Self-Similarity

Waves crash white in the offshore swell
Foam and roaring glory
Spent and slack they roll as well
On smooth sand transitory

They lap around a lonely stone
Fluctus de minimis non curat
In sand it stands proud alone
Aloof transcendent obdurat

As the water ebbs and flows
Around the boulder's stony toes
In miniature I see once more
All the tiny wavelets roar

The Bluing of the Blood - a Guide to Social Advancement

Foreword

It gave me great pleasure to be favoured with the condescension of Sir Algernon one afternoon in the lounge of his London club.
The great man is well known in all echelons of Society and therefore the reader may be sure that he knows of what he speaks.
His insights, while not revelatory or novel, are nonetheless a synthesis of relevancy and a masterful distillation of that which is known to be true by all inhabitants of our Isle.
While listening to the great man, on several occasions I suppressed an involuntary ‘but of course’, and it is my hope that the reader will find themselves similarly motivated.
The division of Sir Algernon’s monologue into chapters is entirely the device of the writer, the speech itself was flawless in its logic, and entirely fluent in its delivery.



Adam Thomas – 2019

Privilege

Privilege refers to that which you have which others do not.  In that broad sense it is true that, all living things being unique, all possess some attribute not possessed by others.  Therefore it is necessary to distinguish between that which is unique but inconsequential, and that which is unique and confers advantage.  The experience of having a puncture in one’s Nissan Micra is relatively unique, since one is not surrounded by similarly afflicted motorists at the side of the road.  However I confidently assert that no one would dream to estimate this ‘privilege’ as being of similar worth to wafting effortlessly down the same stretch of road in one’s Bentley Continental.  The accrual of positive Privilege - capitalised for the avoidance of confusion - is therefore the aim of this guide.  The tortuous process by which one, not only grasps the mantle of superiority, but proves oneself intrinsically deserving of Privilege, I refer to as The Bluing of the Blood.

Breeding for Altitude

It is not for nothing that the quest for distinction is often referred to in terms of ascent.  By its very nature the accrual of Privilege places one upon the upper levels of a pyramid, whose base is comprised of the less-Privileged, and the un-Privileged.  It is almost as if the draining of Privilege from the lower, and the conferring of it upon the upper, were a natural force of progression.  It is similar to the way in which tiny quantities of gold, so small as to be unnoticed, are freed from hundreds of tonnes of unappreciative rock, and then combined to form the perfection of one’s Cartier/Patek Philippe etc.  So also the accrual of Privilege into a glorious mountain on which the superiors are rightfully placed, is a boon and a signal point for the entirety of society.

By virtue of the automatic nature of the accrual of Privilege, those ‘at the top’ obviously deserve their position.  However this position of altitude does engender certain difficulties.  As in literal high altitudes, so also on the rarefied pinnacle of Privilege, oxygen becomes somewhat scarce.  A tolerance for low oxygen levels is therefore one of the natural attributes suiting one to the acquisition of Privilege.  As Privilege is acquired, a bluing of the blood is observed commensurate with the altitude achieved.  Those in possession of great Privilege are therefore observably cooler in temperament than the red-blooded un-Privileged.  The degree of blue-bloodedness that is achievable within one generation is limited however, explaining why many politicians and suchlike are early expelled from the ranks of the Privileged on account of transgression of a hot-blooded carnal sort.

Since true Privilege is the result of many generations of careful breeding, I will deal in some length on the subject of how such improvement of the bloodline may be accomplished.  Before that however, a couple of notes on the proper conduct of those propelled into the heady heights of Privilege on account of their richly deserved superiority.

Condescension vs Egalitarianism

An often heard complaint from the ranks of the un-Privileged is that the Privileged ‘look down on them’.  Confined as they are to the squalor of their station in life, rubbing shoulders with countless other similar individuals of little worth, the un-Privileged cannot comprehend the viewpoint of the Privileged. Those propelled by superiority to such an altitude that the un-Privileged are little more than a faceless mass are not to be criticised for looking down, since no other point of view is possible for them.

The barely-literate among the un-Privileged may use the word ‘condescension’ in their complaint, as though knowledge of a word of four syllables bolsters their argument.  In so doing they disprove their own argumentation and underscore their ignorance, since the etymology of ‘condescend’ is from the latin - descending to be with.  Since the Privileged naturally occupy a position of superiority, and need never descend, the action of condescension is the conferring of a valuable privilege on the recipient. This is, not an insult, but rather a highpoint in the life of the individual of little worth that may be remembered to his dying day.

The benevolent condescension of the Privileged is predicated on acceptance of their status by the recipient.  It cannot be stressed enough that condescension should never be mistaken for egalitarianism.  It is to be heartily deplored that the outward indications of Privilege have been diluted in this modern era.  Access to nutritious food, adequate housing and warm clothing has regrettably become so common, that the natural distinctions between the Privileged and those of little worth may no longer be obvious when walking in the street.  Marques that previously were only available to the Privileged, such as Jaguar for example, have been sold to multinational purveyors of mass-produced mediocrity.  These proud symbols may now be seen everywhere in hideous states of disarray, being driven by those who, in former generations, would have been refused a seat on the omnibus.

At this point it seems appropriate to make some comment on the lamentable misconceptions that gave rise to the eugenics movements of the 1920’s and 1930’s.  The Privileged of those times noticed with dismay the vastly superior procreative ability of those of little worth.  Contrast if you will the ability of the lower classes to produce chimney sweeps and pur collectors in a mere 80 months from the date of copulation, with the decades of care and dedication and expense required to bring a Privileged scion to maturity.  

It seemed that the Privileged must eventually be submerged in a diseased sea of mediocrity, so various laudable initiatives were proposed.  These ranged from forcible sterilisation to wholesale euthanasia, all considered with the same benevolence as that exercised by the grieving owner of a filly with a broken leg, who selflessly writes off the loss by putting the creature swiftly out of its misery, instead of subjecting it to a course of painful remediation that may not succeed.

While laudable in principle, these initiatives misconstrued the relationship of the Privileged to their inferiors.  The pyramid of Privilege, like any other pyramid, requires its base to be as broad as its top is tall.  It is plain to see that the current rarefied heights of Privilege have been reached by means of an increase in the number of underlings rather than their decrease.  The Privileged may justly regard themselves as Apex beings.  Nature itself teaches that the world may not be populated purely with noble lions; the wildebeest, despite its lank greasy hair and slovenly gait, is necessary too.  It is not only necessary, but necessary in huge numbers.  As a good friend of mine reminds me “when everymensch is​ ubermensch nomensch is anymensch”.

A very few Privileged may take exception to this analysis, since they do not relish the idea of preying on humanity - however low and degenerate.  Such are generally those who, because of  the unspeakable perfidy of the honourable house, have been deprived of the experience of riding to hounds and being properly blooded at a suitably young age.  Such must remember that the health of an ecosystem is directly measured by its apex specimens, and that these noble beasts must accept their responsibility to ensure the health of the whole through the benevolent removal of the inferior.  For the system to function however, the Privileged must remember their responsibility to all, great and small, and refrain from killing more than they can eat.

Though there is a regrettable increase in the mistaken belief that any and all may occupy a place of worth in society, I am sure that my arguments above have convinced the reader of the natural order of things.  Those of intrinsic worth have a duty, to themselves and to society, to grasp the nettle and assert their superiority.  Those whose social genetics permit them to tolerate the rarefied atmosphere of Privilege must rise to their potential.  More than that, they must pass their blue blood to the next generation.  They must devote themselves to the preservation and further accrual of Privilege by ‘breeding for altitude’ as earlier mentioned.  As with the improvement of any bloodline, the proper selection of sire and dam, and the correct care of offspring are paramount.

The Role of the Sire

It must be realised that the transmission of Privilege to the next generation is exclusively accomplished through the male line of succession.  This places a great responsibility upon the Sire to ensure that his offspring are worthy of the glorious, but admittedly heavy, burden that they must shoulder.  In undertaking to produce an heir, the Sire must focus exclusively upon responsibility to venerable ancestry and glorious posterity.  His choice of a vessel who must contain this priceless potential for some nine months cannot be based upon sentiment or fancy.  Admittedly the hypoxia of the realm of privilege will assist the victory of sense and practicality in the task of assessing the merits of prospective Dams.

A prospective Dam should be youthful enough to produce “an heir and one to spare”.  Ideally she and the Sire will be equally blue blooded such that an excess of maternal emotion shall not impede the proper care of offspring (see below).  Having fulfilled his imperative to posterity, further liaison with the Dam is entirely at the discretion of the Sire.  He should however take steps to ensure that illegitimate offspring are not allowed to jeopardise the full transmission of accrued Privilege, through the heir, to the next generation.  It is worth mentioning that Privilege, like a glorious soap bubble floating above the croquet lawns on a summer day, is only divided or shared at the risk of its complete destruction.

The Sire’s responsibility toward offspring requires his presence, or at least the presence of his man, at the key rites of passage.  Riding to hounds, departure to boarding school, first appearance in court on account of a minor indiscretion, all of these are events at which the calm, monolithic presence of the Sire, or his man, are indispensable.  As the recipients of Privilege, offspring will know themselves to be loved by the universe itself.  For this reason the Sire should not feel a need to give outward expression to any spontaneous benevolence toward offspring that may from time to time disturb the tranquillity of his heart.  To do otherwise would be to impede the bluing of the blood of the offspring.

The Role of the Dam

The Role of the Dam is to take the name of the Sire and protect accrued Privilege for forward transmission to the heir.  Depending on the intelligence and acumen of the Sire this may be either an active or a passive role.  In the case of a Sire capable of fathering offspring and little else, the Dam may find herself in control of the assets and future prosperity of the bloodline.  In the case of an assertive Sire she may find herself in a position little better than the peacocks in the drive.  

Another misconception from history is worth mentioning at this point, though a much earlier one than that of the eugenicists.  It was thought that an entire miniature human was contained within each sperm cell - a homunculus.  All that was necessary was to provide the environment in which it could grow.  Now however we realise that genetic material is donated to the offspring by both the Sire and the Dam.  This consideration underscores the need for care in the selection of a suitable Dam, lest an imprudent coupling redden the blood.  

Once a suitable Dam has been selected it will be necessary for the Sire to affect some measure of emotion, and make certain overtures that may not be entirely within the realms of comfortable conduct.  The Sire should not discomfort himself in this regard, since this mode of behaviour need not be continued after sufficient nuptials have occurred to furnish a healthy heir, and perhaps an additional offspring as insurance.  

Having now fulfilled her primary function, the Dam would be well advised to cultivate a small circle of sympathetic friends with whom to while away the days.  If this is unsatisfying she may pursue good works of one sort or another - displaying suitable condescension - provided this does not put the Sire in a bad light and thus lead to a loss of Privilege.  

On no account should the Dam be permitted to become the central figure in the lives of the offspring.  This would only serve to undermine the progress of the Sire in bluing the blood.  It would also lead to confusion in the offspring who will generally have their daily needs cared for by inferiors.  Either they will come to view the Dam as their inferior too or, far worse, come to view themselves as equal to the servants!  In any case this dilemma will soon be solved by the departure of the offspring to boarding school.

The Care of the Offspring

It is of paramount importance that offspring be constantly reminded of their deserved position in life.  This is a natural consequence of superiority and therefore is not a subject upon which gratitude is appropriate, since entitlement and gratitude are mutually exclusive.  With regard to every other aspect of their lives however, it should be constantly impressed upon them that it is only by means of the ceaseless efforts of Sire and Dam that they are sustained.  

Offspring are most certainly to be grateful, and show themselves so, for the efforts taken to choose appropriate names, nannies, tutors and boarding schools.  If it is possible for Sire or Dam to make themselves personally available during a few of their valuable hours during school holidays or childhood illness, a record should be made so that the offspring may be reminded of the sacrifice whenever appropriate levels of gratitude are not in evidence.  Such recollection of past parental condescension may be utilised at any appropriate time, irrespective of the age of the offspring.

Habituation of the offspring to their role is vital.  Males should be sent, as soon as may be possible, to an establishment of sufficient rigour such that their inclination toward triviality be suppressed.  Such establishment should be exclusively male, such that the inclination towards independent selection of a Dam shall be bridled.  

It is true that this environment, along with suitable corporal punishment, may engender novel outlets for emotional tension, however such idiosyncrasies are everywhere accepted among the Privileged.  Such considerations have not proved to be an impediment to the begetting of offspring in previous generations, and it is to be expected that they will not do so in future, provided the prospective Sire may look to the example of his own Sire as delineated above.

The care of female offspring need not be so rigorous as that of the male.  Removal at an early age to a suitable establishment is still desirable, however the function of such establishment shall be one of finishing rather than education.  While no appreciable gain in Privilege may be accrued via female offspring, their actions or omissions may result in its loss, therefore the importance of  finishing cannot be overstated.  In short, female offspring may be regarded as finished when, even while unsupervised, their actions and speech may be relied upon to produce no loss of Privilege to their progenitors, prospective Sires, or descendants.

Loss of Privilege occasioned by ‘unfinished’ actions may even occur long after the demise of the miscreant, as demonstrated by the disrepute engendered by the liaisons of a notable Dam of the past with Scottish gamekeepers/Indian clerks etc.  It behoves Sires and Dams not to neglect the proper care of female offspring, lest that which is gained by one gender be lost by the other.

The Care of the Heir

Comments regarding the accrual of Privilege by female offspring above may be disregarded when a Sire and Dam are in the position of producing a female Heir.  This regrettable circumstance will, in all likelihood, last no longer than one generation.  Once the female Heir has produced male offspring, and that offspring has achieved his majority, it is to be expected that the situation will return to its natural equilibrium.  If this aberration is to be weathered without loss of Privilege, it will be necessary for the female Heir to act outside her normal capabilities.  For these reasons, advice regarding care of the Heir is to be followed irrespective of gender.  

(In the event that production of a male Heir postdates production of the female by some significant period, ‘demotion’ may cause some domestic disturbance and sibling animosity.  It is to be remembered that all this is all to the good, as the female offspring will eventually come to appreciate that she is better off in her natural sphere.  In such a case the Sire is much to be commended, since his sense of duty will have motivated a far longer period of attention to the Dam than that required of his more fortunate brethren.)

It must be remembered that the transmission of all accrued Privilege will take place by means of the Heir.  If the family as a whole occupy a coveted elevation on the pyramid of Privilege, then the Heir will naturally occupy a position still higher.  It is only appropriate that this distinction should mark the Heir as inevitably superior to his siblings, and that this distinction should commence from his first moment of existence.  Emotions of regard and warmth that can be summoned by Sire and Dam in respect of offspring should be directed exclusively to the Heir.  Even if the sensation  of such is entirely beyond the Sire and Dam, this need not hinder their affectation.  The effort involved in such affectation need not be excessive, since it is directed to only one of the offspring.

Receipt of proper care will engender entirely appropriate emotions of superiority in the Heir.  These should be nurtured and encouraged by preferential treatment in the matters of resources and discipline.  The Heir will thus be early accustomed to the need for exertion in competition.  Consider the heroic struggle of the cuckoo chick as he exerts himself to empty the nest of all impediment to his destiny, and you cannot fail to be impressed by the way in which the natural world mirrors the human.  This is not to say that Sire and Dam should permit the actual destruction of siblings, after all the Heir may himself meet with accident or ill health.  Rather they should invest their attention and resources in that which offers the best return.  They should remember that an early acclimatization to the role of apex creature will prepare the Heir for the lifelong struggle that is the preservation and accumulation of Privilege, for transmission to the next generation.

A Note to the Nouveau Riche

Privilege is to money as a fine samurai blade is to a blunderbuss.  It is not for nothing that the shoguns of ancient Japan resisted the advent of powder weapons in their realm.  Suddenly this upstart weaponry, that could be operated by the meanest peasant, could negate the value of years of training on the part of the samurai warrior.  Of what benefit was it that the samurai could dismember a falling criminal into nine parts before he hit the ground, if the great unwashed could fell him from a distance of yards by pulling a lever on an oily device available to all?  They feared the destruction of Privilege, but as with the other examples from history mentioned above, they were mistaken.

For true Privilege to occur, wealth must be accompanied by breeding.  As noted above, the merely wealthy are prone to appalling lapses in character due to their lack of breeding.  Hardly a day goes by but some kicker of pigs’ bladders or proprietor of a scandal rag is found to have committed a faux pas that no possessor of breeding would commit in millennia.  It is not that the Privileged possess greater self control than these parvenus, it is rather that the institutional memory acquired in the preservation of Privilege over the generations renders such blunders unthinkable, indeed impossible.

So with the samurai versus the peasant, however he may be armed.  Even if the samurai must go into hiding and temporarily forsake his rightful place of superiority, he need not think that his place will be supplanted.  It will rather remain vacant since none other possess the blue blood required to live at his exalted altitude.  With the turn of the wheel and the rotation of the cosmos, the Privileged progeny will rise again to their position of superiority, having dutifully preserved the Privilege with which they were entrusted.

The Virtue of Dignity

If my monologue has stimulated a desire for your own social advancement, then I must disabuse you.  My objective has been to provide a guide to the justly deserved social advancement that has already occurred, delivering you to your realm and us to ours.  While there may not be Privilege on all levels of the pyramid, there is dignity.  The dignity of the honest soil from which springs the flower, the dignity of the infantryman who receives the standard from his fallen comrade and then passes said standard to his Commanding Officer, the dignity of the vehicle which bears the dignitary.  It is my humble desire that all should value the dignity of their position, and content themselves with the knowledge that they have contributed to the glorious Privilege with which society is crowned.

Told to Adam Thomas by

Sir Algernon St John Berkshire

Marks of a Malevolent Mind - Identifying the Opposite of Evil

Yin and Yang, good and evil, pursuing one another eternally, each dependant on the other for its existence.  Is this interpretation of reality valid?

The concept of Evil, like so many concepts that are defined by usage, is not well understood in its abstract sense.  Appeals to etymology are of little benefit, since usage is what reveals the common understanding of a term.  For this reason I attempt a semantic definition using linguistic comparisons that I hope the reader will confirm as valid.

Let us propose a relationship that spans a spectrum of well-being; good - bad - evil.  Note the following examples:

Generosity - Greed - Theft

Comfort - Pain - Torture

Truth - Ignorance - Lies

Life - Death - Murder

Love - Indifference - Malevolence

Order - Dilapidation - Vandalism

And finally, in relationship to evil;

To Resist - To Acquiesce - To Promote

The armchair philosopher will doubtless object and cite special circumstances where Pain is not bad, where Death is preferable to Life and where, in the economic sense, Greed is good.  I would counter by arguing that Death is only preferable to Life where Pain has made it so, Pain is only of benefit where it prevents greater Pain, and the concept that Greed is good exists purely to justify a system whose vice is the ‘unequal sharing of blessings’.

Among the many definitions of Good, one might be ‘that which is beneficial’.  If this is the definition on which we fix, then an appropriate definition of Bad might be ‘that which is not beneficial’.  In this paradigm Evil would be defined as ‘the obstruction/nullification of benefit’.  The reader may well find different ways to describe this relationship, but it is likely that he will simply be substituting synonyms of his choice to the same end.

Thus we come to the initial assertion in the title of this piece, that while Good and Bad may be thought of as impersonal, Evil is the mark of Agency, the evidence of a Malevolent Mind.  Some readers may object that the list of examples has been cherry-picked for the purpose of making this assertion.  They may posit other examples such as ‘satiation - hunger - starvation’ where the Evil is also impersonal.  We will deal with cases such as this in the conclusion.  For the time being it is enough to accept that Evil is often the mark of agency/mind/intent, and that this is predominantly the usage of the concept.

Take the comparison ‘comfort - pain - torture’.  We are willing to accept that an amount of comfort and pain in life is the common lot of all, and the balance between these is often the result of random forces.  Torture however is always the result of a malevolent agency.  In the interests of balance therefore is it not reasonable to ask ‘since torture is the destruction of comfort, what is its source?’  If mind is involved in the destruction of good by means of the promotion of bad, and this is regarded as a superlative of bad - Evil, then to what can we credit the creation of Good?

It is only in this epoch that there is resistance to the destination of this logic.  It is only now that it is asserted that the thing which requires agency to dismantle, requires no agency to assemble.  From a semantic point of view the sequence Good - Bad - Evil is incomplete.  The full sequence must be Creator - Good - Bad - Evil, as no other proposed concept fits the requirement of symmetry in respect of core meaning and the possession of mind/agency.

We accept without argument the existence of Evil.  Its embodiments are the paedophile, the racist, the serial killer, the rapist, the vandal, the war criminal etc.  While various philosophers argue that Good, Bad and Evil are merely cyphers, and child murderers categorise their exploits as ‘experiments in existentialism’, these are the outliers, the vanishingly small minority.  Since Cultural Relativism, otherwise known as Majority View ethics, is the foundation of the modern, liberal, democratic paradigm, these philosophers are out of step with a world that contains International War Crime Tribunals, police forces, prisons and parking fines.  While the maxim of Aleister Crowley ‘do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’, has a certain appeal to the ego, it is by definition Evil.

Identifying Evil is an exercise in self preservation.  The charlatan, the confidence trickster, the hacker deploying ransomware are all Evil individuals, seeking to obstruct/nullify benefit in your life for the purpose of creating it in theirs.  In a society that refrains from approbation this may seem excessively judgemental, so we are tempted to merely state that their actions are Evil, for the sake of our comfort.  There is a problem in this liberal view.  While we may not be able to identify them with absolute certainty, there are most certainly Evil individuals.  To illustrate this from nature; a person may be accidentally thrown from a horse and die, and this is a case of ‘death by animal’, but a person may also be hunted by a rogue tiger and killed.  Both died, but the cause of their death was qualitatively different, as is the death of a person randomly stabbed in a drunken brawn, compared with a child abducted and murdered; the difference between Bad and Evil is real and correspondingly larger precautions are justified to avoid becoming a victim of Evil.

Returning to the objection that ‘starvation’ in the sequence ‘Satiation - Hunger - Starvation’ does not require agency or mind, we must accept that refusal to act is an act in itself.  On a planet that can supply the needs of all its inhabitants, the starvation of any is Evil.  The fact that ecological collapse may soon render such starvation inevitable is no less Evil, since the system that produced the collapse pursued Greed, often by means of Theft, thus resulting in Starvation, and is therefore Evil in itself.

Having examined the end of the sequence, let us return to its start.  Once again the position of the materialist philosopher who seeks to explain away the need for a first cause is a minority one, the majority view is that there is a source of Good, the Creator.  The only logical course of action is to seek the Creator out, bearing in mind that such a search should be alert to the marks of the malevolent mind, since much that is branded as Good turns out to be Evil.  Should we be concerned that Evil may overwhelm Good and the Creator too?  Once again logic assures us that this cannot be the conclusion.  Since the Creator is greater than the creation, it follows that the Good that has been created is less than the sum of the powers of the Creator.  By extension therefore, no matter how cunning the Evil, it cannot exhaust the resources of the Creator since Evil is an obstructive act, not a creative one. Any innovation that Evil seems to create is merely a perversion of that which was already created.

The premise of Yin and Yang, quoted at the outset, is not valid.  It is not necessary for bad to exist in order to have good, and Evil is certainly not required.  To understand this it is only necessary to seek the Creator.

Elephants' Graveyard

A familiar path walked alone

Heavy soft footfalls nearer to home

Walking slow to rejoin my mother

Exchanging one herd for another

Slowly slowly 

Heavy and hungry

One more sunset to face

Seeking the other place

Under a yellow dust moon

Acacia shadows and gloom

Present to past
Forever to last

Resting in their presence

Among the ancestral scents

Breathing long and low and slow

Then into the ivory glow

The Inverted Cuckoo

The Inverted Cuckoo cares for the young
Of almost every other one
But when its own young call for care
The Inverted Cuckoo is nowhere
Search for its young upon the ground
Beneath the nest is where they're found
It waits no time, no time at all
To kick them out and watch them fall
Lamenting hypocritic'ly
'All my chicks abandon me'
On hearing this the other birds
Putting faith in lying words
Take the chicks that they love best
To play within the Cuckoo's nest
Almost every human trait
Is found in nature, no but wait
There's never been a bird who
Is like the Inverted Cuckoo
This simple fact should make us wonder
When one is found among our number

What if ...

I want to shop where the staff can buy what I buy and eat where the waiter can afford to eat too and take my vacation where sad eyes are few and dream of clean water for everyone and food that is not just for some but what can we do ... is it too much to shop where the staff can buy what we buy and eat where the waiter can afford to eat too ...