Such A Poem As This

There is work – the overtime – long walks under Sun, stars
To keep me distracted
For there is then no hours-long dwelling on your absence:
But this music undid such willful cunning plans:

You were there, then, as that Lute sounded,
Here, so real in memory, I touched our dream:
Warm, sensuous, as when that day I held your hand, felt your body
And empathy, sorrow, memory, made you cry.
I loved you then in that moment with a strength which surprised me
And had to fight to keep
That truth, my tears, from bursting forth:
Such love a torrent sweeping my calm of years
Away.

This week will become the month of loss,
This month a toil endured
As when the weary soil, drought-kept,
Waits, waiting, to bring forth flowering joy from seeds,
Like memory, sown from tears that are earth’s rain,
My pain.

I know – and because I know the you
The years of sadness, doubt, self-loathing, hid and hides away,
I love the love that has no words I know:
Such love that is only the touch of you, the smile of you,
The need of you, the scent of you,
The longing to be with you as if my love might redeem
The sorrows which made you hide
Still hiding a hope, within.

So much to say before you travel to stay a month away
With he who is your choice:
So much to miss I am, will be, lost
Needing now to run the miles to your house
Bearing such a poem as this.
This is all I have -
No house, car, money, prospects.
Only a love, a dream
Seen when I kissed your tears before you rested your head
On my shoulder that one night of belonging
When we knew, felt, touched, remembered, the essence.

But – three decades of love, thwarted – I am no longer naive enough to believe
You will be mine
And so I shall not, cannot, will not – must not – call upon you bearing
Such a poem as this.

David Myatt
2003 ce

Note:

This item is  covered by the Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0) License
and can be freely copied and distributed, under the terms of that license.

Is David Myatt Still a Nazi Sympathizer?

Despite David Myatt’s conversion to Islam (although he’s now left Islam in favor of his own mystical philosophy); despite his condemnation (in his mystical philosophy) of racism and nationalism; despite his view that modern warfare is dishonourable, and despite – thanks to his mystical philosophy of ‘the numinous way’ – being often described as a hippy [“Tätä nykyä Myatt taitaa harrastaa jotain New Age-hippeilyä” as someone in Finland recently described him] he is still praised and his writings, both neo-nazi and recent, quoted and posted on neo-nazi websites and blogs and by various neo-nazi organizations and individuals, worldwide, such as the American groups Aryan Nations and Iron Youth Party of North America, and pro-nazi groups and individuals in Italy, Greece, Russia, Brazil, Portugal and elsewhere.

Why is this if Myatt is no longer a nazi?

These are the reasons, in my view:

1) He’s never renounced his belief in Hitler as a ‘good, honourable man’ -

” I have never, in my heart and mind, renounced my belief in Adolf Hitler as a good man, an honourable man, who – believing in God – strove to create a just and noble society, and who was destroyed by the ignoble machinations of those opposed to what is good and who have spread dishonourable lies about him, his followers and his Cause. Thus it is that I find I cannot denounce this noble man and those who fought and died for the cause he upheld, as I cannot and will not denounce those who today honourably (and I stress honourably) continue the struggle in his name and who respect the Way of Life which is Al-Islam… Thus it is that I continued for several years… with Reichsfolk – an honourable organization striving to presence something of the Numen I believe was manifest in National-Socialist Germany and in and through the life of Adolf Hitler.” Myatt – Autobiographical Notes, Part 2 (2005)

Only this year – 2011 – he wrote the following (my emphasis) in praise of Hitler -

“It is in this context, of practical knowledge and practical experience, that I, for instance, write and speak about Adolf Hitler – for I have met people who knew him, as I have felt, known, understood, these people to themselves be honourable individuals. Thus my view of Adolf Hitler, and of his National-Socialism, is very different from that held by the majority of people today – and indeed amounts to an heretical view, for I consider him to be have been an honourable man who honourably and intuitively strove to presence, in Germany, the numinous and who succeeded against all expectations in creating the beginnings of a noble society. And a society adjudged noble, by me, because I have also known many, many, good people who lived in that society and thus have their first-hand accounts to guide me…

My own knowledge and experience, and which knowledge and experience has led me to believe that both National-Socialism and National-Socialist Germany have been much misunderstood and much maligned…

What has not really been understood, let alone appreciated, is that NS Germany was an intuitive attempt to transfer the traditional collective way of living to a modern State and nation, and thus should be considered in this context. Hitherto, it has been judged, philosophically , by particular abstract criteria – such as the happiness and the freedom and the ‘rights’ of the individual – which in my opinion is not correct since it expresses a different, non-individual, ethos. As I mentioned in Part Two, in the collective way the individual has duties and obligations to the community, which come before the happiness, the desires, of the individual.

Therefore, this modern attempt to re-establish a collective, traditional, way of life, using modern means – forms such as The State – is interesting philosophically, existentially, especially since Blud und Boden was an intuitive apprehension of the numinous, and then an attempt to manifest and evolve, using such modern forms, a still living tradition devolving around a living folk and to re-present and encourage the symbiotic relationship that lies at the heart of the collective ethos and in the dwelling of particular people in a particular locality who have a common tradition.

Or, as Heidegger attempted to express it in some controversial writings – for instance regarding the Volksgemeinschaft and by quoting Aeschylus – National-Socialism could be considered a modern means to engender a will-to-existence for the German volk grounded in truth and the essence that was the German volk…”

Myatt – The Uncertitude of Knowing (written 2011)

2) Because he still accepts that the ethical National Socialism, which he developed in the late 90′s and early naughties, propagated by Reichsfolk and now by groups like Aryan Nations is in his words,

“the required and necessary prelude to the emergence, some time in the still distant future, of a numinous way of life for the majority of human beings, as expressed by my mystical Numinous Way.” Myatt – Concerning National-Socialism, The Numinous Way, and a Muslim Khilafah (written 2011)

3) Because in his own words – in his The Uncertitude of Knowing and other recent essays – he sees himself, explicitly using the terms of Hitler devotee Savitri Devi, as someone ‘above Time’ who appreciates the work of those (such as honorable National Socialists) ‘against Time’.

4) Because his Numinous Way philosophy allows for and even seems to encourage what he calls clans based on an ancestral, a folk, tradition,

” The Numinous Way considers each living culture – each creation of Nature, if you will – to be important, and considers that these living beings should be aided, and evolved, but only by ethical means consistent with the ethics of The Numinous Way. That is, through honour, empathy, compassion, reason, and tolerance. Thus, The Numinous Way considers that the diverse cultures – the different unique cultures which have arisen on Earth – are worth caring about; worth nurturing, in an ethical, tolerant way. It does not wish to see this great diversity of culture destroyed by, for example, the levelling of urbanization, or by the materialism of consumer-capitalism, or by some political ideology, or even by some supra-personal, large and abstract State.” FAQ About The Numinous Way

“Since an ancestral living culture is apprehended, by The Numinous Way, as a type of being – as some-thing which has Life – and since the basis of such a culture is and has been the clan and clans, and since The Numinous Way emphases the true liberty of the individual arising from their own personal judgement, there is nothing wrong, unethical, or contradictory to The Numinous Way, in individuals caring about and desirous of nurturing their own ancestral culture, and living, and desiring to live, as part of their own living ancestral culture, provided always that they strive to act with compassion and with honour.” Myatt – Some Notes on The Clan, Culture, and The Numinous Way (revised version, 2011)

Thus Myatt’s Numinous Way, while condemning racism, The State, and nationalism, allows individuals the freedom to choose to live in small clans of their own ethnic kind and culture.

5) Because his writings about National Socialism are still regarded as some of the best ever written – clear, concise, and rational.

6) Because he places personal honor at the very heart of his Numinous Way philosophy, in place of criminal law, and to the extent of upholding the duel as a means to settle disputes.

7) Last but by no means least, he’s still a champion of what has come to be called holocaust denial, evident for example in his essay The Theory of the Holocaust which he wrote only a few years (2007) and which important essay presents an argument which believers in holocaustianity have no answer to.

So while David Myatt rejects politics, nationalism and the state, no longer supports National Socialism and criticizes it from the philosophical perspective of his ‘above Time’ mystical philosophy, he seems to see and understand a wider picture in which NS Germany and his ethical National Socialism had and have a role to play, thus heretically stating that Hitler was a good and honorable man who simply made some mistakes and who beliefs may have had some philosophical flaws, and which flaws can be remedied.

In addition, Myatt’s Numinous Way philosophy also allows for ethnic – ancestral – clans and tribes, and places personal honor and duelling at the center of things in place of conventional laws and courts of justice.

Nazi Sympathizer or One Man Above Time?

The question therefore is – Is Myatt a Nazi Sympathizer, or just One Man Above Time?

That is, is Myatt now just a philosopher, a mystic who, as in his Uncertitude of Knowing essay, remarkably, interestingly, uniquely, and intriguingly, describes National Socialism as a Western cultural πάθει μάθος and as a curious mixture of ἀρετή and ὕβρις? Or is he really a Nazi sympathizer?

As in the case of Martin Heidegger – who Myatt quotes in several of his essays, including his Uncertitude of Knowing – there are reasons to conclude that Myatt may well be a Nazi sympathizer, as there are reasons (perhaps more reasons) to conclude that he isn’t and is instead just a philosopher trying to understand a very controversial topic in an unbiased, rational, and philosophical way.

SM
All Hallows’ Eve, 2011 ev

[This is an extended and revised version of part of an earlier article I wrote called MOACS, Myatt, and One Man Above Time.]

Further Reading:

David Myatt – The Uncertitude of Knowing
(pdf 333 kB)

Anton Long (ONA)

Вот статьи которые написал Дэвид Мьятт по теме работ Гераклита, в которых вносятся существенные коррекции в значения переводов некоторых важных сохранившихся фрагментов:

Heraclitus – Notes on Fragment 53

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/heraclitus-notes-on-fragment-53/

Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 80

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/notes-on-heraclitus-fragment-80/

Heraclitus – Fragment 112 (The Balance of Physis – Notes on λόγος and ἀληθέα in Heraclitus)

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/heraclitus-fragment-112/

Heraclitus – Fragment 123 (Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ – Physis, Nature, Concealment, and Natural Change)

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/heraclitus-fragment-123/

The Abstraction of Change as Opposites and Dialectic

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/the-abstraction-of-change-as-opposites-and-dialectic/

и связанная c этим статья:

Culture of ἀρετή

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/about/the-culture-of-arete/

Для тех кто может сомневаться есть ли David Myatt автортетным человеком чтобы писать на эти темы – да, он не имеет научных степеней, но зная древне-греческий и через собственные πάθει μάθος (также он есть ‘основателем’ Ордена Девяти Углов/ONA, который Орден основан на πάθει μάθος) он смог увидеть то о чем он пишет, в отличие от многих академиков, оторванных от жизни и не видящих живого контекста древних текстов.

Erich Torn
Друг Базальтового Города

The Legitimacy of Authority

Authority is: (1) the direct power to enforce compliance and obedience upon others, ‘the subjects’, or (2) the indirect power of (a) manipulating others so that they are compliant and obedient, or (b) having influence over others of such a sufficiency that others are compliant and obedient.

It is from such power – however obtained, presumed, or acquired – that someone, or some many, assume or claim they have a mandate to rule, govern, and command, and thence also claim that they, and those appointed by them, represent or are an, or are the, legitimate authority, and thus claim to possess the moral right, the duty, to command, lead, and decide what is lawful and unlawful and punish those who do what that authority has decreed is unlawful.

Thus, what is legitimate and what is lawful is or become what those who have power decide or decree is legitimate and lawful, with there being the expectation, the assumption, or the demand, that ‘the subjects’ accept what is, in effect, this imposed legitimacy.

Before the rise of the now almost ubiquitous nation-State ^[1], power was most usually direct power, acquired by individuals and groups through physical force; for example, by victory in combat or war or by the violent removal of someone or some many who already had power over others in a certain geographical area or territory. Once obtained by such means, such power was often legitimized and transferred by those having power decreeing that their progeny – or those appointed by them – were ‘the rightful rulers’/the legitimate authority, with such decrees, and the authority of the powerful, being enforced if necessary by the use of physical force, the threat of such force, and the punishment, by execution or imprisonment, of those actively opposed to such a transfer of power.

That is, those with the authority acquired by such force – initially or subsequently – relied both on their subjects being compliant and obedient, and on the use or the threat of physical force in order to enforce such compliance and obedience.

With the rise and the development of The State direct power has, for the most part, been replaced by indirect power; that is by some person or some minority influencing or persuading or manipulating a sufficient number of people to accept some leader/clique/minority/representatives as the legitimate authority. One of the mechanisms developed to enable some person or some minority to so gain and exercise power is the abstraction that is modern democracy where political parties compete for votes (from those entitled to and interested in voting) with such party representatives – said to be ‘of the people’ – being invested with power and influence usually by gaining the most votes, and with the leader of the political party that gains the most representatives usually assuming the primary role in governance.

However, the authority of those who acquire power by such indirect, non-forceful, means is – like the authority of those who acquire power through physical force – still an authority where there are subjects who are expected to be compliant and obedient to ‘a higher authority’, and where there is the use or the threat of physical force in order to enforce such compliance and obedience.

For elected governments always reserve to themselves, and their appointed officials or functionaries, the right, should they deem it appropriate, to use physical force, and imprisonment, as a means of curbing dissension and unrest among the subjects (the citizens) of The State. That is, those with such power regard themselves as the legitimate authority and thus as invested with the lawful and moral authority necessary to use force to quell public disorder. In addition, they invest themselves with the authority to declare war on another State or States, so that a legitimate (or just) war is considered to be one declared and fought by such State authorities.

In effect, therefore, The State/the government is of necessity predicated on the assumption of the obedience/acquiescence of individuals; that is, on the assumption that individuals within the territory controlled by The State accept its authority and accept that such authority is legitimate – whomsoever is deemed to be or appears to be the government – even though most of the individuals in that territory have given no formal personal pledge of allegiance or pledge of loyalty to the ruling authority.

In practical terms, the subjects of The State – just as much as the subjects of some potentate, tyrannos, or some monarch – are expected to defer to those in authority in certain and important matters of judgement. Hence it is The State – on the assumption that the government is the legitimate authority of the territory of The State – which judges when the people should go to war or when its armed forces can use lethal force in some land in pursuit of some goal or aim. ^[2]

Indeed, The State increasingly expands the matters on which, and where which, it expects its authority to be obeyed (on pain of arrest and punishment). Thus in a modern State such as Britain the individual is expected to defer to the authority of the government in all manner of personal matters; for example, where, when (or even if) they can assemble to protest; in what places they can smoke cigarettes or a pipe of tobacco; in what and what is not ‘an offensive weapon’; if and under what exact circumstances a parent or a teacher may discipline an unruly child or pupil; and so on etcetera.

Judgement, The State, And Authority

This usurping of individual judgement and this presumption or imposition of authority by others on individuals – be these others some government, some State, some monarch, some ‘people’s representative’, some military commander, in the ‘name of democracy’ or whatever, and be such usurping, presumption or imposition done by direct or indirect power – is a perpetuation of a primitive way of life and a concealment and suppression of our true human nature.

It is a primitive way because it involves the control and manipulation of individuals by others, and the use of or the threat of using physical force and punishment in order to ensure or obtain compliance, obedience, or acquiescence. It is primitive also in that the main method of punishment employed is imprisonment and which imprisonment is the praxis of the bully and the abandonment of those imprisoned to a life governed by primitive instincts, brute force, intimidation, and physical restraint and control. All modern nation-States employ and indeed rely on imprisonment as a punishment, as a ‘deterrent’, and as a means of social control.

This usurping of individual judgement and this presumption or imposition of authority by The State is a concealment and suppression of our true human nature because we possess the ability, the potential, be make our own decisions using our own judgement. To so make and to so exercise our own judgement, to act honourably, is the basis of our freedom as human beings: that is, of being free from servitude and being responsible for ourselves ^[3].

For, in practical terms, The State – as did potentates, monarchs, and others of that ilk – treat people, their subjects, as children. Restraining them; manipulating and influencing them; telling them what they can and cannot do; threatening to punish them if they misbehave; deciding how and in what manner they should be ‘educated’; placing restrictions of where they can and cannot go; making judgements and decisions on their behalf; and so on. That is, it is those in authority who manipulate, influence, and who constrain us, and who decide what our liberties will be, and who possess the power to restrict or deny such liberties when it suits them or when their judgement (not ours) deems it necessary.

Abstractions As Manipulation

The indirect power of modern governments – and thus of nation-States – and thence their presumption of authority, is mostly the result of two factors: (1) the manipulation of people by a minority by means of causal abstractions ^[4]; (2) the influence of such causal abstractions on people. Once power is attained, such abstractions are used to enforce compliance and obedience; that is, to provide some sort of assumed moral legitimacy for the actions and the policies of those who have gained or assumed power.

Thus, abstractions are used to provide a pretext for authority, with some abstractions being regarded as having or as representing a certain moral worth which other abstractions do not possess.

Thus, the system of governance that is called democracy ^[5] is regarded, by its theorists and supporters, as possessing a certain moral worth and indeed as representing what is ‘good’ and allowing for, or producing, or promoting, a way of life which it is said is preferable to and/or better than that produced or promoted by others means of governance. Hence these theorists and supporters of democracy invest this system of governance with a higher moral value than, for example, what has been termed anarchism ^[6] with many further claiming that democracy is the only moral, legitimate, way of governance so that a nation-State with a democratic government has the moral authority to not only declare war (a ‘just war’) on those considered to be non-democratic but also a duty to instigate ‘regime-change’ and that such violence as is used, and such suffering an deaths as may be caused, are morally justifiable ^[7].

Basically, abstractions have been and are used as a means of control, as mechanisms of manipulation and compliance. Thus, instead of some person – some monarch, prophet, or some tyrannos, for example – being said to have some ‘divine right’ or some ‘destiny’ to rule and thus being possessed of authority, it is said that some abstraction has worth and authority. Then it is assumed that those individuals striving to implement this abstraction are imbued with its authority so that what they do is ‘right’ and moral – provided their actions are in accord with, are a mimesis of, or approximate to this abstraction – and that they and others like them have a ‘right’ and a moral duty to lead and to govern and thus to exercise authority on behalf of this abstraction.

Among such moral-giving abstractions are and have been democracy, the Führerprinzip, capitalism, socialisme (society-before-self), communism (collective ownership), and religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Authority In The Numinous Way

For The Numinous Way, it is the exercise of the judgement of the individual – arising from the use of empathy and the guidance that is personal honour – that is paramount, and which expresses our human nature.

That is, it is honour, the understanding that empathy provides, and the judgement of the individual, that are legitimate, moral, numinous, and thence the basis for authority. This means that authority resides in and extends only to individuals – by virtue of their honour, their empathy, and manifest in their own personal judgement, and therefore this always personal individual authority cannot be abstracted out from such personal judgement of individuals. In practical terms, this is a new type of authority – that of the individual whose concern is not power over others but over themselves, and which type of power is manifest in a living by honour, and thence in their self-responsibility and in how they interact with others.

Hence, The State, and all governments – elected or unelected – are not considered a legitimate authority since there can be no compliance to others other than that which is mutual, agreed, which arises from a personal knowing and a mutual personal respect, and which allow for the exercise of both empathy and personal honour.

For it is honour and empathy – not the authority, the laws, of some government or some State – which set the mode, the boundaries, for such agreement and such cooperation between individuals, and in practice this means a co-operation on a non-hierarchical basis, with empathy providing the personal knowing of another while honour determines how that knowing is made real through one’s personal behaviour and interaction with others.

Thus The Numinous Way is the way of such numinous authority – of the individual authority of empathy, of personal judgement, of honour, and of personal responsibility. A way quite different from that of religions, States, governments, potentates, monarchs, and others of such ilk, who and which all expect and who and which often demand the compliance and obedience of individuals, on the threat of punishment; who and which expect/demand that individuals forsake their own judgement in favour of that of some ‘higher authority’; and who and which place their own manufactured un-numinous laws before the natural human and numinous principle of personal honour.

David Myatt
November 2011 CE

Notes

[1] The State may be defined as the concept of both (1) organizing and controlling – over a particular and large geographical area – land (and resources); and (2) organizing and controlling individuals over that same geographical particular and large geographical area by: (a) the use of physical force or the threat of force and/or by influencing or persuading or manipulating a sufficient number of people to accept some leader/clique/minority/representatives as the legitimate authority; (b) by means of the central administration and centralization of resources (especially fiscal and military); and (c) by the mandatory taxation of personal income.

The State thus divides people into those so governed and controlled – subjects – and those who govern or who are employed by those who govern to organize and control the subjects, with both subjects and those who govern or who are employed to organize and control the subjects being regarded as citizens of The State. In addition, The State designates and decides what is public and private (for example, in relation to land, or particular places) as it appropriates to itself the authority to control what it has so designated as public.

Given that the modern State controls and assumes authority over a certain geographical area, and given that these geographical areas are described by the term nation, a useful alternative term for The State is the nation-State.

[2] Thus do the politicians and functionaries of The State echo the sentiment and words of Augustine, written over one and half thousand years ago, in Contra Faustum Manichaeum (XXII, 75): “The natural order, which would have peace amongst men, necessitates that the judgement about and the authority to declare war should reside in those who have authority over others [a monarch/prince].”

[3] Honour is an expression of our nature as individuals, as free human beings. It is honourable to use our own judgement, be responsible for ourselves, and not to submit to those who would oppress or constrain us. It is honourable to defy those who use force in an effort to obtain our obedience, and honourable to defend ourselves when attacked.

[4] An abstraction is:

“A manifestation of the primary error of conventional causal thinking; that is, of assuming only a causal linearality – of using causal reductionism: that simple cause-and-effect that excludes the acausal knowing that empathy provides and which knowing the numinous is a manifestation of. Implicit in abstractions is the notion of – the illusion of – the separateness of beings.An abstraction is the manufacture, and use of, some idea, ideal, “image” or category, and thus some generalization, and/or some assignment of an individual or individuals – and/or some being, some “thing” – to some group or category with the implicit acceptance of the separateness, in causal Space-Time, of such being/things/individuals. The positing of some “perfect” or “ideal” form, category, or thing, is part of abstraction.

Abstraction-ism – and the ideation that derives from it – can be philosophically defined as the implementation, the practical application, of ὕβρις.” A Glossary of Some Numinous Way Terms. 2011 CE. Version 1.03

[5] The ideal of modern democracy is somewhat difference from the reality as manifest in modern nation-States. In reality, it is not government by the people for the people, but rather government by a rather privileged oligarchy in the interests of that oligarchy, in the interests of implementing some dogma or some political programme, or in the interest of some vested often hidden lobby group.

It is not even a fair and reasonable vote, since topics the oligarchy, the privileged elite, and the Media and the vested interests do not want to discus are not discussed, and voters are shamelessly manipulated, lied to, and shameless appeals are made to their instincts, their prejudices, their fears, with the elected government seldom if ever being truly representative of the people it governs (for example in terms of gender, occupation (or lack of it), ethnicity, standard of living) and most certainly most or all elected representatives being personally unknown to most of those who vote for them, and often or mostly voting ‘along party lines’ or according to what may benefit some interest group or lobby rather than according to the views of the majority of those who elected them.

It also happens that those who form the government – and thus who make decisions ‘on behalf of the people’ – do not represent the majority of voters, often receiving less votes than the combined votes of opposition parties.

In particular, all candidates of major parties liable to form a government have to undergo a rigorous ‘selection procedure’ by their already elected peers in order to ensure the loyalty of the candidate to the status quo. Thus, the candidates that the people get to vote for have all or mostly been pre-selected according to criteria which ensures they will represent their party – or some vested interests – first, rather than the people.

[6] A loose definition of anarchism is that it is that way of living which regards the authority of The State as unnecessary and harmful, and which instead prefers the free and individual choice of mutual and non-hierarchical co-operation.

[7] This was the type of argument used by the governments of America and Britain for their invasions of and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Article Source:

http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/authority-and-legitimacy-in-the-philosophy-of-the-numinous-way/

Anton Long (ONA)

Introduction and Disclaimer:

This is the latest, updated, version (1.3, November 122 yf) and supersedes all previous versions.

I have pieced this Chronology together from a variety of sources, including some unpublished ones, some Internet items, and some articles published in various printed magazines, newspapers, and books. I have also, on occasion, used information supplied by various contacts of mine who are familiar with the life and works of both David Myatt and Anton Long.

This unofficial Chronology is based on the assumption that Anton Long is a pseudonym of David Myatt.

Thus, it is an amalgam of the assumed life of Anton Long – taken from the above mentioned variety of sources – and information about Myatt obtained from a similar variety of sources.

In the interests of fairness, I must point out that Myatt himself still continues, publicly and privately and consistently, to deny being Anton Long, and publicly and privately denies any involvement with the ONA.

All errors, mistakes, omissions, and the unintentional reproduction of disinformation, in this Chronology, are entirely my fault.

Version 1.3
Updated November 122 yf

^^^

Anton Long: A Short Chronology of His Life

Born 1950

1950-c.1967: Africa and Far East

c.1965-66:

^ Begins study of Martial Art, based on Taoism, in Singapore
^ Initiated into pleasures of erotica in Singapore brothel

1967: Arrives in England to complete schooling

Notable events: 1967- 1968

^ Leaves home (his father returns to live and work in Africa) – working during School holidays at a variety of jobs, including fruit picking, a farm, and a local factory. His father gives him a generous monthly allowance
^ Joins small traditional coven in the Fenlands of East Anglia
^ Begins study of National Socialism following reading about Major General Otto Ernst Remer
^ Joins Colin Jordan’s newly formed neo-nazi British Movement
^ Visits London in search of Occult groups and makes contact with small group following G*D* and Crowleyian magick, which he rejects as “wishy-washy arty-farty mumbo-jumbo”
^ Regularly attends meetings and rallies and demonstrations by BM, and newly formed NF, and gets involved with many fights
^ Joins small Left Hand Path group in London, and meets lady who runs a well-kept and high-class brothel: Quod duo Concubinatus genera sint, as he was to later, mockingly, write.

All this activity and seeking has a deleterious effect on his school studies, and he seriously considers quitting studying for his “A” levels and moving to live and work in London

1969 – 71

^ Seeking Promethean challenges, he becomes, for around nine months, a cat-burglar, and targets premises in London, expressing delight in the risks and the physical challenges, especially when access is through entries such as upper floor windows and roofs. He tests each “mark” personally – in terms of their individual character – before deciding if their premises, domestic or business (or both, but often just business and commercial premises), merit his attention, and later uses the experience gained to refine the ONA’s guidelines for the testing of opfers.

^ Leaves School to enter University, where he studies Physics

^ 1971: Becomes disenchanted with University, and spends more time traveling around the country attending political meetings, rallies and demonstrations, as well as working with a small Left Hand Path group, based in Yorkshire, called The Temple of the Sun, and visiting and staying with his lady friend, the brothel owner, in London where he occasionally helps out with running the business

On several occasions, he acts as Colin Jordan’s bodyguard at BM meetings and rallies.

He meets, via a contact in a Manchester Left Hand Path group, the Lady Master, of a traditional Sinister group, whose daughter initiates him into their reclusive sinister ways, and he spends many weeks staying with them, studying, and recording, their aural traditions after which his new Lady Master and her daughter emigrate to Australia, leaving him in charge of their very small Left Hand Path group, numbering less than thirteen people, to which group he gives the name Order of Nine Angles. The young lady who initiates him subsequently (and in Australia) gives birth to Myatt’s daughter, whom Myatt only meets decades later. She and her mother have stipulated that Myatt should have no contact with them, nor try to find them, unless they contact him, a stipulation which he, honorably, honors.

1971-1974: Leeds and the NDFM

^ 1971: Finally leaves University after meeting and becoming friends with Eddy Morrison at several neo-nazi rallies and meetings in Leeds, and moves, early in 1972, to live in Leeds, where he is active on behalf of BM and other neo-nazi groups, and where, in the following months – after yet another violent skirmish – he is arrested for his part in a “Paki-bashing” incident involving a gang of skinheads, for which he is subsequently sent to Prison, having been identified as the leader of that gang.
^ 1973: On release from prison he decides to form, with Eddy Morrison, his own neo-nazi group, the NDFM (National Democratic Freedom Movement), with Morrison as leader and himself in charge of propaganda.

Also forms and leads a small criminal gang to “re-distribute some of the wealth stolen by big capitalist firms”, believing that these are “victimless crimes”. He is to be arrested, early in 1974, for his part in these crimes, after an investigation and raids by the Yorkshire Regional Crime Squad (later to become part of the National Crime Squad, which dealt with “serious and organized crime”). Following his arrest, Myatt is charged with several crimes, held on remand in prison, and is subsequently found guilty, and given a suspended Prison sentence.

He is invited to join the underground neo-nazi group Column 88 (a part of NATO’s clandestine Gladio network, with links to MI5 and MI6), which he does, and regularly attends their training sessions, meetings and camps. C88 is led by a former Special Forces Army officer, and its main NATO given task was to conduct sabotage and assassinations in the event of a Soviet invasion.

In early 1974 Myatt gives his first interview to a newspaper journalist, who subsequently reneges on his promise to show Myatt a draft before it is published, and who publishes a sensationalist and untrue story about Myatt and Satanism which appears on the front-page of the local evening newspaper, complete with Myatt’s photograph. The sensationalist claims includes stories of animal sacrifice, and Myatt is interviewed by both the RSPCA, and the Police, about these stories, with both the RSPCA and the Police concluding that they are journalistic invention. The reporter subsequently becomes ill and dies, after a lingering illness, less than a year later. Anton Long was to later write that he never did and never would sacrifice any animals since there was an abundance of human dross suitable as opfers.

Myatt makes several visits to Northern Ireland, traveling on the overnight ferry from Liverpool to Belfast, describing these as “visits of a curious tourist”.

^ 1974: the ultra-violent NDFM year where Myatt regularly speaks at public meetings and rallies, smashes up an anti-Apartheid exhibition (twice), assaults an anti-fascist photographer, and gets arrested at least five times for violent offenses, including wading into a Trades Union march and destroying one of their banners. Speaks at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, to a crowd of nearly a thousand, and at an outdoor rally on Leeds Town Hall steps, to a crowd of several hundred, which ends in a mass brawl, and with him being arrested again. A few months later he appears in Court, and is sent to Prison, again, for his part in “inciting and leading” the fighting during yet another mass brawl.

1975-1981: ONA Insight Roles

On his release from Prison, he grows a beard, and becomes – for several months – a “Gentleman of the Road” (a drifter or vagabond), then settles down to live alone in a caravan in a field in the Fenlands to begin codifying and extensively developing ONA teachings while continuing his association with Column 88, attending their clandestine meetings and training sessions.

During this period, he travels to Africa where he has a “very minor role of no significance in a minor armed conflict which would also be of no significance.”

Back in England, he undertakes the physical tasks described in the aural traditions he has inherited, then the grade Ritual of Internal Adept, in the Highlands of Scotland (near Loch Ness), afterwards resuming his regular visits to his lady friend, and her girls, in London, who have moved to new premises.

He decides he must spend many years personally trying out – and the refining, from experience – various ONA techniques, including Insight Roles, and opts to enter the noviciate of a Nazarene monastery where he spends nearly two years, during which he continues his Occult studies.

Not long after he leaves the monastery, he moves to Shropshire, resumes his Occult writings, begins writing about National Socialism, and meets the women whom he marries some months later. He successfully undertakes another Insight Role and completes all the new physical challenges he has developed, for External Adept, and described in Complete Guide To The Seven-Fold Sinister Way – having considered the ones he has inherited, and already undertaken, as “just too easy”.

After some further travels in Africa, he begins work as a gardener at a country house in Shropshire.

1982-1988:

Settled, in Shropshire, he begins writing in earnest about National Socialism, and publishes Vindex: The Destiny of The West and other works of his fourteen volume National-Socialist Series. Begins translating Greek literature, and publishes his translations of Sappho and Sophocles. Regularly writes for a variety of NS and nationalist publications (under his own name and using a variety of ‘nyms) including for John Tyndall’s Spearhead magazine. Privately teaches a few individuals Martial Arts, and completes The Deofel Quartet, and his voluminous ONA works, which he begins to distribute via Thormynd Press and other outlets. These ONA works include early editions of Naos, Hostia, and Black Book of Satan, Part 1

In the middle 80’s he is interviewed by the Police about the murder of a local woman (Hilda Murrell) who was an active supporter of nuclear disarmament, and is also interviewed by Jenny Rathbone, of ITV’s World in Action, about the affair (although his comments were never broadcast), suspicions having been raised in some quarters as to whether Myatt was doing some “dirty work” for MI5. Someone – who was also suspected of “dirty tricks” for MI5, knew someone who knew Myatt – committed suicide before he could be questioned about the murder, and the murder was to spawn various “conspiracy theories” although, decades later, the real murderer was found, charged and imprisoned.

A few years after this incident, Myatt divorces his wife (she goes off to live with a younger lady) and he disbands some of the few, and small, ceremonial ONA groups that exist and which he still leads, having returned to, and further developed, the more traditional way of individual Initiates working alone with perchance some guidance.

With Column 88 disbanded after its existence became public knowledge, he regularly travels the UK to recruit (at neo-nazi and nationalist meetings and events) members for his clandestine neo-nazi group, the Aryan Resistance Movement (later, Aryan Liberation Army) whose candidates he tests by methods deriving from the ONA, but finds only a few suitable individuals.

1989-1993:

Still living in Shropshire, he marries again, and travels many times to Egypt and other parts of Africa (where he again visits his father’s grave which lies somewhere “between the Bangweulu swamp and the Lulua river”). He publishes further NS writings, more ONA material, and a translation of The Agamemnon by Aeschylus, and – following the untimely death of his second wife from cancer – he begins a course in Arabic at a British University only to leave after a short while to cycle through the Sahara Desert (from Cairo to El-Kharga oasis via Farafra), returning to move to live near the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border and work on a farm.

He then becomes involved with Combat 18, a group started not by Myatt himself but by Charlie Sargent, and his brother, Steve.

1994-1999: Combat 18 and The London Nail Bombings

During these years, he returns again to being publicly active on behalf of National Socialism, attending meetings and events organized by C18 and other neo-nazi groups, and again speaking in public. Several articles about him appear in the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, and in other magazines, and Liberty Bell, in America, publish most of his Thormynd National-Socialist Series of NS essays. A booklet, attributed to Myatt, announcing the formation of a leaderless resistance racist group, “The White Wolves”, is distributed, containing practical advice on making home-made bombs. Myatt issues a bi-monthly NS publication, The National-Socialist, in support of C18. He also marries for the third time, to live (after a honeymoon in The Maldives) in what one Midlands newspaper subsequently reported (complete with photograph) as a “luxury detached four-bedroomed house” in a small village near the town of Malvern.

Not long after settling there, Myatt travels to Australia, having received an unexpected invitation from the lady who initiated him into what was to become the ONA to attend the funeral of her mother, and Myatt there meets his daughter for the first time, who is a married woman with children of her own.

Myatt continues to clandestinely recruit for his covert Aryan Resistance Movement (ARM), his terrorist manual A Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution – described as a “detailed step-by-step guide for terrorist insurrection” – is put on the Internet for the first-time by someone in Canada, and there are rumors of Myatt receiving financial support from a former member of Hitler’s Waffen SS.

He makes further visits to Northern Ireland, flying from Manchester Airport to ‘Derry, describing these visits as “coastal and hill walks; enjoying the solitude and scenery.”

During 1997, C18 splits into two factions, the disloyal faction being led by someone called Browning who was accused by Charlie and others of stealing C18 funds, and Charlie Sargent is arrested for the murder of a Browning supporter. Myatt, remaining loyal to Charlie, forms and leads The National-Socialist Movement, after getting Colin Jordan’s permission to use that name, and all the members of C18 loyal to Charlie join this group, which includes several serving soldiers of the British Army. Myatt appears at Charlie’s trial to give him public support and twice publicly challenges Browning to a duel with deadly weapons but Browning fails to accept these challenges to a private duel. A photograph of Myatt with a woman (a C18 member) – outside the Court at Chelmsford – appears in Searchlight together with a description of the continuing feud between the two C18 factions.

Myatt is interviewed at an Inn in Craven Arms, Shropshire, by Nick Lowles of Searchlight, who – fearful of Myatt’s reputation as man of violence who “always carries a weapon” – brings along a “minder” and declines Myatt’s suggestion to meet elsewhere, fearing an ambush. Unknown to Lowles, several supporters of Myatt are already present in the Inn. Lowles tries to get Myatt to admit to being Anton Long, mentioning a PO Box in Hereford which he claims is “proof”, but Myatt politely replies that he was, for a short while only, merely doing a favor for a long-standing friend whose views he did not share. Lowles eventually gets angry – shouting at Myatt: “Why don’t you just admit it!” – but Myatt remains calm and polite and repeats his denial. Myatt was later to write that he had mentioned this friend several times before, including to Professor Jeffrey Kaplan (see footnote #51 of Kaplan’s book Nation and Race). Myatt was to later publicly challenge Lowles to a duel with deadly weapons for spreading lies and making malicious allegations about him, a challenge which Lowles did not accept, leading Myatt to publicly call him “a dishonourable lying coward”.

In the early months of 1998, a squad of detectives from Scotland Yard’s SO12 unit conduct a Dawn raid on Myatt’s home and arrest him. His house is searched by seven Police officers for over seven hours, and computers, literature and other items are seized, while Myatt is taken away for questioning. (Myatt is formally arrested and cautioned by DC Mark Whalley, of S012, Scotland Yard.) Myatt is later released on bail, while the Police continue what is to be a three year long investigation into charges relating to incitement to murder, conspiracy to murder, and incitement to racial hatred, with this investigation involving Interpol, the FBI, MI6, and the Canadian Police. Myatt is again the subject of an article in Searchlight, who post a photograph of him on their front cover, with the heading The Most Evil Nazi in Britain. It later transpires that Nick Lowles and Gerry Gable, of Searchlight, and Michael Whine, of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, are the people responsible for putting pressure on Scotland Yard to arrest Myatt, having made an official complaint against him and his neo-nazi activities.

Some months after Charlie Sargent is sent to prison for murder, Myatt resigns as leader of the NSM, to concentrate on his own Reichsfolk and ARM organizations. Then, quietly, with no announcement either public or private, in September of 1998 Myatt converts to Islam at the Jamia Masjid Ghousia, Worcester, where his Muslim witnesses are Hafiz Mohammad Tufail and Qadi Abdur Sa’ouf.

In 1999 David Copeland – a member of Myatt’s NSM – begins his campaign to start a racial war by exploding three nail-bombs in various areas of London. Three people are killed, and over a hundred are injured, many seriously. Copeland is arrested soon after the last bomb explodes, and before he could detonate more bombs.

Prior to Copeland’s trial, Myatt is questioned by Police officers from Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorism branch about Copeland, but denies any connection, and he is also confronted by a reporter from the BBC’s Panorama program who asks him the same question.

Following Copeland’s trial and conviction, a year later, the BBC Panorama program about Copeland is broadcast (with Myatt’s voice altered by BBC special effects at the suggestion of Nick Lowles), accusing Myatt of being Copeland’s mentor, and there are subsequently many other Media reports about Myatt and Copeland, with journalists arriving at Myatt’s home and place of work (a farm) in an effort to interview him. Myatt declines to answer any of their questions, and instead issues a public statement in which he stated: “I personally regret nothing. There is nothing to apologize for; nothing to plead or feel guilty about…”

Every six months or so (and until 2001), the Police continue to formally interrogate Myatt (mostly at Charing Cross Police Station, in London, but on one occasion at Oxford Police Station) regarding Copeland, A Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution, and other matters relating to the charges still pending against him.

2000-2006: Radical Islam

Myatt continues – until the end of 2000 – to issue editions of his The National-Socialist newsletter, as he continues to write about National Socialism, and lead Reichsfolk. At the beginning of 2001, the Police inform Myatt that they have dropped all charges against him, and return his computers and other belongings.

In the Summer of 2000, Myatt, according to one source, travels to Iran, from whence he crosses over to Iraq. He begins to write about Islam and in particular articles about and praising Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. In the Summer of 2001, Myatt leaves his wife, citing “irreconcilable differences” mostly to do with his Islam, sells the house, and goes to briefly stay with CB (and his female partner) on a farm in Shropshire for a few months, before becoming, for some months, a “Gentleman of the Road” in the fells of Cumbria.

He then settles in a town in the north of England, together with a new girlfriend, producing more writings about both Islam and what he calls The Numinous Way. After around six months, he moves again to begin work on a rural farm, visiting Egypt several times, while continuing to produce more polemical Islamist writings and continuing to try and get neo-nazis to cooperate with radical Muslims in order to fight “the tyrannical New World Order, the dishonourable profane Zionist led Crusade alliance…” and, of this cooperation, Professor George Michael was later to write that Myatt has “arguably done more than any other theorist to develop a synthesis of the extreme right and Islam.”

Between 2003 and 2006 Myatt concentrates on writing about, and being involved with, Islam, earning a reputation as a radical Islamist, a supporter of both “suicide attacks”, and of Osama bin Laden. One of his articles justifying suicide attacks is, for several years, on the Izz al-Din al-Qassam (the military wing) section of the Hamas website whose members have killed hundreds of Jews in such attacks. Myatt, in many essays and on Internet forums, in various interviews and discussions, and using his Muslim names including Abdul Aziz, defends both the 9/11 and the London 7/7 attacks.

In 2005, he is mentioned at a NATO conference On Terrorism and Communications, in Slovakia, where it is stated that he has called upon “all enemies of the Zionists to embrace the Jihad, the ‘true martial religion’ which will most effectively fight against the Jews and the Americans.”

In 2006, he takes part in an “on-line” dialog, on the well-known and respected Islamic website run by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, answering questions from Muslims world-wide. He is also the subject of a full-page article (complete with color photograph) in The Times, of London, newspaper – under the topic Muslim Extremists in Britain – and is subsequently asked by several other newspapers for interviews, and invited to appear on an Arabic television station to discuss his support for bin Laden, all of which offers he declines.

Islamist articles of his around this time include essays such as In Reply to Sheikh Salman b. Fahd al-Oadah (where he again defends bin Laden), The Revival of Aql, and The Aims of Al-Qaeda which is translated into many languages, including Italian. Several of these essays then, and subsequently, appear on Al-Qaeda sponsored web-sites and forums.

Also in 2006, Myatt – as Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt – is mentioned at the grandly named NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Hypermedia Seduction for Terrorist Recruiting, held at Eilat, in “Israel”.

2007-2011:
Following the suicide of his fiancee in May 2006, Myatt continues to develop his Numinous Way philosophy, and, between 2007 and 2008 dozens of new and revised articles about The Numinous Way are distributed. In early 2009 The Numinous Way Foundation issues a compilation of these revised and new articles.

In the late Fall of 2008 – as in some previous years – rumors began circulating that Myatt had abandoned Islam in favor of his The Numinous Way, but Myatt himself denies this, claiming he is still a Muslim, and continues to write and publish Islamist articles, such as The Zionist Attacks on Gaza, dated 8 Muharram 1430 (i.e. January 2009).

At a conference on modern Satanism at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, in November of 2009, Anton Long is the subject of an academic paper entitled Political Esotericism & the convergence of Radical Islam, Satanism and National Socialism in the Order of the Nine Angles.

In early 2010 Myatt publishes his autobiography, Myngath, and publicly announces that he has abandoned Islam in favor of his now completed, and mystical, Numinous Way philosophy, although rumors persist concerning his continued involvement with the ONA, and several websites containing his Islamic writings remain on-line with one containing a version of Myngath, dated Shawwal 1432, in which the author, allegedly ibn Myatt, claims to be still a Muslim.

During 2010 and 2011 Anton Long publishes over three dozen new essays and texts expounding, explaining, and developing, the Occult philosophy and praxis of the ONA.

DarkLogos9
November 122 yf

^^^

Anton Long and Myatt:

Diablerie: Revelations of a Satanist (Anton Long, Thormynd Press, 1991 e.n.)

Quod Fornicatio sit naturalis hominis (unpublished typewritten MS, by Anton Long, dated 107 yf)

Autobiographical Notes, in three parts, by David Myatt (2001-2008 CE)

Emanations of a Mage (unpublished autobiographical MS by Anton Long, dated 118 Year of Fayen)

Myngath, by David Myatt (Thormynd Press, ninth edition, 2011 CE)

Geneseos Caput Tertium (unpublished MS by Anton Long, dated 122 yfayen)

Printed and Published:

Searchlight, issue of Feb 1984

Searchlight, issue of April 1984

Searchlight, issue of January 1991

Searchlight, issue of July 1995

Searchlight, issue of April 1998

Searchlight, issue of July 2000

Jeffrey Kaplan, “Religiosity and the Radical Right: Toward the Creation of a New Ethnic Identity,” in Jeffrey Kaplan and Tore Bjorgo, eds., Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture (Northeastern University Press, 1998)

Jeffrey Kaplan (University of Helsinki) in Krista Vogelberg, Raili Raili Poldsaar. Negotiating Spaces on the Common Ground: Selected Papers of the 3rd and 4th International Tartu Conferences on North-American Studies. Tartu University Press, 2000 ISBN 9985401492, 9789985401491

Mr Evil: The Secret Life of Racist Pub Bomber David Copeland by Graeme McLagen and Nick Lowles (Blake Publications, England, July 2000)

Vacca, John R. “Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation”, Charles River Media, 2005, p.420. ISBN 1-58450-389-0

Whine, Michael. Cyberspace: A New Medium for Communication, Command and Control by Extremists. International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 1999

Karmon, Ely. Arenas for Radical and Anti-Globalization Groups Activity, NATO Workshop On Terrorism and Communications, Slovakia, April 2005

Miller, Rory (2007). British Anti-Zionism Then and Now. Covenant, Volume 1, Issue 2 (April 2007 / Iyar 5767), Herzliya, Israel.

The Nailbomber, BBC Panorama, June 30, 2000

Sunday Mercury newspaper (Birmingham, England), 9 July 2000

The Times newspaper (London, England), April 24, 2006

White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18 by Nick Lowles (Milo Books, England, 2001)

Michael, George. The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006

Goodrick-Clark, N. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2002

Jacob Christiansen. The Sinister Tradition. MA Thesis. University of Aarhus, Denmark. 2008

Martin Durham: White Rage: The Extreme Right and American Politics. Routledge, 2007, p.113 ISBN 0415362326

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Hypermedia Seduction for Terrorist Recruiting, Eilat, Israel, 17-21 September 2006

Raphael Israeli: The Islamic Challenge in Europe. Transaction Publishers, 2008 ISBN 141280750

Mark Weitzman: Antisemitismus und Holocaust-Leugnung: Permanente Elemente des globalen Rechtsextremismus, in Thomas Greven: Globalisierter Rechtsextremismus? Die extremistische Rechte in der Ära der Globalisierung. 1 Auflage. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14514-2, pp.61-64

Wistrich, Robert S, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4000-6097-9

e-texts:

Empathy, Compassion and Honour: The Numinous Way of Life. (pdf e-text, The Numinous Way Foundation, January, 2009)

Julie Wright. The Gnostic Writings of David Myatt. e-text. December 2008

Julie Wright. David Myatt and Islam: A Personal View About An Unusual Story. (Revised edition) December 21, 2008

Julie Wright. The Numinous Way of David Myatt. December 27, 2008

David Myatt. The culture of ἀρετή (2010)

David Myatt. Corpus Numinosum. 2011

David Myatt (from a painting by Richard Moult)

David Myatt – Theoretician of Terror

The following extracts are taken from the article David Myatt – Theoretician of Terror, published in the July 2000 issue of Searchlight.

[begin quote]

Over the past ten years, Myatt has emerged as the most ideologically driven nazi in Britain, preaching race war and terrorism [...]

He has long since turned his back on electoral politics, believing his “Aryan society” could only be brought about by force.

“The primary duty of all National Socialists is to change the world. National Socialism means revolution: the overthrow of the existing System and its replacement with a National-Socialist society. Revolution means struggle: it means war. It means certain tactics have to be employed, and a great revolutionary movement organised which is primarily composed of those prepared to fight, prepared to get their hands dirty and perhaps spill some blood.”

His influence on the British nazi scene was eventually to attract David Copeland [...] A close colleague of Charlie and Steve Sargent, [Myatt] was to write much of the group’s more intellectual and ideological material. In C18, and later the National Socialist Movement (NSM), Myatt saw the raw material from which a revolutionary movement could be built.

“These mostly young Aryans have the right instincts; they have the right feelings about life. Their often-rowdy behaviour, their tendency to like brawls, is natural and healthy because it is part of our warrior heritage.”

Myatt saw himself as the educator. He was a prolific writer [...]

Under his control, the NSM became Britain’s only openly nazi organisation. “The flag of the NSM is the swastika, and the NSM proudly and unashamedly upholds the political creed of National Socialism”, read its founding statement.

Its one policy was, the document continued: “to build the foundations for a National Socialist revolution and thus create a National Socialist State” [...]

But there was an even darker side to Myatt, hidden even from most of his close political friends. Myatt was a leading supporter of the Order of Nine Angles (ONA), a hardline Satanic church which he himself established in 1985. {Comment by Ms PointyHat: A factual error, as the ONA was founded in 1972 ce.}

Espousing “traditional Satanism” and rituals involving human sacrifice, Myatt and the ONA are considered dangerous even by those within the Satanic fraternity [...]

To this day, Myatt continues to deny any link with the ONA. In an interview in 1998 he claimed only to have dabbled with the occult in the early 1970s in an attempt to win converts to his national socialist views [...]

Despite his forceful denials of any Satanic link, Myatt was, at the time of that interview, living with Richard Moult at a farm in Shropshire. {Comment by Ms PointyHat: Another factual error, as Myatt was at the time still  living with his wife and family in Worcestershire at the house where, a few months later, he was to be arrested by detectives from SO12, Scotland Yard .}

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his politics, Myatt was not afraid of violence. Not only had he been imprisoned for attacking political opponents in 1974, he also boasted of having killed a person during a duel.

In 1994 Myatt is believed to have been behind a 15-page document which called for race war, under the imprint White Wolves. While groups such as C18 had regularly advocated race war, the authors of this article seemed far more serious. Claiming that every nation had the absolute right to defend itself, it argued “our main line of attack must be on the immigrants themselves, the Black and Asian ghettos. If this is done regularly, effectively and brutally, the aliens will respond by attacking Whites at random, forcing them off the fence and into self-defence. This will begin the spiral of violence which will force the Establishment’s hand on the race issue:

“The British people will fight, but not if we offer them only the soft voting option. WE must point them in the right direction by taking the necessary action to start the spiral of violence which will ultimately include even the reluctant, forcing them to fight. The victory will come from them once they have no other option, but the initiative must come from us. There are a dozen Belfast’s and a hundred Londonderry’s in Britain today, they’re just waiting for a spark …”

The document concluded: “We do not believe that we alone can win the Race War, but we can start it!”

Copeland’s thinking followed the same lines. He told police that he intended to be the spark that ignited the race war… A few months earlier, police investigating race hate material on the Internet had raided Myatt’s Worcestershire home [...] The articles, which the police thought Myatt had written, included a strategy for nazi terrorism. Under the sub-heading of racial war, the document reconfirmed Myatt’s desire violently to target minority communities:

“This means creating tension and terror within ethnic communities, and damaging or destroying their property and their homes by fire-bombs and/or explosive devices.

Part of this involves attacking individuals (and killing some of them). The two-fold aim is to get ethnics to attack Aryans (and so encourage an Aryan backlash – a racial awareness among ordinary Aryans) and to make ethnics go in fear of their lives, thus encouraging them to stay in their own ethnic areas, or want to leave our land.”

Copeland was to employ similar logic to his own actions, telling police that he wanted to create a violent backlash from blacks and Asians which in turn would lead to whites physically defending themselves and ultimately race war.

[end quote]

Some Notes on The Clan, Culture, and The Numinous Way

by David Myatt

RS: Given new items attacking you, both in print and on-line, would you mind answering some questions, some of which I’m sure you’ve been asked before?

DWM: Given that you have taken the trouble to seek me out and ask the questions, first-hand, no I do not mind.

My first question is this. What is your response to those who continue to claim that you are and have been involved in Satanism?

My response now as in the past is to ask where is the evidence for such a claim? The person opinion or the assumptions of some journalist or other, or of some author, is not evidence. No one has ever – in over thirty years – provided any evidence of such involvement. Evidence as in proven, undisputed, facts such as might be used in some trial in some modern Court of Law.

In addition, I would ask those who make such a claim – and those who repeat such a claim and/or embellish it – if they have read my autobiography Myngath, my published letters [1], and studied in detail my writings about my philosophy of The Numen (aka The Numinous Way), and read my poetry such as the recent compilation Relict. I seriously doubt any of them have. For had they done so, they would most assuredly find an individual whose character, and whose effusions, do not conform to those of a ‘satanist’.

I would also point out that none of those who pontificate about me in a negative manner – or who have so pontificated about me – in print, or via the medium of the Internet, or who pontificate about me to others via hearsay or through rumour-mongering, know me as a person, or have even bothered to try to get to know me personally. Thus, their views and opinions of me are just their personal views and opinions, unfounded by that necessary personal knowing which personal honour demands in respect of making a personal judgement about someone. That others often repeat such personal views and opinions – of, for example, journalists or authors – as if they are fact is just an example of such others committing the logical fallacy of argumentum ad verecundiam.

But surely some journalists have interviewed you in person and some authors and academics have contacted you?

A short personal interview – lasting an hour or so, or less – does not constitute a personal knowing. Such a personal knowing requires a close and regular contact over a period of at least a few weeks.

Neither does an exchange of a few letters – or, these days, a few e-mails – constitute a personal knowing.

As I said, the reality is that none of those who pontificate, or who write about me, in a negative manner know me personally, as – to my knowledge – no one so pontificating about me has made a detailed, a scholarly, study of my philosophy of The Numen, or of my life, or of my published letters, or of my poetry (such as my poetry is).

For example, several individuals – none of whom to my knowledge know ancient Greek – have pontificated about and criticised my Greek translations, such as my rendering of some of the fragments attributed to Heraclitus as well as my translations of the likes of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Such pontifications often take the form of “he’s paraphrased prior translations” or that I have given “bizarre readings of the fragments of pre-Socratic philosophers like Heraclitus…”

Why such pontifications, about me in general and such things as my translations? In my view, because such people are prejudiced against me, deriving as that personal prejudice often is from what they assume are (or were) my political views, my former political activities, or my (alleged) involvement with Satanism, or my past association with some Way of Life (such as Islam). And so on.

Thus their opinions about me and my work – in this instance, my translations – are coloured by this prejudice to the extent that feel they have to criticize me and my work, and cannot, or refuse to, say anything positive about me or my work. Most certainly these people have not studied, in a scholarly way, the works of mine they criticize or spew forth some opinion about.

I would ask such persons for their translation of, for example:

ἔστι δ᾽ ὅπη νῦν
ἔστι: τελεῖται δ᾽ ἐς τὸ πεπρωμένον:
οὔθ᾽ ὑποκαίων οὔθ᾽ ὑπολείβων
οὔτε δακρύων ἀπύρων ἱερῶν
ὀργὰς ἀτενεῖς παραθέλξει

Aesch. Ag. 67-71

As I would ask them, for example, to compare my translation of the above – in a scholarly way, with scholia – with the translations of others. My translation is:

What is now, came to be
As it came to be. And its ending has been ordained.
No concealed laments, no concealed libations,
No unburnt offering
Can charm away that firm resolve

Or, in the matter of Heraclitus, I might ask them to compare my translation – in a scholarly way, with scholia – of Diogenes Laërtius:

πάντα δὲ γίνεσθαι καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην καὶ διὰ τῆς ἐναντιοδρομίας ἡρμόσθαι τὰ ὄντα (ix. 9)

All by genesis is appropriately apportioned [separated into portions] with beings bound together again by enantiodromia [2].

My Greek translations have been used in several University courses around the world, and in several American High Schools – and I even had, some years ago now, the honour of one class in one High School putting on a stage performance of one of my translations of a particular Greek drama. Used, and appreciated in such establishments, until, that is, several prejudiced individuals – obviously subsumed by some fanatical political or personal agenda of their own – took it upon themselves to write to or contact such educational institutions and ‘warn them about me’, drawing attention to my former political activities and views and making claims about involvement with ‘satanism’. To their credit, a few – but only a few (last time I checked, some years ago now) – such educational institutions ignored these claims, and continued to use my translations.

But surely such opinions and rumours about you are not surprising given your, how shall I say, interesting and intriguing life? Do they bother you?

No, such opinions and rumours do not really bother me, for I try and take a somewhat wyrdful – Cosmic/acausal/taoist – view of them, and only occupy myself with them when individuals such as you, yourself, personally ask me about such matters.

So no, such opinions and such rumours about me are not surprising. In fact, they are perhaps to be expected. But as I mentioned, I do occasionally, being all-too-human and despite trying to take a wyrdful view, find myself wishing that people – before gushing forth their opinion about me – would take the trouble to actually read my autobiography, my published letters, and study my Numinous Way. They then might be in a position to have an informed, an educated, a cultured, view of me and of my life-long rather Promethean quest to answer such questions as Quid Est Veritas.

But – C’est la vie.

An informed view of you by placing your political activism, your involvement with Islam, your criminal activities, and other things, in the context of pathei-mathos?

Just so. As the genesis of the personal weltanschauung I have now developed.

Which is your mystical Numinous Way philosophy?

Indeed.

So perhaps your work, for example your Numinous Way, will only be appreciated after your death?

Possibly, or possibly not. For it is for others, disconnected from the ethos and prejudices of our own rather un-numinous times, to judge such lucubrations of mine, and indeed to make some rational assessment of me and my pathei-mathos. If that is, anyone in the causal future beyond my mortal death finds such lucubrations and such a life-story of sufficient interest, or of any interest at all.

As Heraclitus expressed it (at least according to my fallible understanding of the text):

εἰδέναι δὲ χρὴ τὸν πόλεμον ἐόντα ξυνόν, καὶ δίκην ἔριν, καὶ γινόμενα πάντα κατ΄ ἔριν καὶ χρεώμενα [χρεών] [3]

RS: Well I guess this mis-understanding extends to people who’ve described you as a man of ‘extreme and calculated hatred’, as a psychopath, and as a hate-filled extremist who ‘jumps from one hate-filled ideology to another’. Would you agree that such descriptions of you result from the same type of mis-understandings?

DWM: Yes, certainly it is the same mis-understanding with similar causes: that of those making such comments about me not knowing me personally, and that of them not having studied my Numinous Way, my published letters, and my poetry. But in addition such individuals reveal both a lack of reasoning and a certain prejudice, if not a hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy, because while they loudly proclaim that ‘hatred’ is morally wrong, their own public comments about someone such as me are redolent of their own extreme dislike (their hatred) of such people as I am assumed by them to be. So, on the one hand they denounce ‘hatred’ and yet on the other hand they publicly espouse a hatred of people they make assumptions about.

A lack of reasoning because they invariably commit some logical fallacy such as Non Causa Pro Causa – by, for example, assuming that the cause of a person’s alleged or assumed ‘hatred’ is some trait of or defect in that person’s personality. For example, here is someone – a self-described liberal and ‘advocate of individual liberty’, no less – writing about those who belong to religious and political groups the writer does not personally approve of: he assumes they are ‘cranks and losers’, “sad, inadequate individuals who, for variety of psychological reasons, are drawn toward hate-filled ideologies…”

A prejudice – and thus a very un-liberal de-humanization of their alleged opponents – because of the assumptions, the generalizations, they make about the character of people they do not personally know, based on what they assume are the real or the alleged (or the past) political and religious associations/beliefs of those people, and based on what they have assumed are the causes behind someone associating with or adhering to such ‘ideologies’ as they have additionally assumed can be or should be described by biased terms such as ‘hate-filled’ and ‘ideology’.

But naturally those making such comments in public do not realize how prejudiced, how un-reasonable, how full of hatred, they themselves are. Indeed, they mostly pride themselves that they are tolerant individuals, as no doubt they will dismiss the foregoing as another ‘rambling rant’ of some ‘crank’.

Turning now to National Socialism, or rather what you once termed the ethical non-racist National Socialism of Reichsfolk. Would you agree that your Numinous Way allows, ethically, for the creation of folkish clans and tribes as described by Reichsfolk?

One has to make a distinction between individuals, and organizations/groups, and also between an individual philosophical guidance and the dogma, or the principles and aims, of a group or organization.

The philosophy of The Numinous Way is primarily an individual intimation of the nature of Reality, and one which can predispose the individual toward the ethical way – of compassion and personal honour – that individual empathy reveals in the immediacy of the living moment. Reichsfolk and similar organizations have certain principles and aims, and thus imply something beyond such philosophical individual revealing and ethical guidance. That is, they imply an ethnic kindred, and thus a shared goal, a supra-personal aim and choices based on some posited criteria; which is that of a perceived ethnicity.

Ethically, all The Numinous Way implies is that the individual has the rational choice whether or not to be empathic – compassionate and honourable and thus cease to cause or to contribute to suffering – in the immediacy of each personal living moment, with there thus being no aims or goals beyond such a succession of lived moments by the individuals. That is, there is only ethical individual living, in moments; nothing that could be classified, in conventional terms, as political, or social, or religious, and not even any striving (or any desire for striving) by individuals – for example, a striving for ‘enlightenment’, or for some personal reward (in some posited after-life) or to gain ‘good karma’ and avoid ‘bad karma’. There is only us as individual human beings understanding ourselves as but one finite mortal nexion, and thus being empathic and honourable, or not. In brief, there is wu-wei: we, the Cosmos, changing, flowing, as we flow and change.

But, such philosophical reflexions aside, The Numinous Way – that is, individuals disposed toward empathy, compassion, and honour – implies the personal, individual, unique judgement of the immediacy of the moment. There is therefore no “it (The Numinous Way) can (or cannot) allow for” or condone or encourage (or discourage) this or that, for such can allow or disallow or condone, encourage, or discourage (or is or is-not compatible with) imply far more than such personal, individual, unique judgement of the immediacy of the moment. For this ‘it’ – such things – imply something both supra-personal and some abstraction, or some category – some inclusion/exclusion.

As I wrote in Some Questions Concerning The Folk, Race, and Empathy

” What is important is that the choice of partners – and of friends – is entirely a matter for individuals. A question of love, of loyalty, of honour, of what one feels is natural for one, and not a question of something called “race” or ethnicity. A question of Life working as Life works, in a natural manner in its species of time, with no abstractions imposed; no ideology followed or formulated, no dogmatic rules for individuals to try to or have to conform to.The best illustration here is falling in love. To fall in love is natural, human – indeed possibly one of the most human things to do. If we happen to fall in love with someone similar to ourselves, in outward appearance or whatever, fine. If we happen to fall in love with someone different from ourselves, in outward appearance or whatever, fine. The flow of Life within and exterior to us naturally decides.

What matters is the love; the returning of love. The wu-wei of love. The numinosity of love. The loyal and honourable sharing. The experience of life together. That is the foundation on which a clan, and from it a new folk, comes-into-being – and should come-into-being: not some abstract criteria we impose upon ourselves or upon others, and which imposition is or can be the beginning of suffering. Not some dogmatic belief in some idealized race and the need to try and “preserve” that race. Not the rejection of empathy and love for the sake of such an abstraction, such dogma.

Thus, if one is happy living among one’s own kind in a village of one’s kind and treasures their traditions and ways and wants to hand them onto to one’s own children – fine. If one falls in love with someone of one’s own kind, and is happy, fine, and thus may begin a new folk of similar people. If one falls in love with someone different from one’s self and one’s own ancestors, fine. And so on. It is the numinosity of love, of living numinously, that is important – that is ethical. It is the imposition of some abstraction one’s self, on others – judging others by some abstraction – that is immoral, wrong, contrary to The Numinous Way.

It is, simply expressed, a question of the natural balance of Life; of using empathy and honour to find and feel and appreciate and try to live that balance.”

Thus, each and every individual – according to the ethics of The Numinous Way – is free to choose how and with whom to live. If they desire to and are happy living among their own kind, according to their own understood ancestral traditions, and thus establish in their own way, without recourse to unethical means, a new community, an extended family, a new clan or tribe on their own folk all of whom are of the same kindred spirit, then that is not un-ethical, or contrary to The Numinous Way. Indeed, to make some dogmatic principle stating that it is or would be unethical for such free individuals to form of their own free choice such an extended family of their own kind would itself be contrary to The Numinous Way.

In the same way, according to The Numinous Way, there is nothing unethical about some other individual or individuals desiring to do the opposite, and establishing some new family, or some new kindred, on non-folkish lines, if that is their choice. For it is, to repeat myself, a question of tolerance, of personal love, of personal honour, of empathy, and of a personal judgement deriving from pathei-mathos.

Thus, it is not a question of ‘race/ethnicity’, or of ‘racialism’ – pro or contra – but rather a question of individual choice and individual empathy.

For what is unethical are two things; (1) using some abstraction (such as ethnicity) as the basis for judging a person or as a means of assigning worth to an individual; and (2) resorting to compulsion or persuasion in order to try to have others conform to some ideal, some abstraction, some belief, some dogma, some ideology. Be that ideal some idealized ‘race’ or nation, or be that ideal some abstraction such as some supra-personal ‘freedom’, some ‘human rights’, or some sort of political/social crusade against ‘racism’ or ‘hatred’ or whatever. [4] The ethical criteria is honourable behaviour, by individuals, and an individual judgement based on their own unique pathei-mathos; not some generalized impersonal support (by The Numinous Way, or whatever) of or some generalized condemnation of others or of some group or of some other Way.

This is why the emphasis of The Numinous Way is on individuals – and thence on families (on two individuals joined by empathy, loyalty and love), on thence on their extended families (their progeny, and relatives), and thence possibly on such extended families naturally evolving into new clans and tribes – and not on large abstractions such as The State or the modern nation. The why and the how – the genesis – of such new clans and tribes is entirely a matter for individuals and families. Hence The Numinous Way being apolitical – since politics by definition depends of abstractions, on the supra-personal; on the division of individuals into some abstract categories, on the surrender of one’s own judgement, and on using the pathei-mathos of others whom one does not personally know.

As I tried to explain in my lengthy essay The Uncertitude of Knowing, rampant dishonour – and suffering – exists in the world, and will continue to exist in the world until the majority of human beings become empathic, compassionate, and honourable. Until that future time (should it ever arise) is it justifiable to condemn those who lacking the intimation of Reality that The Numinous Way (and similar Ways) can provide, nevertheless and by various means seek in practical ways to do what is honourable by dealing with dishonourable people? One example I gave in that essay was of a Police officer.

Given that ethical criteria is of individual honour and a personal knowing – the honour of deeds done by individuals and a personal knowing of those individuals – it is not justifiable to condemn these individuals for belonging to some Institution (such as a Police force) or to some group (such as Reichsfolk) since what matters is whether their life, their individual deeds, are shown to be honourable or dishonourable. That is, they can only be correctly judged by such individual deeds of theirs, not by their associations or by their loyalty to or membership of something supra-personal.

As I wrote in that essay:

” As Savitri Devi understood, any organization [...] by its very nature – is causal. That is, that all such temporal organized structures are either ‘against Time’ or ‘in Time’. No-thing ‘above Time’ can be ‘organized’, since what is ‘above Time’ is a-causal. Such acausality requires, to be presenced in the causal – to affect human beings and thus produce positive, honourable, Change – an honourable causal form or forms or some individual(s) inspired by the numen inherent in such acausality. That is, it requires those who are ‘against Time’ – those who presence the acausal via some nexion such as an organization, or some affective and affecting form which manifests in some way the honourable, the numen, itself, and which thus, to some degree at least, is numinous in and of itself, albeit always in an imperfect way.

This need for such numinous practical and organized manifestations – such numinous presencings and such honourable human beings who act in their own way to do what is honourable – will remain until we human beings have evolved, in sufficient numbers, to become a new and a different species of being and which new species can directly access the acausal without the necessity of some causal form or forms. That is, until we develope and use empathy; until empathy removes the need for each and every fallible causal form – from States, to nations, to laws, to religious beliefs, to political and social dogma…”

In conclusion, therefore, one might be justified in saying that a group such as Reichsfolk can to some extent encourage individuals to act with honour, counter (to some extent) the dishonour that exists in the world, and thus can move us by its very existence toward a more empathic, honourable, future.

Yet this, as I saught to explain in The Uncertitude of Knowing, is not some ethical endorsement by The Numinous Way of Reichsfolk – or of such Institutions as the Police or even of such a Way as traditional Catholicism (and so on) – but rather a statement of the realities of the world; of how it will take centuries if not millennia (if then) before we human beings have evolved en masse to be empathic, compassionate, honourable beings.

Or, expressed in inexact terms, it is an understanding of how the wisdom that is always above-Time (acausal, numinous) can often be presenced by those individuals and some groups/organizations against-Time, provided always that such individuals act honourably.

Which is why, of course, I wrote in the aforementioned essay that National-Socialist Germany has been much mis-understood and was:

“…an intuitive attempt to transfer the traditional collective way of living to a modern State and nation, and thus should be considered in this context. Hitherto, it has been judged, philosophically, by particular abstract criteria – such as the happiness and the freedom and the ‘rights’ of the individual – which in my opinion is not correct since it expresses a different, non-individual, ethos [...] In the collective way, the individual has duties and obligations to the community, which come before the happiness, the desires, of the individual.

Therefore, this modern attempt to re-establish a collective, traditional, way of life, using modern means – forms such as The State – is interesting philosophically, existentially, especially since Blud und Boden was an intuitive apprehension of the numinous, and then an attempt to manifest and evolve, using such modern forms, a still living tradition devolving around a living folk and to re-present and encourage the symbiotic relationship that lies at the heart of the collective ethos and in the dwelling of particular people in a particular locality who have a common tradition.”

Reichsfolk was and is a continuation of this intuitive against-Time attempt, but one involving clans and tribes instead of a modern State and nation.

Yet since these are only and ever imperfect and flawed attempts to presence the numen, although – like a Police officer honourably acting in the line of duty and thus in the service of some existing State – are what they bring-into-being, and more importantly what dishonourable deeds they may in acting forestall and prevent, better than if they had not existed/acted at all?

My own fallible personal judgement is that honourable action by honourable individuals – whatever the allegiance of such individuals, whatever their perceived and accepted duty – is always preferable to doing nothing when faced with someone doing some dishonourable deed.

Thus, and again in my own fallible personal judgement, a group such as Reichsfolk – consisting as it does to my knowledge of honourable individuals predisposed to act honourably – could well possess the potential to re-establish, for some or many people, a more numinous and evolutionary way of living than currently exists in the societies of the West, or elsewhere. As would or might a Muslim Khilafah do, in the lands of the Muslims.

But all this talk of Reichsfolk does not make you a supporter of Reichsfolk or a National Socialist, does it, as many assume?

No, it does not. It makes me someone who seeks to use reason and who now applies the results of his pathei-mathos, and the ethics of The Numinous Way, to understand such still controversial matters as National-Socialism, past, present, and future. In addition, I have presented above only my own fallible personal understanding of such matters.

Hence, neither I nor,

” The Numinous Way, per se – philosophically, ethically – has [any] direct affinity with National-Socialism just as those striving to live by the ethics of empathy have no συμπάθεια with that particular causal form and the abstractions that make it what it is. Rather, there is, as I have striven to explain here and elsewhere, a criticism of it on philosophical, ethical, grounds – but a criticism based on a rational understanding of it in the correct context, and which understanding provides a perspective beyond the distortions, the prejudice and the assumptions and the propaganda about National-Socialism that exist today and have existed for over fifty years. There is thus a reasoned judgement, deriving from truths revealed by good, honourable, people; a reasoned judgement which, as I mentioned, reveals the still somewhat heretical truth of National-Socialism as a curious mixture of ἀρετή and ὕβρις. “   The Uncertitude of Knowing

But as so often, I do not expect the distinctions I make – between a rational, an Aeonic, understanding (the wisdom that is above-Time and thus acausal) and overt political/religious support for against-Time groups or various Weltanschauungen – will be understood, except by a few, just I will no doubt continue to be denounced and described as a hate-filled extremist by those who, lacking fairness and reason, turn their attention to fictional characterizations and to manufacturing fictional dénouements for such characters and who, in the process, bring upon ancestral, living, cultures and upon communities (folkish and otherwise), an unbearable affliction:

ἔστω δ᾽ ἀπή-
μαντον, ὥστ᾽ ἀπαρκεῖν
εὖ πραπίδων λαχόντα.
οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἔπαλξις
πλούτου πρὸς κόρον ἀνδρὶ
λακτίσαντι μέγαν Δίκας
βωμὸν εἰς ἀφάνειαν.
βιᾶται δ᾽ ἁ τάλαινα πειθώ,
προβούλου παῖς ἄφερτος ἄτας.
ἄκος δὲ πᾶν μάταιον. οὐκ ἐκρύφθη,
πρέπει δέ, φῶς αἰνολαμπές, σίνος:
κακοῦ δὲ χαλκοῦ τρόπον
τρίβῳ τε καὶ προσβολαῖς
μελαμπαγὴς πέλει
δικαιωθείς, ἐπεὶ
διώκει παῖς ποτανὸν ὄρνιν,
πόλει πρόστριμμ᾽ ἄφερτον ἐνθείς.
λιτᾶν δ᾽ ἀκούει μὲν οὔτις θεῶν:
τὸν δ᾽ ἐπίστροφον τῶν
φῶτ᾽ ἄδικον καθαιρεῖ. [5]

Aesch. Ag. 379-399

David Myatt
September 2011 CE

Notes
[1] Two volumes of letters are available, covering the important years 2002-2011 CE. The first is Selected Letters, 2002-2008 CE (compiled by JRW) and the second my Letters to Friends, 2008-2011 CE.

[2] I used a transliteration of the compound Greek word - ἐναντιοδρομίας – rather than given a particular translation, since the term enantiodromia in my view suggests the uniqueness of expression of the original, and which original in my view is not adequately, and most certainly not accurately, described by a usual translation such as ‘conflict of opposites’. Rather, what is suggested is ‘confrontational contest’ – that is, by facing up to the expected/planned/inevitable contest.

As I noted in a footnote to my translation, Carl Jung – who, according to my research, was familiar with the sayings of Heraclitus – used the term enantiodromia to describe the emergence of a trait (of character) to offset another trait and so restore a certain psychological balance within the individual.

[3] Fragment 80. My translation is: One should be aware that Polemos pervades, with discord δίκη, and that beings are naturally born by discord.

[4] On the question of ‘human rights’, refer to my Uncertitude of Knowing, from which this is a quote:

In the illustrative sense, the theory of ‘human rights’ manufactures a template (a blueprint) for the individual human being, and then this template is used to judge not only the diversity of living individuals but also the societies which those living individuals dwell in, which in effect means the proponents of the theory of ‘human rights’ manufacture another template, in this instance for an idealized society which fits their idealized, disconnected, human being.

Actual existing societies are then morally judged on how well they conform to this ideal, this template – it being considered that the more they conform or approximate or strive for this manufactured ideal, then the more moral, the better, they are. In addition, it is assumed that laws, some particular type of government, some charters, some agencies and forces of ‘law and order’, can aid the process of making a society approach, approximate to, or reach, the ideal.

For in the theory of ‘human rights’ – in all variants of this theory – the abstraction of such rights is bound to the notion of a structured society, of some nation, some State, or some supra-national organization, being able to safeguard, give, cultivate, or guarantee such rights, and thus such rights by necessity require such a controlled society, and depend on the relation which exists between that society and the individuals within it, a relationship governed by enforceable and abstract laws.

Thus the context of such societies – and of the individuals in them – becomes these abstractions, laws relating to them, obedience to such laws, and the pursuit of these abstractions, these ideals, which ideals are said to be able to produce or to guarantee ‘human rights’ and thus can ensure the happiness of individuals, with the happiness of isolated, abstracted, individuals being considered desirable if not the most important thing. Society then becomes an un-numinous collection of mostly isolated individuals or nuclear families who possess expectations concerning their rights and their standard of living, and who thus pursue materialism and an abstract happiness dependant upon how well their ‘rights’, their individual demands, their expectations, are met and catered for by their society and the government which rules over and controls this society.

[5]

For unharmed is the one
Who rightly reasons that what is sufficient  380
Is what is allotted to him.
For there is no protection
In riches for the man of excess
Who stamps down the great altar of the goddess, Judgement,
In order to hide it from view.

But vigorously endures Temptation -
That already-decided daughter of unbearable Misfortune.
And all remedies are in vain.
Not concealed, but conspicuous -
A harsh shining light -
Is the injury.

For, like bad bronze  390
Struck and rubbed, he becomes blackly-covered
As is the customary practice {… as a boy
In pursuit of flying game…}
Laying upon the folk an unbearable affliction.
But not one of the gods hears the supplications:
Instead, they take down those persons
Who, lacking fairness, turn their attentions to such things.

Note: {…} indicates a conjectural reading of the text.

Article source – http://aboutmyatt.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/david-myatt-polemos-our-genesis.pdf

RS: What is your response to those who criticize you personally, often in a derogatory manner, or who say that your many and various peregrinations – what Professor Kaplan called your Siddhartha-like search for truth – renders your writings worthless?

DWM: Their views are their views; and a search, a journey such a my own, to learn from experience with the hope of becoming σοφός – where there is a willingness, from and because of such experience, to abandon one’s one prejudices and beliefs – is just a search, a journey, to learn from personal experience.

But one question which I would ask such people who give public vent to their personal opinion about someone is this: have you ever been seriously ill or incapacitated (by for example, being shot) and thus, for weeks, had to rely on the kindness of others to care for you and nurse you back to health?

For if they had undergone such a formative experience – such a πάθει μάθος – they may well have had their opinions, and their view of themselves and of others, changed and so been brought to at least some appreciation of what is important about life and human personal relationships and human social interactions.

Another question such people should be asked is: have they ever loved someone, deeply, and then, suddenly, lost that loved one and so experienced the long-lasting grief of such a love, lost? For, to be Homeric in prosody, if they had undergone such a formative experience – such a πάθει μάθος – they may well have had their opinions, and their view of themselves and of others, changed and so been brought to at least some appreciation of what is important about life and human personal relationships and human social interactions.

Another question such people should be asked is: have they ever been alone, by themselves, in complete solitude, for three months or more, with only their own thoughts for company? For if they had undergone such a formative experience – such a πάθει μάθος – they may well have had their opinions, and their view of themselves and of others, changed and so been brought to at least some appreciation of what is important about life and human personal relationships and human social interactions.

Another question such people should be asked is: have they ever been imprisoned – lost their liberty – for something they were innocent of and thus forced to endure months of living locked up and caged like some animal where the brutality of being forced by the use of brutal force to comply is an ever present threat so that they become as slaves of some System, rewarded if they behave and punished if they misbehave? For if they had undergone such a formative experience – such a πάθει μάθος – they may well have had their opinions, and their view of themselves and of others, changed and so been brought to at least some appreciation of what is important about life and human personal relationships and human social interactions

Until the experience of many of these, and similar, things, no one should dare to deem themselves wise or consider that their academic learning, their opinions or views of whatever kind – personal, political, religious, or whatever – have or possess any ethical value at all.

In addition, no one should consider the publicly-expressed views and opinions of such unformed, untested, people – of those who have not endured πάθει μάθος, time after time – as of any ethical value.

The modern world, with its rapid and its vulgar means of communication, is awash with the opinions and the views of such unformed, unwise, humans, and with the propaganda of such arrogant humans who are untested and untried by the Cosmos, by Nature – which Cosmos, which Nature, evolving on and through us, gave us πάθει μάθος as a means to reason, to balance, and thus to wisdom.

For the truth of our human nature seems to me to be that no one is wise – and their views or opinions are probably worthless in ethical terms – until they have been touched by the destructive, the formative, the testing often sorrowful passion of the ancient wisdom.

In more numinous times, the living culture of our community, our tribe, our folk, was a repository of the transmitted πάθει μάθος of our ancestors: respected, and learned from, and a natural and necessary counter-balance to our own arrogant impetuous prideful vigorous youth.

Now, in this modern dysfunctional world, with its rapid and its vulgar means of communication, individuals look to some abstraction – some ideology, some religious dogma, some demagogue, or are swayed by the propaganda of some shyster – instead of to such transmitted πάθει μάθος with its evokation of that numinosity which all living cultures express.

For it is the remembrance, the presencing, the feeling, of such numinosity  – by the music, the literature, the art, the ancestral stories, of each and every culture – which reminds us our humanity, whereas it is the abstractions of the modern world which distance us from our humanity by their arrogant, selfish, materialism, by the profanity of individualism, and by the tyranny of their dogma.

For the numinous reality – the truth of our human nature – is that of our connexion to, and of our effective and affective dependence upon, other human beings and other Life. The truth, the reality, that the experience, the empathy, of personal suffering provides for us – that truth, that experience, of personal love and of a human compassion. And it is this love and compassion – and only this – that is the beginning of wisdom.

Therefore, let no one speak of wisdom and truth who has not felt, by and through their own personal suffering, this personal love and this human compassion. For the views and the opinions of such unwise ones are as a falling dead leaf from a sapling in Autumn wind-blown against the trunk of a vigorous well-rooted Oak.

Is that how you feel about your stalker, the MOAC (the Myatt-Obsessed-Anonymous-Coward) – the cowardly lonely psycho – who has posted hundreds of rants about you for over four years and set up more than a dozen anti-Myatt blogs? That his rants and allegations are, and I quote, “as a falling dead leaf from a sapling in Autumn wind-blown against the trunk of a vigorous well-rooted Oak.”

I do not think or feel anything about such rants nor about the person behind them, but now you mention that type of dishonourable individual – yes, that would be apt description of the null effect of such outpourings.

Also, as someone once wrote:

The infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind.

Having read Hesse’s Siddhartha, it struck me that, as Kaplan said, your strange and diverse life – from Catholic to pagan to Buddhist to fanatical neo-nazi to Reichsfolk to Muslim to the creation, now, of your own mystical philosophy of The Numinous Way – is indeed akin to a Siddhartha-like search for truth, or what Julie Wright called a modern Faustian quest. Would you agree?

To be honest, I do not really know, and will let others decide. All I know is that from a quite early age I have saught to find answers to certain questions about life, existence, Being, and so often plunged into practical experience of particular Ways of Life, and what many consider to be certain religions. Thus, when a schoolboy in the Far East I studied Taoism, and Hinduism, in practical ways, learning a Taoist Martial Art and spending over a year following the Hatha Yoga Pradipika of Patanjali. For a while, I was content. But only for a while, for the discovery of National-Socialism led me away. Years later, after the downfall of the NDFM and a period as a vagabond, I seriously studied and practised Buddhism, and was content, for a while. But questions remained. For instance, I recall one time in one session of hours-long meditation in some place where everyone seemed to be personally striving so hard – for something – while outside the wind made eerie noises and a full moon rose into a night sky full with stars, and so I walked out to listen, to feel, again the peaceful windful silence there free from the fetters of meditating when supposed to so meditate and free from the very personal striving for something, howsoever named…

So I, some time later, drifted into another type of monastery to live a different way of life, hoping, trusting, to find answers. Yet again, for a while, I was happy, content. But doubt came bringing to an end such certainty about such a way. Then, some time later, love of and from women came in several different forms to keep me still, contended, pleased – until a sudden death brought an end to one such happy way of life. And so it continued, back to National-Socialism, thence to Reichsfolk, thence to Islam thence the beginnings of my Numinous Way thence to another love and thence, and via another tragedy and finally, to the completion of that Way which is the summation of my decades of πάθει μάθος.

Hence, I suppose this learning from experience and suffering, manifest in this Numinous Way of mine, is partly due to me, and such a journey, but also, and importantly, to not-me: that is, not due to me, consciously, but to Wyrd, Nature, or whatever term may serve to so describe this force-beyond-the-moving-self. For – many, many, times in my life – I have just wandered along, drifting, until such time as some opportunity, or some woman, came along, or some vista seen from some journeying path intrigued enough to set me forth upon a direction toward it.

Others can make of this what they may, but all I will add, or all I can add, is that it seems that quite often I ended up somewhere other than I intended, to thus feel again and again that our belief that we control or can control our own life, or what is often called our own Destiny, is nothing but an illusion: one more example of the hubris that seems an innate part of our human character. Or rather, which has hitherto been an integral part of our human character, a part that we could and perhaps should change by means of empathy and honour.

Is this Numinous Way of yours what you meant above by σοφός?

It is certainly the skill, the learning, I have acquired from my practical experiences. My personal answers to certain questions about Being, our mortal life, and how we relate to other life.

Some may find these answers interesting, as others will and quite correctly, conclude after a certain long duration of causal Time, whether this particular Way possess merit enough to be a useful guide for more than just a few strange individuals.

In your essay The Failure of The State you were highly critical of the State. But wouldn’t you agree that the State, whatever its faults, has been beneficial in some ways, and better than the alternatives?

This is an interesting, and one might even say an important question, ethically. For it cannot be doubted that The State – at least in places like Western Europe, and America – has in some ways contributed to the material prosperity of its citizens, as well as having provided opportunities for the study and the transmission of numinous culture. In respect of numinous culture, for instance, one thinks of the funding and support of tertiary education, the endowment of the Arts, and specifically of providing the facilities and the environment which enables large numbers of people to be professional classical musicians such as those who are members of orchestras or solo performers.

In the personal sense, I have benefited from the numinous culture, the artistic and literary treasures of the past, that in many ways modern States, and the nations that preceded them, have preserved and often made readily available. For instance, concerts of numinous music – JS Bach, Mozart, so many others – performed by professional musicians and often based upon the work of scholars supported by government-endowed places of learning. Also, for instance, public and academic libraries making accessible the literary work of writers and the schola of previous generations. And so on.

But do these things balance, offset, the suffering that The State has sometimes inflicted upon its own people and, more often, inflicted on others, not to mention upon Nature? That is, to be blunt, what price – in terms of human death and suffering, and the suffering inflicted upon Nature – is such culture worth?

For it cannot be denied that The State has not only caused the suffering and the deaths of millions upon millions of human beings (as I briefly outlined in the article you referred to), but also – in the pursuit of materialism, of a material prosperity – greatly harmed Nature. Not only caused – but is causing, and will doubtless continue to so cause.

Therefore we need to ask what ethical criteria we use to determine value, be such value personal, artistic, cultural, or of, for example, Nature. My personal answer – manifest in The Numinous Way – is based on empathy and honour, and thus upon compassion and the alleviation or prevention of suffering. And not only the alleviation and prevention of suffering to other human beings, but to all Life on this planet Earth, and in the Cosmos.

That is, that our criteria is and should be whether some deed, some act, some plan, causes, contributes to, can cause, or can contribute, to the suffering of Life. If it does, then it is – with one exception and one exception only – wrong, unethical, immoral. The one exception being, of course, as I have explained before, the honourable defence of one’s own life, or of someone nearby, in the immediacy of the personal moment.

In addition, and importantly, this criteria can only and ever, by the nature of its ethic (deriving from empathy), be a personal one – that is, an individual choice. It cannot be or become a dogma; it cannot be enforced upon others, or made mandatory, or even be the subject of any method of persuasion, propagandistic or otherwise, and however well-intended such propaganda might be. For to so choose and to so apply this particular ethical criteria the individual must have or develope empathy for themselves – it must live within them, and thus enable within them a natural, unforced, compassion for life and for honour.

What this criteria means, in direct personal terms, is that we should seek to live in a responsible way – aware of the consequences of our actions and the consequences of our manner of living, and prepared to place the cessation of suffering before our own comforts, and especially before our desire for material prosperity. Quite often, to live in such a responsible empathic way we have to distance ourselves from the raucous modern world.

This, of course, can be and often is hard, but there is a balance in such responsible living that empathy makes us aware; a balance that is only and ever personal, direct, and unique to every individual and their circumstances, and which they must find for themselves.

Perhaps one practical example would be useful here – vegetarianism. The Cosmic Ethic of The Numinous Way makes us aware that we should not inflict suffering upon animals, but be compassionate toward them. As such, it should incline us toward being vegetarians or, some would suggest, even vegans. But there is a danger of this becoming a dogma, even an ideology, and thus impersonal, with an individual striving hard to abide by what are perceived or understood to be some abstract rules; what to do, what not to do; what to eat, what not to eat; what not to wear. The immediacy of living in the moment – the empathy of the moment – and the personal nature of empathy, thus become lost in the pursuit, the orthodoxy, of such rules, or what comes to be regarded as the orthodoxy of this -ism.

But it is for each person to decide, according to their empathy, how and in what manner to live consistent with a desire to cease to cause suffering to life. Their own empathy – their own compassion – is and should be their guide.

Furthermore, while being a vegetarian might seem for some a necessary requirement of The Numinous Way, there are no such necessary requirements, no such predetermined abstractions, no such dogma, due to the very individual nature of this Way, of empathy itself, and due to the circumstances in which individuals find themselves or may find themselves.

In addition, one necessary question to ask – given the desire to introduce a new and numinous way of living by means of establishing new communities as self-sufficient as possible – is vegetarianism even possible for such communities, initially or for some time? For instance, can a small community – or even a family with children – become self-sufficient in food (and thus not dependant on the food network and the infrastructure of the modern State) and live in a healthy way in a land such as Britain if they grow vegetables and fruit and have no bought-in manure and certainly no commercial fertilizers and seek to have a minimal reliance on brought-in foodstuffs (such as flour)? Or do they, or would they, need the muck of farm animals to made fecund their land, and the milk and butter of cows, the eggs of chickens, to supplement their diet and raise healthy children? What then, if they have such cows, of the male calves born of such dairy cows? Oxen to plough the fields – theirs and of the like-minded neighbours – or sold elsewhere to make a small sum to provide some needed essentials? Or even reared, caringly, as with all the animals, to be source of muck while alive and source of food when dead? Would their compassion for their own animals – well cared for and living as free as possible on their land – recompense them for using such animals to give them their human life and their health?

Or is all human use of animals, in general, and for food in particular, by its very nature something to be ethically avoided, so that from the outset such communities should strive to live independent of using animals, by for example, permaculture or other methods, however hard such a living might initially be? What, then, of their children? Is such enforced hardship on children fair – or, instead, is it the ethical thing to do?

These are interesting questions, which people so inclined toward living compassionately, numinously, have to solve in their own way in their own species of time according to their own experience and requirements, and sans all dogma and all attempts to generalize and so manufacture some -ism or -isms from such generalizations that are deemed to be applicable to more than one person.

An illustration may be interesting, here. There once was this chap, inclined toward veganism, who lived and worked on an arable farm. Not that far away on another farm there were sheds full of chickens producing eggs for commercial sale. These chickens were disposed of when they ceased to lay a certain number of eggs per week – usually ending up being used for tinned cat food. So, for some reason (possibly because he thought it was a compassionate thing to do), the farm where he lived ended up with dozens of chickens considered commercially unviable – with such chickens living free range and under the guidance of a huge bought-in cockerel. Thus there were fresh eggs to eat, and to be used in the making of cakes and other food, with the chickens enjoying a reasonable and fairly natural life after the weeks of adjustment to living free and in the open air – from being nervous skinny creatures, bare of feathers in many places, who fearfully hung around the coop, they blossomed to become well-fed, well-feathered, chickens who would roam at will over acres and acres of farmyard, orchard and fields. And things went very well for quite some time.

But, despite all precautions taken – coop locked and bolted at night with all chickens and cockerel safely inside – one night a fox got in, leaving many dead. A week later, it happened again, despite repairs, and more precautions taken. More chickens were acquired to replace those lost – and then it occurred for a third time. What is one to do? Let the fox have all the chickens, in the end? Give the remaining chickens back to the other farm for domestic cat food? Put them all down one’s self to avoid their terrifying death by fox? Or seek out and cull the fox that had invaded one’s land and found easy prey? Indeed, was the initial act of compassion by this chap, ultimately, the wrong thing to do?

The answer is that it is for the person or persons in such a situation to decide, given their circumstances and their own empathy, their own experience and feeling. Perhaps, as a result, there would be a new learning from experience.

In conclusion, therefore, what we always need to remember is the immediacy and personal nature of empathy, and of how such empathy directs us toward both compassion and, importantly, toward the wu-wei of personal love, and how this, combined with our own unique πάθει μάθος is – at least in my own fallible view – the genesis of wisdom and thus enables us to answer such questions as Quid Est Veritas.

David Myatt
January 2011 CE

The Failure and Immoral Nature of The State

by David Myatt

Definition of The State

The State may be defined as the concept of both (1) organizing and controlling – over a particular and large geographical area – land (and resources); and (2) organizing and controlling individuals over that same geographical particular and large geographical area by means of the use of physical force or the threat of force; by means of the central administration and centralization of resources (especially fiscal and military); and by the mandatory taxation of personal income.

The State thus divides people into those so governed and controlled – subjects – and those who govern or who are employed by those who govern to organize and control the subjects, with both subjects and those who govern or who are employed to organize and control the subjects being regarded as citizens of The State. In addition, The State designates and decides what is public and private (for example, in relation to land, or particular places) as it appropriates to itself the authority to control what it has so designated as public.

The State thus differs from, for example, the Pax Romanum in that it imposes mandatory taxation – or can so impose such taxation-  on not only goods and services, but also on personal income; and that it makes a clear distinction (often in law which it manufactures) between public places and private places, abrogating to itself (that is, to its administration, its functionaries and its government) the right to define and determine what is a public place. Thus, the State by law – enforced if necessary by force – places or can place limits on what its subjects can and cannot do in the places it has so designated as “public” and which are thus under its control.

The concept of The State is relatively recent, dependant as it is, for example, on having the centralized administration necessary to levy and collect personal income tax, and on having the necessary regional and local forces (tax inspectors, Police, and Courts of Law) to determine, find, arrest, detain, and if necessary punish, defaulters.

Historically, and in terms of organization and idea, the Commonwealth of England, established by Oliver Cromwell in 1653 CE – with its central legislative body, and an army to enforce its dictat and its “reforms” upon its subjects – could be regarded as the precursor of the modern State later theorized about by people such as Hegel and Fichte, and first brought into being after the French Revolution when both the practical means (aided and abetted by what has been termed the Industrial Revolution) and the desire existed to collect personal income tax (as in England from 1842 CE and as in America, from 1861 CE), and which type of tax is one of the means used – by those who believe in, and who benefit from, the concept of The State – to maintain the existence of their State.

The Nation

From such beginnings, The State has become ubiquitous in the lands of the modern West, and has spread to become the main means of control, of governance, in most places on Earth, aided and abetted by the concept of The Nation, even though this concept of The Nation preceded the concept of The State by some hundreds of years.

Indeed, one might with veracity write that there is now no distinction between a nation and the modern Nation, and between a Nation and a State, so that the term nation-State is synonymous with State, since almost all old nations have become large modern Nations, and almost all modern Nations are defined by their State – by the centralized governance which controls a particular geographical area – so that, and for example, the modern Nation known as America is considered to be the land and the people governed and controlled by a central federal authority, symbolically and otherwise residing in Washington and represented by a President, the Senate, and Congress, and which central authority has ultimate authority and control over the regions and the peoples that constitute the United States of America. Thus, while in theory the Native Americans may have some autonomy in whatever land the central authority has designated and defined as “reservations” or tribal areas, ultimate control over such lands and the people in them still resides in the federal American authority, with all Native Americans being held to be citizens (that is, subjects) of The State of America and expected to obey American law, an expected obedience which can be enforced, of course, by the use of deadly force, and by imprisonment of individuals, by The State, and which State as all States do reserves to itself the right to determine what is and what is not the lawful use of deadly force.

From being a simple kindred of communities bound by ties of culture and tradition, dwelling in a specific and limited geographical area, and often sharing the same language, the small nation has become The Nation – spread over a large geographical area, with a centralized governance, and a centralization of resources, as well as centralized forces of “law and order” to enforce the dictats of such a centralized governance.

Thus, and for example, before people identified with the modern entity, the modern Nation, named Italy they identified themselves according to what are now regions of this new entity Italy, or with a particular polis, a particular town. In addition, each region or town of a nation was usually responsible for, and had the right to control, its own armed forces, a responsibility and a right abrogated first by The Nation, and then by The State.

In origin, The Nation lies in the rise of the abstract concept of there existing a national-identity over and above and more important than regional, tribal, differences and local (“clan”) identity, which concept began to emerge in Europe during the Late Middle Ages, and which concept of a supra-regional national-identity – often reinforced by appeals to contemporary religious authority (and, later on, by doctrines such as the so-called divine right of Kings) – was useful to the monarchs and rulers of the Europe of the time, as it allowed them to raise armies, and funds, to fight wars, enthuse their troops and subjects, increase their own revenues, and centralize and consolidate, and often extend, their own power. Consider, for example, the speech by Queen Elizabeth the First of England, given at Tilbury, in 1588 CE, and the dramatised speech, on St. Crispin’s Day, given by Shakespeare to King Henry V in the play (c. 1599 CE) of the same name, where the “Nation” of England is eulogized. Consider also how Edward The First of England used the still then rather nascent idea of an “England” to increase his control and authority (and finances) by establishing a central parliament and a central system of laws, and by entailing away the rights of the regional Barons by acts such as the Statute of Gloucester of 1278 CE.

The Failure of The State

Since their imposition upon people well over a hundred years ago, the modern nation-States of the West have introduced mandatory State education, and presided over the introduction and enforcement of thousands upon thousands of new laws, making “law and order” one of their priorities. In addition, they [1] – such States – have expanded tertiary education as well as funded the Arts and Science, health and social care, and established national and local Police forces and Courts of law.

All these things – and many others such as housing and transport infrastructure – have been done in the hope and expectation that The State can provide, or manufacture, or at the very least assist in manufacturing, a society of healthy, well-adjusted, civilized, prosperous, safe, and happy human beings. Indeed, this hope and expectation for the majority may be said to be the raison d’être of The State.

This hope and expectation has – publicly and explicitly, or otherwise – underlain most of the taxation The State has imposed upon its citizens, and many of the laws it has introduced. For well over a hundred years, the peoples of The State have hoped for better times. Such was the hope after The First World War, with its millions of killed and wounded, and with its plethora of stories of heroism and of personal sacrifice. Such was the hope after The Second World War, with its millions of killed and wounded, and with its plethora of stories of heroism and of personal sacrifice. Such was the hope in States such as America after the end of the Vietnam war, with its hundreds of thousands killed and wounded. Such is the hope even now, as the West fights what its States describe as The War on Terror, with its hundreds of thousands killed and wounded, so far.

But the uncomfortable truth is that all these State-sponsored things – from compulsory education to the funding of the Arts to the introduction of laws to the resources available to Police forces to the spending of billions upon billions of pounds over a period of a hundred years and more -  have not led to the emergence of societies where tolerance, and a civilized attitude, reign among the majority of the people. Or even led to a personal happiness for a significant minority, let alone the majority. Or even led to towns, cities, villages, and public places, free from violence and from crime.

Instead, all the societies of the modern West are infested with crime, drugs, violence, domestic abuse, poverty, inequality, personal debt, crippling taxation, and a burgeoning underclass who possess little or no hope. In addition, the much vaunted and idealized democracy of the States of the West is in fact a system where a privileged elite, an oligarchy, con the people into believing that every four years (or whenever the election is), there is a chance for the subjects of The State to “vote for change” when all that happens is some minor tinkering with some aspects of the system, lots of promises made, lots of rhetoric and propaganda, but never any significant change that improves the lot of the majority, or which and importantly solves the problems of crime, violence, poverty, domestic abuse and the drug and alcohol addiction that are rife in all Western societies. Instead, while life for the privileged elite (the members of the government especially and politicians and business tycoons in general) gets better and they get more money and enjoy their elitist privileges, life for millions of people tends to get worse – more taxation, but less public spending; more crime; more drug and alcohol abuse; more debt, more domestic abuse.

For instance, around 100,000 women per year seek treatment in the British city of London alone for violent injuries received in their own homes, and, on average, in Britain, two women per week are killed by a male partner or former partner – that is over 100 women a year. Also, in England and Wales alone, in one year, there are over 600,000 recorded incidents of domestic violence, and every minute of every day the British Police are called by a woman who has been subject to violent domestic abuse. [2]

For instance, cocaine use in England and Wales is the highest in Europe, indulged in by over four million people – and Scotland’s rate of cocaine use is among the highest in the whole world. [3]

For instance, America has the highest number of people in prison, per capita, in the whole world – over 1.7 million people, with well over half of all prisoners in America there for drug related offences [4]. In addition nearly 22 million Americans aged 12 or older are illicit drug users [5].

In respect of alcohol, an estimated 15 to 20 million Americans are addicted to alcohol or regularly abuse alcohol for personal or social reasons. [6] Furthermore, in America, alcohol use is involved in: (a) one-half of all murders, accidental deaths, and suicides; (b) one-third of all drowning, boating and aviation deaths; (c) one-half of all crimes; and (d) almost half of all fatal automobile accidents.

That is an immense number of unhappy and dysfunctional people in the West, for whom the much vaunted “culture and philosophy and opportunities of the West” are at best irrelevant and at worst considered as something that the ruling elite and their savants indulge themselves with. However, one might with some justification write that the hope and expectation of The State has indeed been made manifest, but only in a privileged minority – in the new elite, the new oligarchy, who run or who oversee The State or who aid those who do; much as in the old days of despotic monarchs where Court flunkeys and savants were rewarded, and where the monarch and his privileged elite possessed a wealth and a way of life his subjects could never hope to attain.

Thus, in the Britain of 2011 CE, the ordinary subjects of the now debt-ridden British State find themselves with lower or static wages, increased taxation, higher prices for food and commodities (and usually more personal debt) and cuts in basic public services, while the new elite (such as the executives of large businesses and Banks) receive large financial bonuses and enjoy an ever higher standard of living, just as the politicians continue to enjoy their privileged and wealthy way of life, with government-given honours, or high-salaried positions, awaiting them when they retire from political life. So it is that the ordinary subjects of a debt-ridden State bear the burden of curbing the State debt caused by the new elite in the first place.

The reality of the present seems to be that while the privileged elite may have grown in numbers and in wealth, the ordinary subjects are still toiling, still living in hope and in expectation of a better life, still paying their mandatory and ever-increasing taxes. While abject poverty and abject starvation may have gone, The State has abjectly failed its subjects and abjectly failed to attain its own aims.

For the truth is that the governments of the West, their States, have no solution to the unhappiness, despair and hopelessness of tens upon tens of millions of their own citizens who resort to drugs, alcohol, violence and crime in, for example, an attempt to make their lives bearable, or to provide them with some temporary escape from themselves and their everyday dreary depressive situation and their problems, such as personal debt.

A hundred and more years of the compulsory State has not been able to produce a majority of people who are cultured, well-mannered, happy, and civilized. Instead, the reverse is the reality – evident on the drug and crime infested streets of the cities and towns of every Western nation where one will find hordes of foul-mouthed, arrogant, human beings in thrall to their emotions and pursuing lives of crime, drug-abuse, violence, intimidation and domestic abuse.

For example, given below is an account – from a serving British Police officer of many years experience (with place names changed to protect his identity) – which captures the reality of Britain today, a reality the politicians and their minions either ignore or gloss over because this reality exposes their complete and utter failure to deal with the social problems in their own land and the complete and utter failure of The State that they believe in and seek to maintain.

” Standing in the filthy lobby of one of Ruraltown’s blocks of council flats can be a cold and threatening experience. One of my Response teams has called me to the scene of a hanging. There are many reasons why the people who exist in this part of town would want to take their own lives. Benefits just don’t stretch as far as they used to and these people are always hungry. The money just isn’t enough for bootlegged cigarettes, heroin and alcohol on top of food and bills. What makes this one different is that the body has been hanging from the stairwell for at least three hours and we know that a dozen or so people have walked past without calling it in.

The two guys from my team have cut him down immediately, as are my standing instructions. The preservation of life is more important than the preservation of evidence as far as I am concerned. Even on The Swamp. Paramedics arrived soon after my guys.

The on-call Detective Inspector will eventually attend and decide if this is a suspicious death. As far as I can tell, the only suspicious thing about this body is the lack of track lines on the arms; maybe he is not from around here. The paramedics provide me with the paperwork to show that they have declared ‘Life Exctinct’ and ask if they can go. I can hear the computer despatch system in the cab of their ambulance bleeping persistently, trying to send them to new job after new job. I give them the DI’s mobile number so they can call and ask if he needs them.

The only other sound is from a few floors up, it’s a song I remember from my childhood called Everlasting Love and it sounds brilliant with all the echo from the stairwell. Back to the dead guy. There is no identification on him and the residents all deny any knowledge of him. I call Intel. If they offer a cash bounty we will have a name within 15 minutes. Soon after I hang up on them, phones start ringing all over the block. It’s the Intel guys calling their informants.

The two response guys from my team and I look at each other, then at the floor and try to hide recognition. All coppers are bastards unless they are paying. Even the name of a dead guy on the end of a rope is currency here.

As is so often the case these days he turns out to be a Czech, over here for farm labourer work and suffering from depression. There is not much to do now except wait for CID, CSI and then the undertakers. None of those agencies ask for a post code. They don’t need satnav for Mandela House on the Swamp.

Later, I sat in the car for a minute trying to get my head straight for the next job. I started to think about that Everlasting Love song and remembered back to a bright summer in my home town as a small boy. I was walking along with my mother and my then baby sister was in a pram. Everlasting Love was on the radio everywhere. That was a very long time ago in a place very far away from here…..

In Ruraltown, [many of] the elderly are like dirty, damaged vultures. They converge at awful jumble sales. They rummage and fight for socks and underpants that have been torn from the stiff corpses of their previous ancient occupiers. In Ruraltown, I have seen a woman die in the doctor’s surgery. No one noticed until 3.00 pm.

It is always cold and dark. Unemployment in Ruraltown is, of course, staggeringly high. This part of Ruralshire is so divided along class and racial lines that it is hardly the old shire at all but a collection of tribal groupings.

Some of its outlying towns are concrete wastelands too terrible to describe. People travel miles to jump from our multi-storey carpark…

The crowning glory of Ruraltown, though, is its people. They will happily kill you with an axe while you wait outside the local chippie for a deep-friend Mars bar…

Black Lace refused to play here. Burger King actually closed down their High Street store because they had more trouble than any other town in England. Pre-pubescent skiprats and abusive old women in Kappa track suit bottoms hurl insults and beg for shrapnel from passers-by. The urban decay, the rot, the complete absence of any hope at all, really set in when the railway freight business deserted the town 50 years ago…

Our covert OP occupies a most convenient position in a cul-de-sac in the centre of this unpopular estate, which is within a few hundred intimidating yards of abandoned local shops. The Swamp Estate, strewn with broken glass and needles, is set on the Ruralshire/Eastshire borders with surrounding countryside affording easy escape routes to foot and bridle paths. Central Ruraltown is 2 and 1/4 miles joyride away, and provides comprehensive shoplifting and binge drinking amenities together with a variety of state schools for all age groups to play truant from. A railway station providing commuter services to Metrocity and a convenient location for graffiti, is available in the town centre…

Residents of The Swamp Estate are justifiably proud of their award-winning children’s play area, named ‘County Regeneration Project of the Year 2009′ (now burned out and used as a toilet by Staffordshire Bull Terriers), set in the heart of this vibrant community, adjacent to Robert Mugabe Avenue. Cultural and religious communities are served by the burned out Mosque, derelict Anglican church and the popular ‘alcohol and drug rehabilitation and outreach centre’, membership of which was free before the cuts.

The easy availability of broadband allows the residents to Facebook death threats and witness intimidation messages to each other, and the placement of three mobile phone masts within 200 years of the primary school provides excellent coverage for those sneaky threats to burn down your former ‘partner’s’ house, because ‘she told Tracey that you slept with her sister before you had a baby with Charlene, and she was sure you were seeing her at that time like’….

There are a few decent working families on The Swamp. They struggle to learn English because the library only opens two mornings a week due to the number of assaults on staff, the constant thefts of Tony Blair’s free computers and the aggressive begging outside the front entrance. Staff gave up parking nearby after so many vehicle thefts and damage. They used to park two miles away and walk, until they started getting robbed…

As a Sergeant once, towards the end of my afternoon shift, I sat with the library manager as she wept for close to an hour at the hopelessness of it all. I called the ‘on-call doctor’ service for her. They told me that they didn’t attend the estate after twilight due to the number of thefts of drugs from their teams. ‘Can I bring her to the minor injuries unit in the next town?‘ After a quick phone call asking for permission to do this, with my request for overtime refused and all the oncoming units already at a domestic where the husband had a knife and some petrol, I left her alone to cry…

Back on The Swamp, there is a car on fire… and Ruralshire Fire and Rescue are asking desperately for a police escort before they attend…
Mugabe Close hangs on grimly to its reputation for decay, depression, violence and misery. It is always cold and damp here, the grass refuses to grow, pissed on as it is by a thousand drunken bladders. The kiddies playground surface is made of mud, bull-terrier shit and broken glass. If you are lucky, you will find the odd blood stained syringe by the fence. Lucky because evidence of drug use brings funding. Once, years ago, the drug problem moved to a neighbouring estate, and the funding for Mugabe Close ended. It is not in the resident’s interests to try and end the drug problems here. For more than a third of them it is their primary source of income, and for the remainder their primary source of recreation, apart from procreation, which is their secondary source of income.

Mugabe Close soaks up redevelopment money like a five dollar crack whore. It only takes a few months of exposure for the feckless Ruraltown underclass to [destroy] any new building, fence or pathway. The Ruraltown Borough Council anti-social behaviour officer once told me that giving funding to Mugabe Close was like standing in the street burning £50 notes. I saw my first widescreen HD TV in this close, and my first Blue ray DVD. Waiting in the front room of these houses you see TV channels you have never seen before. I can’t afford the Sky TV packages they have.

I spoke to the ASB officer yesterday. Two boys have been released from custody after threatening to burn her house down because she served them with a nuisance noise order. It took her a year of adjournments and threats to end the 3.00am Drum and Bass beat which enforced insomnia on every school age child in the close. The adults hear nothing. Heroin, alcohol and domestic arguments drown out the sound for them. Her boss moved her family to the other side of Ruraltown. She has seen the boys celebrate their release after just twelve weeks inside by hanging around near the school where she picks her kid up. When they see her, the older one slowly draws his finger across his throat and winks at the child.

A combination of the sheer effort involved in bringing the original issue to court, the months of fear and nerves as the boy’s solicitor forced adjournment after adjournment, the threats of a petrol fire attack at her home and the final insult of their early release has stripped her of any appetite for further enforcement action. In other words, even though she is part of the Crime Reduction Partnership, she will not give me a statement or support a prosecution. My only offering is to say that a court may enforce a longer sentence the next time they are convicted, but before the words are out of my mouth we both know that I am as full of s*** as the playground…” [7]

Such is a grim reality of life for millions of people in the so-called civilized land of Britain. In America, the reality, on the streets, is even worse and even more bleak than in Britain (parts of Detroit, or Camden NJ, come to mind, to give only two examples among so many).

But, of course, as long as the subjects of The State can be distracted and entertained and convinced and tricked into believing that every four years, or every “general election”, or whatever, they can “vote for change” (which never occurs in any significant way) then the privileged elite – the oligarchy – can maintain the status quo, which means they get to earn lots of money, live in fine houses in exclusive neighbourhoods, and generally indulge and enjoy themselves, while millions upon millions of ordinary citizens struggle with debt, live in poverty, or languish in prison, or are unemployed, or find solace in drugs, alcohol, or turn to crime in an attempt to live like the oligarchy and the manufactured vapid “celebrities” who serve as an additional distraction. Then of course there is always the government-sponsored hope that one might “win the lottery” and be able to live as the privileged elite live.

The reality is that Western democracy – the alleged pinnacle of The State and its alleged greatest virtue – is a fraud. It is not really government by the people for the people, but rather government by an oligarchy in the interests of that oligarchy or in the interest of some vested often hidden lobby group. It is not even a fair and reasonable vote, since topics the oligarchy, the privileged elite, and the Media and the vested interests do not want to discus are not discussed, and voters are shamelessly manipulated, lied to, and shameless appeals are made to their instincts, their prejudices, their fears, with the elected government seldom if ever being truly representative of the people it governs, and most certainly personally unknown to most of those who vote for them.

In reality, no politician, no member of the government – no member of the privileged elite – would ever dare walk alone at night, night after night, among the streets of the dozens upon dozens of “ruraltowns” that exist in their own lands. No politician, no member of the government – no member of the privileged elite – would ever dare, for months on end, be a front-line Police officer on the streets of their land on a Friday or a Saturday night when drunken louts infest almost every city and town. No politician, no member of the government – no member of the privileged elite – would ever dare, for months on end, to be a paramedic on the streets of their land and so have to deal with the human consequences of crime, of alcohol and drug abuse, of violence – domestic and otherwise – and put up with the offensive loutish behaviour that is now so commonplace in the lands of the West.

No politician, no member of the government – no member of the privileged elite – would ever be able to live, for months, years, on end as a wage slave or as a member of the unemployed. In Camden, New Jersey, for example – one of the most dangerous places to live, in the West – it is estimated that twenty per cent of the population live in poverty. Would a politician, a member of the government – a member of the privileged elite – be prepared to live there, for months on end, in poverty, on what is the front-line of The State? Of course not. Like First World War Generals far away from the troops on the front-line of that war, they instead live safely, in their own privileged bubble, and smugly make grandiose plans, give grandiose speeches, concern themselves with propaganda, and try to implement their out-of-touch ideologies and political programmes.

For the politicians – and the privileged elite in general – remain safe in their unreality, and, just as in the First World War, it was the subjects, the ordinary people, the soldiers, who suffer, who die, who have their hopes extinguished, during and after such conflict.

The harsh, brutal, reality is that despite the claims and the hopes and expectations of those who believed in and who still believe in the concept of The State, it is not now able to solve and never has been able to solve fundamental social and personal problems. It has failed to create societies where people can walk the streets at night without fear of being attacked or robbed. It has failed to create societies where millions upon millions of people do not need drugs and alcohol to escape from their grim hopeless lives. It has failed to create societies where women can be free of domestic abuse. It has failed to create societies where the majority of people have hope and are happy.
One hundred and more years – at the cost of millions upon millions of deaths, and untold personal suffering – is surely enough time to show The State for not only the social and political failure it is, but also for it to be revealed as immoral by nature and immoral in practice.

For The State has been responsible for the most horrid suffering, the most inhuman brutality, ever to befall human beings.

The Immoral Nature of The State

In the past hundred and more years that The State has been in existence – from Britain, to America, to Europe to the Communist Soviet Union – it has caused or contributed to the deaths of well over one hundred million human beings. Over sixty million people in the Second World War – the most brutal and bloody war in human history. Over sixteen million in the First World War. Over twenty million in the Soviet Union. Many millions killed in colonial wars. In just two days, nearly a quarter of a million people in Japan killed by the dropping of atomic bombs by the United States of America.

The number of those injured, and of those who suffered in extremis, because of The State, and through wars between States, is well in excess of one hundred million. In The Name of The State (in the name of some State or other), tens of thousands of human beings – if not hundreds of thousands of human beings – have been tortured, humiliated, executed and imprisoned.

What has all this killing, all this horrid suffering, produced? The failed dysfunctional societies of the modern West with their millions of drug-addicts and their urban squalor, their aura of hopelessness, manifest in the hordes of “ruraltowns” that exist, manifest in Camden, New Jersey, in part of Detroit and in hordes of other places.

But after each and every war, after each and every killing, after each and every torture – after each and every humiliation, execution or imprisonment of another human being – the ideologists, the apologists, of The State proclaim that such things “were necessary” for the survival of their State, and/or that in some mythical future their State, or something like it, will finally produce the “peace”, the prosperity, the personal happiness, the idyllic promised society of happy contented citizens.

Thus, in the name of some mythical future, human beings are killed, terrified, tortured, humiliated, injured, and suffer personal tragedy and trauma, year after year, decade after decade, for well over a century. In effect, the human beings of today are regarded or come to be regarded (just like those of yesteryear) – by the ideologists, the apologists, of The State – as expendable, as fertilizer for the seeds of this mythical future they believe in.

This is immoral; indefensible. It was immoral and indefensible after the First World War. Even more so after the Second World War. Even more so now when we are reaping the benefits of the failed nation-State and have the toll of the misery and suffering of hundreds of millions of people to learn from. [8]

The State as a concept is shown by its bloody history as indefensible, immoral. By immoral is meant un-ethical, with what is ethical being defined here as that which is in accord with human empathy – as that which does not contribute to or cause human suffering.

The essence of ethics is in the desire not to cause suffering, arising as this desire does from our own personal experience – our pathei-mathos – and/or from that of those whom who personally know and whom we therefore trust and respect. That is, we are, or are part of, a living numinous tradition determined by pathei-mathos, by the personal individual knowing of suffering and by the wisdom, the compassion, the translocation of ourselves, that arises from such a personal knowing [9] and which evolves in us a sympathy for, an empathy with, our fellow human beings. For their suffering is ours by virtue of the connexion we share as human beings: by virtue of we, as individuals, being a nexion to all Life.

The State is an impersonal manufactured abstraction, which, as all abstractions do, usurp the empathy of the immediacy of the moment, and the personal understanding and compassion arising from such a direct, personal knowing. That is, all abstractions take away, or seek to suppress, our own individual unique judgement based on our own personal experience, our empathy. In place of our own experience – deriving from pathei-mathos – they, The State and its minions, demand we accept some ideology, some political or social programme or agenda, or some dogma or some idealism (some impersonal abstraction) manufactured by some person or persons we do not know and so cannot personally judge by means of an empathic awareness of them. In effect, therefore, they and The State make us – demand that we be – subjects, slaves, or children obedient to them and to their judgements, their impersonal abstractions.

This demand for such obedience, this abandonment of the numinous authority, the wisdom, of pathei-mathos, [10] together with the use of physical force or the threat of force to make us obey and submit, makes and marks The Sate as inhuman and tyrannical.

The Moral Tribal Alternative

For thousands of years before the advent of the impersonal and urban State, we human beings have lived in either small tribal rural communities, or as subjects of some oligarch or of some ruling (and usually hereditary) elite.

In the case of small tribal communities, there was – almost without exception – some chieftain or some leader (often male but sometimes female) who was personally known to the members of the community and who was often respected due to their deeds and personal character. When not so respected – as in the case of someone assuming such a role by force and acting in a way that many in the community disliked – the individual was liable to either a trial by combat (to prove their worth) or to assassination. Thus, while there were bad or despotic chiefs or leaders, they could be and often were challenged and deposed, often through a successful rebellion. What mattered was that the badness, their despotism, ended with their death, either from natural causes or otherwise. That is, the natural balance of life was restored due to the mortal nature of such chiefs and leaders, even on those few occasions when their heir apparent was as bad and/or as despotic as them – for such heirs were also mortal, and would die or could be killed, with their oppression, their badness, dying with them. Quite often, however, if there was such an hereditary succession, the heir was of a different, and usually better, personal character, it being unusual for Nature to produce successive bad descendants from one bad individual.

In addition, and importantly, if there was a burdensome oppression, individuals and families could and would often leave their communities, and begin a new life elsewhere, or if that was unfeasible they could and often did rebel against a bad chief or leader, having the means, the weapons, and the training, experience, and skill, to do so.

Thus such communities existed in a human way, with and through a personal knowing, and in a small, local area. That is, they are or have the tendency to be, the ability to be, numinous ways of human living.

The inhuman impersonal State has destroyed all this – for instance, often outlawing the personal possession of weapons, or at least that calibre of weapons which might threaten their own forces of “law and order”, and often placing restrictions on travel, or, as now, manufacturing international laws and supra-national organizations to enable them to track, hunt-down, and bring back any person who may have escaped their control.

In the case of some despotic oligarch, some tyrannus, or especially in the case of some ruling dynastic elite, the situation was, however, sometimes different, and in some ways a tyrannical ruling dynastic elite could be considered to be the primal precursors of the tyrannical modern State, For such despotic oligarchs often surrounded themselves with loyal or bought followers, and imposed their will ruthlessly, while ruling dynastic elites often cunningly contrived to maintain their power, privilege and wealth by, for example, resorting to terror, ruthless oppression, and/or to using some religious form to bolster their claim to authority and control. Yet, even in these instances, rebellion and assassination were both possible and almost inevitable (even if it might take some time), since authority was still personal, still identified with one particular living, and mortal, living individual, thus making such systems themselves mortal and vulnerable.

In contrast, The State is totally impersonal and immoral – a thing, an abstract human-less construct, which can and which does outlast such humans as may temporary assume the rôle of leader or guardians of it, and who, while they may delude themselves they control it, are actually just castellans and as such almost as much in bondage to such abstractions as are the subjects of The State that such castellans believe they control and have authority over.

The moral alternative is to reject The State, and instead live in a tribal way, for such tribal living, in small communities of people we personally know, is the human way. Thus, the moral, the numinous way, the progressive way of human beings who have learned from the suffering, the pathei-mathos, of the past (their own and that of others), is for us to establish new clans and tribes, and which new clans and tribes are new communities which we as concerned moral individuals might seek to found and establish by dwelling in a certain local area, and which begin as our own extended family, or that of ours and also of a few trusted friends who feel as we do.

For such a tribal way is numinous, a restoration and a maintenance of the natural balance – Δίκα – with Nature, with ourselves, with our fellow human beings, with the Cosmos, that empathy uncovers, reveals, and which makes us aware of the immediacy-of-the-living-personal-moment, and how such such a moment of personal knowing and its acceptance is the very essence of our humanity, of our knowing and understanding of and respect for the numinous; a knowing and an understanding and a respect born from pathei-mathos; and brought to us, as Aeschylus wrote over two thousand years ago, by that vigorously enduring Temptation – that already-decided daughter of an unbearable Misfortune.

οὐκ ἔφα τις
θεοὺς βροτῶν ἀξιοῦσθαι μέλειν
ὅσοις ἀθίκτων χάρις
πατοῖθ᾽: ὁ δ᾽ οὐκ εὐσεβής.
πέφανται δ᾽ ἐκτίνουσ᾽
ἀτολμήτων ἀρὴ
πνεόντων μεῖζον ἢ δικαίως,
φλεόντων δωμάτων ὑπέρφευ
ὑπὲρ τὸ βέλτιστον. ἔστω δ᾽ ἀπή-
μαντον, ὥστ᾽ ἀπαρκεῖν
εὖ πραπίδων λαχόντα.
οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἔπαλξις
πλούτου πρὸς κόρον ἀνδρὶ
λακτίσαντι μέγαν Δίκας
βωμὸν εἰς ἀφάνειαν.
βιᾶται δ᾽ ἁ τάλαινα πειθώ,
προβούλου παῖς ἄφερτος ἄτας.
ἄκος δὲ πᾶν μάταιον. οὐκ ἐκρύφθη,
πρέπει δέ, φῶς αἰνολαμπές, σίνος
κακοῦ δὲ χαλκοῦ τρόπον
τρίβῳ τε καὶ προσβολαῖς
μελαμπαγὴς πέλει
δικαιωθείς, ἐπεὶ
διώκει παῖς ποτανὸν ὄρνιν,
πόλει πρόστριμμ᾽ ἄφερτον ἐνθείς.
λιτᾶν δ᾽ ἀκούει μὲν οὔτις θεῶν:
τὸν δ᾽ ἐπίστροφον τῶν
φῶτ᾽ ἄδικον καθαιρεῖ. [11]

David Myatt
January 2011 CE

Footnotes:

[1] In line with my idiosyncratic capitalization and grammar (see Appendix 1 below) I sometimes use they in the singular (often in part to avoid being gender specific) and sometimes, as in this instance in respect of The State, to refer to an entity or some abstraction as if that entity or that abstraction was a singular person or a plurality of persons.

In respect of The State, and similar concepts, this is not to suggest it is to be regarded in some kind of anthropomorphic manner, only that, as a particular causal abstraction, it has – just like some ideology or some tenet of some religion – a certain longevity beyond the individual human being as well as possessing a certain influence, as a concept or ideal, over certain individuals. In modern parlance, some might thus describe a concept such as The State as akin to, or as an extension of, the idea of a meme.

[2] Source: (a) Punching Judy, BBC TV Documentary, 1989 CE; (b) Crime in England and Wales (Home Office annual publication); (c) Women’s Aid Federation of England.

[3] Source:  European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

[4] Source: (a) Drug Policy Information Clearinghouse (White House Office of National Drug Control Policy); (b) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (The Department of Health and Human Services).

[5] Source: (a) Foundation for Social Improvement; (b) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (The Department of Health and Human Services).

[6] Source:  (a) National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; (b) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (The Department of Health and Human Services).

[7] Source: Inspector Gadget.

[8] From the massacres and betrayal of the Native Americans, to the horrors of trench warfare on the Western Front, to the London blitz, to the firestorm of Dresden, to the plight of the Deutschen Heimatvertriebenen, to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, to the humiliation and torture at Abu Gharib, we have more than enough personal material to learn from, empathize with and so strive to understand.

[9] For more details, refer to my essays (1) On The Nature of Abstractions; (2) Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen; (3) Quid Est Veritas? and (4) Classical Foundations of The Numinous Way.

[10] In respect of the numinous authority of pathei-mathos, see for example, my essays From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way, and Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen.

[11] Aeschylus, Agamemnon, vv.369-399

My translation is:

Someone denied
That the gods deem it worthy to concern themselves with mortals
Who trample upon what, being untouchable [numinous], brings delight.
But such persons have no proper respect.
Yet their descendants are revealed
By the breath of Ares as lacking courage -
Proud instead of fair -
Their abodes excessively overflowing
Beyond what is for the best.
For unharmed is the one
Who rightly reasons that what is sufficient,
Is what is allotted to him.
For there is no protection
In riches for the man of excess
Who stamps down the great altar of the goddess, Judgement,
In order to hide it from view.
But vigorously endures Temptation -
That already-decided daughter of unbearable Misfortune.
And all remedies are in vain.
Not concealed, but conspicuous -
A harsh shining light -
Is the injury.

For, like bad bronze
Struck and rubbed, he becomes blackly-covered…..
Laying upon the folk an unbearable affliction.
But not one of the gods hears the supplications:
Instead, they take down those persons
Who, lacking fairness, turn their attentions to such things.

^^^

Unlike most – if not all – of my contemporaries, I maintain the old tradition of capitalizing certain words, be such words now technically regarded as so-called proper nouns, or not. In addition, I am idiosyncratic in what I do capitalize, usually for the sake of clarity, but occasionally to emphasize some philosophical point or to draw attention to some hidden meaning that lies behind some commonly used word or term.

Sometimes, I am also idiosyncratic in respect of grammar. The current and accepted rules of grammar are – or should be regarded as – only fallible guidelines, not sometimes applicable. Aeschylus, for instance, knew knowing of what we understand as grammar, let alone any rules of grammar, and to express his meaning – poetic or otherwise – he would often omit what we now call “the article”, and/or manufacture some compound word. And yet his meaning is discernible and does not depend on using some rules of grammar in order to elucidate it.

Apropos my idiosyncratic capitalization. I for instance write The State, not the State, or (even worse) the state. Why? Because The State is, in my view, a particular abstraction; an existent which has been manufactured, by human beings, and which existent, like many such manufactured “things”, has been, in its design and function, changed and which can still be changed.

Thus, while we may give a satisfactory definition of what this existent we term The State “is” – as I have done at the beginning of the above article – so that we may recognize what a State is when we come across one, the category State now has several sub-types within it, so that and for instance the modern State that governs the territory now known as Britain has taken the definition of what is “public” (and thus subject to the law of The State) further than my definition of The State suggests, by making “incitement” and/or “personal intent” a crime in certain circumstances. That is, the criteria for a criminal act is no longer that the act has to be committed in what is called “a public place”, and even no longer that it be done in a private dwelling, but that mere “intent” to commit an act is now a crime, as is mere “incitement”, of others. Thus, for something to be regarded as a crime by the British State – and punishable by possible imprisonment for many years – an actual physical act does not have to be done, in either “public” or “in private”. The mere “intention” of doing what a particular State deems “a crime” is sufficient. What matters here, from a philosophical view, is that the particular modern State which has extended its dictat into the minds (the alleged intent) of its subjects, is still, by definition, a State – that is, collecting mandatory taxation, and organizing and controlling individuals by means of the use of physical force or the threat of force.

Article source - http://davidmyatt.wordpress.com/immoral-nature-of-the-state/