Abstraction and the Catastrophe of Anti-Particularity
Hermetic Communism Against Reality
Nothing seems to make sense – or, at least it wouldn’t to somebody teleported to our present from a mere decade past. They wouldn’t understand the question, “what is a woman?” They wouldn’t understand very many things, because the distinctions – those things differentiating between particulars – have been blurred, or obliterated.
What if I were to tell you this wasn’t done as a random accident of history, but a purposed drive towards pure abstraction and undifferentiated oneness of all things? This is the religious rite of Hermeticism – the religion of alchemy – which says that god does not know himself to be god, because he has no opposite to contrast himself against, so he created this mundane world and imbued mankind with mind (nous) such that man can, through this process of recognizing and then eliminating distinctions, bring god to knowledge of himself. At the end of this religious prophesy of eschatology mankind we be reabsorbed into god (the absolute), and all will be utopian.
You might scoff at the idea that anybody of consequence has been working to put this plan into action in recent history, but… you’d be very, very wrong. This plan is being put into place all around us every day. This religious worldview is the foundation of both Communism and Progressivism – both owing their modern genesis of systematic ideology to the philosopher Hegel, and particularly his holy book of 1907: Phenomenology of Spirit. This is also the basis for the New Age cult religions. It’s also at the center of very many initiate (secret) societies (clubs).
We can extrapolate the reasons for the catastrophic damage done by past Communist governments from this concept of eliminating distinctions – another name for the Hermetic dialectic, or “aufheben,” or “sublation.” Consider an apple. When you consider an apple you might think of the flavor, the color, the shape, and so on. However, when you consider first the color of an apple you are eliminating nearly all apples that are not that particular apple in your minds eye. These nested hierarchies of abstraction begin with the particular apple, move up to the variety of apple (i.e. McIntosh), move up further to, perhaps, all red colored apples, and further yet again to all types of apple.
Now, consider what would happen if I was responsible for growing foot for a nation, and I gave you an order to carry out as follows: plant ten percent of all available land with apples. So, you go and begin planting McIntosh apples and I discover your error and yell at you, “no, you idiot, I said plant apple trees, not McIntosh apple trees.” So, you, a bit confused, begin planting Red Delicious apple trees, and I again discover your error, and yell at you, “no, you idiot, I said plant apple trees, not McIntosh apples trees, not Red Delicious apple trees, just apple trees.”
You may be beginning to see the problem here: you cannot perform an abstraction in the real world – you can only perform a particular that excludes the possibility of all other particulars. When one commits themselves to the elimination of distinctions and blurring of boundaries he begins making himself incapable of any sort of discernment between particulars as to which is better, or which is terrible, or evil even. This is the methodology by which Communism (and Fascism/Nazism) destroys entire societies. It destroys the sense-making capacity of the population writ large such that they attempt to override reality with abstraction and social construction.
Reality cannot be overridden. There is no absolute spirit, and there is no perfecting anything through the elimination of distinctions. Distinctions are necessary at all times for discernment, and discernment is necessary at all times to simply avoid the terrible death that nature would happily inflict upon you with its veto over your abstractions.
Distinctions are good. The inequalities between people are good, because they are God given, and all persons have their particular cross to bear and gifts to embrace. Embrace reality, contend with it, overcome the particular challenges reality presents with ingenuity and hard work, but do not ever allow yourself to think that you get to remake the world closer to your hearts desire.
This is a good article and it hits at the fundamental roots of our current problem.
There is no such thing as equality of outcomes, just like there is no such thing as equality of abilities. There is also no such thing as perfect information. Information is always incomplete. The future is always uncertain. We are each unique and different. The best we should hope for is equality of opportunity which is not a zero sum proposition, but takes into account that the optimal role of government is not to pick the winners and losers, but to establish a level playing field, although a perfectly level field almost never happens. Commies wrap themselves in the language of fairness, but ultimately no one is more unfair than a Communist, unless you count everybody on the bottom being miserable as equality and fairness.