Cosmotheist ethics
Cosmotheist ethics is an early Cosmotheist-related article written by Dr. William Pierce. It first appeared in the No. 51, May 1976 issue of ACTION: Internal Bulletin of the National Alliance.
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The personal conduct of those who strive to follow the One Path is based on three foundations: Knowledge, Discipline, and Service.
First comes knowledge--an understanding of the nature of man, of his relationship to the Whole, and of his purpose. Then must come action based on that understanding; we must put our knowledge to work. We must let it direct us in our daily lives, so that we live in accord with our ordained purpose, so that we serve the ends intended for us by the Creator.
Knowledge is our guide, and service is our object, but discipline gives us the indispensable means. Discipline allows us to actualize the potential strength which our knowledge gives us. Without discipline, our knowledge will remain sterile, our actions weak and ineffectual.
The gaining of knowledge, the attainment of understanding, is a lifelong process, but we have already taken the first steps toward it in the last six months. Let us now consider briefly the proper discipline for translating that knowledge into action in our daily lives.
In the most general sense, the disciplined man or woman is a person whose conscious intellect exercises the fullest possible control over his body and its subconscious needs and desires as well as over the controllable circumstances of his life. In contrast, the completely undisciplined person is a slave to his subconscious nature and to events around him. In view of what we have already learned, then, it is clear that a disciplined person, as the bearer of a higher degree of consciousness than an undisciplined one, is further along the One Path.
But we need more than generalities. We need to fill in all the details of the structure, of the means, which lies between our guiding knowledge and the object of that knowledge. We need a detailed discipline which will allow us to translate our knowledge into service.
Please note that we using the word "discipline" in two slightly different, but closely interdependent, senses: first, in the sense of a general exercise of will, of a subordination of the unconscious to the conscious; and, second, as a specific regimen, a code of behavior.
The two senses are related in this way: We want to achieve a major goal, but we find that our untrained will is insufficient for that task; we are not sufficiently disciplined. So we begin with small goals that are within reach of our will, and we institutionalize the achievement of these small goals into a proper regimen, thereby accomplishing two things. We strengthen our will--that is, we discipline ourselves in the first sense--and we also shape and adapt our lives to better serve their ultimate purpose. We transform ourselves from impotent dreamers into disciplined and effective instruments of the Creatorβs Will, of the Devine Motive of the Whole.
Just as all other things are derived from our knowledge, so is it with a proper code of behavior to free us from the ills of this age and return us to the Path. But the subject now before us is a large one, and it will take some time to develop it in detail. It covers everything from sexual morality to our attitude toward private property.
Remember, in all that follows, the prime criterion we use in judging a course of action is the compatibility of that action with our ordained purpose. Let us begin with some considerations on sexual morality, sexual ethics--not because sex sit the most important thing we have to consider, but because we must begin with something, and sex provides an easily understandable application of our prime criterion, thus preparing us to understand the other things which will follow.
A warning, however, is in order. Our sexual ethics, just as other aspects of our ethics, will differ markedly from the code with which most Americans are familiar, namely, the ethics of the TV religion. Many have subconsciously accepted one or more aspects of the TV religion and will not find it easy to purge themselves of deeply ingrained ideas--especially ideas with the strong emotional attachments which sex has. But the time has come for us to decide whether we want to cure ourselves or not.
The primary consideration in out sexual ethics is that sexual intercourse is the means by which we create the next generation of our race. It is, in this era of the development of the Whole, the Creatorβs most important mechanism for self-evolution, for ascending the Path of self-realization.
Thus, it is the result of the sex act that is all important. It is, primarily and essentially, an act of creation. What it is that we create must be the primary criterion for the value and desirability of the act.
The ultimate sexual crime, then is interracial sex. And akin to this is sex which will, or is likely to, create a deformed, ugly, diseased, or other wise deficient child of our own race.
Sexual reproduction, the creation of the next generation, is the highest personal responsibility with which each man and woman of our race is charged. The most grievous dereliction of our duty is to shirk or abuse this responsibility. And the way in which we fulfill our responsibility is to exercise the greatest possible care in the selection of a sexual partner--care based on considerations not so much of compatibility as of genetic quality.
As a corollary, to recognize our own shortcomings and, in many cases, to refrain from reproducing at all is the way in which we may most completely fulfill our responsibility.
Note that we have not said that sex in which conception is not the immediate object is necessarily sinful. Nor is the use of contraceptives necessarily sinful. It is obvious form the preceding paragraph that, in many cases, failure to use contraception is the sin. For men and women will copulate. There is no denying, no halting this. After all, it is not part of our purpose to attempt to contravene Nature, but live in harmony with it. Thus, when a man and woman who, because of genetic shortcomings of one or both, should not create a child are living together, then they are morally obliged to use some effective form of contraception.
Contraception only becomes a sin when, for reasons of personal selfishness or personal convenience, it is used by persons of healthy, superior genetic endowment to avoid their responsibility to pass that endowment on to the next generation.
In summary, the primary sin, or category of sins, in the sexual realm is to defile the most precious treasure in the universe--our genetic pool, the genetic heritage of our race. A relate sin, a sin of omission, is to willfully fail to enhance that heritage.
After the sin of actual defilement must be ranked sins of symbolic defilement. Sexual intercourse with a Negro or a jew in which contraception is used is among these. Sexual intercourse with an animal, in which conception is impossible, is a sin of the same rank. As is rape. And homosexuality.
Finally, we have certain lesser sins which involve neither an actual nor a symbolic defilement of the Whole, no contravention of our Divine Spirit, but which nevertheless are, or may be in many instances, an abuse of the sex act. Adultery, for example, or polygamy--or even premarital sex--may be frowned upon for good and proper reasons: for reasons of maintaining social stability or for economic reasons. Adultery, which may be regarded as a form of wife-stealing or husband-stealing, does not lead to a health social climate in a community if it is tolerated on any appreciable scale. And pre-marital sex of an irresponsible nature, with no thought for its possible consequences, or by persons without the means to properly care for any offspring, thus casting a burden on the community, is also reprehensible.
But, in any event, the acts in this last category, whether we regard them as sinful or not, are clearly of only tertiary rank.
It is a sign of the sickness of our times and of our radical opposition to that sickness that contemporary society has inverted this natural ranking. In most of the Christian churches, for example, extra-marital sex between an man an a woman is considered more sinful than a homosexual relation. In fact, the more "progressive" churches do not regard homosexuality as sinful at all. And none of the major churches forbid the most abominable of all sexual sins--interracial intercourse.
To be continued. . .