Amerika

Societies succeed and grow, and then people become dependent on those societies, not just for sustenance but for guidance. This creates a dangerous split in the population where some are still geared toward adapting to reality, but others are suitable only for adapting to social situations.

The former group remain “conservatives,” and the latter group are the various conjectural belief addicts ranging from libertarians through anarchists and liberals; liberals ultimately aspire to “subsidized anarchy” or something like a soft form of Communism, but since that never works they end up by mistake in totalitarian equal poverty regimes.

Those of us who aspire to reality might find ourselves having something in common with Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to bring it to humans:

The Greek poet Hesiod related two principal legends concerning Prometheus. The first is that Zeus, the chief god, who had been tricked by Prometheus into accepting the bones and fat of sacrifice instead of the meat, hid fire from mortals. Prometheus, however, stole it and returned it to Earth once again. As the price of fire, and as punishment for humankind in general, Zeus created the woman Pandora and sent her down to Epimetheus (Hindsight), who, though warned by Prometheus, married her. Pandora took the great lid off the jar she carried, and evils, hard work, and disease flew out to plague humanity. Hope alone remained within.

People talk about “freedom” a great deal, but the only real freedom is knowledge (and independence from bad government!) which brings with it pain. There is no purity or morality involved, only choices of greater function versus lesser function. Morality is toxic unless paired with hard realism of function.

The fire we steal is understanding of our world. When humans recognize how the world works, we can adapt to it, and we become both more powerful and more disciplined, since understanding the logic of the world enforces that logic upon our minds. All exploration, study, adventure, and invention follows this path.

We who are looking toward the future of the West are Prometheans. We do not fear the fire. We accept that suffering is inevitable. We do not seek Utopia, nor peace, nor even comfort. We seek to learn and adapt, even if brimstone and napalm may follow. We recognize that this is our only path forward.

In doing so, we discard Abrahamic and social morality that says all people should be equal, scary methods like war should be banned, individualism is good, and that the goal of society is to make us comfortable and reduce suffering. We accept that suffering is innate and ask only that our suffering produce some noble result.

We aspire to excellence, including beauty, goodness, and accuracy. We aim to know everything. We fear no aspects of our world; we would rather know things that shy away from the knowledge. We accept the “injustice” and “inequality” that are necessary and inherent to nature. Join us… we are the future.

Tags: prometheanism, prometheans, prometheus