In Defense of the IDEAL

Kything 001

An Ouranian Chronicles Meditation

Are our best days behind us, or do they still lie ahead? 

Philosophers have been on both sides of this issue. Some, like the Pythagoreans, have dreamed of a Golden Past, a time when the gods ruled the cosmos in perfect wisdom with us walking among them, strolling arm-in-arm about the Milky Way. Others, like Aristotle, believed that perfection should be sought in the far future, so far in fact that it marks the end of time, and that mortals like us—caught midstream between a hazy, rudimentary past, and the brightest of futures—are yearning with every fiber of our being to unite with what lies ahead, if only to become what we were meant to be. 

Scores of books have quarreled over the location of the Ideal, where or when it might take place—because it certainly cannot be found in the present, can it? Not if we look at the state of the world around us. Perhaps the Ideal “resides” beyond time and space, shuttered behind some pearly gates, or in the elusiveness of Nirvana? Or should we believe a new breed of “apostles” who claim there is no such thing as the Ideal? Bedecked in the mantle of science they paint such notions as delusions, foolishness, and self-deception. “There never was such a state nor will there be. From chaos we’ve come and in chaos we’ll end, our supposed existence nothing but a droplet in an ocean of entropy and disorder.” Or so they claim.

Yet the rest of us are somewhere in the middle between all these wannabe certainties and their champions. We still yearn for the Ideal, as hard as it may be at times to dream it. We know it is there somehow, not even that far away, reachable—we wouldn’t dare to bring children into the world if we believed otherwise. Our concept of the Ideal allows us to formulate standards, provides us with a measuring gauge for progress and betterment—by telling us how far we have come, and how much longer we have to go. No plan can be conceived without some notion of an Ideal, or what the Ideal might be. Without it, the word “should” would have no meaning. Nor would concepts like, “good,” “healthy,” “fine,” “beautiful,” “excellent,” and “just right.” We would lose so much if we lose the notion of the Ideal, not only who we are, but also who we aim to be.      

Who then speaks for us? Who speaks for those who haven’t given up on excellence and perfection, who continue to seek it in everything they do? Some of us associate the Ideal with a sense of spirituality or moral guidance. What is conscience if not an inner GPS meant to keep us on the straight and narrow? 

I ask again, who speaks for the rest of us? For the artists who are able to seize the Ideal, to nurture and polish it until it can be seen by all? Or for the peace-bringers who oppose all war, suffering, and destruction? Or for the healers who seek to cure, to mend, to alleviate all suffering? Or for the explorers who are always looking beyond the next hill, mountain, ocean, or even planet in search for a better place? And there are so many more of us who dare to dream, to dream of a better world.     

As dreamers, we cannot be so conceited that we would deny the possibility of the Ideal. Some of us even deem it divine in some sense. How else are we to explain the connection we occasionally feel with something greater or more lasting than our mortal frame? Most of us don’t dare to consider our share of wisdom as unquestionable as do the prevailing spate of atheist barkers on YouTube—eager to proselytize their non-belief beliefs with a self-righteous zealotry that would make a televangelist blush. Yet many of us are also not comforted by the image of a white-bearded man in the sky, whose ways have become as inscrutable to us, as ours are to Him. The Ideal is not inscrutable, nor would it abandon us. Why else are we in the world if not to bring it about?   

For this reason, the Ouranian Chronicles Series (OC for short) proposes a third if forgotten way—one that is far removed from the well-trodden paths frequented by zealots, whatever their shades or persuasions. It resurrects an idea that may have the power to transcend the extremes, or at least remove their sting. 

What if there are causes that defy physicality, I mean physicality as we define it today? Intelligences that do not tamper with our natural laws, yet that could still influence us in untold ways? Perhaps by means of our conscience? Or our imagination? Our longings for a better world? What if our nobler impulses originate from rational entities who reach out to us from the Ideal, muse-like beings who know how we might arrive there sooner? Because they may have crossed the same precarious path we are on, without blowing themselves up along the way? 

Accordingly, the OC does not require a pantheon of almighty gods to explain our existence, or why we are here. Nor does the work seek to repudiate “divine” intervention as self-delusion, while attributing all causality to particle theory, chance, and vacuum fluctuations. 

Instead a different thought-experiment is proposed: What if the “gods” are us? Us in the Ideal? In the form of our Better, nay, our Best version of Self? Let your imagination run wild: What would the best version of you be like? And would striving for this ideal you change your life as you know it? 

One of the exciting aspects of playing this kind of intellectual game is the possibility of reconciling the spiritual with the material. What better candidate for the “god from the machine” than us?

Hear me out please. Is evolution not a process that predictably proceeds from simplicity to complexity—which we also know as improvement? What if the course of our development—especially if we learn to steer our betterment—brings us nearer and nearer to an Ideal state? An Ideal state designed by us, according to our highest norms and standards. Who is then to say that those of us who make it to the Ideal (let’s say a Type II-III civilization on the Kardashev scale*) would not look for ways to reach out to their predecessors, to guide them in the right direction—if only to lessen the pain of progress, or help to avoid dead-end civilizations, and other societal cul-de-sacs? 

In short, what if we’ve already met our “gods,” and they are us? Us, in the ideal?

Yes, this is one of the themes the Ouranian Chronicles Series explores. I can admit as much.

Rest assured that despite the apparent loftiness of its philosophical subjects, the work is a historical adventure novel at heart. This I can promise. It also borrows heavily from the detective story format, as well as from speculative fiction. The plot however relies almost exclusively on its characters—to the point that the work could be regarded as an “epic love story in three acts”—as one of my editors put it. Personally, I leave such judgments to the reader.

Arnold Hermann, author of the Ouranian Chronicles 

17 September 2023, updated 30 June 2024