The rulers of this world are coming to nothing

The rulers of this world are coming to nothing.
Paul of Tarsus

1. On Perfect Virtue

If you had to wait for the world to stop being corrupt before you could free your soul from corruption, you would wait a very long time. In fact, you would probably die before you achieved the innocence you sought.

Philosophers long ago recognized it would be remarkable if good people and people in power happened to coincide. Instead of waiting and hoping for this rare coincidence, philosophers devised techniques for freeing the soul from corruption in a corrupt world.

Here’s what Plato has to say on the subject—as relevant today as it was two millennia ago:

Worthy disciples of philosophy. ... have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen and been satisfied of the madness of the multitude, and known that there is no one who ever acts honestly in the administration of States, nor any helper who will save any one who maintains the cause of the just. Such a savior would be like a man who has fallen among wild beasts—unable to join in the wickedness of his fellows, neither would he be able alone to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore he would be of no use to the State or to his friends, and would have to throw away his life before he had done any good to himself or others. And he reflects upon all this, and holds his peace, and does his own business. He is like one who retires under the shelter of a wall in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along; and when he sees the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can live his own life and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and depart in peace and good will, with bright hopes.

Worthy disciples of philosophy (ἀξίαν ὁμιλούντων φιλοσοφίᾳ) don’t adopt the values of the corrupt world. We don’t entrust the fate of our souls to the corrupt world. We crouch behind a wall with other innocent souls, meditating, thinking, debating, praying and studying.

In modern terms, we would have to say worthy disciples of philosophy are disabled. Our awareness and understanding of the corruption of the world make us unfit for the social roles the world expects.

Competent souls, souls that are not psychologically disabled, function in the world in one of two ways. They pretend rulers are good. They resign themselves to being bad. The worthy disciple of philosophy isn’t capable of either.

Will the worthy disciple of philosophy be able to persuade the disability office he deserves a pension? Probably not. Perhaps he might try the method of Hindus and Bhikkhus: don robes and sit on the street begging for food. But this might not be practical in winter. So what’s our poor soul, unwilling to pretend the world is good, and unwilling to be bad, what is he to do?

In 13th century Italy, Francis offers one possible answer. If you enter the world with nothing but your perfect virtue, other souls will see your virtue. They will come forward and offer you food and shelter.

What if no one is coming forward with offers?

Don’t be impatient, says Francis. Strive to perfect your virtue even more.

“What if I don’t perfect my virtue in time for winter,” asks the cynic.

If no one comes forward to help us, says Francis, we must become even more virtuous, not adapt to the ways of the world.

We know that path ends on the cross. And we follow it.

2. Ancient languages

When I meet God, I want to be able to tell Him I did my best to learn His word. I haven’t had time yet to learn Hebrew and Latin. But I want to know at least a few dozen words in each, so God will know, at least, I tried.

This is why I’m unemployable. This is why I’m poor. I just can’t imagine what could possibly be more important than the words of salvation, whether from Bhikkhunis or Plato or Aristotle or God. If learning Greek and Sanskrit takes me one step closer to the purity and innocence my soul craves, what could be more important than that?

If, in order to assure the survival of body, I lose the innocence of soul, I have lost something higher for the sake of something lower.

3. The Forest

In order to go deep into thought, it’s helpful to have a time and place free of distractions. This is why the Bhikkhuni goes to the forest to meditate.

The flies distract her. But they aren’t deliberately trying to redirect her attention from the Dhamma to the market.

4. The cynical philosophy

Cynical minds have undoubtedly stopped reading by now. So we can get down to business and discuss their philosophy. The cynical philosophy loves pleasures of the flesh. It ignores pleasures of mind, soul and spirit. It denies mind, soul and spirit even exist.

Here, for the record, is a quick refutation of this cynical philosophy.

Assertion 1. The legacy of information passed from one generation to the next includes both genomic material and textual material.

Assertion 2. Human behavior is influenced by both genomic and textual material.

Conclusion. Human behavior can’t be explained by a reductionist theory that excludes textual material from its domain of study.

The cynical philosophy refuses to entertain the possibility that the words “Love thy neighbor as thyself” might have as profound an influence on the behavior of a human specimen as any nucleic acid ever could. The specimen of homo cynicus (anthropos kynikos) has decided to acquiesce to genome and give up any attempt to make the neurological alterations that occur with the study of texts. And, to protect its pride, the specimen adopts a philosophy in which indolent acquiescence to the genome is characteristic of the species.

The canine genome can be overcome by training. But the human genome cannot?

5.1 First step of the training

Consider how a worthy disciple of philosophy might fare in Hollywood.

“Should we really appeal to the base animal instincts of our viewers, their lust, pride and greed. Won’t that be a bad influence on their souls?”

“In Hollywood we do whatever it takes to get attention. Attention means viewer share. Viewer share means revenue. Revenue means profit.”

“But is it right to show beautiful faces? Won’t that teach people to admire the external beauty, and fail to see the beauty within?”

“You’re fired.”

5.2 Second step of the training

A passage from Augustine:

In how many of the most minute and trivial things my curiosity is still daily tempted, and who can keep the tally on how often I succumb? How often, when people are telling idle tales, we begin by tolerating them lest we should give offense to the sensitive; and then gradually we come to listen willingly! I do not nowadays go to the circus to see a dog chase a rabbit, but if by chance I pass such a race in the fields, it quite easily distracts me even from some serious thought and draws me after it—not that I turn aside with my horse, but with the inclination of my mind. And unless, by showing me my weakness, thou dost speedily warn me to rise above such a sight to thee by a deliberate act of thought—or else to despise the whole thing and pass it by—then I become absorbed in the sight, vain creature that I am.

What serious thought is the circus of Hollywood distracting you from?

The mass media profits handsomely telling idle tales and seducing vulnerable minds.

You need a deliberate act of thought to rise above the circus and find the most sacred texts. Don't let the profiteers of spectacle, the ringleaders of the modern circus, choose them for you.

Moving pictures are a snare. They seduce eyes meant for study to love pleasure instead. They teach us to adore beautiful, rich people and despise the poor and oppressed.

Conspiracy Theorists and First Century Christians

The mindset of conspiracy theorists, who are thoroughly convinced their rulers are corrupt, is actually very close to that of first-century Christians, also thoroughly convinced their Roman rulers were corrupt. Even if conspiracy theorists are wrong about the details, their mindset is right. Rulers are corrupt. Don’t obey them. Decide for yourself what it true and right.

Rulers never rule for the benefit of their subjects. They seek power for the sake of power.

Rulers elevate themselves to idols. They insist the currency they dispense must define your values.

First century Christians were fed to the lions because they defied Caesar and stood up for what is true and right. They put genuine human virtues above the virtue of obedience.

Obedience is only a virtue when we obey virtuous rulers. Those in power are those who choose to seek power. They are corrupt. They will always be corrupt. First century Christians and conspiracy theorists understand. Everyone else deceives themselves.

The word cynical has two very different meanings. There is the good, plebeian sense of cynicism, always looking power in the face and seeing what it really is. And there is the evil, bourgeois sense of cynicism, which cynically manipulates the mind into pretending rulers are good.

Rulers are evil. They seek power for the sake of power. The good are powerless. We die on crosses.

This is not cynicism. It is fact. Cynicism is the choice to ignore this fact and obey anyway.

Don’t ignore the evil in your rulers. Ignore your rulers. Defy your rulers. Define your own values. Each of us has our own relationship to virtue and wisdom. No ruler can ever be admitted to that place where ultimate moral decisions are made. There, in the core of the heart, we are always alone.

Jesus was asked if it was righteous to pay taxes. He asked to see the coins in which the taxes would be paid. “Whose image is on the coin?” he asked.

Caesar’s face is on the coin. Caesar's empire is what gives the coin its value. Who decided, to begin with, that Gold—not Nickel or Copper—would be the metal that served as the store of value? Who, for that matter, decided that something tangible would define economic value?

Who decided economic life would serve Caesar and the metal he appointed as his deputy?

At this point the value of gold seems so firmly stamped on our hearts, it is hard to question. But in the first century, it was a real question. Why are we accepting that these coins are stores of value? Why aren’t our values defined by our own, higher values?

Love of God, love of neighbor, love of truth, love of virtue, love of wisdom—these qualities are hard to identify. It’s much easier to just exchange coins.

But is it really so much easier? As we destroy our planet in a suicidal spiral of consumption, perhaps now would be a good time to ask, might the first century Christians perhaps have had the right idea, when they ignored Caesar, gave him back his coins, and braved the lions and crosses for the sake of what they held most sacred?

Remember, Paul said, “The rulers of this world are coming to nothing.” Why would you want to go down with the establishment?

Reactions to Collective Guilt. Argument? Or Penitence?

I'm part of a culture of greed destroying our planet in a suicidal frenzy of consumption. My sermons often include such confessions of collective guilt. But I haven’t really provided a sound argument, my critics complain. “Where's the evidence supporting this alleged decline of morality?”

What evidence do I need when I already know in my soul I am guilty? My soul is full of greed. I was nurtured from infancy by Hollywood and Madison Avenue executives, who taught me to desire manufactured products as fervently as an earlier culture might have taught me to desire God.

“There you go again with your unsubstantiated claims. Where are the statistics?”

What statistics do I need? I see in my own soul, I am guilty. My culture taught me, every moment the radio was on, buying is commendable, desire is a virtue, owning is a mark of piety, greed is good, profit is noble, rate of return is God.

The mark of a good man is that he demands little in things of the body, while he demands much in things of the spirit. He asks for a minimum of food and shelter, but he demands new feats of intellectual and moral excellence from you, and shows you how to achieve them.

Is this the man television presents to us as a role model? Television was supported from the start by advertising, and adopted the values of that culture. Its aim from the start was to turn parishioners into consumers, to turn us away from desiring virtue and wisdom to desiring goods and services.

“Greed is good—particularly an insatiable greed for the product I happen to be selling.” The message of advertisers and their accomplice entertainers has infected my mind and spirit to a degree that will require a lifetime of careful thought to undo.

But there I go again with my unsubstantiated claims.

No, I can’t offer any statistics. I can only tell you what I see in my own soul.

No, I have no way to quantify and measure the effect I’m describing. I only know my mind was destroyed by it.

And it seems to me those asking for arguments and evidence are unsound in their method. When someone tells me I’m complicit in some collective sin, my first reaction is to repent. Even if the speaker isn’t so guilty as he imagines himself to be—even if I don’t so easily find in myself what the speaker finds in him—even then, I know there’s some other sin I can find. And I can repent for that.

When I talk about collective guilt, and people respond by asking for evidence, they miss the point. The point is, look into your own soul, see where guilt might lie. The point is, examine yourself. Ask yourself, “Is there an unjust institution in my society I know in my heart is wrong?” “Could I do something to stop it?” “Could I stop supporting it?” “How could I be a better person today?”

But the bourgeois doesn’t enter into the true spirit of repentance. He responds to every accusation by defending himself. He’s a lawyer by nature. And he mounts such a good defense, he will never see his own guilt. And he will never repent. And he will never truly experience the kingdom of God.

I’m part of a culture of greed destroying our planet in a suicidal frenzy of consumption.

Do you find this culture of greed in your soul too?

Maybe you don’t. But I know you have some ideal, some principle you could uphold and embody with more vigor and courage than you do now. We may not agree about the nature of the sin. But I know you can join me in the spirit of repentance.

A mind with integrity

A mind with integrity thrown into world of systematic cruelty and injustice is faced at every moment with the impossibility of its continued existence. There is no way to function in the world without accepting the system. And there is no way to accept the system without destroying the integrity of the mind. One possible response, which every mind with integrity has certainly considered, is deliberately exiting from the world. This might take the form of withdrawal into solitude. It might take the form of suicide. I have often considered both these options.

What makes the world even more intolerable is that the mind with integrity finds itself surrounded by minds entirely unsympathetic to its plight. Other minds have chosen survival over integrity. They refuse to confront the cruelty and injustice of the system that rules them. They have accepted they must play their role in a cruel and unjust system in order to survive. Some pretend the system is benevolent and just. Some confine their thinking to their assigned roles. Some refuse to think at all.

Why do virtuous, noble, kind people starve while selfish, cunning, cynical people rule? Why are those who live in luxury while others suffer admired and respected? A mind with integrity will never stop asking these uncomfortable questions.

One source of hope for a mind with integrity comes from studying great minds of the past that preferred to die rather than sacrifice their integrity. The system and those who work for the system have, of course, appropriated these minds for their own purposes. Martyrs died because they failed to accommodate their honest and straightforward minds to the twisted logic of the Roman system of exploitation and cruelty. These same martyrs subsequently became icons of Constantine’s empire. Socrates carefully distinguished the use of language for discovering truth from the use of language for advancing personal aims. Now lawyers use his dialectic to advance their careers by persuading the victims of private property ideology they must never question it. Marx untangled the web of deceptions used to justify the exploitation and greed of capitalist rulers, only to have his words used to justify the exploitation and greed of socialist rulers.

And yet, surprisingly, we can still find the original thoughts of these courageous thinkers in what many scholars believe are original, uncorrupted texts. Here is a source of hope for a mind with integrity. Here, finally, is a reason to go on living.

I am thankful I found texts that show genuine uncompromising intellectual integrity before I ended my life in despair. Others are not so fortunate. Our educational institutions are, of course, part of the system. They seek to transform students into useful components of the system. Intellectual integrity, when it exists, is thoroughly and ruthlessly destroyed. Texts that show genuine intellectual integrity are not part of the curriculum.

The living human beings we encounter are a biased sample. They are, with rare exceptions, minds that have chosen survival over integrity. That’s why they have survived. A mind with intellectual integrity won’t find companions among the living. It finds companions in those who died because they couldn’t survive in the corrupt system. It finds companions in those whose survival is tenuous, whose lives might end at any moment in desolation and despair.

Reserve your ambitions for the perfection of your mind and spirit

The aristocrat of matter accepts nothing but fine accommodations and sumptuous meals. The aristocrat of spirit accepts nothing but perfect humble devotion to God and the neighbor. If modesty is a virtue, we must distinguish the precise sense of the word. Not our aspirations to virtue should be modest, but our sense of having attained it. We should be humble about what we are, and set no limit to what we might be.

We often hear about the American dream. But we ought to remember there is more than one. Thoreau, a true aristocrat of spirit, offers a dream of intellectual and moral excellence. Madison Avenue offers a dream specially manufactured for you, in which their products happen to play a conspicuous role.

There’s far more money to be made from those who crave the pomp and splendor of Caesar than from those on the humble path of sages. Madison Avenue wants to steer our ambitions away from the aristocracy of spirit toward the aristocracy of matter.

When people ask why I study, I tell them I am preparing my soul to meet God. Even for those who don’t believe in God, the idea that we must make the intellect more perfect with each passing year, so that at the end it is prepared to find its place among the great minds of history, is one that might inspire even the most cynical.

Give up your aspirations for worldly success. All you can get is what others are born with. It’s a wasted life. Revive your aspirations for intellectual and moral excellence. Begin studying again. It’s never too late. Your mind is special. It has it’s own unique way to get close to God and your neighbor. It has a unique form of love, which your mind, and yours alone, can express. Don’t deny yourself the opportunity to discover your own unique, irreplaceable path to perfection. Sit alone with God. Sit alone with your neighbor. Talk about what you hold most sacred.

Don’t let the aristocracy of matter intrude on your aspirations. Reserve your ambitions for the perfection of your mind and spirit.

The Revolutionary Discourse of Virtue

The mammon worshippers don't prepare their own food. They rely on decent human beings to do this for them. And the moment the decent human beings of the world begin withdrawing our sanction for mammon worship, stop serving the mammon worshippers and begin reserving ourselves for honest service to virtuous men and women who genuinely need and deserve our help, the mammon worshippers will be brought to their knees. Their empire of greed can't function without the honest hardworking men and women who support it. As soon as we withdraw that support their evil empire will collapse, and the reign of virtue can finally begin.

In the first century decent human beings had to conceal attempts to overthrow the regime of mammon behind obfuscatory language. Today the mammon worshippers have made the foolish mistake of granting us freedom of speech, and it will be their downfall. We can talk openly about defying and overthrowing their regime of greed and extricating all the corrupt ideologies that entice us to serve their evil regime from our minds and hearts.

The mammon worshippers are frightened of genuine, self-confident morality. They are frightened of any form of religion other than the carefully tamed, vetted, desiccated, enervated and enfeebled forms they have creating by pouring money into the coffers of organized churches. These vipers know perfectly well it's unconscionable to feed them their feasts and build them their mansions while the poor starve and freeze in the cold. And they are terrified that the decent human beings of the world will wake up and see that the mammon worshippers contribute nothing to this world. The peddlers of greed are terrified the decent human beings of the world will begin helping one another, and leave the mammon worshippers to the fate of lonely desolate starvation they are accustomed to inflict on others.

The mammon worshippers laugh at all discourse about virtue, and make snide, cynical, contemptuous remarks about all forms of speech other than the language of mammon. But deep down they are afraid. They know that as soon as we begin speaking the language of virtue, the empire they have built on the language of greed will collapse into dust and ashes, and they will be left with nothing.

The virtuous men and women of the world don't need the mammon worshippers. This is the dirty secret their cynicism tries to conceal. This is the key to our chains, the key they try to keep us from finding. Their cynicism attempts to undermine and defile the uncompromised language of virtue that would allow us to overthrow their reign of greed.

The so-called skills of mammon worshippers are merely ways of manipulating and subjugating the decent people of the world. All we have to do is ignore them. Let the vipers starve. Let them be reduced to the pauperism they have tried to inflict on us.

We talk a lot about the pollution of our rivers and streams. But let's not forget about the pollution of our minds and hearts. The most toxic byproduct of the mammon worshipping regime isn't polychlorinated biphenyls or radioactive waste. It is cynicism. The most potent weapon of the mammon worshipping regime isn't bombs and guns. It is cynicism. The revolution of virtue begins as soon as we learn to be immune from cynicism, to defuse its power over us.

When we become revolutionaries of virtue, we stop serving the empire of greed. We wake up from our delusion. We overcome our corruption. We find love in our hearts. We find love in the hearts of others. We help those who genuinely need and deserve our help. We begin loving one another, caring for one another, and serving one another with hearts and minds full of love.

The Buzz Kill

We play half our lives
and work the other.
What time remains to think?

Invincible armor of rationalizations and obfuscations
legitimize our indifference.
How can one feeble voice break through?

Busy looking for fun new games
and shiny new toys,
busy making games and toys
to offer other players,
what time remains
to hear from those
excluded from the game?

Our work and play are innocent,
we hear endlessly repeated.
How could it be untrue?

Of what avail is one lone whisper
amid unanimous electronic shouts?

Intent on denying
suffering exists,
we make suffering invisible,
cries for help inaudible,
drowned out in the mellifluous melody
of consumption.

Uninvited killer of heedless pleasure,
unwelcome enemy of stupefied satisfaction,
keep away from our dens of artificial innocence.

On Deliberately Cultivated Ignorance

I make a habit of pointing out things that people would really prefer not to think about, of asking questions that people would really prefer not to ask. When I see conspicuous consumption, I ask an embarrassing question. "Is it moral to live in luxury while children are starving?"

Sometimes people laugh. Sometimes they change the subject. Sometimes they accuse me of asking questions when everyone already knows the answer. "Surely if everyone knows the answer," I reply, "you must know it too." Then I persevere and ask again, "Why is it moral to live in luxury while other human beings are starving?"

The rich are accustomed to living in a bubble of deliberately cultivated ignorance. The suffering of the less fortunate remains unseen and unheard. The homeless are routinely evicted from the nicer neighborhoods. The rich never have to see their suffering. No one has to hear their desperate pleas for help.

The rich surround themselves with sycophants who tell them the distribution of wealth is logical, correct, perhaps even sanctified by God. These sycophants help the rich cultivate the belief that conspicuous consumption is a symbol of achievement, rather than a lapse in morality.

Suppose I earned my money by perfectly honest and noble work. Does that relieve me of the responsibility of helping unfortunate people whose suffering could be relieved by the resources I control?

One of the deliberately cultivated illusions the rich use to conceal their barbarity from themselves is the belief that there's no such thing as a virtuous poor person. Poverty is always the fault of the poor. If a boy is born in a poor family, the rich tell themselves, the parents should have restrained their carnal lust until they could provide a decent life for the boy. If we look hard enough at the life of a poor person, the rich assure themselves, we'll always find a vice somewhere, an error of judgment, a lapse in integrity or morality, some fault that accounts for their poverty. The rich know perfectly well how often their success is due to luck. But they refuse to acknowledge that poverty might also, in some cases, be the result of bad luck.

There's no such thing as the "virtuous poor." There can't possibly be. It would be much too inconvenient if that were a thing. Therefore it must not be. This is the reasoning of those who vigilantly maintain their bubble of deliberately cultivated ignorance.

Advertisers teach us it's a virtue to consume. Every day that message is hammered into us over and over. The opposite message, that conspicuous consumption is glorified murder of starving children, never breaks into the bubble of deliberately cultivated ignorance.

We learned to consume. And we can learn to stop. It won't happen overnight. So long as I'm giving away things and learning to do without things every day, I'm on a path toward asceticism. It's a path I can be proud of. But I can only get on this path after I leave the bubble of deliberately cultivated ignorance. Until then, I will be going around in circles, seeking to glorify myself with a practice that is in fact disgraceful.

Inside the bubble an expensive car or expensive watch is seen as a sign of respectability. Those who have broken out of the bubble see the one who possesses these things as a callous murderer. Those inside the bubble see someone living in a mansion, and think, "He must be very smart." Outside the bubble, we see the owner of the mansion as a fool who can't see the suffering in the world.

Liberal freedom and neoliberal neofreedom

FDR and other genuine liberals recognized there is no way to have large concentrations of wealth without them influencing politics. The 90% income and inheritance tax rates on the rich weren't intended to generate revenue. They were intended to prevent precisely the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few that we see today. Capitalism for ordinary people is a wonderful thing. Small business is a wonderful thing. But when capital concentrates in someone's hands for any reason, a democratic government must take control of the wealthy individual, or the wealthy individual will soon take control of the government.

Today legislators and regulators are in bed with large corporations in precisely the same way they were in pre-FDR America. We're back in the Gilded Age. History is repeating itself because we have forgotten it. Concentration of wealth in the hands of the few means concentration of state power in the hands of the few, and inevitably degenerates into oligarchy. Voting doesn't really help. Elections are easy to rig. The only way to overthrow the plutocracy is to leave our offices and take to the streets.

When we're all small fish, we can all be free. But freedom for the pike is death to the minnow.

Three Legacies of the Romans

The Romans left us three legacies that endured for centuries.

First, the Romans believed human beings who claimed to possess other human beings as chattel should be admired and respected as model citizens. In fact, the more chattel slaves a citizen owned, the more he was admired and respected.

Second, the Romans believed human beings who claimed to possess land and property should be admired and respected. The more land and property a citizen owned, the more he was admired and respected.

The first legacy of the Romans is, fortunately, no longer with us. The claim to own other human beings is seen as abhorrent. Those who make this claim are seen not as respectable citizens but as criminals.

During the French Revolution the Jacobins called the second legacy of the Romans into question. Property owners who feasted while their fellow citizens starved were seen during this revolutionary period not as respectable citizens but as criminals. "Property is theft" and "Starvation is murder" were two slogans often used to explain the shift in consciousness away from the Roman legacy.

We know from history that this revolutionary criticism of the respectability of owning property did not endure. Today owners of mansions who adorn themselves with silks and jewels while their fellow citizens starve on the streets are once again admired and respected as model citizens, in France and everywhere else in the West.

Engels famously claimed the only difference between a wage worker and a chattel slave is that a chattel slave is sold all at once, while a wage slave is sold piecemeal by the hour. Of course Engels exaggerates the similarities. The wage worker must sell his labor to the owners of capital to survive. But unlike the chattel slave, a wage slave whose owner abuses him can try to find a new owner who will treat him better. But the fundamental injustice, that some human beings are compelled by circumstances to serve other human beings, remains unchanged.

Along with the tradition of admiring and respecting those who feast while others starve, the Romans of course also bequeathed to us a third legacy, a humanist, literary tradition that refuses to admire the beautiful mansions and jewels of the rich, that refuses to ignore the human suffering underlying symbols of wealth and refuses to gape in awe at them.

The first century Roman poet Juvenal, for example, ridicules the Roman tendency to equate possessions with respectability. Here is a passage from his Satires, beautifully translated by John Dryden:

The question is not put how far extends
His piety, but what he yearly spends;
Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
How largely gives; how splendidly he treats;
How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
What are his rents; what servants does he keep?
The account is soon cast up; the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.

Which tradition is ascendent in our culture today? The one that gapes in awe at the symbols of wealth? Or the one that sees the suffering behind and beneath them? The answer is clear enough. Celebrities who feast in million dollar mansions while others starve on the streets are admired and respected. We don't see them as murderers as the Jacobins did. We hold them up as role models.

Humanist Matthew Arnold offers us a name for those who admire material opulence while failing to see the material suffering caused by the choice to use resources on feasts rather than on food for the hungry, on mansions rather than on shelters for the homeless:

The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines.

When we talk about the philistinism of Hollywood and Madison Avenue, we aren't just talking about bad taste. We're talking about a profound lapse of morality. A culture produced by directors and actors who feast in mansions while others starve on the streets is not merely aesthetically corrupt. It is morally corrupt.

The exquisite means of reproduction electrical engineers have created is now used to transmit our corrupt message to people across the globe. As Marx aptly points out, those who own the means of material production also own the means of ideological production, and can teach us to admire them rather than seeing them as the murderers they are.

Yoga Aphorisms for a Digital Age

Mircea Eliade in 1933
Reading Mircea Eliade’s Yoga: Immortality and Freedom puts me into a meditative state. I devote my full attention to thought. The conversation of mind and body is a dialog of equals—as opposed to the ordinary state, where the mind feels like no more than a part of the body, something inside the body, something subservient to the body.

The software’s purpose is not to serve the computer. The computer’s purpose is to serve the software. Apply this to the relation of mind and body.

The mind is accustomed by millions of years of evolution to serving the body. When the mind rebels and begins to develop its own agenda, feelings of guilt immediately ensue. It’s as if a devoted servant one day decides to abandon his master. Genuine freedom comes only after the servant has overcome not only the habit of obedience, but also the guilt he feels with every lapse in obedience.

Long training in obedience makes my mind crave a master to obey. The body is always close at hand, always ready and willing to reassert its dominance.

Maybe I could find a meditation master, to whom I could submit my mind, at least in the interim period, while it learns to overcome long-trained habits of obedience. But this too has its dangers.

In all but one in thousands, the mind is ruled by the body. Minds that dare to rebel against the rule of the body must therefore contend not only with the body but also with other minds that remain in servitude.

The mind in servitude is always supremely confident of the rightness of its servitude. Such a mind considers even the slightest suggestion of disloyalty treasonous and heretical, and will tolerate no mention of disobedience.

Not only will the body try to bring the mind back into subjugation, but other subservient minds will do their part to persuade the mind it made the wrong choice when it fled from its master.

The minds of my brother and sister and father and mother have not liberated themselves from servitude.

A friendship between mind and body can be reestablished only after the body understands it is a conversation partner, not a master.

When a dog whines, it must be ignored. Otherwise, I train it to whine. Apply this to the body.

When a child makes impatient demands rather than polite requests, it must be ignored. Apply this to the body.

A servant who is confident the rule of his master is inevitable finds all talk of disobedience foolish and irresponsible. Obedience will please the master. It will lead to rewards. Disobedience will displease the master. It will lead to punishment. When I tell the servant it is possible to dispense with the rewards and endure the punishment, he laughs.

Rule of mind by body supports and reinforces rule of mind by majority. The majority can offer pleasures to the body. It can threaten the body.

Rule of mind by majority supports and reinforces rule of mind by body. The majority of minds obey bodies. My mind wants to conform.

Rule of mind by body and rule of mind by majority thus mutually support and reinforce one another. To free myself from either, I must free myself from both.

A woman sees my body. She imagines her conversation partner is a body. But it’s not my body that speaks and listens. It’s my mind. I know this. But does she know this? If I’m not cautious, her conception of me as a body will become my conception of myself. Every conversation with another person threatens to trick my mind into associating itself with the body in which it happens to reside.

This body I am dragging around is not me. I am mind. I am soul. I am spirit. All that which is impermanent is not me. I am pure, eternal awareness, uncorrupted by any attachment to the world.

Are you making progress toward understanding yourself and your world?

Georg Simmel in 1914

Are you making progress toward understanding yourself and your world? Or are you trapped in a cycle of repetitive work and repetitive attempts to produce pleasure? Are you on a path to realize your intellectual potential? Or have you given up on your mind and settled into a stagnant cycle of mindless work and mindless pleasure? Whom do you allow to direct the day to day motions of your mind? Is it a teacher who genuinely cares for your mind and wants to nurture it? Or is it an entertainer who tries to make money from you by pandering to your weakness?

When we seek entertainment rather than intellectual challenge, we abandon what is highest in ourselves and try desperately to console ourselves by indulging the mindless senses. Then, to pay the bills for our futile attempts at sensory gratification, we report to work. There we face managers indifferent to our intellectual flourishing, intent only on their own profit.

You can break the mindless cycle at any moment. Stop the mindless consumption. Then you will accumulate some capital and soon be free to stop the mindless production. Then you can finally get off the treadmill and begin pursuing your own unique path to understanding yourself and your world.

All things in the sea, living and dead, have the same density. If their density were higher they would sink to the bottom. If it were lower they would float to the top. And so it is with commerce. Trade equalizes everything so it has the same density. Things that are worth more in the market expand in size. Things that are worth less contract. This is what Georg Simmel means when he says:

Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money.

In order to experience the true qualitative difference between values—the superiority of flourishing to stagnation, of love to calculation, of piety to cynicism, of kindness to cunning—you must leave the world of commerce behind. Then you can finally experience the freedom of living in the open air, outside the suffocating stream of money.

A lifetime of honest, diligent, devoted work in the world of commerce leaves you with exactly the same type of success as swindlers, conmen, prodigal heirs and retired dictators who flee to New York with their money. As soon as you have accepted the premise that the dollar is the measure of value in your serious work, you have decided everything that was unique and exceptional about you will be reduced to a single dimension, measured in dollars. Even if you succeed, your life adds up in the end to no more than what others have at the beginning through no effort of their own.

A lifetime of honest, diligent, devoted work in the world of intellect, on the other hand, allows you to leave behind the unique contributions your mind and your mind alone can achieve. A mind like yours has never come into existence before and never will again. It deserves its chance to leave its irreplaceable mark on history.

Don't Serve the RichServe the True and the Good

A mind that spends its life in pursuit of wealth may achieve at its end what many undisciplined minds have at the beginning through no effort of their own. A mind that devotes itself to intellectual and moral perfection reaches new heights of excellence with each passing year. Which life have you chosen? It's never too late to change your mind and make the right choice.

The idea that a fine mind like yours should devote itself to a goal no different from the mediocre minds of shopkeepers would be absurd if it weren't so tragically common. Of course we have to devote a small amount of intellectual effort to meeting our physical needs. But those who devote their intellectual life to obtaining luxuries and status symbols only show how low a value they set on intellect.

If you are at all disposed to think and study, the value of your mind far surpasses all the wealth mindless shopkeepers can ever offer you. They try to lure you into their web by offering you glittering prizes. Don't be fooled. The sacred temple of the mind, where human beings pursue the excellences that set us apart from animals, is to them no more than a factory. Once you enter their world you have conceded your exquisite mind is fit to be ruled by mediocre minds who inherit their wealth, by devious and cunning minds who have figured out how to scam the system, by retired dictators who flee to New York with their money, and by any other con artist or scam artist who happens to have dollars in his hands.

Your employer tells you he is interested in your intellectual development. But look more closely at what he means by intellectual development. You will see he means finding ways to serve him better, not finding ways to perfect your mind so it will serve only the true and the good.

Nothing like your mind has ever come into existence before. Nothing like your mind will ever come into existence again. Don't squander this opportunity to become perfect in precisely the way you and you alone can.

The saints and sages are there waiting for you to read and study. They are willing to tell you how to set your mind on a path toward excellence. But you will never read them if you're too busy listening to inferior minds with dollars in their hands.

Lines and λόγος

I can conceive of a perfectly straight line and reason about it even though all the lines I have ever actually seen are not perfectly straight. It is only the ideal of a perfectly straight line that allows me to recognize that the lines I actually see are not perfectly straight.

I recognize in myself the capacity to reason, and at the same time I recognize that I reason imperfectly. It is only the ideal of a perfect reason that allows me to recognize that I reason imperfectly.

When Descartes says, "I know God before I know myself," what does he mean? "The first thing we know about ourselves," answers Simone Weil , "is our imperfection." In the same way I must have a conception of a perfectly straight line before I can recognize the imperfections in an actual line, I must have a conception of a perfect reason before I can recognize the imperfections in my own. "The only mark of God in us," says Weil, "is that we feel that we are not God."

The Storm is Coming

Those who benefit from the arbitrary privilege of inherited wealth are eager to pass on a privileged life to their biological children. The idea of calling privilege into question is therefore not something they are willing to consider.

The media bombards us with images of prolific consumers to persuade us to consume. The intent is to displace feelings of righteous indignation aroused by arbitrary privilege, and replace them with feelings of awe and admiration. The intent is to make sure we exhaust our resources on consumption, so no money remains to organize politically and overthrow the tyranny of the privileged. They want us living paycheck to paycheck. They want us desperate, and therefore easy to rule. If they could find a way, they would ensure we don't have a single spare moment to think, or to organize.

The junior Bush rechristens the inheritance tax "death tax" and persuades Congress to repeal it. The ruling class manipulates politics to provide privileges to their biological children. We don't even notice. We're busy idolizing privileged celebrities. The ruling class can get away with anything.

Is it moral to live in luxury while other human beings suffer? Is it moral to permit the privileged to continue their rampage of destruction? Aren't we morally obligated, as citizens of the regime that gives them shelter, to take them down?

We keep talking about "equal opportunity." And we keep failing to deliver it. Of course wealth doesn't correspond precisely to skin tone. But so long as privilege follows bloodlines, there's a race of rich and a race of poor.

When activists demanded equal opportunity in the 1960s, they understood the inheritance tax and other taxes on the rich were essential to deliver it. The rhetoric of Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Bush has persuaded us to give up on the dream of an equal opportunity society. The new regime they have created allows privileges to pass unchallenged across many generations, forming, in effect, a hereditary plutocracy. If we look at who pays for the campaigns of these rulers, we find precisely the same hereditary plutocrats whose privileges these leaders work so diligently to preserve.

Whether the poor and oppressed will wake up in time for this election cycle remains to be seen, but, sooner or later, the storm is coming.

Life outside the market

Suppose a monk offers to help you care for your soul. Unlike the psychologist, he seeks no reward. His needs are modest. His needs are met. He doesn't want anything in return for his help. He offers a value system entirely separate from and independent of the market. He stands entirely outside of commerce. Money is worth nothing to him.

Secular society has no equivalent of the monk. If the market has a corrupting effect on the soul, the help the secular world offers for our souls will be corrupt.

If we find no higher value in the secular world than the dollar, this is because the secular world has excluded beforehand all forms of life that make no reference to the dollar. On a typical day in a typical secular life, there's a very slim chance of meeting a monk.

What if there really is something higher than the market, something more sacred than the dollar? If there is, how do we propose to find it in secular life, where all forms of wisdom that make no reference to the market have been excluded in advance?

Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Disneyland give us a culture that grows out of the market and serves the market. They make reference to higher values all the time. But when a reference to a higher value is made only to serve a lower value—is it an authentic reference? Any references Hollywood makes to higher values are merely instrumental, and therefore insincere.

The rebel who makes independent films instead of selling out to Hollywood fares better. But so long as she remains secular, she can never entirely overcome the mercenary values of secular life. In order to be able to properly bear witness to values higher than the market, she must live outside the market.

The man who believes he can testify to the higher values of culture while collecting a fat paycheck is deluding himself. Integrity demands a life of poverty and simplicity. We find testament to this in the ancient Greeks, where Anaxagoras abandons his possessions to be a full time lover of divine wisdom. We find it in Buddhism, where Siddhartha gives up his royal legacy to become a wandering monk. We find it in Christianity, where Augustine gives up a lucrative job to become a priest.

Genuine culture is culture produced by an uncorrupted soul with a sincere and genuine devotion to values higher than the market. You won't find such souls in a world ruled by the market.

The majority may be fit to rule your political life. The market may be fit to rule your economic life. But neither is fit to rule your spiritual life. Early Christians refused to conform their souls to the demands of Caesar, and instead conformed them to the demands of Christ. The monk of today refuses to conform his soul to the demands of the market (today’s Caesar), and instead conforms his soul to something he believes to be higher.

Combining ideas from multiple religions is often a very fruitful source of new ideas. But this kind of artful combining bears no resemblance to the mindless amalgamation of muddled ideas that finds its way to polls and markets. To distrust polls and markets in spiritual matters isn’t elitist. It’s merely a frank acknowledgment that politics and economics, while they may have their proper roles, were never suited to conveying subtle spiritual teachings.

The English form of enlightenment represents reason giving up on the idea that there might be values higher than usefulness to the state and the market. Bacon, Smith, Locke and Hume were not ascetics. Philosophy is henceforth the humble servant of politics and economics. God and truth are sacrificed to utility.

The Enlightenment puts knowledge in the place formerly occupied by God. The problem is, God can offer exhortations as well as propositions, while knowledge can’t. Hume’s famous “An is doesn’t imply an ought” is only refuted by allowing our reasoning to be led by a particular “I am” that for him was not.

Secular life is defined by abandonment of traditions that once conveyed values higher than the dollar from one generation to the next. If we try to find anything higher than the dollar in secular culture, we search in vain.

The Customer is King

The foremost requirement for success in the world is not intelligence, but rather the firm and unquestioning conviction that intelligence is of less value and authority than money. We must never question that our intelligence must be placed in service to those who have money, no matter how they got it and how they use it. We must never demand intelligence or virtue from those who employ us.

“The customer is king” expresses divine right in its modern form. Those with money are worthy to be served no matter how they got it and how they use it. Those without money deserve nothing from us no matter how noble and virtuous they are. If we dare to doubt this premise, we soon find ourselves on the receiving end of the violence of the organized forces of the privileged few who inherit divine right in its modern quantitative form and don’t want it questioned.

Work for the rich. Accept their handouts. No uncomfortable questions ever arise. It’s a comfortable, convenient life. Why on earth would I insist on making myself so miserable with my doubts?

I have the sort of conscience that refuses to accept a lie as truth. I refuse to accept that a dollar used to build a shelter for the homeless is equal to a dollar used to build the fifth mansion of a billionaire. I refuse to accept that a dollar offered by a dictator who flees to New York with his money is equal to a dollar earned by honest, diligent, devoted toil.

If I am virtuous, people come forward with offers of food and shelter. Money is a false coin that circulates in place of virtue and wisdom. If I need money to persuade my hosts to house and feed me, it can only be because I failed to persuade them with my virtue.

We are so eager to have a simple, quick, objective, tangible, quantitative way of assessing whether or not our fellow human beings are worthy of help, we allow ourselves to be persuaded there could be such a way. But some reflection will tell us there can never be. A tangible thing that claims to represent something intangible can never really adequately represent that intangible thing. Even if, as the Libertarians imagine, we could have a perfectly free and just economic system, money would still not represent a person’s worthiness to be served.

No matter how many certificates people with authoritative sounding titles issue telling me something is true, I must, in the end, decide for myself if it is true or false. No matter how many certificates the authorities issue telling me a billionaire is more worthy of help than a beggar, it is up to me to decide for myself if what the authorities tell me is true.

I am destined to end up in jail, on the streets, perhaps dead before my time, all because my mind is too stubborn to accept the conventional lie as the truth. My insistence on truth is certainly maladaptive. It’s remarkable that it wasn’t weeded out sooner by evolution. Why am I so stubborn? Because I know there is no way I can knowingly accept a single falsehood without corrupting the functioning of my entire mind. The corruption is particularly prominent if I accept a falsehood that pertains to some of the most urgent and important questions in life—Who is worthy of my help? Whom can I ignore?—and it is precisely in regard to such fundamental questions that the world most fervently insists it will decide for me which lie must pass for truth.

“What is truth?” The question is on the lips of everyone who has meekly bowed to the authorities and accepted the conventional lie. Skeptics insist there’s no such thing as truth, that everything we call truth comes from authority. They want to characterize the stubborn mind that insists on the truth as no better than Don Quixote, waging a battle for a phantom that doesn’t even exist. But such skeptics can be easily refuted. Even if every truth has some taint of authority attached to it, the skeptics know perfectly well that this taint doesn’t attach to everything in the same way, or to the same degree. Perhaps the skeptic never managed to persuade himself of even one single truth based on argument and evidence. Perhaps he even accepts the Pythagorean theorem on authority. Perhaps for him there really is no such thing as truth. But for those who sincerely care about truth, the genuine skeptics who devote our skeptical energy to what seems least plausible rather than cynically spreading it onto everything, it soon becomes clear that things pass for truth in very different ways. There are lies that pass for truth because they are supported by power. And there are powerless truths that conquer courageous minds even when all authority is opposed to them.

We bow before kings because we are in awe of their power. And it is precisely because of our credulous submission that they have this power. I am in awe because others are in awe. Others are in awe because I am. It's a circular argument on a grand scale. The divine right of money is no different. We're in awe of the rich because of their power, and their power derives from our awe of them. Those who bow and scrape in the royal court, accepting what conventionally passes for virtue and excellence as genuine virtue and excellence, have always seemed to me ridiculous.