Human nature evolved in a world where all wealth comes from nature and man is amethodical. Success would come from luck and numbers as when competing for control of nature’s freely given bounty the many will defeat the few or the one. The only evolutionary motive for joining, remaining and serving a group is belief in that group’s future success and the belief that one’s share of that group success would be an amount greater than what would be gained by any other strategy. And so the individuals success is tied to the success of his group and his group’s success is determined in a circular fashion by the expectation that the group will be successful. This expectation or morale can best be termed regard as this covers both direct and indirect descriptions which logically evaluate to expectation of likely success. In man’s natural state the instincts concerning this operate without need for conscious thought and without need for improvement. In a modern world where most wealth comes from human labor choosing the best method is the driver of success and not choosing the best group and success is a product of the Fundamental Act of Human Intelligence, using regard to choose between methods rather than between people. In the modern world man moves away from the starting point of human nature and stops assigning regard and choosing groups in an instinctive and unconscious manner and consciously chooses intellectual designs and schema for understanding his world and choosing his actions and how to assign regard becomes a central preoccupation.
In the natural world the success of the group is determined in a circular fashion by the group’s expectation of success and so the human mind instinctively views regard as the currency of success. And so the human mind instinctively views the regard structure, the rules governing the assignment of regard, as determining the distributional structure, the rules determining the amount of nature’s bounty each receives. And so in the modern world where regard is consciously assigned and man tries in mostly futile ways to improve on instinctive behavior the distribution of regard becomes a primary concern and can become the all consuming concern in the right circumstances. As modern man tries to consciously assign regard with forethought and planning two strategies are inevitable, to consciously assign equal regard to all and to consciously assign all regard to one. Modern political ideas inevitably concern themselves with one of these two strategies. How far each political idea goes in one direction has infinite variates but all modern political ideas belong in one of these two categories, to equalize regard or to concentrate regard.
Modern democracy started in England and modern politics started in France. It was after the French Revolution that the political terms left and right were invented as like minded people in the French Parliament began sitting on either side in an obvious pattern which then began a terminology that will seemingly last forever. The human mind very quickly grasps what the terms left and right mean in politics. It does not take long and even children quickly grasp the concept. Any idea that is grasped so quickly can only be one that is latent in the mind merely waiting for a name to be attached to it. This was Aquinas’ comment on the concept of God, that the reason it is so quickly understood by children is that the human mind interprets the world as hierarchical and one thing at the head of the hierarchy and once the concept of God is explained to them they now have a name for this latent thought within them. The same happens with politics, children very quickly grasp the ideas behind political left and political right and grasp them so quickly these ideas must have been latent within and awaiting only a name.
Left and Right were invented in France but modern western democracy was invented in England with Westminster Democracy and so Labour and Tory deserve to be called the mother of all political parties. One is obviously the left and one is obviously the right. And all modern political parties are either local versions of Labour or Tory. In the United States the Democrats obviously map to Labour and the Republicans map to Tory. All major political parties in western democracy map to either Labour or Tory and even children quickly grasp which party in a country is there version of Labour and which party is there version of Tory. Modern political disputes inevitably concern the conscious assignment of regard and there are only two directions one can assign it in, the same for everybody or all for one. Concentrate or equalize. The degree to which one tries to concentrate or equalize has infinite variations but the direction of change has two variations, you are either trying to make the assignment of regard more equal or more unequal. It is this binary quality of modern politics that makes all parties either Labour or Tory, left or right. Or here in my country, you are either a Democrat or a Republican and this difference is supposed to mean all the world.
Human nature evolved in a world where all wealth comes from nature and man is amethodical. Success depended on being in a successful cooperative grouping and the only motive for this cooperation was the belief it would serve self interest through sharing in the group’s success. And so the expectation of the group’s success determined interest and support for the group thus determining real success in a circular fashion. In his instinctive state man applies these ideas unconsciously and naturally in a way perfectly suited to his environment. Assigning regard to his group is not an all consuming drive but never ignored and instead measured as best suits the purpose assigned by evolution. To rise above this starting point man has to rise above inherited instinct. To rise above morally he must choose moral universalism as the Fundamental Moral Choice is between self interest and universal moral concern as all particular moral concern logically evaluates to a scheme for the pursuit of self interest. To rise above natural life intellectually he must make the Fundamental Act of Human Intelligence and use regard to choose between methods rather than between people. To rise above the starting point of human nature one must consciously see the circular nature of expecting a group’s success to come from the expectation of its success and use regard to assign value to methods in order of usefulness so as live intelligently and not merely instinctively. In a world where most wealth is from human labor using regard to choose between methods rather than between people gives an almost infinite improvement in the wealth produced by labor.
The starting point is always determined by human nature, to rise above that one has to reduce the extent to which one emphasizes regard in one’s decisions, both moral and practical. In the natural system of particular moral concern different gradations of concern will be assigned as best serves self interest. With universal moral concern there is no point in keeping track of an amount which is always the same, each person receives the same concern and no accounting is necessary. As you move towards universal moral concern assignment of regard to each person for the purpose of assigning moral concern becomes less and less emphasized, ideally regard becomes irrelevant. As you rise above the natural system using regard to choose between people as a moral choice is deemphasized in proportion to the moral advance. As you rise above the natural system you consciously see the futility of succeeding by assigning regard to one’s group for the purpose of self interest and instead use regard to choose between methods. This use of regard in the manner of counter instinctive cultural progress is to cease viewing regard as a tool itself. Value, which one can label regard, is assigned in differing quantities to tools and methods with methods merely being intellectual tools. It is these tools that are seen to do the work, not the regard placed on them. And so as we advance intellectually regard is deemphasized, ideally ceasing to be viewed as a source of success in of itself. This progress against the current of evolved instinct is the entirety of man’s advancement. The starting point of human nature does not view regard as having all encompassing importance. In addition to the possibility of deemphasizing regard and advancing one can emphasize it and thus make worse all the deficiencies of the natural system. One can swim against the instinctive current in a different direction and become more selfish and futilely stupid than nature ever intended. The ability to become worse than natural can not be separated from the agency which allows us to become better than natural, both are choices available to us or neither is a choice available to us.
Words like advancement and progress imply a starting point and that starting point is instinctive behavior. We would never evolve to make poor decisions, we in fact evolved to make the best possible decisions in our situation of amethodically gathering up nature’s freely given bounty. But once we started creating wealth our selves our instincts poorly served us and success in a world where man is methodical and most wealth is created from human labor. Progress is movement away from considering regard the currency of success. On a personal level this is usually called enlightenment and on a group level civilization. Whatever the term all advancement is movement away from instinctive decision making in the direction of minimizing the belief that regard is the sole currency of success and instead believing rational decision making and effort are the currency of success. When this happens on a group level this is called civilization and occurs when the entire culture of a group incorporates this understanding that regard is not the currency of success and this belief is something to rise above. As a culture incorporates the counter instinctive cultural progress of deemphasizing regard it advances and improves and will outperform lesser cultures which are not progressing in this direction.
As human nature moves contrary to this progress advanced cultures exist as islands amid backward cultures. They are either physical islands or cultural islands which exist side by side locally but retain a separate cultural life. Only some form of isolation, either physical or social, can allow advanced cultures to survive when all advancement is counter instinctive cultural progress and the mass of men still consider regard as the currency of success. Significant cultural progress only began 10,000 years ago and has spread only partially and cycled through times of expansion and contraction. Eventually the influence of culture on success will become consciously known to all and all will be advanced. Any further expansion of advanced culture at this point will have to be voluntary and rely on an explicit statement of what makes a culture advanced and an individual enlightened.
Instinctive behavior evolved to perfectly suit its environment, an environment that no longer exists. Instinctive behavior was not evil or stupid, simply narrow in its focus and suitability. Far from being the worst possible type of behavior one can say that natural living is heavenly compared to what man is capable of. The agency which allows us to form the complicated political groupings typical of humans allows us to advance beyond instinctive living towards something better. This agency also allows us to degrade into something worse. Humans can use agency to become worse than natural and make decisions more stupid and evil than acting on instinct would produce. This is counter instinctive cultural regression. The worst a man can get is not to live as an animal. To live as an animal is to live on instincts, man has agency and can choose to act contrary to instinct and become barbaric and live in a manner worse than the animals.
The start of civilization were the peoples around the Black Sea who created domesticated agriculture. When sewing was invented around 25,000 years ago man was able to go north into areas Homo Erectus had never visited and where the megafauna had no previous experiences which would adapt them to human hunting pressure and the megafauna were quickly eliminated. In this arid grassland environment absent of natural megafauna food was so scarce that humans who were good shepherds to domesticated animals lived in paradisiacal isolation from other humans who might influence them back towards the starting point of human nature. Any group of humans in this environment who backslid on their own would find themselves without sustenance and have to leave or die out. The altered environment of these grasslands created an island on the land where advanced culture could develop in isolation. On these vast grasslands devoid of megafauna the herd of animals tended to by the shepherds were virtual islands of food in the sea of grass. When the Black Sea flooded these peoples would move to Europe, the Mid East, and India. DNA testing shows modern Greeks and Italians are closest to these Black Sea peoples and they formed the basis for advanced European and also Mid Eastern culture. The Tibetan Plateau, very broadly defined, played a similar role to the Black Sea region for Asia. Previous to the Black Sea people entering India the river valleys had already been seeded with advanced culture brought down from the many rivers flowing from the Plateau. But in East Asia advancement began in the rivers flowing down from the Plateau without admixture from the only other starting point of advanced culture, the Black Sea.
The dominating cultural legacy of this era is the Zoroastrian religion, the oldest continually practiced religion in the world. Twice in Genesis is states that Terah, Abraham’s father, followed a religion other than Judaism, Maimonides identifies this religion as Zoroastrianism and states that prior to Abraham the Jews as a whole were practicing Zoroastrianism. Jewish tradition on the whole accepts without controversy that Zoroastrianism is the oldest religion. This view is accurate, there is no evidence for any continuously practiced religion that is any older. The basic beliefs of Zoroastrianism are the foundations of civilization. No religion emphasizes truth telling more strongly, this is to deny the value of describing for effect, to deny the value of viewing regard as the currency of success and to deny conspiratorial and treacherous dealings with others. Universal moral concern is embraced and honesty in all dealings with all others is mandatory, even in the simplest things. The basis for advancement is the basis for Zoroastrianism, the Fundamental Moral Choice of embracing universal moral concern and the Fundamental Act of Human Intelligence, using regard to choose between methods rather than people. Zoroastrianism strongly influenced Judaism and Christianity and Hinduism and built the world’s first empire, the Assyrian Empire. And the fundamental ethic of all Zoroastrianism is truthfulness in all dealings with all people.
The Black Sea people created the first advanced culture and created greater wealth than was ever possible before. Prior to advanced culture man was so poor that sustenance through banditry was impossible. It took all of one man’s efforts to sustain himself and his dependents. To steal his wealth would be a temporary affair as he would quickly starve and the thief would then have to labor for himself. Previous to advanced culture banditry was a losing proposition. There is great risk and you create a permanent enemy of the victim and a permanent distrust among all who know you. This cost was far greater than the value of what little wealth could be gained by banditry. Advanced culture created a world wealthy enough to bear the burden of banditry. Advanced culture created a world with so much wealth that some could survive without labor simply by stealing and the victims could survive the theft and continue to create more wealth on a permanent basis. The origin of human society had to be a culture based on honest labor as in the beginning there was nothing to steal. Banditry requires advancement as a precursor to allow the bandit to survive long enough to build a culture of banditry. When the megafauna were exterminated in northern Eurasia after sewing was invented in created a physical environment for advanced culture to grow and sustain itself as a group effort and not merely individual enlightenment. This physical environment allowed counter instinctive cultural progress to create a self sustaining social environment. This advancement created a physical environment allowing counter instinctive cultural regression to create a self sustaining social environment.
Significant cultural progress began around 10,000 years ago. Around 4,000 years ago the destruction layer hit. This was the establishment of banditry as a self sustaining culture. Prior to the destruction layer many cities and towns had no walls, no defensive fortifications. There is little evidence of need for defense, little evidence of a constant threat of warfare. Society was advancing as it had been doing for the previous 6,000 years. Then the destruction layer hits, this is a layer of ash and rubble that every major city in the classical world has in its archeological evidence dating from a period roughly four hundred years long and centered around 2,000 bc. Every major city in the classical world was burned to the ground at least once during this time. When digging through layers of the soil looking for evidence of the past every city in this part of the world suffered a complete destruction requiring a complete rebuild. There is nothing like this before or since.
There is nothing like this since because since then every major city was built with walls and moats and defensive fortifications. After the destruction layer all city builders took for granted the existence of banditry. This counter instinctive cultural regression had become a permanent feature of the area and defending against it became one of the primary concerns of the advanced people who made banditry possible through the wealth they created. This banditry took all forms, by land and sea. This was the beginning of piracy, of the Sea Peoples who would raid and destroy the coastal cities and of desert bands who would raid cities and seek refuge in the desert. The archetypical bandit culture is the Bedouin of the deserts and the domestication of the camel circa 2,000 bc made their way of life possible. In Genesis it speaks of the Bedouins being created circa 2,000 bc and their destructive way of life and speaks of the southward movement of people from the Black Sea area to the Mid East. This is the history of civilization. It originated in the Black Sea area and moved outward and unintentionally spawned the bandit culture and above all the Bedouins of the desert who raised the best camels in the harshest parts of the desert where no city dweller could survive. They would leave the desert refuge to raid trade routes and cities and then return to the desert refuge where life was only possible due to the domestication of the camel. Three times in the Old Testament it describes the Israelites being attacked by Medianite bedouins and being unable to catch them because the Medianite camels were faster than the Israelite camels. The domestication of the camel allowed the Bedouin to make the desert his safe refuge to return to after every destructive raid.
First came honesty greater than instinctive honesty and advanced culture developed around the Black Sea. The wealth produced by this created the possibility for honesty lesser than instinctive honesty and Bedouin culture developed around the edges of the advanced cities. And all of the advanced world was burned to the ground at least once circa 2,000 bc. Human Agency gives each of us the ability to become better or worse than our instincts. When some are better this wealth creates a situation where others can survive by being worse. The truth telling Zoroastrian came first and then the Bedouin, and both remain in various forms to this day.
The French Revolution began a new era of human history as it added a new dimension to the human race’s response to the instinctive belief that regard is the currency of success. One response is to concentrate regard on one group and another to equalize regard among all groups. This is the ultimate basis for the left vs right political distinction. No matter how much the Fascists support free health care and government intervention in the economy and a welfare state they are never considered to be left as they are trying to concentrate regard on their ethnicity. No matter how much the left glorifies an identity it is never considered the same as the self glorification of the fascists if it is an obviously lowly regarded group which the glorifying leftist is trying to bring up to equal regard with the rest. We instinctively know if one is trying to equalize regard or concentrate it and assign the political terms left and right in accordance. The starting point of human nature is the instinctive life, from this came civilization and from civilization came banditry. Thousands of years later the left vs right split began and it has been the human race’s obsession ever since. It will remain the human race’s obsession until the influence of culture on success is understood. As long as some people believe regard is the currency of success the split between trying to concentrate regard and trying to equalize it will dominate politics.
It’s a nearly universal opinion that both the left and right have benign and malign forms. It is also a nearly universal opinion that the malign form is a move too far away from center and this distance from the center is the flaw. This is wrong, the flaw is the emphasis on regard. Once one decides that regard must be equalized across all identities one begins using conscious inputs into the regard structure to balance out the subconscious inputs created by reality. In the past the left focused their efforts on idealizing the white working class, that era is gone forever. Now the left focuses on idealizing third world cultures all for the purpose of holding all identities in equal regard by inputting consciously chosen regard inputs which balance out the inputs created by reality so in sum all identities are held in equal regard. Equalizing regard across all identities is the fundamental goal of the left and the motive for demonizing groups which naturally receive regard and idealizing groups which naturally do not receive regard and the demonization and idealization is in proportion to what is necessary to hold all identities in equal regard. This is always the goal of the left.
What makes the pursuit of this goal violent and destructive is the extent to which regard is considered important. All the left views equalizing regard across all identities as a worthy goal. But how worthy? If your belief in the importance of regard is strong enough any sacrifice in morals and peace and civilized behavior is justified by the goal of equalizing regard across all identities. If your belief in the importance of all identities being held in equal regard is high enough you will even support the elimination of identities which stubbornly resist being equalized. It is this degree of emphasis which differentiates benign from malign leftists. But when the emphasis on regard is so light or even deemphasized you have the benign form of the left which in a western democracy inevitably means a derivation of the Labour Party.
The eternal debate regarding the analysis of right wing politics is whether the National Socialist German Workers Party or Nazi for short was left or right wing. It goes without saying that no leftist believes the National Socialists were leftist. This is despite their support for the welfare state, gun control, government intervention in the economy, rhetorical abuse of the bourgeoisie, glorification of the working class and purposeful association with the left in their own descriptions. Schicklgruber himself said the National Socialist party flag was mostly red for the purpose of appealing to Communist workers and converting them to the National Socialist cause. So the reasons to consider the National Socialist party a Socialist party are great in number and the policies of both are vastly similar. And yet almost no one truly considers the National Socialists to be leftist, people instinctively view them as being the opposite side of the coin from Communism. The reason is the concentration of regard on one ethnicity. Wherever this is found people instinctively recognize the attempt to concentrate regard for what it is and place this on the right of the political spectrum. No amount of arguing will ever change their minds. No matter how much free health care the National Socialists had they will always be placed on the right due to the instinctually understood attempt to concentrate regard rather than equalize it.
As with the left the political right is malign or benign in proportion to how much it emphasizes regard as the currency of success, as the mystical life force itself. Where this desire to concentrate regard is too closely aligned with the desire to concentrate regard it is common to attempt to achieve this concentration through elimination of other identities. This is the same policy as the malignant left, if nothing else works achieve the regard distribution you want through mass murder of the identities which stubbornly resist the distributive goal. And as with the left if the party lightly emphasizes or deemphasizes regard the right wing party will be benign and an inevitable derivative of the Tory party.
The standard view is that left vs right politics are an eternal feature of human life and that what remains is overcoming the malign forms of both and the malign forms are considered the forms that are too far left, too far right. This standard view is wrong and has never produced useful results. What is wrong with malign politics is the emphasis on regard and this is what needs to be overcome. To the extent the world deemphasized regard the world improves. Advancement relies on two things, the Fundamental Moral Choice and the Fundamental Act of Human Intelligence. Both of these require seeing regard for what it truly is, irrelevant. It is not the currency of success and it is not the mystical life force. The Fundamental Moral Choice is understanding that the two choices are universal moral concern and self interest because particular moral concern logically evaluates to a scheme for the pursuit of self interest. The Fundamental Act of Human Intelligence is to use regard to choose between methods and not between people. It is productive methods that are the currency of success and it is authenticity that is the mystical life force. Man advances beyond his starting point when he advances beyond regard. But man has agency and can move below his starting point, to a point below animal life, and he does this to the extent he increases the value of regard beyond even what is instinctive.
The future progress of politics is not to avoid extremism on the left vs right spectrum to rise above left vs right politics and make the choice of equalizing or concentrating regard irrelevant because regard itself is irrelevant. When this happens there will be no Communism and no Fascism. There will not even be a Labour/Democrat and Tory/Republican split as once regard is irrelevant policy issues will be decided solely on practical merits and not on whether they promote the agenda of equalizing or concentrating regard.
The circle on the Regard Compass is the starting point of human nature. Before roughly 10,000 years ago only individuals would move beyond this point. Around 10,000 years ago entire cultures began moving above the starting point of instinctive behavior. Around 4,000 years ago entire cultures developed around thievery, the bandit cultures epitomized by the Bedouins. Honest labor came before thievery otherwise there would be nothing to steal. Primitive man had only to feed himself alone and not enough to feed parasites whether he fed them willingly or unwillingly by being the victim of crime. Advanced cultures produce enough wealth for other cultures to develop on the periphery which survive through banditry. The explosion of bandit or bedouin cultures produced the Destruction Layer circa 2,000 bc and since then all advanced cultures have taken the need to defend against banditry for granted. This dispute within the human race will end when the left vs right dispute ends. Both will end when culture’s influence on success is finally understood. When that day comes there will no longer be a left vs right struggle and the world will no longer tolerate counter instinctive cultural regression, otherwise known as banditry.
When the left vs right debate disappears there will continue to be policy debates, this never will and never should end. But the disputes will be practical in nature and not political. Arguments about politics will be at the level of arguing about turbochargers vs superchargers. It will be a debate on the merits and not a debate about political maneuvering for advantage. Once the left vs right debate is overcome all policy debates will debates about policies and their practical implications and not about politics at all.
Banditry and the surviving Bedouin influence carried within Islam will no longer be tolerated once culture’s influence on success is understood. Tolerance for banditry is based on sympathy for the poor as victims of the rich due to success being unevenly distributed for reasons other than cultural inequality. Once culture’s influence on success is understood the world will no longer tolerate Somalia systematically raiding international shipping lanes and then returning to the desert refuge as modern Bedouins. What will end left vs right politics will end cultural regression vs cultural progress. And what ends this will be acknowledgment. Acknowledgment explodes the system. You can’t tell your wife you are flattering her for the sake of better relations. To acknowledge one is using regard to accomplish goals is to explode the system. To acknowledge one is either attempting to equalize or concentrate regard is to admit one is describing for effect rather than accuracy. To acknowledge attempts to use regard as a tool for social change is to explode the system. A vast silence is required to keep the system in place, the system explodes when it is acknowledged to exist. And then all that is left of the Regard Compass is the one line going up, the line indicating man’s advancement.