Amerika

217. Subversive

A healthy society stretches before you like a landscape — but when the “official” way of doing things becomes rotten, the next generations decide to subvert it. They don’t know the entire ideology they’d rather have; what they know is that everything that is, they distrust; therefore, subversion as a universal maxim is safe. Now that social landscape is folded on itself. Here next comes the problem with subversion: the subvertors do not agree on why they’re subverting or what they desire, so they almost immediately fold into a countermovement. This of course becomes unstable, because it’s an impression of an idea that was never clear in the first place, so with every disagreement in the future, it subverts itself further. And what eventually happens? Like the formation of an embryo, so many divisions occur that soon freely-dividing, autonomous cells exist. These are fortunate if they have a plan, because if not, they become a cancer.

218. Breeding for Intelligence

Generally, high intelligence is a trait that appears “randomly” through the generations. It seems to be recessive, and thus only comes out when two highly intelligent people breed; at that point, it skips a generation, and their children who are of above-average but not high intelligence, if they marry someone else whose parents included at least one genius, will produce offspring of genius. These offspring, if they breed with other genius, now have a halfway chance of also producing genius; if not, they produce offspring who require yet another genius or dormant genius (a “skip” generation) to produce high intelligence offspring. This means that if you are a genius, marry one and then socialize with other geniuses, as if your offspring find one of their offspring, you’ll likely have grandchildren who are genius. It is part of nature’s brilliant plan that this happens, because it means that reckless and wanton societies are too disrupted to allow this delicate breeding apparatus to occur, and thus produce fewer geniuses — which is fortunate because people from dysfunctional societies, like people from dysfunctional families, tend to be tormented and rage against the world around them. By contrast, if the society is organized enough — especially by caste — that geniuses can meet others, they propagate the inheritance smoothly and eventually produce families that have almost no tendency to skip generations in breeding genius.

312. Why Everything Goes to Shit

Nature has a brilliant system for producing more deliberate organisms, which in turn produce more interesting responses to nature, increasing the strength of the whole feedback loop: entropy. That which is not guided by some kind of plan rapidly returns to a fallow state of disorganization that breaks down into the feeblest, most granular, most selfish parts available. Societies break down into mobs and then decay further into every man for himself — continents break down into countries and eventually warring localities. Nature’s symbol of breakdown is the flat hierarchy, or one general category with a single “miscellaneous” category under it that contains everything in granular form. Think of it this way: even grains of sand are organized by the rock that composes them, their shape, etc. If every grain of sand were identical, a beach would have fewer interesting properties than it does even now. Nature works on an elective principle, so that those who desire to rise above the morass can do so by applying design and logic and discipline to their task. The results are always an improvement, once the initial errors are out of the way. And if they “let go of the reins,” and stop applying any kind of order? Disorder and decomposition, death and decay result, neutralizing whatever they built before it can gain a mind of its own and serve some destructive or parasitic purpose. Indeed, if it were not for this principle, parasites would be even more numerous than they are now — and that pushes the boundaries of credulity.

261. Parenting Maidens

So you have a pretty daughter: you love her, and she’s just sixteen. Do you want her to be faithful to you? Spare not the rod, and show her no stronger will than your own. Do you want her to be faithful to her heart? Then you must show her your limits, and your love. Between the two she will find what she seeks — what, you interrupt me? You worry for her virginity? What is that but a symbol of faithfulness to heart? If she is wanton, her heart knows no faith but the moment, and for this there is no cure.

If you love your daughter, you want her to have a good life, and to have nice things. One of the nicest of things is a pure heart. When it comes time to buy her a car, get her something old that still runs; your heart calls for you to run off and buy her a new shiny thing, but what do you teach through that form of “love”? If you wish her to be faithful to her heart, train her heart to love the invisible yet always present, the value in life and not its symbols or objects. — you fear she will use drugs or drink? What are drugs or drink but material substitutes for value in life? If she is wanton, her mind cannot distinguish between symbol and reality, and for this there is no cure.

148. Evolutionary Duty as Refuge from Analysis

Marriage is safe after age 25. You’ve done as much of the youth stuff as you’re likely to, so why not move on? Now you no longer have to find something to do on Saturday nights, or to justify your time. If anyone else seems competitive, or you feel like a loser, remind them that you have a family. Instant excuse! It also makes it convenient to duck away from any social event. You’re doing what’s natural, what everyone wants, draped in white lace and promises. You can no longer be a total failure, no matter what else happens, and if you find yourself alone on Saturday night with nothing to do, remember that your obligation is first to family.

We like obligation, as creatures. It means we do not have to plot a path. In the same way it’s easier to be an outsider than a member of society who thinks, it is easier to have duties: one does not have to define one’s own time. The outsider must simply define what she is not, and then look to what is left by the removal of normalcy; it is always fewer items, and to that one can adapt with the comforting sensation of “I had no choice in the matter!” Slaves suffer less existential trauma than others, for they see it cannot be another way, thus they must simply adapt and make the best of it. There is no better or best option taunting them with what they might have been, or could be. They simply endure.

98. God as Symbol

“God is a symbol and reality as one.” He, she or it cannot be used as metaphor because that which is metaphorical in God has been made identical to its supposed presence in real life. We can now see the complexity of confusing spirituality through the mention of God; if the term is not already understood, it immediately becomes a black hole in meaning because it is a single value shared between name and meaning to which anything can be assigned. Those who are genius seem to inherently treat God as a holistic concept that may or may not “exist,” but is rendered by belief.

Tags: aphorisms