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.