Beyond the Perpetual State
Beyond the Perpetual State explores the philosophical, psychological, and political ideas of perpetual states and how we can overcome them. It explores many different ideas in philosophy, psychology and politics and concludes by arguing for the need for Telos.
It is currently completed but unpublished. I am currently looking for a publisher or literary agent who would be willing to help me publish it.
Synopsis:
The book discusses the concept of a perpetual state, how it is problematic, and in the cases where it comes up, what we can do to fix them. The book is currently divided into three parts each part containing three chapters. The first part discusses the metaphysics of perpetual states. The second part discusses how perpetual states work in a psychological context. The third part discusses the perpetual state in a political context.
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The first chapter discusses the metaphysics of a perpetual state. It discusses processes and change and the relationship of being and becoming, how an individual changes, how artefacts change, and how perpetual states relate to the way artefacts change.
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The second chapter discusses the metaphysics of evil or lack. It discusses the difference between nothingness and lack, the nature of evil, how we can interpret the idea of hell and demons through this understanding, whether good can come from evil and in what way can it be meaningful.
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The third chapter gives an example of a perpetual state by looking at how it manifests in religion. It discusses how the concept of God is dying within religion, how this has led to post-modern religion, that religion has become a form of psychotherapy, and the need for an understanding of grace within religion to avoid a perpetual state.
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The fourth chapter discusses the structure of the mind and how a perpetual state can manifest in the context of therapy. It discusses the purpose of therapy, differing ideas around the structure of the mind, and the roles that habituation, association, and desire play.
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The fifth chapter argues for a new kind of therapy as a solution that can avoid a perpetual state. It discusses how medieval mysticism shares a lot in common with a form of a psychotherapeutic model, and how to analyse the unconscious within this form of therapy.
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The sixth chapter looks at the interactions between indivuduals and the psychological effects that it produces, and how those effects create communities. It discusses the symbolic structure within the individual unconscious, the role identity plays within the symbolic structure, how the unconscious expresses itself through personas, and how the interactions between individuals sets up a collective symbolic structure.
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The seventh chapter discusses the political structure and how perpetual states can be created. It discusses what a society is, how political structures can display virtues, different types of political societies, and the role of ideology.
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The eighth chapter looks at corrupted societal virtues as an example of perpetual states in politics. This chapter is broken into the three main modern political ideologies and analyses how their ideology has corrupted societal virtues. For Liberalism, it discusses Freedom, Capitalism, and Equality. For Fascism, it discusses Hyperoikophilia, Militarism, and Caesarism. For Communism: Common ownership and property, Class struggle, and Worker’s anarchy.
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The Ninth chapter looks at potential solutions by analysing the simularities between the psyche and political structures and advocates neither for reform nor revolution, but societal rehabilitation. A rehabilitation that would follow similar principles as that outlined in chapter 5.
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