Augustus Sol Invictus, "Imperium as Political Philosophy"
There are two main ways of viewing the world: *sub specie aeternitatis* and *in tempore*. From the former perspective, one sees things outside of time; one is above the petty happenings of the world. In adopting this view, life becomes more serene, events more inconsequential, patterns ever more evident. Yet this makes life itself something entirely *other*, something to keep at arm's length, something for study and contemplation. When, on the other hand, one embraces life *in tempore*, one throws oneself into the fray, and life becomes real again. But then life is fragmented and disjointed; it can become meaningless and frivolous.
Thus these two perspectives have their boons and their pitfalls. The academicians among us prefer the long view of history, if not the entirely ahistorical, while the politicians and socialites prefer to live in the world rather than apart from it. There are very few of us who internally synthesize these two very different perspectives. We see life as a confluence of the eternal and the temporal. We see the temporal as being the living water issuing forth from the well of eternity. The mystery of life is to us the synthesis of being and becoming.
In acknowledging the temporal, one acknowledges the necessity of the political, for life itself necessitates the political. In acknowledging the eternal, however, one recognizes that the political realm is ever-shifting and inconstant, and that reasons and promises are but smoke and mirrors in a vie for power. Underlying all political action - elections, revolutions, protests, boycotts, speeches, rallies, book burnings - is a blind force, one that cannot be expressed in words. Our reasons are but epiphenomena of our actions, which are effected only by our prejudices and our individual natures, not by any sort of objective truth. The thought that liberals or conservatives or communists or fascists are "right" in some objective sense on this or that fleeting issue is downright laughable.
Throughout history, in all climes and locations, a natural order has prevailed, though with certain remarkable aberrations, such as our own day and age. With
Nature, reason counts for little or nothing: 'the strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must.' In Nature, the shrub does not pretend to be an oak; yet in
America, the oak and shrub daily wish to switch places. The most ignorant and pathetic of us wish their voices to be heard, no matter the cost. They want 'rights,' some amorphous collection of phantasmagorical weapons to be wielded against the powerful in the name of 'humanity.' And the powerful bend over backwards to see who can fastest become the commoner. Those powerful who do not act thusly abdicate not their power but their sense of social responsibility, such that their status is taken for granted, and they believe that the rest of the world can go straight to
Hell as long as they get to keep their money.
In attempting to name the nameless, I have named it
Imperium. The word *imperium* is a
Latin one translating variously as 'command,' 'power,' or 'dominion.' This word seems to capture that blind drive behind all false reason and pretenses to justice. It also defies every holy truth of
Democratic Liberalism: inherent egalitarianism, irresponsible individualism, mindless consumerism, et cetera. In evoking the word *imperium* I mean to denominate a political philosophy that recognizes the necessity of hierarchy in human society; the right of the powerful to govern the weak; the responsibility of the powerful to protect and support the weak; the primacy of the individual over the herd; the supremacy of the creative essence over mundane existence.