What Have We Gotten Done?

Or at least, what has this blog gotten done?

Perhaps the most important thing this blog has accomplished is to help its readers understand - or at least get them arguing about! - the need for a movement that is more than merely political: a movement that is philosophically and theologically capable of defeating progressive postmodernism, physicalism, and nihilism; with new economics that can be defended against both communism and neo-liberalism; with new leadership that can effectuate change; and with cadres organized to do it.

My calls to action have been spread out over the last three years. I’ve assembled them here:

• Conservatism is Dead (Oct 03, 2021)

• Why We Must Lay a New Foundation (Oct 18, 2021)

• Why Has Our World Gone So Crazy (Jul 28, 2022)

• The Physiocratic Platform (Nov 08, 2022)

• What is to Be Done (May 10, 2024)

• No, Really - What is to Be Done (May 17, 2024)

• Reenchantment, Rectification, Reckoning (May 24, 2024)

Having spent the last few weeks furthering those calls to action, this week I wanted to take a step back and consider what else - if anything - I’ve gotten done so far.

Those of you who have been with me since the beginning of my contemplations will hopefully find this a helpful summary of all that has come before. Those who have only recently joined me in suffering on the Tree of Woe can consider this essay my table of contents or greatest hits compilation.

I’ve presented my accomplishments in what I consider their order of importance.

A Defense Against Postmodernism

About ten years ago, I read Stephen Hicks’ book Explaining Postmodernism. The book ends with the following paragraphs, which for many years preoccupied my mind:

Showing that [postmodernism] leads to nihilism is an import part of understanding it, as is showing how a failing and nihilistic movement can still be dangerous. Tracing postmodernism’s roots back to Rousseau, Kant, and Marx explains how all of its elements came to be woven together. Yet identifying postmodernism’s roots and connecting them to contemporary bad consequences does not refute postmodernism. What is still needed is a refutation of those historical premises and an identification and defense of the alternatives to them.

My first objective when I started writing Contemplations on the Tree of Woe was to offer just that: a refutation of postmodernism.

The Münchhausen trilemma is “a thought experiment to demonstrate the impossibility of proving any truth… If it is asked how any given proposition is known to be true, proof may be provided. Yet that same question can be asked of the proof, and any subsequent proof.” Since proof by logic is the means by which reason operates, it seemed to me necessary to establish a refutation of the trilemma and then construct an epistemology around that refutation, in order to defeat postmodernism.

This process is chronicled here:

• The Horror of Münchhausen’s Trilemma (Oct 21, 2020)

• Why Struggle Against the Trilemma? (Oct 31, 2020)

• Defending Against the Trilemma (July 20, 2020)

• Tackling the Trilemma (Oct 27, 2020)

• The Rarity of Noesis (May 10, 2023)

• Epistemology is a Puzzle (May 24, 2023)

The resolution to the Trilemma, I concluded, cannot be accomplished within the framework of enlightenment, analytic, or continental philosophy, but required a return to concepts from classical philosophy abandoned in the Enlightenment. Upon these I added some further innovation. My solution is that:

• There exists a faculty called nous or intellect, distinct from logos or reason, which permits the direct apprehension of fundamental truths, the existence of which is itself directly apprehensible with it;

• The faculty of intellect is unevenly distributed, such that some human beings are “color blind” both to its existence and to the self-evident truths which it permits to be apprehended;

• There exists a set of identifiable irrefutable axioms, e.g. axioms which cannot be refuted without presupposing them to be correct;

• Among these irrefutable axioms is the axiom of evidence: “the evidence of the senses is not entirely unreliable evidence.”

• By the use of the faculty of intellect, these irrefutable axioms can be directly apprehended as fundamental truths;

• By the use of the evidence of our senses in conjunction with these fundamental truths, a body of knowledge can be developed which is soundly founded, entirely coherent, and incrementally flexible to correction and update.

I consider my defense against postmodernism to be my greatest philosophical success. Perhaps more importantly, I also consider it a rhetorical superweapon against constructivists, poststructuralists, and other epistemological villains:

Nowadays, when I encounter a skeptic who rejects self-evident axioms, I agree that the axioms are not self-evident to him. But I do not believe him when he says they’re not self-evident to me. Just because some men can’t see color doesn’t mean none of us can see color. And just because some men can’t perceive truth noetically doesn’t mean none of us can perceive truth noetically.

It’s good fun to call postmodernists epistemologically color-blind. Enjoy!

A Geostrategic Model of American Hegemony and Imminent Collapse

When the Russo-Ukraine War began in 2022, it was the first high-intensity land war fought by great powers in Europe since World War II. As the war expanded, I turned my attention to developing a geostrategic model of American hegemony in order to help understand why things are as they are, and what shape they’ll take in the future.

The progress of this analysis, along with related articles, can be found here:

• Running on Empty, Part I (May 25, 2022)

• Running on Empty, Part II (June 01, 2022)

• Running on Empty, Part III (June 09, 2022)

• Running on Empty, Part IV (June 16, 2022)

• Running on Empty, Part V (July 22, 2022, guest post by Gary Brode)

• World War Next (Aug 24, 2022)

• World War Next, Part II (Aug 31, 2022)

• World War Next, Part III (Sep 07, 2022)

• The Gathering Storm (Sep 28, 2022)

• Everything is Proceeding as I Have Foreseen (Nov 02, 2022)

• Predictions and Prophecies for 2023 (Dec 28, 2022)

• The System is Down (Apr 05, 2023)

• American Eschaton (Sep 27, 2023)

• Predictions and Prophecies for 2024 (Dec 27, 2023)

• The Shape of Things to Come (Jan 31, 2024)

• American Eschaton Part II (May 31, 2024)

I remain confident in the model I’ve developed. The petrodollar system has ended, just as I predicted; the only reason this hasn’t been widely acknowledged is that the system’s defenders have moved the goalposts. As originally established, the petrodollar system required that only dollars be permitted for use as the currency to purchase oil. Today, apologists claim the petrodollar system is still in place because dollars can still be used to use purchase oil. That’s not the same thing at all.

Unfortunately, this means that my prediction of economic collapse and global war remain in effect. If it hasn’t happened by mid-2025, you can call me wrong in the Comments! If it has happened, hopefully we still have Internet so I can say “I told you so.” In any case, here we are.

A Broad Sketch of Physiocratic Economics

Physiocracy is the label I have applied to my system of political economy. Physiocracy synthesizes a number of different influences, including the Physiocratic economists; the Classical economists; the Georgist economists; the American School economists; the Austrian economists; and the Austro-Classical synthesis.

• Monetary Woe (Oct 11, 2020)

• The Parable of the Seasteader (Oct 16, 2020)

• Solving the Profit Puzzle (Oct 19, 2020)

• The Absurdity of Income Tax (Feb 22, 2023)

• Against Free Trade (Apr 19, 2023)

• The Physiocratic Platform: Banking (Sep 13, 2023)

• Recommend Reading, Part III: Economics (Mar 06, 2024)

• The Rich Get Richer and the Poor, Poorer - But Why? (Apr 24, 2024)

Unfortunately my work in this area is not as coherent as elsewhere, simply because the problem is so, so, so large.

Monetary Woe and Solving the Profit Puzzle present an Austro-Classical synthesis of monetary theory and circular flow of profit, both inspired by the work of George Reisman. These articles are essential to understanding physiocratic monetary theory.

Against Free Trade is a critique of neo-liberal or Ricardian free trade theory, inspired by the work of Ian Fletcher. It sits squarely within the tradition of American School economics.

The Parable of the Seasteader, The Absurdity of Income Tax and The Rich Get Richer could be described as critical economics. The Parable is a critique of anarcho-capitalism that shows its creates results indistinguishable from neo-liberal capitalism, while the other two deconstruct and dismantle what we’ve been told is true by the prevailing neo-liberal economic consensus.

Recommending Reading, Part III is a summary of the physiocratic curriculum. Unfortunately, “that curriculum is incomplete. It seems to me that the economics we need is an Austro-American synthesis that combines the insights of Mises, Rothbard, and Reisman, the critiques of Keene and Hudson, and the trade policies of Carey, List, Fletcher, and Chang. Sadly, such a synthesis does not yet exist - but it needs to.”

A Broad Sketch of Post-Physicalist Philosophy

John Carter has pointed out the importance of Reenchantment for the success of our movement. An important part of my own philosophical journey over the last 10 years has been just that — my abandonment of atheism and physicalism in favor of theistic post-physicalism. This journey has been quite meandering, and more accretive than creative. You can follow that journey by reading these articles:

• Gnon: Nature or Nature’s God Aug 24, 2021)

• When Magic Was Real (May 18, 2022)

• On the Problem of Evil (Jul 06, 2022)

• On the Problem of Evil, Part II (Jul 14, 2022)

• Post-Physicalist Physiocracy (June 21, 2023)

• Post-Physicalist Physiocracy, Part II (Jun 28, 2023)

• Convergent Cosmogony (Jul 19, 2023)

• Recommended Reading Part IV: Metaphysics (Mar 13, 2024)

My study in this area led me to the following conclusions:

• Plato’s Indefinite Dyad, Plutarch’s Second Principle, Aristotle’s Prima Materia and Privation, Langan’s Unbound Telesis, and Smith’s Pure Potentia are all the same thing, namely, the lack of substantial being due to the lack of form, the state of total privation that is called chaos and nothingness.

• Gell-Man’s Totalitarian Principle guarantees that if the Nothing ever existed, then the One, Second Principle, Form, and Pure Actuality — that is to say, God — also necessarily has always existed.

• All these philosophers agree that the existent universe is created by the imposition of Form on Matter, of the One on the Infinite Dyad, of Pure Actuality acting on Pure Potentia. Since that which is acted upon is nothing but ontological potential, the distinction between “creation ex nihilo” and “creation from chaos” dissolves.

• Smith’s theory of Vertical Causation interprets the empirical findings of quantum mechanics in a way that enables us to explain how God imposed Form on Matter, because we ourselves do it every time we collapse a wave function.

• The existence of Vertical Causation explains how and why Radin’s magic functions. Paranormal powers are not just real, they are metaphysically explicable.

A Demonstration of the Political Implications of Post-Physicalism

As part of my exploration of post-physicalism, I delved deeply into several different theological topics, which initially seemed to be entirely distinct but ultimately proved to lead to the same conclusion.

• Nerd Among the Ruins, Part I (Nov 23, 2022)

• Nerd Among the Ruins, Part II (Nov 30, 2022)

• Nerd Among the Ruins, Part III (Dec 07, 2022)

• Virtus Heroica (Dec 14, 2022)

• The Terrible Swift Sword (Dec 21, 2022)

• The Right Religious Tradition (Apr 26, 2023)

• The Right Religious Tradition, Part II (May 03, 2023)

• The Right Religious Tradition, Part III (May 17, 2023)

• The Right Religious Tradition, Part IV (May 31, 2023)

• The Right Religious Tradition, Part V (June 14, 2023)

• The Right Religious Tradition, Part VI (Mar 28, 2024)

• The Woodland (Sep 20, 2023, guest post by Nelson Elliott)

• The Case for Pagan Monotheism (Oct 04, 2023)

• The Hypsistarian Church of God Most High (Oct 11, 2023)

• The Theology of the Hypsistarian Church (Oct 18, 2023)

Synthesizing these essays together leads us to the following conclusions:

• Rectification cannot be achieved on a purely secular level. Spiritual forces are at work. Whether one wishes to interpret those spiritual forces as symbolic expressions of ideas with mythic subconscious influence or as actual evil entities, that will depend on one’s own religious perspective.

• Since spiritual forces cannot be ignored and are being deployed against us by our enemies, we must embrace one or more spiritual or religious traditions with which to combat them. Nihilism is defeatism.

• There are a number of spiritual and religious traditions available to the Right, quite different in their beliefs and utility; but all share three core premises: that the world is bigger than us; that evil is real; and that evil must be resisted in this world. We should be open to alliance with groups that share these three core premises, and wary of alliance with groups that do not. (Thank you to Nelson Elliott for this contribution!)

• Whatever spiritual or religious traditions the Right embraces, that tradition must offer warriors a place within the sacred. Contemporary Christianity, even in its Benedict option, will not be enough. Something like “muscular” Christianity, reimbued with the old virtues of chivalry, will be required.

• When selecting our spiritual or religious tradition from among those available to us, we can take comfort in knowing that the gap between Athens and Jerusalem is not as wide as we thought. Monotheism is not a foreign import imposed upon European civilization from the Middle East. The practice of worshipping a monotheistic God was widespread among the population of Late Antiquity. There is considerable shared ground between Christianity, Hellenistic Monotheism, and Tradition.

• Because we are in a spiritual war, Western civilization cannot be rectified just by passing the right set of rules or laws. Rectification will require great leadership from men of spiritually sound character, a “virtuous elite,” possessed of what the Greeks dubbed arete and the Romans virtus.

The Contemplation of Next Steps

Following the British victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, Winston Churchill famously said, “This is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end; but it is the end of the beginning.” That’s how I feel about my work on this blog.

After four years of writing, I’ve accomplished many of the initial objectives I originally set for myself. I take particular pride in my solution to the trilemma and my analysis of the petrodollar. But in the course of my intellectual journey, I’ve discovered the vast scope of what must be done if we are to reenchant and rectify western civilization.

It won’t be easy. The challenge ahead is so great that no man could hope to meet it. But men, united in common purpose, could — and should.

Together, we must find a way or make one.