But psychologically, can we not equate the two? The core stipulation of Individualism as a creed is precisely that individuals are exactly that: non-dividable; indivisable. Surely no social autonomy can be postulated without individual autonomy? Surely no society can be responsible without individuals who are responsible? Surely no large morality can be built without individual morality?
Did Sade individuate? No, of course not. He was only a fraction of a human being. I suppose humans are divisible, but not without violence. He wanted to be buried in the wild, where weeds would cover up all evidence of his failure.
I was watching some kids play tag today. Given my newfound need to reconcile animal instincts with our subjective sense of autonomy, it occurred to me that these sorts of games are not all that different than the games we see animals play, which teach them needed skills.
Then it occurred to me that in efforts to suppress these instincts, to suppress all traces of violence and aggression, that we more or less teach passivity and following restlessness. We suppress things that need healthy expression, without which we cannot be fully human.
We have all seen one or another of sundry visions of a dystopia which seeks to mute instincts, to teach humans to wage peace by becoming, effectively, automotons. Surely this is imbecility?
And I think of sacrifice, which is an old topic of interest to me. When I was studying Vedic myths, I argued that several very important ones (the Purusasukta, and a hymn to Soma I can’t find at the moment) echoed very old practices of human sacrifice. It is certain that the old texts call for a human head underneath the Agnicayana altar (in a modern performance of it, the Brahmins decided to use a squash, if memory serves.)
Sacrifice is a way of incorporating structured violence which feeds the animal instincts, without allowing it unregulated, free reign. It is, of course, a very poor way of doing it, but primitive peoples knew no better.
I look at myself, and the progress I have made by learning to separate sensations from emotions. I am convinced this is the path forward. But each of us must walk it in our own way, and that is exactly contrary to socialist notions of “science”, and a “best way”, and a knowledge elite.
And I think of the terrible horrors of totalitarianism. It is precisely an echo of human sacrifice, of notions that the collective good must supercede that of individuals. But where “primitive” cultures knew when to stop, when they allowed themselves to feel emotions of expressed rage and violence, and to let them burn, and they subside in a ritual order, the Fascisms do not. They come to be in the suppression, consciously, of primal instincts in favor of allegedly higher abstractions. And thus the violence does not have a cathartic effect; it has no end. It cannot end. It can never accomplish an actual purpose which cannot be named.
And this is the role of Satanism, which is clearly connected to Leftism. It constructs a ritual order, of CONSCIOUS cruelty, sadism, violence, hate. But even there I think we know too much for it to work. I cannot quite express this sense in words, but I feel it is a creed doomed to failure. It is a rationalizing of instincts that by that very process are separated out. A naivete is needed, which is gone forever, barring global catastrophe and global cultural regression.
No: we are at a time when we can and should grow beyond childish things. Everything that everyone wants can be had. It can be had consciously, and fulfillingly.
Oh, I have plans, but who knows if they will come to fruition?
I had an interesting experience the other day that I interpreted as a synchronicity. I was driving in the countryside, thinking I was making progress, and the thought intruded “But there is always death”. I may die, or be sideswiped with some experience I cannot predict, and at that EXACT INSTANT a bird flew into my car, which was going about 60 miles an hour, and no doubt died instantly. In all my years of driving, I have never killed a bird, and have only once ever killed anything (an armadillo in the middle of the highway in the middle of the night in north Texas.)
I had another odd experience today I don’t feel like going in to, but will say simply that this world is connected in extraordinarily interesting ways, and I hope that as a civilization we at some point come to realize this, and act on it.