Philosophy / Action

Philosophy, practiced properly, will help certain men to discover how they should act. Though it will not necessarily be the same path of action for all such men. Philosophy, if it is to have any meaning at all, must be concerned with the question of how to live.

The man who understands unthinkingly, unquestionably how he should live--either by never wondering, or by having already discovered it--has no need for doing philosophy. Philosophy would only bore him or confuse him.

He who does philosophy must eventually stop doing it. It must lead to his living in the world in a new way. Philosophy is not itself a way. Philosophy without action is useless (e.g. the academic philosopher who does it professionally for money, or the hobbyist philosopher who does it part-time for kicks). Doing philosophy has nothing to do with using technical language to argue with other men and publish books and papers.

As a result of the philosophical work he has done he will act in the world in a new way: he may begin to express himself differently with language, to lose his friends or gain others, destroy certain habits, leave his job or his wife or his country, wear different clothing, disregard social norms or a particular law--he will act differently in the world. How he acts will distinguish him from other men.

Those who present the work of philosophy as “internal work” expose their cowardice. They cling to a Cartesian myth of inner and outer which while allowing them to live among other men with a minimum of conflict, denies them from achieving the self-satisfaction of action in the world. These cowards will die regretful, having denied their bodies, having been unwilling to act.

The idea of an inner world is a false one, a clever escape, a denial of the body. Just as there are no private languages, there are no “inner acts”. Man’s “inner life” is an expression of his retreat. The moments he calls “conscious moments,” where he feels himself distinct from the world “outside,” are moments of bewilderment. To build upon them something philosophical, to call these moments more “real” or “true” than the way he moves and speaks among other men, is to entertain a path of thinking that privileges inaction, and that will allow him to escape the willful, courageous task of expressing himself in the world.

The men with a need for doing philosophy are potentially great men. Philosophical work is the work of the few. It is the challenge of greatness that these men, to varying degrees, will feel in their need. This makes the cowardice and the regret of their failure to act all the greater. For these men have the opportunity to be something more than men before: to show other men a new way in the world.

Prolegomena Fragment: Work Left Undone

But now food, clothing and shelter are in abundance. He has worked diligently to construct a system (through exchange, specialization and communication) to make available and abundant both security and energy, but yet what does he do? He works to expand this system, to make more security and energy, and to reproduce them in new forms. He works ever harder to collect more of the things he already has. His original project of sustaining his own life is merely amplified. Man has the opportunity today for something more, something beyond the base elements of his survival, yet he does not try for it.

Multiple homes, huge wardrobes of clothing, whatever food he wants available to him whenever he desires it--none contribute significantly beyond what has been achieved already. He has simply restated the terms of his survival in more plentiful, more luxurious forms. He has not decided upon any end goal for the achievement of his survival. So he continues to collect more food, clothing and shelter. He is a collector. He never seems to have enough. Western man has become a storehouse of security, with the marginal utility of more security effectively zero.

Today he works ever harder for the latest repackaging of security that is sold to him. Men live in a spirit of competitive collection, each working to possess a better version of what is currently celebrated and promoted.

But after he has his food, clothing and shelter he should ask: “And how now should I live?”

Those who ask the question ask it too late. Man often asks himself how he should live when there are cracks in his system, in old age, or when his health is deteriorating. He does not question how he should act when he has both his physical capacities and the food, clothing and shelter to survive. Hence many men die regretful, with the feeling that there must have been something more to life, something else, some other work left undone.

He remains essentially a slacker, hoping to avoid work or survive with a minimum of it. He continues to despise work as if the energy expended posed a risk to his life--as it once did. Yet the hardest work is to be done after the threshold of food, clothing and shelter has been achieved. The work of greatness is possible then. The work of becoming something beyond the animal that has learned to survive best. It is the work that exists beyond economics and the systems he has constructed. It is the work for which there is no return. It is work that contributes nothing to his security. And it is dangerous work because it will isolate him from other men.

His instincts are those of the Pleistocene, though he lives in a time of abundance.

For 99% of his history man has struggled daily to survive. His desire for food, clothing and shelter is a central component in his genetic makeup, and, due to its overriding power, one difficult to fully satisfy. The work of greatness will be an overcoming of the genetics common to all men, as well as those specific varations he has inherited from his parents. He will need also to overcome the systems he was born into and the other men, both past and present, with whom he shares a culture. There is great work still undone.

Initial Aphorisms On Overcoming

21. Where your body is and what it is doing is what is meaningful. The activity called “transcendence” is for he who lacks the courage to act and to physically change the world; a mental exercise for the physically weak, the decadent, the degenerate: a denial of the body and the world. It is a trick men play on themselves to get through the day.

44. If your project is strong enough you will sleep alone. Even when she sleeps beside you.

76. One is 50% one’s father, 50% one’s mother. In the absence of dramatic environmental factors (the breakdown of society, for example) or life-changing accidents (i.e. a choice that improbably changes your life--the outlier), it is likely that you will trend toward the average of your parents. By your mid-30s your life will have narrowed to an approximation of who they were.

77. Research on adopted children shows that by their mid-30s their lives are significantly more similar to their genetic parents than their adoptive ones. Additionally, studies of identical twins separated at birth show them by their mid-30s living very similar lives in terms of education level, occupation, number of children, and lifestyle. Should one choose to do what feels comfortable, one should expect to become his parents.

83. One’s development, as guided by genetic and environmental triggers, is mostly complete by the age of the 30. The genes involved in physical development have gone dormant and his hormone production begins to slow. He settles into life as his parents. He acts and responds to the world as they did. He is human, wonderfully human. And he lives without any knowledge or experience of what it is to overcome.

87. He who overcomes acts outside the society he was born into (his environment)--he does what other men do not and do not consider. He who overcomes acts beyond his parents (his genetics), doing as they never did. He who overcomes becomes alone, without other men and without parents.

89. To overcome other men is to exchange nothing with them and ask nothing from them in return--it is to act beyond economics. One becomes a gift to men, a sort of saint or messiah, and just as likely an outlaw.

95. But only he will know if he has overcome his parents. This overcoming will not be apparent to other men. Perhaps it will not be clear to him either?

On the Equality of Minds (Prolegomena Fragment)

The West views the body as the cause of inequality among men: discrimination based upon strength, age, ethnicity, sex and physical dexterity. To correct these inequalities the following steps were taken:

1. Abortions: Women can now enjoy the pleasure of sex without the responsibilities of pregnancy, and can thereby act as promiscuously as any man.

2. Debt financing:
a. Which made conspicuous consumption available to everyone regardless of work ethic, ability, or income.
b. Which moved manufacturing jobs to poorer countries and replaced them with knowledge worker jobs. Such jobs leveled the career and economic playing field between men and women as physical strength and coordination are not necessary for success. (One might even argue that women are better equipped than men for the work of management, communication, and organization.)

3. Government subsidies and legal protections to assist underperforming or underrepresented groups: ethnic minorities, the handicapped, etc.

4. Language purged of physically identifying adjectives: Politically correct speech. It became derogatory, immoral, even illegal, to identify a person by his physical characteristics. (The body is not considered to be the person.)

5. Science created ways to extend the lives of the sick and decrepit, to keep their minds alive inside their dying bodies.

In these ways the mind was thought to be finally separated from the body--a great triumph of Cartesian philosophy. Disembodied minds can be equals.

Supplementary Note: Abortion is justified on the grounds that the unborn baby is not yet a person. Said differently, the unborn child is a body that does not yet have a mind. It is in no way the equal of a child who has just emerged from the vagina and been granted legal protection as a person. The mind appears to be defined as a pool of memories and demonstrated intentionality in the world, excluding one's experience inside the uterus. (The idea that women carry a ‘world-less place’ inside them called the uterus is a puzzling one.)

At the other extreme, a tremendous effort and expenditure is made to keep alive the aging and the sick. Certainly the fear of death and desire for immortality guide the expenditure of resources in this regard, but the argument is also made that the elderly and infirm are equals of the healthy and that they (their minds) have a right to carry on. Yet there is little outrage that the West has chosen to accept the destruction of unborn children, while expending countless resources to extend the lives of the dying. This is perhaps one of the greater ironies of the hegemony of Cartesian thinking.

Further Fragments for a Prolegomena

First installment here.

It has been said that the best way to attract a woman is for a man to not give a fuck. To not care. To be aloof towards the woman as well as towards everything. The GAME guys have used this, mastered it even, as a pose to lure woman and to fuck them. It is a masquerade that is up quickly, however. They are playing a role, masquerading as a type, and the woman--any woman--can see this after a time. Of course, the GAME guys have gotten what they have wanted and moved along.

Nonetheless, the woman’s desire for this man is particularly meaningful. And it is in some ways unfortunate that the GAME guys would abuse this important aspect of the woman’s character/biology.

Because for the great man, who has overcome all, who truly gives not a fuck about anyone or anything--an outlaw and a creator--a woman will quickly sense this and be drawn to him. She will want him as the great prize of all prizes. She will want to mate with this man. (A woman, one might say, is the best evaluator of talent.)

Mating with this man is mating and procreating with the creator of new worlds. A woman will consider it her greatest gift to have this man’s child and to raise it. She will give birth to the promise of further novelty, further creation, leadership--the furthering of the new.

The average man does not interest her in this way. He cannot. He is a continuation of the same. He is not a leader of men, an outlaw, or a creator.

ADDITIONAL:

The creator-outlaw-leader is aloof precisely because he acts outside a society. He projects confidence and aloofness because those are the byproducts of his overcoming. The society and its language and customs are useless to him. It should be no surprise that when he encounters others it is with an aloof confidence.

A common male characteristic asked for by women in the personal want-ads is confidence. Certainly it would be the case that a man who stands apart or against the crowd is confident. He would need to be, or face destruction.

It must be repeated that a woman is the best evaluator of male talent.

It will be a woman, and not a man, who first recognizes the overman.

Fragments for a Prolegomena

The confusions caused by and made manifest in language must be dealt with at the physical level, at some point, if they are to be resolved. It is not simply by talking that philosophy is done. It is physical therapy as well, this philosophy I speak of. Language can be a cover that obscures the disparities between a man’s instincts (read: his biology, his genetics, etc) and the society in which he acts a part. Words (read: moralities) can often do much to lessen his feelings of inadequacy or angst or anger when the actions a society expects of him are in conflict with his instincts. He may use words to rationalize or justify himself and his place and course of action--even to justify the society itself, if he is a particularly thoughtful man. But the words are generalities. The words are concepts, placeholders for an area of meaning, they are poetry, and have none of the specificity of meaning the word appears to imply.

In contrast, the desires of his body are most specific. Only a man’s actions are meaningful. The history of man as he understands is a history of action. A man is as he acts. If he is lucky, the action encouraged by his instincts is consistent with the conduct expected of him from the world he lives in. If he is unlucky, his body urges him to action which disagrees to varying extents with the world. It is a source of conflict, either within himself if he chooses not to act, or, if he does choose to act, a conflict with the world around him. For such a man, the pursuit of pleasure and satisfaction can bring a painful response or punishment from those he lives among.

A man is lucky to live as an obedient animal, following urges that just so happen to coincide with the expectations of the society in which he was born. His is a life without conflict. He may pursue his pleasures and his happiness without worry of offending society. The generalities of language will not be a source of confusion for him. Language will appear as specific and meaningful as his actions and the group action of the society. His action will seem guided, life structured and predictable. He cannot imagine a life lived in any other way. And he will hate those in his society that try to live otherwise. He will speak out against them with his fellows who live and speak the language that he does. He will speak and act as the group. He becomes what is general. He is the many. He and the others are the same.

At the opposite extreme is the truly unlucky man who cannot control the urges of his body that are in conflict with the group. He is a misfit of society and in the most extreme cases an outlaw. He does not have a sense that he needs the group or requires it. He acts in accordance with his instincts without fear of the group or his own safety and thereby represents the greatest danger to the group. He does not care if his life is long or short, only that he follow his instincts.

But a less extreme case of unlucky men are those who feel acutely some conflict between themselves and their societies, yet are able to exercise the self-control necessary to avoid acting on their impulses. Some are even capable of critiquing both themselves and the group. They restrain themselves from action that might bring them into conflict with society, while also examining the action and language of other men. Some of these men have constructed elaborate personal philosophies to justify their conduct or that of the society; using language they cured themselves of the conflict and learned to live as the others, learned to become the same. Rationalizing one’s life with language is a sort of poetic deceit to make onself feel better. Some of these thoughtful, unlucky men were even able to change societies with their arguments and thus make a place for themselves.

If he is not a very unlucky a man, words will be enough to smooth over his conflicts. He will convince himself with generalities; words will be a poetic trick to make him feel better and calm his instincts, calm the desires of his body, calm him into not acting on the urges that inspire him. He may convince himself to work with others on their projects because that will bring him money, or some measure of power, or provide the security so that a particular girl will give herself to him. This unlucky man may rationalize that this life of quiet internal conflict is preferable to action that might jeopardize his place in a society.

His body may wish to run, to hunt, to ascend great mountains. Instead he will sit for most of the day, inside buildings of glass and steel, doing the work of the others, breathing air recycled and chilled by noisy machines. He does this for his safety. There is safety among the many--to act as the others act is the safest act. He will say this to himself: This is how I shall live longer, by living in this way. A man lives longer as a member of group than if he is alone. Even if I have some disagreement with this group I will remain a part. To live as long as possible is meaningful. The group will protect me and if we are attacked it is only the outer, weaker members who will perish. I will amass money and prestige to be among the inner circles of the group where it is safest and warmest and most protected.

It is easier to do philosophy with a pencil than with one’s body. Words do not offend the group as actions can, and words can be politely renounced. For the man for whom words are insufficient, he must change his life through the action of his body and not by talk. Some have left for mountaintops. Others stopped using language entirely. Others left for societies that were more amenable to their instincts. Even some others have chosen to end their lives.

There are many choices for this type of unlucky, but thoughtful, man. But he must choose a path of action. When the rationalizations of language (read: personal philosophies he may read, religions, philosophies he may write for himself, etc.) are insufficient he will have to physically act. He must quit the role he is performing within that society or leave the society altogether. He must find some new way of living to resolve the conflict between his body and his society. There is great work he must do. He must come first to an understanding of his body and what it desires. He must then come to understand those areas of conflict with the group. He will use language to do this. With language he will identify the troubles and with language he will begin to formulate a plan of action. It is messy work using language but his use of language will only be an means to an end, and that end is a particular action.

Man most fears losing the others. He needs others to speak with, to fuck, to be entertained by. He needs others to like him. He fears being disliked and outcast and alone. His body tells him it is dangerous to be alone. His body tells him that you die when you are alone and he fears all action that would put him into conflict with the others. He finally fears his own conflicted urges because they threaten to separate him from the group. So he polices himself. He is against himself. He speaks and acts in conflict with the instincts of his body. It is some part laziness and fear that he lives this way and he will live out his life conflicted and unhappy, working alongside men he finds contemptible, a marriage to a woman he is disgusted by, children he never understood he wanted, things and things in abundance, and the quiet, complicit face he presents to his different bosses. He may even express himself sincerely regarding his conflicts to some other men who feel as he does. This will be a tiny society of the conflicted and outcast--of men lacking the courage to act, lacking the will to change society, or the will to leave it.

They will feel some comfort from the small group they have made together. Lives of what they call a desperate quietism. They may have a few hours after work to express themselves with each other. They may be given a few weeks of vacation from the group which they use to explore what their body’s desire most. They are men who require great action to resolve their conflict, physical action, but they lack the will for it and are the unluckiest of the animals. These are men who die regretful, these most unfortunate of the unfortunates.