Will Of The People - Chapter 7

Intelligence and Excellence – Mankind’s Hope


“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin – more even than death… Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”

- Bertrand Russell



Part 1 – The Current Situation: Unintelligent Dominance

Perhaps you have heard the classic epic song 2112 by Rush. If so, you may remember that it tells a tale of a future world where an oppressive totalitarian government rules the world, and restricts excellence and individual expression so as to establish a culture that ‘serves’ the needs of the common people. In reality, we know that this is just a device whereby they may perpetually hold power, by preventing exceptional people from rising up from the masses to prominence of any kind. In the song, music other than official government issued material is outlawed and the instruments themselves are removed from society.

One day a young man discovers a guitar hidden away in a cave, left mute and dusty from a past age, and he teaches himself to play. As he does so, he taps into the long-forgotten pulse of individual expression and creativity, and becomes enthralled by it. Ecstatic at his discovery, he wants to share this wondrous experience with everybody else.

He goes to tell the leadership of his discovery with the innocent joy of a guileless man. He shows them his music, sure that they will be awestruck as well by its power and confident that they will quickly proclaim this happy discovery to all the people. He seeks no acclaim or reward for himself. Rather, his intention is simply to share this new flame of expression with all, and to revel in the creations of others his discovery could spawn.

But the leadership are not only unimpressed, they are hostile to him. They tell him that this discovery is 'just another toy that helped destroy the elder (former) race of man’. He is told to fix his mind elsewhere, away from exceptional pursuits and individual expression, and instead to ‘think about The Average; what use have they for you?’.



The Improper Supremacy of The Average over The Exceptional

Though this is a fictional account of a future world, there is a modern truth to be found here. There is indeed a conflict between The Exceptional and The Average, and in modern times our culture is geared towards serving the desires of The Average and is lead by them as well. Those who are exceptional are made to serve, instead of the average people serving the plans and works of exceptional people. Genius scientists are made to exert themselves upon tasks that average people want and decide to pursue. ‘Make us more food from the same land so we can continue to reproduce’ they say, instead of letting the scientists decide what is best to do and then getting the labor of the masses in support. Brilliant artists and composers would make wonderful new creations if they were the true cultural masters of our world, but the masses in their stupidity fail to comprehend and so say ‘We want music with a good beat – music we can dance to.’

By letting The Average people be the masters of our culture we are becoming a retarded species. In former days, exceptional people would set lofty goals for us and the masses would rise in support of these goals. The Apollo Program is such an example of the difference between Exceptional leadership and Average leadership of our society. Even though there were political motives from the government, our decision to go to the moon and the efforts to do so were executed by brilliant people pushing the envelope of human accomplishment, in both America and the Soviet Union. Many common people nobly served the visions of these Exceptionals, and with this proper symbiosis we touched the face of another heavenly body less than 10 years after deciding to go, and only 12 years after the very first satellite was put into orbit. Such was the capacity for human achievement when our society respected Exceptionals, and followed their plans for the future.

But with the cultural changes of the late ‘60s and ‘70s, and the making of The Average to be masters and The Exceptional to be servants; we reverted to stupidity just as fast as we previously had ascended to brilliance. The Average saw the Apollo mission only as a stupid race to beat the Russians, like some kind of futuristic Olympic Sport where we could cheer and gloat upon our victory. ‘First one to the moon wins!’ was the sum total of their vision. Because of this, once we reached the moon they became bored with the whole project, and with space flight as well. They began to complain that there were ‘problems here on earth that we should address first, like poverty, war, and jobs’ and that this was somehow a reason to abandon the space program entirely. The petty ephemeral needs of The Average, like making $0.20 per hour more at work or getting more funding for welfare, was seen as a prudent justification for completely gutting the life-dreams of our most brilliant minds, and for closing the cosmic door that humanity had only recently succeeded in opening for the first time. And if it were not for the needs of defense, we would likely have not even followed Apollo with the Space Shuttle, nor have any manned presence in space at all.

This philosophical rulership of The Average over The Exceptional is the single most barbaric force in the world today, and if not corrected, will ensure our extinction.

Noble Reader, what makes a person valuable to humanity? This is an important question because it is the only way we have of deciding whether The Average or The Exceptional should be master and who should serve the other. The Average are defined by their needs. They need jobs, housing, health care, and support and accommodations of all kinds. The Exceptional are defined by their accomplishments, or by their potential to accomplish.[1]

The Average feel that their rights revolve around assistance from the nation. They feel that when they are sick, the nation should provide them access to healthcare. When they are old, the nation owes them a pension. The Exceptionals are usually quite different. They feel that their rights involve freedom and being left unmolested by the nation’s demands. Opportunity and freedom are the rights they desire, not assistance. This is hardly a complete black-and-white distinction. Exceptionals certainly see the value of some kinds of social programs, both for themselves and others. But it is the overall attitude between Exceptional and Average which is quite different. Exceptionals crave opportunities. Averages crave support.

The Average cannot survive, when looked at as a whole, without utilizing the creations and work of The Exceptional and so they exist in an overall parasitic manner. Without all the inventions in agriculture, transportation, energy production, and medicine that previous Exceptionals have contributed, there would be no way at all that this many Averages could even live upon our world today. The very lives of billions of people would be swept away in a few months if our technology (provided by Exceptionals) was somehow removed back to a state of 200 years ago.

But what would happen if we removed the ‘work’ of The Average for the past two centuries? Their activity consists of little more than consuming and reproducing, or in providing the labor to fuel Capitalist enterprises that do so as well. And so if we set the clock back 200 years our population would be well under 1 Billion and we would have an abundance of resources back upon the face of our world. Huge forests would cover large sections of the Americas, the oceans would teem with many times the fish there are today, and oil, gas, and coal deposits would remain in abundance. When matching this world with our 21st Century technology, we could virtually eradicate poverty upon our world and mankind would have an ample abundance to reach for the stars today, or to do any other wondrous thing we imagine. Our environment would be clean, our people would be happy, and our future would be gloriously bright. We need to remember that the common people take more from the world than they give to it, and that this basic fact becomes problematic when we allow our population to grow beyond sustainably low levels.

If we allow The Exceptional to decide what humanity should do, they will have us accomplishing one great achievement after another. When crises appear, their intelligence will prescribe the smartest remedy and so the suffering for all will be minimized. Art and culture will be promoted. Mankind will truly advance from year to year and our world will become more humane, prosperous, and peaceful with each new dawn.

If we allow The Average to rule our actions, all our labors will be used to feed their needs so that they can consume and reproduce yet further. Population will grow as fast as accomplishments will decay. Our scientists will spend their days working on tasks of dubious long-term value like formulating more advanced Sports Drinks, curing male baldness, and finding ways to cram 100 airbags into our minivans so that none of The Herd need be hurt in an accident. Nobody will be working on Fusion Power, Space Flight[2], or anything else that looks to the future. Crises will be handled in illogical and fanatical ways, and the scientists will be held as scapegoats when the stupid policies of the leadership fail to work as desired. Each day, humanity will become more fat and stupid. A state of Idiocracy[3] will ensue.

Notice that the rulership of The Exceptional provides greater prosperity and success for nearly all, and how the rulership of The Average results in unsustainable, foolish policies that benefit none, other than the irrelevant appetites of The Average today. If The Average run things, and their needs are paramount, we will eat and breed like the herd of cattle left in their field without Man to control them. If The Exceptional run things, though the needs of some of the Herd may go unfulfilled today since the Herd is overly large, the overall long-term result will be the best outcome for our species and the only means possible for us to actually progress.

And so we have answered our question about who should lead and who should serve. It is in the interests of the majority of humanity to give the leadership duties to the Exceptional minority. It does not just benefit those few who lead. The rule of these few makes life more peaceful and prosperous for The Average, and so those who truly seek the welfare of the many must support this course of action. Those who instead talk about giving the leadership to the Average, to prevent tyranny, are actually those very demagogue tyrants who seek to rule in the absence of Exceptional leadership and oversight. They are like a deceitful Regent who supervises the rule of a child king, seeking to take over the kingdom for himself. But this case is even worse since they know that the common people will never grow up to be a true regal lord, and the constant flattery will keep these false regents in power forever, even without the necessity of murdering the child king as past regents have done. This makes the legitimacy of the regent’s rule eternal since the people will never die, and they will never mature to full ruling capacity for themselves.

The tyrant, and traitor of the people, is truly the man who advocates the supremacy and rule of the people over themselves.

Anybody who objects to this statement must prove that The Average are superior rulers than The Exceptional, and must show corresponding historical proof of their superior accomplishments and record.

I believe that Average people do not understand power and leadership, and that this fundamental incomprehension ruins the way power is wielded and viewed in the world today. The power of rulership is nothing more than a job. It is a task that must be performed within a whole system that employs many tasks. Just as in the human body, many functions are performed that make us what we are. And in the body, the brain is the undisputed dictator. This is essential, for we cannot have a contest of wills between the liver, spleen, and brain causing turmoil and inefficiency. Instead, our bodies rely upon the sole discretion of that organ which is most specifically adapted to successfully apply discretion. With this clarity of command, our bodies can then be free to let each part fulfill those functions for which they are innately qualified. And in this way, each member of the body is benefited by living under the leadership of the organ who can provide it competently, and for the benefit of all. This strict specialization is necessary for all to prosper. We do not ask the brain to bear weight – the bones and muscles do that. We do not ask the bones and muscles to circulate our blood – the heart does that. And in like manner, we do not ask the heart to act as the central governor – the brain does that.

Notice how this domination by the brain is not tyranny. It is true that the brain has full say over the conscious actions of the body; no other opinion or voice is heard. But the brain uses its control to go about controlling everything in such a way as to provide fulfillment for all parts of the body. The brain would not be successful if it told the legs to walk into fire or made the mouth swallow poisons. It gains nothing by doing so. It seeks to steer all the parts into actions that result in success for the whole body. And since the brain is objectively seen to be a superior decider of such actions than any other of the parts, none of the parts has any basis for complaint and should simply obey the brain.

The exact same relationship should exist between the ruler and the people of a nation. He or she who would rule must be innately qualified above the rest to do so. And just as in the body, it is the intelligence of the leader that distinguishes his superiority over the others in this ability. As long as the ruler is manifestly more intelligent than the populace, he is clearly more innately qualified to apply discretion, and so should be trusted to govern all. In actual practice, a group of similarly qualified people working cooperatively is superior to having just one person decide all. And I shall describe this system of Sophiarchy in a later chapter. But the main point is that a single, specialized entity is required to govern, and the input from far-flung regions is of no positive value in governance.

The brain does not want to hear what the toes have to say about whether we should do A or B tomorrow; only the brain’s opinion is sufficiently rational as to be of any value. Likewise, the kidneys should not have any say in what we have for dinner, where we go, or what we do today. And this is because the kidneys and the toes really don’t have any way of coming up with a good suggestion that the brain couldn’t figure out by itself. They are not built to do such things. Likewise, as long as the rulers are extremely intelligent, no input from any other quarter would provide any constructive suggestions or unthought-of rational ideas to be considered.

But Average people do not understand this. They view the possession of rulership only as a license to abuse everybody else. To them, it is a fundamentally anti-symbiotic thing. When a president is elected or a king is crowned, this simply means that they now have permission to oppress their opponents and enrich themselves. And so because people see things this way, power is a bad and dangerous thing to them. Power is only used to hurt.

Because the Average sees power in this way, those who rise to power within populist systems act this way. If they were to act according to the noble symbiosis that I describe, they would disadvantage themselves versus their opponents who are not bound by such scruples, and so would overcome them with barbarism.

Most tragically, it is this fundamental incomprehension of power, leadership, and dominance that makes Averages look upon any proposed system involving them as merely a scheme to exploit and abuse people. But this is precisely why we cannot allow the Average to be involved in deciding anything at all. We can never implement the more progressive and humane system I envision, or any other noble power structure, as long as they wield power. Why? Because they always wield power according to their barbaric ethic I described. And this because they are simply too stupid to perceive any other way of doing things. As long any anybody within the leadership is following this barbaric mode, nobody can safely implement the humane symbiosis that I describe, and which is the correct and progressive way in which power should work.

So if we are to change our government and culture away from its barbaric and inefficient tendencies, we must exclude the Average from all control and input precisely because they cannot comprehend power as being anything but a means of enacting selfishness. To them, a humane situation is one where there is a nearly evenly-matched contest for power, so that nobody gets to use it very directly or very long. In this way, the damage that any one leader causes is kept to the minimum possible. And since the leaders know that their day in the sun is short, they won’t go overboard in wielding power for fear of the inevitable payback coming in the future.

Like a flock of seagulls fighting over a hamburger, they see power as being made safe by the fact that no one bird gets to take a very big bite, or hold onto the food long before another bird swipes it away. But this is utter barbarism. We should not conduct ourselves this way! We should give the hamburger to the one who will give a portion to those birds who need a piece now, or those who will benefit the whole flock by being fed today, with an eye to the well-being of the whole flock. Perhaps some birds get nothing. So be it. But this also happens when we let the seagulls fight it out, so we can’t really say that the ruler’s excluding some is more unfair than what would happen naturally anyway. As long as this decision is the optimal one for the success of the whole group, who can complain about the validity of the decision? Is there any other qualification a leader must possess other than he makes nearly-optimal decisions for the whole group, and that he acts without selfish motives?

When people misunderstand power, and how it should be possessed and wielded, it is impossible to get them to agree to any system whereby they are excluded from it; simply because they automatically equate power with selfishness, tyranny, and oppression. But we cannot get anywhere as a species if we continue to follow the Seagull Paradigm for power. The only way forward is to find the few individuals who perceive more than the rest, and who care about the welfare of the whole group. We must find those of us who are capable of being our brain, and then we must give them control of our nervous system, and entire body. Else what shall we do? Shall we take a vote among the lungs, liver, and pancreas and follow their consensus? Where shall we end up if we let unqualified voices determine policy?

The Average, however, don’t believe that such individuals exist. To them, the Exceptional are actually Averages who are deficient due to an overabundance of arrogance and pretension. Averages think that there are no smart people, or that their smartness isn’t a superiority. To Averages, intelligence is a quirk, not a power. Empowering intelligent people, to them, makes no more sense than empowering left-handed people or people with curly hair. And this is why our current mindset is so far off from reality. Average people’s stupidity and vanity makes them incapable of embracing the truth, and this can be seen from history. And when Exceptionals, who are prone to egalitarian notions and are less inclined to selfishly cling to power; when these Exceptionals extend magnanimity to the Average and seek to empower them, as happens from time to time in history, only disaster is the outcome.

A look at history reveals to us that America in the ‘50s and first half of the ‘60s was experiencing possibly the greatest expansion of power and prosperity that has ever been witnessed in any nation, at any time, in human history. But when we look at the subsequent years, we see the most astonishing collapse of morale and national unity and will that has ever occurred within a nation that has not been conquered in war. There were brief respites in this collapse during the early Reagan administration and immediately following the attacks of 11 September 2001, but overall we see an astonishing and immediate reversal in national success and morale pivoted about a central time point clearly fixed in the late ‘60s.

Some may point to the Vietnam War as the cause of these problems, but America suffered a similar number of casualties in the Korean War and also failed to achieve any kind of clear victory in this conflict. And yet these problems didn’t impede the boom of the ‘50s. It would seem that the disparity in the fortunes of the nation subsequent to these wars had less to do with the casualties, costs, or lack of victory, than with the philosophical orientation of the nation and how this affected our reaction to these events.

This would indicate that a philosophical change occurred in America in the late ‘60s that caused a massive shift in the fortunes and morale of the nation, and which can objectively be seen to be destructive. And an immense part of the changes of this time was the end of respect for excellence and the beginning of widespread respect for mediocrity. Populist sensibilities are widespread in the philosophy and art of this time, where average people are seen to be the only genuine, real people; and where leaders, scientists, and all others refined or distinctive are viewed with suspicion or outright scorn. Science itself was seen as a dangerous, out of control monster that threatened humanity, and the scientists were seen as evil geniuses[4] bent upon unnatural knowledge and control that would ultimately grow beyond the bounds of their prideful power and escape to ravage the whole of humanity.

Such unwarranted extrapolations were made primarily upon the real problems of nuclear weapons proliferation, which can hardly be seen to be sufficiently conclusive to support such a sweeping negative view of science. Indeed, the scientific community had long been the most strident dissenters of the superpowers’ policies of escalation, and the misuse of science itself. Examples of this can be seen in both America and the Soviet Union. In addition, we can see that science has a multi-century history of being one of the few bastions of human reason and sanity.

Thus, the culture which had previously held Exceptionals in great esteem, and which had been successful and strong in so doing, suddenly flipped its sensibilities into a new destructive mode that glorified The Average and made them masters over the perceptive members of our society.[5] Since that time, America has progressively slid into enfeeblement, philosophical insanity, and apathy.



The Moral Basis for Empowering the Perceptive Few

A person is not truly valuable to humanity unless they do something that creates a permanent advancement to the state of our knowledge or culture.[6] Human beings consume much, and by our very presence we create friction and competition with each other that can lead to violence and loss. The cost of our basic existence must be offset by some permanent contribution to humanity that justifies all we take from the world. If we fail to do this, this in no way is a justification for us to be killed or harmed. But it does mean that since we do not exist as an engine of humanity, that we have no intrinsic right to consume its fuel, or to have our agenda seen as an imperative for human activity. The needs of such people, even though they may be dire, are not those of first importance since the outcome of fulfilling those needs does nothing reciprocal to help humanity as a whole. The investment in the welfare of these people is often unwise unless we have reason to believe that our investiture of resources will be recompensed by a superior service rendered by them to all of us. And since we know that geniuses are born and not made, there is often little practical reason for such investment. Our humane sensibilities should prevent us from taking this logic to excess so as to be unnecessarily unfeeling when we can be charitable. But neither should we come to think that fulfilling the needs of non-contributing people is either always necessary or noble.

This is true because of a paradox that is clarified if we think about things more broadly, and incorporating time into our ethics and logic. Some may say that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, which seems to be in opposition to what I have just stated. But in reality, I do feel that the welfare of the many is one of the highest responsibilities and imperatives of the leadership. Indeed, it is the leadership’s capacity to benefit the masses which forms a great portion of their moral right to rule[7], and their rights to the material advantages which come with power. To stand up for the helpless, and to wield the Sword of Righteousness in defense of the simple people subject to their power is a holy and unshakable obligation of all those who would rule. And though these exertions may be tiring, they cannot abandon this ethic without also abandoning honor, justice, and civilization itself.

People have an intrinsic value separate from the brutal calculus of their ability to contribute. And this is part of the duality of reality that I have spoken of before. We must look at both the functional and intrinsic value of people to find wise conclusions. We cannot take one truth, that of the intrinsic value of each person, and let that trump the other truth which pertains to their functional value. On the other hand, we cannot say that people who are functionally useless to humanity have no value

But in times when population is high, and resources are scarce versus our needs, we inevitably must exclude some from abundance simply because there is not enough for all to have it. At these times, such as now, the functional elements of people’s value take a much higher significance over their intrinsic value. This is because our situation of resource scarcity explicitly indicates that we have a deficit of functional power in our species versus our numbers, compared with a balanced state. If we do not correct this imbalance, and take societal steps to advantage functionally superlative people over the rest, the imbalance will only get worse and cause yet further suffering for all.

In modern times, we do the exact opposite. We strive to help those below average become average, and we utterly neglect the Exceptional even though these are the only people who can actually make a positive difference in our world. In our ‘education’ systems, remedial kids have all kinds of resources to help them become average, but the brilliant kids have no such investiture because they ‘don’t need help’. From this we see that we are utterly disinterested in launching our bright young minds to heights of excellence, and instead view success as the remediation of the remedial and the maintenance of the mediocre. We bet only on net losing propositions, and ignore sure winners.

We must take steps to propel those with a chance of high achievement instead of boring them to death while they wait for their classmates to muddle along with the uninspiring curriculum. What we have now is a system that dumbs down the brilliant and boosts the remedial, making a whole crop of homogenized, uniform people. This does nothing to help humanity achieve anything. It only benefits the purposes of capitalism, socialism, religion, and demagogues ruling democracies; who seek a world full of uniform people as close to robots as possible.

There are further moral bases for advantaging the Exceptional if we believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The needs of the many DO outweigh the needs of the few, if we define ‘the many’ to be our whole species now and into the future, and define ‘the few’ as the multitude of non-contributing or under-contributing people who exist only now. It is unethical for the people of today to clamor to have all of their needs fulfilled if in doing so they leave greater problems and misery for others in the future. And if our actions retard future progress for our species, by spending our finite resources on merely filling bellies today, then we are actually just serving the selfish few who exist today and harming the untold multitude of our kind who are yet to be born.

One can hardly fault the intentions of a starving child in Africa in its desire to eat, but if we are to survive and grow as a species we cannot let our policies be determined by likewise thinking like a starving child. And if we are repulsed by the pathetic sight of flies swarming around tiny little bodies with distended stomachs, then we should take care to not multiply the suffering by blindly heeding our first natural impulses to comfort the suffering.

Notice how this harsher ethic is based upon reason, and not greed as many would suppose. And this is required of us only because our population is too high. If population was much lower than today, and our resources were plentiful compared to our numbers, then we could hold to a gentler philosophy where the intrinsic value of each person would far outweigh their functional value. We wouldn’t need to think twice about whether the people deserved to be helped, or if our assistance would only breed greater future problems.

But alas, we cannot take this more beautiful path because it no longer serves the needs of humanity. And if we are to truly be wise leaders, we owe the people intelligent and courageous leadership, even if this duty is fraught with sadness and loss. Our mandate is, and ever will be, to serve the people through intelligent leadership since they are incapable of doing this themselves. And so even though the policies we must employ today must be harsher and less obviously admirable than as in past times, it is still our duty to serve the people even if we may no longer have their acclaim. Service no matter the cost must be our credo, not simplicity and popularity. And this is just the modern implementation of the time-honored ethic of wielding the Sword of Righteousness in defense of the helpless.

Noble Reader, we can see that The Exceptional are the only people who are capable of this kind of complex thought and ethic, and are therefore the only people who can safely rule human culture and government. We also see that The Exceptional possess a greater functional value to humanity than The Average, and so this is additional support for returning them to power. We must expand their rule over philosophy beyond that which has been present in the past 200 years, and completely reverse the collapse this has caused in government and culture during the past 40 years. For it is the gradual erosion of their influence during these times which has led to the great problems we face today.[8] If we seek to secure a humane and prosperous future, we must establish a rulership of The Exceptional that is resistant to such erosion, but which is not susceptible to corruption and depravity like the monarchies of the past. Happily, this is entirely possible, as I will demonstrate later in this book.

Even without specifically associating the rule of the Exceptionals with the enacting of the above ethic, it is still quite clear that The Average cannot rule society without causing it to degrade.



Part 2 – Defining the Gulf Between Us and Them

It is essential that we clarify certain facts about intelligence and the intelligent that we have touched on previously. The first of these is the definition of intelligence itself:

Intelligence is the ability to process data so as to determine meaning from facts and sensory inputs.

To achieve meaning, the mind must stretch so as to achieve a state of union between itself and truth. That is, one who discerns more meaning from data can modify the shape of his mind to adapt to the form of the truth, and is thereby empowered by incorporating the truth into himself. We can think of data as little self-contained bubbles of truths that exist all around us. We are born separate from these truths. But as we go through life, intelligence makes us aware of these bubbles around us, for they collectively are actually the totally of the universe beyond ourselves. As we embrace these bubbles, if we can derive meaning from each experience we learn the warm hidden truth embedded within these seemingly pointless and disconnected facts. And as we do so we become changed and enlarged so as to contain within ourselves a greater store of wisdom and truth. Intelligence is, at its core, the ability to become aware of the universe and then to integrate it into yourself. It is the ability to become more than you are, and to walk down that road that leads total awareness.

It is important to point out that this definition implies a startling fact. If we look at the situation carefully, we see that at a certain crucial threshold level of intelligence a person tends to expand ever larger into the universe as time goes on. They naturally become greater than they are today and would eventually achieve nearly-total awareness if they lived forever. Below this threshold, a person remains as they are. They exist forever fixed in the form they now maintain. This separates people into two distinct classes: Those who are static and those who grow. And this is an excellent delineation between the Brain class and the Brawn class I described in Chapter 6.

Understanding this, we can see that the people who grow could be thought of as gods[9] when compared to the static people who remain forever the same, just as animals do. After all, they have the ability to become something greater than they are today, and they operate with a wider comprehension of things outside themselves than the static people do. And so even those who advance in awareness slowly are full peers of these gods because they are at least aware of the imperative to do so and are steadfast in pursuing it.

“Never discourage anyone… who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”

- Plato


The static people know and consider only themselves and those people and things which immediately interact with them, and they will forever operate thus. They remain basically constant, just as animals do. They are fixed in this way because they do not integrate external data into their operating routine and agenda so as to be capable of growth. They only process data in a way so as to be able to navigate the treacherous waters of day-to-day life in the here and now – not use this data to revolutionize the way they think and live overall. They fear this kind of self-revolution, and are content with their own familiar ways. To them, the status quo (for themselves) is actually the only way for them to exist, and if they encounter problems with the world in doing so they will seek to fight these problems from this strategic position instead of reconsidering their own strategies. Whether they are a blue-collar worker, blue-blooded trust fund brat, or any other kind of person; they will conduct their lives entirely in the same mode always. They are forever what their origins say they are.

A barrio gangster will always live like a gangster, even though he may tire of the bloodshed around him and even though he may eventually leave the gang. A rich trust fund brat will always spend his days in frivolous revelry, even though he may recognize how empty and pointless his existence is. These people will never learn the truths that other kinds of people know and never grow beyond what they are today because they are unable and unwilling to imagine life from any other perspective than that which they already have. For these people, being open to new understandings is destabilizing and frightening, and therefore is actively opposed. They have the opposite interaction with the universe that the intelligent do – they strive to deflect the universe away from themselves to avoid integrating any more of it.

This is where we get all of the prideful notions of the masses. These people tend to feel that their country, town, and even street is the best and that others are deficient simply because they are different. They feel this way automatically, even though they may know nearly nothing about any other nations, states, or towns. This is also the root cause of racism, sexism, and contributes to religious strife.

Averages automatically think they are the best kind of person, and that all who are different are deficient simply by virtue of their difference. This is a key component of their innate Herd mentality - any individuals not similar to the Herd must be deficient. This is not always recognized or consciously considered, but it is an eternal constant nonetheless. Even caucasian men of the Big City will feel this way about white Country men, and vice versa, even though they are the same age and religion. The masses find innumerable irrational ways to divide themselves into different groups, and they do this so that their intrinsic vanity will have some channel for expression. One cannot declare oneself or one's lifestyle superior to others unless some kind of distinction can be made between people. And so even though Averages are generally a very homogenous group, they will struggle mightily to establish any distinctions they can so as to have some basis for declaring themselves superior to others. This is to serve their vanity, which is a universal constant among them. And this vanity is so powerful within them because they have no means of actually becoming or doing anything truly superior to others. In the absence of true accomplishment, their frustrated ego demands feeding via vanity.

But all of this is merely an artificial construct. Averages are all remarkably similar, though they may be different races, religions, and genders. These surface differences are miniscule compared to the enormous difference between Average and Exceptional.

This is the rule, but there are exceptions to the rule. And when this happens, and we find one person among the Average who has transformed himself or herself into a new creation, we have significant evidence that this person is actually an Exceptional who has simply been obscured by his surroundings and upbringing thus far in his life.

Exceptionals are aware of things far beyond themselves, or if they have only recently become Exceptional they are at least awakened to this life of growth. They know of great and strange things in far distant places, and they deal with the past and the future just as easily as the static people deal with today. They can imagine life from many different perspectives. They seek to actively integrate the outside universe into themselves instead of deflecting it away. They become progressively more and more aware of everything, and as they do so their perspective on the world changes over time. As their perspective changes, they change to reflect the newfound wisdom they recently acquired. The overall trend of such constant acquisitions of wisdom and personal rebirths is the achievement of a godlike state versus the static people who have done none of these things. This godlike state starts as an enhanced awareness and understanding of things, and in due time this perception leads to a greater ability to understand and wield power properly.



The Characteristics of High Intelligence

Those with significantly high intelligence (genius) exhibit the following characteristics:

1) Enhanced ability to comprehend what the data means – to perceive its import and relevance. This can be thought of as fully feeling the data, or experiencing it more poignantly; a more complete visceral immersion in the reality of what the data implies causing both intellectual and emotional impact.

2) Enhanced ability to fix this comprehension in one’s mind with some persistence so that it can be compared with and integrated into other data as well. To have a sufficient memory like a workspace in one’s head so as to be able work on items of complexity, like having a table large enough to hold at once all the documents one needs to look at simultaneously.

3) Enhanced ability to process multiple data streams simultaneously; the ability to think about multiple things and determine correlations, interactions, and consequences of these things both together and separately.

4) Enhanced ability to remember and retrieve data over the long term.

5) Enhanced ability to use data from past, present, and future in a combined format showing no temporal bias for the present alone. The ability to analyze data based on more than short-term memory with only quick fixes in mind; to see the big picture and the overall view, unrestricted by temporal distortions.

6) Enhanced ability to perform these mental operations rapidly; to execute mental activity more completely and thoroughly like a CPU in a computer operating at a higher clock speed and with a wider data bus. Enhanced throughput.

7) Real joy from the performance of these mental operations. Like an athlete who feels a high from their physical exertions, intelligence itself and those who possess it derive joy from the vigorous pursuit of these endeavors.

8) Rationality and respect for Reason – the constant striving to be governed by logic, and a respect for those similarly intended.

9) Spontaneous Creation. The ability to invent, compose, construct, and imagine brilliant things that did not exist before.

10) Admiration for Brilliant Creation – the recognition of brilliance in others’ brilliant creations, and the craving to experience the same.

11) Enhanced Empathic Perception – the state of considering the emotional needs and states of others’ nearly as impactfully and immersively as one’s own emotional state and needs.

12) Enhanced integration of empathic factors into one’s own reasoning and actions. The trait of voluntarily limiting one’s own scope of action so as to instead pursue courses which bring about a greater combined benefit to the self and others, even if such actions are suboptimal when considering the self alone.

13) Strong sense of Moral Necessity – the notion that people ought to self-restrain themselves so as to adhere to standards of Reason and Empathy. Respect for civility, honor, decorum, justice, freedom, personal grace, intelligent and benevolent power, humane conduct; and outrage against those who violate these principles. The willingness to forcibly oppose those who show a consistent or malicious disregard for these principles or who subvert them either for personal gain or so as to cause an erosion of the ubiquitous appreciation of these principles.


These characteristics define genius, and those with lesser degrees of intelligence will exhibit some of these traits as well, and often to a lesser degree. In general, the more completely one exhibits these traits, the more intelligent he or she is. As a baseline for our reference, when we consider people of normal intelligence we see no more than 2 or 3 of these traits in most people and then usually only to a mild extent.

It is surprising for some that I include empathy in this definition of intelligence, and that a person’s kind-heartedness would be related to intelligence. It is.

First of all, we need to separate the true empathy of feeling another’s feelings from the pseudo-empathy of behaving kindly to people simply in blind obedience to some cultural or religious expectation. I take it as a given that my noble readers are sufficiently wise as to understand that people will say and do all sorts of things that reflect naught about the true state of their heart. And so we must not read more into behavior than is truly there. The kindly old granny we have known may actually behave this way because this was expected feminine behavior in her time, and now she simply cannot behave any other way. The friendly pastor at church might not be so warm were it not an expectation of his profession to be so with all God’s children. So it is important that we not confuse ‘being nice’ with empathy. Strictly speaking, salespeople and politicians are experts in ‘being nice’ and yet we know that they are not motivated by empathy. And even when people do great things of significant personal cost to alleviate some suffering, sometimes this is motivated by guilt or fear of divine displeasure should they fail to do so.

Empathy can be inferred from behavior sometimes, but overall it is best to define it in abstract terms apart from any behaviors it engenders. Empathy is nothing more or less than the sensation of emotions arising from the experiences of another person and in harmony with their emotional state. A person with empathy will become sad by being in the presence of another person who is sad, even if the underlying cause of sadness has nothing whatever to do with them. This works for happiness as well, as long as the emotion is genuine and innocent. An empathic person watching a person on TV or film who is experiencing some great triumph or tragedy will be moved to emotion just as if the events were real and they were the focus of the action.

If I may take a moment to add a more personal touch to all this, let me tell you of some of my experiences with all this. People can question my possession of all the other traits of genius, but the one which I will strenuously declare as truthfully my own is empathy. It is the defining characteristic of my personality, and the one common thread in my history.

This can be hard to believe, given my forceful writing style which can appear cold or heartless to some. Others have sometimes questioned how I don't always accomodate their own needs and desires, for they confuse empathy with being a doormat. Just because I can feel what they feel doesn't mean that I am going to either like them or want to help them. If they are an offensive person, my empathy isn't going to make me accept them, like some kind of pacifist martyr. I am aware that my words and ideas have a sharp edge, and that my writing style is aggressive. But where is it written that positive emotions must be weak, or that heartfelt words must be smooth? It is precisely because I care so much about humanity that I strive so forcefully, and that I contend for the truth with the weapons at my disposal. This is one of the hidden characteristics of empathy – those who possess it more abundantly feel more obliged to fight furiously in defense of those one cares about, and to oppose those people who are threats. Indifference breeds soft passivity; empathy breeds Spartan contention.

And so I must say that I cannot see a poignant movie without shedding a silent tear at some point in the program, unless it is either a raucous comedy or just a bad film. This can occur with good TV documentaries and even a few kid’s shows. How could one not do so when seeing such an emotional masterpiece as ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’, or when seeing the history of peoples besieged by some epic struggle? When I watch the TV news, if they show some mother or father overseas crying over the death of their child killed in some disaster, I cannot help but shed a brief tear.

But these are not the tears of a feeble soul afraid to act. There is no shrinking cowardice here or lack of anger when appropriate. Neither am I unstable, and weakened by a constant inner agitation. It simply means that I care about what I observe, and that my heart is impassioned. Impassioned hearts are prone to strong action and are therefore a potent force. Would that we all have a bit more of such passion burning within, and such affinity with the feelings of those around us.

“Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.”

- Seneca


Anyway, this brings up a key point in defense of my theory that empathy is related to intelligence. Empathy means having a more active, visceral, and potent immersive engagement in the events going on around you. Clearly, this would not be possible without having a thorough comprehension of these events, which is a function of intelligence. In fact, we can see that the more completely one understands some event, the more one experiences an emotional response to it.

If I tell you that a young man goes into a liquor store to rob it, and that the owner’s son shoot and kills him, you will feel only a mild emotional response from this data. But if I proceed to show you (like in a movie) the whole life of our young robber, and to show the tragedies that led him to this act of desperation, your caring and emotions increase. If I then tell the tale of how the owner’s son became traumatized by the experience of killing a person, and how this led to him forgoing medical school and instead being a liquor merchant all his life; even more emotions are evoked. And on and on this goes along a standard path. The more completely one understands all the facts of a matter, the greater one’s emotional response to it. In this way, empathy is inextricably liked to intelligence. One who is truly intelligent must be more empathic unless he is afflicted by some mental or emotional disorder beyond his control.

Another way of looking at this involves intelligence’s relationship to perception. The greater one’s intelligence, the more one is aware of objective reality and the less bound one is to subjectivity. Normal people are highly subjective, and don’t have the capacity to look at themselves or the world in a detached manner. They are actually unaware of that aspect of reality, for they define reality by how they perceive it from their distinct viewpoint only. This is why when I discuss the need for population control with them, they are unable to provide any reasons why increased human population would be good for our species even though they strongly advocate this. They are focused entirely on the facts that they don’t want to be told to not have more kids, or the supposed mandate of god to ‘replenish the earth’. They ignore the entire objective universe, which poses the question is population increase good or bad for our species. Instead, they focus on extrapolations from the subjective 'I don’t want to be restricted in my reproduction' or 'God must be obeyed'. From this they clumsily conclude that population increase is good because they want to reproduce more, or that God wants them to do so.

In this way we see that they are utterly unaware of objectivity, and actually think it is just the widespread implementation of their own subjectivity. ‘I want to have more kids, so everybody having lots of kids must be good.’ They are utterly unaware of any level of perception other than from themselves looking outward, and so just as man once viewed the cosmos in a geocentric way, they draw inferences about the realm beyond themselves using only the apparent motions visible from their perspective. And in like manner, their conclusions about reality are highly flawed, drawn into faulty cul-de-sac complexities much like epicycles.

With high intelligence, this is all changed. These people have the capacity to transcend their own subjective view and see the objective whole, or at least they pursue this ability and acquire it measure by measure. These are minds that can grasp the heliocentric model, and are aware that the sun does not ‘rise’ but that the earth merely makes it seem so by its rotation. And they do this with the full spectrum of their thoughts.

Because of this ability to view things from outside perspectives, they can see things from the perspective of another person in a way that the normal people cannot. They can shift their view to match that of another person, and in this way they can then feel the emotions that would result from living within this spot in existence. This is Empathy. And as we can see, this is impossible to do unless one has the philosophical capacity to transcend subjectivity. This is impossible without high intelligence.

This is hard to see unless you have known people of exceptional intelligence. This is the target audience for this book: People with an IQ above 160. It also includes those people who may score somewhat lower on IQ tests, but who exhibit most or all of the previously described traits of genius. The effects I describe do not really become visible in people with an IQ below these genius levels, and we must examine those above this mark to see how all this works in real people.

This can be hard to do since people with an IQ at this level become increasingly disadvantaged in our society. Their Societal Effectiveness, or the measure of their ability to thrive and prosper in these conditions of society, becomes markedly reduced as their IQ advances above this level. The only exceptions here are those few who are lucky enough to find themselves born into families dedicated to their genius, and whose early years were not filled with as much scorn and ridicule from Averages as is usual. And since IQ levels below 140-150 strongly correlate with increasing Societal Effectiveness, people assume that this relationship continues in a linear fashion that does not actually exist. In this way, the smartest people are esteemed to be merely average, or even below average in intelligence by the masses.


The reason for this dropoff of Societal Effectiveness is precisely the same as the abrupt increase in Empathy. Somewhere around the 160 IQ level, human intelligence crosses a threshold where a new quantum level of comprehension exists. Above this level, people are vastly more aware of more and more levels of objective reality, and can see things from many points of view beyond their own. This is what triggers the increase in empathy. But it also reveals how barbaric the rules of our society truly are, and how barbaric one must be to prosper within this system. Success is accomplished by ignoring certain imperatives of life (non-materialistic issues) and by taking advantage of people (employers, employees, customers, anybody & everybody actually) in more and more pervasive and complex ways.

Almost all business is based upon theft, and even good business practices can be called a kind of fully-disclosed acceptable theft. This is because all business, even good business, is a kind of arbitrage involving products, services, and labor. The business owner charges his customers more money for the goods and services he sells that they are strictly worth. He pays his employees less than their labor is strictly worth. And it is the spread between the real values and the transacted values of these factors that makes profit. When this is fully-disclosed to all parties, or not pursued to an unreasonable extent, we have good business. But even here we can see that this could be described in terms of a kind of morally-acceptable theft, seeing as how neither customers nor workers are getting full value.

But most business does not operate under these rules of full disclosure, voluntary consent, and humane balance. The most profitable businesses must go further to increase their margins. And to do this they must steal more and more from their customers and/or their employees. They do this by adding complexity to the system, or by using their capital advantage to simply mandate take-it-or-leave-it conditions to their employees. Excellence in modern business is defined by three factors:

1) Stealing the most you can from customers without causing them to become aware/angry

2) Stealing the most you can from employees without causing them to strike or quit faster than they can be replaced.

3) Paying the least possible in taxes by using tax loopholes and political influence


And so today, those who can do this most deftly and in a way so as to ruffle as few feathers as possible are the absolute pinnacle of the business world. The aesthetic here is like a group of thieves admiring brilliant crimes, successfully executed and causing the least collateral damage.

Once a person becomes aware of this reality, it becomes very hard to enthusiastically strive to work hard within this system. Or, as has happened with me, you begin the question your superiors about the morality (and even legality) of the policies you are ordered to implement. This does nothing except labels you as a troublemaker, and so your own success is thwarted. This is how and why IQ above 160 causes a marked decline in Societal Effectiveness.

Society itself is built upon predation. And as IQ in people rises, they become more and more capable of being successful ‘hunters’ of their fellow men. This rises to supreme heights around the 140 IQ level, just below the point where empathy increases. It is these people who are the most capable and cunning in executing their plans, and are the primary power-brokers of the world. But as IQ increases beyond this, one becomes aware of how this predation and competition is not truly bound by any civilized rules, and therefore is intrinsically evil. The system could be made honorable by enforcing certain restrictions upon taking unreasonable advantages. But it is precisely these modes of taking excessive advantage that these 140 IQ people are experts at. Those around 100 IQ are not smart enough to understand the intricacies of these complex thefts/business practices, and so the 140 IQ people want to keep their advantage over the masses. And since they are incapable of seeing the true barbarism of what they do, they see no reason to stop.

These 140 IQ people are also not smart enough to know that those above 160 IQ are smarter than them. Because we choose to not behave so unrestrainedly predatory, the 140 IQ people assume that we are simply not smart enough to understand the complex thefts/business that they do, just like the 100 IQ people. I have had such people say much the same things to me in person. They cannot believe that a smarter person would not do as they do, and be better at it than they are.

And so it is essential that in considering the link between intelligence and empathy that we understand the IQ threshold required. For it is true that the people around 140 IQ include some of the most hard-hearted and venal people in the world. It is these people who run the businesses and governments, and who see no problem in oppressing millions of people for their own personal advantage.

In a surprising way, and because of these factors just described, morality itself is linked to intelligence. Morality is not the blind adherence to some arbitrary religious code. It is the abstract concepts of Reason and Empathy made manifest in practical application in daily life. Moral principles are and must be those which conform to Reason and Empathy and nothing else.

Reason contributes to morality by providing a logical framework for action. People should interact in ways that make sense and that follow some logical balance of fairness, and they should also be truly grounded in reality. Reason requires that the code of conduct we follow be one that truly reflects a realisitic process, and not just a desired outcome. Wanting people to be happy is not a reasonable plan of action, it is simply a desired outcome. And so Reason is essential for keeping us on task, and not swept away into dreams or illusions.

Empathy contributes to morality by ensuring that we do not just starkly pursue some optimal path for ourselves only; that we strive to behave in ways that are optimal for all and not just for the self. Logic alone could become unbalanced so that our morals reflect the cold decisions of a computer only. Empathy alone would have us trying to soothe all the ills of the world without any balanced and reasonable plan. Only by combining them do our morals achieve balance and sanity.

Since we know that Reason is related to intelligence, and we have established that Empathy is related as well, we can rightly infer that Morality is also related to intelligence. I understand that this thinking runs counter to conventional wisdom. But I would ask you, how else can we perform this analysis? Can caring truly exist without comprehension? Is blind obedience to a memorized code of conduct the highest form of morality? How can we esteem a person to be moral if they do not fully understand the nuances of the code of ethics they practice? They may be behaving in accordance with moral principles, but is not the person who also comprehends why they are doing so the more moral person?

This leaves us with the stunning conclusion that the most caring and moral people in the world are likely to be the most intelligent.[10] This is counter to what the masses think, for they believe intelligence precludes emotion and makes a person cold and mechanistic. But this is only the last refuge of their insecurity – they must convince themselves that the intelligent are crucially flawed in some way that would make an unintelligent existence preferable and more honorable.

Another reason for this misunderstanding of the intelligent stems from this useful axiom which explains much:

The true nature of intelligence, its telltale signs, and its behavior is only knowable by those who possess a full measure of it. And lacking a full measure of intelligence, one must have at least a significant brilliance to have even a rough comprehension of its nature. The masses define it to be that which it is not, and assume characteristics for it that actually opposes its true nature.

“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”

- Bertrand Russell


And so it is pointless to argue with Normal people about intelligence because they don’t really know what it is or what it can do. To them, it appears as a defect in the person’s ability fit in with the group, and a cause for ridicule. This is another example of the ubiquitous Herd mentality among Averages. One who is different from the Herd is inferior. This is why nerds and geeks are ridiculed. They seem weak, weird, and generally deficient to the rest of the world. And because the rest of the people do not value or even understand the unique things they can do, they see no upside to being a geek or nerd. They feel utterly superior to them.

And so we see that there is indeed a wide gulf between us and them. We Exceptionals must be on guard to prevent wishful thinking from entering our ideas and rhetoric. It is precisely because we are more intelligent, and therefore more moral, that we entertain all of the humanist ideals of The Enlightenment. We want to believe in the worth of each and every individual, and we can scarcely believe that any person could exist within a personal universe so miniscule and savagely curtailed as most people’s truly are. The thought of such an existence is both frightening to us, and also implies a real pointlessness to such a life. Since our very nature tends to oppose nihilism, as intelligence promotes the notion of purpose, though it may be hidden, to virtually every aspect of life; we are loathe to believe that people truly exist like this.

We must remember that they do. And more than this, we need to see how their existence is not without purpose, and how they can have lives of significance. It is just that their purposes and significance are not those that we are accustomed to thinking about for ourselves. Averages can indeed have rich and worthy lives, and are completely capable of being significant persons who do great good for the world. They simply are not prone to behave this way on their own, without the leadership of Exceptionals. We need to respect them for the excellence which they can do, and not revile them for what they lack. And so we need to keep to a balanced course, neither utterly devaluing them as mere vermin, nor falsely believing them to be just like you and me. Until we come to this frank understanding of the reality of humanity, and how most of them differ from us, we can have no hope of really understanding what is going on around us. And without this understanding, we have no hope of ever organizing mankind into a humane symbiosis.



Conclusions

We have seen that intelligence is the single most important factor in determining a person’s functional worth to humanity, their capacity to lead, and also the degree of morality they can exhibit in their lives. Now intelligence does not, by itself, guarantee that a person will exhibit these traits and values. Rather, it sets the upper bounds of their ability to achieve, should they choose to do so. Average people can be functionally valuable, show leadership, and exhibit great morality. But Exceptionals can do all of these things to a superlative degree, should they develop their natural talents to do so.

In addition, it should be clear that the duties of leadership are analogous to the role the brain plays in the body. To properly fill this role, a leader must show great nuance of thought, natural curiosity, lack of fear when encountering the unknown, assertiveness tempered by thoughtfulness, and above all, an unshakable love born of empathy for those whom he seeks to lead. Without these traits, a leader will fail to provide any real service to those under his power. And in such a case, the leader becomes a force for evil in the world.

By understanding the true nature of intelligence, and how it is expressed among humans, we can see that the only people who can consistently fulfill this mandate are the most superbly intelligent people on earth. No other type of person possesses these talents. And these abilities are not easily found in people in general, or in any other kind of person other than High Genius intelligences. Because these abilities are rare, it is essential that we empower these High Geniuses only.

When we fail to do so, we get a suboptimal situation. Either we get the barbaric excesses of Kings and Priests, or we get the equally barbaric stupidity of the masses dictating the course of our culture. When human leadership is suboptimal, human society and culture is as well. And by having culture and society configured suboptimally, our species fails to advance as rapidly, continuously, or completely as is required for us to preserve ourselves from extinction. Or, we develop dangerously unevenly, developing powers though technology without a corresponding advancement of our wisdom. This scenario, specifically, is caused by the intelligent members of our society developing these technologies within a world run by Averages. And so in this case, we are the greatest danger to ourselves. All of this danger could be utterly eliminated if we simply empowered Exceptionals only.

We must recognize the gulf that exists between us Exceptionals and the Averages, and how it is impossible to convince them of our superior abilities. We prefer to deal in truth, and to let the brilliance of our reasoned ideas convince others of the rightness of our view. But when our audience for such logical displays cannot fathom even the basic workings of rational thought, and are instead prone to being convinced by brute pantomimes of primal emotionalism; we have no hope whatever of convincing them of anything this complex. Their own brain structure, being less advanced than ours, makes them utterly unaware of the value of our ideas, like a deaf person who cannot comprehend the intricacies and beautiful order of a symphony.

And so we must conclude that any such restructuring of society cannot be accomplished by a broad appeal to public opinion. We certainly can influence many, and we should strive to do so. But in the end, we will never achieve any democratic mandate for our ideas simply because the ideas themselves are beyond the comprehension of the majority of people.

So we must take other actions. And these will often go against the course we would prefer to follow. In this I mean that it is our natural preference for total honesty and openness. We often look at the powers of the world and feel disgusted by the way in which they pander to the vanity, fear, and the stupidity of the masses so as to rule. We feel superior to such powers, considering ourselves more moral and pure because we do not stoop to these dishonorable games so as to gain power, even though we know how.

But let us look at the situation in another way. Our squeamishness to ‘dirty’ ourselves is simply allowing our enemies to win without us even putting up a fight. The scenario we face is like a room wherein a powerful but incredibly stupid giant child resides. We are in the room, and we want to both not get crushed by the child, but also in some way to protect the child. We care about the child, and want to help him be happy and gradually progress. Along comes other people into the room, and they tell the child fantastical and flattering tales that seize the child’s attention, and which convince the child to do what the tale-tellers suggest. It is as if the child is assaulted by salesmen who pretend to be his friend, all for the purpose of using the child’s massive fist for their own personal advantage, and to crush their opposition.

So when we step forward and, with reasoned arguments, point out how the salesmen are lying, the child simply becomes angry with us because he doesn’t understand the basis for our logic. Indeed, he doesn’t really understand logic at all, in any context, even though he thinks he does. So our appeals are utterly ineffectual, and can only serve to make us appear to be enemies of the child since we have shown opposition to the plan the child wants to pursue.

From this you can clearly see that this book is not intended to be read by a mass audience or to influence common public opinion at all. I have not written this for the child to read. I have written it to reach those few Exceptionals out there who can make a difference in the world, if they would but become aware of what is happening around us and take action. I have written it to reach you.

If we just stay silent and let the child go off unknowingly serving these salesmen, who knows what damage this will cause? This is precisely what happened in Nazi Germany and in Soviet Russia. We can’t stay on the sidelines, but we can’t intercede with logic alone.

So it is clear what we must do. We must communicate with the child in the only format he understands. We must tell stories and parables so that he can see what we are meaning, and use these as a means of keeping the child on a more rational path. We must fight fire with fire, even though we feel squeamish about doing so. We must remember here that the outcome is more important than the process. Certainly, if our activities involved atrocities I would not so simply say that the end justifies the means. But that is not what I am suggesting. I am only suggesting that we fight for the mind of the child following the same rules that the other players are already following. Propaganda to oppose propaganda is completely justified, and seems to be the only possible efficacious means we have of contending for the truth. What an odd paradox. And since we shall always be fighting for an outcome that adheres to truthful principles, unlike our opposition, we shall have less of a need for excess and ridiculous hyperbole than they do. But we must start playing by the rules of the game, and not consider ourselves too pristine to engage in such rough-and-tumble machinations.

Humanity is worth the fight. We need to stop cowardly hiding in the corner, all the while providing as an excuse that we are ‘better’ than those liars out there because we are above such low conduct. With such an attitude taken by its most intelligent members, mankind is doomed. We need to understand that the fate of our species is in our hands and nobody else’s. If we sit out the game, because we detest the game, we all lose. Humanity has no other protectors. There are only a few thousand or tens of thousands of them on the entire planet. And you are one of them. It is time for you recognize exactly who you are, and to enter the fight.

How shall we do this? How can we fight? Read on, for the remainder of the book details these very plans.



ENDNOTES

[1] It is a myth that every person is similarly capable as the Exceptional, but is disadvantaged by lack of education or economic opportunity. Geniuses are not made – they are born. No matter how much education we may provide the masses, they will never be capable of (or even desire to be capable of) the same kinds of brilliance as we see from a Beethoven, a Salk, or a Jefferson. There are indeed geniuses hidden within the masses whose talents are hidden by lack of opportunity. But our providing education does not make them become geniuses; it simply allows them to do what comes naturally. However, this is rather rare. Most of the masses are both incapable of and insensitive to the works and manner of genius no matter how much effort we may put into them. If we send every child to mandatory intensive basketball instruction all throughout their childhoods, will they all end up good enough to play in the NBA? If such a thing is not possible in athletic pursuits, why do we think it is possible in intellectual or artistic pursuits?
[2] This is an inevitable need of humanity, both for defense and so that we can grow as a species.
[3] I highly recommend the Mike Judge film ‘Idiocracy’ for a view of this future.
[4] Or, they were seen as not really very smart at all – a collection of pretentious vain fools.
[5] This is the great failure of the generation born between 1935 - 1955. Those people who inherited the greatest treasures of materiel, power, and morale went on to disavow the philosophical source of all their advantaged origins and squandered this abundance. But not only did they just go through a youthful period of excess and indiscretion (which is forgivable and common), but they then went on to completely obliterate the very philosophical machinery of prosperity and success that had spawned their own creation, and which had taken centuries to evolve into being, thus destroying the future itself. The forced imposition of their false notions of fairness and freedom upon our culture imperils our very civilization.
[6] This is a functional evaluation of humanity. But in addition to this logic, all people have an intrinsic value simply as humans.
[7] Notice how the rule of The Average is immoral since these people are not capable of leadership that leads to long-term success, even for themselves. They will surely enact policies that benefit themselves today, but these same policies will ultimately break down leaving future generations bereft of such advantage.
[8] In my view, these problems began with the adoption of some faulty aspects of the philosophies of ‘The Enlightenment’. The American, French, and Russian revolutions then put in force these faulty philosophies and created societies which were doomed to undergo a slow philosophical decay, like the edge of a glacier melting and fracturing as it reaches the sea. In time, the decay finally causes a sudden break into a new degraded mode, like when the iceberg breaks away from the glacier and crashes into the sea. This is what happened in the 1960’s. Many of these philosophies of The Enlightenment are Anti-Exceptional mindsets, and are massive over-reactions to the excesses of the monarchies and clergy of previous days. It is true that some of these monarchs and clerics were not worthy of their power, and probably weren’t even true Exceptionals as I define. But the harm we have suffered from this over-reaction of The Enlightenment outstrips even the damage caused by these unfit rulers.
[9] I use the term ‘gods’ because this reflects the fact that these people are unbounded in the power they can wield and the wisdom they can possess, given time. They are infinite beings, not because they possess an infinite amount of any particular thing, but because they are capable of perpetual growth. Their natural state is expansion. And so the term ‘gods’ reflects the fact that they are an altogether different being than those people who remain finite and static forever. This is not meant to imply that they are necessarily strikingly more powerful or wise than the static people today. Rather, it simply indicates that the passage of time tends to cause them to become more so, and that they are capable of many things utterly beyond the reach of the static people. Unlike animals and normal people, these gods have the ability to become a new kind of being through time and effort, and this is a profound philosophical distinction. They are most properly considered a different species from average Homo Sapiens because of this striking difference in behavior and capacity, if not in other physical ways.
[10] If we define morality as sanity (following REALITY), caring about others, and having the courage to implement these principles in daily life, we can scarcely find another subset of humanity that could have these attributes equal to geniuses. This is not to say that all geniuses are moral. Should some lack in courage, or exhibit other deficits, then certainly we can say that their morality is less also. And a Normal person who exhibits these same traits or reason and empathy is certainly moral also.

Will Of The People - Chapter 6

Government, Anarchy, and Leadership

“There is no substitute for victory.”

- Douglas MacArthur



It has been argued by advocates of democracy that even though the masses are under-informed of relevant facts, irrational, and are awash in a sea of propaganda, that they still have the right to elect their own government and that denying them this right would be tyranny. This is truly missing the point.

Government is not an exercise in participatory individual expression for the masses. Government is a deadly serious matter requiring the serious judgment of experts,[1] not a cacophony of a million different amateur voices. The very lives, fortunes, and liberties of every individual in the nation are at stake. The liberty of the nation’s people is preserved by their government effectively protecting them from anarchic forces, foreign powers, and by leaving them otherwise undisturbed as much as possible within civilized bounds; not by following their every voiced whim or ephemeral desires.

If we are to include your amateur individual voice in the governance of the nation, we must then also include the voices of millions of other people whom you would not trust to babysit your kids or even wash your car. Government affects the lives and safety of your children more than almost anything else, and so we must be very exclusive in whom we permit to participate. In government, as in warfare, successful results are essential to the lives of the people, not full dialog and an exchange of ideas of all concerned. Shall we value the process of inclusive discussion, regardless of the efficacy of its outcome, over the true purpose and mandate of government itself: Accomplishing prosperity and victory for our people? Is victory in war and prosperity in peace of less value to us than lacking these conditions but possessing the right to voice our opinion within the halls of government?



The Purpose of Government – Opposing Anarchy to Defend Liberty

Most people in modern times have no concept of what living in anarchy is like. There are few places remaining on the planet where a pervasive government presence is not found. But for much of our history, many people lived in regions with no single sovereign authority, or where such authority was visible only rarely.

Because of this, people have forgotten why government exists and how horrific anarchy is. The modern mindset is often one of criticism towards government and a vague desire to live without it. Even the people who want the most intrusive and pervasive form of government, Socialism, envision a world of peaceful cooperative anarchy as the final state of their intended revolution. And so it is necessary to bring humanity to a remembrance of the horrors of anarchy to illustrate why government exists and to more clearly illuminate exactly what it should and should not do.

Government exists to safeguard the liberty of those under its control by controlling them only as far as is required to fulfill this mission. At first glance, this seems to be an oxymoron – control being required for freedom to exist. But if we look at the only other state other than control (anarchy) we can quickly see that governmental control is essential to creating a climate where any individual freedom exists. Let us take a closer look at anarchy to reveal the wisdom of this thinking.



Anarchy in the Modern World – What it would be Like

“Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.”

- Aristotle


Let us suppose that the United States decided to dissolve its government and allow its entire territory to revert to anarchy. What would happen? We begin this hypothetical example with the Address to the Nation given by the President, Speaker of the House, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:

Our fellow Americans, it has been unanimously decided by every member of all three branches of our government to dissolve this government and nation immediately. All of our laws are now void and every court and law enforcement agency has been closed. All of our military personnel overseas have been recalled, and every military unit is hereby disbanded. All government offices have been closed. Similar changes have been effected within every State, County, and City within our land. All police, firefighting, and paramedic services have been cancelled. All public schools have been closed. There is no longer any government of any type anywhere within our land. Each of us is no longer an American Citizen. We have all become simply people living on the continent of North America. We are completely free to do as we please from this moment onward.

First of all, with the dissolution of the government, all money would be worthless. Currency is only a worthless piece of paper without the backing of its government. Everybody who had any cash would lose the full value that they have, casting millions into poverty overnight. There would also be a similar impact on all securities, as it is very difficult to divide up a corporation into a million equal pieces without the liquidity and regularity that currency provides. The only type of civilized trade that could occur would be barter.

This would not be much of a pressing issue because there would often be little need for all the bother of barter in a world where theft and murder was undeterred. Those who owned property would have to construct defensive structures around it and guard it perpetually with armed personnel or lose it to whatever passing group of thugs might want it.

The same goes for your wife or girlfriend, and your daughters. The more attractive the woman, the greater the likelihood that another man who sees her will want to take her for himself. The only defense against this is either to protect your women within guarded walls (if you are rich enough to possess property, or if you steal it from somebody else), or to accompany them everywhere they go and be skilled at using a firearm. All of the advances of civilization in making women full partners in society would be swept away, and everything would revert back to its original primal state where women are nearly powerless, and are subject to attack and possession by whatever brutal men they encounter.[2]

“During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called War; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man.”

- Thomas Hobbes


Now some may say that people are basically good and won’t go crazy like this unless they are provoked in some way. This is very standard liberal philosophy: “I am humane and reasonable so therefore everybody else is too.” Unfortunately, most people are often inhumane and opportunistic. History is replete with examples proving this.

They are also very fearful, and fear runs rampant in a time when nothing is certain or secure. Fear is what makes most people seek power, so that they can have some means of defense from the outside world. This is the reason why gangs exist. So this is a time when gangs would explode with new members, becoming so large as to become more properly called barbarian tribes.

With multiple opposing tribes growing larger by the day, the land would become a war zone as each side strives to control more territory and resources before their opponents can do the same.[3] Their expansion is first driven more by fear than anything else – they cannot let any nearby opponent become so strong that they cannot be opposed. But in time, and as they become skilled at their warfare and expansion, greed begins to motivate them just as much as anything. It is during this time that they will take possession of every person and thing in their territory, including those they previously considered as neutrals during their first period of rapid expansion. These captured people will then be required either to join the tribe, or to provide labor for the tribe, or they will be killed.

Beyond our shores are nations that possess strong military forces. China and Russia are two obvious examples of this. The land we inhabit and the developments upon it are worth trillions of dollars. We possess the largest supply of weapons, including nuclear weapons, in the entire world. These three facts make it apparent what will happen next: Invasion.

It may be that other nations don’t really want to invade us and conquer our lands. But with the possibility that some other nation might do so, and thereby obtain an insurmountable advantage in world military and economic power, even nations with friendly intentions will be compelled to act quickly just to defend their interests. This will surely cause one or more nations to invade our land. If more than one nation invades, they may fight a war against each other upon our soil. It is also likely that these invading nations will fight against the gangs/tribes here, who will probably band together somewhat to oppose the foreign intruders. No matter what exact combination of events transpires, it is certain that we will face a long period of war upon our homeland, and occupation at the hands of a foreign power or a barbarian tribe.



Utopian Anarchy is No Longer Possible

People who envision anarchy as a kind a paradise, free from the oppression of a brutal government, are imagining a world that no longer exists. In former times, because population was much sparser and there were vast regions of open land, a person or family could live in complete isolation somewhere far from the view of other people. Life could exist without government and with people peacefully coexisting across wide distances, only occasionally coming together in small villages. I must say that this vision is truly beautiful, and I can scarcely imagine a more serene and joyful mode of life. There are other modes involving more contact with people and a faster pace that I value as well. But there is something to be said for this kind of contemplative tranquility and simple existence.

But unfortunately, because we have populated our world to this insane degree, this option is no longer a possibility. As population grows, the need for greater control over people increases, and the less space is available for this kind of tranquil anarchic isolation. There is no place you can go today where you will be unaffected by others wielding power.

In the modern world, a power vacuum is filled within days or weeks, not years or decades like in the ancient world. This means that anarchy is not an actual choice versus government; it is instead only the fleeting transition to a new government. And because anarchy favors those individuals and groups that are most barbaric and willing to use violence to wield power, it favors the establishment of a new government that is most likely more barbaric than the government it replaced.

Even without the existence of foreign invaders or local gangs, even if every person was a peaceable and modest common citizen; when you put people into a condition of anarchy, some of these previously mild-mannered citizens will begin to wield power over their neighbors simply because nobody is stopping them and the personal benefits of doing so are great. [4] And as soon as one person starts doing this, others will follow suit either to oppose the first or to emulate their success.[5]

We can see that the possession of valuable property and people is impossible to accomplish in a time of anarchy unless one is skilled at using lethal force and willing to use it on a daily basis if required. This means that there is a strong disincentive against work and industry, because the intention of these activities is the accumulation of things of value. A man works so that he may own a house, and support the wife and children that he loves. But in anarchic times, there is no point to work because owning property is foolish if it can be taken from you anytime at all. Having a beautiful wife means losing her to a more brutal man at some future moment, and possibly dying in the attempt to protect her. The only behaviors that make logical sense are violence and theft, since they yield rapid enrichment (if successful) and they also describe the only mode of violent life that allows one to have a chance of retaining anything or anyone of value.

These conditions would also put great strain on family bonds, and make the starting of new families virtually impossible. Having a wife or kids to look after creates significant liabilities for a man that would make his chances of survival and success very much reduced. With the dissolution of the family, the fractal kernel of our entire society would be destroyed.

These conditions foster barbarism and oppose civilization. Labor is discouraged, and so poverty increases. The most brutal people are the ones to wield power, precisely because of their brutal inclinations, and so those that are actually accomplishing something are these violent people whose primary avocation is destruction. And advancements in art and science are nearly impossible, since the civilized conditions necessary for their creation are scarcely found.

From these facts we can easily see that the worldview of the 1960’s hippies, still echoed within their generation and also from their children, is abjectly false. The Aquarian ideal is a delusion based upon infantile narcissism. We cannot create a world of peaceful, cooperative, happy people who live without any government to control them. As soon as we accomplish this, all that will happen is that the people most comfortable with violence and who tolerate frustration the least will begin taking control (by force if necessary) of the peaceful people around them. If these violent people are also intelligent and good leaders, they will establish a lasting power structure that other likeminded people will join – a gang is born. If these violent people are not so bright or capable, other noble-minded people in the community will begin to wield power also so that they can protect the community from this nascent thug. This will cause the creation of a new power structure by these protectors to safeguard the people – a government is born. Anarchy leads to freedom and opportunity which leads to violence which leads to government. This is an immutable constant of human behavior.



The Myth of the Value and Capacity of the Masses

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

- Albert Einstein


A common populist theme is that of a poor, suffering mass of good people, oppressed by an exploitative and cruel government where power-hungry nearly-demonic leaders enrich themselves off of the blood and sweat of the masses. Then the glorious day comes when these longsuffering citizens, perhaps simply driven to momentary insanity by all the oppression they have borne; when they rise up and strike out against the impenetrable government.

They have simply been pushed beyond all bounds, and their normal peaceful tendencies have evaporated in the face of their oppressive masters who foolishly have provoked the people to wrath. These overlords, had they been truly intelligent, would have limited their oppression to prudent bounds so as to not enrage the people. Indeed, they could have ruled in near-perpetuity had they followed this wiser course. But their evil is made manifest by the fact that they could not even restrain themselves from still further greed and barbarism, despite the treasures they have already stolen from the people. Somehow, even all this was not enough for them. They sought even more blood from the children of men, nigh unto bleeding them totally white, and so now they are ripe for destruction.

And so the people have risen. By some unseen sign and unheard trump they are all called to action as one. Diggers drop their shovels, students put down their books, and factory workers abandon their machines and silently march out into the streets; all drawn together by the same primal impulse. Wrong has been heaped upon wrong beyond all tolerable bounds, and now they must reclaim the Right itself. It is time to either live or die. Those who survive the day still living will deal death to the oppressors. And those who die will live forever as honored martyrs in the hearts of the people they free this day.

One after another, the people strike out against the government and all of its vestiges. In a moment, the whole nation is transformed into a glorious battle where lives are lost and yet justice is won. The government is paralyzed for a moment – astonished by the onslaught of the people and scarcely believing their eyes. Their pride and vanity had convinced them that their rule was eternal and their security impregnable. But now the people have shattered these delusions and brought the cruelly-instructive punch of reality squarely onto their upturned noses.

The government composes itself, and draws upon its own innate cruelty as it contends with the people. Weapons are fired leveling whole legions of the people, sweeping them away in the blink of any eye. Women, children, and the elderly are not immune to the assault, for the government cares nothing for who may die as long as their own power is preserved. But though their professional armies march and their great weapons belch death unto the people, nothing can stop the inevitable tide of the masses as they promote their righteous cause. They are fighting for their children, their freedom, and their very lives, not for greed and power; and so as long as they don’t lose heart in their struggle they must inevitably achieve victory. And why should they lose heart when they are so powerful – far stronger than the perverse rule of these evil men who have defiled their lives and their country?

Today is the long-awaited day of justice. Dockworkers, waitresses, schoolteachers, and janitors all strike out together against their foe with the focused potency of a million calloused fists. And with this relentless assault of righteous fury, the evil crystalline power of the oppressors is shattered and the liberty of the downtrodden is reclaimed. The Common Person is a Vessel of Goodness and the most potent Instrument of Liberation.

Unfortunately, this moving story is nothing but The Great Myth of the Common Man that common people everywhere like to think of themselves.[6] It is false. Common people, without proper leadership and organization, will almost never fight against an overpowering foe, even if they are in danger of being exterminated. They do not contain within their midst those attributes of perception, courage, and organization necessary to spontaneously focus their power into any coherent form other than as a destructive mob. Destructive mobs don’t overthrow oppressive governments. Instead, they do things like riot after court verdicts, burn witches, burn books, and kill people belonging to hated ethnic or religious groups.



The Natural State of the Masses is as Agents for Barbarism

But even more important than this, the notion that the average person is Good, is not a threat to others, but can wield the most powerful sword to oppose oppression; these ideas are massively, even infinitely false. Anarchists, Socialists, and Democrats all have it wrong:

The single most dangerous and destructive force on the planet is the masses themselves. The common people do not promote peace, enlightenment, and civility. They promote violence, chaos, and barbarism.

Let us discuss why this is so.

First of all, we must acknowledge that the masses do possess a great power, but that power cannot be used unless it is focused by some event or leader. When events focus the masses to action, the outcome is a riot – not a revolution. This is because a riot is actually not a single, orchestrated campaign of violent action like a war, but a continuous series of small-scale acts of random violence simply repeated over and over many times. A riot does not need any leaders or leadership at all. It is like a wildfire, and spreads due to the animalistic characteristics of those involved. A riot is the only action the masses can take in the absence of any leaders. And since the masses are incapable of self-leadership, it is the only act of significance they can do without any outside influence.[7]

Next, the masses are easily led by those who are skilled at propaganda and persuasion. This is due in large part to the fact that the masses cannot lead themselves, and yet have a strong herd instinct and seek out leadership. The masses tend to follow strong-sounding leaders who speak flattery to them and use inflammatory rhetoric.

This is because they lack the capacity the think dispassionately and to use logic to thoroughly evaluate ideas. They will reason only up to the point where they can justify their pre-existing emotional opinions. Once there are potentially reasonable arguments that justify their biases, they will abandon all further intellectual inquiry about the issue even though other contradictory rational arguments may exist and may ultimately be logically superior. Once a seemingly logical validation is found for their view, they will thenceforth shut down all further true thinking about the matter and simply proceed on by parroting pre-prepared responses, arguments, and slogans that embody their belief.

The masses do not like to think more than they have to, and yet are fearful of uncertainty. As soon as they have the smallest logical morsel to come to any certainty about an issue, they will quickly disconnect the thinking part of their brain again and put it back up on the shelf where it will gather dust for months or years until they ‘have’ to use it again on another matter. To the common man, critical thinking is the most unpleasant labor of all.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”

- Albert Einstein


“To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche


“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

- George Bernard Shaw


For us highly intelligent people, this fact is one of the most disillusioning and frightening conclusions we can discover in our lives, and so many of us never can come to believe the stark truth out of a fear of its implications. In truth, we are utterly surrounded by people who have no ability to think like we do, and so are ever-capable of all kinds of barbaric behavior that our minds could never sanction or imagine. Intelligent people are usually generous in their estimate of others’ intelligence, especially in their youth, and tend to assume that everybody is functionally pretty much like them though they can see they are a bit more capable. Like intellectual sprinters in a race, we view the normal people as strong mental athletes like we are, just consistently slightly slower. But if we are to structure our world in a truly intelligent way, we must be totally honest about the realities around us. And a prime reality we must face is the truly massive lack of intelligence among the masses, and the huge gulf that exists between them and us that we can scarcely believe to be real.

“There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.”

-Henry Adams


Noble Reader, if all the people throughout history had been roughly as intelligent as we are, would it have been likely for our world to end up in the deplorable shape it is in today, and to have seen all the stupid barbarism that has made up much of our history? History itself reveals the truth that our world has been populated mostly by people who cannot reason as we do and who have had far less of a revulsion to barbarism. Humanity is now and has been mostly populated by people of a distinctly different type than us, as if we were almost another species, and not just by people like us who were only slightly deficient or misguided by barbarous times.

There is simply no other logical way to explain all the torture, greed, and hysterical fear that echoes through the chronicle of human history. Think upon all the various devices of torture that were invented and gleefully used upon living persons under the approving eye of some overlord who had been slighted. Think of the mindless minions of such lords who, without a moment’s hesitation or qualms, simply proceeded to inflict horrific agonies upon men such as themselves with no more concern than one might exhibit in performing any household chore. Think of the maniacal glee some of these felt as they held momentary sway over another’s fate, and how this power gave them pleasure. How could such a person as you ever have ordered such needless misery or have willingly executed it? And if you were compelled by your lord to do such things, would you not at least have taken the chance at a later date to flee the lord’s lands so as to not be required to live as a tormentor of future victims? Could you live with yourself if you were required to torture people on a weekly, monthly, or even annual basis?

What of the cheering masses watching a crucifixion, quarter drawing, or decapitation? What of their conduct as they saw ‘witches’ burning before them? How could a person such as yourself ever have looked upon such a spectacle with any real zeal? Perhaps you would have attended and witnessed the event in reverent silence. But even if you felt these persons were guilty, would that have made their punishment a cause for gleeful rejoicing? When could you ever have felt joy from the sight of another man’s intestines being ripped alive from his abdomen and flung in a bloody heap upon the ground? Would you find humor and laugh as the condemned’s arms and legs were ripped from his body by horses pulling ropes? Would the smell of a woman’s flesh burning before your eyes have motivated you to rejoice? In what twisted universe would the pitiful cries of agonized souls have caused a smile to cross your face?

And what of all the times when those in power simply used their power to hurt and oppress others simply because they could? Would you have sat in attendance with these powers and gleefully cackled at the prospect of becoming marginally more excessively rich by devastating the lives of thousands of people who were defenseless before your assault? Being thus empowered and free to use your mind as you saw fit, would you have spent your days in searching out further opportunities to wrench wealth from other defenseless people? Would you have felt neither a responsibility to protect them nor even a lack of any need to possess what they owned? Would you not have taken your good fortune in life and lived for more noble pursuits instead? Is there nothing that would have occupied your attention more than an endless stream of thefts perpetrated upon increasingly more defenseless peoples?

Think of all the fanatical and utterly illogical beliefs that people have followed. Could you have so enthusiastically have embraced such nonsense and spent your life in following its precepts? Would you have been a Good Nazi, turning in lukewarm people whom you suspected of lack of zealous commitment to the Fuhrer? Would you have rounded up Jews for the gas chamber? What about the Bolsheviks? Would you have turned in the wealthy family in town for counter-revolutionary activities so that you could loot their fine home? Would you be happy with your newly-purloined fine silverware when you saw their corpses lying on their blood-stained floor, with a bullet in each forehead? Would you have felt this way upon seeing even the children murdered in this way? What about all the religious excesses of the past? Would you have been a true believer and a willing sword of God as you struck down the women and children of the unbelievers with the calm righteous assurance of a guiltless man?

History itself is a tale of irrationality and horrible lack of empathy. And these are the two Great Principles of Stupidity. And the only reason why would history has turned out this way is that the great majority of people who have existed have been stupid, at least as compared to us.

If the average man had been a person with roughly the same degree of rationality and empathy as you possess, world history could never have transpired this way.

We must not allow ourselves to think that reason and empathy are modern discoveries that did not exist back then, and so these people were simply too primitive to know better than what they were doing. This thought is debunked when we consider the few examples from history of great people who said and did wonderful things exhibiting great reason and beauty. It is further debunked when we see that modern times are not some new super wonder-age where reason and empathy rule the world. If these concepts were indeed new developments, it stands to reason that they would be embraced as the new modern mode of humanity and that we would live in much greater harmony today. But as we can see, both the great people of the past and the fools of today prove that reason and empathy have been around for a long, long time; and that they have been practiced by only a few people in any given age.

And so we must remember that we are dealing with an altogether different kind of being when we discuss the common man. They do not have either our habits or our capacities. They don’t do what we would do, and they will do all kinds of things that we could never even be compelled to do by force. We must stop being naively magnanimous in our estimate of their intelligence, even though such notions are born of our empathic nature. Just because we are intellectual sprinters does not mean that they are as well, even though we would like to think of them as such. The history of the world confirms my theory here.

The masses are not intellectual athletes as we are. They are not even running down the track as the race is run – they are walking. The difference between them and us is a difference of kind, not degree. They are walkers and we are runners. They neither know how to run nor even see the value in doing so, and this is the prime reason why intelligent people are often mistreated and scorned by their peers during childhood and adolescence. Our running looks both pointless and weird to them, and makes us actually seem defective to them – not superior. We must remember that intelligence itself is totally misunderstood by all except the highly intelligent themselves, and this is why the masses neither understand us nor respect us. We claim excellence in an attribute which they don’t even esteem to be valuable, since they don’t really comprehend it. And so they look at us like we were proclaiming some highly-developed yet useless skill, like being able to hold our breath for 10 minutes. ‘Sure, that is difficult to do. But why would you want to and what is the point of doing so?’ This is their view of intelligence, and of us.

This effect is amplified by the fact that we highly intelligent people often question societal norms that the masses esteem as obvious as gravity. And so this questioning doesn’t look enlightened to them – it looks weird and stupid. Our very intelligence makes it hard for us to blindly adhere to these societal norms precisely because they are often utterly illogical and even barbaric. And so as we live our lives in accordance with a more reasonable ethic, we can appear immoral, defective, and even criminal to the masses who are incapable of discerning what we perceive. When we also consider that the masses are far more likely to use aggression and violence, and to inflict wanton emotional harm; we can see the reason why society stays as stupid as it does. Those very people who are capable of seeing a more excellent way for humanity are quickly classified as immoral or defective, and are then are subjected to all manner of pain and harm at the hands of the masses around them. This often occurs early in our lives, and can effectively undercut our confidence and stifle our ability to proclaim our views potently into the world. Thus, the world remains in darkness.

This need not make us oppress or revile the masses, for their lack of intelligence does not make them useless or even lacking in brilliance in other ways besides intelligence. Indeed, shall we oppose humanity in our attempts to protect it? Misanthropy is not the answer and would only make us less effective in any righteous thing we sought to do. We simply have to call upon our courage to overcome the pain we have endured at their hands and not let this make us become cold or vengeful.

The masses are like a big, dangerous dog. Just because we have been bitten is no reason to hate the animal – it is just doing what comes naturally to it if it thinks you are an enemy. We simply have to convince the dog (by showing true leadership) that we are both a friend and a master. Once this is done, the dog’s dangerous characteristics are no longer a source of problems for us. They become a strength and help instead. And thus a warm symbiosis is established that benefits both them and us.

Let us take care to ensure that this is, indeed, a true symbiosis and not a new oppression. If you are unwilling to overcome the pain you have endured in your life, and are seeking any kind of payback or unrighteous dominion over others should you attain power; you are unfit to rule anything larger than an empty apartment and I want no part of you. I seek courageous and noble people to join this cause, not people who are slaves to their fear and pain even if they are brilliant. If you are not emotionally mature and have a high degree of empathy, so much so that the harming even of your enemy causes you pain or tears while doing your duty to destroy him; if you are not capable of both strength and this high empathy you are not qualified to lead anybody. Hate is no basis for any valid philosophy or government, and those seeking power who are unable to suppress their anger should be strenuously opposed by all of us who have eyes to see and ears to hear. We already know what happens when we fail in this duty.

The purpose of the movement I hope to establish is to set humanity on a truly balanced and rational course. Human society swings back and forth through the centuries like a pendulum, constantly over-reacting to the excesses of the regime before it. Extreme concentrations of power (monarchy and theocracy) are followed by equally extreme diffusions of power (democracy and socialism). Democrats run the nation for a while until their excesses thrust the Republicans into power, who then proceed to over-react causing the pendulum to swing back to the Democrats.

To me, this is madness. What I propose is nothing other than to grasp the pendulum itself and set it to rest in the center, where it moves about no more. The center of the pendulum’s swing is the only correct solution to the overall equation, and is the natural attractor to which it inevitably gravitates. This is the only balanced condition, for balance is not achieved simply because the pendulum spends an equal amount of time on either side of its swing. Indeed, every moment the pendulum is swinging at all is a moment where humanity is subjected to an unbalanced and at least partly barbaric regime of philosophy and government.

And so if we are to make this dream a reality, we cannot go about wielding power in any way meant to ‘correct’ for any excesses of the past. And likewise, we cannot seek to settle any scores or ‘injustices’ we may have suffered in our own personal histories. Our focus must be entirely upon the most optimal mode of human organization, regardless of the imbalances that have existed in the past. Adult women are to be treated as full partners in society not because they were previously oppressed, but because there is simply no rational reason to exclude them. But we should also see that there are no programs or policies that promote women so as to make up for past harm. This would simply re-swing the pendulum the other way. Blacks should be given full, equivalent inclusion into our society not because their ancestors were enslaved, but because there is no rational reason to exclude them. But here too, neither ‘Affirmative Action’ nor reparations are correct. Swinging the pendulum the other way doesn’t fix anything. It just makes new injustices and problems that future people will have to deal with.

When we consider the masses, we must strike a proper balance within our own minds as well. We cannot think of them as our intellectual equals for they are not. This is an unbalanced, overly-positive estimation of them. But acknowledging the huge chasm between them and us is no justification to either hate or oppress them, thinking them to be nothing more than vermin. This is an unbalanced, overly-negative estimation of them. We must always seek out the most rational answer to all of life’s important questions, and surely the nature of humanity itself is of vital importance for one who seeks to organize or govern humanity. And so it is essential that we find the honest and true answer to the nature of people, marking their true deficiencies while still appreciating their true ability and value.

All of us, we and they, are all human, even if indeed we can be thought of as a slightly different species. And all humans are born with a unique collection of attributes on the spectrum of life. They excel in ways that we flounder, and we excel in ways they cannot even fathom, yet are crucially important to all of humanity. Here too, balance must be reached. And since they are incapable of seeing the whole picture, and thereby seeing the balanced state; it is up to those of us with a greater perception of the totality to set in motion a process where balance is achieved. Until that day, humanity will suffer and continue to head down that road to oblivion.

And so, getting back to our discussion of the mental modes of the masses, we can see that there is no actual debate about controversial issues among the masses. The two sides of any issue will simply go on firing salvos of canned responses and slogans at each other that only elicit a reflexive counterattack of another such salvo back to the first. They view the mere mention of an opposing viewpoint as a hostile act requiring a counterattack, and don’t actually consider the actual content of the ideas expressed to them, for this would cause them to be uncertain even if just for a moment.[8] They don’t really evaluate the idea for its possible merits because they have already thought out the issue and decided and are pleasantly certain. Instead, they simply listen for telltale words and phrases that identify the speaker either as a friend or foe without actually hearing what is being said.

“The Partisan, when he is engaged in dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince the hearers of his own assertions.”

- Plato


According to Dr. Albert Mahrabian of UCLA, people draw data from a conversation according to these proportions:
This validates much of what I have been saying to you about the masses, and should make my claims appear less extreme. The people truly don’t listen and scarcely can be thought of even as thinking as we understand it. Some 93% of their mental activity is spent upon factors that only slightly represent and describe all of the data you are communicating to them through your words. These factors only describe your overall emotional state about what you are speaking about, and say nothing about the specifics of what you are saying. The masses focus upon the non-data elements of your speech so as to classify you, not understand you.

This would mean that communication, itself, is a totally different thing to them than it is to us. For us, we communicate much as one computer sends bytes of data to another, and we seek to choose our words carefully so that the full bit-resolution of our ideas is faithfully transmitted. Once this is accomplished, we add the nonverbal elements to fully flesh out our communication with a more vibrant emotional context to accompany the data we are sending.

For the masses, communication is usually only a stylized ritual meant to identify friends and foes, and to strengthen the bonds of community between people – not transmit data! And so when you start sending data to them through your conversations, they look at you as if you were strange since they really have no clue about what you are seeking to do. Their confusion quickly turns to irritation, and they then proceed to think of you as weird or dumb. Or, because only bosses, teachers, and overlords of all kinds send data/commands to them; they immediately think you are trying to wield power over them simply because your communication includes data.

Try an experiment where you intentionally don’t send any real distinct data in a conversation – only seek to show nonverbal signals through lightweight banter that you are a ‘friend’. I promise that the conversation will go much better than one where you try to actually communicate as you and I understand it. And paradoxically, the better you get at doing this, the smarter the common people will think you are!

But if you try to explain any nuanced perspective on a controversial issue to them, carefully laying out the reasons for your inclusion of different logical aspects from opposing sides of the debate; the common person will look at you in the most utterly perplexed way. Not only did they not actually understand any of the complex interplay of reason you presented, but by your inclusion of ideas and phrases from opposite camps they became very unsure whether you are friend or foe, which is the only intellectual activity they were concerned with while you were speaking. They were trying to classify you while you were speaking, not evaluate any of the ideas you spoke. And so when they hear enough telltale words[9] from you they will classify you and deal with you appropriately. But even if they determine you to be a friend, your lack of clear polarity on the issue makes you appear stupid or weak to them, not smart. This is how potently clear, hyperbolic orators can appear to be so brilliant to those who agree with them.

In any public controversy involving the masses, neither side is truly aware of the potentially logical bases for how the others think, and instead think of the others in hyperbolic and emotional ways. Those opposed to abortion are ‘seeking to take away freedom and impose religion – they are oppressors’. Those who support abortion are ‘heartless monsters who care nothing about the deaths of children – they are murderers’. True debate is impossible in such an environment, especially since neither faction of the masses truly comprehends the other’s argument and is dreadfully afraid of losing their own certainty even for a moment. Even entertaining the possibility that the other side might be right is tantamount to sin for them, as this would require allowing their faith to waver even if just for a moment.[10] And so comprehending the others’ argument would cause them to face both the fear of uncertainty and the guilt of betraying their faith.

Without a comprehension of all the opposing viewpoints and an objective analysis of their varying strengths and weaknesses, no overall wise conclusion about any controversy can be achieved. Because this requires a mind that can form complex relations between ideas, and won’t work in a mind that can only classify things as true/false or right/wrong; the masses are utterly incapable of understanding the totality of any controversial issue and cannot even engage themselves in constructive dialog. It also requires a great degree of intellectual courage to tolerate uncertainty over long periods, and to actively chide your own mind when you perceive yourself slipping into an irrational bias. The masses have neither the brain horsepower to process the problem nor the courage to be open, fair, and uncertain until the optimal answer is found. This makes them highly susceptible to being permanently programmed by propaganda, because once an opinion is strongly planted in their minds and certainty is established, it is almost impossible for their minds to change and they fear and oppose all such attempts. Indeed, the minds of the masses are like concrete – once an idea has been poured and hardened it is impossible for them to change without shattering the entire structure.

The masses are lead about by their emotions and by emotionalism. Emotions such as pride, fear, injustice, and greed feature prominently in any successful appeal to the masses. This means that the wise man who speaks the plain truth will be most likely ignored, or will not create a sufficiently strong emotional pulse within the masses to spark them into action.[11] On the other hand, the demagogue who spews frenzied, emotional half-truths will be hailed as a savior, and will command the complete support of the people. Hitler and Lenin are examples of this phenomenon.

“A lie told often enough becomes the truth”

- Vladimir Lenin


“What luck for rulers that men do not think”

- Adolph Hitler


From this we can see that the masses either do nothing of consequence, riot, or are prone to be lead by a person who will misuse their power. They are disinclined to following wise leaders who are trying to help them, unless such leaders also possess the same skills as demagogues. Even with these skills, the message of the wise leader (if it is to be truthful) will never be as flattering and easy to understand as the message of a Hitler. So even here, we see that the masses are almost completely pre-programmed to follow leaders who seek only to use them, and will use their powers for destruction.

Considering the fact that the masses have this propensity to inadvertently cause destruction, we can see this makes them agents of violence, chaos, and barbarism. This is true even though these people, individually, may actually be nice people and truly want to promote goodness in both their private and public lives.[12]

Adding to this, we can see that the masses, simply by multiplying and using up resources, create friction and competition. This friction and the competition over resources between nations create an adversarial climate and a condition of want and scarcity. Under such conditions, demagogues flourish and obtain great power. And so we can see that the masses not only empower those people who promote barbarism, but they also create the very problems in the first place that these tyrants promise to rectify.



Proper Leadership Makes the Masses Agents for Civilization

The reader may begin to wonder if I am indeed a misanthrope, given the severity of my condemnation of the masses in the previous paragraphs. But when one considers how these statements are logically founded, even though they may be uncomfortable and troubling in their implications, the path for understanding my intentions becomes clearer. If I truly cared nothing for humanity, I most certainly would not go to the efforts I have in elaborating my observations and philosophy to each of you. I seek the truth, for I believe that philosophic truth always reveals beauty. And even though that beauty may not be immediately visible, and fear and concern may cloud our minds for a while, I have found that it is always there.

These negative characteristics of humanity can cause one to have feelings of disillusionment and dread for our future, and for a time did cast me into confusion and sadness. But with time, I have come to see that this is just the initial phase of shock that one experiences when encountering a truth that has been so completely obscured by propagandists for centuries. As I sought greater understanding, disbelieving that only stupidity and evil are our fate, I have found a more complete and beautiful comprehension and awareness. And though these negative things are indeed true, humanity actually has great value and great hope for the future, even if its value is different from what we have been led to believe. When we expand our thoughts to include both the truthful negatives and the truthful positives, the hidden beauty that I speak of reveals itself to us.

In this case, the beauty to be found is wondrous indeed. It turns out that the common person has the capacity, under the right conditions, of behaving very nobly and with great courage. They can be made to exist as agents that promote civilization. And even though their propensity to barbarism never goes away, with correct leadership this can be minimized and kept under control. By simply putting truly qualified people into the leadership who promote a rational philosophy and government, the pendulum can be stopped and balance can finally be achieved for all our people.

A fine example of the masses’ capacity for civility is the conduct of the soldiers of the various fighting nations of World War Two.[13] Common men from around the globe, pitted against each other in combat, had many occasions for admirable courage and nobility. The Americans at Normandy, the Germans conquest of France, the British at Tobruk, Soviets at Stalingrad, and Japanese at Pearl Harbor each showed the tremendous potential and potency that the average man possesses. Now this is not to say that war is a civilized thing, even though sometimes it is (defending your home is always civilized), or than the masses are only ‘good’ when they are soldiers. Instead of focusing on these elements of the example, let us instead look at how these fighting men were shaped into instruments of such discipline and potency. Let us look at their women and families back at home, conducting themselves with equal determination and power in their support of their fighting men.

If we could find a way to get such focused, noble behavior out of the masses during times of peace, imagine what wonders humanity could accomplish and how mighty our species would become! Adopting a more martial mode among the masses is beneficial in times of war and peace, and has even been seen as a prerequisite for freedom among those most ardent champions of civil liberties and the rights of man.

“Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.”

- Thomas Jefferson


Even though it is impracticable to strictly fulfill these words in today’s world, we can still adopt a disciplined, pseudo-military mindset that accomplishes the spirit of these ideals. And in this way the masses can be governed in such a manner as to make their power focused upon labors for good, and that enriches and benefits their lives too. They can be lead in such a way that makes them feel trust and respect for their leader, and to feel genuine warmth for them as for an honorable father or potently protective mother. This is accomplished by the leader executing his duties with intelligence and diligence, and thereby proving his people with a service of real value that benefits their lives. As such, it is far different from the love and adulation given to the demagogue, who provides little to the people but who sets himself up as an idol to be worshiped. True leadership always seeks to promote the good, and believes that by doing so the people will be served. It never tolerates appeasing the vanity or insecurity of the leader. The masses can be made into agents for good only when led by those leaders who seek the good, and wield their power in its defense.



The Soldiers’ Mindset Explored

This can be understood by analyzing the mode of existence of the previously mentioned soldiers. When we cast ordinary people into these military hierarchical power structures, we strip away irrelevant objections and conflicts in their minds and force them to focus their whole selves upon those things at which they can excel. This causes them to become more productive, more confident and rightfully proud of themselves and their abilities, and less argumentative and agitated about those who lead them and their right to do so. They are happier, and inhabit a world where respect and cooperation are more plentiful.

When a common man is a soldier, he is governed by his Commanding Officer (CO). He does not get to choose who will lead him. He is not told that he is equal to his leader or that he is just as valuable. His CO is the master of his life because this officer is deemed to be a smarter man from a more capable class of people, not a simple man from the masses like he is.[14]

In time, when the soldier sees that his CO does indeed know what he is doing and commands in a way that keeps the soldiers mostly unhurt and mostly winning the battles; the soldier completely acknowledges the right of his CO to lead him and feels a great respect and warmth for him. He no longer feels that he is serving a tyrant who has no right to rule him. On the contrary, the soldier is quite glad that the officer is there to lead him to safety and victory. The soldier is quite aware the he himself has no idea how to do the officer’s job, nor does he feel comfortable with the prospect of telling all the other men around him what they should do in these daily life-and-death situations.

All that the soldier really wants is to be lead by a man who knows what he is doing, cares about the welfare of his men, and who inspires everybody around both with his words of encouragement and with his prowess in defeating the enemy. The good decisions that the CO makes, and the success this provides everybody, are far more important to the soldiers than being asked for their input in what the unit should do next.

This mindset is also the exact way in which common people think about their government when they are not fed lies and flattery by those who seek to use them. This was the basic expectations of the masses for all of human history up until the time when things began to change in the 18th Century. The American, French, and Russian Revolutions all undermined this perception to increasing degrees. But the greatest blow to this realistic perception among the masses was done by the hippie counter-culture movement of the 1960’s, where narcissism, anarchy, and flattery ran rampant throughout the culture.

Let us analyze this soldier’s mindset in greater detail:

The soldier does not get to choose who will lead him

By removing the question of power and who should have it from his mind, and simply acknowledging the power structure as it exists as an immutable fact; the soldier now can exert his efforts entirely upon doing his job and accomplishing the mission of the entire unit. The common soldier most likely has neither the intellectual capacity nor the exposure to the wider world to come to any correct conclusions about who should wield power, why they should have it, how they should share it, for how long they should have it, and the proper limits to be placed upon it. Also, since he is lacking these perceptive abilities he will probably not understand the reasons for all the orders given to him nor will he always want to follow them. The only way to ensure his compliance is to completely remove any controversy in his mind about power and any possibility of his objections or reticence transforming into actual policy.

Instead of this being a bad thing, it is actually quite a liberating thing. This allows the soldier to focus his thoughts upon those important elements for which he does possess a high degree of skill or even genius, while simultaneously stripping away his ability to diffuse his efforts upon thoughts and decisions for which he cannot contribute any useful input. This allows him to be entirely focused upon that which he excels, which is a profoundly pleasant emotional experience. Just as a surfer feels riding a 15-footer, or the musician feels in the midst of an amazingly flowing jam with other musicians; the soldier is not lobotomized by this condition of restricted thinking. Instead, he is empowered and invigorated by the focused way in which his life falls entirely within the groove of that which he is good at, instead of afflicted by the intrusion of jangling thoughts for which he has no similar confidence or competence.

The soldier is not told that he is equal to his leader or just as valuable

As part of accepting the power structure, it is important for the common soldier to be told the truth about things which he has likely known all his life. Other people out there are smarter than he is, or come from more elevated, complex, and civilized stations in society than him. Like all the other people in his neighborhood, he sometimes laughs at these people for their silly refined ways or for their lack of being ‘real people’ like he is. He and his friends consider themselves stronger and living a more vibrant existence than these haughty people trapped in passionless bodies in their overly-clean, boring communities.

But deep down, he knows the truth. These people are usually smarter than him and are comfortable in a place and society that has more complex behaviors and confusing options. They know many things that he does not, nor would even think about. These people are born and taught to rule, though he can still laugh at them from time to time. He might fantasize about somebody from his neighborhood taking the top leadership spot, yet retaining his old ‘street’ habits and behaviors. He would like that very much for a while, and would feel ecstatic at that possibility. But in time, after the party fades, he knows that nobody like him is truly up to that job for the long run. Eventually, the leader’s old habits and behaviors wouldn’t look cool and refreshingly real anymore. Eventually, he would just look incompetent, dangerous, and an embarrassment to the neighborhood.

So the soldier really does understand. These higher people are born and taught to rule, and that is why it is just that they are ruling over him and his buddies now.

When the leader shows he is competent, distrust is replaced by great warmth and respect

Is there anybody in Patton’s 3rd Army who doesn’t feel great pride in being part of their relief of the 101st Airborne, encircled in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge? Do any of these men think that they could have done it so well or quickly without the leadership of Lieutenant General Patton? These men accomplished an amazing feat for such a large army, turning their entire force 90 degrees in the face of the enemy and quickly moving to engage the foe on another section of the front, in winter. I am sure that every man in the 3rd Army feels proud of their achievement, and feels glad to have been led by their volcanic and salty Old Man.

When the leader demonstrates his competency to the soldiers, he utterly proves his right to lead them and all qualms and misgivings evaporate. Because the soldiers want to be part of a winning team, and want to have a reasonably good chance of surviving combat, they absolutely love being led by a good leader and feel a deep respect for him. Their worst nightmare, having to follow an inept or self-serving officer, is destroyed by the presence of this good CO. And so his presence calms their worst fears and boosts their morale. Because of these things, the soldiers trust him and will follow him virtually anywhere, no matter how dangerous the fight or how unclear the reasons are for the mission itself. This is the condition necessary for people to accomplish great things whether in times of war or peace.

The remaining elements of our discussion proceed from these three. The soldier knows that he does not have the ability to do the CO’s job, and isn’t comfortable suddenly being in a position where he is yelling orders at all his buddies. He doesn’t really trust anybody like him or his buddies to take command; it needs to be a different kind of man like the officers usually (hopefully) are. That is ok though because he doesn’t really care who commands as long as they keep the unit on the path to victory and don’t get people unnecessarily hurt. A long as he and his buddies aren’t sent on stupid chancy missions, or lose men through the CO’s fearful inaction in the face of new dangers; he has no problems being led by this man. When the CO also shows personal courage and quick thinking that saves his men and wins the day when the outcome was not clear; the soldier will thenceforth obey him and care about him like he was his second father or big brother.[15]

Note that this hold that the CO has over his men is not a bond of slavery. It is a bond of respect, love, and cooperation that empowers them all. The soldier feels voluntarily cooperative with his CO because he respects him and doesn’t want to let him or his buddies down. This is true even though the CO does possess the full authority of the government and can have any man under his command imprisoned or executed for serious offences. Also, he holds the lives of the men in his hands each day as he conducts the operations of his unit.

By having nearly absolute power over his men, the CO is free to lead them in a way where he need not reinforce his power through punitive or demeaning demonstrations of superiority.

As long as the soldiers always acknowledge his power over them, he never has to take any steps to reinforce that power. This allows both the Leader and the Led to stop contending with each other and actually get down to cooperating on achieving the victory they both need. A symbiotic relationship is established that allows both to fully employ those abilities they excel at. This is an important fact for leaders to understand:

A leader who conducts himself in a positive and non-demeaning manner and who does not fear losing his control, almost as if he assumes an air of invulnerability and an impossibility of others not following him; will wield power much more forcefully and completely than a leader who is always making brutal demonstrations of his power upon his people to ‘keep them in line’. People will give 100% to a leader they respect and feel close to; they will give no more than a grudging 90% to a leader they only fear.



The Brain and the Brawn: Two Essential Halves of a Complete Humanity

These are the conditions that make life wonderful, when everybody knows their place and gets respect for excellence within their place. The Brain has need of the Brawn or nothing would ever get done, and vice versa as well. And though we can find reasons to say that the Brain is superior to the Brawn, yet this is not nearly as clear or as total as one might think. An army cannot function with every common soldier being a Brain. Discipline will never hold up and there would be endless questioning of the intentions and competency of the Commander, since every Private in the army is capable of being that Commander.

People of the Brain class spend their lives questioning everything constantly, and find it hard to ever just simply follow a leader. This is well so, for that is their exact function in society: To question, analyze, and constantly look outward to see the right path to take. But these tendencies make them poorer followers and poorer soldiers unless leading. Those from the class of Brawn will perform superiorly here, and will even exercise more intellectual prowess at the soldier’s job than those of the Brain. This is because their entire intellectual focus is aimed inward, at the small scale details immediately around them.

So in a very real way, it can be said that the Brawn has its own limited type of intellectual prowess that can be superior to the Brain. The difference is that their focus is inward and immediate, unlike the Brain’s being outward and vast. This is often expressed as ‘Common Sense’, which is just another way of describing that short-range, immediate focus. A common side effect of high intelligence is a lack of this ‘Common Sense’, which isn’t really a lack so much as just a different mental focus. The highly intelligent simply focus their attention upon other practical considerations that, due to their complexity, abstractness, or lack of immediacy, are invisible to others.

It should be readily apparent to the reader that both types of thinking and activity (Brain and Brawn) are essential to any serious and worthwhile enterprise. Indeed, the strengths of each complement the weaknesses of the other. Just as with any complete union, the whole becomes far more than the sum of the two parts. Male and female, light and dark, energy and matter; as with these, the Brain and the Brawn are each completed by the other.

So let us embrace the reality of our duality without fear or shame. Most of humanity are of the Brawn, and they should have full honor in so being. Most of the work to be done upon our planet is of this kind, and it cannot be considered less important to our overall success. As long as they embrace that which they are and express excellence within their own sphere, can anyone say other than this is admirable and essential to humanity? Let them not rail against the Brain, pretending not to need it, for without the Brain, their work is scattered and ineffectual.[16] And let them not strive to be that which they are not. Let them take glory in that which makes them shine, not grumble about honors given to the Brain for abilities they truly lack. Let us no longer fall prey to the flattery of demagogues and socialists, telling the masses that we are all equal. We are not, nor should we want to be. Is there any Master Sergeant who feels ashamed that he is not a General? I think not! They each are masters within their own worlds and should feel rightly proud of themselves as such.



Leadership Required for Civilized Life

So bringing this all together, we have seen how anarchy cannot exist perpetually and how it promotes barbarism. This means that the only civilized state for humanity is government. But for government to be a benefit to the people, it must be run by those who are suited to lead: those of the Brain. Additionally, we must acknowledge the duality of humanity and become proud of it. Without this, we will always argue about who should lead, and since the Brawn outnumber the Brain so much it is very likely that they will select their leaders from their own midst. These people will never be able to be as effective as those of the Brain because they are not innately suited for this duty, and truly don’t know how or what to do.

We must adopt a pseudo-military mindset to bring a greater truthfulness to our cultural ideals. Some may wonder why an organizational form utilized for war is best for peacetime. The formal nature of this structure can seem a bit extreme for anything less serious than war. But is not peace just as serious a thing as war? Shall we be sober-minded only when catastrophe strikes, or should we be sober-minded normally so as to prevent falling into the catastrophe? Are we to take life seriously only when events degrade to the point where widespread violence is thrust upon us?

Clearly, this is not a reasonable or responsible way to run our affairs and our planet. We must utilize a more continuously diligent mindset if we are to become strong enough to ensure our survival and to advance our civilization. We should also understand that the majority of human suffering upon our world is caused by the inefficient way that we run our world and by the excesses of governments that are empowered by the false philosophies that abound. All that I am truly suggesting is that the widespread lies and flattery perpetually broadcast to the masses should stop, and that a more truthful and sober message be sent out instead. This can hardly be seen as cruelly limiting their expression or devaluing them. It is inherently liberating to know the truth.

People are formed, by nature and by nurture, into two distinct classes. Those of the Brain are gifted with superlative rational intellectual abilities and/or with superlative empathic/artistic abilities. The commonality of these two is their capacity for complex abstract mental activity, outward focus beyond the mundane, imagination, capacity for independent creation, and a disinclination for violence due to an innate revulsion to barbarism. These people also will often be highly independently courageous so as to be agents to oppose barbarism, and will not go down without a fight when their neighbors around them silently accede to a new evil overcoming them.

Those of the Brawn are more intellectually and aesthetically simple, and are generally proud of their simplicity. These are the people whose own genius is focused entirely upon matters close at hand. These matters can be quite important indeed, for they include such things as growing or preparing food for the world, building homes for us to live in, paving and policing our streets, and similar matters. Within their own limited intellectual sphere, their intelligence and skill is quite often superior to those of the Brain who attempt these tasks. These people are superior survivors to those of the Brain, and are often more durable than those whose perception and sensitivities are more acute and attuned to the world and suffering around them. They are much more inclined to go with the flow around them, which is essential in times when the flow is going the right way.

What I have described here is a simple delineation between what I consider Humanity’s Officer Class and Enlisted Class. This is a necessarily simplistic model, and there are people who possess various degrees of both attributes. But overall, I believe that this categorization reflects a basic truth that has been visible throughout all of human history, and which we have only recently stopped believing as obviously true. Propose these classes to virtually anybody prior to 1965 (before counterculture times) and you are likely to get more agreement than disagreement. The only difference in times past is that those of the officer class were automatically considered to be those who were wealthy, which is not exactly the same as my proposal for who should lead.

Notwithstanding this difference, I believe that the astute reader can readily see that throughout history there has always been a dichotomy among the people. Indeed, history itself is to a great extent the narrative of the actions of individuals’ impacts upon the masses, not the spontaneous actions of the masses themselves.

In summation, I would like everybody to clearly see that since we must have government, we need to create the proper conditions for that government to fulfill its mandate: To protect and organize the people so that they may have liberty within a civilized world, but not have the liberty to act according to their baser inclinations if those actions oppose civilization. This is accomplished by putting innately qualified people into the leadership while excluding those who are not suited for this duty. This also means that all the people should see the dichotomy that exists within humanity and not only accept it, but embrace it. There is no dishonor in not being a leader. And as I see it, those people I described as of the Brain are by far the best qualified people to lead us into a peaceful and prosperous future, the true fulfillment of the Will of the People. This acceptance of Officer and Enlisted, Brain and Brawn, and a cooperative embracing of it, is the full extent of what I mean by humanity adopting a pseudo-military mindset.



A Call for Leadership – Awakening My Modest Readers

Noble Reader, we must always remember that the Voice of the People selects leaders from their midst who do not pursue nor accomplish the true Will of the People: For all to perpetually prosper in peace.[17] The people have no significant or justifiable desires of their government beyond this. Promoting the cause of civilization also serves the people, even though they may not overtly express a desire for it, by preserving a noble manner of human conduct that the people practice and enjoy to varying degrees of accomplishment, and which elevates the aesthetics of their environment. Civilization also provides the means whereby those born into more humble circumstances, who are innately gifted and attuned to the arts and sciences, may express their talents and eventually take their rightful place within the ruling class as a true equal.[18]

And so those of us who sincerely care about the people must summon the courage to stand for that which is right. We must steadfastly and unabashedly ignore the ephemeral Voice of the People and instead obey the perpetual Will of the People, for these are rarely in agreement, and the people’s true needs are far more important than those things that they say or think they need from day to day. Remember how easily their thoughts and words are controlled by the propaganda of demagogues seeking power, so we must endure their verbal derision for a time while we act to promote their true interests within the government. And once their needs start becoming increasingly met by the fruits of good leadership, the Voice of the People will start to acclaim our labors and all controversy will evaporate.

While tyrants can say these same words, and the lessons of history show that this has usually been the case, we cannot fault the logic of these conclusions for it is sound. Just because power has been mostly used for evil in no way proves that power itself is evil. Indeed, powerlessness is the true evil because it is either anarchy or slavery. So we must come to see that the only problem with the historical misuse of power has been the character and intentions of the individuals who have possessed it – not the concentration and wielding of power itself.

“He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the North Pole star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

- Confucius


Since we cannot abolish power, my proposal is that we take more strenuous and rational efforts to see that those who possess it will use it for good. And those who will use it for good are you gentle people of the Brain who have the intelligence to figure out what is best to do and the inborn aversion to barbarism to keep you true to the common good.

“Power that comes from service faithfully rendered ennobles.”

- Mohandas Gandhi


We should not stand idly by in the shadows, fearful to impolitely intrude upon the lives and opinions of so many of our fellow citizens. We should not fear becoming a tyrant, for power given to those with clean hearts and sharp minds only protects the people. Indeed, if we do not control the people, other more venal and mesmerizing people out there will gladly do so in our absence. The people will inevitably be controlled by someone, and so it is our duty to see that no evil befalls our sisters and brothers if we can prevent that evil by our action. Failing to act out of modestly or distaste for power is not an option when we consider the stakes. The future of humanity is at stake. The remembrance and preservation of all human nobility is at stake. We hold in our hands the choice between joy and pain for untold millions of people. We cannot shirk our duty, even though most of us would prefer a quieter life of privacy and simplicity. And though we shall oftentimes suffer deeply for this unwelcome burden we assume, those of us who are born with the capacity to serve are nevertheless compelled by honor to serve the people no matter the cost.

It is unimportant whether I am included in this process or even if it occurs during my lifetime, other than the suffering the people will endure by our delay. This is not about me and it is also not about you. It is about humanity. It is sufficient for me just to see that good eventually prevails, and that power is finally given a proper home upon this planet.[19]

If you were born with the capacity to understand my words, and have lived your life in the pursuit of your own curiosity, you are honor bound to fulfill your obligations to humanity by serving it as you were born to do. You were born to lead, because we can trust that your leadership is neither selfish nor stupid, even though you may never have thought of yourself thus. Your own innocence validates my words. You are trustworthy. You will indeed serve the Will of the People, for you care nothing for pomp or acclaim. But if you stand idle due to fear or doubt, a demagogue will gladly rule in your stead. And when that happens, destruction follows swiftly.

“The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.”

- Ayn Rand


“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

- Plato


And when evil has taken hold of the land, sanity itself becomes a crime:

“In the country of the insane, the integrated man doesn’t become king. He gets lynched.”

- Aldous Huxley


Let us do all we can to be champions of the people, and of civilization. Let us set logic and intelligence firmly in command of the powers of our world. And to accomplish this we need to create a society and government that is cast in a similar form as the soldier’s mindset we have described. This mindset is the only way that we can ensure a symbiotic relationship between the Brain and the Brawn, and thereby, the only way that the full power of humanity can be brought to bear while simultaneously respecting and benefiting every member of society.

Leadership is essential to all life. We must have leaders if we are to have government and civilization. No species that lives in groups can prosper without them. And when the leaders fail in their duties, those whom they lead can suffer enormously. Leadership is far too serious a matter to be put into the hands of anyone not talented at it, and popularity among the masses is never solely sufficiently indicative of that talent. Popularity is never a valid litmus test for leadership, at least until the leader has had time to earn the respect of the masses by his performance.

“Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain than the virtuous.”

- Sir Francis Bacon


We cannot continue to wander through time, led about by people chosen either by lottery or by fanatical crowds or by brute force. Though you may be tired, and have no aspirations for power and fame, I am asking you to drive the bus because it is obvious that most of the others here are too immature, too blind, or too intoxicated to safely do so. We need a good driver even if you don’t particularly enjoy driving. Look upon this as a service to those around you, a kind of ‘designated driver’ if you will, and not the pretensions of a vain fool.

Let us give the driver’s seat only to those who are better drivers than passengers; those who are perceptive and responsible. And let us not forget that the successful completion of our journey is more important than letting each of us take turns driving the bus around in circles.



ENDNOTES

[1] This is experts in leadership and proper use of power, NOT experts in politics. These are completely different types of people. We don’t have many of these people in our government because democracy requires far more political skill of its leaders than actual leadership skill.
[2] Feminists need to understand that every advance in the status and opportunities for women has occurred because of the civility of men, just as much as because of women’s efforts. Since men possess the primal brute power of control over women, no civilized empowerment of women could occur without their approval. This is one of the reasons anarchy is so horrible, and civilization (and therefore, government) is essential for noble human life.
[3] Since nobody is guarding military bases and arms depots anymore, these gangs/tribes will easily be able to get whatever weapons they want, including tanks and combat aircraft. This war will not be a simple turf battle using switchblades and handguns; it will escalate with increasing firepower until it becomes a true full-scale military conflict.
[4] This will occur even if this is a state of peaceful anarchy where everybody is happy.
[5] This is how organized crime begins and why it flourishes.

[6] This myth is retold to every generation by the Socialists and Democrats to further their agenda. By flattering the masses, telling them that they are greater than they truly are, they whip up support for their own political agenda. This is nothing more than another instance of the process described in ‘Goldstein’s Book’ in Orwell’s 1984 where the ‘Middle’ seeks to obtain the help of the ‘Low’ in overthrowing the ‘High’, by promising them all types of ‘Social Justice’. Once the revolution is accomplished, the ‘Middle’ (who have become the New ‘High’) simply thrust the ‘Low’ back down again to where they were before.
[7] The masses cannot lead themselves because leadership is not an ability that is ubiquitous within humanity. Only those who posses this capacity can become leaders, and in doing so, thereby differentiate themselves from the masses who are led.
[8] This is true also of those who believe in tolerance and listening to all viewpoints. As soon as somebody suggests that one view of issue may be superior to others, this apparent lack of ‘broadmindedness’ causes them to emotionally react against one who says so without even considering the possible logical merits of this conclusion. Thus, those who promote a policy of broadminded inclusion of all opinions, believing that no one single opinion is or can be definitively superior to the rest, are actually paradoxically utterly inflexible and totally certain that no actual answers may be found to any question – only a myriad different theories of such an answer without any way to pick the superior one. These people are certain that uncertainty is the only correct outcome of any question, and are utterly intolerant of anybody who suggests that one answer is superior over the others proposed. This is part of the flaws of modern liberalism. In an attempt to be intelligent by listening to all the various opinions and data from many sources, they fail to see that the only reason to ask any question is to find a single, final answer to it. But they are repulsed at the idea of finding such a final answer since it requires one to exclude all the other divergent theories about the topic and pick (narrow-mindedly) a single superior view. To liberals, asking a question and talking about it are far superior to actually logically working out the correct answer. To them, there are no final answers to questions, and the people who say otherwise are automatically viewed to be stupid, bigoted, and close-minded. Thus, liberalism’s failure to follow a logical process that leads to definitive answers, and tendency to get constantly fixated upon the asking of the question, makes it a fundamentally unintelligent and ultimately pointless mode of thought. What’s the point of asking a question if you are unwilling to find and then believe the answer?
[9] That’s right, you can imagine them listening to you like in a Charlie Brown cartoon where the kids are hearing their teacher go ‘Wah wah wah, wa wah wa wah wah…’ If you were talking about race relations, for example, they would hear ‘wah wah affirmative action wah wa wa wah wah unfair wah wa reverse racism wah wah wa wha’ and then by your body language and facial expression determine if you are an opponent of Affirmative Action. This would make you either a friend or a foe to them, and they would have no further understanding of any of the reasons you gave for your opinion, nor would they care.
[10] This is true also of those who oppose religion. Faith is not exclusively religious – an Atheist has faith that there is no God. Socialists and Capitalists each have faith that their system is superior.
[11] This is true especially is the truth is unflattering, complicated, or involves thinking more than action.
[12] This kind of duality in reality is found throughout many issues and controversies. I have found that most wise conclusions are not entirely one extreme view or the other, nor a compromise between the two. Instead, aspects of both extremes, undiluted but logically pruned, combine to create a more wise totality of understanding. In this way, the common man or woman can be both an agent of destruction and barbarism, and also a wonderful person with many admirable qualities. Such is the complexity of life.
[13] Please do not get sidetracked here, bringing to mind atrocities of the SS, Japanese treatment of prisoners, Soviets’ rape of Berlin, and the like. I am focusing on an empowered mode of existence for the masses which can be used for good or evil, depending on the leadership.
[14] Note that there is nothing dishonorable about being a simple man from the masses at all. If this man was not worthy of any respect or considered valuable in any way, would the nation take the time to train him and put a weapon in his hand? But the simple man needs to be told the truth and to believe that which is obvious to him: Other men (officers) are different from him, probably smarter than him, and have lived their lives inhabiting a place in society where they can see the world more completely and clearly. Both kinds of men have their own value and both are needed for victory.
[15] The battle rages and fearful confusion sets in among the men – what shall they do next? Just as they are about to break, their officer appears in their midst and with a clear, strong voice says “Follow Me!” to the frightened men around him. He runs forward towards the fight, and the men take courage and follow behind him in formations that have become instinctual to them. Though the enemy is shooting at them, and conditions are far from secure, the officer seems unconcerned by this danger to himself and only concerns himself with encouraging his men. His men feel the effects of this leadership and compose themselves, becoming fighting soldiers again instead of frightened men. The officer pauses their advance and gives orders to the separate squads, clearly and quickly defining every man’s job and the objective of the battle. Once the men are in position, the officer gives the order and the attack is begun, with himself leading the main body of his men and yet still observing the progress of the others on the flanks. With the leadership of this officer, and the skill and courage of his fighting men, the battle is won and the men are actually safer than had they broken and ran in the face of the enemy. The Brain and the Brawn, working together with respect and unity, can accomplish anything. Without each other, they can accomplish nothing.
[16] Let them not pretend that it doesn’t exist either! Many people say things like “IQ doesn’t matter” in an attempt to deny that which they lack.
[17] Notice that ‘perpetually’ by definition means perpetually sustainably and so puts certain restraints upon what the people can and cannot do beyond their own comprehension of the situation. And also ‘peace’ does not mean pacifism, since this is attitude is a denial of the intrinsically competitive nature of life itself. The peace I promote is achieved by restructuring the powers of our world into a new form which opposes barbarism, and by putting truly qualified leaders into power. The Chapter on Sophiarchy describes these plans in full detail.
[18] Having Brain and Brawn classes separated and defined as I have in no way is meant to prejudicially exclude brilliant people who happen to be born among the Brawn. Those gifted with exceptional intelligence and ability among the Brawn who can learn to use their gifts according to the ethics and guidelines regulating those of the Brain shall be welcome to demonstrate their competency and, upon successful completion of such application and demonstration, shall be deemed fully qualified for Brain duties and reclassified as such. People will contribute more to humanity and live lives of greater happiness and meaning if they are allowed to work at a job that utilizes their natural gifts. It would be inhumane and inefficient of us to blindly exclude everyone born within the Brawn from Brain classification when we certainly should expect to find many singularly brilliant and talented people among them.
[19] How shall we do this? Let us first discuss the need to do so, instead of discussing how. I shall provide more details of how in subsequent chapters. It is sufficient for now for us to acknowledge the need for noble and effective leadership without getting bogged down in the details.