Party holds to be truth is truth.
“It is impossible to see reality except by looking
through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you
have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-
destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble
yourself before you can become sane.” 39
Earth in the 21st century CE remains predominantly a
mixture of both the religious and post-religious telos-
ignorant. Like those chained in the darkness of Plato’s
Cave, they can see and think no further than the old
superstitions, fears, and social constriction of “free will”.
Only through initiation can the few Elect of their number
cast off these chains and awaken to the true and non-
destructive enlightenment of telos.
E. Historical Non- Telos: Determinism
As noted above, the alternative to Mechanistic free
will is determinism, which, as the term implies, denies
all conscious volition in the OU (which includes all
human activity). This is the “cold, dead extreme” of
existence, in which there is nothing but cause/effect,
stimulus/response - all of which, were one to take all
factors into account, result in inevitable, predictable
outcomes.
Determinism became fashionable in the scientific
community with the advent of Newtonian physics, which
39 Orwell, George, 1984. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company,
1949, pages #205-206.
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enthusiasts sought to extend beyond natural phenomena
to all event interactions, including those of human
beings. This resulted in the notion that human thoughts
and emotions could be not just predicted but controlled
by identifying and manipulating the environmental,
physiological, and psychological factors that govern them.
On the scale of human communities and nations,
determinism was loosely present in the East in such
concepts as Taoism, in which the universe and everything
in it rolled inexorably onward through time, with
everything in it locked to that mechanism. There is
accordingly no personal discretion possible for Taoists:
The most one can do is to sense and harmonize with the
Tao, so as not to be overwhelmed by it.
In the West determinism got off to a slow start,
b e c a u s e i t w a s a n t i t h e t i c a l t o e s t a b l i s h
religions’ (principally Judæo-Christianity) belief in a
creative and active God. And, of course, in the related
belief that his human creatures had brought “original sin”
upon themselves through Adam & Eve’s making a [free
will] choice. If there were no need for God, and if A&E
had no responsibility for an “inevitable choice”, then the
entire religious control system evaporates: There is no
deity to be vengeful; no humans deserving of vengeance.
With the Enlightenment and the eclipse of literal
religious belief, however, came the notion that there was
a predictability, a mechanism in human affairs. This was
associated with another supposition: that history was
“progressing” through time from the primitive to the
sophisticated. Interpretations of these perceptions would
take several forms, from the abstract to the neo-religious.
1. Empiricism
David Hume (1711-1776) is the father of modern
empiricism, which holds philosophical and political
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values to be determined by habit and by their apparent
utility, not by abstract virtues or ideals.
Cosmologically Hume adhered to deism. The mere
existence of a political system or institution, according to
this approach, demonstrates that it has a part in God’s
overall scheme of things. If it didn’t have such a part, it
wouldn’t have come into existence. What that scheme
might be is not addressed by Hume, hence political
philosophy and systems cannot be measured critically
according to it.
L o o k i n g a t t h e h u m a n m i n d , H u m e s e e s
perceptions, which consist of impressions “when we
hear, see, feel, love, hate, desire, or will”; and ideas
“when we reflect upon a passion or an object which is not
present”.
Impressions are more “strong” and “lively” than ideas.
All ideas are derived from impressions. As a blind man
cannot have an idea of a color nor a deaf man an idea of
music, so “we can never think of anything which we have
not seen [or otherwise sensed] without us or felt in our
own minds”. We cannot have factual knowledge of
anything which can be conceived otherwise. Since it is
possible to think that the Sun will not rise tomorrow, we
cannot know that it necessarily will. The laws of nature
which say that it will might change between now and
then.
Mathematics and geometry are examples of things in
which principles cannot be conceived otherwise. One
cannot think of a triangle whose internal angles do not
add to 180°.
What Hume is getting at is that much of what
previous philosophers had considered necessary cause-
and-effect relationships is not that at all, but simply
habit. “All reasonings [about causation] are nothing but
the effects of custom; and custom has no influence, but
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by enlivening the imagination, and giving us a strong
conception of any object.”
When considering virtue and vice, Hume starts with
the notion that they must either be relations (resulting
from the comparison of ideas) or factual matters
(inferences). He finds that he cannot accept them as
either. Therefore they are simply irrational, non-factual
passions. Hume sees reason as a device used to satisfy
passions, not something which is superior or prior to
them. “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the
passions, and can never pretend to any other office than
to serve and obey them.”
Hume considers the morally good as what one ought
to do according to prevailing passionate custom. It
cannot be ascertained by dispassionate reasoning.
Reason may be used to discover the “fitting” - the most
practical or sensible approach - but not the “morally
good”. Hence virtue and vice are products of sentiment.
Virtue is not approved because it is virtue; it is
considered to be virtue because it meets with passionate
approval.
The good is identical with the pleasant, but not
necessarily with one’s own immediate personal pleasure.
Examples of what Hume considers virtues: (1) Useful to
others: justice, generosity, beneficence, honesty. (2)
Useful to self: prudence, frugality, temperance, industry.
(3) Pleasant to others: modesty, wit, decency. (4)
Pleasant to self: self-esteem, glory.
We approve of such “virtues” because we are moved
by a sense of humanity or benevolence. This is not a
“natural instinct”, but rather the result of a sympat
hy
which humans feel for one another - a transference of the
applicability of others’ predicaments into one’s own
frame of reference. Social justice is sought not out of
simple, direct self-interest, but rather because we feel
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that even remote injustices will act to harm the
cooperative society.
Hume’s objection to social contract theory is that he
thinks it is simply historically false. Rulers don’t consider
their authority as based upon the consent of the ruled,
nor do subjects feel sovereign.
Hume also objected to social contract theory on the
grounds that it was based upon reform of humans by
reason. Hume argues for strong governments and
preservation of systems based upon their historical
durability. He is thus a conservative.
The Christian political thinkers had God/Christ-based
values. The social contract thinkers had reason-based
values. Hume has endeavored to deal with politics by
ignoring the former and denying the actual validity of the
latter. He thus finds himself in a no-man’s-land of
subjective opinion. His somewhat clumsy solution is to
endorse and preserve values simply because they have
been around for a long time (i.e. conservatism). Strict
conservatives tend to be Hume-like, just as radicals tend
to oppose values based upon non-rational sentiment and
to favor ideals based upon reason. This is not to say that
much of their “reasoning” isn’t guilty of the weaknesses
which Hume identifies.
2. Dialectic Idealism
Europe in the early 19th century was influenced
significantly by budding forces of Romanticism,
nationalism, and liberalism.
The first represented a rejection of the “cult of reason”
espoused by the social contract theorists of the
Enlightenment, in favor of a more emotional approach to
social and cultural issues.
The second represented a growing identification of
the individual with a nation or state, as opposed to with a
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city or monarch. This was particularly significant in the
cases of Germany and Italy, which until now had
remained largely fragmented.
The third represented a general impatience with
archaic aristocratic systems as justifying a state’s
existence. The Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution
had opened the door to critical analysis of state systems,
not just to their glorification.
Georg W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) developed his theories
o f d i a l e c t i c i d e a l i s m a n d o r g a n i c i s m b y
approximately 1816, when he held a professorship at the
University of Heidelberg. His two principal concepts are
defined as follows:
(1) Hegel conceives the universe as the
manifestation of God’s mind seeking
complete self-realization through a process
called dialectic idealism. This is
occasionally [and more precisely] called the
dialectic of absolute spirit. As applied
to Earth, it is the concept that the history of
the world consists of part of the spirit of
God, manifesting itself through the
collective spirits of mankind, moving
onwards through logic (the dialectic)
towards complete self-understanding. An
existing idea (thesis) is criticized and
partially refuted by its opposite (antithesis),
resulting in a more perfect concept
(synthesis).
(2) The organic state is the manifestation or
appearance of God in the material world. [It
is not identical with God; it is a “reflection”
of the dialectic of his mind. Accordingly it
proceeds in ways and towards goals which
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are not necessarily the sum total of the ways
and goals of the individual human minds
within it.
In many ways Hegel is a reaction (antithesis &
synthesis) to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Bishop
Berkeley’s subjective idealism had held that nothing
could be known objectively - that knowledge is limited to
subjective impressions. Kant refines this into what is
called critical idealism, in which human consciousness
is subdivided into sensation, understanding, and
pure reason. Sensations and understanding of them
and consequences of them can be proven, Kant says, but
pure reason (concepts unsupported by sensations) cannot
be conclusive. It is “beyond causality”.
Hegel overcomes Kant’s problem by making “pure
reason” a necessary and intrinsic characteristic of God/
the universe. All history is “logical”. If it sometimes seems
illogical, it is because we don’t see it as clearly and
comprehensively as God does. The task of philosophy,
therefore, is one of understanding, of logical analysis -
and not one of creation of abstract, ideal political
systems.
Hege further introduced the concept of the
phenomenology of mind as a variation on the
Platonic “pyramid of thought” concept. 40 With Hegel, of
course, the mind develops forward through time
(historically); whereas with Plato the levels of thought are
measures of excellence irrespective of time or
progression. Hegel’s phenomenology of mind begins with
consciousness, which is everyday experience (action
40 In his Republic Plato stratified thought as eikasia (primitive
emotion), pistis (ordinary active/reactive thinking), dianoia (precise,
logical, enlightened thought), and nœsis (intuition and apprehension
of the transcendent Forms (Egyptian neteru) and the perfect Good
( Agathon).
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and reaction to events) without self-consciousness. We
take the truth of conscious experiences for granted; Hegel
calls this sense-certainty.
As soon as one pauses to reflect on conscious
experiences, one moves to self-consciousness. At the
same time there comes an awareness of other selves,
other minds. This is very close to Hobbes’ concept of the
state of nature. The antagonism is because “they exist and
are not me”. Therefore I wish to control them and not to
be controlled by them. I wish recognition by them; I do
not wish to recognize them in return. Thus there comes
into being the political “master/slave relationship”.
The next step in the dialectic involves a personal
internalization of the master/slave relationship, as
exemplified in Hellenistic stoicism and skepticism. The
inconsistency this produces between internal and
external life goes on to produce the rages and hypocrisies
of medieval Christianity. In the Reformation the internal
is seen as relevant to, and in command of the external.
There is still the problem of conflict between individual
wills, which, if undisciplined through organization and
government, would run wild in anarchy “… since any
institution whatever is antagonistic to the abstract self-
consciousness of equality”.
As consciousness gives way to self-consciousness,
questions of morality ( Moralität) arise in contrast to
custom or social convention ( Sittlichkeit). How to aspire
to morality?
The answer is that one apprehends it through the
modern state. Hegel’s concept of the state is that it is the
embodiment of the spirit of those who constitute it; its
leaders must consider this spirit and not simply their own
desires when guiding it. Correspondingly individuals
must seek in this spirit ( Volksgeist) a guide for their
personal morality.
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Human society is an artificial machine which works
for the goals of the spiritual state. Individualism and
rights against a government are considered by Hegel to
limit freedom: Since they reduce the scope and power of
the whole, they serve to limit possibility.
Similarly Hegel feels contempt for democracy. It
reduces questions of relevance to the state to resolution
by simple “counting of noses”, i.e. voting, in which all
opinions are not of the same intellectual merit. [Hegel
prefers a monarchy. This preference is a weak area of his
thought, since it is not really justified. Why should an
accident of birth make one any better a judge of the
Volksgeist?]
For Hegel there are no absolute values. Values are
products of history; they are validated by their success.
Thus Hegel overcomes Hume’s objection to morality. The
“social contract” theorists - Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau
- felt that man made the state. Hegel reversed this, saying
that the state is prior to man. He thus conceived the most
advanced and complex metaphysical statement of man as
a product and subject of his environment. Unlike B.F.
Skinner and other environmental materialists, however,
Hegel postulated a deliberate, universal intelligence
behind the historical process.
3. Will to Power
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) completed and
published his major theoretical works Also Sprach
Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil ca. 1885. He was
an atheist and a materialist, insisting that the universe
[or world] of appearances is the only true one. He carries
this principle into his assessment of humanity by denying
any “dual existence” within the body (i.e. soul vs. physical
body). Man is a unified, material being.
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