The Promethean Manifesto

"He that has ears to hear, let him hear!" — Nietzsche

1. Introduction

I am searching for others to help us change our world.

I began writing the first versions of this document with the fervent hope of finding others to help me write it, to join me in founding what I named the Promethean movement. I had found no such companions by the time I compiled the inaugural Promethean Manifesto, but I continued to look for others to join me. As of the publication of this new edition, I remain one of a scarce number of Prometheans leading our small but determined movement. I continue searching for others who share my dream, a mission to found a new way of thinking, a new kind of society, a new world based on valuing our own lives. All these things have become my purpose in life.

I had originally never intended such a personal work as you now have before you. But The Promethean Manifesto has become the beginning of a new life for me, so it seems appropriate to make it personal. Think carefully about how the philosophy of Prometheanism can apply to your own life — I hope you will discover that it can become personal for you as well. My belief that I can and will make a difference gave me the courage to write a document of such ambition, and to accept sole responsibility for this task. If you too believe that you can and will make a difference, you may find a great deal of worth in what I have written.

I believe that ideas can have incredible power and influence. This has been proven by countless works, including religious texts such as the Old and New Testaments, and secular texts such as The Communist Manifesto (to which the title of this work is naturally an ironic allusion). In the past, a great many texts with powerful influence have not been worthy of it. In The Promethean Manifesto, I believe I have developed ideas which will have enormous power to benefit the reader and the world.

As you read, please remember that I did not intend this document as a final or complete statement of ideas. Living ideas should be developed, and improved by revision, and I hope that Promethean ideas will never be reduced to stasis. The Promethean Manifesto and its continuation should be adapted periodically, and I plan to do so as long as the mission I have outlined within remains incomplete. The Promethean Manifesto, in this version or a future one, is not meant as an unquestionable authority, a new Bible. I do not ask that you take this Manifesto on faith, but instead that you consider and question it reasonably for yourself. To paraphrase another who once advised his readers: perhaps it deceives you.

As with anything really worth reading or potentially so, endeavoring to read well is also worthwhile. Approach this Manifesto assuming that it has unique importance and originality; do not try at first to place it in a frame and label it with the familiar; do not close in on judgment too quickly and too tightly. If words are critical, if a written work seems profound or a receptive reader is willing to assume it may be, then reading more than once cannot be excessive and may prove necessary. The words I have chosen I chose with care, but they have necessarily been based on my own understanding of the words and what they conjure up for me. Apply yourself as a careful reader, but also try to extrapolate for yourself and your own life from my words. Read creatively by experimenting with interpretations, remembering that any point of confusion or disorientation may itself have value. Read deliberately as though any inflection might have significance as part of a greater meaning in a work which evolved as a valuable opportunity to learn, for the author and his audience both.

The following Manifesto deserves your fullest attention. With your help, it can form the beginning of a profound and radical change, for you and the world. Let it be read by all those who will read with an open mind, who are willing to question how things appear, and the way they could become. If you think yourself one of those people, read these words with the knowledge that they were written for you. You will decide the ultimate outcome of The Promethean Manifesto.

Signed,

Colin Patrick Barth, also known by the Promethean name Phoenix
author of The Promethean Manifesto and founding Promethean of the Promethean movement

Foreword by Darios

When encountering a new impulse or direction, the desire of one's body — and one's society — to maintain homeostasis often overcomes the capacity to register or even maintain new signals, new ideas, new information. In such cases, for me there often comes to mind a singular, pervasive fact rarely considered in our daily existence: That we have but one life.

It seems such a simple proposition and yet remains curiously absent from much modern human thinking. If this thought remained foremost in our minds would we remain content, as human beings, to continue each day just 'getting by'? Moving from this onto what I consider a reasonable hypothesis — that most humans, across most of the globe, would desire to see improvements in their lives. If most humans may agree thus, how could we permit our world and our lives to slide into oblivion, as it seems clear humans may yet manage? Can we really allow a tiny group of people of dubious motivation to continue to act and speak in the name of all of us? To dictate to us how our lives should unfold and to what purpose? To turn us against one another? When did any of us sign this tacit agreement to hand over what one can consider only as one's most precious asset — one's life?

We, as human beings, now stand at a crossroads. We live in a time of unprecedented technologies that allow for possibilities that humans could not before consider. An exciting age. An age that could and should liberate us all. Not for reasons of some moral imperative, or ideological or religious fervour. That a liberation of human beings everywhere could and should occur I argue simply, must come to pass because we have but one life.

No half measures, no pointless posturing, no selling ourselves and each other out any more for the sake of an archaic and irrelevant social and economic model. A model that engenders the homeostatic principle very capably. Many simply cannot yet imagine a society or a life fundamentally different to the one in which they now live. And yet everything exists first in imagination — then in will — and then in 'reality'. Many people will ask — what alternative? We hope to provide one here.

If you, the reader, feel as I do, then I urge you to consider this Manifesto fully. Remember from the depths of history, our ancestors ask — as one day we will ask — 'give our lives meaning', as indeed our descendants ask us from the future to create the world we live in. Every day we create the future. We can create a better future.

Signed,

Danny Weston, also known by the Promethean name Darios
contributor to The Promethean Manifesto 2003 edition and Promethean in the Promethean movement

2. Foundations

You and I live through ourselves. No human being has ever lived another way. We are not something other than our own perception and experience, our own thoughts and feelings, and everything which belongs to our bodies-and-minds. We experience the world and ourselves through our own senses, even these words of mine as you read them. We understand the world and ourselves through our own interpretation, including our experience with other beings and including the way you understand this writing.

To live as another lives is impossible; for us to imagine another's experience would still form a part of our own experience, as do our exchanges of described thought known as language or communication — models and metaphors, their denotation and connotation traded in words and gestures, invented anew and known uniquely by one's own shape and process.

We each live subject to the individual identity we describe as our self. And so, our picture of the world is always individually subjective. What is true and what is false are practical assertions. Deciding what is important and valuable to us is not basically about a search for truth. Nor is it basically about a moral argument over right and wrong or a moral conflict between good and evil, or any value system we have been instructed to believe. Our own understanding should not be based on strictly following another's understanding of value, although from others we may learn much of value to our selves. Just as we interpret the world of experience as a world of our own, we must assert our own ideas of worth on our lives and on our world. However accurate it may be that a person does not live in total autonomy, and responds to the influence of other human beings in complex, not always conscious ways — we are still able enough to assert our own ideas of worth for ourselves, despite the assertions of others around us.

Our own standard of value for ourselves should become what we each believe furthers and advances our own lives. The advancement of life must be our measurement, our standard, our aim and our cause.

The advancement of life — is this not what is truly of value to us, as human beings?

The codified, unexamined moralities we have inherited only confuse the real issue with arbitrary RIGHT and WRONG. Such ideal things are imagined, and more importantly offer little substantive gain despite the certainty they seem to promise. (See Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society: Beyond Law for more on morality.) No less does the real issue of life become obscured by the quest for "truth," as if we know that TRUTH can be revealed to us, or finally found and held in the hand like a pebble, at which point we are supposed to discover for some uncertain reason that this truth is the same as value for a life.

These artificial judgments of value should be left behind for the sake of the advancement of life — the only idea which can fully address the improvement of your life and mine.

Only to an extent can the advancement of life be general for many, rather than specific to one; ultimately lives are individual things. But all of us have at least that much in common, and so the need to improve life individually is at the heart of Prometheanism.

The advancement of life is a name for whatever improves life, remaking it stronger, discovering and distilling its vital essence and opening wide the body-and-mind to pour that essence forth. The beneficial side-effects of this life-advancing coincide often with many things well-established as desirable: happiness, satisfaction, plenty, understanding, wisdom, achievement. These are often named as goals in themselves, but they do not happen independently of the great goal, the advancement of what is essential to a life.

But how can we recognize that essence of a life, in order to advance it?

What makes us vital and vibrant?

What makes us feel more or less alive?

Know the essence of a life as self-expression.

Self-expression does not merely refer to speech or other communication. It means allowing what is significant in what one is and what one does to come forth however it must according to individuality, and not just allowing this, but striving for it. Of course, all things people do might be called "self-expression" literally, especially those things demonstrating characteristics of personality. But in the best Promethean sense of self-expression, the phrase refers particularly to expression which strengthens and is profound.

(Also see the supplement Self-Expression for much more about the concept.)

For a human being, self-expression incorporates both intentions toward expression, and that expression itself — that is, both will and action.

A relatively clear example is the self-expression of speech, which incorporates both the physical action of producing sounds and the mental activity behind doing so, the will. For a clearer example, we might say the mental will in leaping works neurologically "deciding" to jump, and then the physical action would be using muscles and actually jumping. We cannot always describe the separation between will and action so clearly, especially when the action of expression does not appear obviously physical. Consider listening to music, for example. This seemingly passive experience makes many of us feel alive, and it too constitutes an act of self-expression, in the way we experience. In the case of listening to music, it seems difficult to determine will and action separately. Of course, we cannot really separate body-and-mind. We find the mind is physical and the body mental and both work as one. That is, our "minds" function as more than just dictating brains, but as interactive aspects of our physical bodies, inseparable from our bodies, and the parts of our bodies besides the brain can affect the brain, just as the brain affects them. So, that distinction between will and action always remains somewhat artificial, though useful. The separation can seem awkward at times, because both will and action really just constitute perceived shades of self-expression of our whole organism, which is sometimes called the "mind-body" and might be called the "body-mind" just as accurately. Only for the sake of utility do we need to distinguish between will and action, for instance, in order to talk about freedom of will and freedom of action.

I claim that self-expression shows a certain freedom of will. More precisely stated:

People, as individuals, have a fundamental potential to determine and direct their own actions.

I call this the axiom of freedom of will. Recognition and understanding of this basic principle of life leads to monumental and staggering implications about ourselves and our world. Most importantly, it means that you and I naturally have an independent power over ourselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes less consciously. We must shape societal concepts and organization to reflect this. (More on this problem later.)

The degree of the "fundamental potential" in each person may vary a great deal. It may be reduced or augmented. This is a critical point, because the extent to which people have freedom of will determines their capacity for self-expression, and therefore deeply influences their being alive. The rest of what we do is instinctively "willed," and comes less from our unique selves than from the more common environmental and genetic influences upon us. Enhancing freedom of will would seem to form a critical approach towards advancing the quality and strength of individual human life. Some have discovered this has much to do with exercise, practicing our potential as a process and a habit — developing critical and honest self-knowledge, finding self-awareness by experiment. (In the work of cultivating will supposed "moderation" in thought usually has little use but to excuse laziness — and its mediocre products, both lackluster human beings and their ill-considered opinions and wants. An exerciser of will named Nietzsche exclaimed through his Zarathustra: "Oh, that you would reject all halfhearted willing and would become resolute in sloth and deed!" and taught "Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will." Once you have expanded freedom of will, what you want almost certainly becomes much more worthy; it deserves less concern than cultivating that expanded mastery in the first place.)

But just as freedom of will clearly appears desirable and necessary for the advancement of life, so does freedom of action. The potential for self-expression in individuals is bound by inherent and evolving limits of their conceptions and mental impulses, or will, and the limits and controls placed on their expression in action. Remember that we cannot separate body-and-mind, because those two words describe the same organism. Self-expression involves a mental body and a physical mind as one being, one bodymind or mindbody, a whole integrated conscious-and-autonomic self-system. Without both freedom of will and action, we feel a lack because self-expression is limited, and life becomes less vibrant and strong, its potential unexpressed.

Notice also that as our living becomes less powerful due to diminished self-expression, we become less able to believe in the value of our own life and our potential as we determine it. We become less independent, dependent instead on others' judgments and opinions for a sense of worth. This dependence constitutes a symptom of the suppression, or even decay of a strong life. Further, this phenomenon of conformity can easily become an apparent cause of that degradation too, forming an entrenched resistance to self-expression. If we are observant enough, the acceptance of sameness and interdependence, or worse, glorification of this, can warn us of further threats to the strength of our lives, or of danger to survival itself. Such threats may loom over oneself. For example, observed malleability could appear as a sign of a depressive, possibly a suicidal case. Such threats may also loom over many or all people. For example, in the behavior of a politician on the world stage, an appetite for popularity can provide evidence of a dangerous hunger for power which will affect the lives of millions. It is wise to recognize when and how following others may lead to ruining ourselves.

(See On Conformity for a more complete analysis of that phenomenon.)

3. Vital Self-Interest and Individualism

Our self-expression follows our values and drives, our interests. In a way, we can always describe these as "self-interests," because they spring most immediately from the instincts and will of our own selves (whatever their external inspirations), regardless of whether they are called "selfless" or "self-interested," whether they are considered or spontaneous. Whatever we value, our self-expression shows our self-interest. So truly "selfless" motivation seems an impossibility, a dishonest description of one's own interests. Similarly actual "disinterestedness" would really result from lack of interest, lack of self-expression directed in a particular realm, not impartiality.

What then does make the important distinction between kinds of self-interests, and returning to the matter at hand, what kind of self-interest should we recognize as life-advancing?

We can identify a vast difference between self-interest motivated by an interest in one's own benefit, the more useful definition of self-interest which I shall use from now on, and other motivations. "Self-interest" is usually used in a negative sense to mean being interested in one's own advantage, as if this were a terrible attitude to have. But such an interest is generally a healthy attitude. The fulfillment of life really rests with the individual, in the self-expression of individuals. The advancement of the individual should be laudable to us, not a source of shame. When an artist creates a brilliant work solely to satisfy their own creativity, we should recognize that this self-expression represents a sign of vitality, the potential of the artist fulfilled — and that their work may secondarily enrich countless other lives. An investor who gives an inventor the money to build a factory to produce the inventor's product, solely for the investor's own profit, is usually doing a great thing. The investor is expressing himself in his own way to his own advantage, as well as making possible the advantage of many others. The inventor, people who work within the factory, people who do business with the factory, those who purchase the products, et al. will very likely gain from the so-called "selfishness" of the investor. So much is only possible with self-interest. This interest in one's own advantage constantly demonstrates itself to be of the greatest, healthiest, and most useful innate human traits — which would explain how we could have been tested by nature over so many millennia and still evolve as self-interested beings.

Certainly not all self-interest (or self-expression) can be counted as beneficial to oneself, and so to life, at least in the most direct sense. However, since self-expression itself is instrumental to the vitality and advancement of life, we must constantly take the "risk" of self-interest, or life decays through the weakening of self-expression. For self-interest is merely a convenient word for the individualistic direction of one's self-expression, charted through freedom of will, accomplished through freedom of action. And the strength, variety, and fullness of self-expression makes for the greatest achievements and the greatest diversity of achievement, including those achievements which advance life immeasurably. Self-interest is not hostile to the advancement of life. It would seem in fact necessary and integral to individualism, in the best sense of the word, a near synonym for what proves life-advancing!

So why does it seem common to think negatively of self-advancement? Well, this attitude is not entirely unjustified; we can find real potential for harm in self-interest. After all, our (self-)interests in the generic sense vary with what we believe and who we are. That includes self-interest in the sense of self-advancement. The values and tenets held in each body-mind or mind-body affect the nature of that person's self-interest, and this provides the real complication. We can always trace the evidence of action back to values and tenets that have been assumed, even without conscious, deliberate consideration of them through freedom of will. It seems especially likely that assumptions made haphazardly, without due consideration, and not willed through deliberate choice, may happen to lead to harmful and irresponsible effects. But far worse, if we lack respect for other people, we may find it in our interest to exploit them for our own sake, even with careful consideration.

This raises a critical question: what provides the primary source of respect and consideration for others?

The answer returns to the root of Prometheanism, an interest in the value of life. The values and tenets which form the basis of self-interest must pursue and usually must be willed to pursue the interest of living to the fullest extent, to reliably lead to beneficial results instead of harmful results. With devotion to the vitality and vibrancy of one's life, with that pride in one's own existence, there naturally evolves a healthy respect for other lives devoted to the same.

We can think of this interest as linked with an integrated strength felt and lived by people who strive for their potential, feeling their power to express themselves. I speak of strength here not mainly in the sense of specific strength at doing a thing, but also the integration of various specific strengths in an interrelation, so that a sense of completeness, a sense of integrated strength begins to come together and form not only a disposition toward confidence, but towards consideration. The thoroughly strong in this sense do not prey on the weak. Those with weakness integrated into their character use their strengths to prey on the circumstantially helpless, which very often includes those with integrated strength.

Self-interest should be personal and individually unique, but should also be harmonious with a basic interest in life. Here we find the solution to reconciling the individual's interests with the interests of others with the least possible friction. Some claim that self-interests must work at cross purposes and harm must result, but when self-interest becomes an interest in life, a life-interest, we discover no such contradiction at all.

Respect for others and respect for oneself have the same source. If an integrated strength of self devoted to living makes us treat others well, it then falls to our frailties, our psychological complexes, our weaknesses to lead us to treat others poorly, out of disrespect for life. For the most convincing evidence of this, consider your own life in these terms. Have the times in your life when you have mistreated people occurred during your stronger moments as a person, or your weaker moments, when you were feeling less confident, and less alive? Are others who mistreat you better described during those times as strong people in an integrated sense, or weak — particularly, as people who seem to be compensating for weakness?

We should wish that all people would have a self-interest that becomes a life-interest in themselves. I believe that this beneficial orientation is possible for many to achieve, though difficult, and that with such people Prometheans can form a new and better kind of society. Anything more, an expansive, active life-interest in others having begun with oneself, a life-interest flowing from oneself to others, seems really far too much to expect from the world at large. Someone with that self-interest would constitute a true Promethean, which requires an exceptional perspective indeed. Nietzsche described this quality as a gift-giving virtue, the sense of such strength, fullness, and overabundance of self that attention and concern naturally "overflow" to others. For one with this self-expression, it becomes natural to actively and mightily engage others with their life-interests in mind, as well as one's own. Those with gift-giving virtue do not give for the sake of self-justification, for they have enough. Nor do they act act out of pity when they give of themselves. (Pity seems an emotion which asserts inferiority, only infrequently and tangentially assisting the life of another.) Rather they appear so vibrantly, confidently themselves that it follows naturally for them to give — this is the way they must express themselves.

I regard a devotion to the improvement of human life, above all other interests, to be the most essential requirement for a Promethean. The profound value of a life according to Prometheanism is not merely its survival and subsistence, but especially its strength and vitality. The basic inspiration for Prometheans, the leaders of the Promethean movement, should come from an overriding and fundamental belief in the importance of preserving and enhancing the value of life. A Promethean works to advance the essence of life and the character of life. Many reading this who have that value at heart will not immediately see themselves as potential Prometheans, but the evidence of valuing life often appears more in how one acts, or "what one is," than what one consciously believes or claims to believe — or has the courage to believe.

To find Prometheans and recognize them as such in name, we Prometheans ask questions of those who choose to join the Promethean movement as Prometheans or observe how they act, to try to know them and evaluate them. (By this process we hope to defeat attempts at infiltration or subversion, whether by members of an organization or independents, whether cynical or well-meaning.) But whether a Promethean is recognized nominally as such to become a leader of the Promethean movement, or simply lives and behaves as a promethean (lower-case) by virtue of inner character but unrecognized by that "title," the contributions of such a person are very special and critical to the advancement of life, and to the role of leadership toward that purpose in every important sense of the word. Who else but the thoroughly life-interested can be relied on to have a substantive interest in all lives, out of self-interest? Who else could be trusted not to abuse the advantage of leadership, besides someone whose self-interest does not lead them to wield that advantage over others, rather than with them and for their sake?

Of course, this is but one understanding of a type among a humanity of complex and subtle diversity, and other people are important for other things. Other people may be well-realized as people in another way, and in that way represent part of the advancement of life. Promethean leadership implies no objective, absolute hierarchy of worth, only a natural one for the task at hand of guiding and focusing the advancement of life. There is of course a much-needed and appreciated place for others in the Promethean movement as members, more generally speaking, who have become formally involved but bear less personal responsibility than Prometheans.

But, it appears manifest to me by all evidence — and perhaps the world today bears evidence enough — that we have never had enough of that Promethean, thoroughly life-interested type, those with the sort of integrated strength and completeness to devote themselves to advancing life within themselves and all around themselves, whether the Prometheans named as such or the prometheans unnamed. Searching for these life-interested natural leaders, helping them to develop if we can, and recognizing them as Prometheans within our movement, together provide the first concerted step toward consciously building a new and more developed kind of society among individuals, which we should anticipate as the first great objective in changing the world for the advancement of life.

4. Motivations

The motivations of a life-interest become strongly evident in self-expression. When healthy and vibrant, people have emotions and sensibilities which reflect the inherent value they ascribe to life, such as confidence, pride in themselves, and the joy of existence. They believe in themselves and want to believe in others. They revel in expressing themselves, and feel capable of accomplishing what they wish. It seems most natural for them to feel responsible for themselves and their actions. From a sense of nobility, they have the luxury of sincere contrition and real forgiveness, without feeling that they risk themselves. They feel secure in their own identities, even as they are willing to grow and change. All these things appear as both signs and components of strength and vitality, of being alive to the fullest.

But motivations which run counter to a sense of vitality become detrimental to life, and these too we find reflected in the way a person feels and acts.

Spite...

helpless regret...

petty jealousy...

resentment toward oneself or another...

irrational fear...

consuming thoughts of revenge...

demeaning pity —

these bitter things make us smaller.

Like conformity, these may describe symptoms of enervation and weakness, and causes of limitation too. Regardless, the pattern they form or fit becomes destructive to ourselves and others. Recognize them as obstacles to a vital life, and strive to overcome them and break the pattern.

This applies not only to single people, but to larger scales as well. Here are two illustrations:

1) Crying out for the redistribution of wealth has become a cultural institution, in part as the eventual product of jealousy and envy, with an unhealthy dose of spiteful revenge. The pathological tendency to attack the most productive people seems an ancient tradition. It was old when "welfare" once again excused the official robbery, taxation, so that redistribution might "solve" the problem of poverty. It was old when the first income tax was justified by making only the rich pay their "fair share." (If you remain stubbornly inclined to believe that taxation does not count as a kind of theft, try this convincing experiment: simply choose to keep all of the product of your efforts, and observe the result.) It was old when Marx and Engels penned their Manifesto of hatred. It was even old in the days of allowing European Jews only the derided vocation of money lender. And it was old when the Church censured money-lending for profit, the means of much modern prosperity. That tradition of despising, insulting and punishing the freely successful continues, and by no means only the financially successful, always with a predictable price for the successful and everyone else who might depend on their success. Spite leers behind the lips of the blind followers of this worn road, as they desperately assert principles of justice and fairness... far too desperately to seem honest.

(More about accomplishment and economics later.)

2) To me civil "justice" exhibits the mass motivation of revenge and fear. Punishment carries the implicit idea of revenge; offenders are rarely made to fix what they have done (if indeed it can be fixed), they are made to "pay for what they have done," the one thing they can almost never do. Nothing can ever pay for a murder or rape, and even returning stolen property does not erase the violation of theft. Instead, criminals are really being forced to undergo retribution, to bear the angry revenge "of society." While protecting oneself from harm appears a healthy, innate human reflex, most punishment does not spring from this motivation. Even incarceration, which is ostensibly used to protect society from dangerous elements, seems to satisfy people mainly because it "makes criminals pay." The imprisonment of many people who commit consensual, victimless crimes such as those involving sex or drugs shows proof of this. And revenge aside, is imprisoning a large part of the population accepted because it seems the most effective way to protect ourselves from harm? Or does it originate more from a helpless feeling of fear, expressing itself in a reaction far beyond what could be justified by real avoidance of danger? I wonder, also, just how substantive the deterrent effect of punishment can possibly be; it hardly seems that murder, rape, and robbery are prevented. Certainly any effect of deterrence is overshadowed, in respect to long-term human advancement, by the means of repressive fear.

(See Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society: Beyond Law for a discussion of Promethean alternatives to civil punishment, which can maintain civil order without using fear and repression as means.)

5. The Power of Self-Expression

One meaning of power refers to the capacity to accomplish an act, through self-expression. This power, let us call it capability, is a fundamental aspect of life. It is necessary for any accomplishment, including the preservation and enhancement of life. Individual capability directed by will and expressed in action (i.e. through self-expression) is responsible for all individual accomplishments.

Of course, we often observe the potential achievements of cooperative capability, the achievements of groups, apparently greater than those of any one person alone. This occurs simply because cooperative capability summarizes the combined effect of individual capability, of individual contributions building upon each other. Fundamentally, everything which we say a group does, individuals in the group do with their own contributions.

An economic illustration of cooperative capability — Promethean capitalism:

Real capitalism would not be properly described as an organized system, but an organic system. Capitalism really in accordance with the principles of a free market and free enterprise would be a name for the economic aspect of unhindered cooperation, however the people involved are nominally organized. The word "capitalism," even the phrase "free market capitalism" usually means something else, as practiced. Capitalism as I intend the word, which I call Promethean capitalism (contrasted with existing systems which many call capitalism, such as "state capitalism," which suffer from the problems of involuntary exchanges) operates through the voluntary exchange of goods, services, labor, ideas, ingenuity — capital defined by any individual's priority, acquired according to personal choice. This flow between individuals means that the efforts of one may be easily traded to many, and the profits of those efforts can be enjoyed by many. The profit comes not just directly from a single exchange, but is indirectly spread from exchange to exchange, building upon itself. Methods which improve efficiency, or ideas which create entirely new opportunities can spread quickly. This mental currency proves the most profitable of all, since people can build on the mental power of countless others who have come before, in devising their own ideas. Given the organic interconnection of millions of thinking people, ideas and methods can be invented at a remarkably accelerated rate, compared to societies of people who do not enjoy the unrestricted ability to freely trade and share their mental effort. All of this allows individual productivity to be magnified not additively, but exponentially.

(These points deserve expansion. But rather than include a treatise on free economics here, instead I refer readers to the series of essays entitled Promethean Capitalism for expanded information.)

A philosophical illustration of cooperative capability — this Manifesto:

Although what you are reading was written by me, in another sense it is also a combined effort, and not only because others have contributed valuable help. I mean also that the accomplishment might have been entirely impossible for me alone, in isolation of thought. Much of Prometheanism is built upon the mental achievements of innumerable other people alive and dead, most directly upon very few (particularly, upon the work of Nietzsche). But their ideas, likewise, were creations based on the ideas of others, and theirs upon the ideas of still others.

Remember, all contributions to cooperative power to achieve issue from individual capability, accomplishment through individual self-expression — directed by will and expressed in action. So all capability, including cooperative capability, depends on both freedom of will and freedom of action of individuals. All accomplishments, even cooperative achievements by thousands of people, are therefore limited according to the freedom of will and freedom to act of each person.

Economic illustrations of the necessity of individual freedom for accomplishment:

Real capitalism as the economics of freedom of action allows for the greatest possible accomplishment through cooperation. Witness the meteoric rise to prosperity of Hong Kong during the last few decades. A small area almost devoid of natural resources, Hong Kong's inhabitants were fortunate enough to have been allowed relatively unrestricted economic freedom in recent years. Compare this to the economic progress in the United States over the past century. The comparatively enormous US has plentiful resources and a large population, yet suffers from official economic planning, controls, and significant taxation. As of early 1999, inhabitants of Hong Kong and the United States earned approximately the same income per capita. Certainly some of this prosperity has been due to investment from elsewhere, but even more impressive, the potential of economic freedom is so great that since the collapse of the government in Somalia following the deposition of the dictator Siad Barre in 1991, businesses have boomed and prosperity has increased rapidly in the anarchic free zones of the north, despite imperfect security for private property guaranteed by traditional clan custom, or xeer, and despite the terrible impoverishment of the country by the ousted government and many years of war. Even without considerable starting (material) capital, individual freedom allows people to work economic wonders.

Controlled, policed, or officially fostered markets corrupt an inherent greatness of capitalism, freedom of exchange. Economic fascism, imperialism, and colonialism, the subjects of many critiques of "capitalism," do not consist of thoroughly and consistently free exchange. Really individually free capitalism in itself does not necessitate or imply compulsion, in fact it requires entirely voluntary exchanges. Total, enforced, and therefore limiting monopolies arise from official interference and control, such as the grants and exclusive licenses issued to railroad corporations in the 19th century, or patents guaranteed not by voluntary agreement, but through bureaucratic fiat. In real capitalism, Promethean capitalism, predominance in an industry must be achieved, and can only be maintained through achievement. Compulsion and control have so far ensured that no truly and completely capitalist society, a society with an economy which could qualify as Promethean capitalism, could exist... and will likely never exist, unless established by Prometheans.

The greatest possible individual and cooperative accomplishments are necessary and desirable to the advancement of life; they shape and lay the stepping stones for that advance. To remove inhibitions to self-expression, whether economic or artistic or ideological or psychological or physical, Prometheans must always strive to create the greatest freedom possible. The advancement of life always occurs through the individual, and the individual needs maximized freedom of will and action to advance and improve.

6. The Power of Repression

However, another conception of power is so likely to be destructive that in the interest of the enhancement of life, and even the preservation of life, we must oppose it. While capability exists in a very basic, practical way, with very real effects experienced by all involved, this other power offers only an illusion. It exists at bottom entirely as a conceptual device. Once fabricated for a purpose, it is by now an overwhelmingly burdensome and dangerous idea, as well as quite unnecessary. This lie is political power.

Those in political power are said to have authority, or those in authority are said to have political power — a circular definition of these two synonymous contrivances. In itself having political power means nothing, and accomplishes nothing. So what constitutes political power? How does it allegedly "exist"?

Authority exists and acts only through the belief of those who obey and those who command. Authority depends on the capability of those who obey — those who can be commanded, those with less authority — in order to appropriate any real power to act. By itself, political power remains incapable of accomplishing a thing, which means we do not require it to achieve any useful purpose.

A specific illustration of the superfluity of political power — the US FDA:

Millions of people in America trust the United States Department of Health and Human Services Food and Drug Administration to make certain that their medicines and food are safe. They believe that the FDA is needed to accomplish this task. How can so many be mistaken in their faith, because we do not, in fact, need this agency? Well, the FDA is an example of the very typical, twofold lack of effectiveness of government organizations: not only can the important functions of the FDA be replaced, making the FDA superfluous, but also under the auspices of the FDA those functions are often poorly served. Although the FDA inspects meat and tests pills, FDA employees are actually able to monitor only a minuscule fraction of what Americans consume, and the FDA approval processes remain notoriously inaccurate and slow due to a lack of competition with the official FDA monopoly (think of all the lives lost in the years before heart attack drugs were approved). Furthermore the monopoly on oversight means that FDA officials, scientists, and inspectors are highly susceptible to bribery, making corruption a significant danger. Private, independent testing services would seem much more likely to work thoroughly yet efficiently due to competition in quality of service, and impartially at the risk of losing their position to competition (the same reason Consumer Reports seems unlikely to suffer bribery — unlike the FDA). As for the essential issue of superfluity — yes, even the functions of the FDA can be replaced; independent private companies could perform the actual functions of testing and verification, because the actual capability to accomplish this task rests not with the FDA's authority, but with the actual inspectors and lab employees who test food and medicines — and they do not need to work for the government. Companies need not be forced to have their products inspected and tested, because they would want and need to do so given a simple awareness among their customers; independently inspected food would always outsell uninspected, and trying to market untested destructive drugs would bankrupt drug companies. Consumers need not suffer prohibition from purchasing what they choose; if they choose to buy an untested drug or uninspected food, they take a risk, but at least this risk remains theirs to take. And after all, experimental, untested treatments often offer the best choice for many patients, all risks considered.

Those in political power have control over certain extremely basic and critical functions in almost every society on earth today, functions which make authority seem indispensable. These include settling disputes between individuals, preventing them from committing and wanting to commit direct abuse and harm against others, and defending against external attacks. But even these really depend on the power of capability, not political power. They too can and ought to be performed by private alternatives to authority, acting under better ideas.

Agreeing on standards always remains preferable to imposed mandates. Many people already use private and independent arbitration to settle disagreements. This task counts for most of the essential contributions of court and legal professionals even now, and when both parties are willing, it suffices. Societal ideals and the need for the acceptance and assistance of others can exert pressure to ensure that people accept the decisions of arbitrators. In cases of direct harm, private policing agencies who operate through the consent of those they protect can improve enormously upon government police. Working together, arbitration and protection can replace the judicial and law enforcement systems which operate under governmental authority. Nor does external defense need to be accomplished through political power.

Expansion — decentralized, unofficial, private and Promethean armed forces:

Perhaps due to historical examples of mercenaries employed by governments, many attach a stigma to the idea of soldiers operating with a basis on self-interest; many would reflexively slight any self-interested soldiers as "mercenary" and dangerous. Many would be reluctant to give them the respect granted to armed forces under the control of authority. But evidence convinces me otherwise: the ruinous results of a worldwide near-monopoly of official militaries in varying forms and fashions over numerous centuries, particularly the last two, the age of dominant nationalist armies. The manifest pain and obstacle of official war and armed peace are lamented but unrejected; despite the death, all too many believe that such things must be, like the dirt beneath our feet. Beyond what we see and feel and clearly lose, what has been blocked from birth and being may account for the greater part of the price: the unborn children of the dead... what has never been made or discovered... what has never been passed on to us. All this happens, remember, in a world in which war means official war, with exceptions to this just incidental, disorganized reactions against a mere instance or form from inside the mentality, thugs, guerillas, pirates, terrorists, and rebels who establish official militaries whenever they get control.

Consider an alternative involving both form and motivation. Privately-operated or independently-operated defense forces following the cause of a self-interest becoming a life-interest would have no incentive to suffer in the large and small clannish strifes which rage around the world, but only to repel attacks upon those they are paid to protect by contributions or employment. These groups might be introduced as like militias, insurance agencies, charities, non-governmental organizations, or a defense forged from some fusion of these. In fact though, they would represent something unprecedented, a real beginning of fundamental change regarding protection and conflict. In contrast, men and women whose arms are still at the beck and call of those in power can be made to fight for almost any reason, usually the nebulous and mercurial interests attributed to "the body politic." But for the self-interested, competition and public scrutiny would make the abuse of military power unlikely, while the Promethean devotion to life can ensure that these forces prove to be what the military vocation has never been, but should become. In fact, in such unofficial and decentralized forms and with life-interested motivations, Promethean defense forces would only prove necessary to protect against external attack by militaries under political control, from societies based on political power. The real path to world peace is the end of political societies in favor of a new kind of society, founded through the adoption of new ideas... Prometheanism.

(See also Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society: Ending War.)

Recall that the capability of each follower of authority comes from self-expression, through acts which a follower wills. Political power remains potent in direct proportion to the willing capability of those who subscribe to it. So the capability and the very existence of authority likewise remains subject to the will of those who would be commanded, and in this sense it is voluntary. For the sake of authority those who are commanded must be convinced to obey rather than refuse, and in the long run this must extend beyond merely complying in an instance to become a deferential institution of behavior. (Note very well that such obeisance is necessary to preserve and advance authority, but that is hardly the same as preserving and advancing life.) The will to obey authority is obtained by the threat of force, and by delusions about the reality of political power and government.

7. Force

Force in a political sense means the compulsion of individuals against their own will. Force need not involve overt violence to be effective, as long as it intimidates. As long as enough believe in the validity of authority and the importance of obeying, as long as individuals obey authority even over their own wishes, the position of authority is secure. But in order to achieve mastery over opposition, even if that opposition uses just passive refusal to comply, political power must be supported by force. Innumerable examples show that people in authority faced with persistent disobedience respond with force, from gassing or shooting peaceful protesters, to imprisoning dissidents, to murdering political rivals, to expelling, incarcerating, or liquidating recalcitrant populations, to simply implying that similar violent measures will be used. By its very nature, authority requires intolerance of anyone who places their own intentions and ideas above the commands issued to them. Political power inherently tends to require the threat of force.

An illustration of the extent of political power:

Political power needs to menace the unwilling in order to exist. A corollary idea follows that one: the power of those in authority over a person reaches only so far as the force they will use. Consider the impotence of the UN against Saddam Hussein's refusal of inspections in 1998. Once threatened, he had the choice to believe in and recognize the overreaching authority of the UN, or not. He was unwilling. While the UN officials demonstrated a willingness to threaten, or even attack in limited circumstances, at a certain point Saddam's refusal would require escalation to all-out conflict. In fact at a certain point, if they wished to subjugate Saddam, annihilating him (and with him his subjects whom he in turn subjugates by force) might have become necessary. But the UN officials appeared unwilling to even approach that extent, so Saddam continued to deny their power over him and his authority with personal impunity. He could even remain obstinate after the attacks initiated by Bill Clinton on the eve of his impeachment, since those could not destroy Saddam himself or his own hold over the people living in Iraq. Although the available tool kit of power includes more brutal measures, these rulers' assessment of what popular support and military extension would allow them had extended "only" as far as occasional air-to-ground attacks, elite forces' infiltration, airspace denial and interception, and a decade long blockade which has killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq; until 2003, when US officials enforced repeated threats to invade (although Saddam Hussein had recently agreed to inspections), he still stubbornly held onto political power in Iraq in defiance of other rulers who wish him to yield it. Open defiance remains possible for theoretically subordinate dictators and theoretically subordinate citizens alike as long as force remains limited enough by some other factor. But against officials determined enough to use surpassing force, anyone who resists them (whether dissident or dictator, and whether acting for appealing or unappealing reasons) has just as little choice as Saddam versus the Bush administration's war-seeking faction; accede to the demands of those officials, hoping to satisfy them and avoid the consequences of refusal, or simply refuse and suffer those consequences.

If the will of one in authority is not backed up by violence or the threat of violence, if authority is not enforced power, authority can be denied and will cease to be powerful through belief, and thus will effectively cease to exist. This suggests a consistent and ageless incentive for those in political power who want to keep it to consolidate a monopoly on force, whether in the mandates of official armed forces and police, or controls on the sale and ownership of firearms. Both real and manufactured security concerns supply comparatively incidental reasons.

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so."
— Adolph Hitler, April 11, 1942

The compulsive nature of authority is demonstrated in ways which are far less blatant, every day. Interference in everyday life becomes the business of those in political power, serving as a constant reminder of the way things stand. For example, we observe police involvement in communities not confined to simple protection, or even law enforcement... a need to emphasize control through a presence... a consciousness of power.

A personal illustration:

As a 17-year-old walking on city streets at night, I was stopped by a policeman for violating curfew — interrogated, searched, handcuffed, and taken to the station where I was handcuffed to a chair and intimidated. I had done nothing to draw suspicion besides simply being outside, in violation of city ordinance. There was no question of my being a threat in any way, or of my involvement in one of the many consensual acts which typically merit harsh punitive measures under the legal system. No, I was simply a kid on the street, but I was not dealt with accordingly. The experience was clearly intended to become an example to me, to remind me of my place in relation to the policeman's authority and city law. It was also meant to put the fear of punishment into me for the future. Fortunately, I learned an entirely different lesson.

8. Government

Political power, and even its threat of force, often seems justified due to misconceptions about the reality of political power and government. The intrinsicality of government is nothing but the institution of political power through its (conceptual) investment in individuals. This institution always involves making a claim to legitimacy. That claim is based on a supposed sanction, given when authority is theoretically invested or conferred upon those in the offices of government. The nature of this sanction varies. At one time, it was common that governments claimed the sanction of God through the hereditary, so-called "divine right of kings." In many ancient societies and some modern ones, a mythic story claims that the sanction of a deity or deities was granted to rulers long ago. Typically, carefully designed periodic rituals recall the mythic link and reinforce its relevance. In modern times, it is most common for those who are ruled to grant their obeisance and consent in a formal, ritualized manner.

These modern terms of consent vary only in particulars: the frequency with which votes are held, the population allowed to vote, the population which actually votes, etc. In almost all modern systems of government, some number of people may choose to consent to the investment of political power in officers of government. The choice presented may be among various candidates for those offices, but what is always supposed to remain is the monopoly of government on power over each life. This is the case under communism (in party elections) and "representative democracy" alike. Perversely, in the electoral process a vote "against" a candidate actually amounts to a vote for him if he is elected; by voting, one confirms the process, and implies a pledge to accept the authority of whoever is elected by majority. A vote "against" Hitler or some lesser tyrant politician still amounts to a promise to obey them if they are elected. In a case of disturbing irony, the seemingly more sensible Germans who feared the National Socialists, and thought they were voting against them, were still confirming the system that would put them in power. All votes count as government votes. All candidates are government candidates. Every political party is the Government Party. Election thus presents a superficial choice, designed at bottom to support authority. Any vote always remains a vote to support government, and its power over you. Do not be fooled by proclamations that voting is a powerful choice. Election excuses the circumvention of your freedom of choice, rather than expressing it.

A specific analysis — democracy and representative democracy:

Democracy is called "rule by the people" — today assumed an almost sacred, unquestionable good, but allow yourself to see it as a hallowed lie. "The people," or demos (Gk.), is a fallacy. No such collective entity exists, as it is portrayed and imagined. Each individual person can create and propose an idea, or make a choice, but no collective people can do so. In reality, votes on propositions by the majority of the people are made not by "the people" but by those who have the political power to create them and bring them to a vote — for instance, the demagogues of the first democracy in ancient Athens. These men persuaded the mob, men who comprised the closest thing to an actual demos, to vote for their ideas, sometimes completely contradictory positions from one day to the next. This was truly a tyranny without bounds, as the will of one could instantly be granted the legitimacy and compulsion of "the demos" through a simple majority of the moment. There is no evident reason why a majority should be wiser than a minority in any system, and in the total democracy of Athens, this "rule by the demos" quickly destroyed itself. The makers of governments since have adopted "representative democracy" in an attempt to mediate the instability of mob sanction (though this did not solve the inherent problem of cloaked manipulation), and thereby they introduced another fabricated principle: "representation of the people," or divisions of people, by election. But one official cannot think and speak for one billion, one hundred million, one million, one hundred thousand, a thousand, one hundred, or even one single other person. Each person can only think for themselves, remember: individual freedom of will. A choice made by a "representative" is not the same as a choice made by any one or all of his constituents, merely because they have chosen him over alternate officers of government. He exercises his own choice over theirs because they accept his will over their own. Yet, so many believe that a modern representative government follows "the voice of the people." This is an incredibly dangerous sanction, used to justify any or all actions taken by those in government. In the end, democracy and representative democracy are based on mythic collectives which excuse the expression of few at the expense of the expression of many individuals.

(See Critiques of Democracy for expanded material on democracy.)

The legitimacy of a government acquires the inertia of custom and tradition after a time, and is less often analyzed or questioned than blindly followed. But custom and tradition are man-made. They can be changed, and should be changed if we find there is good reason. There is excessive reason.

In all modern systems, a "choice" to grant authority involves the same dangerous contradictions. Since some freedom of will belongs inherently to each individual, no one can give that power of choice to another by any means, including choice. So choosing to give away choice cannot describe what is actually going on.

Political power is really operating on a principle of surrogate will. When people in authority make decisions for those under their power, they are trying to substitute their own will for the will of those who obey. But because individuals always have their own will, those ruled by a government must agree not to exercise their own will, and thereby to limit their own self-expression.

Consider the essence of that: people are agreeing to stunt their own expression by not willing. They are agreeing to weaken themselves. They are agreeing to become less expressive, less capable, less powerful... less alive. Consenting to government means consenting to this.

With every important "act" of a government, citizens become less and less accustomed to using their own capability to choose. They become less and less accustomed to think and consider their own choices, in every area of responsibility which the government assumes from them. They are also prevented from acting on their desires by force. Whether or not you regard the government's involvement in your life as objectionable (although I think self-respect demands this), it does have a debilitating effect on the degree of your freedom of will and action, making you a weaker, less developed and less integrated person, making you less alive.

A specific illustration of the effect of government — social welfare in the US:

Establishing "social welfare," a form of mandatory centralized charity, is one of the very worst things those in government can affect without physical brutality. To actually assume responsibility for the well-being of those who are poor, believing them incapable... what a disgusting insult! As if "the poor" have not their own individual selves, with their own freedom to will and act, and accomplish... what a rejection of individuality. And what nearly irreparable harm it does to assume responsibility for another in this way. I could not invent a better example of personal enervation through the exercise of political power. By imagining an entire "class" of people who live at the bottom of society, assuming them incapable of supporting themselves, and treating them accordingly, many of these people have very nearly been made incapable. Government, at the expense of taxpayers of course, took responsibility for every basic facet of life for these people; in effect, they were told, "do little or nothing." Unfortunately most accepted this "help"; they agreed not to exercise their own abilities or make their own decisions about much of their lives. Not surprisingly, enervation set in quickly, producing the "welfare society," including an entire generation unprepared to express themselves... generally unwilling, mostly untrained, often unable, living in the decay of urban projects and slums constructed and restructured by government grant. "Welfare" in practice appears to be a name for enervation by government, writ large... though these purveyors of such charity are now being pressed to admit the failure of welfare, at least on such a large scale (as if a different scale would make it successful), and abandon a now weakened, hopeless, and further impoverished generation to a more natural state. Even for government, "welfare" seems an impressive monstrosity.

There is a perverse, destructive contradiction in supposedly sanctioning government by choice, by will, when that sanction means choosing that one's own will be overridden, subverted, and suppressed to favor the wills of others. To voluntarily choose to follow involuntarily, under threat of force — that is a monstrous self-denial of the importance of your capability to choose. Such a disastrous weakening of will, of self-expression, of vitality, could only exist with the rationalization that it is sanctioned. If we pretend it is willed through some means, it seems at least innocuous, if not beneficial. For this the devices of election and representation are required.

How could all this exist, and so many approve of it?

(A rhetorical question, but read Doublethink for the answer.)

9. Collectivism

I have talked about government's foundation upon mythic collectives. But collective thinking is far more pervasive. Collective understandings of the world are formulated constantly, because of the integration of human intelligence and language. Using language to think, we name things with words. We approximate very complex, subtle, and diverse things with labels in order to think about them. Many of the overly simplistic, generalized collective concepts we invent become entities unto themselves in our minds, foregone conclusions rather than useful tools. Unfortunately many of these mythic constructions become very dangerous things to believe in, detracting from the importance of the individual, and distracting us from individual development.

Note that "the individual" itself is a kind of collective understanding as well; there are unpredictable and complicated things going on within each person, things which can be examined and ignored, damaged and repaired, retarded and developed. An individual can productively be conceived of according to different parts or aspects, such as physical organs and systems or psychological behavior patterns, all of which are given a collective identity of "I" or "myself" or a personal name. However, although the individual does not seem an indivisible entity (as in the theory of atomism), those intra-individual models are still ways of describing highly interrelated aspects of a whole integrated and functional system, a human body-mind or mind-body. Thus the individual human can certainly be distinguished conceptually from the rest of the world much more usefully than distinguishing larger collective concepts which are conceived to contain individuals, and even be whole entities on their own. Therefore, it seems clear that the individual remains a necessary and manifest "collective" idea of human life, the basic model which describes life very much better than any other basic unit. Fully recognizing "the individual self" may serve as a beginning before looking further or deeper within this self, but that does not diminish the importance of the individual model, it affirms it.

The axiom of freedom of will I mentioned before only recognizes a freedom of will in the individual, because the fundamental seat of human life, of human thought and will, lies within each self, each individual. It is always critical to remember that every conception of people thinking or acting in unity has been invented. They may be useful approximations of reality sometimes, but they are imaginary. They are false, or perhaps more accurately they serve as poor and incomplete descriptions. (For an analysis of the phenomenon of people behaving as though they do think and act as one, see On Conformity.) The individuality of will means that collective will remains a fundamentally invalid concept. In reality, every group, every imagined collective, remains a group of individuals. Each has their own freedom of will and action. There is no collective viewpoint or collective identity, except as postulated — and once, originated — by individuals. The issue is not whether these false ideas are believed. The real issue is whether they should be. If these illusions are not useful and beneficial, but instead counterproductive and harmful, they should be dispelled.

Collectivism — meaning not just its dictionary definition of a centralized economic theory, but also other systems of thought founded primarily on collectives encompassing individuals — is applied in contradiction to the reality of life, and against life's advancement in the individual. Collectivist ideas deny individual will, suppressing it with myths of collective will. These ideas downplay the importance of individual expression, seeing more purpose in the many than the individual, denying that purpose only comes from the individual. Collectivism defines us as mere parts — parts in a "greater" whole.

Examples of collectivism:

Society is often invoked as if it were one complete entity. In truth, "society" serves as a loose description for many individual people in interaction. For instance, "the needs of society," or "the good of society" can never be defined, as society is entirely a tenuous and subjective idea. These dishonest phrases are often used to justify and legitimate one's own opinion of the necessary or good. Certainly, "the will of society" seems not merely indeterminate, but nonsense; on any issue, a society encompasses at least as many distinct views as the number of its members. "Society" can never think or act as one.

Minorities and majorities are also invoked by people to give their claims greater legitimacy, from legislatures to college campuses. In fact, when they speak, they do not speak for "the majority." Nor do they speak for an unseen "minority" which claims special rights. This is merely another dishonest justification of their own opinion or their own wishes. Dividing a collective understanding of a group of individual people into greater or smaller parts is just as inaccurate, and brings as much risk, as the collective itself. It is the individual who is important.

Culture is properly a means of describing commonalities between individuals, derived from the experience of their interactions. No cultural consciousness exists except as conceived individually, and subject to perspective. Culture finds expression in the individual, not a collective. Ultimately an individual is not only, and should not be mainly, a product of cultural influence, but derives a unique personality from a variety of sources in complex ways. These sources include environmental influences such as "culture," genetics, and the mysterious realm of personal creativity.

"The true locus of culture is in the interaction of specific individuals and, on the subjective side, in the world of meanings which each of these individuals may unconsciously abstract for himself from his participation in these interactions."
— Edward Sapir

Race should be merely a loose expression for relative genetic or phenotypic similarity, for example, to describe lighter-colored skin versus darker. (And, sometimes people use "race" in place of "culture.") Such similarity does not make a collective. Some of the most insidious concepts involve the idea of collective race. Racist ideas are always based on believing collective illusions about race, over the reality of individual difference and individual thought. No matter the nature of an individual, racism sees mostly, or even only, race. It is critical to understand that ideas which are positive towards a "race" are as racist and false, and quite possibly as dangerous in the long run, as those which are disapproving or hateful. The defect common to both is collective thinking. The only effective way to combat racism: do not think in terms of races. Do not accept the concept on which racism is founded. Race hatred would be extinct without "race." Racism simply could not exist without widespread recognition of collective races — but this is the very idea perpetuated by those who would speak of race in a positive sense. Personal pride can be healthy, but racial pride is a subtly dangerous thing. By this point, it should also be extraneous for me to add that the vengeful motivation of payback for past misdeeds of "the white race" (a thorough absurdity) through "affirmative action" or redistribution is a compounded abhorrence.

The primary allegiance of people today on a large scale is given to nations and states. They are considered an eternal fixture by most of their citizens, a fait accompli in human civilization. Very few people know that the modern nation-state was invented only two centuries ago. Probably the first real dominance of nationalism over locality was instituted during the French Revolution and the time of Napoleon. "French" culture, especially language, was intentionally homogenized, making centralized rule of the country much easier. French nationalism was used to justify the first mass conscriptions in history, required to assemble vast armies to fight and die in conquest — for "France." Today the nation-state remains a most dangerous lie. People within a nation-state may have very little in common with others in the country, yet they are to believe that the most important identifier for all citizens is to be, for instance, "Americans." When "America" acts, in fact government officials give orders, which are carried out in the name of — America. To see this clearly leads us to understand how "the will of the people" could do horrible things, like wasting lives in the Vietnam War or starving children in Iraq with draconian sanctions. "The will of the people of America" wanted neither, because it has never existed.

Most of the potentially enervating effects of religion lie with specific ideology and doctrine. Humbling oneself before divinity, guilt, affinity for suffering, self-sacrifice, a basis in payback and revenge, et cetera, all contribute to psychological warping and psychosomatic weakness, or possibly may result from them. But organized religions suffer from an additional dysfunction: collectivism. We see this in the idea that devotees of a given sect can act or should act as a whole, and in conceiving of them predominantly in the context of their religion, from within the religion or without. To say that a Jew should do a certain thing because he has Jewish parentage, rather than act as himself... to see Muslims as a stereotypical mass... to believe that one man should speak for world "Catholicism" — these kinds of perceptions retard a healthy consciousness of self.

The obvious natural differences between the sexes may seem dominant, and it becomes easy to allow stereotypes to control perception. But that approach results in mistakes. The individuality of men and women (regardless of biological sex or sexual orientation) should always be considered before simple sexual identity, especially because the most vital people will not be stereotypical; they will be strongly individual and transcend any simple categories like sex or gender. The modern desire for social consciousness according to sex and gender seems misguided, to say the least. (What activist can truly speak for "what women want" — and why do many women approve of this denial of their own identities?) As with racism, even positive sex-based collective ideas perpetuate sexism.

The individual — especially oneself — must be examined, developed, diversified, valued, liberated, and always considered first before collectives. What exists at the level of the individual is both basic and necessary to the advancement of life. Life at its best is vibrantly individual.

The predominance of collectivism presents a grave problem. Not only are collective ideas rampant; most of the sociopolitical establishments we live under today are essentially derived from collectivism: governments, political parties, bureaucratic agencies, religious sects, labor unions, incorporated industries, international bodies, nation-states, territories, states, counties, incorporated cities, local districts, and so on. Against this will stand the Promethean movement. Prometheanism represents a revolution of the individual.

10. The First Objective: Create a Promethean Society

What distinguishes a Promethean reaches beyond what can be described as having worthy motivations, a life-interest toward oneself and others. While this should be considered absolutely instrumental, what distinguishes Prometheans also includes the determination and drive, the strength of will, to change the world around them in the interest of life. Prometheans need a driven life-interest. No less indispensable to success will be the collaboration of present and future Prometheans with many other dedicated and talented people, the members who will join the Promethean movement, as well as those who help even now.

Transforming the world is not a minor undertaking, not easy, safe, convenient, or simple. But it is uniquely worthy, vitally essential, tremendously exciting, and possible to achieve.

"First, they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win."
— Gandhi

But it is impossible to transform all the world directly from its current state into an entirely new kind of society consistent with Prometheanism, a Promethean society. Even if this monumental task could be accomplished as a whole, the strain of such a great inversion could have a destructive effect, not the desired result. Not enough people are ready.

Instead, Prometheans and members of the movement should first focus on a foreseeable objective, a goal which can be achieved in a less distant future. This milestone in the whole progress of the movement should be the foundation of a first Promethean society, an advance prototype, a localized demonstration to the rest of the world. The success of this venture will be a far more persuasive argument for Prometheanism than anything I could write. A Promethean society will also provide a secure home for the Promethean movement, a safe place from which to operate, which could never otherwise exist. We will need such a place. For the stronger the Promethean movement becomes, the more it will be in the interest of those who resist change, especially those entwined in governments, to persecute and slander our efforts. Understandable, because once proven in practice, Prometheanism will bring the end of political rule and the societies of today, and a new beginning.

11. The War of Ideas: How to Rebel

"The people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them: They gaze fascinated at one or two familiar superficialities, such as possession and income and rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime they have entered a new relation: a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."

— Adolf Hitler quoted by Hermann Rauschning

This chilling quotation shows that one of the most collectivist and tyrannical rulers in modern history understood something we must also understand:

ideas are the real battleground.

(More than anything, the power of this understanding made possible his savage victories over freedom and against the strength, diversity, and advancement of life.)

Ideas are profoundly more useful than any other means of affecting change. Ideas help to make us what we are. Ideas produce the way we live, not only through explicit attitudes but through the very models we use to understand and function, our conceptions and assumptions, even our language itself. Our own consciousness of ourselves and each other leads to the practical establishments and manifest institutions of our societies, relegating the arrangement of their particulars to a subsidiary importance. The greatest and most profound battles are fought in the realm of fundamental underlying ideas — enduring perceptions and judgments, beliefs, values, ideologies, and ideals. It is dangerous that the undesirable institutions I have discussed, such as those of government, have the stature they do, but thoroughly worse that the disastrous and oppressive ideologies behind them dominate the world today. Against these we must rebel.

In the eternal war of ideas the course of human lives now and in the far future is determined. Few are aware of this. The war of ideas may appear subdued and subtle, but resounding echoes shake the earth. We must recognize what is at stake in this great struggle: everything from your very own self-respect and happiness to the survival of all of humanity may depend on achievements in the war of ideas, victories for the advancement of your life and the lives of others. Key victories in the war of ideas will ultimately make a Promethean society possible, and eventually change the world.

Ideas are not only worth fighting for, they are the only way to win. Victory in warfare is always hollow and fleeting until ideas change; how much greater, then, is the triumph of philosophy alone! To conquer the world through military might will never be the mission of Prometheans. That would be the surest defeat — another rule by force, another waste of life. The Promethean movement must always be foremost a revolution of ideas. Like everything else, military strength and action should be a means to aid and safeguard that end, in the interest of life. Bloodshed remains always a kind of loss, no matter the victory ensured. But if Prometheans and other members of the Promethean movement are ever forced to protect the freedom of individuals, to guarantee a Promethean society, or to further the Promethean quest in combat, they must still always remember that true victory lives in changing minds.

Prometheans must endeavor to transform concepts — challenging reliance on force, replacing the collective with the individual, favoring self-expression and self-interest, and especially honoring the purpose that defines a Promethean.

It is important to reflect theory in practice, both consistantly and flexibly. For example, consider the strategy required by Prometheanism for opposing government: eschew and oppose all politics, making use of existing governmental establishments only as necessary, and obeying only as necessary. A true Promethean cannot accept the validity of political power. For example, voting or seeking political power in order to dismantle it would be hypocrisy. However, as a converse example, the appeal of refusing to support government with taxes should be resisted, as long as such an isolated protest seems unlikely to achieve much besides arrest. Practically, resources and support from many people must be gathered, and that is probably impossible without using what exists, and suffering much to exist until confronting it can be successful. Both idea and practice must come together, without compromise of what matters, the advancement of life.

The primary importance of the ideas we believe also makes it possible for a society to be founded on the best principles of life — ruled by them, instead of law, institution, government, or unexamined doctrine, and succeed brilliantly.

END of The Promethean Manifesto.

Continued in Anticonstitution for a Promethean Society

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