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Which approach Western Man?
“Equality… belongs primarily to say no: the chasm between man and man, class and sophistication, the multiplicity of varieties, the need to be one’s self, and to differentiate one’s self out — that which I name pathos of distance — characterizes each sturdy age.”
– Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
It’s typically thought the grand wrestle of the fashionable world is between proper and left, Republican and Democrat, or liberal towards conservative. Libertarians take a extra nuanced view. Like them, I used to assume it was the person and individualist towards the collective and the collectivists — I wrote about this dimension within the UnCommunist Manifesto final 12 months.
Whereas there’s fact in all of this, I’ve come to understand there’s a a lot deeper and extra essential axis round which all of us should orient.
High quality versus Equality
On this essay, I lay out the case for why the previous is the premise for each wholesome people and a wholesome society, and the way the latter is the harbinger of corruption and decay. From there, you may make your individual thoughts up about which political and philosophical modalities are greatest pursued on this life, and which, if any, Bitcoin is most aligned with.
Allow us to start this exploration with an evaluation on life.
The Everlasting Battle
A battle rages on, throughout the universe. Order on the one hand, chaos on the opposite; life versus entropy. It has and all the time will endure, and even if we can’t change it, we every play our half. It’s in our DNA. People are probably the most refined vessels within the everlasting battle towards entropy, and life seeks to perpetuate itself by us.
Why do I name it a battle? Give it some thought. Life actually begins as a whole lot of thousands and thousands of sperm competing for the prospect to succeed in the feminine egg solely to be confronted with the big job of fertilizing it efficiently, following which the DNA of your mom and father need to match, fuse and unite to miraculously — over 9 months inside a human slow-cooker — grow to be you: the residing, respiration, pondering being that’s sitting right here studying this now. This competitors has one winner and lots of losers over many iterations. You might be actually the product of a profitable territorial conquest: the one sperm amongst billions who survived, claimed the egg, and thus modified the future of each progenitors.
The reward for successful towards thousands and thousands of different sperm, bonding with the egg, and creating life is your profitable individuation! You might be born into this world, however earlier than you possibly can have a good time that truth, you’re ripped out of the comfy womb, into the tough gentle of actuality and confronted with… a brand new competitors. Solely this time, there are billions of different profitable territorial conquests, such as you, every looking for to individuate themselves in a brand new, extra advanced dimension. They’re all pushed by the same set of instincts, craving to assert new territory, looking for to convey order to chaos and scouring the Earth to plant their seed, in order that they’ll really feel complete, and finally, in order that life can proceed its epic battle towards entropy.
That is the last word objective of life: continuation. You, me, all of us are vessels to that finish. Life implants us with desires, instincts, and needs to extend its probability of profitable perpetuation. For a lot of, these desires stay fantasies and lots of needs stay unfulfilled. However for some, their desires come true and it’s people who propel life onwards — the Alexanders, the Caesars, the Jobs, the Newtons, the da Vincis of the world. The empires they constructed, the legacies they left, and the lives they lived function a reminder that life continues not by being common, however by individuation, the act of which is the separation of oneself from the mass.
Why? As a result of by reaching and increasing, by claiming new territory, life takes one other step ahead within the battle towards entropy. While you set a brand new normal, the entire of life turns into bigger as a result of everybody else now is aware of what’s attainable. Roger Bannister was the primary man to interrupt the four-minute mile. What’s fascinating is just not that he was the primary to do one thing everybody thought was inconceivable, however that inside a 12 months of doing so, one other 24 individuals additionally ran a four-minute mile, and since then nearly 2,000 have.
Earlier than Roger, it was not even thought of attainable. After Roger, it’s grow to be one other normal. The lesson? While you win, life wins.
The Territorial Crucial
Territory is on the coronary heart of evolutionary historical past. Life desires to assert area and to rework it — and people are its prime vessels. From the forests the place our ancestors first carved out shelters to trendy civilizations that sprawl throughout continents, we had and all the time may have an impulse to assert, domesticate, and conquer area.
This territorial crucial is greater than only a primal urge. It’s a deep-seated intuition for progress. It’s the apothos that drove Alexander the Nice to march to the ends of the identified world and compelled Magellan to circumnavigate the Earth on a ship fabricated from wooden. It’s not only a need to regulate assets however a craving to assert area, and, by extension, declare our future.
Take into consideration the phrases right here; etymology tells us lots. A future is a vacation spot, which is a spot. A spot is one other approach of claiming territory. We are actually wired for this. It’s in our our bodies, in our language, and within the very approach we conceptualize and work together with the world. This is the reason non-public property works so nicely. It’s not only a “rational fiction” made up by the human thoughts, however an abstracted organic crucial. It’s a truth of nature and a truth of life that applies past simply people. It’s how nature and social species of every kind develop a dynamic equilibrium with rivals, with different species and with their atmosphere. It’s how the “good” is ready to thrive and develop, whereas the “unhealthy” is discarded and recycled. The next picture from a latest research of wolf packs denotes this. They require no “summary rational fiction” or written structure to implement property rights. There may be pure battle on the borders (enmity), peace and homogeneity internally (amity) — and miraculously, it really works.
Territory have to be claimed and owned, which by definition creates insiders and outsiders. There is no such thing as a equal entry to or on territory, and the standard of the territory is just not solely a perform of what’s included inside its borders, but additionally what’s excluded. The ancients practiced ostracism as a type of punishment for many who didn’t abide by or conform to native customs and norms. Banishment from the neighborhood or the tribe was worse than any type of confinement. It was the identical precept in motion.
Those that consider in widespread property are unaware of this truth of life, and it’s why their narratives all the time break down and their experiments all the time fail.
Territory is inescapable, and the rule of claiming and sustaining it’s high quality.
When the amount exceeds what the ordering power on the territory can deal with, the standard will diminish and the territorial integrity will fall, opening the door to entropy. That is how dynamic equilibrium happens in nature. The “border” is the place the battle we mentioned within the prior part happens. You may’t simply let everybody — or every part — in. There needs to be a barrier to entry. That is additionally why there exist each economies and diseconomies of scale. Greater is just not all the time higher. It’s probably the most tailored that issues, therefore why fact, first ideas, and alignment with pure order is so crucial. Ignorance, lies, or deceit will lead you to make choices that produce a lower-quality territory in all dimensions. It should lead you to an phantasm of power and proper, when in actuality you’re weak and fallacious. That is the place Rome was in its twilight. It’s the place the West finds itself right now: confused, open, fractured, and territorially compromised.
A closing word on territory: It’s not solely bodily however metaphysical. It contains the physique, the thoughts and the spirit. It’s psychological and emotional. Your territory begins with you. It radiates outward, and its measurement is proportional to the quantity of life power which you could harness and channel. That is the need to energy manifest, and it has not solely formed our evolutionary trajectory but additionally serves as a testomony to life’s timeless ambition to increase and imprint its essence wherever it will possibly.
The lesson? While you increase, life expands.
Hierarchy
Territory requires hierarchy. Hierarchy implies high quality — no less than a purposeful one does. Like territory, hierarchy is internally inclusive, and externally unique. It’s removed from equal or flat. It’s extra like a pyramid, which requires a powerful sufficient base to help a pointy tip.
What’s a hierarchy and why can I be so positive that it issues? The reply is straightforward. It’s how all residing organisms orient and arrange their relationships to time and vitality.
Time marches ahead, and can’t be reversed. Power is the forex of the universe. Residing issues are always, spending each. That is inescapable. The one query is “on what?” That is the essence of choice, which is a type of implicit prioritization. Choice is at instances aware however in any other case an unconscious valuation of an act, deed, or intent that finally both serves life or entropy.
Prioritization is by definition the formation of a hierarchy. You can’t do all issues, on a regular basis, all…
