Khem Nefermed
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(This was originally posted on X, but I felt it has a little value to be shared on the Forums as well)
Morality in the West is very much based on Christian ideas, and so is many people's perspective of Pagan religions and ideas.
Few slogans have been abused as badly as "might makes right" . Whether invoked as a caricature by christians, or argued in good faith by pagans who simply don't know better.
The implication is simple: whoever says this must believe that brute force alone derives what is good, that wanton violence by itself is virtue, and that ethics are nothing more than the positions of the victorious. There is some iota of truth to this, but it is not the full story. This strawman is then triumphantly rejected, usually by traditions that immediately replace it with something far more metaphysically dubious.
The Protestant Reformation did many things, some of them historically necessary, some of them spiritually catastrophic. Among its most consequential contributions was the doctrine of total depravity, the idea that human nature is so fundamentally corrupted that it can produce nothing genuinely good on its own.
While the idea was toyed around with in many christian schools of thought, it is Martin Luther that fully concretized it. Luther was a devout catholic, but (who would've guessed), didn't find complete logic within the contemporary catholic doctrines. Catholic schools of thought gained power and kept control and order due to certain liberties they took with the ideas found in the christian systems.
The Catholic idea at the time was that, at least to some degree, one must keep up a good morality out of their own efforts, in order to avoid Hell, and to lower the amount spent in purgatory, purifying the soul to reach Heaven.
But Luther, neurotic as he was, would spend hours in confession for very minor sins, and believed that even the most minor sin was an infinite offense against an infinitely good being in God.
The conclusion he came up with is that everyone deserves Hell. If God saves even a single person, it is an act of grace and not deserved.
Grace, then, becomes a replacement for human nature. Sure, we can yada yada, and say that humanity's nature was perfect and then was corrupted, but that's simply lore. The current human nature is replaced.
Humanity is posed as dead and in need of resurrection.
This is because, ultimately, Christianity is a passive religion. Humanity acts as a passive subject, with an external God as an active agent.
This is not my perspective, and it is not the Zevist perspective.
The theological debate then hinges on:
- how do we progress in morality if not by grace?
- what is morality even grounded on?
The answer is a simple one. Might makes right is reductive, but Power begets Morality is a solid system.
Let's look at the situation of life through a very simplistic view, for a start. We have comparably little control over how we react to certain circumstances, in comparison to the control we can have in creating these circumstances. This is the start of my perspective on free will, which aligns with the Zevist idea that free will is a sliding scale, not a binary.
How much free will does a starving man on the street have? He either receives food out of the pity of people who work for their food, or steals it to not go hungry.
Christianity would say that this man deserves food no matter what (not that the Church has historically done much to help), which gave birth to the ideas of secular social justice.
The Might makes Right strawman would say that if this man can steal the food, he deserves it, because the owner of the food should have protected it. There is some truth to this, but this ditches the idea of morality altogether into a total "ends justify the means". Nietzsche did analyze this idea further, with a polemical attitude against christian ideas of morality, which he called a slave morality. I agree, it is a passive perspective.
There is, however, more control in the ability to generate the proper circumstances. It is moral (we will justify why later) to earn your own food, less moral to steal it. Morality matters little to the starving person, but had this person been in different circumstances, such as having a decent income, they would obviously not choose to steal their food, and thus be more ethical.
"Power" is, thus, the ability to create proper circumstances for the nature of the self to express itself in a more ethical way. What is ultimately ethical is what is efficient in the spiritual and material development of humanity. While ignorance exists and work is to be done, we were made good by evolution guided by good Gods, and there is no essential corruption preventing us from acting better.
The more Power one has, the more one is able to act according to their nature. Spiritual practices of Power Meditation give the soul the ability to generate more proper circumstances, both through spiritual means and through acting more properly in the material.
But if one's nature is flawed, how does one change their nature?
By spiritual practices of Ritual Theurgy and closeness to the Gods. The Gods are sovereign and separate beings sharing in a perfect Divine Nature, but they are also eternal forces that guide the Universe, separately, and yet with no conflict between the forces. This is what "morality" is grounded upon.
Alignment with these forces is what allows us to act morally, that is, act in a way that advances the self and humanity.
One who only sees religion through an abrahamic lens would say this is "passive subjects changing for the standards of an external agent". But we are not passive subjects, we are active agents of our own, given the possibility of achieving more free will. And the agent we are aligning with is not external, it is part of us.
Using your own hand incorrectly is not "a personality trait", and learning basic dexterity of the hands is not "changing your personality". Driving a car backwards is not a "personality trait", it is simply ignorance.
Similarly so, opinions that view, say, human society, in a way that does not align with the Ethics of Zeus, is not "a personality choice", but rather ignorance about how the world works. It is inefficiency, not a difference of opinion.
The "Might makes Right" morality of Pagan religions was far closer to this idea I pose, visible clearly in concepts like the Greek Moira, Heimarmene and Ananke, or the Egyptian principle of Ma'at, and the list goes on. The reductive idea was simply what happens when abrahamic anthropology views these ideas through a christian lens, and arrives not at ignorance, because that would imply agency. It arrives at passive subjects refusing grace.
There is no "grace" to refuse. The truth is that we are active agents given the ability to be active agents in order to become sovereign beings, as the Gods respect sovereignty.
As is usual with the path of Zevism, this is a piece of ethical philosophy that is actionable first, and that should be experienced, not simply read and accepted.
Gain the Power to take control of what circumstances you find yourself in.
Gain greater Awareness so you may navigate these circumstances.
Align yourself with the Eternal Gods, not as a change of the self to an external despot, but as a discovery of the self and knowledge of the tools you have been given to do so.
Morality in the West is very much based on Christian ideas, and so is many people's perspective of Pagan religions and ideas.
Few slogans have been abused as badly as "might makes right" . Whether invoked as a caricature by christians, or argued in good faith by pagans who simply don't know better.
The implication is simple: whoever says this must believe that brute force alone derives what is good, that wanton violence by itself is virtue, and that ethics are nothing more than the positions of the victorious. There is some iota of truth to this, but it is not the full story. This strawman is then triumphantly rejected, usually by traditions that immediately replace it with something far more metaphysically dubious.
The Protestant Reformation did many things, some of them historically necessary, some of them spiritually catastrophic. Among its most consequential contributions was the doctrine of total depravity, the idea that human nature is so fundamentally corrupted that it can produce nothing genuinely good on its own.
While the idea was toyed around with in many christian schools of thought, it is Martin Luther that fully concretized it. Luther was a devout catholic, but (who would've guessed), didn't find complete logic within the contemporary catholic doctrines. Catholic schools of thought gained power and kept control and order due to certain liberties they took with the ideas found in the christian systems.
The Catholic idea at the time was that, at least to some degree, one must keep up a good morality out of their own efforts, in order to avoid Hell, and to lower the amount spent in purgatory, purifying the soul to reach Heaven.
But Luther, neurotic as he was, would spend hours in confession for very minor sins, and believed that even the most minor sin was an infinite offense against an infinitely good being in God.
The conclusion he came up with is that everyone deserves Hell. If God saves even a single person, it is an act of grace and not deserved.
Grace, then, becomes a replacement for human nature. Sure, we can yada yada, and say that humanity's nature was perfect and then was corrupted, but that's simply lore. The current human nature is replaced.
Humanity is posed as dead and in need of resurrection.
This is because, ultimately, Christianity is a passive religion. Humanity acts as a passive subject, with an external God as an active agent.
This is not my perspective, and it is not the Zevist perspective.
The theological debate then hinges on:
- how do we progress in morality if not by grace?
- what is morality even grounded on?
The answer is a simple one. Might makes right is reductive, but Power begets Morality is a solid system.
Let's look at the situation of life through a very simplistic view, for a start. We have comparably little control over how we react to certain circumstances, in comparison to the control we can have in creating these circumstances. This is the start of my perspective on free will, which aligns with the Zevist idea that free will is a sliding scale, not a binary.
How much free will does a starving man on the street have? He either receives food out of the pity of people who work for their food, or steals it to not go hungry.
Christianity would say that this man deserves food no matter what (not that the Church has historically done much to help), which gave birth to the ideas of secular social justice.
The Might makes Right strawman would say that if this man can steal the food, he deserves it, because the owner of the food should have protected it. There is some truth to this, but this ditches the idea of morality altogether into a total "ends justify the means". Nietzsche did analyze this idea further, with a polemical attitude against christian ideas of morality, which he called a slave morality. I agree, it is a passive perspective.
There is, however, more control in the ability to generate the proper circumstances. It is moral (we will justify why later) to earn your own food, less moral to steal it. Morality matters little to the starving person, but had this person been in different circumstances, such as having a decent income, they would obviously not choose to steal their food, and thus be more ethical.
"Power" is, thus, the ability to create proper circumstances for the nature of the self to express itself in a more ethical way. What is ultimately ethical is what is efficient in the spiritual and material development of humanity. While ignorance exists and work is to be done, we were made good by evolution guided by good Gods, and there is no essential corruption preventing us from acting better.
The more Power one has, the more one is able to act according to their nature. Spiritual practices of Power Meditation give the soul the ability to generate more proper circumstances, both through spiritual means and through acting more properly in the material.
But if one's nature is flawed, how does one change their nature?
By spiritual practices of Ritual Theurgy and closeness to the Gods. The Gods are sovereign and separate beings sharing in a perfect Divine Nature, but they are also eternal forces that guide the Universe, separately, and yet with no conflict between the forces. This is what "morality" is grounded upon.
Alignment with these forces is what allows us to act morally, that is, act in a way that advances the self and humanity.
One who only sees religion through an abrahamic lens would say this is "passive subjects changing for the standards of an external agent". But we are not passive subjects, we are active agents of our own, given the possibility of achieving more free will. And the agent we are aligning with is not external, it is part of us.
Using your own hand incorrectly is not "a personality trait", and learning basic dexterity of the hands is not "changing your personality". Driving a car backwards is not a "personality trait", it is simply ignorance.
Similarly so, opinions that view, say, human society, in a way that does not align with the Ethics of Zeus, is not "a personality choice", but rather ignorance about how the world works. It is inefficiency, not a difference of opinion.
The "Might makes Right" morality of Pagan religions was far closer to this idea I pose, visible clearly in concepts like the Greek Moira, Heimarmene and Ananke, or the Egyptian principle of Ma'at, and the list goes on. The reductive idea was simply what happens when abrahamic anthropology views these ideas through a christian lens, and arrives not at ignorance, because that would imply agency. It arrives at passive subjects refusing grace.
There is no "grace" to refuse. The truth is that we are active agents given the ability to be active agents in order to become sovereign beings, as the Gods respect sovereignty.
As is usual with the path of Zevism, this is a piece of ethical philosophy that is actionable first, and that should be experienced, not simply read and accepted.
Gain the Power to take control of what circumstances you find yourself in.
Gain greater Awareness so you may navigate these circumstances.
Align yourself with the Eternal Gods, not as a change of the self to an external despot, but as a discovery of the self and knowledge of the tools you have been given to do so.
