Book review.
Amazon review:
This is an argument that philosophy is born with and dependent on the idea of nature; and that this idea was first discovered or manifested in the perception of biological reality, in particular the perception of hereditary transmission of physical and behavioral qualities, together with the perception that moral and legal codes are relative and contingent. It was generally only within the spiritual and intellectual horizon of certain types of aristocracies to have access to such perceptions, as well as ability and liberty to openly state or explore them. A connection is further observed, on these grounds, between philosophy and tyranny, or rather the philosopher and tyrant as closely related types that emerge during the decline of e.g., Greek and Renaissance Italian aristocratic communities. I make this case through a study of Nietzsche's reading of antiquity, in particular his reading of Plato and Pindar, or rather a Nietzschean reading of these. The first long chapter also covers George Frazer and anthropological and historical literature, as well as Homer. This is a revised version of my own doctoral dissertation, and includes a long new introduction explaining my intentions in this book. I make the case in this introduction that this same matter of selective breeding, whether sexual selection, or various societies' management of marriage and reproduction, constitutes the most important part of morality, legislation, or of the "lawgiver's art," and that a sharp awareness of this reality is what led, again, to the discovery of the standard of nature and the subsequent birth of philosophy.
The type of the tyrant is ultimately interpreted as a kind of "active philosophy," although it must be emphasized that such can only be the case for the ancient Greek or Renaissance Italian type, not what is called by the name "tyrant" indiscriminately today. Accordingly the voice of Callicles in Plato's Gorgias is interpreted as the political philosophy, or the weaponized posture of the pre-Socratic philosophical type.
Bronze Age Pervert, also known as BAP or B.A.P.,is a pseudonymous far-right Internet personality, associated with the manosphere. The media have identified Costin Vlad Alamariu (born May 21, 1980), a Romanian-American, as the person behind the pseudonym…Alamariu is of Romanian and Jewish descent…
More, see this.
The author’s alleged identity as “Bronze Age Pervert” and his ethnicity will not affect my review, which is as follows.
The book unfortunately takes HBD too seriously and positively notes execrable trash like “HBD Chick.” The book also supports the idea of steppe conquerors establishing themselves as an aristocratic class (there may be some truth in this), a variant of Hamilton’s noble barbarian thesis:
Hamilton, W.D. (1975), Innate social aptitudes of man: an approach from evolutionary genetics, in R. Fox (ed.), Biosocial Anthropology, Malaby Press, London, 133-53.
The incursions of barbaric pastoralists seem to do civilizations less harm in the long run than one might expect. Indeed, two dark ages and renaissances in Europe suggest a recurring pattern in which a renaissance follows an incursion by about 800 years. It may even be suggested that certain genes or traditions of pastoralists revitalize the conquered people with an ingredient of progress which tends to die out in a large panmictic population for the reasons already discussed. I have in mind altruism itself, or the part of the altruism which is perhaps better described as self-sacrificial daring. By the time of the renaissance it may be that the mixing of genes and cultures (or of cultures alone if these are the only vehicles, which I doubt) has continued long enough to bring the old mercantile thoughtfulness and the infused daring into conjunction in a few individuals who then find courage for all kinds of inventive innovation against the resistance of established thought and practice. Often, however, the cost in fitness of such altruism and sublimated pugnacity to the individuals concerned is by no means metaphorical, and the benefits to fitness, such as they are, go to a mass of individuals whose genetic correlation with the innovator must be slight indeed. Thus civilization probably slowly reduces its altruism of all kinds, including the kinds needed for cultural creativity (see also Eshel 1972).
I object to the “genetic correlation with the innovator must be slight indeed” statement in that it is incorrect from a global and/or group selection standpoint, although it is true with respect to the isolated population itself, which is probably how Hamilton meant it. Therefore, my objection is more how the Left/System and the HBD scum would misinterpret Hamilton’s point (“you see, members of the same group are unrelated and free riding destroys ethnic nepotism”) as opposed to the specific point that Hamilton is making about the dilution of altruism in a population. One can make arguments against Hamilton in that in a closely related population the “genetic altruism” may be widespread and that given computational modeling showing that ethnocentrists outcompete free-riders (as well as universalists), if we extend altruism into the ethnocentrism equation, things might not be as bleak as Hamilton suggests.
In any case, the book being reviewed here seems to be of the school of outside conquerors (e.g., from pastoralist/steppe settings) setting themselves up as an aristocratic ruling elite among settled farming people (e.g., “my noble position was won by my forebears wielding battle axes”) and one can view that in from the spectrum of degenerate “civilized” populations being enriched by the blood of “barbarians.” However, there are no more White barbarians to do such enriching, and even if “suitable” non-White barbarians existed (and they do not exist – all we have are destructive low quality parasites), such “enrichment” would be racially destructive and so the EGI costs would outweigh any purported benefits. No, instead our regeneration now much come from within. Perhaps the Far Right elements of today’s degenerate and xenophilic White populations are the new barbarians. Who knows? Or at least, a Far Right victory would allow for an enriching eugenics.
Putting the obsession with altruism aside, the following is Hamilton extending inclusive fitness beyond narrow kin:
The usefulness of the 'inclusive fitness' approach to social behavior (i.e. an approach using criteria like (b[AB]K-k)>0) is that it is more general than the 'group selection', 'kin selection', or 'reciprocal altruism' approaches and so provides an overview even where regression coefficients and fitness effects are not easy to estimate or specify. As against 'group selection' it provides a useful conceptual tool where no grouping is apparent -- for example, it can deal with an ungrouped viscous population where, owing to restricted migration, an individual’s normal neighbours and interactants tend to be his genetical kindred.
Because of the way it was first explained, the approach using inclusive fitness has often been identified with 'kin selection' and presented strictly as an alternative to 'group selection' as a way of establishing altruistic social behavior by natural selection (e.g. Maynard Smith 1964; Lewontin 1970). But the foregoing discussion shows that kinship should be considered just one way of getting positive regression of genotype in the recipient, and that it is this positive regression that is vitally necessary for altruism. Thus the inclusive-fitness concept is more general than 'kin-selection'. Haldane's suggestion about tribe-splitting can be seen in one light as a way of increasing intergroup variance and in another as a way of getting positive regression in the population as a whole by having the groups which happen to have most altruists divide most frequently. In this case, the altruists are helping true relatives. But in the assortive-settling model it obviously makes no difference if altruists settle with altruists because they are related (perhaps never having parted from them) or because they recognize fellow altruists as such, or settle together because of some pleiotropic effect of the gene on habitat preference. If we insist that group selection is different from kin selection the term should be restricted to situations of assortation definitely not involving kin. But it seems on the whole preferable to retain a more flexible use of terms; to use group selection where groups are clearly in evidence and qualify with mention of 'kin' (as in the 'kin-group ‘selection referred to by Brown 1973), 'relatedness' or 'low migration' (which is often the cause of relatedness ingroups), or else 'assortation', as appropriate. The term 'kin selection' appeals most where pedigrees tend to be unbounded and interwoven, as is so often the case with man.
Let’s get to the main thesis of the book.
The original native societies (e.g., in very early Ancient Greece) were ruled by egalitarian “totalitarian democracies” (not the same as I use that term) that had as their underlying structure a strict, absolute, dogmatic adherence to ancestral tradition and laws (”nomos”). Councils of elders held the real power, and dissent from a slavish adherence to tradition could mean death. Ethnically and culturally, these societies were non-martial farming people of a gracile phenotype.
How did things change? These lands were invaded and conquered by physically robust pastoralists of a martial nature (e.g., steppe people) who set themselves up as a ruling elite and instituted an aristocratic ethos, with a willingness to accept new ideas, and a hierarchical social structure and establishment of kings with real power and an aristocracy. Even if the newcomers and the natives genetically melded over time (sometimes this happened, sometimes it did not), these social and cultural changes and structures persisted.
Given the aristocratic ethos, physical characteristics, pastoralist origins (e.g., animal breeding) of the newcomers and the establishment of a societal culture around newcomer values, issues like breeding came into focus as important, not only of animals, but, more importantly, of people as well. The innate heritable abilities of people come into focus. A key to the aristocratic ethos was the idea that the aristocracy were fit to rule due to their innate (heritable) superiority (but see below) and that a purpose to the understanding of nature with respect to the aristocracy was a breeding program to create superior individuals of moral and physical vigor. The author mentions the:
…observed descent of concrete physical qualities by blood and breeding as opposed to the authority of ancestral stories and laws…
And:
Nature is body and blood, and blood and is therefore heredity, Knowledge of breeding and heredity is, again, to be expected among a pastoral people who have long experience with livestock breeds. Furthermore, when war and hunting are prized, there is also an emphasis on the breeding of horses and of dogs…
This led to the “discovery of nature” – the ability to understand the natural world – as opposed to adherence to blind tradition. This in turn led to the rise of philosophy and of tyranny (sometimes supported by philosophy) – philosophy and tyranny often manifesting as important during periods of degeneration of the aristocratic regimes, when these regimes needed to better justify and fortify themselves. The author states (italics in original):
…it is this element of absolute unmooring from the settled, democratic rule of the ancestral customs that, when the actual aristocracies are in political and social decline in the late Archaic age. Is radicalized, recovered, refined, and made abstract, not only by the philosophical way of life and its discovery of nature, but by the way of life of the tyrant.
Thus, in a sense, philosophy and tyranny are used as tools to attempt to regenerate a declining aristocratic social structure, in part through the “discovery of nature.”
Note how Nietzsche associated the rise of Socrates and subsequent Geek (Apollonian) philosophy with a degeneration of the aristocratic (Dionysian) Hellenic society. The book’s author stresses that the various upheavals in (Ancient) Greek ancestry were not, as supposed, an attempt to return to an idyllic “settled” life, but rather a regeneration of the “wild” and “barbaric” unsettled martial way of life. This goes back to Hamilton (“…suggest a recurring pattern in which a renaissance follows an incursion by about 800 years. It may even be suggested that certain genes or traditions of pastoralists revitalize the conquered people”); the idea here is that the original pastoralist conquerors became too settled and a fresh infusion of pastoralist barbarism regenerates the original aristocratic attitude (in this sense, “settled” means the non-martial “democratic” farming societies while “unsettled” represents the war-like aristocratic pastoralists, including pastoralist warbands of young warriors).
The author extends his theory a bit and talks about how the radicalization of nature (e.g., with the Ancient Greeks) was associated with a decline in aristocratic power due to both external and internal influences. With respect to the external, the rule of a given aristocracy can be physically challenged as well as their legitimacy to rule deconstructed. With respect to the internal, a given aristocracy can degenerate. The author notes a bit of a discordance between a strict adherence to (a) the aristocracy is fit to rule to their superior qualities, and (b) there exists a tradition of rule by a certain aristocracy, which leads to the question as to whether the aristocracy rules due to their currently existing innate qualities or by tradition. Of course, part of the aristocratic tradition itself is the idea of nature and of innate superiority of the rulers, but the existence of this discordance led to the further radicalization and abstraction of the nature principle with the philosophy and tyranny manifesting during periods of decline. One can question as well whether the discordance between rule by superiority or rule by tradition became more of an issue in the event of a degenerating internal decline of the aristocracy. The author quotes Pindar talking about strength in men manifesting in alternate generations, such as may happen with crops and fruit trees; the aristocratic apologia here is that while the sons of aristocratic heroes may be mediocre, the blood is still there, and subsequent generations may yield men of quality once again – sort of a upward progressing to the mean. The author rejects such an interpretation of Pindar’s passage as an apologia for his own time, since it seems that the passage was meant for aristocrats who did not require self-legitimacy, rather than for public propaganda purposes. I might add though that we today could interpret the meaning of Pindar’s passage in the manner described above, as our own justification for aristocracy (regardless of Pindar’s intention); however, I prefer an elite chosen on the basis of exhibited manifest personal superiority, rather than a hereditary aristocratic class from which we may merely hope for future ability.
The author stresses the Pindarian ideal of innate, biological, heritable traits being of immeasurably more value than that learned by education, training, and convention; one must be bred to be an impetuous “beast,” both fox and lion, with the manly aristocratic traits whose most refined manifestation is a result, ultimately of nature, not nurture, traits whose source is the “blood.” It seems clear that Pindar valued heredity, nature, and blood, a theoretical basis of human understanding compatible with today’s Far Right.
There is also a discussion of Plato’s Gorgias, specifically the ideas of Callicles and how that fits in with the aristocratic idea of nature, the primacy of biology, and the link between philosophy and tyranny, with the philosopher and tyrant being “kindred types.” The author states that the “fundamental function of political philosophy on the one hand, and of tyranny on the other” is the “protection - the breeding - and training or protection of this biological specimen.” Thus, philosophy and tyranny aim at creating “game reserves” for the “aristocratic breeding project” now abstracted into political philosophy as independent of classes or tribes.” Plato may be attempting to hide his beliefs in this regard and conceals the kinship between philosophy and tyranny through attacks on tyranny. Given the persecution of philosophy by democratic forces (the trial and death of Socrates being just one prime example), Plato (and others) tried via apologia to deflect this animus and obscure the connection between philosophy and tyranny (as noted above).
Complaints about philosophy can come from the perspective of omission or commission. Of the former, from a Jewish/Islamic perspective, by relentlessly questioning everything, including societal conventions, philosophy can erode adherence to those conventions and cause the omission of people following conventions and traditions considered essential for societal stability. By placing doubts in the minds of men regarding fundamental principles, apathy can result. As regards the latter, the Ancient Greek complaint was more that philosophy can encourage the commission of illegal acts and the march to tyranny.
Traditionally, the interpretation of the Gorgias was that Plato was siding with Socrates in the Callicles-Socrates debate, with Socrates seemingly arguing for a more “morale, humane, proto-Christian” position while Callicles argued in favor of a more Social Darwinist “might makes right” approach, which was nature based, and that was concerned with promoting the interests of superior human specimens. Indeed, Callicles’ thought was to support the political over the philosophical life, in the direction if tyranny to safeguard the promotion of nature and the well-being of his superior human specimens. In a sense, Callicles was promoting the pre-Socratic philosophical position from which he derives the idea of the superior man breaking free of the stifling bounds of convention. The author however believes that Plato secretly sided with Callicles and claims that the “refutation” by Socrates of the positions of Callicles was not much of a refutation at all, and in one sense Socrates “doubled down” on some of Callicles’ ideas. Socrates seemed to believe that Callicles was being somewhat political naïve in believing that convention suppressed the superior only through (coercive) “speech” (in modern language: memes and ideologies) while Socrates invoked the reality of a (democratic) regime resorting to physical force to restrain the ambitions of Callicles’ “Übermensch.” Note that Callicles considered Socrates as a superior man and that the tyranny would also serve to protect philosophy from democratic persecution – a persecution that was all too real. To protect and promote philosophy in a city like Athens, Plato had to both “spiritualize” Callicles’ “aristocratic radicalism” and obscure the link between philosophy and tyranny; indeed, to make philosophy seem in opposition to tyranny. Plato’s aims here are said to be to “advise potential philosophers on the necessity of liberation from convention, "to assure the cities that this liberation would not encourage tyranny,” and that “the philosopher is the true possessor of the political art.” Plato thus wants to leverage Greek city politics to advance the cause of philosophy. Convention cannot be openly opposed as such, but infiltrated from within, for the sake of philosophy and aristocratic natural values.
I assume that the reader is familiar with Nietzsche and his work so that I can briefly touch on some of the more novel points this book makes on Nietzsche and his work. Thus, as regards Nietzsche, the fan of Napoleon, he regarded philosophy as a way of life and had as a goal “making the world safe for philosophy,” so to speak rather than the goal of certain Greeks to focus on producing a “supreme physical specimen.” Ultimately though, the link between philosophy and tyranny remains. I agree with the author that at some point the writings of Nietzsche need to be taken at face value, and not merely interpreted as him “joking” or “making a point.” Additional information on Nietzsche:
For Nietzsche (and philosophy/religion in general), we see a distinction between exoteric and esoteric programs; the former is the outward political and moral program and the latter is the inner spiritual meaning, such as the interests of philosophy and the life of the philosopher. Both are real, both are relevant, and it is wrong to consider the exoteric as merely a “metaphor” or “irony” or a “joke” (in the case of Nietzsche). The author gives Sufism as an example – jihad can certainly have an esoteric meaning of an inner spiritual struggle and personal warfare, but it also has an exoteric meaning as warfare against unbelievers, and it is the exoteric that provides protection for the esoteric. Likewise, if Nietzsche’s aim was the preservation of philosophy, then his exoteric objectives were not merely “metaphor” or “jokes” but need to be taken at face value as ideals for the protection of philosophy. Both Plato and Nietzsche had the same objective of preserving philosophy, but their tactics differed due to the context of their respective eras. Plato and the Socratic school felt that they needed to obscure, to spiritualize and make abstract the aristocratic ethos to protect philosophy from the attacks of democracy. Nietzsche on the other hand believed that the Platonic school was all too successful, resulting in an enervation of European man, who required rebarbarization.
As part of this is an reexamination of aristocracy, emphasizing its physical aspects. Here we observe a discussion of tanning. Thus, contra to the Nordicist view, in Ancient Greece, a tanned physique was demonstration of the aristocratic warrior, and the tanned Spartan-Greek aristocracy was contrasted to the (effete) Persian-Oriental oligarchy. This would perhaps be a surprise to those who have drunk the “movement” Kool-Aid, but you should understand by now how the Nordicists are wrong about just about everything. In any case, this focus on tanning emphasizes the “physicality” of the Greek aristocracy, resulting from a long history of breeding and training (with the latter, often outdoors, contributing to tanning, as did being on military campaigns). We again observe the link between physicality, breeding, and training and the focus on nature as the basis of philosophy, and we observe the analogy of the philosopher and a bred and trained “athlete of the intellect.” While Plato was more direct than Nietzsche in the link between physicality and philosophy, the latter did basically agree with the former. The aristocratic ideal – that contained within it physicality, competition, breeding, and training; hence, nature – was the foundation for philosophy and high culture. Of course, physicality and training are insufficient for philosophy and high culture, as the case of Sparta makes clear. However, Athens had a balance between the aristocratic idea and the balanced promotion of culture and philosophy. Thus, aristocratic physicality can be viewed as necessary but not sufficient for a philosophical regime. We can consider Ancient Rome – that Nietzsche stated was a case of the stalk growing at the expense of the flower – as akin to a Latin Sparta, in that their aristocratic values (i.e., the patricians) did not result in the “flower” of a native philosophy/culture.
We also come back to the idea that philosophy can be viewed as the abstraction and spiritualization of physicality, physical beauty, competition, etc. that occurred during a period of aristocratic decline, in which a “liberalization” allows for aristocratic energy to be focused on intellectual pursuits, which themselves can be used to defend the declining aristocratic regime. What Nietzsche saw as fundamental for establishing the aristocratic regime were cruelty, intolerance, and the ‘pathos of distance.” The creation of the Greek polis involved citizen quality over quantity, and, at least in the beginning, a ruthless weeding out of the inferior could be considered as essential. Danger – internal, external, or both – was important for creating the context for intolerant cruelty to build and maintain the regime, and a paradox for such a system was how to both create the required “predatory beasts” (my term) while at the same time constraining their ambition to prevent them from wrecking an aristocratic society. With degeneration these “pent up” political and spiritual tensions burst forth and during periods of “liberalization” these tensions and energies can be focused on intellectual and cultural pursuits. Indeed, the author states that ”Political weakening is good for culture” – Spengler’s distinction of culture vs. civilization comes to mind (although in his scheme culture peaked in the earlier times before centralized authority and civilization, not later during degeneration) and it is during these times of decline that Nietzsche claimed that “the most amazing specimens can emerge.” Indeed, there must be the right types of people to take advantage of these periods, and this is when tyranny can emerge (another link between philosophy and tyranny). Tyranny emerges here not only because of the weakening of the aristocratic constraints but also because of a “strengthening” that can take place in those rare “amazing specimens” – novel, brilliant, tyrannical men (“beautiful monsters,” e.g., Caesar) - that allow them to flourish in periods of decline, in the same manner that the philosophers (“tyrants of the spirit”) can flourish.
Thus, barbarians establish an aristocratic regime over a sedentary population and under the pressure of danger establish an aristocratic regime characterized by cruelty, intolerance, pathos of distance, and the breeding program, coupled to training, to produce the requisite human material. This human material, and its training, and the background of the aristocratic ideals furnish the raw material for high culture, including philosophy. Then during decline, political weakness, when the pent-up energies are released, “monstrous types” emerge – and akin to the concept of biological mutation, most of these types will be weak and botched (and men of mixed race and warring heredities) but a minority of the more fortunate will be stronger and these will be the “beautiful monsters” – Alcibiades, Caesar, da Vinci, and, no doubt, Napoleon.
The Platonic project had as an exoteric meaning to fight Geek decadence and an esoteric meaning to make the cities safe for philosophy. But as described above, to obfuscate, the abstraction and spiritualization of nature ended up reinforcing an enervating decadence that Nietzsche opposed. The Socratic-Platonic school’s attempted cure for the age of dissolution reinforced the problems. While it made the remaining Classical World safe for philosophy it also created a breeding ground for Christianity, which the author claims led to “the misbreeding of modern European man.” Thus, the conditions for philosophy become untenable – the misbreeding eliminates even most of the “beautiful monsters” and creates a zeitgeist unsuitable for philosophy. While Platonism – suitable for a late-stage civilizations and not for barbarians introduced to culture (in other words, suitable for Spengler’s [late] Fall and not Spring) - can be forgiven for not foreseeing the Christian threat, the Platonist tendency to ascetic “otherworldliness” was an inherent flaw that cannot be explained away. On the one hand, ascetism was a reasonable “treatment” in a age of decadence and unrestrained instincts. But the problem was that a proper understanding of nature and of the body was lost, which became disastrous when Christianity was able to enforce Platonist exoteric doctrine (morality, etc.) more powerfully than what Plato imagined. The true power of philosophy is in its inner esoteric meaning of breeding and nature; Platonist moral philosophy was “contingent” on historical circumstances and should not be broadly applied, certainly not in its Christian variant.
Nietzsche and Plato disagreed on tactics, not aims, a point made clear all above. The aims include the preservation and promotion of nature, the breeding of genius, of amazing specimens, and to make society safe for philosophy. As the author points out, “man is a political animal, attracted to “force, power, and violence.” The purpose of human nature is the production of genius, and the specific production of military genius is a prerequisite for the stability of a state that can allow genius more generally to flourish. Inevitably there is the association of philosophy with tyranny. The Conclusion of the book summarizes all of this. The Appendix may be of utility to those interested in Strauss but does not alter the interpretations already discussed.
To summarize the fundamentals here: The “idea of nature” derives from aristocratic ideals, and defenders of aristocracy respond to its decline by “abstracting and radicalizing” the “idea of nature.” The author connects two strands of philosophical thought; first, Nietzsche’s thesis that philosophy and tyranny (that are linked) originate with aristocratic degeneration and, second, the Straussian idea that “nature” is a requisite precondition for the development of philosophy.
In summary, this was an interesting book. You can argue that it is a bit “dense” and repetitive, but it is adapted from a thesis, so that needs to be considered. The author presents sufficient evidence to support his major contentions, and the emphasis here on nature, heredity, biology, and breeding is a healthy response to those who want to strip Greek philosophy and the philosophy of Nietzsche of its biological connotations (indeed, the author critiques those who wrote that Nietzsche was “joking” or didn’t mean what people assumes he meant). Thus, the book is a necessary corrective in response to the tendency of the Left and Center to de-biologize philosophy and merely extol its purely abstract ethical considerations. I would recommend this book for those on the Right who are more of the “intellectual type,” at least as a thought-provoking exercise in considering deeper meanings of various philosophical and historical currents of relevance to the West. Indeed, a biology-based philosophy steeped in nature can be utilized to form an ethical defense of our genetic interests, including those interests at the group level, a topic I’ve broached at my blogs (and of course the third part of On Genetic Interests begins the discussion of such issues).
