|
Wisdom (by Author) . . . January 9, 2001 Falling stars and burning torches- Durand von Meissen There was a very certain character who recently argued that all people were equal to himself, and that there was no one who was less than himself in estimation of personal worth. Therefore all men were equal, in his estimation; or at least, equal to him. That some may be greater and not equal to himself totally eluded him, being wrapped in the spirit of equality for a morally indifferent and enervated intellect; characteristic of today’s lazy education. Though one meets this attitude in the local tavern, school, or church, the spirit of its mediocre inspiration remains the same; namely, that there is no greater thing among men than that which is most common to the least. This fallacy of the primitive, betokened in some famous authors of our recent past, has been wrought into a modern and pagan religion, which America calls Democracy. In such a rule of state, whatever is not ‘common’ is concluded, outright, to be a farce of nature. So Americans seek rulers that mimic themselves as images and shadows, not concrete and superior sons of Nature who can and would guide them as the children that they truly are, and ever prove to be. As such, America is secretly the laughing stock of those who have mastered the tradition of two thousand years and better, primarily because, in childhood, she boasts of wisdom which she has not, nor is competent to prove. Her political factions, moralizing certainty, and social tyranny of the mob are proof positive of their concerted and popular ignorance. But as to our aforementioned friend, whose understanding pretends to make all men equal with himself proclaiming ignorance as the common lot; what of those who are not less acute in their self-discernment than that boon of self-conception he so studiously admires? They are discounted. Exhalting the fool, and calling all men fools, he makes all into one and does not account that there may be something outside of that which he so desperately confesses as his own ignorance and wretched conception of equality. Sure, he is equal to the fool; but is he equal to the wise? He forgets to ask this question because he forces the conception of himself upon all Personality for humanity, making a false equality of attitude where there is an obvious inequality of personal disposition. The fool is such because they do not care to be otherwise; but fools are wise because they know they are fools and care to be otherwise. Here is his essential failure, which amounts to a denial of Faith. The fool, whom we all are, becomes wise at first when in understanding the delusions of self-estimation they know their conceits to be a prison of adolescent neediness which have, like the chains of Prometheus, wracked them upon the rock of materiality and viperous objectivity, whose modern equivalent is a popular worth pecking away at the regal Man. It is this understanding that makes the fool wise, but which the wise understanding calls their foolishness. To be equal to the fool in ignorance is a claim among those who cannot dare to bare the agony of their own true stupidity, but who ever strain to an equality with a vision of wisdom that must elude them, resolved only to contort meaning upon paradox, demonstrating their own blatant vacuity. Such false equality in the ignorant is a form of Nemesis that must doom them to a state of self-combustion and corruption that is incapable of recognizing its own folly. It is never enough, however, to know the foolishness of the world and to escape from it, like a deer in flight; but the discerning must face the terrible tyranny of idiocy and mediocrity with steely guard and front upon the powers of the mob with iron resolve. No matter what the cost, such bravery is the soul of life and the ancient world itself from whom our state is born, in which it abides, into which it may mature and close the gap of ages, resolving the dilemma of cooperation: should the fool rule the wise, or the many rule the few? What our friend was trying to say is that, No matter the circumstance of life and accidents of birth, the essential truth of our humanity remains the same and always holds good in the tribulations of the world and every hope into which we may be compelled by experience. He merely translates that into…"We are all equal, and as I am ignorant, we are all ignorant." This is America’s popular clap-trap, a stunning confession of the failure public education has made of the past; whose coal they do not dare refine under pressure of intelligence, but promote in service of a commercial deluge. What’s worse, politicians, lawyers, and scholars have turned such vulgarity into an argument that says nothing is true and that all things are a power struggle, the ends justifying the means. Here is Idealism at its worst material aspect and the potential rebirth of sponsored fascism, whose psychology still rules in the halls of state and corridors of education in America, most notably among the positivists who linger in guise of minions to the state and proffer their objectified pharmacology to the above professionals like so many doctors to their in-patients. Behold the scripted dignity of this wretched crew who behave as if they were held in thrall to their psychotherapist, attempting the best which their duplicity may invent in the way of inoffensive absurdity. With the exception of their universally despised mediocrity, these professionals must become objects of contest among themselves or otherwise pandering mouthpieces of empty-headed doublespeak which the mercurial powers of politics may invent. Perhaps the most obvious evidence of this insanity would be known among the politics of Judicial Appointments, starting with the Federal Bench; otherwise working its way into every manner of legislative body, right down to the City Counsel and School Board. Those who doubt this may wonder at the meaning and experience which such have made in the claim of Zero Tolerance. Some Liberality of Education? Our friend does not seem to have envisioned such contest of the equally worthless, believing that his Nihilism was somehow a panacea for the ills which ambition unlooses upon the world. What he was likely after, given the secretive nature of egotism, was the assertion of the typical democratic prejudice; namely, that there is no one greater than themselves, no one superior or worthy of more personal value than his own, mediocre, unavailing complacency. Here is a person for whom evil or good can mean little; who cares to do little than leave the world as they find it, except in so far as it serves their own interests, which they humbly and falsely disavow. What use is it to change the world or have passion to change the world when everyone is equal to my humble self or no greater than my own cherished ignorance? Such is the malaise which some in the tradition of the West called the "lukewarm" and which has always contributed to the justifications of those who are swallowed by the mass of their self-absorbed associates, in whom they find their meaning. For our friend it means that the horde of mediocre men whom he condescends to call his equals, though all the while accusing the better mankind of falsehood, shall be the Idol of his own, summarized vulgarity. So comes the deadpan and tangible idiocracy of those whose supreme wish is to be greatest among men, but who have no power to prove it in themselves finding or inventing every reason to despise wisdom and deride it in others. Another signal of a democratic folly; namely, that such corporations of the mediocre always default in bankruptcy of leadership. The ultimate and relevant truth our friend unwittingly denounces is that idolatry of the Matter called 'human character' itself, which by a vigorous determination involves the transforming of our vulgar dross of personality into the rare gold of universal insight; rare gold, that is, of human wisdom (which the gods must little admire but approve). Such trial of personality is not known by those whose ambition does not reach beyond the mob and those comforts which conformity of egotism, nationality, race, and religion provide for the vacant soul. For them, democracy is the god of the ages, the ultimate accomplishment of political ambition, and the form of social organization which only the morally complaisant and economically ambitious can admire. Besides which, the religion of their father’s foster all that runs contrary to their avowed political and ideological designs, which they call national sovereignty; a kind of schizophrenia in their historical awareness (collective idiocy) which threatens the suicide of our world. Such is the ever-present war footing of American conceit and democratic self-delusion. Is it any wonder that the political divides can barely win, on every level, but half of the actual, popular votes; let alone the interest of that major, though potential, electorate? Democracy in America is an evident farce, perpetrated by the cynicism of this wretched crew in whom alone is the benefit of a denuded humanity. The popular myth of the wisdom of the savage man is not so far off though, in the sense that those who have not been bred in the basket of political rhetoric are sophistically innocent of the manipulations of the secularized and objectified soul. These who work and live under the mantle of life’s necessities know better than to believe that all men are equal as they see about them every evidence that life mounts on scales of superiority that is secretly born and proven by the acquaintance of their talent with the tasks at hand. So every competent worker knows, every warrior discerns, that society is bred of the politically or socially privileged whose associations the mass of ignorant humanity fosters and which the privileged abuse to their advantage. The instinct of this primal savage, whom the sophisticated idealistically laud and the materialists confound, knows full well how the laws of the universe have been overturned by conventional men and their pretended democracy and how the rights of the best have been discharged by the clamor of the many and their manipulative cohorts. Some answer, however, should be offered to this false presumption that counts one man as good as another, one as best as the many, and the many as good as the few. No delusion of grandeur could be worse than such democratic idealism as is fostered in this generation that innerves every moral impulse of truth and justice and straight reasoning. Yet the hope of freedom rests upon the confrontation of such simple mindedness that would seek to level every excellence and uncommon virtue, rebounding to the abolition of the rule of law and every noble instinct which culture and history have vouchsafed us. Let the vulgar rule in their equality and the fascism of the state must soon follow. If it must be had then, here is an exposition of character that is the means and ends and substance of society and the viability of every lasting human relation: Evil-worst-bad-indifferent-good-best-Holy
Such is the kingdom of the Heart, which mankind is and which the world has ever, shall always, reflect. There is nothing but such which human character can exemplify and which stands as a continuum for personality that all must admit or reject. Character, unlike personality, is a conclusive state of existence and always is substantiated, in greater or lessor degrees, by the self-conception of the individual; whereas personality is the mere consciousness of the individual in the moment of perception or action. The personality of the individual, as distinct from Person-ality per se, is ephemeral, like the attitudes with which we dress ourselves in order to comport with others untoward our social acceptance or needy involvement, or more innocently in play. Character, however, is the integrated thing of all our conceptions of the world, others, and ourselves that orients our personality to life and which ultimately determines the outcome of our existence, barring supposed chance and apparent tragedy. Personality, like a dress or coat, can be taken off and put on again in different moods depending upon the needs of circumstance or whim of inclination. But personality that is not consistent with character in the fundamental axioms and orientations of one’s existence in the world is an example of hypocrisy, though perhaps unintended...call it Dissonance. Where there is no character to orient personality one becomes as vacant as the mere void, bent upon by the tides of fashion or prejudice or material advantage. What our friend cannot see is that character is actually good or evil, or indifferent; but never a dogmatic fact of personality, which is impossible, moving along a continuum of potentials that exemplify the possibilities of experience and the goals which every one has influence in and over. To nullify the differences of human character, accounting all dispositions as the same, is to eradicate the virtues that have made for culture, freedom, and justice in the world. If the world depended upon the equality of the many it would have long ago perished and would certainly have been swallowed up by the fascism of recent Europe; though it yet may be in different, more subtle, disguise. This continuum IS human character, and no part is less human than the other. To face this is to know that we are not equal but are molded by the personalities that we adopt and foster in our relations. Each of us is a maker of the world, and where there is indifference there is only a personality who stepped out of the way of moving traffic to let the ways of the world pass by. "Better open hatred than hidden love" goes the proverb, because to know where another stands in relation to yourself is enabling to act in truth, without dissemblance. But where there is hypocrisy there is the dead end of action where nothing can happen of real importance except delusion and postponement of life. Every hypocrite is a shadow of mankind and indifferent to the moral importance of his or her own character. Human character informs the end of one’s life, and every disposition carries moral import for oneself and those with whom one relates. Thus indifference, hypocrisy, and cynicism are all cut from the same cloth; that is, from the same personality that is without substantial humanity but always in the seeming or denying. "I would that you were either hot or cold; but as you are lukewarm, I shall spit you out of my mouth." Oblivion. The indifferent, like our friend, however have the special gift of not being able to recognize the good from the bad, in that they cannot, in themselves, discern the distinction between either. It is no empty verbiage to make such distinction however, despite the sophistication of pretended philosophers, literary hacks, and political soothsayers. Every unadulterated soul can tell you whether the stranger who happened into town was a scoundrel or vagabond or angel by virtue of Nature’s intuitive dower. But how is it that lawyers, scholars, and politicians can argue away murder and war? Indifference. Not their own indifference, that is, but the indifference of the citizen, whom they reflect; idols of Democracy. Whoever abandons the welfare of the state to politicians and other professional hacks through indifference must expect lawlessness, corruption, avarice, murder, rapine of every stripe, and eventually war. The same must apply to the individual who abandons themselves to indifference in their own character. Good and bad in life will forever batten them against the waves of experience, like helpless nomads in a foreign land, caught between the tides of coming and going, of chance and ridicule, of yesterday and tomorrow, always living on borrowed and tenuous time. If indifference is philosophical, it is called cynicism; if religious it is called dogmatic or agnostic. All of which are too cowardly to admit that they can’t believe in either truth or virtue without the props of deceit and who must let the world sink into the abyss being left to its own determination, whose divisive way they foster and revel in. It should’t be said, however, that our friend meant that he was wholly indifferent to the better qualities of humanity, but that all men were as important as himself. We should assume that what he meant was that all men were as good as his own self-admired aspiration, certainly not less. But that some men were bad and some were good, this he would not admit. Yet in terms of human character this can hardly be said from experience as all who have any acquaintance in the world would testify that some people are simply dull, obnoxious, or otherwise inane while others are inspiring, graceful, and suggestive of a better future. Then again, whose to say? What’s dull to one may be inspired to another. So near to indifference is the merely good and bad among men, hardly distinguishable. We could admit then that the indifferent character may be good or bad without much distinction, or that the good may be bad without real contradiction and the bad may be good without any real merit. Herein lies the vast sea of our fellows whose ebb and tide neither washes away the individuality of our Person nor swallows the past with any particular good intention or proof of the sacred. Like the sea they exist and are moved by the subtle influences of our commonality. One might call them the silent majority, probably 3/5ths of our total population in wish of experience that little benefits another and is impotent to inspire themselves. To speak with the good or bad is to bring out their actual distinctions, not between themselves however, but from the indifferent on the one hand and the worst and best on the other. The latter opposites are people with commitments that can be evaluated in terms of their evident motivation and who don’t equivocate on the nature of that direction of character in which they have oriented themselves. These latter are decidedly not indifferent; in fact, they appear to be quite fixed in orientation as to each other, the best and worst, with markedly distinct characterological traits from each other, though not so much from the indifferent. Some study of our selves in this may follow.
--second redaction, half writ-- DvM
|
|
|