[I wrote this two months ago. I thought it was incomplete, but it seems to stand on its own.]


            We cannot arrive at objectivity through the abnegation of the self. The only legitimate experience of objectivity is through the fulfillment of the self. As we have said repeatedly here and elsewhere, the central unresolved problem of philosophy hitherto is the problem of solipsism. All experience is a function of consciousness. When the dark side of the moon was still the dark side of the moon, its absence was still entirely a function of consciousness. The inertial weight of a rock is not only a 'representation' in consciousness, the 'substance' as we experience it is the substance of consciousness.
            But objectivity legitimately takes us out of this pure subjectivity, even though objectivity itself is an experience. But what objectivity points to and depends on is the spontaneity of value in consciousness. Obviously, it is not 'logical' that value is spontaneous in consciousness. But when we recognize the reflective nature of our present mode of awareness, and that reflectivity is a learned and socialized response, we have to acquiesce in the realization that prior to reflection value appeared spontaneously in consciousness. Animal awareness is necessarily based in this spontaneity. The subsequent lack of spontaneity in our present experience is strictly a function of reflective awareness, the 'lapse' in our 'lapsarian' existence.
            But, prior to science, only mystics and artists had access to the core nature of this reflective function, and only very rarely could they actually objectify it. But 'science' has brought this objectifying experience within the range of anyone of reasonable competence. That is to say, not only is science the 'revelation' of the objectivity of the 'objective fact', it is also the potential revelation of the structural nature of consciousness and reflection that allows for this relatively unique or anomalous 'modern' experience.
            Scientific objectivity places the experience of objectivity potentially within the range of the majority. But the experience of objectivity, whether viewed culturally or individually, produces an array of artificial simulacrums. Even those who have experienced objectivity in its most explicit form, as the sudden recognition of an 'objective fact', are subject to the hypocritical presumptions of an artificial objectivity. Or perhaps one should say they are most susceptible of all, since the experience of objectivity without a peculiar concomitant 'turning about' experience or without an appropriate philosophical cultural context that gives us a substantial definition of the experience will inevitably lead to an ego inflation based on misinterpretation. Suddenly, I believe that all my judgments, no matter how selfish, paranoid, petty or otherwise deficient, are the very voice of god, of 'objective nature' speaking through my consciousness.
            If our experience is less than direct - that is, if we experience objectivity more or less at second hand - we will be more likely to assume postures of self-abnegation or espouse pseudo-objectivist theories or social philosophies, under the presumption that they represent 'true' objectivity.
            Here we have the real psychological roots of fascism and communism. The 20th century is the living historical disaster of false objectivity.

            If, in my last post, I referred to Ortega y Gasset's thesis that the key to the 20th century is 'the sovereignty of the unqualified individual', we can trace this to the final pervasive diffusion of this denatured concept for 'objectivity'. Peasants in Russia or Spain now feel no hesitation in taking up weapons, not to defend home and family, or even homeland, but in the name of ideologies which, however absurd or sophisticated at their source, have been reduced to little more than catch phrases by the time they reach their foot soldiers.
            And while self-denial and self-aggrandizement seem opposites, they are in fact the opposite sides of the same coin. Marxism and neo-Marxism still have such a hold, culturally, that both liberals and conservatives can equate Romantic individualism with fascism. And, of course, if we wish to, we can draw a line from Byron to Wagner and thence to Nazism. Yes, indeed, Byron dying for Greek liberty is the first epitome of fascist capitalism and the last breathing reactionary conservatism of the old aristocracy. Meanwhile, as I said before, Marxist 'materialism', with its 'objectivist' historical necessity is as directly responsible for the holocausts in Russia and China as the acculturated aggrandizement in Germany is responsible for the holocaust there.

            At this point, the solution is philosophy and not politics. But philosophy, as it stands today, is the living embodiment of the artificial contradictions and false paradoxes of pseudo-objectivity. Grant us, then, the anarchic broom of the intellect, to sweep away the arbitrary lumps and residues of these ideologies only useful to imperialists, whether of minds or nations.