Graham Seibert Autobiography draft Jan 15, 2013 Page
Evolution, Liberalism, Universalism and Christianity
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Evolution, Liberalism, Universalism and ChristianityThe Liberals the Enlightenment believed that the purpose of life was the fulfillment of every person’s potential, their inner yearnings. Enlightenment era documents talk about happiness. The Preamble to our Constitution enshrines “the pursuit of happiness.” Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism sought “The greatest happiness for the greatest number.” " The ultimate purpose of creation," wrote Herbert Spencer, "is to provide the greatest amount of happiness." Enlightenment philosophers took it as a given that men harbored great aspirations which they had been unable to realize due to their ignorance, poverty, and servitude. The goal of the liberal project was to provide them the individual liberty – political and economic – necessary to realize their happiness. Twentieth Century political liberalism dedicated itself to satisfying these conditions: provide every individual with their “fair share,” that they might realize their potential. Some went beyond happiness, or attempted to define it as self-fulfillment. Aristotle wrote " Now with us reason and intelligence are the end of Nature." Kant wrote that our purpose was broader than happiness: " the evolution of all the germs God has implanted in man's nature." However, even substituting fufillment for happiness, it comes down to the individual. The greatest good is framed in terms of what individual citizens deem to be good. The health of society is seen as no more than the collective happiness of its individual members. Liberalism bleeds into universalism, today titled the “New World Order” or NWO. Simply stated, the premises are these. (1) Conflict, especially war, is antithetical to the the pursuit of individual happiness. (2) A prime, and generally successful function of government is to prevent conflicts within the realm. From this follows that (3) The world needs a global government, to maintain a universal peace under which individuals will be free to realize themselves fully. Christianity takes a different view of the purpose of life. Christ preached that the goal of life was salvation, and that would be achieved by submission to God’s will, through kindness, service and even subservience to others. St. Augustine preached that our life on earth is only a prelude, and if the purpose of life is fulfilled only if one loves God above all, working to establish a “City of God” here on earth. Its emphasis is on the individual, but on the soul rather than the flesh. St. Paul wrote of the “mortification of the flesh,” passive and even active denial of the interests of the human body and its natural desires as the path to salvation. Christianity resembles liberalism in that its focus is on the individual. People go to heaven individually, not corporately. The role of family and society is to support the individual aspirant in his search for individual salvation. The Christian sacraments of marriage, baptism and confirmation are designed to create succeeding generations of believers. When Thomas Malthus wrote derisively that the purpose of Islam was “procreation of worshippers” he might as well have been speaking for his coreligionists, especially Catholics. Christianity also resembles liberalism in the matter of governance. The church has striven constantly, albeit unsuccessfully, since its infancy to centralize its power and unify its dogma. The idea is that world peace will be realized when all believers believe the same thing, and believe it truly and wholeheartedly. Evolution comes without creeds, dogmas and ethics. It simply is. Our challenge is to understand how it worked to bring about the world as we experience it, how it continues to work among human populations, and the ways in which we would be prudent to modify our behaviors, to nullify the more pernicious effects of evolution, or our beliefs, to take into account the realities of evolution. Evolution takes place among breeding populations. Altruism, mutual support and education are desirable traits within a group. People are naturally benevolent to their kin, because their tribe is a vehicle to perpetuate their own genes, and members of the tribe offer protection to their person. Conversely, tribes and nations compete with one another. Throughout evolutionary history the natural propensity of every group to increase in numbers led to intertribal frictions and wars. The weaker were shoved aside to starve, exterminated, or subjugated. Conflict, eschewed by Christians and liberals alike, has always been an essential mechanism of evolution. As Darwin wrote, it is “survival of the fittest,” which generally consigns the weaker to a miserable end. Christians and liberals are repelled by the notion that some must fail, and try to prevent it. Both liberalism and Christianity seek to deny evolution. Sir Charles Sherrington summed it up in an epigram: “Nature represents in the case of man a revulsion of the product against the process." Sir Arthur Keith3 explains that “Here product stands for modern or evolved man; the process for the means used by Nature in his creation.” In my words, men now see themselves as more refined than the process of evolution which put us here. He quotes (though I cannot find the original) Lord Acton: All thought of Nature's ancient evolutionary purpose has been dismissed from the civilized mind. May there not be a nemesis awaiting us? The late Lord Acton was apparently of this opinion. Overindividualization he regarded as equivalent to decadence. "The individual triumphs at the expense of the community ... the national self-conscious individual is the triumph ofcivilization; he maybe the symptom ofcivilization disease."4 I hold with Keith and Acton. If mankind is to improve itself, and my seed is to be included in future generations, people of European descent will have to back away from the rampant individualism of our age and once again recognize family and larger organizations such as tribe and nation. Other peoples of the world, not so civilized or introspective, are doing so. If we forfeit the future of our own kind, we would appear to be giving up the best hope for a superior breed of man. Superior by what measure, one might ask? To me it is not relative. I can easily say: intellect, altruism and creativity, the legacies of our own civilization. When we are confronted with evidence to the effect that evolution leads to differences among peoples which are not in accord with our liberal beliefs, we deny evolution. Like Wily E. Coyote churning his legs over the abyss after he has run off a cliff, we find ourselves denying a vast number of facts that seem irrefutable to me. Topping the list, a percentage of our population just don’t have the God-given wit to manage technical jobs, mortgages, or even supporting themselves. Moreover, the systematic distribution of these people indicates that it is undeniably the product of evolution. These are peoples which were being left behind by evolution until a benevolent liberalism stepped in to save them. Now they multiply. A corollary is that, with the governments papering over their deficiencies via a number of entitlement schemes, the US and most of Europe are going broke. When their resources give out, one might project that “survival of the fittest” could come back with a vengeance. We now have more leisure than at any former time in world history. Yet, the arts, invention literature everything seems rather stagnant and puerile. People are simply not using the newfound free time productively. Instead, vast numbers waste it with electronic entertainments and chemically-induced distractions from reality. The liberal premise that, given the chance, people will aspire to improve themselves simply has not been borne out. Most people led more meaningful lives as laborers, farmers, tradesmen, perhaps even as serfs and slaves. Times of scarcity produced Leanardo, Beethovan, and Michelangelo. What has our abundance produced to compare? There is a saying that if you want something done, give it to a busy man. It may be that in prior ages, when people had many demands on them, among them raising families, they cherished their free time and make good use of it by being creative. There is also a question of the quality of people. We have been in a dysgenic mode of evolution for the past century or more. The underskilled, underintelligent underclass, supported by government, has outreproduced the more productive members of society. Although people refuse to accept the measurements of this phenomenon, they are certainly present. Look at the NLSY (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) as an example, or SAT scores in the United States over time. Therefore, looking for purpose of life, the liberal ideals, brought forward from Aristotle’s time, doesn’t seem to have led to greater mental productivity. One thing that has come of rampant liberalism and rampant individualism over the past half century, is such a focus on the self that families are no longer being created. Feminism, homosexuality,and casual, uncommitted sex have flourished as society has become focused exclusively on the individual, ignoring the core evolutionary units of family and tribe. In a world threatened with overpopulation, this is not altogether bad thing. It is as if the society is committing suicide, or shrinking its numbers. Western society is behaving just like John P Calhoun’s rats in his wryly named “Universe 25” utopia. Overfed, overprotected and quickly overpopulated in their utopia, they turned to hypersexuality, homosexuality, meterosexuality in those he named the “beautiful ones”, and meaningless violence resulted in unsuccessful mating and in abandonment of litters. His rat colonies hit a population peak, then shrank – not back to a sustainable number, but to zero! In every case they had simply forgotten how to be rats, and they died out. Our rising generations have likewise forgotten how to be people. Their sex lives are generally a mess. Without guidance from society, or adequate models within society, our youth have a hard time forming stable families and raising children. Every country with an average IQ above 96 (Argentina) is having children at a rate below reproduction. 5 Moreover, fertility rates are dropping in most of the rest of the world. Liberalism has done its work! It has blunted the effects of evolution, our native drive to increase our numbers. The race is now between our increasing appetites for material things, produced from materials wrested from the earth, and our decreasing numbers. Even in this there are some encouraging signs. Consumers’ objects of desire are increasingly small and technical: wristwatches, iGadgets, video games, scarves and handbags. Our cars are smaller, and since we are all wired together via the Internet, more and more people “cocoon” themselves. We don’t take as many trips to shop, to work, or to see movies. What does this mean for Edward? The mainstream society around him is seems to be bent on exterminating itself, failing to reproduce itself. I want grandchildren and great grandchildren! Therefore, what we want for Edward will be something quite in contrast with those around him. We want Edwards to be a normal child in the old sense of normal, which means an oddball and the new sense. We want him to stand out, to have a purpose in life, and to have a stable and productive marriage. This means it he cannot identify with mainstream American society, which is clearly headed in the opposite direction. What can we do? I have chosen another society, Ukraine, which seems to be more or less going the right direction. For the moment most young women aspire to family and children, and feminists and gays are still pretty quiet. However, even within this community, we need to find an appropriate group of peers among which he will encounter the values that we want to impart to him. We need to situate him with families which value education, kids who respect their peers, and want children. Religious people look like the best bet. While we are sure to have arguments over doctrine and dogma given my beliefs in the historicism rather than the literal accuracy the sacred texts, and evolution with regard to how man arrived here and is doing here, I believe that Christians have a better handle on how to treat their fellows, than any other group. We’ll enroll Eddie in that tribe. I’ll make the necessary adjustments so I don’t embarrass him, and at the same time help him make the adjustments necessary to reconcile church teachings with the real world. Download 412.6 Kb. Share with your friends:
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