Egoism
Individualism
Sovereignty
Splendor

(These ideas are explicated in this sloppy manifesto)

 
To Splendor destined...

At Uncommon Sense, Richard Nikoley poses this question about Human Destinies:

I speculate that we must either achieve our Destinies, or it means we've destroyed ourselves. To put it another way, I speculate that achieving such Destinies could be an essential part of the defining characteristics of human beings. In other words, it's just what humans do--or they cease to exist; they become extinct.

Now, the thing is, there's no superfluous stuff, here. We're talking about the widest scope possible--events that changed entirely the course of human history, irrevocably.

Here's what I came up with:

1. Agriculture / Basic Civilization.
2. Enlightenment / Secularization.
3. Technology / Capitalism / Industrialization.

And that's it, so far. Now, given the above, what's number 4, out into the future? I further speculate that your answer to what number 4 is tells us a great deal about you. It could be the ultimate litmus test, in fact.

Go ahead and comment, if you dare.

Well, like the man said, "Play for blood--that's just my game." If you look around, you'll see that I can go on and on about a topic like that, but this is the comment I posted to Richard's weblog:

Your list comprises innovations we owe to the Greeks--considered in the large. Obviously certain ideas, like the husbandry of grains, are pre-Hellenic, while the Enlightenment is a post-medieval Hellenic revival. But all of these ideas, plus many others, are united in the sense that their first explicit expression--and often still their best expression--comes to us from the Greeks.

I think the next step in your list is the globalization of Hellenism. This has been going on forever; Judaism, Islam, Communism and many, many other movements are anti-Hellenic counter-revolutions. Until lately, the best transmission of Greek ideas has been by trade (and there were Greek trading posts all around the Mediterranean well into the Dark Ages and the Islamic ascension). In the modern era, it is the free(er) trade states that have taken up this task, with fabulous success--in Cain's World, the world of products, proceeds and practices but not of ideals. The Bush Doctrine seeks to extend this process by political action, with at least the implication that the world of ideals also belongs to Cain--an idea that has always been missing from our revivifications of Greek culture.

What is going on right now in the Middle East is an illustration of how change actually happens. Nothing is gradual. Everything is one way until is it suddenly another.

I agree in general with Jackson, fils, above, except that I think Splendor will come first (one mind at a time) and that both of those outcomes are further out in time, in the main. As individuals, we not only stand on the shoulders of giants, we have at our fingertips a lever such as Archimedes never imagined--the Net.World. But in groups we are still little more than gibbering chimps. The dawn of Splendor is the resolution to stand always alone, and the renunciation of savagery is a consequence of Splendor.

But still, we are witnessing remarkable changes, and the long-term consequences upon the individuals directly affected will be astounding. Visualize a world peopled by Ethical Egoists. This will happen. It will seem impossible until the day after it suddenly seemed inevitable. But as ontology, as physiology and as psychology--and therefore as epistemology--it is ultimately unavoidable. This is how we are made as things and this is how we must behave in order to thrive as the things that we are. The more we learn of and accept what we are, the better we will do at learning of and accepting what we are.

This--this way of thinking and acting--is our gift from the Greeks. Because of them, our destiny our ours to make.

There is more, more, more. Human history in a paleontological sense is a record of accidents, really no different from animal paleontology. The "natural" state of humanity is a condition of pretended animality, with any change in circumstances being thrust upon the human culture by external forces. The individualist idea, the idea of free moral agency, is anathema to all but Greek culture--again considered in the large. Every other human culture is organized in opposition to the mind. Only the Greeks--and we, their children--some of us, at least--embrace it. In that sense, the human history that matters is the ascendancy of the individualist idea and the ongoing counter-revolution against that idea. Elsewhere on Richard's weblog, I said:

Regarding individualism versus collectivism, it is more precise, I think, to speak of anti-individualism. Collectivism is a nice catch-all, but although Abel doesn't necessarily always pursue collective ends, he is always opposed to individualism. Consider a cloistered nun, for example. The altruists would argue that her objective is selfish, but no one who understands the self would call her an egoist. Collectivism is a form of anti-individualism, and it is a very potent form because it is so hard to argue against. Environmentalism is another hard-to-argue-against form of anti-individualism that doesn't even have any thing to do with people, either singly or in groups. The point of every superficially varied form of anti-individualism is simply that, an opposition to egoism that the advocate hopes is incontrovertible. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, roping her into my own metaphor: Abel doesn't want to live. He wants for Cain to be prevented from living as he chooses, guided only by his own rational choices. It truly is a war against the mind as it really is. There is no way that Abel can win this war, not without killing every Cain, down to the last mind.

Even so, Cain will not have won this war until he dares to reclaim the world of ideals so long conceded to Abel. In mail to Richard, I said:

Abel continues to exist because Cain allowed him to usurp the idea of spiritual ecstasy. My job in life is to take it back.

My argument is that Splendor is the ultimate human destiny, the condition in which an individual human being resolves always to be what he really is--in mind, in body, in spirit--never any pretended contrary. To give it a name in the large, we can call it Ecstatic Exultant Ethical Egoism. But the only name it can have that matters is my name--is your name. When will "we" achieve it? Never. When will you achieve it. I'm for today--and the day is young...
posted by Greg Swann at 12:53 PM

 
All but won...

Columnist Jack Kelly in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

It will be some months before the news media recognize it, and a few months more before they acknowledge it, but the war in Iraq is all but won. The situation is roughly analogous to the battle of Iwo Jima, which took place 60 years ago this month. It took 35 days before the island was declared secure, but the outcome was clear after day five, with the capture of Mt. Suribachi.

Proof of this was provided by Sen. Hillary Clinton. Iraq is functioning quite well, she said in a press conference in Baghdad Feb. 19. The recent rash of suicide attacks is a sign the insurgency is failing, she said.

'When politicians like [Clinton] start flocking to Iraq to bask in the light of its success, then you know that the corner has been turned,' a reader of his blog wrote to Bay.

More substantive signs abound. The performance of Iraqi security forces is improving, as are their numbers. Nearly 10,000 men showed up at a southern Iraqi military base Feb. 14 to volunteer for 5,000 openings. Only 6,000 had been expected.

Sunni Arab politicians have admitted they made a big boo-boo in boycotting the Jan. 30 election, and are pleading to be included in the political process. Some ex-Baathists are seeking terms for laying down their arms.

Those who get their news from the 'mainstream' media are surprised by developments in Iraq, as they were surprised by our swift victory in Afghanistan, the sudden fall of Saddam Hussein, the success of the Afghan election and the success of the Iraqi election.

Journalists demand accountability from political leaders for 'quagmires' which exist chiefly in the imagination of journalists. But when will journalists be held to account for getting every major development in the war on terror wrong?

posted by Greg Swann at 7:51 AM

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