J. R. Sommer contends that politics only distracts from the real task: overcoming the will-to-machine through the spiritual self-emptying taught by Meister Eckhart.
Several years ago I heard an advert for Mensa on National Public Radio (NPR). Being the stalwart of liberal-Marxism it is, NPR had always “leaned left,” and it has been a fascinating case study in modern sociopolitical discourse to witness their shameless slide into total leftist lunacy over the decades. NPR has long since become unlistenable, even for curiosity’s sake, with their heavy-handed (if not blundering) coverage of whatever evil or neuroticism deems newsworthy.1 It was laughable to me that the conceited whisperers at NPR considered themselves to be intelligent broadcasters catering to intelligent listeners (presuming Mensa even touches intelligence). No one so intellectually clumsy (if not dishonest) can be intelligent — educated, perhaps, but not intelligent. As an experiment, then, and out of disgust, I decided to see what the bitter whisperers were up to with Mensa and so scheduled a test.
I found the test — the standards for which have since been lowered, presumably to accommodate the hordes of leftists unable to cross the prior threshold — easy enough. And, as expected, Mensa proved itself to be a liberal-Marxist association — complete with pink-haired, obese, and generally divergent “leaders” who incessantly preach diversity and inclusivity from their pulpit and subgroups dedicated to various politically correct themes. One can find all this and more in their monthly journal (the moralistic articles and reviews are amusing). It was in this journal that I saw another advert for a more exclusive society: the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry (ISPE). If Mensa theoretically admits 2% of the population (1 in 50), ISPE limits itself to just 0.1% of the population — i.e., the former is selective to the 98th percentile, the latter to the 99.9th percentile. As such, belonging to ISPE makes you “1 in 1,000,” or a “thousander.” I wondered if more exclusivity would mean something less overtly liberal-Marxist...
Upon admittance into ISPE, I had access to their journal, the contents of which I found to be of higher quality than anything I saw peddled by Mensa. There was also a general conservative bent, which, while refreshing, couldn’t be confused for conservatism in the Heideggerian or Nietzschean sense — i.e., not in any deep, spiritual sense.2 Because of “the times,” organizations hoping to endure cannot stray too far from the “politically correct,” which only means there is trepidation to permit any exchange of ideas that might be construed as too conservative, which always really means too fascist.3
Modernity’s main concern is, of course, not fascism, but spirituality. Genuine spirituality is intolerable, for it is the only means of escaping a default complicity in our own demise. The problem facing us is spiritual: it is one of self. A symptom of this disease is our constant striving to find political (material) solutions to the self (spiritual) problem. This is why thought is so vital: it is the inward turn of self-reflection. Politics, in any manifestation, is so hopelessly misguided that it’s not even the externalization of existentiality; rather, it is the complete surrender of self to an-other; there is no greater surrender, for, in fact, nothing is even surrendered — nothing yet exists to surrender: One is simply one with the seemingly infinite expanse of beyng, a mass of blank conformism. This other is “false” because one has not demarcated the self from its source, unconscious consciousness; the false other is the will-to-machine — the ceaseless drive to deprive man of that which might make him more than machine.
Politics is the blind leading the blind: this is why governments — from rudimentary to sophisticated — always have and always will exist and expand. It is not just distraction; it is the unconscious ushering of the possibility of self into oblivion. Every time you lend your support to a political cause, you express the will of the false other — you are a symptom of the disease.
Meister Eckhart’s sermon on poverty (number 87, Pfeiffer) is one of the most insightful tracts ever written. In it, he discusses two types of poverty, with the preferred being an emptying of oneself of God. This is a heretical thing for a priest to say, and Eckhart was indeed accused of heresy by his peers, but few things could be more attuned to genuine spirituality. Whether it is Eckhart or another thinker, most people will interpret the message to suit their banal needs; it is rare that a message changes one’s approach to the world in any significant, life-altering way. Because of this, Eckhart’s readers will often generally understand his message to be about nurturing this connection to the divine we have within us (soul) through what they imagine is careful or harmonious living — i.e., essentially, adopting slightly less rote participation in everyday life. But there is nothing rote or everyday about emptying oneself of God. With poverty, Eckhart says one must be “as free of his created will as he did when he was not.” Spirituality is not about I, me, mine, you, or us; it is not about the exercise of what we imagine is “our” will. The imagined will is only the will of another: it is the will-to-machine. Only when we overcome this imagined will, through its rejection, do we summon the possibility of exercising actual will. Emptying oneself of will is both rejection and affirmation of what we perceive as will. (This is a topic I introduce in The New Colossus and fully develop in my forthcoming books The Electric Will and Supreme Being: The Spiritual Foundations of Multipolarity.)
It is difficult to personify a paradox, for one must see beyond the apparent. I am convinced that most people lack the capacity to do this, which is why man is the perfect apparatchik, or vessel, for the disembodied will (Überwille); and it is why we continually see the same tired solutions proffered to solve the same sociopolitical problems, despite minor variations on the theme. Meanwhile, nothing changes and our march to Machine continues. There are, in truth, no political solutions to what confronts us; politics is a slave’s game — or the role of one who imagines he acts freely, when, really, he only perpetuates that which brings about his demise. Has “politics” solved your problems heretofore? Has it given you existential meaning? What about “metapolitics” (whatever this nonsense is)? No, they haven’t: at no point have we — individually or collectively — been “as free of our created will as we were when we were not.” This is because politics (regular or “meta”) is the attempt of incapable minds to apply material solutions to a spiritual problem. Most minds are simply incapable.
Largely, man is unable to assume either responsibility or even the barest self-reflection: he perfectly projects his inward (spiritual) failure outward — on the omnipresent source of his troubles. The affliction is: the form of government; bad actors within the government; politicians; migrants; the other party; subversives within the party; a particular religion; the economy; the government of another country; the people of another country; one’s job; the media; the education-indoctrination system; and so on.4 The problem is never oneself, and there is never the slightest consideration that external problems and solutions might be self-perpetuating. The incapacity that leads to the self-perpetuation of affliction is the same incapacity that prevents most from understanding Eckhart: it is not about you — it never was. You are not you; you embody the will-to-machine, which is ever focused externally — on self-perpetuation.
Most will ignore this: they will keep thinking, Ah, but if this form of government takes power, we’ll be alright. No, you won’t — nor will it. That you think this and that the perceived problem arose at all are evidence of not just endemic spiritual failure, but also the pervasive inability to overcome such failure. Some will hear this and resolve to be more considerate in their approach to the same things they have always done. Few will ever look in the mirror and act according to the revelation of the reflection.
When we consider that 0.1% of people have, theoretically, exceptional intelligence and that even few among them possess the capacity to overcome the perpetuation of the false self (the will-to-machine), what then do we imagine the prospects are for the whole darkened world? We might say that “intelligence” is not a prerequisite for spiritual awakening, but who can believe this? Perhaps the bungled and the botched alone can believe it. Of course, we would not experience the world we do if the “average” were empowered with what even the “best” of humanity fails to consistently grasp.
Speaking of the best, Meister Eckhart might have seen God, but he wasn’t God; even he struggled to overcome his perpetual self. All of us do — or, rather, some of us do. The answer to what confronts us is ... there is no answer — at least, not one that could ever be satisfying for the overwhelming majority of people who exist for everything besides the sole meaning that might be their salvation. An answer suggests finality; but finality exists only in death, but perhaps not even then — we cannot know. This means that the answer, to the extent that it might be, is struggle — one’s solitary struggle with the enormity of existence and the mystery of non-being; the struggle, then, perpetuates and not the self: esoterically speaking, this is mein Kampf. Consider this... But perhaps you cannot.
An Internet search on “hiking and racism,” for instance, reveals a mountain of modern neuroses.
See The New Colossus (Arktos, 2025).
Again, see The New Colossus (Arktos, 2025).
A reader might wonder how I can make this statement yet ceaselessly indict “liberal-Marxism”: this does not mean that I am partial to some other system; my point is that liberal-Marxism, as the efficient lubricant for an accelerated development of the will-to-machine, is the basis of everything — to include that which we might imagine is “antithetical” to it. Liberal-Marxism is the ideological basis of modernity’s materiality, which stands opposed to genuine spirituality. See The New Colossus for details.
I never quite know what to do with ideas like this. I kind of enjoy reading it, but in the end, I'll stick with I Corinthians 13. That's something I can understand.