The real conceptual fallacies go far beyond Descartes.

Good and bad are not some cosmic conflict between righteousness and evil, but the basic biological binary of beneficial and determental. The 1/0 of sentience. Even bacteria get it.

A spiritual absolute would not be an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell, but the essence of sentience, from which we rise.

Conflating the ideal, which is aspirational, with the absolute, which is elemental, causes every ideology to see their ideals as universal and beyond question. The long shadow of god.

We are that tension between desire and judgement. The heart and the head. Motor and steering. Youth and age. Liberal and conservative.

It cycles between expansion and consolidation, like the seasons.

People are part of nature and we can't ignore the parts we don't like. We can't prescribe oughts, if we don't accept the is. The fact is that we can't have our cake and eat it too, no matter what the comercials say. Not every acorn gets to be an oak tree and unless people make some of the selections, nature will do it for us.

It is more a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, than winner take all. What really matters isn't winning, but how you play the game. History doesn't much care who wins, only how well they play, even if they have to drink the hemlock, get nailed to a cross, or burned at the stake. The rich just get rotten children.

The bull is power. The matador is art.