The Four Basic Political Subjects

Underneath all the talk about politics today lies a great confusion. People talk about what politics is supposed to achieve, but they have generally forgotten who it’s supposed to achieve it for. For our ancestors, the political subject was obvious, but for us it is not. This essay explains.

The first and original political subject was the tribe. In the biological past, humans had no conception of nations or kingdoms. One was born into a tribe of roughly 50-150 people, and these people were your blood kin. As such, their interests were your interests, in almost every case.

Every member of the tribe was in the ingroup, and everyone not in the tribe was in the outgroup. This made politics very simple. If you encountered a stranger, they were the enemy, and it was acceptable to do anything to that stranger if it furthered the interests of the tribe. This tribal mentality still exists today, only it has become much weaker than it used to be (in most cases).

The second political subject is the state. This came into being when civilisation did. With the advent of civilisation, it was possible to have two strangers share the same space without chimping out and attacking each other. This meant that it was possible to have towns and cities made up of people from different tribes, perhaps even competing ones.

With the advent of towns and cities, it was necessary to have an administrator class that dealt with any disagreements that arose. The bringing together of different tribes meant competing schedules of moral values. These administrators, employed to smooth over differences between tribes, became the state. Their different approaches for settling quarrels became ideologies.

One way of dealing with the tensions created by identification with the tribe was to identify with the state instead. In practice, this is much the same as identifying with an ideology. Thus, a judge who was from a particular tribe would not necessarily rule in favour of his own tribesman. This was a radical new way of thinking when compared to the tribal solidarity model. It required a new political subject.

Thinking in terms of the state provided this new subject. If people were able to abandon their previous allegiances to their tribes, they could band together and build a mighty state that challenged the world, such as Rome or America. The memetic hybrid vigour brought about by multiple tribes all agreeing to work together under a state banner proved to be immensely powerful.

Not every civilisation succeeded in making this transition, however. If a state was not capable of creating an egregore powerful enough to persuade people to abandon their tribal allegiances, the divided loyalties caused by those remaining allegiances would pull the state apart from the inside. Corruption reigns in every state where tribal allegiances continue to hold sway.

The third political subject is the individual. This political subject arose as a way of settling firstly the tensions between those who identified with the tribe and those who identified with the state, and secondly the tensions between those who identified with different states or ideologies. In the world of 2020, the individual is the default political subject.

The logic is that, by identifying with the individual ego, people would no longer be drawn into conflict on account of competing tribal or ideological loyalties. Only caring about oneself might seem selfish and egotistical, but it has the bonus effect of settling tensions between groups. If people only care about the next hit, they will not take collective action.

It is true that what Adam Curtis called the Century of the Self led to a great peace. In recent decades, Hitlers and Stalins have been impossible on account of that no-one would follow them. Collective efforts demand individual sacrifices, and people who identify with the individual ego will not make them. However, this identification brings its own problems.

The fourth political subject is the consciousness itself.

The limitations of identifying with the individual ego are now obvious. Although doing so was a logical move forwards from the horrors of state-worship, the human animal is still fundamentally a social one, and it has social needs. Identifying with the individual ego might make warfare between nations less likely, but it sharply increases the emotional and spiritual suffering of the people, who find that their lives no longer have any meaning.

Some philosophers, like Alexandr Dugin, have suggested a return to Dasein as the basic political subject (Dugin frequently refers to Heidegger’s Dasein in The Fourth Political Theory). This is much the same thing as having consciousness as the basic political subject. In either case, it solves most of the problems of the first three political subjects.

Identifying with the consciousness allows the best of all worlds. Not only can a person meet their social and spiritual needs through connection to other conscious beings, but they can also do so without necessarily getting set against them because of tribal or ideological loyalties. Identifying with consciousness means that one is automatically allied and opposed to every other person.

There’s one problem with this otherwise elegant solution: most people have never learned to distinguish between consciousness and the contents of consciousness. They don’t know the difference between the True Self and the False Self. As such, most people operate either on the level of crude instinct (and thus tend towards tribalism), the level of conditioned responses (and thus tend towards fetishising the state or an ideology) or on both levels at once (and thus tend towards soulless globohomo consumer whoring).

As is so often the case, it appears that our great challenge is primarily a spiritual challenge. Identification with the consciousness might prevent us from getting drawn into tribal or ideological conflicts, and it might prevent us from getting bogged down in mindless anomie. But it will only be an option for those with the spiritual acumen to meditate and perform self-inquiry.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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Writing Characters Of Mercury

The second-highest element on the spiritual hierarchy is mercury. Being one level higher than silver, mercury is the realm a person enters when they are close to perfection. This is represented by the liquid nature of mercury, which reflects a great intensity of spiritual power. Metaphorically, this liquidity suggests that mercury is close to moving beyond the material.

The ancients considered Mercury to be the Messenger of the Gods. This reflects the fact that mercury is the closest to the divine element of gold. Mercury is the closet planet to the Sun, so the Sun shines on Mercury before it shines on anything else. Characters of mercury ought to be able to instill a sense of awe in the characters made of baser elements.

Like silver, mercury is lustrous. Unlike silver, mercury is a liquid at room temperature. This is why it was once known as quicksilver, or water-silver. Alchemically, this property of being a liquid suggests that silver has been quickened to reach the stage of mercury. It suggests that something extra has been added to mere silver, some invisible energy that has had visible effects, and which has transmuted that silver to a higher state.

This quickening is from where we get the term ‘mercurial’. The term mercurial is used to describe people whose behaviour is hard to predict. There’s a more precise meaning – people whose behaviour is hard to predict because they are more closely attuned to the Will of God than anyone else. The characters of mercury are semidivine.

The characteristic quality of mercury is genuine intelligence in the form of a divine spark. This is where it contrasts with silver. Although a character of silver might have a rudimentary intelligence, perhaps enough to give them an advantage over the characters of baser elements, characters of mercury are more intelligent still. They are easily able to perceive the weaknesses of characters of silver, let alone the lesser elements.

Characters of mercury are more intelligent than the others, but they are not always more humble. Although they can be megalomaniacal, they are not prone to the Conceit of Silver, on account of that they are too closely attuned to God’s will. A character of mercury will not resent someone greater than themselves, but will rather co-operate with that person as a way of drawing God’s energy into the world. This disinclination to fight presages the frequency of the characters of gold.

Reflecting this humility, characters of mercury have more compassion than characters of baser elements. They are rarely motivated by purely egoic concerns. Rather, they work to end the suffering of others around them, and as such serve as messengers of the gods by expressing the will of the divine.

However, not being perfect, characters of mercury are still vulnerable to any of the lusts, rages and arrogances of the baser elements. They are just much less likely to fall prey to such impulses, and, when they do, they make amends much more readily. As such, they are clearly more noble in nature than most other people, and they tend to get treated as such.

The big danger of the character of mercury is that their ambition can cause great suffering. Although a character of mercury would never torture someone like a character of iron would, and they wouldn’t steal from someone like a character of lead would, they are still capable of causing immense suffering. Alexander was a character of mercury, if anyone was – and his conquests left piles of bodies in their wake.

The example of Alexander mentioned above perhaps best exemplifies the essence of a character of mercury. Being so close to perfection, they are, in a sense, above being judged by normal men. Chararacters made of baser elements have trouble enough understanding characters of silver; characters of mercury are beyond their understanding. To these baser characters, the characters of mercury appear as forces of nature.

Hindu Yogis associate mercury with the third eye chakra. This chakra is itself associated with intuition and foresight. A character of mercury will have great foresight, being able to see into the metaphysical world. This grants them the ability to predict the future and to see into people’s souls. A character of mercury will have powers of perception that the baser elements may not even believe are possible.

These powers of perception distinguish them from characters of silver. Although a character of silver might be able to accumulate a great amount of knowledge and apply it to, for example, building a bridge, this knowledge is limited to knowledge of the physical world and the phenomena in it. The character of mercury can see into the metaphysical world – something that most other characters don’t even believe exists. As such, they are very much the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

The concept of a third eye relating to spiritual awakening gives away the essential nature of the character of mercury, which is someone who is almost enlightened. Although not perfect, their every action will be permeated with this greater illumination – which is precisely what makes them seem mercurial to the baser elements. Because the baser elements cannot see into the metaphysical world, they cannot understand why the characters of mercury make the decisions they do. Characters of mercury can easily appear mad to those of baser elements.

Characters of mercury are the sort of people who set the course of history. They can be found leading kingdoms and empires. A character of mercury is sufficiently impressive that even characters of silver feel awestruck in their presence. As such, they are capable of provoking immense resentment, as did Julius Caesar.

If your story involves a character of mercury, it’s feasible that resentment for them can provide the impetus for the plot. A character of silver might become envious and try to take them down, perhaps employing a character of iron to do so. A character of copper who serves as a priest, resenting the influence that a character of mercury has among the townsfolk, might assemble a mob to drive them out of town.

If not in politics, characters of mercury can be great artists or scientists. Here they distinguish themselves from characters of silver as genius distinguishes itself from mere brilliance. The characters of silver may be exceptionally skilled at applying methods and techniques to create a masterpiece, but only the characters of mercury have the power to create something truly original.

A modern representation of a character of mercury is William Shakespeare in the film Shakespeare in Love, or John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Such characters clearly stand out from those around them, even if those around them are of silver or copper.

It’s very tempting to have a character of mercury as the protagonist of your story. Being genuinely intelligent, it’s easy to write a story in which they overcome the challenges placed before them. However, being already of the second-highest element, this leaves little room for the character to develop over the course of your story.

If a character of mercury serves as a minor character, it may be to enlighten your protagonist. Your protagonist might work in their service, or they might engage the character of mercury to teach them about some important issue. In either case, the character of mercury will likely be fundamental to the plot.

This article is from Viktor Hellman’s The Alchemy of Character Development, the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series. This book will show you how to use alchemy to create deep, realistic and engaging characters for your creative fiction.

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Could We Abolish The Police In New Zealand?

Most people never imagined that, one day, we would seriously discuss the possibility of abolishing the Police in New Zealand. It’s usually just assumed that society would fall back into savagery without a police force to keep order. Yet, here we are. This essay outlines the considerations involved in disbanding the New Zealand Police.

The first thing is to distinguish between what we’re told the Police do, and what they really do.

What we’re told is the Police enforce law and order. The story we’re given is that the Police are another government service, like road construction or defence. It’s paid for out of general taxation like any other government service, and Police officers themselves are selected for the job on the basis of demonstrating a will to serve the people.

We’re told that the Police enforce law and order for the same reason that all other government officials do their jobs: a general will to end the suffering of all citizens. The predation of criminals causes a great deal of harm, especially when it goes unopposed. Thus, the suffering of the citizens can be minimised by raising a Police force to battle criminals.

What the Police really do is protect private property.

The Police originated with the first chieftain to horde more wealth than he could realistically defend himself. In the really old days, this would mean that other people teamed up to take his wealth off him. The civilised way to defend wealth is not to defend it oneself, but to pay gullible sycophants to do it.

Today, the Police protect the investments of alcohol company shareholders by attacking anyone who produces alternatives in the form of cannabis, MDMA, LSD or other substances. They protect the investments of the importers of cheap labour by harassing anyone who speaks out against mass immigration. They protect the investments of those who hold fiat currency by kneeling on the necks of people who try to pass counterfeit bills.

If you have no investments, the Police don’t care about protecting you. If you doubt this, try being working class and reporting a crime against yourself to them. They won’t give a fuck – they’re not there to protect people like you. They’re there to protect the property of those paying their wages from people like you.

The sad reality is that the New Zealand Police are a pack of dogs that the New Zealand ruling classes sic onto their enemies when they want them destroyed. Those enemies don’t have to be causing harm to anyone – they can be peaceful cannabis users or political dissidents. The Police will destroy them anyway because they are not taking orders from the people, but from their rulers.

Most adults understand now that the New Zealand Police, like Police forces everywhere, are waging a war against the people on behalf of their paymasters. The New Zealand Police see the New Zealand people as a common enemy and, as such, co-operate and conspire against them; it’s extremely rare that one Police officer testifies against another in court.

The grim facts about human nature show that if we abolished all peacekeeping and orderkeeping services, society would soon decay into a Lord of the Flies-style permanent chimpout. However, this doesn’t mean that abolishing the Police would lead to such an outcome. It would in the short-term, if we abolished the Police immediately, but with a bit of thought we could simply deprecate them instead.

What would happen if we gradually abolished the private property-protecting force that is the New Zealand Police, and replaced them with some kind of peacekeeping and orderkeeping force that operated with the consent of the people it kept in line? A community police force whose role was to keep peace and order with the consent of the policed?

We could base such a policing model on the example of the Commando used by the Boers in the Boer Wars.

This would involve all of the able-bodied men from a particular community or neighbourhood getting together on occasion to elect officers. Perhaps for every hundred able-bodied men, ten officers are elected, and these officers choose a sergeant from among themselves.

This sergeant would then be tasked with enforcing peace and order. His rights and responsibilities would be little different to that of a regular Police constable, but with one major difference. The sergeant would serve at the pleasure of his fellow officers for the sake of the community, and could be dismissed at any time by those officers. This would be very different to today’s model, where he serves at the pleasure of the ruling class for the sake of the ruling class.

As such, our hypothetical community sergeant would not enforce laws such as cannabis prohibition, or prohibition of psychedelic sacraments. Anyone who came into the community from the outside, however, and started selling something the community did not approve of, would get dealt to. So would anyone who broke any actual law, such as thieves, rapists, thugs and murderers.

These community sergeants could come together on a town level to vote for a captain of police, who could in turn come together on a regional level to vote for a regional inspector, who could in turn come together on a national level to vote for a national superintendent. The captains, inspectors and the superintendent would have their own separate budgets with which to hire detectives and other specialists.

Should the community sergeant require, he would be able to deputise the other officers previously elected by the community’s menfolk. This would occur in cases of public disorder, or if a violent criminal needed apprehending safely.

This is entirely different to today’s model, where the ruling class appoints a caste of political administrators through a sham process called democracy, who in turn appoint lackeys to the highest ranks in the Police Force, who in turn hire arse-licking dogs willing to enforce laws against the population without their consent.

This model has led to an unaccountable paramilitary who operate more like a horde of goons than a community peacekeeping force. It’s little wonder that the world is currently wracked by protests against police brutality. The time is perfect to replace today’s top-down model with a community policing model under which officers operate with the consent of the policed.

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Hold Fast Good People! Our Time Comes

It’s common to feel blackpilled today. Anyone following world news is aware that the structure of society seems to be disintegrating, and that the human race appears to be regressing back into savagery. This is a terrible reality to confront but, underneath it all, there sprouts the seed of what will one day grow to be a new and healthy order. This essay explains.

Yes, this is how the Romans felt when the barbarians overran them. Watching helplessly from afar as mobs of strange young men beat people to death in the streets and the law enforcement authorities kneel in submission. The Westerners of 2020 share this experience with Romans from 1,600 years beforehand.

It’s an exceptionally depressing feeling, knowing that the great peace is over and that many years of war and deprivation lie ahead of us. A great many people feel it physically, in the form of restlessness, anxiety, loss of appetite and insomnia. The dread that so many feel is little different to the dread of a student approaching the date of an important exam that they haven’t studied for. We aren’t prepared for what’s coming.

All things go in cycles.

It is true that the world is falling into chaos and the old order is collapsing. We have been wealthy for so long that we have forgotten what it means to truly suffer. As such, our desires are no longer grounded in reality. Conflating our instinctual and artificial desires with our true will, we no longer have any common conception of morality.

Having lost a common conception of morality, there is no longer any way to unite in furtherance of a common goal. No-one can appeal to any value that is shared by all, and anyone who tries to is attacked by those who don’t share it. Anyone who tries to lead is torn down, and true leaders get replaced by opportunists, grifters and demagogues.

The inevitable result of this is disintegration, as the subfactions of society battle to impose their conception of morality on the others, while the genuine leaders who could bring unity are marginalised. Painful failure is the eventual outcome as the social fabric, the skin that holds the body politic together, is torn asunder.

Yet life will go on. The pain will burn away people’s ego-driven unwillingness to co-operate. The prickly narcissism that keeps people apart in wealthy times will fade away. A shared experience of great suffering will have the effect of creating both solidarity and humility. This combination will be the bricks and mortar that constitutes a new order of the world.

The factors that are today co-operating to spear tackle the West into the ground are the same factors that will co-operate to lift it up again. The Great Pendulum of History swings from the masculine to the feminine, and then back again, for ever. As there have been prevailing tendencies towards order, and then towards chaos, so will there be tendencies towards order once more.

The suffering of the coming years will make people snap back to reality. Wealth and prosperity allows delusion to go unpunished. Poverty and misery force people to see the world accurately and to think clearly. Reality is about to shirtfront us, and the end result will be much harder, sharper minds.

In the meantime, it has never been a better time to meditate. When things are easy, there’s little need to meditate, because one would rather be enjoying life. And why not? Life is hard enough as it is, so if there’s a chance to enjoy it one might as well take the opportunity.

When things are hard, meditation is immensely beneficial. In the same way that physical hygiene becomes extremely important during wartime lest one become physically sick, psychological hygiene becomes extremely important during times of stress lest one become psychologically sick. As the world is collapsing around us, it becomes imperative that we learn to control our emotions.

Here we speak of meditation in the pure sense, performed with no intent to achieve anything. One simply sits comfortably in silence and observes the rising and falling of one’s thoughts, without judgment and without getting too attached. Allow them to rise and fall, rise and fall, and practice observing them with dispassion and detachment.

Over time, one learns in this manner not to react strongly to thoughts and desires. The ideal is to allow thoughts and desires to enter consciousness without making an emotional impact. One learns to be the unwobbling pivot, around which all the impressions of the mind revolve. Eventually, one learns that the prima materia is consciousness itself, infinitely resolute and utterly unaffected by mere physical phenomena.

A person who knows how to meditate will have a much easier time of the coming few years. They will find the incessant media hysteria much less aggravating, and will be less inclined to participate in chimpouts. This relative absence of stress will leave them much happier and healthier than the average person.

Then, when the pendulum swings back towards order, the skilled meditator will find themselves in possession of spiritual knowledge. In the new age of order, spiritual knowledge will be as gold nuggets. Thus, the person who takes measures now to win the spiritual battle will find themselves in a strong position in the new order of the world.

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