The commoner’s view of the state is, in some respects, naïve and, at times, cynical to the point of being conspiratorially paranoid. It is of utmost importance that the state-bearing members of society approach the state with a level head, so as to avoid the commoner’s mistakes. Moreover, a proper understanding of the state is a prerequisite for success in statecraft and a benevolent custodianship over the commoner. This article presents the perfectionist view of the state.
What Is the State?
As discussed in “Authority: Silver or Lead“, the state is an organized collective of armed men who coercively impose their rules upon their subjects. When such a collective is solely motivated by profit, it is a mafia organization. When it is motivated by higher ideals (i.e. a worldview), it is a terrorist organization… until it secures control over a territory and kidnaps, imprisons, and murders members of the current ruling regime – the terrorist organization can then successfully claim the status of statehood.
Once statehood is achieved, the state’s focus revolves around conserving its statehood, and by extension, its power and institutions; this is the sense of the words “conservative” and “conservatism” that is meant by the German jurist Carl Schmitt and the theory of dialectical geneticism. It naturally follows from dialectical geneticism that terrorists are the conservatives of the next regime, if they win.
Conserving the State
Everything the state does and says is motivated by conservatism, including those things which the commoners perceive as being progressive. In fact, it is the perfectionist view that while futurism, technological advancement, expansionism, and psychological moralization are some of the most progressive things a state can do, they remain some of the most conservative things it can do.
That which is conservative, in the perfectionist sense, is that which gives legitimacy to the state. This is in stark contrast to American conservatism which not only seeks to send Americans back to a bygone and backwards era, but it is also an inherently delegitimizing influence upon the US government. Nevertheless, the fact that the state’s primary objective is entirely self-serving, it leads some to ask important questions which deserve to be answered: if staying in power is all the state cares about, then why should they even be in charge? Why should we be ruled by an entity which only cares about its self-preservation?
What Makes the State Legitimate
All states get their legitimacy from their respective worldviews and all worldviews are legitimized by a moral foundation. In the case where the adherents understand themselves as worshipping a magic being, they refer to their worldview as a religion and the moral foundation of their religion as a god. This leads commoners to make two important errors: separation from church and state is possible and it has already been achieved in the United States of America. Henceforth, the term “religion” shall be used to refer to all religions, ideologies, and worldviews.
Let us first address the impossibility of separating the church from the state. Readers will notice that the word “church” is not capitalized, in this context – this is a deliberate choice. A church is an institution which spreads doctrine and such an institution must exist in order for commoners to understand the state’s religion, and by extension, to perceive the state as legitimate. Historical states which were legitimized by Christianity used the Church to spread its doctrine and conserve its legitimacy. So-called “secular” governments spread their doctrines through churches of a different kind: educational and media institutions. Without religion, the state is nothing more than a self-interested collective of men with guns – a mafia organization. Any state which suffers from a crisis of legitimacy is not long for this world. According to the Nobility International Security Institute, this was the painful lesson that the Russian intelligentsia learned following the Soviet collapse (see The Russian Echo-Chamber). If the gun is the only thing keeping someone in power, it is not a matter of “if” he will lose power, but “when”.
As for the American experience, the state only separated with the Christian Church. However, the United States of America was never legitimized by Christianity; instead, it is a product of the Enlightenment. As such, America’s separation from the Christian Church was nothing more than an attack upon its religious competitor. Liberalism is America’s official state religion and, like any state, the liberal worldview is primarily enforced by means of social and financial consequences. As the moral foundation of liberalism, freedom is the god of America and to oppose freedom is to be a heretic that is morally deserving of being killed. Muslim empires killed in the name of Allah, the Soviets killed in the name of equality, and Americans kill in the name of freedom.
Therefore, no matter how self-serving the state is, it derives its legitimacy by submitting to its god. Freedom is why no liberal can steal, kidnap, imprison, and murder, except for the United States government. Equality is why no communist could steal, kidnap, imprison, and murder, except for the Soviet Union. Allah is why no Muslim can steal, kidnap, imprison, and murder, except for Islamic Iran. The sovereign is the exception.
Self-serving individuals are regarded in a negative light because it is heretical for one’s individual preferences to take precedence over the state’s religion – that which keeps society cohesive and functional. On the other hand, the state’s instinct for self-preservation exceptionally empowers its religion, by virtue of the fact that the state backs its religious doctrines with soft and hard power. Therefore, a conservative state is inherently a state which does the bidding of its god, and as such, the state’s self-serving nature is always morally legitimate, by the standards of its religion. When it comes to sovereignty, the exception matters more than the rule.
Serving the Self
Of the many things the state can do to serve itself, one of them is to advance the genetic interests of the state-bearing members of its society. Institutions are made by brains made by genes. Therefore, institutions are an extended phenotype of the state-bearing members of its society. Institutions cannot exist without the genes that made them. As such, to preserve the genetic quality of the elites is a necessity to preserve the state’s institutions.
More importantly, to improve, develop, and build upon existing institutions is an even more conservative objective than to merely preserve them. If a state is to continuously fulfill this objective ad infinitum, it will not be able to do so, unless it can continuously improve the genetic quality of its elites.
Just as a corporation is a legal instrument which advances the financial interests of its shareholders, a truly conservative state is a legal instrument which advances the genetic interests of its elites.