The Morality of The Numinous Way
In order to understand the concepts of war and violence in terms of the philosophy of The Numinous Way, it is necessary to begin by outlining the morality of The Numinous Way, since war and violence are inseparably bound up with how one understands morality.
Morality is, for The Numinous Way, a consequence of individuals using the faculty of empathy [1] – that is, a consequence of the insight and the understanding (the acausal knowing) that empathy provides for individuals in the immediacy-of-the-moment. This insight and knowledge is of how we are not isolated human beings, but rather only one fragile microcosmic nexion and thus connected to all Life, sentient and otherwise, human and otherwise, of this planet and otherwise. Consequently, there is a cosmic perspective – a cosmic ethic – and compassion: that is, the human virtue of having συμπάθεια with other living beings, and the feeling, the knowledge, that we should treat other human beings as we ourselves would wish to be treated: with fairness, dignity, and respect.
The morality of The Numinous Way is therefore defined by a personal honour, a personal compassion, and the personal virtue of justice. For justice is not some abstract concept, but rather a personal virtue, as εὐταξία [2] is a personal virtue. For justice is the personal virtue of fairness; the quality of balance, and is linked to other personal virtues as mentioned, for example, by Cicero:
“Aliis ego te virtutibus, continentiae, gravitatis, iustitiae, fidei, ceteris omnibus.” [3]
This morality is therefore a personal one so that it is the living individual of honour – someone who possesses certain virtues – who represents, who is, the cosmic ethics of The Numinous Way. For,
“the Cosmic Ethic [...] cannot live in some law, in some Institution, in some Court, in some dogma or in some abstract theory. To be numinous, to presence the numinous, what is ethical requires a living honourable person, not some abstract theory of ethics.” The Natural Balance of Honour (2011)
Thus the source of, the authority for – and the reason for choosing – such a morality is and can only be the judgement of the individual, deriving as this judgement does from their empathy and their unique πάθει μάθος.
The Source of Authority
For The Numinous Way, there is no authority other than that of personal empathy, personal honour and πάθει μάθος. That is, the source of authority is personal, and the bounds of this authority are defined by honour, with The Numinous Way thus being:
“the Way of the numinous and individual authority of πάθει μάθος where one’s own empathy and one’s own learning from practical experience take precedence and are considered a means for us to become a friend of σοφόν and thus acquire the virtue and the skill that has been termed wisdom.” Preface, Selected Writings Concerning The Numinous Way (2011).
In practical terms, this means that the individual following or being guided by this Way relies on and is guided by their own judgement, their own experience, and a Code of Honour, and does not relinquish these in favour of some chain-of-command or in favour of accepting the authority of some supra-personal institution, of some law, or of some association, political party or whatever. In place of accepting and submitting to such external authority there is only the giving of personal loyalty according to a Code of Honour, with such giving by its honourable and personal nature never involving the individual in relinquishing their own judgement or acting contrary to that Code of Honour.
Violence, War, The State, and Leges Regiae
Used in its correct, original, non-pejorative way, violence is using physical force against another person sufficient to cause some physical injury. However, a fairly recent synonym for violence is force – a term often used by politicians and castellans and theorists of The State, among others, when they attempt to try and justify the use of violence by those persons (such as the police) such politicians and castellans (and others) believe have some ‘lawful authority’ to inflict injury on people.
The distinction that such politicians and castellans and others thus attempt to make between violence and force reveals their reliance, stated or unstated, known or unknown, on the principles of Leges Regiae. That is, on the principles used historically by kings and emperors and their courts where someone or some group assumes authority over others, and thus exercises command over them, makes decisions for or on behalf of them, and, ultimately, by the use of violence and the threat of punishment are able to force or persuade others to obey them and their commands.
Principles, for example, manifest in the ancient Jus Papirianum attributed to Sextus Papirius:
“After Romulus had distinguished the persons of higher rank from those of inferior condition, then he passed laws and apportioned the duties for each to do…
For the king, he chose the following prerogatives … to maintain the guardianship of the laws and the national customs, … to judge in person the greatest of crimes … to have absolute command in war. ” [4]
Notice how Romulus – the legendary King of ancient Rome – assumed the authority to divide individuals into categories – high and low – and how he manufactured laws, and told individuals what their duties would be, and assumed absolute command in war.
Modern nation-States have, via people such as Augustine of Hippo [5], simply replaced kings and emperors with Prime Ministers, Presidents, or representatives (or whatever) and covered or attempted to cover their use of violence (by their police forces and armies) and the threat of punishment (such as prison) by rhetoric about ‘law and order’ and by social and political theories (such as that of democracy). But the demand that individuals accept some supra-personal authority remains the same, as does the threat or the use of violence against individuals by officials appointed and approved by such personal authorities, as does the demand that individuals forsake their own judgement and rely instead on the judgement of ministers, governments officials, and on the Courts of Law of The State. In addition – as it was for the Roman kings and Caesars – the individual is expected to obey the laws they manufacture, with such laws being regarded as ‘just’ and moral.
Thus justice – far from being a personal virtue, defined by honour – becomes what some king, some Caesar, some τύραννος, or some government decrees it is according to the laws they manufacture and which their officials and their Courts uphold and enforce, by violence (or the threat thereof) and by imprisonment (or the threat thereof). Hence all the rhetoric by castellans and officials of The State that individuals “should not take the law into their own hands”, whereas true – natural, numinous, living – justice only exists in living honourable individuals and their actions.
This usurpation of personal judgement and natural justice is overtly manifest in war. War – the bellum of Latin writers such as Cicero and Livy – is armed conflict involving large opposing groups where there is acceptance, by those fighting, of some recognized chain-of-command and of some supra-personal commanding authority who or which is or are personally unknown to most if not all of those accepting such authority, and where the conflict is mostly if not entirely non-personal for all or most of those involved. That is, war mostly or entirely results from the pursuit of some abstraction, or from the desire, the beliefs, of some leader or commander, or from the political or social or religious agenda or polices of some supra-personal authority such as some government.
In The Numinous Way, a distinction is made between war and combat in that combat refers to gewin – similar to the old Germanic werra, as distinct from the modern krieg. That is, combat refers to a more personal armed quarrel between much smaller factions (and often between just two adversaries – as in single combat, and trial by combat) when there is, among those fighting, some personal matter at stake or some personal interest involved, with most if not all of those fighting doing so under the leadership of someone they personally know and respect and with the quarrel usually occurring in the locality or localities where the combatants live.
Thus, war is contrary to The Numinous Way – to the Cosmic Ethic – not only because of the impersonal suffering it causes, but also because it is inseparably bound up with individuals having to relinquish their own judgement, with them pursuing some lifeless un-numinous abstraction by violent means, and with the development of supra-personal abstract and thus un-numinous notions of ‘justice’ and law.
Hence, there is, for The Numinous Way, no such thing as a ‘just war’ – for war is inherently unjust and un-numinous. What is just and lawful are honourable individuals and their actions, and such combat as such individuals may honourably and personally undertake, and such violence as they may honourably and of necessity employ in pursuit of being fair and ensuring fairness.
David Myatt
October 2011 CE
Notes
[1] For a basic explanation of empathy, see my essay Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen
[2] εὐταξία is what I would describe as the quality, the personal virtue, of self-restraint; of personal orderly (balanced, honourable, well-mannered) conduct especially under adversity or duress.
Regarding εὐταξία, Cicero wrote:
” Deinceps de ordine rerum et de opportunitate temporum dicendum est. Haec autem scientia continentur ea, quam Graeci εὐταξίαν nominant, non hanc, quam interpretamur modestiam, quo in verbo modus inest, sed illa est εὐταξία, in qua intellegitur ordinis conservatio. Itaque, ut eandem nos modestiam appellemus…” De Officiis, 1, 40, 142
[3] M. Tullius Cicero, For Lucius Murena, 10, 23. My translation is: ‘For your other virtues of self-restraint, of dignity, of justice, of good faith, and all other good qualities…’
[4] The quotation is from the reconstruction of the texts given in: Allan Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, and Frank Bourne. Ancient Roman Statutes: A Translation with Introduction, Commentary, Glossary, and Index. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961
[5] The assumed need for individuals to accept supra-personal authority is much in evidence in Augustine, especially in his De Civitate Dei contra Paganos in which he champions a order, a hierarcy, with God its pinnacle and ordinary individuals at the bottom. In between are those appointed to oversee indivuduals and ensure ‘order’ with everyone in their rightful place: “Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio.” (XIX, xiii)
As Augustine writes in Contra Faustum Manichaeum (XXII, 75): “The natural order, which would have peace amongst men, necessitates that the judgement about and the authority to declare war should reside in those who have authority over others [a monarch/prince].”
In addition, his rhetoric regarding the necessity of waging war is remarkably similar to that of modern politicians:
“War is undertaken to bring about peace. Therefore, even during war, remember the value of peace so that when those you have fought are conquered you can show them the advantages of peace…” (Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum ad Bonifacium Papam, CLXXXIX)
He also, it seems, in writing about a ‘just war’, provided them with rhetorical justification for castigating their enemies as ‘evil’, as ‘wicked’ and they themselves, even though they may cause suffering and death, as doing what is ‘right’, what God decrees, as, for example, Bush and Blair did during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and as with the desire of some nation-States to humiliate and vanquish those deemed as enemies. As Augustus wrote in De Civitate Dei contra Paganos:
“Nam et cum iustum geritur bellum, pro peccato e contrario dimicatur; et omnis uictoria, cum etiam malis prouenit, diuino iudicio uictos humiliat uel emendans peccata uel puniens.” [ For even when we wage a just war, our enemies must be sinners, for every victory then, even though gained by evil men, results from divine decree, with the vanquished humiliated and their sins either punished or wiped away. ] XIX, 15
