ON ROMANTICISM AND CLASSICISM, ETC.

1. Just as Judaism was a revolt, in part, against pagan polytheism, so, in like measure, Protestantism was a Western revolt against Roman Catholic polytheism, substituting the one truly Christian divinity, viz. Christ, for the plethora of associated divinities to which the Catholic Church appeared to attach as much if not more importance, viz. the Father, the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Peter, and a number of lesser figures derived from the Gospels and, inevitably, the Church itself.

2. Now, however, it seems that a new kind of polytheism exists in various parts of the world where, under Marxism-Leninism or some derivative thereof, the practice of collective leadership prevails, the communist authorities not simply People’s representatives but also elevated to a pseudo-theistic status commensurate with their dictatorial prerogatives. If Marx and Lenin are traditionally the chief 'divinities' of this pseudo-religion, then the current president and other high-ranking leaders of the communist state constitute its lesser 'divinities', apt subjects for iconization for the adulation of the proletariat, faithful followers of the gospel according to Marx and Lenin.

3. However, no such secular polytheism would be permissible in a society under Social Transcendentalist guidance, where a new monotheism, embodied in the Leader, would signify the attainment of a classicism superior to either Protestant or Judaic precedent, a classicism relative to the Second Coming and/or True World Messiah, reflecting an aspiration towards the Holy Spirit rather than an acquiescence in Christ or a stemming from the Father. If polytheism indicates a stemming from the Many, the diabolic roots of evolution, then monotheism indicates, by contrast, an aspiration towards the One, its divine consummation. Whether this Oneness is diabolic or divine or a combination of both ... will depend on the epoch and people in question.

4. Let us therefore list the approximate evolution of world civilization in a way which reflects this polytheistic/monotheistic alternation, as between romantic and classic antitheses: early-pagan (Byzantine) polytheistic romanticism, late-pagan (Judaic) monotheistic classicism; early-Christian (Roman Catholic) polytheistic romanticism, late-Christian (Protestant) monotheistic classicism; early-transcendental (Communist) polytheistic romanticism, late-transcendental (Centrist) monotheistic classicism.

5. Graeco-Roman civilization (which in relation to the West I have elsewhere characterized as late pagan) was of course polytheistic and thus, in effect, a continuation of early-pagan civilization vis-à-vis Judaism, with its monotheistic bias. Early Christianity, whilst in part an extension of Graeco-Roman polytheistic precedent, also embraced Judaic monotheism with regard to a Creator (the Father), compliments of the Old Testament (Jehovah), and thereby took on that relativity characteristic of Christian civilization, with its atomic dichotomy, a relativity still accruing, at a later date, to the Protestant revolt in favour of a more absolutist, monotheistic orientation in the person of Christ, Himself a relative, or anthropomorphic, divinity.

6. Christian decadence is characterized not by an atheism that turns its back, as it were, on the Father and Christ, but by a slandering of these two traditional divinities. Hence one could define it as a perverse relativity, a negative dualism wherein the Christian civilization is progressively polluted by internal slander. The analogy of sheep in a pen who, instead of jumping over its fence into freedom, remain imprisoned, to steadily worsen their living conditions, is not entirely inappropriate here! The Western bourgeoisie do pretty much the same thing, fouling Christianity with their blasphemous slander, but lacking the courage or desire to abandon it. Clinging negatively to a class allegiance out of formalism rather than conviction. Sowing the seeds of their own demise in soulless materialism.

7. If the civilized petty-bourgeoisie are now capable of compiling and appreciating poetry anthologies, such anthologies are not abstract but descriptive and expressive. Only in a Social Transcendentalist civilization would anthologies of abstract poetry be the norm, as an aid to contemplation, an aspect of religious striving, part of every Meditation Centre's cultural stock. And such poetry would be the highest literature precisely because it induced contemplation rather than necessitated reading; because its appreciation favoured the electron as opposed to neutron and/or proton side of the new brain; because, in a word, it neutralized the will!

8. As of old, literature, like art (holography) and music (pitch-oriented synthesizer tonality), would once again become inseparable from religion, an aspect of Social Transcendentalist self-realization. Consequently no secular literature, art, or music would be encouraged, all democratic institutions of the arts - libraries, art galleries, museums, theatres, concert halls, etc. - having been transcended in the interests of a theocratic absolutism, people thus being encouraged to attend the Meditation Centre for such culture - apart from the possibility of films, videos, audios, and so on - as they may desire, the availability of the highest art itself a sufficient inducement in this regard. Secular art having been consigned to the rubbish heap of bourgeois (church/state) history, obsolescent religious art likewise, the way would then be clear for the highest theocratic art to blossom on the firm foundations of a Social Transcendentalist civilization, drawing men nearer to the Holy Spirit and, hence, simultaneously pointing towards the future post-Human Millennium.

9. Verily, so long as a single library or museum or concert hall or art gallery remains in existence, this ultimate civilization will not come to pass! Those who patronize and uphold these secular institutions cannot be expected to further the cause of the truly theocratic institution that must bear sole responsibility for cultural nourishment of the spirit in their wake. This task must be entrusted to people more attuned to theocratic progress, the revolutionary fighters for a better future - one based on sound Social Transcendentalist criteria!

10. Unlike the Protestant church, the Roman Catholic church, more absolutist in character, catered to the various arts (literature, music, painting, sculpture), as did the temples of Graeco-Roman pagan civilization, the early Greek in particular. By banishing art from its precincts, however, the Protestant church, though well-intentioned in regard to itself, unwittingly encouraged the growth of secular art, with a consequence that various democratic institutions of cultural nourishment quickly came into being, and not simply to replace the cultural void created by Protestantism, but to satisfy a growing demand for secular culture as an expression of democratic freedoms and rights, the cleavage between state and church becoming more radical with the emancipation of the State attendant upon the Age of Enlightenment (or pseudo-Enlightenment) and, following the French Revolution, the progressive decadence of Western - meaning primarily Protestant - civilization.

11. For if, during the classical phase of Protestant civilization, the Church was more influential than the State, by the time its romantic phase arrived the converse was increasingly becoming the case, with the State and, as a corollary of this, secular art growing in importance as time wore on, a trend which could not but culminate in the state absolutism of communist pseudo-civilization, with its all-powerful opposition to the Church and predisposition towards Socialist Realism - the most secular democratic art conceivable.

12. Just as communist pseudo-civilization arose out of the decadence of Protestant civilization, and this in spite of a Catholic tradition, albeit one subject to Western influence, so the future Social Transcendentalist civilization should arise out of the church-biased Roman Catholic civilization of contemporary Ireland and, contrary to Communism, extend the legacy of the Church to a degree whereby, in the form of the Centre (the religiously-biased institution germane to Social Transcendentalism), it becomes all-powerful and can consequently dispense with the State and its secular culture altogether, arrogating political, not to say economic, responsibilities to itself. In this civilization, art (in the fullest sense of that term) will once again become exclusively the 'handmaiden of religion', as it was in the distant past and, to a degree, still is wherever a genuinely Catholic civilization prevails, and this in spite of its continued co-existence with the secular art of the democratic, Protestant tradition - an art which, together with its communist successor, will be rigorously proscribed, once Social Transcendentalist criteria obtain in Ireland, as elsewhere, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.

13. In literature, the novel is the most democratic art form, the one that strives to be popular and, hence, commercial, whether written from a conservative or a social democratic point-of-view. Admittedly, a small number of novelists aspire towards theocracy to a degree, as did Aldous Huxley, and are thus akin to painters who push canvas art in an abstract direction. But that is still merely the 'best of a bad job', so to speak, within the novelistic context, an elite procedure that will only appeal to the most spiritual intelligentsia and not to the broad mass of novel readers who, as before, require a more unadulterated democratic literature, particularly in countries like Britain and America.

14. Needless to say, such literature would be taboo in a radically theocratic society - indeed, the writing and reading of novels, no matter how good their intentions, would be discouraged, if not proscribed, as unworthy of serious attention. Only a democratic society, and in particular a liberal one, can take the novel for granted, just as it takes paintings and symphonies for granted - those plastic and musical counterparts to novelistic literature. All this will change in the future, as much regarding the obsolescent theocratic and autocratic arts ... as the more conspicuously obsolescent democratic ones, not to forget the Social Realist successors to the latter.