CYCLE THIRTY-FOUR: CONTRASTING TYPES OF SOCIETY

1. Where objective criteria are hegemonic over subjective criteria, as in female-based, or heathenistic, societies, the ethical mean will be conceived in terms of a struggle between evil and good, fire and water, for the control of men's lives.

2. Where, by contrast, subjective criteria are hegemonic over objective criteria, as in male-centred, or Christian, societies, the ethical mean will be conceived in terms of a struggle between folly and wisdom, vegetation and air, for the control of men's lives.

3. A balance between objective and subjective criteria is much less common than might be supposed, bearing in mind that the State and the Church, for example, tend to co-exist, in any given type of society, on the basis of one of them being the pseudo-image of the other, rather than its moral antithesis.

4. Hence a genuine Kingdom, rooted in untrammelled autocracy, will tend to require a pseudo-Centre, in which religion is monotheistic, whilst a genuine State, rooted in parliamentary democracy, will tend to require a pseudo-Church, in which religion is polytheistic.

5. Conversely a genuine Church, centred in pantheism, will tend to require a pseudo-State, in which politics is bureaucratic, whilst (hypothetically) a genuine Centre, centred in atheistic deism, will tend to require a pseudo-Kingdom, in which politics is meritocratic.

6. Thus, far from upholding a balance between the objective and the subjective sides of life, societies tend to reflect an imbalance favouring one or the other, with a 'bovaryized' manifestation of that which is not representatively hegemonic being the logical corollary of such an ethnically-conditioned actuality.

7. In England, the traditional existence of a genuine Kingdom, rooted in the cruelty of fiery criminality, required the co-existence, in subordinate fashion, of the Anglo-Catholic pseudo-Centre, whereas the struggle for parliamentary democracy was closely linked to the existence, in subordinate fashion, of the Puritan pseudo-Church, which is the logical corollary, in the justness of watery punishment, of a genuine State.

8. In Ireland, by contrast, the traditional existence of a genuine Church, centred in the stupidity of vegetative sinfulness, required - following the just liberation of Southern Ireland from British rule - the co-existence, in subordinate vein, of the republican pseudo-State, whose political essence is bureaucratic (and therefore quasi-economic) rather than democratic (and hence properly political), whereas the coming struggle for Social Transcendentalism will require the co-existence, in subordinate vein, of a Centrist pseudo-Kingdom, such that administers, through the kindness of airy grace, to the genuine Centre's (hypothetically) religiously sovereign People in what I have described as a triadic Beyond, the properly religious aspect of 'Kingdom Come'.

9. In short, the actuality of female-oriented societies, whether metachemically Superheathen or chemically Heathen, materialistic or realistic, is a genuine objectivity and a pseudo-subjectivity in which not vegetation and air, but fire and water are the predominating elements.

10. The actuality, by contrast, of male-oriented societies, whether physically Christian or metaphysically Superchristian, naturalistic or idealistic, is a genuine subjectivity and a pseudo-objectivity in which not fire and water, but vegetation and air are the preponderating elements.

11. The one type of society, upholding objectivity, is libertarian and competitive, while the other type of society, upholding subjectivity, is conservative and co-operative.

12. We may contrast, on a noumenal/phenomenal basis, the ultra-libertarianism of autocratic (Superheathen) societies with the libertarianism of democratic (Heathen) societies, the former competitively individualistic and the latter competitively collectivistic.

13. Likewise we may contrast, on a phenomenal/noumenal basis (if only in imagination at present), the conservatism of pantheistic (Christian) societies with the ultra-conservatism of atheistic (Superchristian) societies, the former co-operatively collectivistic and the latter co-operatively individualistic.

14. Hence not only are libertarianism and conservatism on opposite sides of the gender fence, as between free will and natural determinism; they are morally opposite in their respective relationships to either secular or religious values, the former competitive in its objectivity, the latter co-operative in its subjectivity.