Saturnists

When it comes to archetypes, I prefer to talk about Saturn rather than Satan. The two are in fact the same being. However, due to an excess of demonic attributes, Satan has been turned into an ugly monster, pretty much useless as an archetype. Saturn on the other hand has retained his original interpretation as a being convinced of his superiority to God. To avoid confusions, and tone down the demonic side of this spirit, I talk of saturnists rather than satanists.

A saturnist is a person convinced that God's creations can not only be managed, but made better through wise decision making. Why stick with the imperfect world created by God, when we can go for perfection?

What makes this line of thinking convincing is that we do know that nature must be managed in order to produce fruits. We have to plant seeds and tend our garden in order to reap our rewards. God does not do this for us. It is our task to make the best of what we got.

It is also clear that we can produce all sorts of goods from nature. We can build comfortable homes. We can produce fine foods and luxury items. We can have entertainment and prosperity. Even diseases and all kinds of wants can be overcome.

From this it seems like man, rather than God, is the ultimate creator and that we can create anything we wish. However, there are limits to what we can do. We cannot produce something from nothing. We cannot improve on thing through coercion, and we cannot simply take something if it does not belong to us.

Saturn leads good men astray by suggesting that a better world can be created through coercion, entitlement and hierarchy. A popular saturnist belief is that we can achieve riches through debt and consumption. Another saturnist belief is that we can get rid of vice through coercion. By making drugs illegal, we can rid ourselves of drug addiction. By taking children from parents, we can rid society of unhappy childhoods. By taxing the rich, we can rid ourselves of poverty.

The typical politician is a saturnist. He promises to make the world a better place through coercion and entitlements. Those who believe this to be possible are also saturnists. People expecting things to get better through legislation rather than voluntary interaction are saturnists, whether they know this or not.

By this standard, our entire society is predominantly saturnist. Very few people believe in voluntary interaction and peaceful coexistence. Entitlement, coercion and hierarchy is by far the preferred mode when it comes to social organization.

Where this will end is well known. We know what happened to the Romans and their empire. We know what happened to the English empire. All man made constructs based on coercion and entitlement lead to ruin. After the first two horsemen of the apocalypse follow the two last ones, and those who are caught unaware suffer greatly.

By Martin Falbisoner - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link