Dawn. A thousand years in the future. A knoll in an oak forest. Granite boulders loll about where an ancient cataclysm tossed them. A half naked troglodyte, piebald and weary, limps up the knoll and sees a text engraved on a stone. The troglodyte approaches, knocks off some moss, and reads the following:
To whom it may concern, before one can begin to correct the error of the world, one must first correct one’s own error: if one lies to one’s self, the lie corrupts one’s perception of the world (we call this psychosis) and reduces one’s efforts to vanity. How can one correct the world when one’s view of the world is in error?
Yet, today, the Socialist, Marxist, or Postmodern thinker attempts to change society in the hope that error will disappear. Ah, a glorious dream it is, too; but, unfortunately, one’s own human biology contradicts this ideal: there are not an infinity of valid interpretations: we have real biological needs and, if we don’t supply them within three days, we die. One’s immediate physical needs are satisfied in a network of systems: individual, family, village, polis, nation that fulfill those needs immediately, tomorrow, next year, and at the end of life. One’s physical health is fulfilled in a network of systems, which maintain a balanced ecosystem such that disease does not arise. One’s behavior cultures disease, or one’s behavior cultures health; this is the meaning of civilization: culturing human flourishing.
In a Marxist-leaning society, the intellectual’s job is to produce ideas about how to twist society so that error, disease, sickness, and guilt disappears, but most of these twists are themselves errors because, as I just said, there are not an infinite number of possible interpretations—or twists—available so that one can survive today, tomorrow, next year, and at the end of life. Our biology doesn’t allow for such an ideal. There are only a very limited number of solutions to one’s daily bodily and social needs. Furthermore, how will any of these twists result in the ultimate goal of greater happiness for a greater number of people when the intellectual’s own perceptions are corrupted with error? No, no, it is all a well-intentioned fool’s errand that results in greater and greater opinion pieces published by so-called real and-or serious news sources; and, opinions—as has been said long ago—produce ignorance whereas science produces knowledge.
What is the science of life? What behavior, what speech produces knowledge vis-a-vis opinion and the ignorance that follows in its wake? One word: law. The best practice for the most number of people: law. Thou shalt do and thou shalt not do. Change one’s behavior, align one’s will with the law. Allow the new behavior to create health of body and mind. Culture an improved perception of the world, and, so, begin the work of improving the world around one’s now improved self. What other path may one walk with success?
The troglodyte stops reading, replaces the moss, and limps down the far side of the knoll and out into the oak forest where she picks acorns for the rest of the day.
The end.