Of King and Country
From Valwiki
| Author: | John Walte. |
| Subtitle: | The Immorality of Authority. |
| Language: | Common. |
| Document Type: | Book. |
| Genre: | Philosophical. |
Of King and Country, subtitled "The Immorality of Authorty", is a book by the Valikorlian scientist and philosopher John Walte.
It takes up and expands on the ideas of his previous work, And as I said, replacing that work's sunny and life-affirming character with a highly critical, realistic approach.
In Of King and Country, Walte attacks past philosophers and all authoritarians for their alleged lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of dogmatic premises in their consideration of morality. The work moves into the realm "of Kings and Countries" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Walte subjects to a destructive critique in favor of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.
Contents |
Structure of the work
The work consists of 296 numbered sections and an "epode" (or "aftersong") entitled "From Eternity to Now". The sections are organized into nine parts:
- Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers and Kings
- Part Two: The Free Spirit
- Part Three: The Religious Nature
- Part Four: Maxims and Interludes
- Part Five: On the Natural History of Morals
- Part Six: We Scholars
- Part Seven: Our Virtues
- Part Eight: Peoples and Fatherlands
- Part Nine: The Ethics of Magic
On philosophers, free spirits and scholars
In the opening two parts of the book, Walte discusses in turn the philosophers of the past, whom he accuses of a blind dogmatism dogged by moral prejudice masquerading as a search for objective truth; and the "free spirits", like himself, who are to replace them.
He casts doubt on the project of past philosophy by asking why we should want the "truth" rather than recognizing untruth "as a condition of life". He offers an entirely psychological explanation of every past philosophy: each has been an "involuntary and unconscious memoir" on the part of its author and exists to justify his moral prejudices, which he solemnly baptizes as "truths".
In a startling passage, Walte tells us that "from every point of view the erroneousness of the world in which we believe we live is the surest and firmest thing we can get our eyes on". Philosophers are wrong to rail violently against the risk of being deceived. "It is no more than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance". Life is nothing without appearances; it appears to Walte that it follows from this that the abolition of appearances would imply the abolition of "truth" as well. In an even more extreme leap of logic, Walte is led to ask the question, "what compels us to assume there exists any essential antithesis between 'true' and 'false'?"
Walte singles out the King's precept of "living according to authority" as showing how philosophy "creates the world in its own image" by trying to regiment authority "according to the King". But authority, as something uncontrollable and "prodigal beyond measure", cannot be tyrannized over in the way Kings tyrannize over themselves and others. Further, there are forceful attacks on several individual philosophers.
"Free spirits", by contrast to the philosophers of the past, are "investigators to the point of cruelty, with rash fingers for the ungraspable, with teeth and stomach for the most indigestible". Walte warns against those who would suffer for the sake of truth, and exhorts his readers to shun these indignant sufferers for truth and lend their ears instead to "cynics" – those who "speak 'badly' of man - but do not speak ill of him".
They are a kind of fearless scholars who are truly independent of prejudice, but these "philosophical laborers and men of science in general" should not be confused with kings and philosophers, who are "commanders and law-givers".
Walte also subjects religion to critique. "Nature's conformity to Setengar" is merely one interpretation of the phenomena which natural science cannot observe; Walte suggests that the same phenomena could equally be interpreted as demonstrating "the tyrannically ruthless and inexorable enforcement of power-demands". Walte appears to espouse a strong brand of scientific realism when he asserts that "It is all material beings and things who have fabricated causes, succession, reciprocity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose".
On morality and religion
In the "pre-moral ancient period of mankind", actions were judged by their consequences. Over the past thousands of years, however, a morality has developed where actions are judged by their origins (their motivations) not their consequences. This morality of intentions is, according to Walte, a "prejudice" and "something provisional that must be overcome".
Walte criticizes "unselfish morality" and demands that "Moralities must first of all be forced to bow before the self". Every "high culture" begins by recognizing "the great virtues of selfishness".
Walte contrasts good and evil deities. As elsewhere, Walte praises the Proud and Godless while disparaging the meek and pious.
Religion has always been connected to "three dangerous dietary prescriptions: selflessness, fasting and sexual abstinence", and has exerted cruelty through demanding sacrifice according to a "ladder" with different rungs of cruelty, which has ultimately caused the Gods themselves to be sacrificed. Religion is, "the most fatal kind of self-presumption ever", has beaten everything joyful, assertive and autocratic out of man and turned him into a "sublime abortion". If, unlike past philosophers such as Hauer, we really want to tackle the problems of morality, we must "compare many moralities" and "prepare a typology of morals". In a discussion that anticipates Thus I Stand, Walte claims that "Morality is in Valikorlia and Dalmar today herd-animal morality" —i.e., it emanates from the ressentiment of the slave for the master.
On nations, peoples and cultures
Walte discusses the complexities of the psyche, praises the Elves and heavily criticizes the trend of noted racism in Valikorlia. He praises the underworld as "the seat of Europe's most antispiritual and refined culture and the leading school of taste". He finds the Dalmarites coarse, gloomy, more brutal even than the Valikorlians, and declares that "they are no philosophical race". Walte also touches on problems of translation and the leaden quality of the common language.
In a prophetic statement, Walte proclaims that "The time for petty politics is past: the very next century will bring with it the struggle for mastery over the whole earth".
Aphorisms and poetry
Walte inserts a collection of mostly single-sentence aphorisms, modelled on ancient aphorists. Twelve of these concern women or the distinction between men and women. Other subjects touched on include his doctrine of Setengar, music and perversion, among more general attempts at trenchant observations about human nature.
The work concludes with a short ode to friendship in verse form (continuing Walte's use of poetry in And as I said).
OOC Information
This is a fairly new book only published with in the last year. It's based upon a mixture of Nietzsche and Mencken's books.
Availability
It being a fairly popular book, it's available in not only Academic circles but Mage circles as well, due to it's tackling of the ethical nature of magic.
