So much talk lately about
"strength" and "stratification" and so much
derision for "degenerates" among some online COS
members. So much Apollonian iron-plating of the ego. Since some
of these same people are also in love with the name
"Nietzsche," I wonder if they realize how
anti-Nietzschean this thinking really is. From what I've been
reading, many COSers are trying so hard to project this
"strong" image, that they are not becoming stratified,
but instead stultified.
It seems the one undeniable shift in the COS from the early days is the withering away of the creatively destructive Dionysian impetus Nietzsche deemed crucial for the Overman (Nietzsche's final cry, for instance, proclaimed his siding with Dionysus against Christ). From Human, All Too Human, for instance: "Ennoblement through Degeneration. . . The danger in these strong communities, founded on similar, steadfast individual members" (ahem), "is an increasing, inherited stupidity, which follows all stability like a shadow. In such communities, spiritual progress depends on those individuals who are less bound, much less certain, and morally weaker; they are men who try new things, and many different things. . . Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of the greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it." What Nietzsche is saying is not that all crack heads are elite, but that some indeed are.
Indeed, many called "elite" are often labeled as "degenerates" at some point in time. Example: for me, one of most Satanic figures in 20th Century Western culture is Miles Davis, the "Dark Magus" of jazz. Yet jazz was at one time labeled a "degenerate" form of music, and those who played it thought of as "degenerates." Now, however, Davis is historically seen as an "elite" cultural figure. So "degeneracy" and "eliteness" often go together.
Creativity, especially in America, which has no aristocracy (the "high"), often comes from the other extreme, the street (the "low"). The "middle" is the stagnant herd part which periodically needs to be shaken up to progress. Such herd types do have a purpose: they solidify the innovations the elite/degenerate types make, and then things need to be shaken up again, cyclically.
We must keep in mind, then, that "rule-breakers" are often initially seen as "degenerates." Later, they are often seen as "elite" types, or "pioneers." Davis was once both a drug addict and a pimp, while at the same time creating magnificent art. Creative destruction, indeed. In our rush to "eliteness," let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yet some COSers seem to feel the Overman is one who puts a jack-boot in the face of all those who don't fit into the current system. "Success" is judged only within the current societal paradigm. Those who reject that paradigm are deemed human refuse, and dismissed outright as losers. It bothers me that some don't see that "success" in our current context might well be a booby prize, that this orthodoxy might not be a worthy one, that it might need to be totally swept away.
Hypercapitalism rewards mediocrity much of the time, not eliteness, a point Anton LaVey made more than once. I don't think this notion makes one a flaming commie, or anything of the kind. Unwittingly, then, these ultra- Apollonian types are siding with what Nietzsche calls, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "the good," those who "hate the creator most: him who breaks the law-tables and the old values, the breaker -- they call him the law breaker."
The "greatest danger for the whole human future," Nietzsche felt, "lies with those who say and feel in their hearts: 'We already know what is good and just, we possess it too; woe to those who are still searching for it!'" Isn't this exactly the attitude many Satanists, including but not limited to COSers (of whom I would expect more), are giving off these days, if only unintentionally?
By most accounts, the early COS was more oriented around transformative Dionysian practice. Intense, possibly even destructive pleasure engaged in rationally as an ascesis, if you will. Enlightened hedonism. Apollo, god of limits and order, was placed in the service of Dionysus. These days, as will happen to any established group or organization, Apollo is apparently being paid far more -- and perhaps too much -- heed. The Dionysian consciousness of the past seems in eclipse. This in turn breeds constriction: things generally come across as being quite grim and nasty and humorless.
Where, then, is the experimental attitude Nietzsche deems essential: the willingness to travel to the limits of experience, to self-destruct creatively in the effort to remake the self? Surely this isn't to be accomplished by psychological retrenchment and elitist posturing. Nietzsche would likely have scoffed at someone who posits bookish learning as proof of "eliteness."
Where is the risk, the willingness to open oneself up to potentially chaotic forces? Philosophy isn't worth a damn if it isn't lived out. Yet currently fashionable "law and order"-styled Satanism, which supposedly will uphold "stratification," would be more likely to constitute the great danger for human society Nietzsche fears, eliminating "degeneracy," and thereby ensuring a stagnant, stultified, and dying society. ¶
Upon entering the CoS chat room, I was deeply saddened and disgusted. There I witnessed one operative sporting the nick, "Josef Mengele" after the infamous nazi death camp doctor. There were others who spouted thinly veiled Nazi gibberish, using code words like "Alien Elite" to replace "Master Race." They would belittle and intimidate their own members for no reason whatsoever, establishing a superficial pecking order. Free thought Satanism was all but dead - I felt determined to revive it.
Lord Egan - First Church of Satan, Salem, Massachusetts 4/00