Understanding Class. Although I have been making distinctions in my philosophy for some period of time now between the noumenal and the phenomenal, the former appertaining, in general terms, to space and time, and the latter to volume and mass, I haven’t systematically correlated them with the concepts ‘noble’ and ‘plebeian’ before, and this surprises me insofar as a strict correlation between the noumenal and the noble, on the one hand, and the phenomenal and the plebeian, on the other hand, can and should be drawn, even if this does mean that nobility is no more one thing, or limitable to one point of the intercardinal axial compass, than is being plebeian. For there are four points to the said compass subdivided between the genders into the noumenal objectivity and noumenal antisubjectivity of metachemistry and antimetaphysics at the northwest point; the noumenal subjectivity and noumenal anti-objectivity of metaphysics and antimetachemistry at the northeast point; the phenomenal objectivity and phenomenal antisubjectivity of chemistry and antiphysics at the southwest point; and the phenomenal subjectivity and phenomenal anti-objectivity of physics and antichemistry at the southeast point. Therefore on axial terms alone we must distinguish, with due gender distinctions, two kinds of nobility from two kinds of plebeianism, viz. the metachemical nobility and antimetaphysical nobility of noumenal objectivity and noumenal antisubjectivity from the antichemical plebeianism and physical plebeianism of phenomenal anti-objectivity and phenomenal subjectivity, on the one hand, and the metaphysical nobility and antimetachemical nobility of noumenal subjectivity and noumenal anti-objectivity from the antiphysical plebeianism and chemical plebeianism of phenomenal antisubjectivity and phenomenal objectivity on the other hand, the former polarities making for state-hegemonic/church-subordinate criteria, the latter polarities for church-hegemonic/state-subordinate criteria. Therefore damnation is possible, in theory if not necessarily in practice, from the metachemical nobility to the antichemical plebeianism on primary state-hegemonic/church-subordinate terms, with counter-salvation being correlatively possible from the antimetaphysical nobility to the physical plebeianism on secondary state-hegemonic/church subordinate terms, as from the evil and crime of noumenal objectivity to the good and punishment of phenomenal anti-objectivity in the one case, and from the pseudo-folly and pseudo-sin of noumenal antisubjectivity to the pseudo-wisdom and pseudo-grace of phenomenal subjectivity in the other case. Transferring to the other axis, salvation is possible, in theory if not necessarily in practice, from the antiphysical plebeianism to the metaphysical nobility on primary church-hegemonic/state-subordinate terms, with counter-damnation being correlatively possible from the chemical plebeianism to the antimetachemical nobility on secondary church-hegemonic/state-subordinate terms, as from the sin and folly of phenomenal antisubjectivity to the grace and wisdom of noumenal subjectivity in the one case, and from the pseudo-crime and pseudo-evil of phenomenal objectivity to the pseudo-punishment and pseudo-good of noumenal anti-objectivity in the other case. Whatever the case, however, it is evident that the noumenal contexts are noble and the phenomenal ones plebeian, and therefore we should remember that the nobility are no less divisible on an objective/subjective basis according with gender than are the plebs, their phenomenal counterparts. The only difference – and it is a significant one – is that whereas the metachemical and antimetaphysical nobilities appertain, in conjunction with the antichemical and physical plebs, to state-hegemonic/church-subordinate axial criteria, the metaphysical and antimetachemical nobilities appertain, in conjunction with the antiphysical and chemical plebs, to church-hegemonic/state-subordinate axial criteria. In that respect, both sets of nobles and both sets of plebs are axially antithetical and therefore incompatible. It is the story, in a nutshell, of Ireland and Great Britain or, as some would prefer, of Eire and the United Kingdom. For whereas nobility in Eire is theocratic and anti-autocratic, in Britain it is autocratic and antitheocratic. And whereas in Britain plebeianism is democratic and antibureaucratic, in Eire, by contrast, it is bureaucratic and antidemocratic. The House of Commons is, as suggested by the name, the fulcrum of British plebeian political life, and Puritanism is the denominational persuasion of the physical and antichemical plebs, whose opposition to autocracy and antitheocracy grants them a certain complacency, if not class smugness, that would be quite out of place in the sin-ridden consciousness of Irish Catholics of a plebeian cast, however much other factors, not least of a chemical persuasion, may be at work. For in Catholic Ireland it is theocracy and, correlatively, anti-autocracy which takes moral precedence, at least in theory, over antidemocracy and bureaucracy, and therefore the priests and, to a lesser extent, the jurists are the representative nobilities, traditionally, who keep the plebs grovelling in sin and pseudo-crime, folly and pseudo-evil, in both antiphysics and chemistry. But such church-hegemonic/state-subordinate criteria should still be differentiated from the rather more contemporary prevalence of quasi-state-hegemonic criteria under American influence primarily, since the urban reality of a lapsed Catholic generality beholden to secular impositions is what should guarantee to revolutionary religion more genuine manifestations of theocracy and anti-autocracy in the decades and centuries to come, once Social Theocracy can be democratically established as the solution not only to worldly shortcomings, but the means whereby all netherworldly-dominated obstacles to otherworldly-led progress may be first curtailed and eventually eliminated.