Eternal Recurrence and Evolvement

Few self-styled 'Nietzscheans' have reckoned with one of his central thoughts, 'Eternal Recurrence', and many of those who have classify it as a topic in the Philosophy of Time. They thus miss its lineage from Schopenhauer's Naturalistic challenge to Hegelian Spiritualism, i. e. regarding the privileged status in Nature that the latter accords Humanity, and, so, they miss how Eternal Recurrence serves as correction to the nihilistic Pessimism that Schopenhauerism can breed. For Nietzsche, the thinking of Eternal Recurrence is high noon, the incipience of self-creation through self-affirmation, the moment when the God of Formlessness, Dionysus, looks in the mirror, in which Apollo, the God of Form, appears. It is, thus, far from happenstance that Nietzsche hencforth devoted himself with developing his theory of Will to Power, a Form-creating force. While Evolvementalism rejects the implication that the Formal Principle is derivative, and that Eternal Recurrence is the soundest theory of Temporality, it recognizes in Nietzsche's thinking of Eternal Recurrence an emergence of an Individual, and of the potential for Humans to make History, not merely to suffer it, be it Natural or Spiritual.

Philosophy of History and Evolvementalism

While History offers a narrative of events, a Philosophy of History presents a theory of the grounds and structure of any such narrative. There have been three main theories of Historical structure--ascent, descent, and circular, and for millennia their contents were cosmic or natural events. The emergence of the Philosophy of specifically Human History began with the work of Vico, a circular theory, and Kant soon proposed a teleological, perhaps Messianic, scheme of the development of Humanity. For Hegel, the appearance, in History, of a Philosophy of History is a moment of self-awareness that signals that History is the Dialectical ascent of Rational Spirit. Marx appropriates Dialecticism, but rejects Spiritualism, positing Materialism as the motor of Human History, with the conflict of Economic Classes as the Dialectical forces, and with the dawning of Class Consciousness as the pivotal moment. Marx thus inherits a theory of History that, despite his Materialistic variation of it, remains of an exclusively Human History. In contrast, the other main 19th-Century Philosophy of History, Evolutionary Theory, is of Natural events, in which Human History is merely a special case. In contrast with both, Evolvementalism entails a Philosophy of Natural History, in which Human History is unique phase, the main theme of which is the emergence of the Individual, in which the awareness of one's Particularity qua Particularity is a transformative moment.

Menial Labor

Political Philosophies tend to be the products of abstract inspirational Beauty, which might be why they have traditionally slighted one perennial social problem, namely, how menial labor is to be performed. Hence, Aristotelian Aristocracy is impossible without slavery, the lower classes of Theocracies and Monarchies reflect either a 'divine' will, or a 'natural' ordering, and in Capitalism, the 'losers', as determined by the 'Invisible Hand of the Market', usually have little choice but to accept drudgery in exchange for subsistence. Perhaps, automation will one day solve the problem, but in the meantime Marxism tackles one aspect of it head on, namely, by attempting to eliminate the meniality from menial labor. Marx' psychological thesis is that labor becomes menial only when performed for someone else, that e. g. cleaning up after oneself is, except among the lazy, never construed as burdensome. So, one of the aims of Socialism is to transform the nature of labor by having all tasks concern the self-interest of each, i. e. as pertaining to something they themselves own. A complement to that notion is a system of a rotation of chores, as is often in effect in many cooperative enterprises, a step in the direction of which might be a mandatory 'National Service', currently being entertained by some American politicians. Along with mandatory voting, the latter would be an Evolvemental developmental in American public life.

Dimensions of Marxism

Marxism combines three main theses, one Moral, one Metaphysical, and one Historical. The first is that all Economic systems hitherto, up to and including Capitalism, are institutionalized stealing, from workers, by the entrepreneurial or ownership Class. The second is that all reality consists of Matter, so non-Material doctrines are myths that serve only to reinforce exploitative Economic relations. Finally, it holds that the primary governing Principle of human affairs is the inevitable Dialectical ascent of History to Socialism, which is the true Economic, Moral, and Metaphysical doctrine. Standard critiques of Marxism, that it is fundamentally an envy of wealth, and that it is 'Evil', fail to address its Moral and Metaphysical theses in an intellectually credible manner, while, on the other hand, the course of events, including the efforts of e. g. Stalin to force the issue, has damagingly refuted its Historical thesis. Evolvementalism agrees that much of Capitalism, especially Corporatism, is a hindrance to the growth of the Individual, but is uncertain that Socialism is the exclusive remedy. It also concurs, in general, with the Marxist diagnosis of the role of Spiritualism in the service of Economic and Political exploitation, but rejects its reductive Materialist Monism, especially given that it shares with traditional Spiritualisms and Dualisms the lack of a substantive definition of Matter, such as the one proposed by Formaterialism. Finally, it regards Dialecticism of any kind, Marxist, Hegelian, et al. as a special case of Evolvementalism, one in which the generation of an 'Antithesis' is a Diversification of precisely and uniquely a factor of 2. Likewise, Evolvementalism regards Class Conflict as only one of an infinite variety of possible social antagonisms that an Evolvemental episode can, but not necessarily will, sublate.

Abilities and Needs

One of Marxism's better-known Principles is 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'. A Capitalist analogue can be articulated as 'Each will sow what they reap.' Evolvementalism rejects the latter on three main grounds. First, it disagrees with the implied Social Atomism, i. e. that the fate of each is independent of that of any other. Second, it holds that what is one's own best 'self-interest' is not what or how much one receives, but one's growth as an Individual. Finally, it disputes the priority expressed in the Principle--one reaps in order to sow at least as much as one sows in order to reap. More generally, Evolvementalism finds the entailed critique of Marxism, namely, that one has a Right to withold any of one's Inessential Property from someone whose full exercise of ability is still insufficient to meet their needs, as small-minded. On the other hand, the Marxist Principle is consistent with Evolvementalism to the extent that the fulfilment of need is a necessary condition of Individual Evolvement, and that the Evolvement of one potentially promotes the Evolvement of each and all.

Capitalism and Democracy

One of the great confusions in contemporary American life is the purported equivalence of Capitalism and Democracy. To begin with, one is an Economic system, the other a Political system. That Fascism is a form of Capitalism, and that a Democracy can be Socialist, proves that they are not identical. At its inception, as Smith explicitly conceived it, Capitalism was a great Democratizer, a leveller of Feudalism in its various manifestations, especially British Nobilism. But its non-coincidence with Democracy became evident within a few decades, as British Capitalistic Industrialism reverted to Feudal inequality. In contemporary America, it is difficult to appreciate, under the knee-jerk hysteria, that Marxism was initially devised as an exposure of the Democratic short-comings of Capitalism, an analysis that, regardless of that doctrine's own flaws, remains unconfronted by American Capitalist thought. Consequently, for example, the rebuilding of Iraq entails both an electoral process, and the fight for economic control of the country by transnational corporations. The Democratization of Feudalism was, and still can be, a great Evolvemental step in human civilization, but the globalization of Capitalism is not necessarily a continuation of any Evolvemental process.

Property

Property is one of the central issues of Political Philosophy, and a distinction needs to be drawn between 'Property Relations', or 'Possession', and 'Property Rights', since a stolen item might be a Possession, but not a piece of Property. Evolvementalism distinguishes four main types of Property Relation--'Natural', i. e. one's own body; 'Essential', i. e. what the vital processes of the body need; 'Instrumental', i. e. anything that aids or promotes those vital processes; and 'Inessential', i. e. anything else. It also distinguishes four main types of Property Acquisition--'Creation', i. e. produced by one's own efforts; 'Transfer', i. e. a sanctioned, or a mutually voluntary relocation, often as part of an Exchange; 'Finding', i. e. an unexpected encounter; and 'Expropriation', i. e. a relocation involving at least one involuntary party. In most systems, the only Property Relations that are not Property Rights are those that are the product of Expropriation. But what qualifies as the latter differs from system to system, and within them, from case to case. For example, the turning of a profit by a business owner from the work of an employee is a Transfer in Capitalism and Expropriation in Socialism. And, whether or not one has a Right to a Finding depends on circumstances. In a Phronetocracy, Property Rights are protected, how a particular Relation or Acquisition will generally be determined on a case by case basis, and the classification of the Acquisition of Inessential Property will in part be determined by the classification of the resultant Relation. That is, the Acquisition of Inessential Property from an involuntary party, for Essential or Instrumental purposes, can modify its classification as Expropriation, e. g. taxation can be a legally-sanctioned Transfer, as might be the taking of a bottle of milk from a multi-billionaire by a poor woman to feed her starving child. Complicating any particular Relation or Acquisition is the history of the item concerned, e. g. the sale of stolen goods to an unwitting buyer. Hence, the entire status of all Property Rights in the United Status is questionable, given how the country's wealth has been based on the development of land perhaps Expropriated from Native Americans, via the involuntary efforts of African-American slaves.