Long-term readers would know that I’ve made great use of the distinction between the Exoteric and the Esoteric over the past few years. The Exoteric refers to the aspects of life that are outwardly visible. From the human point of view, that includes our bodies, clothing, and costumes (which denote socio-political status), as well as our participation in ceremonial activities, etc. The Esoteric refers to the inner, invisible aspects of our lives, including our emotions, our thoughts, and our worldview.
It seems to be a natural part of human life to try and keep the Exoteric and Esoteric synchronised, to have our external lives correspond to our inner thoughts and emotions. Tolstoy once wrote, “If you’re not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude or change your job.” Your attitude belongs to the Esoteric. Your job belongs to the Exoteric. The goal of changing either is to bring the Exoteric into balance with the Esoteric.
We can see, then, that work has both an Esoteric and an Exoteric aspect to it. So do the other aspects of our identity, and Tolstoy’s advice works just as well for those.
There are four main aspects to our adult identity that seem to hold across all cultures: political, economic, sexual, and religious. For each of these, we can enquire into the Exoteric and Esoteric aspects.
Let’s say my religious identity is Roman Catholic. That implies that I have the Exoteric credentials required for that identity, e.g., a baptism certificate. Maybe I also fulfil the other Exoteric requirements, such as attending church.
But just because I’ve been baptised and gone to church does not mean I have had any significant Esoteric religious experiences. In that case, I can be said to have the Exoteric without the Esoteric.
Conversely, it’s perfectly possible to have an intense esoteric religious experience that has no connection to an Exoteric religious identity or practice, in which case we have the Esoteric without the Exoteric.
In short, although there is always the possibility of having both Exoteric and Esoteric dimensions to our lives and our identities, there is no necessity for this to happen. Much depends on ourselves and the time in which we live. The more common scenario is to have the Exoteric without the Esoteric. In that case, we are just going through the motions of life, fulfilling the Exoteric requirements of work, church, state, etc., without experiencing any substantial Esoteric component.
The reason this is more common is because society is always primarily concerned with the Exoteric aspects of life. The Exoteric institutions of society are demand that you show up and do what is required. Your specific thoughts and feelings about what is going on are less important and therefore nobody is really concerned to find out about them.
The same is true of our own interactions with people outside of our friendship and family groups. When you engage a plumber to come around and fix your kitchen tap, you’re probably not looking for a deep exchange on an emotional or theoretical level.
If the plumber starts going into detail about how they didn’t feel like coming into work today and have been struggling for motivation for many months now and that they’re thinking of quitting the profession to follow their childhood dream of becoming a ballet dancer, you might begin to look for reasons to leave the room. You certainly wouldn’t want the time taken to discuss the plumber’s ballet dreams added to the bill once the tap is fixed.
In short, society has an Exoteric bias and probably always has if we consider that the origins of human language evolved out of the need to warn of Exoteric threats like predators in the vicinity or Exoteric opportunities like coordinating to take down a game animal for dinner. It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, to find that the general culture is lacking in Esoteric understanding. There was a great example of this during Corona that was personally relevant for me.
Prior to Corona, nobody ever talked about the subjective experience of having a cold or flu. A cough, excessive sneezing or blocked nose, and other Exoteric symptoms were the usual properties attributed to the illness, and that was enough evidence to conclude that somebody had a cold or flu. Since “covid” was a supposedly new disease (albeit one caused by the exact same family of viruses that cause colds and flus), it suddenly became not just acceptable but desirable to share one’s experiences about being sick.
One that caught my eye was the idea that “hallucinations” were caused by “covid”. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I can remember almost every flu I’ve ever had because every time I get the flu, I get fever dreams. Fever dreams are most definitely hallucinations. I’ve had some raging fevers that came with equally impressive illusions of the mind. For reference, I’ve tried LSD a couple of times, and my most intense fever dream was more hallucinatory than that (although maybe I just wasn’t buying the right stuff. Shoulda taken the brown acid).
Because I always get fever dreams with the flu, I assumed that everybody else got them too, and it wasn’t until corona that I realised this wasn’t the case. It turns out that just 10% of the population has them, and scientists still have no idea what differentiates us fever dreamers from the other 90%. Reading between the lines, it seems what happened to some people during the Corona hysteria was that they got their first fever dream and then freaked out because they thought “covid” was driving them insane. Doctors were even prescribing antipsychotic medications to such people.
What was lacking was general cultural knowledge about the existence of fever dreams. That’s not surprising given that we have already noted that society in general is not concerned about the Esoteric. It’s also possible that, because “covid” was a supposedly new disease, people became more fixated on the Esoteric states of the illness. It might even be true that the same people would not have noticed or cared about their fever dreams if their illness had been classified as “just the flu.”
We noted above that our identity can be demarcated into four broad areas – political, economic, sexual, and religious. The subject of fever dreams doesn’t fit anywhere on this list. It’s perhaps for that reason that nobody ever talks about it. There might be all kinds of other weird Esoteric experiences each of us have that we assume everybody else also has. We don’t know because it never gets discussed.
In theory, we could turn any of these Esoteric experiences into a part of our Exoteric identity. If I went around telling everybody who would listen about my fever dreams and doing it over and over again, people might start thinking of me as that annoying fever dream guy. If enough other fever dreamers followed suit, we could start a movement. Hey, with 10% of the population, we could even form a political party. The Fever Dream Party: make fever-based hallucinations great again.
Of course, this is never going to happen, and yet it’s not a million miles away from some of the other identity politics that are going on these days. If identity always requires an Esoteric and Exoteric aspect, one way to formalise it is to create an Exoteric dimension for it. Another way is to problematise the Esoteric. We see exactly this going on with the trans and gender issues, which blew up again recently at the Olympics with the women’s boxing controversy.
At the heart of this issue is the desire to allow people to choose their own identity. In relation to the trans children/teenager debate, the mantra that seems to have sprung up around this issue goes something like this: when our children tell us who they are, we should listen to them. In other words, we should allow our children to create their own gender identity.
We know that identity has both an Esoteric and an Exoteric aspect to it. In relation to the gender issue, the Exoteric aspects have historically been considered very straightforward since they have a firm biological basis. On top of that biological basis, however, there has always been a significant amount of socio-political content. Thus, we can divide the Exoteric aspects of gender into biological and socio-political.
Men and women have historically dressed differently, taken on different social roles, etc. Because of that, it’s always been possible to adopt the Exoteric appearance of the other gender and most cultures will have at least a sub-culture around this notion.
It’s also a very common trope in comedy. It takes a central role in the plot of one of the oldest comedies we know of, Aristophanes Ecclesiazusae, where a group of women pretend to be men in order to vote in communist reforms in ancient Athens. Monty Python used the same trick in one of their best sketches—the stoning scene from Life of Brian.
For most of history, you could take on the Exoteric appearance of the other gender by adopting the fashion, makeup, hairstyling, and other standard social tropes. That would give you a socio-political simulation of gender.
These days, thanks to the wonders of modern science, you can get surgical and pharmaceutical interventions to obtain the secondary sex characteristics of the other gender. As far as I’m aware, there is not yet a way to obtain the full primary sex characteristics, although there are some rather Frankensteinian attempts in that direction. In short, we can now significantly alter your gender-related biology too.
Both of these, the biological and socio-political, belong to the Exoteric aspect of gender. What seems to be almost completely missing from the trans debate is the Esoteric dimension. The Esoteric dimension of gender would amount to an answer to the question: what does it feel like to be a man/woman? This is a very simple question that is very difficult to answer.
We have already noted that society does not like to talk about the Esoteric and so it’s not that much of a surprise to find that the question of what it feels like to be a man/woman has been all but completely ignored when it comes to the trans issue. It is simply taken for granted that anybody wanting to transition must already “feel like a man/woman”. Is that actually true?
I recall reading an account from a biological female who had undergone testosterone treatment as part of her “conversion”. She claimed to have been surprised at the feelings of aggression and thoughts of violence that she suddenly started to get. The fact that she was surprised shows that she had not previously felt like a man and only began to do so after the testosterone injections.
When it comes to the primary aspects of our identity—economic, political, sexual, and religious—the Exoteric and Esoteric aspects form a very tight circuit. As with all circular logic, trying to find the “starting point” is difficult, if not impossible. The starting point might be in the Esoteric – I feel like a woman even though I’m in a man’s body—or it might be in the Exoteric – I dressed like a woman and liked the way it felt, therefore I want to be a woman.
What makes things even more difficult is that, in the real world, there is no clear demarcation between the four aspects of identity. Although we’d like to think that “gender” was some distinct object of study, the reality is that it is influenced by the other aspects of our identity. Thus, there is a politics of gender, an economics of gender, and even a theology of gender. The same goes for the politics of work, the economics of work, the theology of work, and so on for all the other combinations.
Because our identity also includes the political, once the gender issue became politicised, the political part became more important. It shouldn’t be a surprise to find that the political also has an Exoteric and an Esoteric dimension and that the focus here has once again been almost entirely on the Exoteric aspects of the debate.
Thus, it is at least a part of the story that what is going on is the political drive to be able to force society to accept the identity that individuals decide for themselves. That drive has now become both a legal and moral norm in many western nations backed up by the Exoteric power of institutions like the International Olympic Committee.
But that political drive also has an Esoteric aspect. Although it’s not exactly what Nietzsche meant, we can call it the will-to-power. Included in this is the larger cultural will-to-power implied by the goal of being able to control our own biology.
The ability to enforce an identity on your own biology is a form of power. The ability to have society recognise your chosen identity is also a form of power. Since both of these are very new forms of power, it seems likely to me that the people who are experimenting with them aren’t even aware that a part of what is really driving them is, in fact, the feeling of power as an end in itself (will-to-power). As with any complex social issue, that is not all that is going on, but it is surely a very important part.
Hi Simon,
When I was a kid, adults used to tell me in all seriousness that I could do ‘anything’. Even as a kid I saw that astounding claim for the lie it was. After all, the adults seemed rather stuck in place by forces greater than them. As an adult I learned that the claim is an issue because if a person does not focus their will, they end up doing very little. And it really is quite challenging to learn to exercise your will. You’d be amazed at the forces arrayed against that particular act.
Never had a fever dream, or an hallucination. Might be missing out there! 🙂
As a person with an INFJ personality type, I could talk about the esoteric dimensions of society all day long. However, I discovered long ago that the intensity of such discussions freaks people out, and so I censor myself. Certainly not my natural inclination.
Also, you discussed the exoteric dimensions of society, and I must say that having worked at the top end of town, the yawning gap between the exoteric and esoteric really disturbed me. To quote Linkin Park: I tried so hard and got so far. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter. It’s true, and so I went off and did other more productive things with my time.
Geez, this was a particularly deep essay. As to the gender issue, have you heard the occult explanation? Sounds quite reasonable. But also I sort of have this vague notion that the issue is being pushed by the elites (which is hardly grassroots is it?) as part of the larger ‘progress’ narrative. The problem there I’m guessing is that there would be people who are genuinely uncomfortable with their gender and taking such a path, and then there’d be others who are swept along for the ride because they’ve failed to take charge of their own will (see above). For the record, I should mention that an old friend’s kid allegedly took his own life after heading down that path. Still don’t know what to make of that, because I believe that there were contributing issues such as evidence of self harm. Hmm.
A very thoughtful analysis you’ve written.
Cheers (although that sounds kind of inappropriate given the subject matter under discussion)
Chris
Hi Simon,
Oops, almost forgot to mention it, but…
In exercising your will, it’s probably a very dangerous path to seek to control the will of other people. In many ways, those new forms of power you wrote about in the concluding paragraph are not healthy for the individual. The harder path is always to begin with oneself. A bit like the difference between say a Sith Lord and a Jedi.
Cheers
Chris
Chris – in some sense, being able to create your identity is not a bad thing, especially when we consider that most people had no choice at all in the matter for most of history. But I’d say the current philosophy of a kind of radical freedom of identity creation is driven by the fact that what preceded it were the various theories that the only thing that mattered was your class, race, nationality, ethnic background etc. We know where that stuff led. So, trying another approach was certainly not a bad thing but it’s been taken way too far now. As JMG is fond of pointing out, the opposite of a bad idea is usually another bad idea.
Hi Simon,
I agree, many of the err, social experiments going on are worthy alone on the basis of merely trying a different path. After all, the Summer of Love era lead to a few back to the land folks staying the course. I was not even born then, but I’ve met a few such folks over the years, and had some really interesting conversations with them. However, your application of Mr Greer’s observation stands correct about the opposite of a bad idea being another bad idea. Your book ‘The Universal State of America’ for example described the attempt to shake off the civilisational archetype of the Tyrannical Father.
Please forgive my cynicism, but what I learned in my climb was that we don’t operate within a meritocracy. And that realisation shook me more than I’d originally cared to admit. At the time I’d believed otherwise. You may have experienced a different side to that larger story, and maybe I just had some odd experiences, but when you wrote about Toynbee’s astute observation as to the dominant minority, the words rang true. Obviously the observation is a sweeping generalisation, but still the currents are there if any but care to look.
Dunno, it’s a tough subject.
Cheers
Chris
Chris – yes, I think I’ve mentioned that one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met was a C-level manager at a large Australian corporation. Last I heard, this particular individual had moved on to an even larger Australia corporation as was in charge of their renewable energy program. The Exoteric-Esoteric distinction is also useful here. There are a lot of people who just learn the right words to use even though they have no idea how to think about the concepts behind the words. That’s also the Exoteric without the Esoteric.
The problem with the identity self creation is that domestic policy is reliant on foreign policy; we don’t live in some peaceful, endless growth utopia. At the first sign of trouble, much of the late stage decadent behaviour is revealed to be completely useless.
Identities were forged over long periods of good and bad times, and were there for a reason. The freedom to create was only possible because of an unprecedented period of wealth, and once it’s gone people will remember it as a ridiculous luxury.
It happens as soon as a couple/family/group really has a go at self sufficient living outside the system. The traditional gender roles come roaring back with a vengeance as cold reality kicks in, but in a strange way I’ve also noticed so does the national/regional identity.
Skip – I think the underlying driver in both cases is at least partly economic. Any kind of economy based on self-sufficiency is, by definition, local. By contrast, post-industrial capitalism requires people who are prepared to change (economic) identity at the drop of a hat. That includes the willingness to move to where the jobs are. When viewed that way, the ideology of the system makes perfect sense as does the alignment between the professional classes and immigrants since both have in common that they are prepared to move to a foreign country for work.
Hi Simon,
Yeah, it is a good example of the exoteric without the esoteric. A meritocracy tends to weed out such silliness, but alas, we don’t live with such a system.
You’ve got me thinking on this subject. There is a tendency for the belief that our leaders have secure personalities, when this may not in fact be the case. One of the ways this plays out is that a work environment can be created and maintained which suggests to employees: Sure you might be good, but don’t get uppity, because we can replace you, with anybody. It’s hard to know, but some of that sort of thinking is I reckon behind what you were writing about in this weeks essay. Probably why the push is not from the grassroots level but rather the elites. Keeps people off balance, gives them something else to argue and fight about, as distinct from questioning matters such as say, I dunno, wealth inequality and the absurd levels of debt story.
There is a great deal of societal risk with such strategies, and for the elites themselves, for what they contemplate, they imitate.
It’s hard to know really, because the elites aren’t an homogeneous group, and I doubt very much they’re all on the same team.
Cheers
Chris
Chris – there is a flip side to that which is that as an employee you get to leave any time you like. Obviously, the attractiveness of that option relies on the market conditions at the time and also the type of job, but it is of benefit to be able to change jobs when you’re not getting anything out of it anymore or if you can get more money elsewhere.
Systems require a level of interchangability in order to be stable. I’ve seen companies where that doesn’t happen and where one or two people are holding everything together. If such people learn their own value they can actually hold a company to ransom by threatening to leave. I’ve seen that happen too. Companies get around that by standardising everything.