Your Meta-Cosmic Rights

The Play of Masks was Schuon's penultimate book, published in 1992, when he would have been about 85. It's also his most compact book, coming in at just 90 pages of text, but no less profound than the others. As with all of his works, the whole doctrine is in a sense present in each part, only here without so much as a wasted word. And Schuon never wasted words to begin with.

Aphoristic.

Yes, exactly. Let's examine some of them and see where it leads -- in the context of our ongoing preoccupation with lines and how they get that way. 

Distinctions.

Correct. To think is to distinguish, but it is also to -- 

Synthesize. 

Integrate what has been distinguished, at a higher and deeper level. Analysis-and-synthesis constitute the metabolism of thought.

Having said that, intellection operates on a different plane than standard thought -- almost as if it perceives first and explains later. In other words, logic and reason occur after the fact. Schuon will no doubt discuss this as we proceed.

Here's a modest opening blast:

metaphysics aims in the first place at the comprehension of the whole Universe...

For most human beings this would be a grandiose claim, but for Schuon it's all in a day's work. 

Note that Universe is capitalized. He doesn't bother to explain why, but it is clearly to distinguish it from our own little punyverse. It is to liberate our imagination and expand our horizons, such that we don't limit the Divine Creativity to something we can imagine or grasp. See yesterday's post for details.  

Come to think of it, it's even a safeguard against scientistic idolatry -- as if total knowledge of this universe would equate to a total knowledge of the divine mind! Please.

This real Universe

extends from the Divine Order to the terrestrial contingencies -- this is the reciprocity between Atma and Maya -- yet it offers in addition intellectually less demanding but humanly crucial openings; which is all the more important in that we live in a world wherein the abuse of intelligence replaces wisdom.

You can say that again.

Agreed. The world has always been an insult to intelligence, but in no other time has intelligence itself been subject to such unrelenting ridicule, abuse, and marginalization. 

Indeed, what is the retarded world of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion but a state-mandated ban on intelligence? It caps IQ at 100 or so, such that any intelligence surpassing the norm is effectively punished. 

In a world of borderline retards (IQ between 70 and 85; Karine Jean-Pierre springs to mind), the average schlub or schlubette is a genius. Not only are we ruled by such geniuses, the same geniuses fill the ranks of journalism, academia, popular culture.

And that's just common intelligence, not intellect as such. In other words, it would scarcely be preferable to be ruled by men of superior IQ devoid of intellect and wisdom. In many ways it would be worse, because to really fuck things up, stupidity isn't enough. Rather, it takes a real genius to do that.  

Back to the passage above: the "reciprocity between Atma and Maya" goes to that Great Circle-ation I'm always going on about, in this case between Reality and Appearance(s), for everything is always both, up to and including God. Which may sound hetero but I assure you is totally ortho.

In a way, man is the last word in Maya, but especially woman. This too is perfectly ortho, unless you are some kind of homo, in which case you're just compulsively projecting Maya onto the male form and calling it "liberation" or something. 

There's an old Buddhist saying.... 

Of all the forms of Maya, that of woman is supreme.

Bingo. The point is that Maya is a mirror pointing in two directions and thus a vehicle for our fall or our redemption, and thus reflecting those "humanly crucial openings." Now, what if those openings become congested, crystalized, or blocked?

For example what is scientism but a profoundly anti-intellectual crystallization of the phenomenal cosmos? That it reduces the total Universe to the mere universe is the least of its abuses, for it seals things at the top while allowing for plenty of movement to the south. In other words, the world is no longer a mirror of its creator, but nevertheless reflects what is below.

And what is below? For starters, all forms of reductionism, for example, metaphysical Darwinism. But remember, once we close ourselves to Intellection -- the perennial wisdom and eternal truth -- truly truly, all bets are off because we are in Satan's Casino.

You can throw out the Absolute with the pitchfork of tenure, but this hardly means you have eliminated his consort, the Relative. Rather, it means you shall have Queen Relative, good and hard, right in the brisket.

All the way down.

No, worse than that: all the way up. Karine Jean-Pierre comes to mind, but so too does the rest of that feminized low IQ mob. 

Truly truly, we are not only surrounded by stupid, but by stupid ex-wives from hell, many of whom are men in drag pretending to be women in order to get a seat at the table of power (formerly known as the children's table). 

Madness.

Anyway, since the upper vertical is closed for isness, we are still permitted movement -- they call it "freedom" -- but only in a downward direction. 

I could go on, but you get the point. Let's move on to the first essay, called Prerogatives of the Human State, which is a perfectly absurd title in an intellect-free world that denies the very upward movement that is our most important prerogative!

Total intelligence, free will, sentiment capable of disinterestedness; these are the prerogatives that place man at the summit of terrestrial creatures.  

Change my mind. Supposing such a thing were even possible, it would place you above the summit of terrestrial creatures, or in other words, make you a goddess. But at the same time, it would make you an absurd goddess and therefore no goddess at all. 

Back to our prerogatives, which means rights, privileges, and powers. As a brief aside, I hold Schuon to be one of the singular humanists, for who else defends and exalts our human rights to this extent? Here are just some of your rights:

You have the right to the intellection from which intelligence and reason flow. 

You have the right to vertical and horizontal freedom, the latter always a function of the former.

And you have the right to objectivity and to objective truth. 

If you do not have these rights, then you have no meaningful rights.