These are not even schools of thought, but families of schools of thought, each with countless variations. Each should be thought of as a world, a complete explanation of every basic question of life, a worldview to which a man can devote himself for a lifetime. But none are entirely satisfying, for reasons that will become clear. I describe them below in roughly the order they appeared in history.
The first stage is Worldliness. This is the legacy of the Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire and Thomas Paine. The Worldly Man diminishes the importance of the Church, seeks disestablishment, and promises that all men of any denomination will be able to live together in peace provided all religious activity is a matter of private conscience rather than public organization. Why this promise was kept in the United States after their revolution but broken in France after hers is a discussion too deep to breach here. Without the guidance of the Church, the denominations fragment into ever smaller groups, and eventually lose the ability to guide public policy. Again, this did not happen until my generation in America, but it happened a generation earlier in Europe.
Capitalism and political liberty become the agreed-upon highest principles of the social order: each man is secure in his rights, especially property rights, if he respects the rights of others: thrift, industry, honesty in dealings, reliability, productivity, and so on replace the ancient virtues of faith, hope and charity in the limelight of public imagination. Most Worldly Men are deeply religious in private life; indeed, worldliness cannot long endure without a solid foundation of Christian tradition to feed and sustain it. In the last few years in America, the foundation is exhausted, and the public routinely condemns Christianity as vile, and denounces all faithful Christians as bigots. See the recent debacles concerning Chick-fil-A, Duck Dynasty, Orson Scott Card, and Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ.
The second stage is Ideology. Man’s soul cannot long endure without a superhuman purpose to which to devote himself. If Christ and His kingdom are no longer available, man invents various chimerical utopias or causes or callings to take the place of the New Jerusalem. The most famous and most successful, while at the same time the most illogical and bloodthirsty, is, of course, Marxism. However, the basic assumptions of Marxism underpin all Progressive thinking. Marx divided the world into the Elect and the Reprobate. The Reprobate are the sadistic oppressors. The Elect are the helpless victims. The Reprobate have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The Elect have no flaws whatsoever. The two are locked in a remorseless Darwinian struggle for survival at any cost, and the battle is one in which no quarter and no mercy is possible, and no negotiation has any purpose, save to win concessions from those gullible Reprobates who do not realize the deadly and implacable nature of the struggle.
This simple, nay, this idiotic black-and-white analysis can be fitted to any cause. Feminists see males as the oppressors and women as victims. Greens see mankind as oppressors and nature as the victim. Race-baiters see Whites as oppressors and Blacks as victims.
Loyalty to the cause becomes the agreed-upon highest principle of the Ideologue. Truth and honor and honesty are jettisoned with unseemly haste and enthusiasm. Ideologues like telling lies. They love lying, and will lie even when it is counterproductive, (see the Obamacare debacle for an example). The other virtues are offspring of this one virtue: the willingness to lie for the cause, to betray one’s family for the cause, to accuse the innocent for the cause, to riot for the cause, to shout down any opposition to the cause, replace the values of honesty, productivity and efficiency.
However, unlike the Worldly Man, the Ideologue is willing to sacrifice for a cause greater than himself. He can correctly despise the Worldly Man as worldly, even selfish. Despite that he is in reality less honest and less noble than the Worldly Man, the Ideologue feels more honest and more noble, because he has the zeal and fervor of a religion in his soul, despite that it is an atheist religion or antireligion. In some ways, this stage of corruption is healthier than the previous, for the criminal idiocy of the Ideologue is powered with the confidence of a true believer, whereas the common decency and common sense of the worldly man is powered only by the weak and self-condemning moral vacuum of selfishness.
The next corruption is Spiritualism, which throws off the materialistic worldliness of the Ideologue, and the weak and wavering ideals of the Worldly Men, and retreats into full-blown mysticism. The most popular forms of Spiritualism in the modern world was the blood-and-iron mysticism of the National Socialist Worker’s Party of Germany, known as the Nazis; but there were other variations, such as theosophy of Madame Blavatsky, the occultism of Crowley, the ideas of Blake or Shaw, and any number of modern New Age claptrap.
This is the point at which the corruption reaches incoherence because by the ineffable nature of mysticism, no definition of Spiritualism can be drawn. At most, one can notice some familiarities between some of the properties, such as a fascination with vegetarianism or reincarnation or homosexuality or pacifism, or an insistence on the universal nature of all religions. Spiritualism is syncretism, and seeks a synthesis of all world religions, provided only that Christianity is demeaned from its world-historical significance. For better or worse, the principle of individual and secret enlightenment which runs through spiritualism prevents them from forming a unified organization, except in the single case of the Nazis, where the political program, which was Socialism, trumped other considerations. The Nazis attempted to syncretize Christianity into their rather confused program not because, (as has often been falsely said), they were friends of the Christians where Communists were not; it was because they were Spiritualists, whereas Communists were Ideologues. Spiritualists do not seek an intellectually coherent or satisfying picture of the universe.
Do not be deceived. Worldly Men seek not to destroy, but merely to privatize and de-emphasize the Church, as a danger to public peace and good order, or as an oppressor of private conscience. Far different is the Ideologue. Ideologues seek to destroy the Church by replacing it with an atheist socialist utopia, or perhaps with the goddess Reason as briefly appeared in the French Revolution.
On the other hand, like the Gnostics of old, the modern Spiritualist seeks to destroy the Church by incorporating parts of Christian teaching into an alien and antithetical philosophy. But those who worship Tashlan are no friend of Aslan, if you take my reference. Once Christ is merely one lightworker among many, along with Socrates and Buddha and Lao Tzu, Vespasian and Swedenborg and Edgar Cayce and Obama, then, by definition, he is not Christ at all.
The final corruption is Nihilism, which dismisses the delirious daydreams of the spiritualists with the same intense skepticism with which it rejects the hypocritical ideals of the Ideologues and the uninspiring pragmatism of the Worldlies. The best exemplars of nihilism are Nietzsche and Sartre.
Nihilism is the default metaphysical assumption of our current time. It says that there is no one truth applicable to all circumstances. Truth is relativistic, plastic, variable, inconstant.
Nihilism preaches that all philosophies are worthless, since they are ‘narratives’ that is, social myths or lies, instigated for the unseemly purpose of self-flattery, or for controlling the lower orders, or for some other hypocritical, false and unadmitted purpose; never for the love of truth. The one thing the Nihilist believes to be absolutely true is that no one seeks truth for its own sake, nor for any honest reason. He is the Cretan who says all Cretans are liars.
Unlike the Ideologue, the Nihilist does not believe that tearing down one myth will reveal a truth beneath. It will reveal a void. Into this void any man can, by his willpower, establish the laws of reality as he sees fit. The motto of Nihilism is ‘Believe in Yourself’ or ‘Embrace Your Own Truth.’ The only sin in the Nihilist system is the attempt, even if peaceful, to persuade others that an objective standard of right and wrong exists.
Because of this, Nihilism has only one enemy in the modern age. Ideology is not an enemy, because the Ideologue is true to his own
truth. The Spiritualist is not an enemy, because he invents his own truth which happens to be ineffable. Nor is the Buddhist nor the Jew an enemy, because Nihilism is compatible with Buddhism at least insofar as Buddhist rejection of life as an illusion is concerned, and the Jew seeks only to live according to laws and diet particular to his own people. Only Christianity is the foe. (Logically, Islam, which is a heresy of Christianity, should also be a foe, but the Islamic glorification of self-destruction and their fanatical hatred of the West and all things Western endears them to the Nihilist.)
Nihilism has not won a complete victory yet, but its basic principles are assumed as the default in polite society.
The Promise of Nothingness
Once Nihilism wins, the only emotions left as socially acceptable in the heart of man is an insincere tolerance for the sins of others, and a vehement demand that all others not merely tolerate, but actively approve, of his sins.
Once Nihilism wins, unfortunately, all is over. All informal social organizations require some level of unselfishness, civility, mutual trust, or civilized sentiment to operate. Once these are dismissed as illusions, or destroyed as enemies of whatever cause it is fashionable to support this season, then the only social organization left is the state, whose role it is to assign to single mothers the paternity payments from whatever victim can be found to pony up the cost of childrearing.
Now, obviously again, few or none of the moderns caught in the grip of this mindset have reached the logical end-point at which reversal or repentance is impossible. This is an end state that is the result of the philosophy carried to its logical extreme, but it is a philosophy that also rejects logic. Other nations are deeper in the grip of this neo-barbarism than the United States, which is the last, best hope for mankind; but in recent years the culture seems to have redoubled its efforts to remain loyal to the nihilism of modern thought, despite that its failure rate and self-destructive nature is obvious even to the most casual observer.
What is their motive? Their motive is that they think that human nature stands between them and some higher good which they hope to get in return. They think human nature blocks the path to utopia. The utopia will open to the posthumans, once human sentiment and thought are abolished, and once men are not men.
The thing we are alleged to get in return for abolishing human nature changes it name. Some say it is equality, some call it social justice, some say it is peace, some say Utopia, some say an endless orgy, some say it is life without guilt but with immense self esteem, some say some other falsehood.
Since the price is our soul, hence our ability to use, (or even to crave), the things for which we exchange our souls, it does not matter what these things are. They are nothing. Something you cannot use or crave, as far as you are concerned, is nothing. We are being asked to give up everything and get nothing in return.
What we are being asked to give up is only three things: first is faith in God, second is love for anything outside our precious rights which allow us to make demands on our neighbors, and third is our conscience, that sense of natural right and wrong which exists in potential in all men, and is awake in all decent men of all honest religions and all honest philosophies.
It cannot be made more obvious by an argument than by a simple statement that the surrender of the conscience, the sense of right and wrong, makes us no longer human in any real sense of the word.
We would become exactly what the Nihilists already think we are: animals of no more dignity than an ape, meat machines programmed by blind and pointless natural processes, semi-malfunctioning computers suffering from the delusion that our selfhood is real.
With the final triumph of the philosophy of nihilistic hedonism, we would become demons of pride living only on pride, sucking on the worthless and dry husk of life, taking pleasure in nothing, hating ourselves, and hating all other life whatsoever, but hating the lives of children most of all. The current fanaticism pressuring women to kill their own precious and helpless babies—their own, not even the babies belonging to a stranger!—is a precursor, a slight taste, of what nihilism promises.
But the seductive lure of Nihilism is not merely the freedom from humanity and freedom from the chains of prudence and honor and self-respect, it also promises freedom from want, (once Caesar is all powerful and you are his dependent for him to feed), and freedom from all war and all crime, (once no one loves nor wants anything, nor has any human desires, nor any point of view, nor any religion, nor any patriotism, nor any family to protect, then there is no obvious source for any conflict, neither violence nor vehement differences of opinion).
In a sense, the bargain Nihilism offers is merely a logical extension of the Worldly Man’s bargain by which the sectarian conflicts between Protestant and Catholic were extinguished in the common peace of the First Amendment in the United States. Namely, the violence between religions was quenched when no denomination was allowed to touch the levers of secular power. All parties agreed not to use the power of the law against each other, but to compete for the souls of men with the truth of their words and deeds alone. Then history erupted into two World Wars, followed by a deadly Cold War, and the world shivered in the shadow of promised global thermonuclear destruction. These wars were fought over political and economic theory, the placement of boundaries of nations or spheres of influence. The Nihilist promises that once we realize that no political system, no economic theory, no nation and no influence are worth fighting over, all fighting will cease. It is the same logic again. If men no longer believe in God, they will never fight wars over religious issues. Likewise, if men no longer believe in anything, they will never fight wars over any issue whatever, and universal peace for all time will reign.
The only thing that is forbidden is expressing disapproval about any other man or his way of life. Since man is fallen, the only thing forbidden is to recognize that man is fallen, or to seek some mystic water to wash away the stain of sin. The only thing forbidden is to seek salvation.
The Alliance
Now the great question is, if the Ideologues hate the worldliness of the Worldly Man, and if the Spiritualists hate the atheism of the Ideologues, and likewise the Worldly Man hates the injustice and greed of the Ideologue and the fuzzy-headed nonsense of the Spiritualist, why do they all agree with the default assumption of the Nihilist that truth is private and faith is in vain?
That is not what puzzled me. That is as obvious as the Sahara sun at noon at Summer solstice. Christ is critical of the Worldly Man, with his preoccupation with wealth and efficiency and his coldness to the poor. Christ condemns the Ideologue for his pride and greed and general bloodthirstiness. Christ has no dealings with the various witches and wizards which comprise the Spiritualists, who cannot accept the shocking statement that He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. The witches insist that all the roads eventually lead to heaven, including the road paved with good intentions.
All parties in corruption agree that the Church is the enemy. Those who are not in open rebellion against Christ are at least in a position of discomfort, for they think that to speak or act in defense of Christ, or to rebuke slanders against Him, is in bad taste, is inappropriate, cannot be taught in public schools, cannot be said on public airwaves, and merely causes discontent and commotion in the public square. Those who are Christian in name only think Christ is a private matter, not to be discussed nor defended in public. The atheists among the Ideologues and the Witches among the Spiritualists have a guilt complex about rejecting and reviling the faith of their fathers, and are sickened when they look in the mirror and see themselves destroying Western Civilization, so they revile Christ either with the bellowing anger of a mad thing, or with the smirking, sneering, anonymous cowardice like that of a graffiti artist painting swastikas on Jewish headstones, but who runs away, giggling, at the sound of a footstep.
All parties differ only in degree and approach. They all like one part of the Christian teaching, but differ on which part. The Worldly Man
says Christ established not one church, but many, and He meant religion to be a matter of private conscience only. The Worldly Man likes and will keep the teaching of Imago Dei, that all men are created equal. He will not keep the teaching that life on Earth is vanity, merely preparation for life in heaven, and that wealth is vain. The Ideologue likes the teaching of common property as seen among the Apostles, and likes compassion for the poor, but he will not keep the teaching that Christ is divine; the Spiritualist will not keep the teaching that there is but one Christ.
All parties are agreed on the one point. They are for the spirit of Antichrist.
The Puzzle
As I said, it was a great puzzle to me as to why anyone should so vehemently continue with this process of corruption. Logically the only thing for a Nihilist to do, once he is convinced that nothing is real and nothing is worth enduring life to achieve, is find some pleasing method of suicide, perhaps an overdose of morphine during an orgy, and slay himself at once. If he is too uncourageous for the manly suicide of paganism, at least he can shut the hell up and leave the rest of us, the decent and sane people not obsessed with the terror of the void, to live our lives in decency and sanity. But no. The accusations never cease. The servants of the nothingness never tire. And they never shut up, and never stop shouting at us to shut up. What gives?
Ours is not the first age to adore and support totalitarianism, but ours is the first to support totalitarianism in the name of liberty. Ours is not the first Dark Age, where ancient learning was lost; but ours is the first where ancient learning was lost not due to the collapse of civilization, but deliberately, willingly, purposefully, as if to bring about collapse.
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth Page 37