# Ultimate Reality and Its Dissidents Author: [[Graeme Snooks]] ## Review This is the capstone book to Snooks' 50 year-long research project and long list of books. He discusses ethics, good and evil, human freedom and tries to provide an answer for how we should live our life, based on his research on history, society, the human mind, religion, and philosophy. He starts off by quickly reviewing the conclusions of his past books. He uses a lot of jargon introduced in previous book, which would put off any new reader and to be honest, it can often be a bit much for a seasoned reader of his books like myself. Simply put, he argues that all humans are driven by the need to survive and prosper, and they will do whatever is necessary to make that happen. We receive signals from the emergent social system about how we should act in order to achieve our survival and prosperity. The purpose and goal of (all) life is to keep this process, or life-system, going. We hide our true motives behind beliefs systems, about ourself and others, that are not necessarily true but are useful and help us get by in society. Self-deception is a key mechanism for people to successfully navigate life. His ideas of ethics, and how we should conduct ourselves in life, are derived from this worldview. He refers to those who act in accordance with the perpetuation of the life-system as 'strategic agents'. There are also non-strategic agents who remove themselves from the strategic pursuit (Buddhists, Monks, Jesus' and his disciples). Then there are anti-strategic agents who actively destroy or interfere with those who are acting strategically to survive and prosper. Society often views non-strategic agents as morally superior but he argues that this is a facade because they rely on the activity of the rest of society to survive and prosper. If everybody did the same thing society would fail to function: 'Goodness is only good in small doses'. He also points out various historical belief systems that are anti-strategic because they interfere with the proper functioning of the life system. These include Nazism, Marxism, and ecofascism although he points out a few more examples. He provides two good indicators that something is anti-strategic. If one group of people is trying to control the actions of another group, or actions are being taken to satisfy some metaphysical belief system. As for the strategists they are doing what is necessary to survive and prosper, but have limited freedom because their choices are constrained to helping the life system along. Rather than withdrawing from the strategic pursuit, or actively working against it, the author's solution is to 'wrestle' with it. By foregoing trivial aspects of strategic pursuits and reclaiming some freedom by removing constraints put in place by strategic pursuit. In the last section of the book he outlines what behaviours are consistent with 'wrestling' rather than following the strategic pursuit, and I would agree with some of the characteristics he outlines as important: truth-seeking, courage, honesty. Yet, paradoxically his idea of wrestling the strategic pursuit is itself a metaphysical ideal, which is how he classifies anti-strategic behaviour. Ultimately we all have to find belief systems that help us lead a meaningful life, but I was surprised by this contradiction in his conclusion. What I took from his discussion on ethics, and contrary to his conclusion, is that the most ethical behaviour is to find paths towards better strategies for the life system. While he equates this with sacrificing freedom, I would argue that probing the boundaries of existing strategies, and searching for better strategies for successful survival and prosperity, is the ultimate expression of freedom. With all that said, the author's books are critically underappreciated. He is very good at summarizing and relating a range of perspective, and then framing questions in a new way, providing unique and helpful insights. He is a great writer, historian and philosopher. ## Key Ideas ## Related - [[The Human Imperative|Survive and Prosper]] - [[The Dynamic Society]] - [[Resources/Philosophy/The Death of Zarathustra]]