Krasilov, 1997. Metaecology-21. Job (conclusion). Lycurgus. Rats

Chapter 6. PRODUCTIVITY. Jesters. Job. V.A. Krasilov. Metaecology. Moscow: Palaeontological Institute RAS, 1997. 208 p. Part 21. Job (conclusion). Lycurgus. Rats. Lambs. Aphrodite. Enchained. Thus, the wicked were created specifically to be judged and punished as a deterrent. And the problem, as Jean Calvin believed, reduces to recognising them in due time. Although consistent bivalence — the equality of the forces of good and evil — was considered Manichaean heresy, even Augustine, the persecutor of the Manichaeans, did not stray far from the errors of his youth. The universal history he expounded in the treatise "The City of God" is presented as the becoming of the divine kingdom ("city") of good in perpetual struggle against the diabolical kingdom of evil. Underlying these conceptions is the dialectical idea of the unity of opposites: the separate existence of good and evil is impossible, just as there can be no Christ without Antichrist. Consequently, the decisive victory of good over evil would entail the destruction of both. The last battle between Christ and Antichrist is the end of the world. Adherence to the bivalent scheme is explained by its immense power of impact upon a person who finds himself at the epicentre of a cosmic struggle. The front line passes through his soul. He throws his life onto the scales; the victory of one party or the other depends upon his actions. He is engaged, needed, he exists. And as earth mirrors heaven, so earthly struggle mirrors the metaphysical (and vice versa). This world is split just as that world is. The Christian world stands opposed to the world of Islam. The Middle Ages unfold under the sign of this confrontation — and of rearguard battles against the "fifth column" of the devil, the heretics. The maxim of love for one's enemies does not, of course, apply to the enemies of our Lord (notwithstanding that he himself considered himself the saviour of all, not only of "ours"). Renaissance humanism very quickly developed cracks and by the sixteenth century had drowned in the blood of the Huguenot Wars. Metaphysical bivalence imperiously subjugates class struggle, revolutions, and civil wars, the march of the sacred Reich against the world Zionist conspiracy, the confrontation of socialist and capitalist camps. The latter until recently determined the meaning of life for many millions of people. Its fetishes became, on both sides, the military-industrial complexes — a monstrous distortion of the economy that will not return to a normal course for a long time. It engendered its own eschatology — nuclear apocalypse. It reared new saints and prophets, one of whom taught that the closer the victory, the more fierce the struggle: the struggle could not be allowed to die out, otherwise the entire system would collapse. The comradeship of the front is so strong because aggression is directed at an external enemy. The tragedy of "peaceful confrontation" lay in the fact that sacred hatred, finding no outlet in war, would fall upon the "internal enemy" — the renegade, the faint-hearted, the cosmopolitan. And if no such person could be found, one was created without delay. But surely this will not recur? Surely Manicheanism has been done away with? Hardly. The scale is, of course, different, but any competitive relationship, any political game, any scientific debate is subject to the logic of bivalence, by virtue of which the categories of good and evil, truth and falsehood, are very quickly displaced by a single criterion: "friend or foe" (is it not for this reason that the two-party system is so popular in democratic countries — given the ideological identity of the parties — namely, that it allows this scheme to be realised without hindrance?). The collapse of the "two-camp" system gave rise to an outbreak of aggression along national and religious lines. With the cessation of wars, aggressiveness within society increases. The abolition of castes sharpened property contradictions; the abolition of classes sharpened biological inequality. Marriage provides a permanent adversary (perhaps it is concluded for precisely this reason). Finally, if there is no one to struggle against, a person enters into struggle with himself, a struggle that becomes ever more uncompromising as external contradictions weaken. And if the dream of earthly brotherhood is at last fulfilled, then, for all one knows, it will be necessary to create a counterweight on another planet — otherwise the metaphysical scheme will turn inward and blow the human being apart. Lycurgus Sin, guilt, trial, the struggle of good and evil — these attempts at rationalising suffering do not touch its sources: the contradictions between the system and freedom of will at all levels of human existence. Suffering, it seems, can be overcome only by other suffering. The Laconian lawgiver Lycurgus did not write down his laws, as if leaving the free Spartan the possibility of choice necessary for the exercise of moral feeling. Presumably for the same reasons, God left human beings free will. Yet any act of will is in one way or another determined by the internal conflict between self-preservation and self-destruction. Lycurgus created a conflict-free society, skilfully employing wars and krypteia — the secret killing of helots — to neutralise destructive forces. The authoritative Delphic oracle approved and supported all of Lycurgus's actions and subsequently proclaimed Socrates the wisest of men — a Socrates who identified the moral with the rational, and the rational with the necessary. But the conception of morality as conscious necessity reaches back to a very ancient — fatalistic — stage of the spiritual development of humanity, while the position of Socrates's opponents, who asserted freedom of will as the supreme measure of things, reaches back to an even more ancient magical stage (Chapter 3). The philosophy of the modern age has divided itself between the same orientations, revealing their conservative and destructive potentials. Having defined ethics as a totality of innate and acquired norms that preserve the structure of natural, social, meta-ecological systems and of the personality, we may now raise the question of the legitimacy of ethical prescriptions which were intended to prevent suffering and, in the end, became its principal source. Ethics appeared at a certain stage of progressive evolution as a means of relieving natural selection (in its primitive form of each against all) initially at the intra-group level and subsequently at the inter-group level as well. Primary ethics found expression in the weakening of aggression toward a mating partner, in the transformation of the latter into sexual love as a condition for at least a brief union between two individuals. Into its sphere there were successively drawn relatives, tribespeople, all individuals similar to one another, up to the categorical prohibition on killing any representative of one's own species. Zoological ethics grew more complex with the emergence of hierarchical relations of dominance and subordination, and with the development on this basis of altruistic and self-destructive instincts. The human being inherited from animal ancestors an instinctive morality in the form of innate prescriptions (thou shalt not kill, for example) which are easier to fulfil than to violate, since they accord with our nature. However, with the transition to the conscious level, the instinctive norms were subjected to partial dissolution. Since conscious ethics could not keep pace with filling the resulting breaches, the human being was transformed into the most amoral of animals. Even the prohibition against killing a tribesman, a kinsman, a mating partner lost its imperative character for him. The danger of a reversion to primordial high-entropy forms of natural selection arose, and was averted by the system of taboo, which occupied an intermediate position between instinctive and conscious ethics. The human being separated from the animal world when, in order to explain innate ethics, he began to construct a cosmogonic system from which to derive the moral law. Ethical orientations were given by reference to necessity ("Aryan" ethics), or the customs of ancestors ("Chinese" ethics), or divine commandments ("Semitic" ethics), which invariably demanded veneration of ancestors, condemned parricide, and thus consecrated ethical traditionalism. An exceedingly ancient orientation, the ethical roots of which are difficult to trace since its echoes resound in Buddhism, in the biblical Ecclesiastes, in Pythagoras and elsewhere, is that the world was not created but has always existed and will always exist. Being has neither beginning nor end (the serpent biting its own tail), movement proceeds in a circle and consequently can never be concluded and therefore has no goal. Living beings are not born and do not die but merely flow from one form into another. How the life of any particular form passes is of complete indifference to its subsequent transformations. This is a complete and coherent system, suffering from only one deficiency: it is impossible to derive a morality from it. In order to become a teacher of morality, it is necessary somehow to transform the circular system, to find an exit which, perhaps implicitly, presupposes the existence of an entry. Any arbitrary act — the caprice of Brahma or (in the Gnostic variant) the error of Sophia — sets in motion the machine of the circular revolution of causes and effects. An arbitrary act is the expression of a personality. In order to leave the circle, to be neither cause nor effect, one must liberate oneself from personality, dissolve the particular in the universal. Into the system there enters a conception alien to it from the outset: the conception of the goal as the merger of the individual soul with the world soul (in the Upanishads), or nirvana (in the teaching of the Buddha). The transcendence of the goal (resting on no one's experience, since even the Buddha did not attain complete nirvana during his lifetime) and its practical unattainability — the bar is set so high that it is beyond reach under any circumstances — makes the meta-ecosystem a religion (with gods or without them is immaterial). The Buddha, for all his contempt for the Vedic deities, organically incapable of renouncing their so vividly expressed personalities, did not reject them, which allowed the preservation of the conceptual richness of the ancient system, in which both the enlightened and the simple-hearted find spiritual nourishment (the intolerance of Judaism and Zoroastrianism deprived them of this advantage). Some sceptic might doubt that nirvana is a worthy goal. It might seem to the sceptic that participation in circular movement, in the eternal transformation of forms, assures merger with the world to a greater degree than leaving the circle. But only because the sceptic has not grasped even the first of the Buddha's four noble truths: life is suffering (incidentally, the Stoics of the fourth century BCE and Russian religious philosophers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries appear to have attributed the discovery of this truth to themselves; however, not only is the Buddha's priority incontestable, but the epigones fall far short of the nobility of the original). The sceptic can be recommended special exercises for the soul and body incorporating elements of self-mortification, which greatly contribute to an understanding of the first truth. Like other great teachers, the Buddha possessed a stronger instinct of self-destruction than is allotted to the ordinary human being. But his teaching found an echo in the hearts of millions, because the instinct of self-destruction is universal. More practically oriented teachers of morality maintained that the succession of transformations, although determined by karma, is nonetheless to some degree dependent upon conduct: the righteous are either closer to the exit, or may count upon a more prestigious casing in a subsequent existence with the prospect of further improvement. In any event, an account of lifetime accomplishments is needed. Here a function is found for various deities, a celestial bureaucracy appears, which at first decides nothing but merely oversees the paperwork. We find this stage in Homer with his discontentedly grumbling Zeus. But instances are known where the modest secretary becomes the director-general and subsequently, without even changing his post, the arbiter of fates. Now there is no need to grumble; it suffices to raise an eyebrow. The potency of the sovereign is so great that the apparent suddenness of his rise from nowhere seems strange and implausible. Was not all preceding history merely a prelude to his glory? Perhaps even the slaves of Rome whispered the name of the leader of the Russian revolution, as his first poet asserted. And the secretary was by no means an inconspicuous figure; he had been directing the revolutionary underground from at least the age of seven. And the Sumerians committed an unpardonable indelicacy in failing to mention in their creation history the Babylonian god Bel-Marduk. With the rise of Babylon, no doubt remained that it was Marduk who had been the principal agent in this story. Zeus came into the world as a minor Cretan deity, nursed by a divine goat and guarded by a golden dog — local totems. Even at the Trojan War he was the patron not of "ours" (the Achaeans) but of their enemies (the Trojans, descendants from Crete). But with the spread of Hellenism, only an indistinct recollection of his Cretan origins remained. Even more instructive is the example of Jupiter, a Latin deity which, with the rise of Rome, usurped all the functions of the father of peoples, Zeus. The logical culmination of such retrospectives was the recognition of the supreme deity as creator of the world. In the domain of ethics this new — theocratic — orientation changed everything, and most decisively. If the world does not exist of itself without beginning, end, or purpose, but is conceived, created, primordial, and terminal, then for the human being the natural goal consists in serving the creator, in conforming to his design. If in the former system one could be rid of a god by sacrifice, as one gets rid of a bothersome official, now the bond between him and the human being became the axis upon which relations among people were threaded, and life — ideally at least — a systematic sacrifice. The teacher of morality was transformed into a prophet who proclaims ethical prescriptions emanating from God. As the sovereign master, God prescribed alongside the demands of the moment (thou shalt make no graven image) both what was inherited from animal ancestors (thou shalt not kill) and what was observed by ancient custom reaching back to the ancestor cult (honour thy father and thy mother). Good is identical with obedience, evil with disobedience. Since good can be recognised only by comparison with evil, God created both (other interpretations of evil — from the devil, from human imperfection, and so forth — limit the creator's sovereignty in the domain of ethics and are therefore less satisfactory; however that may be, the idea of the unity of opposites is as old as Zoroaster). This too is a fully completed system, which cannot be developed but can be profaned, as was done in later versions that reduce ethics to the rewarding of good and the punishment of evil. Although in this case the teacher of morality resembles an ordinary animal trainer, the theocratic system proved extraordinarily durable. Those who created it harboured no illusions concerning human nature, considered most people to be trained animals, placed complete reliance on the instinct of self-preservation, and resorted to intimidation. They did, however, underestimate the richest possibilities concealed within the instinct of self-destruction. Only by playing upon two opposing instincts simultaneously can wonders of training be achieved. Rats Two thousand years ago in Palestine, at the crossroads of the world, there appeared the pathetic figure of a voluntary sufferer who resolved, at the cost of his own life, to ennoble the theocratic system. He saw the source of evil in the total conflictedness of human existence, which can be overcome only with the aid of an equally total love. Complementary to universal love are the ideas of equality (if not in this life, then in the next) and fraternity, carried through so consistently that even God, as a son, becomes the brother of all people and cannot be the father of any of them. Some sceptic might observe that the overcoming of external conflictedness occurs here by means of its internalisation, its turning inward. Love, compounded of the systematic suppression of the instinct of self-preservation, comes to resemble hatred. Failing to reach the inflated bar, the human being begins to feel contempt for himself. The super-task is used to rationalise the instinct of self-destruction and to justify its mass manifestations. Nature is economical. If the alpha had to settle with each of the others in order to demonstrate its superiority, it would have no strength left for anything else. It is far more rational for the others to remove themselves. The alpha rat, as a rule, does not set upon the cowardly omega. It suffices to circle around it, gnashing its teeth, and the omega will suffer a heart attack. It removes itself without a struggle — one might say, sacrificing itself for the sake of the system. Is this rat perhaps a saint or a hero? Many philosophers, from Diogenes of Sinope to Vladimir Soloviev, readily resorted to zoological analogies, so that this practice can be said to be legitimised by numerous historical precedents. If one takes the evolutionary point of view, such comparisons are all the more justified. In the behaviour of animals we discern a prototype of human behaviour, or individual features of it, in their primordial uncontaminated state. But here caution is necessary, since the science of animal behaviour is still very young, and popular conceptions are extremely imprecise and frequently distorted by the involuntary projection onto animals of various human traits. Furthermore, it is necessary to take into account the enormous diversity of zoological species and correspondingly of species-specific behavioural models. Almost every example from the life of animals can be counterposed by an example of the opposite kind (the glaring egoism of nest parasites such as the cuckoo is possible only because other bird species display marvels of altruism. Contrary to Nietzsche, egoism has not made, and evidently never will make, a nest parasite the master of the feathered world). Moreover, the animal species that we know best sometimes demonstrate behaviour that cannot be considered typical of animals in general, since in nature it does not occur all that frequently. A good example in this respect is provided by rats, whose developed social behaviour involuntarily invites comparison with the human being. In essence, rats, with their clear hierarchy, their cult of the alpha, and universal contempt for the omega, provide a model of behaviour which Nietzsche might have considered exemplary for the human being, and which is indeed found in certain human communities — among prisoners, for example. Although the rat model in its typical form does not have wide distribution either among animals or among people, it is nonetheless highly instructive as a specific form of behaviour manifesting itself in both under conditions of constant stress. The rat lives alongside the human being as the human being lives alongside God. The human being is much stronger than the rat, inscrutable and unaccountable to it. The human being does not assimilate or utilise the rat. For reasons opaque to it, he provides it with shelter, food, and protection from natural enemies, while at the same time severely "punishing" it for its drive to survive and perpetuate its kind. The rat can respond only with high fecundity and adaptability to concealed existence, redirecting its aggressive reaction against the oppressing human toward other, weaker rats (just as prisoners, oppressed by the prison administration, vent their aggressive reaction in tormenting the weakest among themselves, exercising over him absolute licence — the prison "bespredel"). Objectively there are no bad animals and still less repulsive ones. And yet it is difficult to suppress an involuntary feeling of revulsion at the sight of a rat suddenly appearing in the open. In the evolutionary sense, biological species are by no means of equal value. The brown rat, a synanthropic species, having staked its lot on the human being, found itself in a situation of "bespredel" and accepted the rules of the game. A human being can place himself in an analogous position, but his biological past does not oblige him to do so, for in nature the rat model is the exception rather than the rule. Evolutionarily closer to us, apes care for their weak and sick fellows. Among chimpanzees, according to the ethologist Robert Trivers (in his book "Social Evolution", 1985), the dominant male typically intercedes on behalf of the weaker of two conflicting group members. For a progressively developing species, such behaviour is more characteristic than the rat model, since it is generally combined with a prolonged period of care for offspring, part of which is assumed by so-called "helpers" — sterile young or ageing post-reproductive individuals, natural altruists. This biological heritage, contained in the genetic memory of each of us, determines our a priori moral orientations and serves as the foundation of humanistic ethics, which prevents the human being from sinking to the level of the rat. Nevertheless, in the spiritual evolution of the human being, as in any evolutionary process, regressive tendencies manifest themselves. Achilles, defenceless before the god Apollo, kills the feeble Thersites in passing. The era of the omnipotence of the gods engenders hero-super-rats. Entire nations, oppressed by far more powerful newcomers or fallen under the power of a local dictatorship, may for a time adopt the rat model. Under certain conditions, the rat order may spread from prisons and barracks to the whole of society. The goal of social development apparently consists in excluding such conditions. With the help of rats we begin to understand the nature of the instinct of self-destruction that troubled even the perceptive Freud. This instinct, derived from the internalisation of aggression, extends also to offspring (if the omega somehow manages to produce any) and takes on the character of the extermination of one's own genes — autogenocide, as in those seals that in their fright bite and crush their own pups. One might suppose that genes of self-destruction should be eliminated from the population, but this does not occur, because heroes, saints, and creators are compounded of the same stuff.

Objectively, there are no bad or even disgusting animals. And yet, it is difficult to suppress an inappropriate feeling of disgust at the sight of a rat that suddenly appears in an open space. In an evolutionary sense, biological species are not at all equal. The brown rat, a synanthropic species, having bet on humans, found itself in a chaotic situation and accepted the terms of the game. Humans can put themselves in a similar position, but their biological past does not obligate them to do so, because in nature, the rat model is more of an exception than a rule.

Thus, the wicked were created specifically to be judged and punished as a deterrent. And the problem, as Jean Calvin believed, reduces to recognising them in due time. Although consistent bivalence — the equality of the forces of good and evil — was considered Manichaean heresy, even Augustine, the persecutor of the Manichaeans, did not stray far from the errors of his youth. The universal history he expounded in the treatise "The City of God" is presented as the becoming of the divine kingdom ("city") of good in perpetual struggle against the diabolical kingdom of evil. Underlying these conceptions is the dialectical idea of the unity of opposites: the separate existence of good and evil is impossible, just as there can be no Christ without Antichrist. Consequently, the decisive victory of good over evil would entail the destruction of both. The last battle between Christ and Antichrist is the end of the world. Adherence to the bivalent scheme is explained by its immense power of impact upon a person who finds himself at the epicentre of a cosmic struggle. The front line passes through his soul. He throws his life onto the scales; the victory of one party or the other depends upon his actions. He is engaged, needed, he exists. And as earth mirrors heaven, so earthly struggle mirrors the metaphysical (and vice versa). This world is split just as that world is. The Christian world stands opposed to the world of Islam. The Middle Ages unfold under the sign of this confrontation — and of rearguard battles against the "fifth column" of the devil, the heretics. The maxim of love for one's enemies does not, of course, apply to the enemies of our Lord (notwithstanding that he himself considered himself the saviour of all, not only of "ours"). Renaissance humanism very quickly developed cracks and by the sixteenth century had drowned in the blood of the Huguenot Wars. Metaphysical bivalence imperiously subjugates class struggle, revolutions, and civil wars, the march of the sacred Reich against the world Zionist conspiracy, the confrontation of socialist and capitalist camps. The latter until recently determined the meaning of life for many millions of people. Its fetishes became, on both sides, the military-industrial complexes — a monstrous distortion of the economy that will not return to a normal course for a long time. It engendered its own eschatology — nuclear apocalypse. It reared new saints and prophets, one of whom taught that the closer the victory, the more fierce the struggle: the struggle could not be allowed to die out, otherwise the entire system would collapse. The comradeship of the front is so strong because aggression is directed at an external enemy. The tragedy of "peaceful confrontation" lay in the fact that sacred hatred, finding no outlet in war, would fall upon the "internal enemy" — the renegade, the faint-hearted, the cosmopolitan. And if no such person could be found, one was created without delay. But surely this will not recur? Surely Manicheanism has been done away with? Hardly. The scale is, of course, different, but any competitive relationship, any political game, any scientific debate is subject to the logic of bivalence, by virtue of which the categories of good and evil, truth and falsehood, are very quickly displaced by a single criterion: "friend or foe" (is it not for this reason that the two-party system is so popular in democratic countries — given the ideological identity of the parties — namely, that it allows this scheme to be realised without hindrance?). The collapse of the "two-camp" system gave rise to an outbreak of aggression along national and religious lines. With the cessation of wars, aggressiveness within society increases. The abolition of castes sharpened property contradictions; the abolition of classes sharpened biological inequality. Marriage provides a permanent adversary (perhaps it is concluded for precisely this reason). Finally, if there is no one to struggle against, a person enters into struggle with himself, a struggle that becomes ever more uncompromising as external contradictions weaken. And if the dream of earthly brotherhood is at last fulfilled, then, for all one knows, it will be necessary to create a counterweight on another planet — otherwise the metaphysical scheme will turn inward and blow the human being apart. Lycurgus Sin, guilt, trial, the struggle of good and evil — these attempts at rationalising suffering do not touch its sources: the contradictions between the system and freedom of will at all levels of human existence. Suffering, it seems, can be overcome only by other suffering. The Laconian lawgiver Lycurgus did not write down his laws, as if leaving the free Spartan the possibility of choice necessary for the exercise of moral feeling. Presumably for the same reasons, God left human beings free will. Yet any act of will is in one way or another determined by the internal conflict between self-preservation and self-destruction. Lycurgus created a conflict-free society, skilfully employing wars and krypteia — the secret killing of helots — to neutralise destructive forces. The authoritative Delphic oracle approved and supported all of Lycurgus's actions and subsequently proclaimed Socrates the wisest of men — a Socrates who identified the moral with the rational, and the rational with the necessary. But the conception of morality as conscious necessity reaches back to a very ancient — fatalistic — stage of the spiritual development of humanity, while the position of Socrates's opponents, who asserted freedom of will as the supreme measure of things, reaches back to an even more ancient magical stage (Chapter 3). The philosophy of the modern age has divided itself between the same orientations, revealing their conservative and destructive potentials. Having defined ethics as a totality of innate and acquired norms that preserve the structure of natural, social, meta-ecological systems and of the personality, we may now raise the question of the legitimacy of ethical prescriptions which were intended to prevent suffering and, in the end, became its principal source. Ethics appeared at a certain stage of progressive evolution as a means of relieving natural selection (in its primitive form of each against all) initially at the intra-group level and subsequently at the inter-group level as well. Primary ethics found expression in the weakening of aggression toward a mating partner, in the transformation of the latter into sexual love as a condition for at least a brief union between two individuals. Into its sphere there were successively drawn relatives, tribespeople, all individuals similar to one another, up to the categorical prohibition on killing any representative of one's own species. Zoological ethics grew more complex with the emergence of hierarchical relations of dominance and subordination, and with the development on this basis of altruistic and self-destructive instincts. The human being inherited from animal ancestors an instinctive morality in the form of innate prescriptions (thou shalt not kill, for example) which are easier to fulfil than to violate, since they accord with our nature. However, with the transition to the conscious level, the instinctive norms were subjected to partial dissolution. Since conscious ethics could not keep pace with filling the resulting breaches, the human being was transformed into the most amoral of animals. Even the prohibition against killing a tribesman, a kinsman, a mating partner lost its imperative character for him. The danger of a reversion to primordial high-entropy forms of natural selection arose, and was averted by the system of taboo, which occupied an intermediate position between instinctive and conscious ethics. The human being separated from the animal world when, in order to explain innate ethics, he began to construct a cosmogonic system from which to derive the moral law. Ethical orientations were given by reference to necessity ("Aryan" ethics), or the customs of ancestors ("Chinese" ethics), or divine commandments ("Semitic" ethics), which invariably demanded veneration of ancestors, condemned parricide, and thus consecrated ethical traditionalism. An exceedingly ancient orientation, the ethical roots of which are difficult to trace since its echoes resound in Buddhism, in the biblical Ecclesiastes, in Pythagoras and elsewhere, is that the world was not created but has always existed and will always exist. Being has neither beginning nor end (the serpent biting its own tail), movement proceeds in a circle and consequently can never be concluded and therefore has no goal. Living beings are not born and do not die but merely flow from one form into another. How the life of any particular form passes is of complete indifference to its subsequent transformations. This is a complete and coherent system, suffering from only one deficiency: it is impossible to derive a morality from it. In order to become a teacher of morality, it is necessary somehow to transform the circular system, to find an exit which, perhaps implicitly, presupposes the existence of an entry. Any arbitrary act — the caprice of Brahma or (in the Gnostic variant) the error of Sophia — sets in motion the machine of the circular revolution of causes and effects. An arbitrary act is the expression of a personality. In order to leave the circle, to be neither cause nor effect, one must liberate oneself from personality, dissolve the particular in the universal. Into the system there enters a conception alien to it from the outset: the conception of the goal as the merger of the individual soul with the world soul (in the Upanishads), or nirvana (in the teaching of the Buddha). The transcendence of the goal (resting on no one's experience, since even the Buddha did not attain complete nirvana during his lifetime) and its practical unattainability — the bar is set so high that it is beyond reach under any circumstances — makes the meta-ecosystem a religion (with gods or without them is immaterial). The Buddha, for all his contempt for the Vedic deities, organically incapable of renouncing their so vividly expressed personalities, did not reject them, which allowed the preservation of the conceptual richness of the ancient system, in which both the enlightened and the simple-hearted find spiritual nourishment (the intolerance of Judaism and Zoroastrianism deprived them of this advantage). Some sceptic might doubt that nirvana is a worthy goal. It might seem to the sceptic that participation in circular movement, in the eternal transformation of forms, assures merger with the world to a greater degree than leaving the circle. But only because the sceptic has not grasped even the first of the Buddha's four noble truths: life is suffering (incidentally, the Stoics of the fourth century BCE and Russian religious philosophers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries appear to have attributed the discovery of this truth to themselves; however, not only is the Buddha's priority incontestable, but the epigones fall far short of the nobility of the original). The sceptic can be recommended special exercises for the soul and body incorporating elements of self-mortification, which greatly contribute to an understanding of the first truth. Like other great teachers, the Buddha possessed a stronger instinct of self-destruction than is allotted to the ordinary human being. But his teaching found an echo in the hearts of millions, because the instinct of self-destruction is universal. More practically oriented teachers of morality maintained that the succession of transformations, although determined by karma, is nonetheless to some degree dependent upon conduct: the righteous are either closer to the exit, or may count upon a more prestigious casing in a subsequent existence with the prospect of further improvement. In any event, an account of lifetime accomplishments is needed. Here a function is found for various deities, a celestial bureaucracy appears, which at first decides nothing but merely oversees the paperwork. We find this stage in Homer with his discontentedly grumbling Zeus. But instances are known where the modest secretary becomes the director-general and subsequently, without even changing his post, the arbiter of fates. Now there is no need to grumble; it suffices to raise an eyebrow. The potency of the sovereign is so great that the apparent suddenness of his rise from nowhere seems strange and implausible. Was not all preceding history merely a prelude to his glory? Perhaps even the slaves of Rome whispered the name of the leader of the Russian revolution, as his first poet asserted. And the secretary was by no means an inconspicuous figure; he had been directing the revolutionary underground from at least the age of seven. And the Sumerians committed an unpardonable indelicacy in failing to mention in their creation history the Babylonian god Bel-Marduk. With the rise of Babylon, no doubt remained that it was Marduk who had been the principal agent in this story. Zeus came into the world as a minor Cretan deity, nursed by a divine goat and guarded by a golden dog — local totems. Even at the Trojan War he was the patron not of "ours" (the Achaeans) but of their enemies (the Trojans, descendants from Crete). But with the spread of Hellenism, only an indistinct recollection of his Cretan origins remained. Even more instructive is the example of Jupiter, a Latin deity which, with the rise of Rome, usurped all the functions of the father of peoples, Zeus. The logical culmination of such retrospectives was the recognition of the supreme deity as creator of the world. In the domain of ethics this new — theocratic — orientation changed everything, and most decisively. If the world does not exist of itself without beginning, end, or purpose, but is conceived, created, primordial, and terminal, then for the human being the natural goal consists in serving the creator, in conforming to his design. If in the former system one could be rid of a god by sacrifice, as one gets rid of a bothersome official, now the bond between him and the human being became the axis upon which relations among people were threaded, and life — ideally at least — a systematic sacrifice. The teacher of morality was transformed into a prophet who proclaims ethical prescriptions emanating from God. As the sovereign master, God prescribed alongside the demands of the moment (thou shalt make no graven image) both what was inherited from animal ancestors (thou shalt not kill) and what was observed by ancient custom reaching back to the ancestor cult (honour thy father and thy mother). Good is identical with obedience, evil with disobedience. Since good can be recognised only by comparison with evil, God created both (other interpretations of evil — from the devil, from human imperfection, and so forth — limit the creator's sovereignty in the domain of ethics and are therefore less satisfactory; however that may be, the idea of the unity of opposites is as old as Zoroaster). This too is a fully completed system, which cannot be developed but can be profaned, as was done in later versions that reduce ethics to the rewarding of good and the punishment of evil. Although in this case the teacher of morality resembles an ordinary animal trainer, the theocratic system proved extraordinarily durable. Those who created it harboured no illusions concerning human nature, considered most people to be trained animals, placed complete reliance on the instinct of self-preservation, and resorted to intimidation. They did, however, underestimate the richest possibilities concealed within the instinct of self-destruction. Only by playing upon two opposing instincts simultaneously can wonders of training be achieved. Rats Two thousand years ago in Palestine, at the crossroads of the world, there appeared the pathetic figure of a voluntary sufferer who resolved, at the cost of his own life, to ennoble the theocratic system. He saw the source of evil in the total conflictedness of human existence, which can be overcome only with the aid of an equally total love. Complementary to universal love are the ideas of equality (if not in this life, then in the next) and fraternity, carried through so consistently that even God, as a son, becomes the brother of all people and cannot be the father of any of them. Some sceptic might observe that the overcoming of external conflictedness occurs here by means of its internalisation, its turning inward. Love, compounded of the systematic suppression of the instinct of self-preservation, comes to resemble hatred. Failing to reach the inflated bar, the human being begins to feel contempt for himself. The super-task is used to rationalise the instinct of self-destruction and to justify its mass manifestations. Nature is economical. If the alpha had to settle with each of the others in order to demonstrate its superiority, it would have no strength left for anything else. It is far more rational for the others to remove themselves. The alpha rat, as a rule, does not set upon the cowardly omega. It suffices to circle around it, gnashing its teeth, and the omega will suffer a heart attack. It removes itself without a struggle — one might say, sacrificing itself for the sake of the system. Is this rat perhaps a saint or a hero? Many philosophers, from Diogenes of Sinope to Vladimir Soloviev, readily resorted to zoological analogies, so that this practice can be said to be legitimised by numerous historical precedents. If one takes the evolutionary point of view, such comparisons are all the more justified. In the behaviour of animals we discern a prototype of human behaviour, or individual features of it, in their primordial uncontaminated state. But here caution is necessary, since the science of animal behaviour is still very young, and popular conceptions are extremely imprecise and frequently distorted by the involuntary projection onto animals of various human traits. Furthermore, it is necessary to take into account the enormous diversity of zoological species and correspondingly of species-specific behavioural models. Almost every example from the life of animals can be counterposed by an example of the opposite kind (the glaring egoism of nest parasites such as the cuckoo is possible only because other bird species display marvels of altruism. Contrary to Nietzsche, egoism has not made, and evidently never will make, a nest parasite the master of the feathered world). Moreover, the animal species that we know best sometimes demonstrate behaviour that cannot be considered typical of animals in general, since in nature it does not occur all that frequently. A good example in this respect is provided by rats, whose developed social behaviour involuntarily invites comparison with the human being. In essence, rats, with their clear hierarchy, their cult of the alpha, and universal contempt for the omega, provide a model of behaviour which Nietzsche might have considered exemplary for the human being, and which is indeed found in certain human communities — among prisoners, for example. Although the rat model in its typical form does not have wide distribution either among animals or among people, it is nonetheless highly instructive as a specific form of behaviour manifesting itself in both under conditions of constant stress. The rat lives alongside the human being as the human being lives alongside God. The human being is much stronger than the rat, inscrutable and unaccountable to it. The human being does not assimilate or utilise the rat. For reasons opaque to it, he provides it with shelter, food, and protection from natural enemies, while at the same time severely "punishing" it for its drive to survive and perpetuate its kind. The rat can respond only with high fecundity and adaptability to concealed existence, redirecting its aggressive reaction against the oppressing human toward other, weaker rats (just as prisoners, oppressed by the prison administration, vent their aggressive reaction in tormenting the weakest among themselves, exercising over him absolute licence — the prison "bespredel"). Objectively there are no bad animals and still less repulsive ones. And yet it is difficult to suppress an involuntary feeling of revulsion at the sight of a rat suddenly appearing in the open. In the evolutionary sense, biological species are by no means of equal value. The brown rat, a synanthropic species, having staked its lot on the human being, found itself in a situation of "bespredel" and accepted the rules of the game. A human being can place himself in an analogous position, but his biological past does not oblige him to do so, for in nature the rat model is the exception rather than the rule. Evolutionarily closer to us, apes care for their weak and sick fellows. Among chimpanzees, according to the ethologist Robert Trivers (in his book "Social Evolution", 1985), the dominant male typically intercedes on behalf of the weaker of two conflicting group members. For a progressively developing species, such behaviour is more characteristic than the rat model, since it is generally combined with a prolonged period of care for offspring, part of which is assumed by so-called "helpers" — sterile young or ageing post-reproductive individuals, natural altruists. This biological heritage, contained in the genetic memory of each of us, determines our a priori moral orientations and serves as the foundation of humanistic ethics, which prevents the human being from sinking to the level of the rat. Nevertheless, in the spiritual evolution of the human being, as in any evolutionary process, regressive tendencies manifest themselves. Achilles, defenceless before the god Apollo, kills the feeble Thersites in passing. The era of the omnipotence of the gods engenders hero-super-rats. Entire nations, oppressed by far more powerful newcomers or fallen under the power of a local dictatorship, may for a time adopt the rat model. Under certain conditions, the rat order may spread from prisons and barracks to the whole of society. The goal of social development apparently consists in excluding such conditions. With the help of rats we begin to understand the nature of the instinct of self-destruction that troubled even the perceptive Freud. This instinct, derived from the internalisation of aggression, extends also to offspring (if the omega somehow manages to produce any) and takes on the character of the extermination of one's own genes — autogenocide, as in those seals that in their fright bite and crush their own pups. One might suppose that genes of self-destruction should be eliminated from the population, but this does not occur, because heroes, saints, and creators are compounded of the same stuff.

However, in human spiritual evolution, as in any evolutionary process, regressive tendencies manifest. Achilles, defenseless against the god Apollo, incidentally kills the feeble Thersites. The era of the omnipotence of gods gives rise to super-rat heroes. Entire nations, oppressed by much stronger aliens or falling under the power of local dictatorships, may adopt the rat model for a time. Under certain conditions, the rat order can spread from prisons and barracks to the entire society. The goal of social development is obviously to eliminate such conditions.

With the help of rats, we begin to understand the nature of the death instinct, which perplexed even the insightful Freud. This instinct, arising from the internalization of aggression, extends to offspring (if omega somehow manages to produce it) and takes the form of destroying one's own genes – autogenocide, like in those seals that bite and press their pups out of fear. It would seem that self-destructive genes should disappear from the population, but this does not happen because heroes, saints, and creators are involved in them.

Chapter 6. PRODUCTIVITY. Shuti. Job.

V.A. Krasilov. Metaecology. Moscow: Palaeontological Institute RAS, 1997. 208 p. Part 21.

Job (conclusion). Lycurgus. Rats.

Lambs. Aphrodite. Chained.