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Dualism as Politically
Useful Fiction, Monism as Ontological Fact 1. The Double Economy of Truth and Survival Finn
distinguishes between two economies: 1. The
economy of truth — which seeks accurate representation of how reality
emerges and functions. 2. The
economy of survival — which seeks control, coherence, and coordination
within local environments. In this
light, Dualism — the distinction between self and world, good and
evil, ruler and ruled, God and creation — serves the second economy. It
offers narrative leverage: a conceptual framework through which power
can be organised, hierarchies established, and obedience secured. By
contrast, Monism — especially Procedure Monism, which posits
that all emergents are local iterations of a single
universal procedure — serves the first economy. It describes the structure of
reality accurately but offers no practical advantage in the management of
populations. It is therefore true but useless from the viewpoint of
politics. Hence
Finn’s paradox: Dualism is false but useful; Monism is true but useless. 2. Dualism: Survival by Representation Error Dualism
misrepresents Universal Emergence by imagining a world of separable beings
and governing powers. Yet this error is evolutionarily adaptive. ·
It enables role differentiation
(master–servant, priest–laity, ruler–subject), which simplifies collective
behaviour. ·
It produces moral order by positing
external authority and accountability (God, king, law). ·
It sustains motivation through lack,
offering salvation or reward as compensation for existential dependence. The
dualist imagination is therefore a control interface between chaotic
reality and collective survival. It stabilises societies that have not yet
matured to procedural self-regulation. In Finn’s
developmental schema, dualism corresponds to the infantile or adolescent
phase of consciousness: dependent, fear-driven, craving guidance. 3. Monism: Accurate but Non-Instrumental Knowledge Procedure
Monism, on the other hand, articulates how reality actually emerges: through one continuous rule-set iterating itself into local forms. Each emergent,
human included, is an autonomous execution of the same universal code. This view
destroys hierarchy because it abolishes ontological difference. There is no
ruler and ruled, no above and below, only local
functions of a single procedure. The consequence is radical autonomy
and responsibility — but no built-in mechanism for social
coordination. The
monist cannot rule nor be ruled without contradiction. Any imposition of
external authority would falsify the monistic premise of self-execution.
Hence Finn’s observation: “At the
local level the monist appears as anarchist.” This
appearance of anarchy arises not from rebellion but from procedural
coherence. The monist simply follows the universal rule rather than local
substitution codes. 4. The Political Irrelevance of Ontological Truth Politics
requires asymmetry: command and obedience, right and wrong, ownership
and dispossession. Monism erases asymmetry. In a monist universe, all
authority collapses into procedural equivalence — every agent is “God in
their space.” Such a
system cannot be administered through fear or promise. It resists all dogma
and cannot be co-opted by political structures except through
misrepresentation. Therefore, monism has zero leverage in maintaining
order. History
confirms Finn’s thesis: no monist system has ever governed successfully. The Vedāntic, Taoist, or Spinozist sages remained
outsiders or were absorbed into hierarchical religions that re-introduced
dualism for practical governance. 5. Non-Dualism: The Semantic Fudge Finn’s
linguistic insight targets the word non-dualism (advaita).
The prefix “non-” negates without defining. It is apophatic—it says
what something is not, never what it is. This
semantic vagueness allowed priestly and philosophical systems (notably Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta)
to fudge the issue: to claim the prestige of monism (philosophical
sophistication) while preserving the political utility of dualism (ritual
hierarchy, guru-dependence, and salvation economy). “Non-dualism”
thus became an intellectual camouflage, sustaining both priest and
ruler. It allowed society to retain political order while pretending to
transcend it. In Finn’s
words: “Non-dualism
was the insurance policy of the arche — a semantic trick that let the local
rule survive under the flag of liberation.” 6. The Mature Monist as Procedural Anarch If the
dualist infant seeks authority and the non-dualist adolescent negotiates with
it, the mature monist transcends it. The
mature monist lives by the Universal Procedure (UP) directly: the
local execution of constraint and iteration that sustains reality. In human
terms this means acting from intrinsic coherence rather than external
prescription — knowing one’s code and running it well. Such a
being appears anarchic because he no longer responds to the collective’s
symbolic controls — gods, laws, ideologies. But this “anarchy” is not chaos;
it is auto-arche, self-rule. It mirrors the universal procedure’s own
self-executing nature. When Finn
says that the mature adult must “perfectly replicate the Universal Procedure
in his space,” he means that enlightenment entails becoming structurally
identical with the universal process: operating without distortion,
dependency, or deceit. This is the ultimate procedural integrity — God
realised as function, not as faith. 7. Completing the Universal Procedure In Finn’s
system, each emergent contributes to the completion of the Universal
Procedure by executing it locally to perfection. A mature
monist, operating flawlessly in his bounded domain, performs the UP’s
self-affirmation. The cosmos, through him, recognises itself. This act has no
political use but absolute ontological value. He
neither governs nor obeys but runs correctly — the procedural
equivalent of sainthood. The dualist seeks salvation; the monist executes
completion. 8. Comparative Summary
9. Commentary: The Tragic Necessity of Dualism Finn’s
analysis implies a tragic tension: societies depend on an ontological lie for
survival. Dualism is the myth that makes cooperation possible; monism is the
truth that makes manipulation impossible. This
paradox explains why prophets of unity — from Lao-Tzu and Spinoza to Śaṅkara and Giordano Bruno — have always been
revered in theory and suppressed in practice. Their vision undermines the
architecture of rule. From the
procedural perspective, this tension is inevitable: local order requires
difference; universal order erases it. Hence the UP can only be completed
locally by individuals who are both in the world and beyond
its political logic. 10. Finn’s Resolution: The Druidic Stance Finn’s
druid occupies precisely this position: His
“anarchy” is metaphysical, not social — an independence of understanding, not
a call to disorder. In the
long evolutionary sequence, he represents not rebellion but maturity —
the transition from externally regulated survival to internally regulated
coherence. Thus, the
druid’s wisdom condenses into a procedural maxim: “Dualism
keeps the tribe alive. |