinct traditions, nor forget
that such art is itself divisible into a kind of higher materialism, or
pseudo-spirituality, and a lower idealism ... wherever relative criteria apply,
as happens to be the case in the contemporary West.
*
"How dreadful to behold a man or a woman walking a dog down
the street! How still more dreadful to
have to suffer the appalling noise of continuous barking! How vulgar and demeaning is the spectacle of
dog's excrement on pavements and roads!
"No, a time must surely come when men
are freed from this ghastly atomicity, severed from the proton root of a beast
and obliged to be not bound-electron but free-electron equivalents. Dogs can have no place in a free-electron
civilization. They will have to be
banished and/or destroyed, along with cats, horses, hamsters, and other
unnecessary animals. The spirit of the
Last Judgement must extend to beasts as well as to those categories of human
beings which stem from the Diabolic Alpha and consequently oppose evolutionary
progress.
"Truly, there are many who are too
corrupt and foolish to take such teachings seriously, people who would oppose
their implementation. But, rest assured,
they won't oppose them for ever!
Judgement will be merciless and irrevocable. He saves, but he also damns; he isn't
absolute. He brings a 'sword' as well as
the Truth."
No doubt
the sixth speaker suffers or has suffered a great deal from barking dogs ... to
bring such a mundane subject so callously into his predominantly Messianic
lecture. His suggestion that dogs,
together with other pets, constitute the proton side of an atomic integrity
involving pet-owners is most interesting, and doubtless true as well! Clearly, there can be no such atomicities in the absolutely post-atomic society that must
one day soon come to pass. So away with
dogs, cats, horses, etc. in the name of free-electron progress! Curious how he made no reference to the fact
that the relatively post-atomic civilization of contemporary America could be
regarded as having pioneered, through the development of such animal cartoons
as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, a relative transcendence of animals ...
suggestive of a transitional stage between the indulgence of pets and their
eventual destruction. There is something
agreeably artificial about these animal cartoons, and doubtless the speaker has
enjoyed them in the past, even if they only signify a relative transcendence of
animals, as applying to the substance rather than to the form. Still, the absolute transcendence of pets
isn't something that I, for one, would greatly regret, since I don't own
any. In fact, I'm fairly confident that
the implementation of a banishment and/or destruction order on dogs, cats,
horses, etc., would constitute an aspect, by no means the least important, of
the Last Judgement.
FIVE SPEECHES SUCCEEDED BY THEIR SPEAKERS' THOUGHTS, PRECEDING
FIVE THOUGHTS
SUCCEEDED BY THEIR THINKERS' SPEECHES
First Speaker
"Atomic
weapons correspond to a later stage of petty-bourgeois military development,
the 'barbarous' preceding the 'civilized' in terms of atomic bombs preceding
nuclear missiles, the former dropping to earth from a large bomber, the latter
hurtling through space once fired from their launch pads. Thus a distinction, in effect, between the
mundane and the transcendent, which accords with that between lower and higher
phases of late-stage petty-bourgeois evolution."
What makes
atomic weapons petty bourgeois is the fact that they correspond to a relatively
post-atomic status, a negative dualism implying the splitting of the atom, the
severance, through nuclear fission, of electrons from protons and neutrons - an
evolutionary stage between bourgeois atomicity and proletarian electron
freedom, a kind of transition between the relative and the absolute, part
mundane and part transcendent in constitution.
Consequently atomic weapons are the weapons of
the late-twentieth century, appropriate to a later petty-bourgeois age on both
its civilized and barbarous sides, as mainly applying to the Americans and the
Russians respectively. Because the
late-twentieth century corresponds to a 'civilized' phase of higher
petty-bourgeois development, it follows that missiles rather than bombs are the
relevant weapons.
Second Speaker
"Just
as late petty-bourgeois evolution passes through two phases, so proletarian
evolution will do likewise, beginning in a 'barbarous' phase and proceeding, in
time, to a 'civilized' phase, which will entail a distinction between the
mundane use of laser weapons and, eventually, their transcendent use, meaning primarily
that whereas during the lower phase of proletarian evolution laser beams will
mainly be fired on the ground, either from guns or tanks, they'll be fired from
satellites and such-like 'transcendent' phenomena during its higher phase. Thus we are distinguishing between laser guns
and laser satellites."
What makes
laser weapons proletarian is the fact that they correspond to an absolutely
post-atomic status, one in which electrons are free from proton and/or neutron
constraint and capable, in consequence, of being fired at any given material
target at an incredibly high velocity, a much greater velocity than missiles or
rockets, those materialist projectiles subject to the force of gravity, which
would be like sitting-ducks to incoming laser beams. However, one should distinguish carefully
between a proton absolute use of lasers and their electron absolute use,
particularly in view of the post-atomic status of a Social Transcendentalist
society, which must favour the latter, especially during its 'civilized'
phase. While proton beams need not be
banned during the preceding 'barbarous' phase, their employment during the
higher phase of proletarian evolution would be both morally indefensible and
ideologically incommensurable, so that one envisages electron beams alone being
fired from satellites in accordance with a free-electron
integrity. Probably electron beams would
be employed on the ground during the preceding 'barbarous' phase as well, since
- so I believe - more relevant to an incipiently absolute post-atomic society
than proton beams, which have the ring of a pre-atomic integrity about them,
though, admittedly, not on the low level of fire, that much cruder
manifestation of proton negativity!
Certainly there could be no more barbarous weapon than the
flame-thrower, and we need not doubt that proletarian society will continue to
uphold a ban on its use.
Third Speaker
"Modern
classical music is inferior to both jazz-rock and modern jazz on account of the
fact that it pertains to an earlier stage of petty-bourgeois development and
accordingly employs techniques and instrumental combinations stemming from the
bourgeoisie, i.e. from nineteenth-century classical music, which mainly took
the form of romanticism. In its lower or
barbarous phase, early petty-bourgeois music is either expressionist or
impressionist in character, reflecting a partly atonal revolt against romantic
precedent. In its higher or civilized
phase, late petty-bourgeois music is either abstract expressionist or abstract
impressionist in character, reflecting an atonal revolution commensurate with
the growing entrenchment of petty-bourgeois civilization."
By
contrast, late petty-bourgeois music signifies a break with traditional media
of expression, such as acoustic violins and pianos, by employing electronic
instruments in a variety of fresh combinations and in a partly or even largely
improvisatory context, depending on the phase in question, that's to say,
whether barbarous or civilized. In the
lower phase, we get a revolt against civilized classical precedent in the form
of either trad jazz or rock 'n' roll. In the higher phase, we get a revolutionary
attainment via modern jazz or rock classical to a new degree of civilized
music, one germane to the late petty-bourgeoisie. Whereas the barbarous and civilized phases of
early petty-bourgeois music are equivalent to early- and mid-twentieth-century
painterly art ... from expressionism to abstract expressionism, the barbarous
and civilized phases of late petty-bourgeois music are equivalent to mid- and
late-twentieth-century light art ... from sculptural to abstract light art.
Fourth Speaker
"Just
as late petty-bourgeois music passed through two phases, so proletarian music
must do the same, beginning as a largely tonal revolt against civilized late
petty-bourgeois precedent, and culminating in an exclusively atonal attainment
to revolutionary proletarian civilization - a progression, one might argue,
from jazz-rock to pure jazz.
"The revolt or reaction, already well
under way in certain Western countries in the late-twentieth century, employs
electronic instruments, particularly synthesizers, in a largely tonal way and
generally avoids rhythmic or harmonic accompaniments. It is not afraid of notation but quite often
uses scores or some pre-planned directive, a fact which further confirms its
barbarous status - the paradoxical use of a higher medium suggesting a 'fall',
as regards content, from civilized precedent.
A music equivalent to representational holography,
that paradoxically barbarous reaction to abstract light art."
By
contrast, civilized proletarian music, pertaining to people's civilization,
will be exclusively atonal or, rather, 'pitchful' ...
as we should describe an ultra-positive music dedicated to the maximum
improvisatory equalitarianism of notes, all of which would be free from
rhythmic or harmonic constraints and consequently moving in quick-note
successions of free-electron 'runs'.
Such pure music will be programmed for performance by synthesizers and
serve as an inducement to self-realization, being associated with people's
religion as an aspect of super-transcendentalism, inseparable from religion and
therefore truly civilized - the ultimate religious music, corresponding to
abstract holography.
Fifth Speaker
"Like
art and music, the evolution of religion may be said to pass through phases
relevant to a given class integrity ... from a barbarous revolt against some
civilized alien-class precedent to the establishment, within a higher phase, of
a new civilized level. In this fashion,
we need not doubt that early Protestantism signified a late grand-bourgeois
rebellion against early grand-bourgeois Roman Catholicism, the barbarous phase
giving way, in due course, to the civilized ... with the entrenchment of
Puritanism.
"Probably the bourgeoisie likewise
revolted against early Protestantism before going on to establish what could be
called middle Protestantism, Calvinist as opposed to Lutheran, as its civilized
successor within the higher phase of bourgeois religion.
"Similarly one can argue that the
early petty-bourgeoisie revolted, in their turn, against bourgeois religious
precedent before going on to establish late Protestantism, whether Pentecostal
or Unitarian, as the civilized religion relevant to themselves."
Of course,
religion continued to be relativistic within the context of evolving relative
civilization, a kind of spiritual religion co-existing with a material
counterpart, though never more conspicuously so than during the extreme stages
of relative evolution, as applying to the grand- and petty-bourgeois stages
respectively. If Catholicism was
predominantly a soulful religion, then Protestantism signified a shift towards
the spiritual, a shift which could only lead to the predominantly spiritual
with the development of higher/early petty-bourgeois Protestantism, though not
to the same degree as with the introduction of civilized late petty-bourgeois
religion in the form of neo-Buddhism, which extended the spiritual bias still
further. Although relative in itself,
not to mention vis-à-vis a materialist counterpart in the form of mescaline
tripping, neo-Buddhism shifted the emphasis away from the physical exercises of
Yoga towards the spiritual contemplation inherent in itself, and thereby
affirmed a fresh civilized attainment, one more spiritually orientated than any
previous civilized religion, though falling short of an absolute spiritual
orientation both in terms of its physical connection with the ground - either
directly, through a squatting posture, or indirectly, through the interposing
medium of a chair - and, moreover, in terms of its acquiescence in and
acceptance of positive feelings like happiness and love - an integrity, in
short, not excluding affiliation with pseudo-soul, as derived from the majority
neutron content of the old brain.
First Thinker
Late
petty-bourgeois religion divides, then, into spiritual and material kinds, the
one kind associated with neo-Buddhism, the other with mescaline tripping; the
former predominantly appealing to the majority electron content of the new
brain, the superconscious; the latter, by contrast,
predominantly appealing to the minority proton/neutron content of the new brain,
the quasi-superconscious. These two kinds of 'contemporary' civilized
religion signify the higher phase of late petty-bourgeois civilization, the
lower, or barbarous, phase having given rise to a Yoga reaction against
neo-Catholicism on the one hand, and to a doping reaction against late
Protestantism on the other, the reaction of a spiritual barbarism generally
being against a materialistic civilized religion and, conversely, that of a
materialistic barbarism generally being against a spiritual civilized religion
- a procedure generally paralleled by the arts.
"Of
course, the development of a proletarian religion can also be seen to divide
into two phases, viz. a barbarous and a civilized, and we find in the former
case a revolt against neo-Buddhism which takes the form of LSD tripping, a
relatively barbarous mode of religious allegiance involving the contemplation
of the visionary contents of the minority proton/neutron content of the new
brain by a majority electron content functioning as awareness. Such indirect, 'representational' meditation
parallels the development of representational holography.
"Certainly, a reaction against late
petty-bourgeois religion and art is not something that a Social
Transcendentalist Eire need over-concern itself with, since its principal
obligation, once the cobwebs of tradition had been cleared away, would be to
prepare the ground for Super-transcendentalism in the name of people's
civilization, a procedure necessarily placing emphasis on the introduction of
meditation centres, where transcendental meditation or, rather, hypermeditation ... would be carried on both free from the
ground, i.e. in a vertical position entailing recourse to special
chest-to-crotch harnesses, and in a psychic context free from feelings, including
positive ones, and so exclusively concerned with the cultivation of awareness,
as applying to the majority electron content of the new brain.
"If the barbarous phase of proletarian
religion mainly pertains to the United States, where LSD tripping is quite
widespread, then its civilized phase should ultimately pertain to Eire, which,
while not immune to the barbarous, would be primarily dedicated to furthering
the civilized."
Second Thinker
In passing
from a post-humanist millennium to a post-human millennium, from the superhuman
and superbeingful phases of the one to the superman
and superbeing phases of the other, we find ourselves
concerned with post-human life forms, not with post-humanist life but with life
forms which completely transcend man, being as different from that two-legged
creature as apes and trees, the two life forms immediately preceding, in some
sort of chronological order, his emergence.
Just as trees precede apes and apes precede man, so the supermen will
succeed him and the superbeings succeed them. As human brains artificially supported and
sustained in collectivized contexts the supermen - those antithetical
equivalents to apes - will trip on a regular basis, experiencing such
artificially-induced visions as LSD, or some such synthetic stimulus, makes
possible. As new-brain collectivizations the superbeings
- those antithetical equivalents to trees - will hypermeditate
towards transcendence - the goal of late-millennial striving.
"Speaking
personally, I prefer to distinguish between the twin phases of the coming
post-humanist and post-human millennia on the basis of a quasi-spiritual phase
from an ultra-spiritual phase, as befitting the distinct psychic preoccupations
of the respective post-humanist and post-human life forms - the superhuman
men/supermen and the superbeingful men/superbeings respectively.
"Whereas the former pair would be
contemplating the visionary contents of the new brain's minority proton/neutron
content from a consciousness not unconnected with feelings, the latter pair
would be solely attuned to self-contemplation as superconsciousness
of the new brain's majority electron content, being free from old-brain
connections and consequently enabled to expand consciousness towards
transcendence.
"Whereas trees directly stem from the
Diabolic Alpha, their leaves enslaved both to branches and trunk, the superbeings would directly aspire towards the Divine Omega,
the collectivized new-brains served by the artificial support-and-sustain
systems which had been engineered by qualified technicians."
Third Thinker
Obviously
the support-and-sustain systems of the supermen and the superbeings,
respectively, would be created in such a way as to appear antithetical to the
trunk and branches of a tree. Whereas
the trunk stems from the ground and then the branches tend diagonally from it,
creating the impression of a concession to gravitational force downwards, a
tapering down towards the trunk, one envisages the main support apparatus of a superbeing (not to mention the preceding supermen) pending
from the roof of a meditation centre, its length stopping well short of the
floor, whilst a series of diagonally-slanting arms (reminiscent of branches)
tend from it in seeming defiance of gravitational force downwards, those arms
directly issuing from the main support slanting gently downwards, those
indirectly issuing from the main support, i.e. stemming from the main
branch-arms, slanting radically downwards, the resultant impression quite the
reverse of anything which could be described as directly stemming from the
Diabolic Alpha. In short, an appropriate arrangement for a life form directly aspiring
towards the Divine Omega.
"Speaking
personally, I incline to regard the superman and superbeing
phases of the post-human millennium as equivalent to the barbarous and
civilized phases of preceding post-humanist millennial evolution, though as a
more intense, because absolute, barbarism and civilization respectively. After the supermen have had their fill of tripping,
the technocratic servants of this post-human life form will doubtless approve
their upgrading to the superbeing stage, and thus
take measures to free the new brain from its physiological connection with the
old one. The resulting life form will
consequently be beyond sleep and therefore disposed to hypermeditate
on a permanent basis, a procedure bringing life closer to the absolutism of the
pure spirit of heavenly transcendence.
"From indirectly cultivating awareness
through the contemplation of new-brain visions, life will have progressed, in superbeing guise, to directly cultivating awareness through
self-contemplation, this absolutism significant of the highest degree of
civilized religion, an absolutism inexorably leading to transcendence, and thus
to the escape of free electrons from new-brain matter, their escape, or
definitive salvation, being facilitated along the hollow interior of the
support apparatus, which should lead via the main trunk-like support into the
deeps of space, in which setting pure spirit would be free to converge towards
and expand into other such transcendences on route, as it were, to ultimate
unity, as the envisaged goal of heavenly evolution.
Fourth Thinker
The
evolution of literature from the early to the late petty bourgeoisie is, in
effect, from novels to poetry, from a genre-type corresponding to painterly art
to one which corresponds to light art.
As with music and art, each stage of petty-bourgeois literary evolution
passes through two phases, viz. a barbarous and a civilized, which entails a
revolt against civilized literary precedent during its lower phase and, by
contrast, the attainment to a fresh level of civilized literary achievement
during its higher phase. As the early
petty bourgeoisie commenced their stage of literary evolution with a revolt
against bourgeois fictional precedent, it follows that the late petty
bourgeoisie will commence their stage of
literary evolution with a revolt against higher/early petty-bourgeois
precedent.
"Inevitably,
the early petty-bourgeois revolt against bourgeois fiction, corresponding to
expressionism and impressionism in art, takes the form of autobiographical
and/or realistic novels, the former concentrating on the individual's
background and experiences, the latter on the everyday world of societal
phenomena; the one subjective, the other objective.
"Both modes of writing are relatively
barbarous because entailing a paradoxical commitment to the novel genre,
neither autobiography nor realism corresponding to a strictly literary approach
to the novel. They're not complete in
themselves but seem transitional between bourgeois fiction and higher/early
petty-bourgeois literature, which takes the form of either experimental,
largely non-expressive novels or illusional novels,
such as involve completely imaginary worlds and creatures.
"Both these higher modes of early
petty-bourgeois writing, corresponding to abstract expressionism and to
abstract impressionism in art, are civilized, because complete in themselves
and transcending not only traditional modes of novelistic literature ... but
the everyday world of societal phenomena.
With experimental and illusional literature
the novel attains to a climax, beyond which literary progress can only be made
in terms of late petty-bourgeois poetry."
Fifth Thinker
The revolt
of lower/late petty-bourgeois poets against civilized literary precedent takes
the form of either revolutionary political writing or writings on the occult,
depending on the kind of poet in question and whether he is in revolt against
what has been called illusional literature or its
experimental counterpart. Naturally,
this revolt signifies a barbarism because, apart from using poetry in an unpoetical way, the content of the poem created falls
beneath the level of content attained to by civilized novelistic precedent -
political poetry being conceptually inferior to illusional
literature, occult poetry likewise conceptually inferior to experimental
literature, the revolt of a materialistic barbarism against spiritual civilized
precedent paralleling that of a spiritual barbarism against materialistic
civilized precedent. With the
development of a higher/late petty-bourgeois poetry, however, literature is
surpassed by the attainment of poetry to a new civilized achievement, one that
is either experimental, and therefore largely
abstract, or metaphysical, and therefore primarily concerned with spiritual
truth, particularly as applying to neo-Buddhism. Whereas experimental poetry corresponds to
abstract-expressionist light art, metaphysical poetry corresponds to light art
of an abstract-impressionist tendency, an expansion of the spiritual rather
than a contraction of the material. But
no sooner does late petty-bourgeois literature attain to a climax in the above-mentioned
kinds of poetry ... than a proletarian revolt against such civilized precedent
sets in, to signal the commencement of a new class-stage of literary evolution
- namely the ultimate stage.
"Inevitably,
the early proletarian revolt against late petty-bourgeois poetry, corresponding
to representational holography in art, takes the form of expressive
anthological formats, anthologies of new or unknown poets being the genre
relevant to a proletarian stage of literary evolution because collectivized and,
therefore, absolute in constitution, signifying a convergence to omega on the
level of poetry, the Many having become One, so to speak, in a format
which transcends individual and/or
separate publications.
"But, of course, such anthological
poetry as is published in this context generally signifies a conceptual 'fall'
from the experimental or metaphysical content of late petty-bourgeois poetry,
being largely romantic or autobiographical or realistic or otherwise expressive
in a way which falls beneath civilized precedent.
"Such barbarous poetry is equivalent,
consciously or unconsciously, to a revolt against late petty-bourgeois poetry,
the lower phase in the evolution of proletarian writing from negative
beginnings to a positive ending, such as would apply to a people's
civilization, properly so-considered, in which only the most civilized kind of
poetry would be encouraged, poetry which was neither experimental nor
metaphysical, but totally abstract in character.
"Yes, it is towards a completely
impressive, free-electron status that proletarian poetry will tend, as
literature attains to its ultimate climax within the context of abstract superpoems - the literary counterpart to abstract
holography. Thus will higher proletarian
literature be born, an abstract literature testifying, in its computer-disc
presentation, to the transcendent nature of proletarian civilization. If literature began in alpha philosophy, it
is most certainly destined to culminate in omega poetry - the ultimate
civilized achievement and attainment of the goal.
THUS SPEAKS THE SOCIAL TRANSCENDENTALIST
Five speeches to his friends followed by five speeches to his
enemies
"Love,
my friends, is a Protestant ideal relative to Christ. Have Catholics ever been Christians? Traditionally, I don't think so; though these
days there are apparently quite a few of them who put Christ before everyone
else, including the Blessed Virgin, and are consequently akin to Protestants in
Catholic disguise, heretics posing as adherents to the main, or absolute, part
of the theocratic spectrum. I know this
isn't simply a failing of the common people.
But a catholic Protestant is not the true Catholic allegiance which, now
as before, continues to be the Blessed Virgin, that second deity in the
evolution of religion from pagan Creator propitiation to an aspiration towards
the Holy Spirit via the Catholic, Protestant (Christ), Communist (Antichrist),
and Centrist (Second Coming) 'deities' respectively.
"Yes, my friends, Roman Catholicism,
corresponding, in its prime, to an early-stage grand-bourgeois age, put the
relativistic absolutism of the Holy Virgin above pagan absolutism and paid due
homage to her as an intercessor between mankind and
the Father. Catholicism was always essentially
a religion centred in refined sensation, as with incense, holy water, the mass,
et cetera. Stoicism, or the endurance of
pain, had preceded it in absolute pagan times, and Christian love, or positive
emotionality, was to follow it, with the development of Protestant
civilization.
"Stoicism pertained to the autocratic
spectrum of the God-Kings, but refined sensation, conceived as morally
preferable to crude sensation, i.e. hedonistic sin, pertained to the inception
of the theocratic spectrum in a grand-bourgeois age. The subsequent subdivision of that spectrum,
relative to the Protestant heresy, ushered in the religion of love, with Christ
as the religious cynosure. This was not
only an impersonal love of one's fellow man in humanism, but a personal love
for another person as well - the emotional love of the sexes sanctified through
marriage. If the former kind of love is
wise for a time, then the latter must fall somewhat short of wisdom,
corresponding, as it does, to a fool's paradise. Wisdom and folly are but two sides of a
relative coin."
"There
are those, my friends, who claim that Hitler was the Antichrist; that the deity
which follows on behind the Christian one must be the Antichrist, and, to be
sure, there is some truth in that idea.
But Hitler didn't follow on behind Christ for the simple reason that
Fascism, to speak in general terms, appertained to the main part of the
theocratic spectrum as the enemy of everything democratic rather than to an
extension of the heretical subdivision of it from the religion of love, in
Protestantism, to the religion of hate, in Communism - this latter germane to
people's democracy.
"No, Marx was the closest
approximation to the Antichrist (even closer than Engels),
while Lenin was his 'Pauline' disciple, the founder, in effect, of a communist
'church' or, rather, antichurch, viz. the totalitarian state. Communism is but the logical outcome of the
Protestant heresy, the antithesis to Christian love for all men in the hatred
of one category of men, namely the proletariat, for another, namely the
bourgeoisie. It would be illogical to
think of the Antichrist as pertaining to the true part of the theocratic
spectrum, as did Hitler, who, by contrast, signified an antithetical equivalent
to the Blessed Virgin, a kind of crude approximation to the Second Coming,
necessarily subordinate to the main deity of the age, namely the Antichrist
(whose Soviet followers were chiefly responsible for defeating Nazism), and
therefore not entitled to consideration in any evolutionary list of principal
deities from pagan beginnings in the Primal Creator (Father) to transcendental
endings in the Ultimate Creation (the Holy Ghost).
"So, my friends, we can dismiss Hitler
as a secondary god, a failed god, whose eventual eclipse was inevitable, given
the heretical status of the age. He may
have been the antithetical equivalent to the Blessed Virgin - Fascism as much
post-Protestant as Catholicism was pre-Protestant - but the subdivision of the
theocratic spectrum remained dominant over truly theocratic interests in the
guise of Soviet Communism, that legacy of Marx.
"So any list of principal deities
would have to proceed thus: The Father, the Blessed Virgin, Christ, the
Antichrist (Marx), and, in due course, the Second Coming, as signifying, in the
name of Social Transcendentalism, a return of theological primacy to the true
part of the theocratic spectrum in the wake of the heretical Antichrist."
"If
Protestantism was a religion of love, then Fascism, contemporary with the
religion of hate (Communism), must be accorded a bias for refined feelings, the
antithetical equivalent to refined sensation.
In a word, happiness!
"Yes, the happiness of the German
people was of cardinal importance to Hitler, even if it had to be obtained through
force of arms. There was much positive
feeling at the annual party rallies in Nuremberg. Almost everywhere Hitler went, there were
smiles on the faces of the German people.
Even post-war Communism was keen to indulge its citizens in the primary
ideal of the age and, when not true to itself (through hatred of the
bourgeoisie), be true to the main part of the theocratic spectrum in a kind of
quasi-fascist worship of happiness.
"There is something about the tail-end
of the democratic spectrum which intimates of the contemporary (fascist) part
of the theocratic one. In an extreme
relativistic age, necessarily late-stage petty-bourgeois in character, overlappings and hybrid interbreedings
are less the exception than the rule.
Does not a military dictatorship often appear fascist or even communist?
"Be that as it may, the extension of
the true part of the theocratic spectrum beyond Fascism and its positive
feelings can only lead to a more absolute religious ideal, the antithesis to
stoicism ... in awareness, the pure awareness of meditation as germane to
Social Transcendentalism/Super-transcendentalism (synthetically-induced
visionary experience/hypermeditation), the brainchild
of the true approximation to the Second Coming, the Messiah long awaited by both
Jews and Gentiles alike ... as embodiment and intimation of the Holy Ghost -
the ultimate deity of undifferentiated pure spirit at the culmination to
evolution.
"So in a sense this successor to the
Antichrist is the real antithetical equivalent to the Virgin Mary, the
penultimate deity in the evolution of deities from the Father to the Holy
Ghost. Between the two absolute
extremes, that of pure sensuality and pure spirituality,
come the two relative absolutes, both celibate in constitution. And between these come the two relativities
of the heretical subdivision of the theocratic spectrum, viz. the moderately
relative Christ and the radically relative Marx, Protestantism and Communism,
bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy, liberalism and socialism - from
religion and politics to economics, the three forever intertwined throughout a
relative age."
"Not
so in the coming absolute age, when sovereignty would be vested in the Leader
and the ownership or, rather, trusteeship of the means of production pass to
the Centre, of which the Leader is sovereign.
There politics and economics will be absorbed into the Leader, who will
bear these 'sins of the world' in his sovereignty, much as Atlas bore the world
on his shoulders in the pagan mythology of the ancient Greeks, and Christ did
the same for the ensuing Christians.
"There theocracy alone will prevail,
the relativity of politics and economics becoming a thing of the past, like the
democratic and autocratic spectra to which they correspond, economics preceding
politics no less than the God-Kings preceded people's representatives, religion
succeeding politics no less than the people's representatives succeeded kings,
everything passing from matter to spirit, from doing to being. The Truth alone triumphant, as mankind is set
on course for the post-human millennium.
Aesthetics and ethics having faded away or been killed off. The Leader beyond good and evil,
not motivated by ethical considerations, like a democratic politician, but
solely by service to the Truth, considering 'good' that which furthers and
consolidates the Truth.
"Yes, my friends, I am beyond good and
evil, and I rejoice in my freedom, the freedom of the Free Spirit! 'The Good' are not admirable to me, they are
the obverse side of a dualistic coin, striving to combat and counter evil. They're part-and-parcel of a relative
compromise, the existence of the one presupposing that of the other, 'the Good'
continuing to exist so long as there is evil, 'the Right' so long as there is 'the
Left', private enterprise so long as there is state socialism.
"But I, who represent the Truth, am
beyond good and evil, and my followers would live in a society where there was
no compromise between these two adversaries of the ethical spectrum, where evil
had been stamped out for all time and 'the Good' ceased to be necessary, there
being no good for them to do in a society where 'the Evil' no longer held sway
because no longer able to do evil.
Ah, such an absolute society would be free for the Truth, saved from
good and evil by the Truth!"
"Like
the Blessed Virgin, the True World Messiah, loosely corresponding to a Second
Coming, pertains to the true, or absolute, part of the theocratic
spectrum. In being the antithetical
equivalent of the Blessed Virgin, he, too, is virginal, celibate, pure - a
relative absolutism. Even the crude
approximation to this deity, as signified by Hitler, was in some degree
virginal or, at any rate, less carnal than the average German.
"Yes, my friends, he was no great
womanizer, being too shy as a youth and too preoccupied with saving the German
people from their enemies as a man ... to have much time or inclination for
women. As Leader, he took Eva Braun for
mistress, being in theory her lover but in practice somewhat neglectful of
her. He only married her after Germany
was lost and his position as Leader no longer tenable. Their marriage was, as you'll know, but a
brief affair, soon to be interrupted, so legend has it, by mutual suicide. It was an act of charity on Hitler's part to
marry this simple girl at the end.
"Well, my friends, marriage would be
quite inappropriate for the more credible manifestation of the Second Coming,
so you needn't expect him to get married at any time, even if he were
subsequently to take a woman or female companion for domestic help, which is
not impossible though, given his celibate past and absolutist integrity, by no
means guaranteed! Rather, he must
maintain his celibacy in conformity with his status as embodiment and
intimation of the Holy Ghost. After all,
he pertains to the main part of the theocratic spectrum, unlike the Antichrist,
Marx, whose status on the heretical subdivision of that same spectrum wasn't
entirely incompatible with lecherous proclivities!
"There is no intimation of the Holy
Ghost in endomorphic Marx, simply an extension of Protestant love into
communist hate, the hatred of the proletariat for the bourgeoisie, the division
of the ethical spectrum into warring factions more sharply polarized than ever
before, the former striving for an ultimate victory over the latter, but
without the guidance of the Truth, without which no ultimate victory can be
achieved, Communism being but an extension of the ethical antagonism of the
middle spectrum to a polarized antithesis between private capitalism and state
socialism, in which the great world Illusion of Marxism seeks to overcome
Ethics. So not, my friends, 'the Good'
against 'the Evil', as in a liberal democracy, but 'the Illusory' against both
'the Good' and 'the Evil' in the name of the Great Illusion of World Communism,
that heretical ideology of the Antichrist!"
"Know
then, my enemies, that the Truth alone will ultimately be victorious! There can be no question of Illusion
triumphing over Truth. The way to the
post-human millennium leads through Social Transcendentalism, that historical
successor to Fascism and antithesis to autocratic royalism
- the age of leaders superseding that of people's representatives, even those
who, in communist states, represent the people dictatorially. Dictatorial representatives correspond to the
Illusion, not an absolute antithesis to Truth, to the theocratic leader, but
falling just short of it, a near miss or relative antithesis.
"You will have noticed, my enemies,
how fashionable it has become, in this post-Hitlerian
age, to speak of people's representatives as 'leaders', how even bourgeois
prime ministers are regarded, if superficially, as 'leaders'. The age, even now, isn't wholly sympathetic
towards mere representatives. The Zeitgeist
increasingly points towards the coming of leaders, the 'Caesars' in Spengler's paradoxical prophecy, who lead the People from
above, scorning identification with democratic criteria, knowing themselves
to be above and beyond the scope of prime ministers and presidents.
"What use had Hitler for the
Chancellorship or the Presidency? He
absorbed both offices into himself and transcended then in the guise of Führer, the Sovereign Leader of a fascist state. As Nietzsche to the Kaiser, so Spengler to the Führer. Away with petty democrats! The age calls forth theocracy!"
"Even
the Americans, despite their democratic traditions, have an inkling of the
Truth, an interpretation, necessarily bogus, of the Second Coming ... in the
guise of Superman, whether on film or in comic books. This Superman, owing little or nothing to
Nietzsche, arrives on earth as a boy from a distant galaxy, like a Christ from
'On High', and is found and raised by latter-day equivalents of Mary and
Joseph. They discover, in due course,
that their adopted child has superhuman powers, and he learns from the spirit
of his true father - another New Testament parallel - that he must use these
exceptional powers for good, not to alter the destiny of the world but to
combat evil wherever it may arise.
"So, my enemies, this bogus Second
Coming is implicated in the ethical spectrum and is only marginally wiser,
despite his extraordinary powers, than the good right-wingers who, in liberal
societies, are accustomed, after their fashion, to combating political evil in
the form of the left-wing opposition. He
stands no more chance of overcoming evil, in any absolute sense, than they do,
and is all the more bogus from a genuinely Messianic point-of-view, since it is
precisely the American way of life, with its liberal institutions and
capitalist freedoms, that he wishes to protect.
He's not 'the True' but 'the Good', and if 'the Evil' are among his
chief enemies, they certainly aren't the only ones! He would oppose 'the Illusory' as well,
assuming there were any Communists at large in the land of his adoption.
"Fortunately for
"Could
Social Transcendentalists be statesmen, in any real political sense? No, my enemies, Social Transcendentalists
should never be defined in terms applicable to the democratic spectrum. Rather, they're theocratic Centrists, for
whom the meditation centre takes precedence over any parliamentary
assembly. Indeed, there wouldn't be a
parliamentary assembly, since parliaments appertain to democracy as places
where people's representatives congregate to do the people's business.
"If theocratic Centrists were to
congregate anywhere, it wouldn't be in a parliament building but in a special
Centre, a kind of arch-cathedral equivalent in which they would discuss what
needed to be discussed in relation to Social Transcendentalist progress, and
where they would listen to the Leader haranguing them on the domestic and
global situation, ideological ambitions and obligations, or the finer points of
Centrist logic. They would face the
Leader in a kind of semi-circular arrangement, followers in the presence of the
ideological cynosure, somewhat along the lines of Mussolini's Grand Council,
the Leader and his chief disciples - members of the ruling elite.
"Naturally there would also be
regional Centres, where the generality of theocratic Centrists in any one area
could congregate to discuss local affairs and carry on the business of what
would formerly have been called Local Government. Most if not all Centrists should, in
addition, have an individual meditation centre for purposes of religious
instruction and enlightenment of the masses, their role there akin to that of a
priest in a church, being effectively the successors to priests.
"Unlike in a relative society,
however, these theocratic Centrists would not function separately from
politicians, since there would be no politics as generally understood within a
democratic context. With the supersession of democracy, legislative and administrative
authority should pass exclusively to the theocratic spectrum, as signified by
the Centre. Just as in Catholic
"Of
course, I know that you, my enemies, will try to prevent Social
Transcendentalism from coming to pass in
"But just consider, my enemies, how
dissatisfied he would feel if, in being democratically elected, he was duly
obliged, along with his chief enemies, to take a seat in parliament, in the dáil, and play the democratic game, co-existing with
political parties on the basis of democratic representation, obliged to face
the prospect of future general elections and a permanent or intermittent
representative status!
"No, that kind of situation he could
never tolerate! So if he were to be
elected democratically - and there is no other way that he would want to assume
political responsibility - it would have to be on the prior understanding,
backed and sanctioned by the Church, that he intended to abolish the
parliamentary system and set up a Social Transcendentalist administration -
admittedly a most unorthodox and paradoxical basis for being elected, but not
altogether inconceivable in a country where 'God and the Church come first' and
a majority of people could therefore probably be depended upon to use democracy
in order to vote for a new and ultimate theocracy, even granted hard-line
democratic opposition to theocratic absolutism.
"Yet he knows that even if he were
elected in such a paradoxical fashion, there would still be parliamentary
opposition to his intentions to abolish the democratic constitution, so that,
one way or another, friction would probably break out between those on his side
- the true and theocratic Irishmen - and those on the other side - that of the
state, democracy, capitalism, private property, petty-bourgeois
internationalism. There is no way that
my enemies, a sizeable minority of the population of
"So,
my enemies, I take up the responsibility of the Last Judgement and I say: if
struggle there must be, then we shall struggle to the end, using the
opportunity any such reactionary revolt against majority interests may give us
to remove your influence from the land, in order that our people may go forward
to a Social Transcendentalist salvation ... free from all alien influences,
free to be true to their selves, to develop an absolutely theocratic
Ireland. We would rejoice in the
opportunity any such struggle would give us to purge you from our midst!
"Eventually, my enemies, there would
be few if any enemies left on the island, and the Irish people would be free
from oppression for all time, free to develop their theocratic potential to its
utmost, as they grew into the True World Religion ... of Social
Transcendentalism/Super-transcendentalism and paid regular visits to its
meditation centres, the future successors to churches.
"But, of course, the Irish Social
Transcendental Centre, as
"Ah, hear this well, my enemies: we
Social Transcendentalists have truly global objectives! We are no petty-bourgeois internationalists,
still less bourgeois nationalists, but proletarian supra-nationalists for whom
the existence of nation states is but a passing phase of political evolution,
one especially pertinent to the democratic spectrum. We of the theocratic spectrum know where
evolution is tending and, rest assured, we shall know how to further it as
well!"
Thus speaks the Social Transcendentalist.
