Tuesday 29 November 2022

The Reign of Equality

 When I submitted By No Means Equal to the publisher I was asked to name another book it might be compared to. I imagine this was to position it in the market. I hadn't thought about this and at first couldn't come up with anything. It had no obvious influences though, of course, many things had fed into it. But then I thought about equality and how that actually meant focus moved from spirit/quality to matter/quantity and that reminded me of the famous book by René Guénon called The Reign of Quantity. It's been 20 years since I read that book and, to be honest, I can't remember much about it but I do remember that his broad theme is the materialisation of consciousness and how that has impacted the modern age which is an age in which quantity supersedes quality. This is more or less what my book is about and so when it came to the time to write a 'blurb' for the back cover this is what I came up with.

"Equality is the rock on which our modern Western liberal democracies are built. When we talk of Western values this is the one that underlies the rest. But what if this rock is made of sand? This book explores the idea of equality and suggests it is an ideological belief with no foundation in reality. It may seem a progressive belief from the political point of view but in reality its acceptance is spiritually damaging with consequences for the evolution of the soul.

The Traditionalist writer René Guénon said that we live in an age of quantity, one in which nothing is allowed to exist that cannot be measured. This is the age of equality which directly opposes the idea of the individual soul as a spiritual reality.

The equality myth pervades almost everything these days so while the first part of the book examines this myth from various angles, the second part looks at how it has influenced and adversely affected the spiritual search. We go back and look at first principles from a metaphysical perspective and even consider the nature of God. Then there is the opportunity to see how this idea impacts on the end times scenario.

The book is similar in construction and focus to Remember the Creator and Earth is a School, and in that respect could be considered the third part of a trilogy."


As I say, I hadn't thought of Guénon when writing the book but there certainly is crossover between our two approaches to the vexed question of the modern world. The difference is that he appeared to retreat to the past and became a Muslim, albeit one heavily influenced by the metaphysics of the Vedanta, whereas I believe that the modern consciousness is part of proper human development, simply one that has gone wrong. It is like a fruit that has become poisoned rather than a poison in itself and once we are able to submit it to the light of God it will prove to have many benefits. If human beings are on a path to becoming gods themselves, which in my view is part of the divine intention, then the phase of self-consciousness is a necessary stage to go through. The modern consciousness was a risk but one that can bring great spiritual progress if handled correctly. Of course, that is just what is not happening on the collective level but God always works with individuals and, on that level, who can know how much success his experiment is having?

11 comments:

Unknown said...

I do apologize for being such a gadfly to you William, but we all need gadflys, so -

Hmmm, but doesn't the concept of inequality you promote depend precisely on measurement and quantification :)

Isn't your philosophy here a rather good example of the modern belief that only what can be measured exists :)

In certain schools of Zen, especially the earlier Chinese varieties, there is a concerted attempt to get out of the quantification mentality, which divides the Whole into tiny pieces, by rejecting our habit to judge and grade things according to quantification metrics - the mindset you are rather promoting here I'm afraid :)

If one truly wants to get out of the modern mindset of quantification and measurements, one might consider the ancient Christian - and other than Christian too - philosophical idea that ultimate Reality, God's ultimate plan, is beyond equality or inequality, but rather - Pure Value.

A realm of such pure, total, and intense value, such absolute meaning and worth, that it takes up the whole universe and admits of no petty gradations, measurements, and quantification.

I hate to say it, but it seems to me you and Bruce have gotten sucked in to all the worst metaphysical errors of modernity - which is probably why you guys are so gloomy all the time :)

You're not kidding when you say don't reject the modern mentality.

For modernity, everything is equal because nothing has value - all is nihilism.

Modernity seeks to transcend the realm of quantification - a healthy spiritual impulse - by denying there is anything to measure at all, since value doesn't exist.

This is a caricature of traditional metaphysics, as most things modern are, which says that ultimate reality or God is such Pure Value that all attempts to divide it, measure it, or quantify it, cannot do it justice.

Your idea, that ultimate reality (not just the realm of appearances) can be divided, measured, quantified with some things being better than others is a step on the path towards modern nihilism, a step away from the classic spiritual insight that everything is ultimately divine.

What makes yours and Bruce's philosophy seem so quaint is that it is in large part an attempt to return to an earlier stages on the path to modern nihilism, which is what most right wing conservative philosophies are about these days - returning to some earlier stages on the path that ended in modern nihilism but that wasn't yet so bad.

Which is I suppose a good thing in our modern landscape where any relief from total nihilism is welcome, and perhaps the first step out?

But the only true path out is through, and a return to earlier half measures and stages cannot be an ultimate solution.

Gadfly out :)

For now.

Unknown said...

The path towards modern nihilism went as follows -

Classical metaphysics - the whole world is divine, everything has Buddha nature, all is Atman, including rocks, trees, and rivers, and everything is treated with reverence as holy, including inanimate objects so called.

First step towards nihilism - some things have value and others don't, or at least some things have more value than others. Gone is the holistic universe where a world of rich individuality all contributed to a whole of perfect value. Man is superior nature, reason to feeling, etc.

Modern nihilism - not only some things have no value - nothing has value. Not only does nature and so called inanimate objects have no value. In the end nothing at all had value.

Right wing attempts to combat total modern nihilism - let us return to the intermediate stage.

Perhaps it's a noble attempt, and perhaps it's a positive sign in the dreary landscape of total modern nihilism.

But nothing will satisfy us except the total Truth, which is far more radical than these half measures - and it is that God will be the All in All, and ultimate reality is a realm of such pure and intense value that admits of no quantification and explodes all our petty schemes to capture it :)

In our hearts nothing but this glorious vision can truly satisfy, and all these petty attempts to quantity, set up as superior, etc, will leave us in the end cold and yearning for more.

dave b said...

"In certain schools of Zen, especially the earlier Chinese varieties, there is a concerted attempt to get out of the quantification mentality"

False. They seek to deny all logic. They are leftist sjw scum.

William Wildblood said...

@ Unknown. In an unfallen world everything is holy but everything is not equally holy.This is a fallen world so some things have lost holiness.

No need to say anymore.

Christopher Yeniver said...

"leftist sjw scum"

Hopefully you refer to the schools that broke apart the original teachings and not the Zen masters themselves. XD

Colin said...

@gadfly
It might be worth waiting for the book to avoid tilting at straw men that don’t really look much like William.

William Wildblood said...

It is true that I would prefer the comments to relate directly (not tangentially) to the post rather than be used to advance personal agendas.

Colin said...

Dear William
I recognise the book has gone to print, but a few thoughts on the above that may be helpful in further promotional materials:

There is an up front and personal quality to your words after the inverted commas above. Almost a re description of the book for ‘us’ rather than the more formal abstract back of book one, intended to set it in its place, with a wide invitation. I would be more likely to read it from the second description. But I am not target market, as I will read it anyway. Finding balance between depth and breadth for each context in marketing is not simple.

William Wildblood said...

Thanks Colin. I'm not entirely sure what you mean but actually the blurb was trimmed down for the back cover and reads as follows.

The Traditionalist writer René Guénon said that we live in an age of quantity, one in which nothing is allowed to exist that cannot be measured. This is the age of equality, which directly opposes the idea of the individual soul as a spiritual reality. Equality is the rock on which our modern Western liberal democracies are built. When we talk of Western values, this is the one that underlies the rest. But what if this rock is made of sand? By No Means Equal explores the idea of equality and suggests it is an ideological belief with no foundation in reality. It may seem progressive from the political point of view, but actually, its acceptance is spiritually damaging with consequences for the evolution of the soul.


Dexter said...

I assume you are familiar with this

https://mises.org/library/liberty-or-equality-challenge-our-time

William Wildblood said...

No but I'll have a look. thanks.