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The Promethean Trilogy II
Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society
A Continuation of the Promethean Manifesto
Creation of the first Promethean society must be the first major objective for the Promethean movement. This society will be an example for the rest of the world, and the forerunner of a Promethean world. The Promethean Manifesto implied what a Promethean society must be like. This continuation of the Manifesto goes further in applying Promethean principles, and depicting a Promethean society which lives by them. A Promethean society has no official documents, without government to make them official, and so I call this an Anticonstitution. The difference between societies as they have existed, and a Promethean society, is so great we may often search for the language necessary to express it. This change will be monumental.
Toward the Promethean Age
One day in the future, people will speak of their past as a time when there were governments and political power, because their ancestors had accepted those ideas. Historians may term this past "The Age of Government" or perhaps "The Age of Politics," much as we say "The Age of Empires" or maybe even "The Age of Dinosaurs." We must all remember that current conventions about what society is change. Awareness of this can keep us from being mired in the present, believing we must always suffer from the problems of today.
In many times and places, a society without a slave class would have seemed bizarre, unfeasible, or even inconceivable. Today, we understand that society can exist without this institution. We do not think it is strange for a society to function without slave labor. And most importantly, we think of societies without slaves when we think of 'societies.' This change has come to pass because there lived courageous people who took dangerous steps toward changing the old order. Over many centuries, people learned to respect and value individual freedom enough to see that outright slavery had to end. People today realize that the extremely divisive institution of slavery was damaging to slave societies. Slavery even retards economic productivity; a society made of free men and women who can learn to do things for themselves, and are allowed to, is entirely superior to a society composed of a few masters and many chained, uneducated slaves who do menial work. We too should look forward to the day when the partial slavery of the state has passed away, because of a courageous few freedom fighters who have once again redefined society.
If we really respect individual freedom and the importance of the individual, we cannot be satisfied with partial freedom. The abolitionists were not satisfied to see private ownership of their fellow human beings protected by the government, or considered a societal norm. The womens' rights reformers were not satisfied to see women live as the de facto property of their husbands. Civil rights activists were not satisfied with enforced segregation. And we must not be satisfied either. Unless all people are truly free from control through socially-approved force every moment of their lives, there are people still living under slavery.
We may have control over the work we do, but we are still bound by acceptance of the principle of slavery - owing oneself to another regardless of choice, and we are still living within a slave society. In America today, an average of one-third of our working hours are said to be owed to the state. The worth of those hours of our lives does not belong to us, or so we are told. Because this is two-thirds better than a slave's life, we call it freedom. And we have no choice. Or rather... we each have the same choice as a slave: to obey, or to resist against socially-approved force.
The Promethean movement must show that the compulsion of authority, that chain on our freedom, is as unnecessary for human societies as slave labor. A Promethean society can prove this, and illuminate for all people that a truly free society is as far beyond a modern society, as a modern society is beyond an ancient slave kingdom.
Government is useful, sometimes. Political power is useful, sometimes - in the short term, for limited and mundane goals. But in truth, so was slavery. Slaves can work, and get some work done if properly forced. But the enormous toll on their humanity, and the humanity of the master who forces them, outweighs all limited and mundane considerations. We know this. We must also learn that today, it is not wrong to name those in political power our masters, those who enforce their laws our slavedrivers, their force a ready whip, and we citizens all a kind of slave. What then can be said of the toll on our humanity?
One day too, writers of history will wonder how it was possible for anyone to believe in collective ideas which leave the individual unimportant. How ridiculous they will find past misunderstanding of human nature! How difficult they will find it to believe, that anyone ever believed life was something other than our individual perception, experience, action, thought, interest, instinct, and creation. Or, how very intensely people worked to mask that from their understanding, in order to rely on false, shallower, more primitive, and more dangerous concepts. And this because they were not strong enough to feel distinct and responsible. A nation designed to channel the imagination into patriotic fervor and monopolize the energies of men for war, a religion which tells us "we are nothing before god" as we kneel in herd-like groups, a culture which determines who we are to be before we are born - such things will be unimaginable, one day. They will be echoes of a fragile past on the lips of historians, and humankind will move on.
This Anticonstitution must renounce the errors of the past and present. But I work to create the first of the societies of the future, a Promethean society, less out of opposition to what is, than out of hope for what could be, and love of what we could become.
Signed,
Colin Barth, also called Phoenix
Writer of Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society 5.20.2000 and founder of the Promethean movement
The Nature of a Promethean Society
The essence of a Promethean society can be represented by two linked words, if we open each as a great door, seeing before us a great expanse of implication and an intricate diversity of meaning. These words are Free and Individual. They represent the future we must create and the way we should live.
Free: the freedom of will and action, autonomy, deliverance from restraints, the absence of dominating political power...
Individual: defining the world from our selves outward, an environment of natural individualism, an end to collective illusions, the importance of diversity, insistence on our own value and promise, the knowledge that life is an individual experience and an individual creation...
A Promethean society is created for those whose purpose is the greatest personal self-expression, those who want to live to the fullest. For this, there must be freedom, not government control. There must be a belief in individualism over collectivism. The Promethean movement must engender and encourage a belief in human possibilities, in creativity and accomplishment, and in respect for others as fellow human possibilities.
Where Ideas Rule
There can be no government in a Promethean society, no official organization or compulsion. There must be real freedom.
A Promethean society is fundamentally different from all systems possible under government rule. Prometheanism is not libertarianism, a common name for the theory of the most limited government necessary. This theory is inherently flawed, since there is no necessary government. But a libertarian in this sense of the word may insist that certain beneficial responsibilities of government are required, such as a government-controlled military, police, foreign policy and so on. Against these anticipated objections, I say that limited political power cannot long be sustained. What is political power, if not an acquired centralized monopoly on control, maintained by force? And what is the temptation of its offices, if not to acquire greater importance and accumulated power?
A careful and conscientious observer of history will learn this important lesson by example. The United States itself is ample demonstration; its founders were far more wary of government tyranny than most modern libertarians. The American system of checks and balances and specified rights is designed to limit the power of authority. Yet, many founders who occupied its offices, themselves acted to expand the powers of their offices radically - even 'freedom-loving' Jefferson himself. By now, American government officials have power of an entirely different order. The presidency has far exceeded the powers of the British constitutional monarch, under whose rule Imperial oppression originally inspired the founding fathers' revolution. At best, the Bill of Rights has now come to represent those few rights which the government does not have over us, instead of specifically protecting certain critical rights, among all our others. If that is the legacy of the founding fathers themselves, what can be the implication, if not the failure of limited government?
"If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees."
- Bill Clinton, August 12, 1993
Any system founded on the principle of power, not the principle of individual life, must ultimately value power over life. The foundation of a Promethean society rests on the rule of Promethean ideas to improve individual lives, instead of the political rule of some over others. This rule of ideas distinguishes Promethean society from anarchy as well; anarchy is literally an absence of rule, implying no guidance, no order. Surely anarchy without the right ideals must be either powerless, or easily dominated by the slightest force - life at its starkest and most brutish.
A Promethean wants neither a world ruled by force, nor a powerless world. The more power to achieve, and the more people are capable of expressing themselves, the more the Promethean dream will have been fulfilled. A Promethean wants a world ruled by the power of the right ideas, especially the ideal of life and devotion to life.
In every society someone must rule; someone must be powerful and have influence. But the means of that rule is as important as the motivations of the ruler. Political power is based on the idea of rulers in office, who are backed by force. But it is possible to rule through the influence of ideas, because ideas can have great power.
Ideas always really rule underneath. For every act there are many assumptions made. Beneath every pattern of behavior for a person or society, principles and ideas show through. Philosophy in an inclusive sense is separate from nothing. But I also speak of understanding and acknowledging principles as the guides of society, and adopting the rule of ideas as a conscious and overt institution. The notion that order can only exist through bureaucratic institutions supported by force must be overcome. There is no need for official approval in the practice and application of ideas. This smoke screen is unnecessary interference, only rubber-stamping what can be done anyway. More importantly, whenever a government is granted official status by a society - whenever people have acknowledged political power - all the symptoms of enforced power arise, the bureaucracy becomes increasingly bloated and stupid and sluggish, and the meddlesomeness and abuses of government become increasingly more frequent. Political power corrupts, absolutely always.
But where the right ideas rule, especially individualism and freedom as ideals, where enough people have attained a life-interest, real freedom and order are both possible. And what is more: with the right values, expressed wisely, society can work brilliantly.
One very important principle behind a Promethean society is this: we as individuals are the real source of ability to act in association, and freedom is necessary for cooperative achievement. In a Promethean society, beneficial functions which have in the past been conducted in the name of government, claimed as achievements in the name of authority, can and will be accomplished by individuals and their free associations.
Free Enterprise
Economic achievement is a significant dimension of living in freedom. Real, full capitalism is free economic achievement. The socio-economic system commonly called capitalism today, is in fact fascism, in disguise.
Fascism as an economic system is defined by the partnership of business and government, and the intervention of government in commerce. Fascism in the larger sense involves authoritarian government control intertwined with limited freedom. Fascism tends to demonstrate more economic success than the total government ownership of communism, with more productivity through relatively more freedom. (Socialism is essentially the same thing as fascism, with less of an emphasis on the collaboration of government and industry, and more on communistic centralized ownership.) Fascism is inherently unstable economically, because it can only partially imitate the natural behavior of a free market, and can never have the efficiency and productivity of an unrestricted economy. Fascism also tends to be unstable socially, especially because fascist governments seek to exploit collectivist origins of pride and strife, such as nationalism and racism, and pursue military power projection and war in order to maintain and extend control through political power. The most authoritarian fascist systems are almost as self-consuming as communism; very short and predictable spans are endemic to those governments, unless they resort to imperialist expansion. For instance, WWII was planned in advance, as early as 1933, to slightly precede central bankruptcy in the early 1940s. Nazi Germany may be the most recognized example of modern fascism, from the Latin fasces after the sacred torches carried in ancient Rome, and appropriated as a symbol by Mussolini. However, most modern nations such as the United States and Japan are clearly also examples of a less extreme fascism. And, the far more authoritarian People's Republic of China is not evolving from communism to capitalism, it is evolving from abject communism to a severe fascism akin to Nazi Germany. The differences between all of the modern fascist states, from Nazi Germany and the "People's" Republic of China, to the US and Japan, have been only in local peculiarities and in degree of control. (Not only economic control but also control of other expression.) Fascism, communism, socialism... all very much the same, all variations on that old monstrous theme: control over individual expression, particularly economic action. But capitalism is not.
Capitalism, real free-market capitalism, preserves the independence of business from government. Real capitalism is a natural, organic circumstance. It is a complex system in mathematical scientific terms, not a managed system. Capitalism properly understood is nothing more, or less, than the economic dimension of individualism. It incorporates all the benefits and pitfalls of individual expression and self-interest. In short, it is just the economic aspect of a free life.
The first Promethean society will be the first really capitalist society, with the first modern economy of entirely voluntary and unrestricted exchange. Like all other dimensions of life, this Promethean economy will be managed only through the adoption of standards, and other voluntary contracts and agreements. A Promethean society will have the unprecedented virtue of not suffering from the congenital, stifling, and often terminal symptoms of fascism.
This society must function without an officially-enforced standard of money. A government monopoly on currency is actually fascistic, not capitalistic. Indeed, official currency is perhaps the prime means of social control. Thus every government's insistence on a regulated, legalized, and above all exclusive currency; what economic power could any organization have which is more pervasive than exclusive rights to print and manipulate money? Government and government money have no place in a truly free society, which must include voluntary exchange of every thing of value, from raw materials to ideas to money. Instead, a private standard or standards will be adopted at foundation, which may change in the face of competition. Privately 'printed' currency is already successful in electronic forms, and any standard of currency will function which is accepted by both parties of an exchange.
A real free market is not the ultimate remedy to all the economic ills which may be encountered; there are still unfortunate chaotic events, and there can be mistreatment in a free market. A free market is not the greatest and most profound remedy in itself. Integrated strength and the motivation of a life-interest is the greatest remedy, and a free market is really only the best economic circumstance to encourage that motivation and the possibilities of self-expression. Practically, people must be able to protect themselves from abuse by others within a free market - but they must do so through desirable means. Any checks on the practices of business will be through voluntary means only. In a Promethean society, each person can choose with complete freedom to patronize one business over another, and each business owner can choose his customers. Every employee can decide whether to work for a business, every business can decide whether to hire. When business and commercial practices are believed despicable, the issue can be decided by the response of partners, employees, and customers with the advice of private agencies who monitor and arbitrate. (Imagine Better Business Bureaus which have acquired serious impact.) Maintaining a reputation for quality and honesty in business and employment will acquire even greater importance than it has today.
A most magnificent effect of the freedom of each person to make economic decisions for himself will be unprecedented and presently unimaginable prosperity. For people to cooperate and freely circulate their talent, wealth, and knowledge - without every exchange of significance being monitored, or regulated, or taxed, or prohibited - will be a magnificent thing. Opportunities will abound to reward both talent and hard work. The power of cooperation will have no limits, producing an abundance of everything desired in that free market.
A Promethean Renaissance
In a Promethean society, real capitalism is part of a greater idea: the freedom to define goals subjectively, as one desires, and the freedom to pursue them. Capitalism is just the financial dimension of that pervasive freedom for self-expression.
In every society which accepts the right of authority to legislate and enforce laws, there is always the threat of laws which are designed to restrict creativity, as well as the threat of manipulating enforcement of existing laws to this end. Under the guise of decency or upholding societal standards, artists, scientists, and thinkers of all kinds have consistently undergone official harassment, even under those governments which guarantee freedom of expression. The prospect of eventually being able to exert control over artistic and ideological expression through legislation has usually served as enough incentive for the efforts of censorship movements.
Historically, the sciences have been repeatedly plagued by the attacks of ignorant people, often those with powerful political influence. The 'Dark Ages' of scientific discovery is one grievous example, in which great scientists and thinkers were silenced and executed by the keepers of religious orthodoxy. Today also, even remarkably advantageous discoveries such as genetically-engineered foods and medicines come under fire. But in a Promethean society, discoveries in every field of learning will advance with great rapidity, unhindered by enforced small-mindedness, fear, and senseless limits.
The innovation and application of technology will be augmented, unhindered by the taxation of productivity or by control through the enforced, legal grants called patents. Governmental patents restrict the cooperative accumulation of ingenuity. This practice is very often responsible for engendering unnatural monopolies. This does not necessarily mean that free agreements to respect the exclusivity of an invention should not exist within an industry. But making voluntary agreements makes competition possible, at least, and not illegal. Official patents also require the involvement and intervention of government in inventions, and other useful ideas. The institution of patents is rarely questioned, though it should be. It is another fascist institution which is mistakenly accepted as necessary.
Prosperity will enable those whose interests or abilities do not lie in the creation of monetary wealth to have the leisure necessary to create wealth in their own way. Already, limited capitalism has begun to make this possible; art which does not pay for itself has found a home in the free time general prosperity provides to artists. Once, art was generally reserved for those who were independently wealthy, or sponsored by nobility or royalty - sponsored by government, in other words. This excluded most artists from the means necessary for their art, as well as controlling the direction of their creativity. By now, most creative people have some partial ability to dedicate themselves to their creation. That is only because people have had what freedom they have had to make their own money, devising more productive and prosperous ways which can circulate everywhere. The 'information age' economy which gives me the leisure to write these words is one legacy of these individuals. Devoting oneself to creativity and art will be even more unhindered with the greater prosperity and freedom of expression in a Promethean society.
Education and learning is important for everyone in any society, at any age. But the assisted development of the young is an especially important issue. The most terrible intellectual failure of a centralized fascist society is centralized education. It is probably charitable to say that one public school in one-hundred is the equal of its students. The number of avid young minds which have been turned off in those stale institutions, the number of spirits broken, and the overall cultural degeneration which has resulted through public education, is absolutely beyond estimation. Immature human beings need support, and stimulation, and teachers who care about them and the work of teaching. Instead, the average public school student is incarcerated in a bureaucratic prison of soul-crushing boredom, rote memorization, wasted time, apathy, ridicule, and practiced uniformity. For these unfortunates, real learning can only begin in college, if they have not already been warped and poisoned beyond hope of recovering to become confident and curious human beings. In a Promethean society, educational institutions will exist to serve students, not the state, not teachers' unions, not an artificial orthodoxy, and not the petty egos one encounters so frequently in schools today. Private education will evolve to awaken young minds to the world, not to indoctrinate them, as teachers experiment with new techniques and philosophies of teaching, unrestricted by centralized programs and controls. Experimentation in a variety of methods and philosophies of education is essential to discover how to teach well and what is worth learning. The choice between different ways is equally essential.
"The most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others."
- Grayson Kirk
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
- Yeats
In a Promethean society, art and learning will flourish, and cultural and creative flowering may surpass the memory of the European Renaissance, the Golden Age in Islam, or the peak of Classical Greece. In the retrospect of distant time, those who inherit the legacy of a Promethean renaissance may record its history as a more rapid, breathtaking, and essential advancement of civilization than the accumulated progress in ancient China, India, or the middle-eastern fertile crescent.
The power of ideas is another means of furthering such advancement: working to foster and circulate an understanding of the value of creative and cultural self-expression, in disparate areas of accomplishment. Easily, people forget the worth of what other people do; they become myopically focused on their own interests, and disrespect other disciplines. From studio arts to business, philosophy to architecture, writing to chemistry, technological innovation to filmmaking, creativity lives behind many masks. Promoting this diversity, too, is a task for the Prometheans, and rewarding in itself.
Foundation
Somewhere in a carefully chosen place, the Promethean movement will one day found the first Promethean society, according to the philosophy of Prometheanism. The Promethean movement will assist the emigration of people from societies and mindsets they can and should leave behind, to create and develop a new society. Prometheans will guide the birth and evolution of this new world according to the principles of individual freedom and diverse individuality. And from this beginning, this shining example, a Promethean world will later grow.
In this founding, the Prometheans will in no way incorporate discrimination based on collective myths, such as racism or sexism. Prometheanism is truly individualist; this Promethean society is to be based on the identity of each individual as a separate, independent person, each with individual self-expression.
Cultural differences are probably the major reason why division by collective has scarred human history, and prevented the cooperation of individuals. Just as we should not view cultures as distinct entities, but rather traditions which multiple individuals share, we should not make the mistake of comparing whole cultures against one another. Cultures are internally diverse, because they arise from an exchange of ideas between different people. So it is just as absurd to consider all cultures equal (the insidious postmodern trend of so-called 'multiculturalism'), as it is to call one culture the overall inferior of another (the justification for the European conquest of Africa and the Americas). Not only does this fail to make sense, it is not useful, and it is harmful. To benefit from all cultural traditions, we must be open to evaluating the varied elements within cultures, leaving behind some elements while drawing upon others. For example: studying Aztec culture reveals a centralized religious institution of human sacrifice and an obsession with hopelessly owing one's life to mystical forces, rather than living for oneself. But every culture has worthy elements; Aztec poetry is enthralling, and Aztec architecture amazed the visiting conquistadors. And people from so-called 'Western culture' did found an intellectual tradition endorsing individual freedom, yet, these ideas were applied very intermittently indeed. Every cultural accumulation of traditions and ideas has boasted grand progressions, and stubbornly clutched shameful or uninspired antiquities. The two are often tightly intertwined. Learning this lesson and using it is a profound advantage for one individual, or a society of individuals.
One of the most encouraging traditions in America has been 'the melting pot,' a healthy individualist process in which many European traditions fused together in peace, more seamlessly than they ever had in Europe. The fluid diversity of the melting pot is responsible for most of the cultural depth in America. If only this openness had extended as seamlessly to non-Europeans - and had continued as strongly up through modern day, instead of the rising modern tradition of group separatism. (Still, it is due to the legacy of that American tradition of cultural openness, that I now do not consider it misplaced to spend the same day cooking middle-eastern couscous like sticky rice, practicing yoga on an Afghani rug, using an ancient Norse myth as a metaphor, and reading Nietzsche and Jung - who themselves drew on many cultures in their writing.)
The Promethean founding principle of diversity holds that a society is stronger for drawing on the best of many cultures, just as any group is stronger which can draw on the best of many different individual perspectives. During the foundation of the first Promethean society, emigration to join that society must be open to the inhabitants of every part of the world. Discrimination based on collective myths such as racism and ethnic hatred will not be incorporated in that foundation. A major task for Prometheans will be ensuring this and devaluing such foul attitudes during and after the founding, so that diversity may bring richer lives for all in cooperative self-expression, and never become a source of strife and division.
In gathering people to come, Prometheans will be able to seek out many of the most creative, most driven, and most individual people in the world - who are very often the most oppressed and undervalued in the world today. Just as many of the brightest within Nazi Germany fled to the relative freedom of America, or European immigrants crowded to Ellis Island in the last century, there will be a new hopeful exodus. The first Promethean society will be able to represent just such a contrast of freedom and opportunity to the nation-states of today.
Ideas have a primal influence within any society. Shared ideas are the most basic foundation of any society, and even more in a Promethean society. With the rule of ideas, Prometheans will be able to preserve and promote individual self-expression and further individual strength, while minimizing pressures which constrain and suppress individuality and individual development. They will help to establish individualism and individual choice as a social value. They will teach opposition to collectivism, because collective ideas and their application threaten any society of individuals.
Prometheans will preside over the start of this society, in order to guide and initiate, but they will not ever assume a governmental role with political power, even in the process of founding. Government is not a reliable temporary means; political power, once granted, is rarely dissolved, only transferred or increased. No one should be trusted with such power. Who could safely be trusted with the accepted, instituted right to enforce his choices over the choices of other people? Instead, Prometheans will become leaders through the persuasion of ideas and ideology.
A primary mission of the Prometheans in the founding of this society will be the protection and guarantee of individual choice and freedom and security. At the birth of the first Promethean society, alternatives to government institution for this purpose will be begun by Prometheans, or arise naturally from among the other members of that society.
Beyond Law
"There are such as consider it virtue to say, "Virtue is necessary";
but at bottom they believe only that the police is necessary."
- Nietzsche
People must learn to rely on their own judgment, on their own choice, and on their own sense of responsibility. Only then will these faculties become fully realized. But what of lapses in civilized behavior, and the lack of respect for others? What of the occasional but inevitable violations of others, which result from human complexes and weakness? The lack of integrity in some, which leads to the direct affront and injury of the bodies or property of others, necessitates having a social response in place. But should it be legislation and law enforcement?
Criminal laws exist to control behavior which is defined as unseemly, bad, or evil by government legislators. Other laws are passed to make citizens 'better people' or improve them morally. But by what definition of what is good, and what is bad? People believe in the ability of laws to prevent what is bad and encourage what is good... but this even sounds na•ve and immature, does it not? This simple belief is founded on so much shaky assumption and faulty premise, that it has the character of folk superstition, or the make-believe of simple children...
First of all, law is not effective at real improvement. Legislation does not act to give people truly integrated strength as people - only developing our self-expression and our sense of ourselves can do this. Laws can prohibit and force. But the most desirable and effective way to cause a human being to do something, is to make him want to. And, the most desirable and effective way to make a human being refrain from doing something, is to make him not want to. Compared with law, the rule of ideas is completely preferable; persuasion through beliefs is always a better option.
Blind faith in the principle of law ignores the subjective nature of morality. A morality is merely an attempt at a codified accounting of certain mental and physiological experiences one finds very comfortable or upsetting. These experiences are naturally subject to perspective, and so there are as many moral attitudes and moral sensibilities as there are perspectives. Even though the point of a morality is usually social conformity, commonalities and generalizations among moral perspectives constantly branch into divergence. Cultures and subcultures are rarely internally consistent in ideas of what is seemly and unseemly. Morality tends to be reduced to simplistic principles in an attempt to make it established and permanent, most especially "thou shalt nots" or similar admonitions, but the definition of right and wrong changes nonetheless. Life is fluid and changing. It would be simple if laws could be passed down which were always applicable, but we need changing definitions because of the factor of change in our lives. Considering these things, why should it be surprising that there is endless and bitter argument over the institution of moralities in law? Yet, a legal morality makes even superficial points of morality subjects for official enforcement and recrimination, as if official social morality has been decided with overwhelming and enduring confidence.
Furthermore, law assumes the worth of hammering out and enforcing a societal morality. We should not be afraid to ask: what is the worth of morality in the first place? If life is fluid and changing, what is the worth of codifying "what we as a society believe in?" We should also question why we should be pretending that a society believes anything at all. I believe, you believe, a lawmaker believes, but what does it mean for a society to believe in right and wrong? Such an expression really means: some portion of the population wishes to force their opinions on people who hold other opinions, and the only way they will ever succeed is to invoke their opinion on behalf of society. They do so to instill a moral, psychosomatic, 'gut' reaction, so that enough pressure can be mustered to influence those who would otherwise have been beyond their reach. This is true of a wide spectrum of rights and wrongs. Some are widely held beliefs, such as the immorality of cold-blooded murder. In such a case, those who approve of cold-blooded murder are too few to have much significance. No, to invoke morality for a society is most useful for those with contentious opinions, from anti-abortion activists, to the pseudo-scientific environmental indoctrinators of public school children. How successful would the former be in exerting influence, if they informed pregnant women of their options with some objectivity? Or the latter, if young children were not presented with a cruel cult of hunters, loggers and whalers versus an idyllic, bowdlerized ecosystem inhabited by cartoonish pandas and whales? Asserting general morality in this way is a tool for social manipulation, and it is always based on simplifying, stultifying, and propagandizing unthinking reactions. Must we always live this way, like societies of immature children?
There is an alternative to the morass and mess of instituting morality. The most important goal is to strive for a complex understanding of what has value, and what should be avoided. Virtually nothing is useful and productive and life-advancing in every situation, virtually nothing is always harmful or useless or life-retarding. Surpass codified, overly-simplified understanding - surpass morality. Prometheanism envisions an adaptable understanding of what advances life, unlike all moral systems, from Objectivism to the spectrum of Christian sects. In that sense, it is amoral. One day this complexity will be possible for many people. In the meantime, we must allow each to form judgments for himself. We must have freedom, we must avoid the temptation to officially enforce morality [or amorality], because we insist that we know what is good and what is bad, and others do not. Although preventing the transgression of individual freedom is necessary in a Promethean society, this function need not require officially enforced morality. It is not inconceivable that at some future time this function will no longer be associated with morality and its transgression at all - rather, associated with whatever becomes beneficial and necessary to life's advancement.
Dependence on static definitions of what is beneficial is limiting. Law is supported by force, so we cannot safely move aside the rigid framework of the legislative process, which is too slow and clumsy to adapt to the fluidity a society needs in order to be shaped and reshaped. Laws are sterile, static boundaries. They cannot fit what living really is or should be.
The beneficial effect of law is to restrict actions which are committed through human weakness. But, laws also perpetuate this weakness, as members of society become dependent upon them. Laws are contradictory; they exist for human weakness, yet they preserve it. Because so much interest is devoted to the process of making laws and enforcing laws to manage transgressions, because money and effort and belief is focused on this system, we do not come to expect anything else from one another, besides the transgressions which the institution of law is designed to address. Trusting in human weakness and preparing for it so seriously and dutifully becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Anything so justified in fear of what could happen deserves our mistrust. Without control - if laws and law enforcement were dissolved in the whole world instantly, right now - there would be chaos, of course! But people become that irresponsible only when reliance is placed upon enforcement, more than on creating the sort of mindset which can make wise and considerate choices without being forced to do so. And there are many people, even now, who conduct themselves well regardless of what they are forced to do. They do this because they have integrated strength and respect for themselves, which causes them to respect others from a natural sense of honor - a parallel of their self-respect. And many more can become this, in a more conducive society.
And we cannot afford to rely on law for another reason: even if a specific law seems beneficial now, it will serve to legitimate and perpetuate the system of authority. Law is an institution of governmental power. The vaunted idea 'law' is an establishment of government control over your life. Throughout your life this control will not always be exerted for beneficial purposes. It will be abused. And, dependence upon the institution of political power weakens people. It takes over for us, increasingly detracting from our own faculties.
Law enforcement is based on reaction to the transgression of a static code, law - rather than doing what is necessary or beneficial in a situation, an adaptable basis that considers evolution and change. That reaction of law is little more than punishment. Punishment in retribution is the practice of criminal law and criminal law enforcement. This purpose of the criminal 'justice' system ought to produce more objections than it does, but it is encouraging that there are now many people who are able to sense the foulness of the motivation involved. What advantage is derived, in human terms, from exacting revenge? Yes, revenge, that is the perverse hunger so often called justice. If this system were simply keeping order and protecting people, it would dissolve disturbances, confine dangerous people, track down stolen property, and so on. But it also includes terrible prisons and hard labor, it incarcerates people for consensual acts, and it even executes. It destroys human life without necessity. This can only have continued as an institution because the primeval appetite for cold revenge still dwells within the hearts of so many supporters. The justice institution is feeding this hunger, and is supported by it. But the principle of law, too, is necessary for this institution of revenge to exist. Without law, there would not be this means for organized and socially acceptable vengefulness.
"And others are proud of their handful of justice and commit outrages against all things for its sake, till the world is drowned in their injustice. Oh, how ill the word virtue comes out of their mouths!
And when they say, "I am just," it always sounds like "I am just - revenged." With their virtue they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies, and they exalt themselves only to humble others."
- Nietzsche
A Promethean society must go beyond enforced power, beyond social compulsion, beyond artificially-limited expectations, beyond glorifying institutional revenge as justice. Law cannot serve as the fundamental institution of a free society where the individual can and should advance. There can be no official legislation or enforcement, or any other regulations. Law is a basic limitation.
Instead, disputes will be settled through private arbitration. This can initially be provided by the Promethean movement during the founding, in the event that no such services arise soon enough. Civil law is easily replaced by adopted standards of independent arbitration. The private, independent replacement of criminal courts requires cooperation of independent arbitrators with private police services.
Such private police services would be adopted naturally as standards. People desire and often need assurance of their protection, especially of their property. They also need preservation of order, the most common service provided the police today, to dissolve social disruptions and stop unruly behavior. Private police, detectives, and bodyguards would meet this demand, and become adopted as trusted standards. In a Promethean society, these services will be provided only by private, independent sources, with initial establishment of services dedicated to individual protection accomplished through the Promethean movement.
The most important point in the operation of such services without law is the motivations behind them. These services would exist to serve members of society, either for profit or as charitable organizations, not as political appendages. They would have no barbaric legal mandate to use deadly force against individual people. Thus, they would be the most likely to be streamlined to act only in beneficial ways: protection of life and property, separation of really dangerous people from others, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. They would lack incentive to do otherwise, and would have great incentive not to exceed their purpose. Otherwise, they would not be used as a standard. And with the Promethean rule of ideas, motivations would be guided further by ideals. Nothing purely consensual can ever be a direct violation of others, and therefore, standards in the Promethean tradition would have no cause to interfere in those matters. Those who believe in Prometheanism do not value revenge or cruelty, they despise them as the signs of weakness that they are. Punishments do not strengthen individuals, punishments weaken individuals. A Promethean society, and the private standards of enforcement and arbitration adopted there, will use other means. Social pressure, rejection and boycotts can be effective for less extreme offenders of person or property, especially when organized through independent agency or agreements between companies. Arbitrators who keep databases of unscrupulous businesses and individuals, such as violators of contract, can advise people of those they would be unwise to trust. Companies can agree to band together and refuse to deal with companies who do not fulfill their obligations - which is in their mutual interest. In the worst cases, measures such as confinement or exile from the society would be used, not harmful violations of person. And the ideal in every case will be to heal whatever complexes and weakness are responsible for such behavior. Finally, the frequency and extremity of actions which hurt others will be decreased with the success of the Promethean mission; engendering the integrated strength of people will lessen weakness and its symptoms.
All beneficial services now accomplished by judicial government and government police - the services of arbitrator and bodyguard - can be accomplished without any governmental, bureaucratic judicial and enforcement systems, without law, and beyond law. This replacement of criminal justice systems, and this evolution beyond recrimination, is a tremendously exciting development in human history. I look forward to achievement of this goal with great expectation.
We Defeat Ourselves... By What We Believe
Today it is almost expected for many within a society to have terrible problems. But we should teach ourselves to expect more. Problems such as the world currently experiences can only be explained by malicious and mistaken ideas. With the assumption of necessary or desirable functions by the private sector, and with the effects of freedom and individualism instead of control and compulsion, real solutions arise for grievous problems. In time, Prometheanism can be the ultimate solution to many difficulties of human manufacture. Many are quickly solved by the elimination of government interference, others require the adoption of new ideas supported by continuing dedication.
Some modern examples:
The real solution to poverty. Widespread poverty is not an enemy to 'war' against - it is a lack of prosperity, due to restrictions on the creation of wealth through achievement. Such a lack of prosperity breeds the perception of hopelessness, and recasts achievements of the past as unattainable ghosts. A depressed economy becomes accepted and expected. When I visit, for instance, parts of south-side Chicago which are so dilapidated and ruined they might as well have been carpet-bombed, I am always amazed at how many denizens come to find such surroundings acceptable, instead of wondering why once-thriving streets now barely have one store. The fault is a fascist economy, and socialist redistribution programs - which are always restrictive and violate individual property, but are usually botched as well, and often spectacularly so. One result of the real freedom in a Promethean society will be incredible and unprecedented prosperity, from real capitalism with an absolutely free market. Prosperity comes through freedom, and in the founding of this society there shall be no controls placed on the productivity of individual and cooperative effort. All charity will be voluntary. None will be based on compulsory redistribution with its enormous waste and detrimental effects, especially the weakening effects of dependence. These effects are clearly demonstrated by programs like social welfare.
Illegal and controlled substances, and the drug war. Recognition of individual freedom involves the freedom to make mistakes which affect oneself, as well as succeed on one's own terms. Therefore, whether one approves of drug use or not is beside the issue. Freedom is the issue. It doesn't matter whether cocaine kills, or tobacco is bad for you - your body is your own and should belong to you, to treat however you see fit. (In a society where no one is forced to pay for others' health problems, there is less excuse to police others' health habits - otherwise, policing unhealthy eating probably will not be far behind.) In a Promethean society without a government to perpetrate a 'drug war,' no one would waste billions of taxed dollars fighting an impossible struggle against the rule of supply and demand, to control individual choice. Historically, such attempts to force people to be healthy, usually have a great deal more to do with cementing government control (for example, the now commonplace violations of person to search for illegal substances), or fascist industry-government alliances and leverage (such as Hearst's manipulation of hemp into a feared illegal drug, to save his industries from the competition of hemp products).
Defining marriage. Societies currently involve a legal definition of marriage, with different tax rules for married couples, the prosecution of bigamy, etc. Without an official, enforced definition of marriage, everyone is free to define marriage any way they would like. This would help to resolve issues such as homosexual marriage, and religious and cultural conflicts over what is and is not appropriate for a marriage, and for families.
The end of police brutality and the solution to judicial injustice. In a Promethean society arbitration, individual protection, and the guarantee of property and contractual agreements (credit, etc.) are all services which are voluntarily patronized. Due to the power of choice between competitive services (advised by independent agencies) a negative perception will quickly negate police who use excessive force, biased arbitrators, and any independent standard which does not inspire confidence. This power of choice is evident today in private industries; when poor or dangerous goods and services are marketed, the reputation of that company suffers and they lose business. Obviously, people will be even more responsive to the bad reputations of private police or arbitrators, because employing those services requires even more trust. The abuses which are commonplace in contemporary criminal justice systems will be rapidly and consistently eradicated.
Rampant crime. Crime is not a concept for a Promethean society. Crime involves the idea of guilt, which is a debilitating social pressure, and is beside the issue of real violation of others. And crime is also illegality, which a Promethean society does not have. But there are direct attacks on the person and property of others, also considered crimes in most societies today, which are terrible in a Promethean context. Such acts as theft, murder, and rape will not be commonplace in a Promethean society. Prosperity helps to lessen the appeal of stealing, but this is a tangential solution. The larger solution is the Promethean mission of strengthening people, in an integrated sense. The 'criminal type' is not strong, in some of the most important ways. Such people typically do not have enough self-assuredness, self-control, and self-awareness, and lack a sense of autonomy, ability and fulfillment. They lash out from fear, insecurity, and the irrational spite bred by such weakness. They are strong in the sense that they are independent enough and capable enough to act on their impulses. In every person there are elements of strength and elements of weakness. The 'criminal type' incorporates a sort of leverage between those elements, the weak using the strong to commit heinous acts. In short, criminals are not healthy people. They need to be made healthy, if this can be accomplished. The ultimate solution is to further balanced, integrated strength within members of society. The solution is not prison. Prisons grind people down, at least as they now exist. Inmates lose much of the integrated, balanced strength they did have, becoming weak and feeling less confident, and less human. This ruination has the opposite effect of what is needed. Prisoners are released weak in spirit, yet physically capable, naturally, of committing crimes. In fact, they are far more likely to lash out again. First, because they are weaker people in integrated terms. Second, because they will be forever defined as reviled criminals by society, by their sense of moral guilt, and by belonging only to the criminal culture of prison.
Minority identity and self-segregation. There is nothing problematic about celebrating and enjoying aspects of one's cultural background and making the best use of them. But it is divisive and harmful to identify oneself primarily as a member of a group, rather than as a unique self. Even private race-based scholarships, grants, or special advantages of any kind are in some measure furthering separatism and collective thinking. If the members of a self-defined group name themselves by the group (e.g. Hispanic women), then those excluded from the group will identify them this way as well. Not, it is likely, as people with individuality. This can lead to many terrible things: racial, sexual, and cultural conflict, official or de facto imposed segregation, group hatred, even genocide. Again, there are advantages to a 'melting pot.'
The end of racism and sexism. There is no racism without a collective understanding of race. There is no sexism without a stereotyped, collective understanding of the sexes. Discredit and dissolve these illusions, and replace them with an understanding in individual terms. This is the only enduring solution. It is the Promethean solution.
But the horror of war is the most terrible symptom of all previous societies.
Ending War
It is impossible to eradicate all conflict, and in fact conflict is the nature of life. Part of the diversity of human life is a difference of viewpoint and perspective. A society without argument would not be alive. Any group without the play of contentious opinions forms a stagnant society, with a withering culture.
However, Promethean society is the means to eventually end warfare as we know it.
Once it was thought that the spread of democracy would end warfare, since democratic nations would be less likely to instigate wars and other state-sponsored violence. But the hopes of democratic political scientists have been dashed, by such vivid evidence as the war of 1812, the American Civil War, the stunningly pointless and catastrophic First World War, the many Balkan conflicts, et cetera... and within secured American borders, the incarceration of American citizens of Japanese descent during the Second World War. The list is long, and continues to lengthen. Democracies do start wars with other democracies, and sponsor internal violence - depending on the tendencies of influential conviction in that direction. Communist theory and doctrine also held that communist societies would not instigate war. But the list of communist aggression, or even just the list accumulated by the self-proclaimed communist nations, makes that promise of peaceful communism appear as a sick joke. The extreme degree of central control under communism makes the initiation of both foreign aggression, and internal state-sponsored violence, shockingly effortless for communist leaders.
With the lessons of history come this realization: nationalism of any kind will not mean the end of war. Government of any kind will not mean the end of war. Any collectivist organization backed by force will engender strife.
An environment in which causing bloodshed is seen as acceptable and necessary, is a legacy of collective division. Very few individuals ever desire a personal war or hate an enemy, left on their own terms. Such people are seen as thugs. But for large groups to act that way - nations, ethnic groups, religions, and so on - is commonplace, and accepted as usual and normal. It is the leverage of very few with political power or influential opinions over a mass of people which makes this possible. Often such leaders seek war out of motivations associated with personal complexes and weakness, so a temporary solution is to endeavor to follow the best of people. This is the oldest solution, and its limited success is the reason why war is not constantly raging, everywhere. But obviously, to judge from history, this is not a reliable or permanent solution. Attempting to make 'group choices' in large numbers, people become herd-like, falling prey to demagogues and mob mentalities, as well as the faulty mechanics of their institutions for nominating leadership. And, if we obey the control of political leaders, someone always has to be in office - but what if there are no worthy choices? Trying to commit to the best possible political leadership is no solution at all, and so there is war.
It is the leverage which we must remove from this picture, the means by which leaders move the mass toward organized violence. First, it is the accepted concept of instituted political power, "following the leader" wherever he tells you to go, which makes this possible. So, we cannot suffer that to exist, if we are to end organized violence. But there is more - everything which just caused you to accept people as 'the mass' when you just read those words of mine, and every assumption which causes individual people to act like a mass, must also be challenged and dissolved. Collective national, cultural, racial, or religious bias is rarely the immediate cause of organized violence. But these are its real origin. To imagine a collective 'enemy', one first needs to think in collective groups. Only then can we begin to say: "It is Us versus Them." And then, it is very easy to be persuaded into conflict. This is the nature of group factionalism, the nature of division allied with force:
Hatred. Fear of the 'other.' Suspicion. Posturing. Jingoism. And then, always the inevitable excuses for battle, war, the spilling of blood, suffering, disease, and death.
Even without the means of political control, demagogues can still persuade groups to fight for any reason. But it is nearly impossible to persuade separate people who think for themselves, people who believe themselves separate, to act unthinkingly as a group. The mistaken belief in our collective belonging, our division into groups, is the dominant circumstance contributing to the violent madness which human beings commit against one another. The collective concepts we identify with, especially nation, ethnicity, and religion, are highly responsible.
Genocide is the worst scourge in the larger disease which is mass, organized violence. There can be no genocide without a collective understanding and heavy sense of genos, Greek for race, kind, or class. Genocide is always more likely and more possible where there is much centralization and political power. Nazi Europe, Soviet Russia, and Maoist China are three examples from this century. Political tyranny provides the most efficient means for the execution of genocide. A more centralized and monitored rule more easily directs its citizens to inform on one another, and eradicate one another. And such a government typically keeps information on identity and location. Extremely powerful fascist, socialist, and communist governments are also the most likely to exploit hatred and fear of minorities. This division distracts other citizens, making them easier to rule and more supportive of government - and more supportive of centrally-organized genocide. It was for these reasons that Hitler, Stalin and Mao were so much more... efficient, than the disorganized Turkish army officers who tried to kill Armenians under their power early in this past century, or those who did the same in the Balkans, recently.
But in a Promethean society, there is no government, there is no political power, there is no nation, there is no dominant culture (there is a diversity of cultures and subcultures), there is no race or ethnicity which predominates others (there are many), there is no Us-versus-Them (there are individuals, who are aware that they are individual), there are no leaders one must follow, there are no orders one cannot refuse... and there is no war.
In fact, the only reason for a Promethean society to have military forces for external defense, is to defend against the collective, political societies outside. There is no 'external,' otherwise. A Promethean society is composed of people, who happen to reside in a place. Violent struggle between Promethean societies is impossible, as Promethean societies cannot 'border' one another; a Promethean society does not own territory, its members do. One Promethean society would meld easily into another. This is because a Promethean society is defined by autonomous individuals and their shared principles, individual freedom and identity.
The only real, enduring solution to the problem of war is for the world, in its entirety, to leave behind collective and political society and become a Promethean society. However difficult and distant this goal, it is the only way for war to end, unless with the end of humanity.
In the meantime, the defense of a Promethean society is not to be maintained by armed forces under a government monopoly, controlled by the whims of politicians. Instead, like all beneficial and necessary services, independent and private defense associations will exist to provide the same service. Collaboration for defense is to the advantage of everyone in a society. This is the tradition of the militia, which would exist, but there is also a need for professional military personnel, always vigilant and trained.
Promethean soldiers would not fight for political objectives. Their job would not be to follow the orders of their commander, no matter what. Their job would be defense; that would be the source of their pay, and their funding, and their honor.
An important factor of the success of Promethean militaries will be the rule of ideas. Not only will competition and public scrutiny provide an incentive for these services to perform well and serve the best interests of members of a Promethean society, but the Promethean societal ideal of a devotion to life will guide military personnel even farther away from abuse of their force. They will act in consideration of individual liberty and protection, even in action outside of their Promethean society.
Promethean defense services would also be superior to the nationalist armies they would have to fight. The inefficiency and lack of proper leadership within government militaries is infamous. Soldiers are very often asked to fight under strategically absurd circumstances, due to extraneous political considerations - the reason for much attrition in war. Such is the price of bureaucratic inertia, and having politicians make military decisions. These militaries are also collectivist, based on the manipulation and rigid hierarchy of units. Nationalist armies have been struggling to achieve greater adaptability and articulation within their units, struggling ineptly to make use of individual ability. Yet they will always fail to grasp the fundamental worth of the individual, and the realization that increased military effectiveness is primarily gained through individual augmentation, diverse capabilities, and individually-focused organization. They simply cannot understand or implement this fully from within an institution of socio-political centralization and collective assumptions. The next fundamental advancement in warfare will be the individualist army, and it will only be possible in a Promethean society. Individualism will always be superior to centralization, and no less in the military realm. And when Promethean soldiers fight, they will fight without the artificial political restrictions of nationalist armies. Nations fight according to recognition of nation; foreign policies are based on the respect of nation-states and their diplomatic relationships, not respect of individual autonomy. This is an artificial handicap in military terms, and in terms of respecting the lives involved in war. Prometheans defense services will be able, and will have the incentive, to find the most rapid, efficient, and most bloodless conclusion to a conflict. In strategy, personal fighting ability, adaptability, even technological advantages (which will be augmented under capitalism), Promethean soldiers will be unequaled.
War is a very important subject to me.
But war is far more than important, to all.
Within the past hundred years alone, hundreds of millions of living, breathing men, women, and children have been put to an end in warfare and genocide.
The old ways and old societies which are responsible are simply becoming too dangerous to us.
I have studied the history of war for as long as I can remember. If I have learned anything, it is this: over human history, war has become more and more threatening in its practice, more and more pervasive in scope and intrusion into human lives, and rapidly, now, in our modern age, increasingly devastating and shattering in its repercussions.
How many people will perish in the next world war? How much learning and art and civilization will be lost? How much individual spirit and brilliance will be crushed and wasted? How much of everything that is life will pass away?
War has become too terrible to endure.
One day, perhaps frighteningly soon, human beings may fight their way to the collapse of human civilization, or the extinction of humanity.
I know this could be the future, so I am adamant in demanding change.
The Future
The fulfillment of the Promethean mission is not only avoidance of disaster, not only escape from the mistakes of the past, not only freedom from what has been. The first objective of this mission, founding a Promethean society, promises to reach far beyond solutions to the problems of past and present societies.
The foundation itself is a great adventure, which will lend a sense of purpose to Prometheans and members of the movement. For a Promethean to dare to strive towards such a magnificent goal, to ready himself for it, to commit Herculean effort to it, and to achieve it - this is something to live for! It will be a story to be told and retold. Even to contribute modestly, ought to be a source of great pride. And to everyone, everywhere, this adventure will embody heroism in epic form: life, writ large. The world will see a clear example of what is possible for human beings. This manifest legend will bring hope of future human endeavor, inspiring further greatness and great deeds... an arrow pointing forward to future heights for mankind.
Freedom is not only possible, but necessary if people are to fulfill their own promise. But there is more to furthering self-expression than removing the chains upon it. Prometheans foster individual strength, capability, and diversity as living and active values, with the goal of strong, capable, fulfilled human beings. Initially, the identity and character of living in a Promethean society will be most exceptional for healing the mark of a mistaken past and magnifying what greatness there has been. In time, this life will grow and evolve to be a breadth of living undreamed of today. Those who live in the future will be capable of far more, and they will become far more. That is the promise, the vast potential of a Promethean society.
"Free from what? As if that mattered to Zarathustra! But your eyes should tell me brightly: free for what?"
- Nietzsche, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra
END of Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society.
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