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