George Hay: The Ideology of an Explosion
If we consider the ideologies studies in s.i., in terms of what they are actually doing, we can look at them also in ways which will enable us to give them action definitions, which relate them dynamically, and will perhaps help us more easily to predict their results. Thus, let us start with the protostatic, and look at them as though we were considering the start-point of a process. The process in question is an explosion. More exactly, it is the moment just preceding an explosion. A protostat is a body or individual who is in stasis: he is thus resisting an explosion. His whole effort is to resist change, and we can therefore describe him as Stasis-determined.
The epistat accepts change which is based on the behaviour of his peer group – rather as a molecule is affected by Brownian motion. While some might consider him conservative, he is in fact quite sensitive to the movement of social mores about him. If these speed up, so will he. He is in the beginning of an explosion. Call him Custom-determined.
The parastat is changing more rapidly, is in a constant state of explosion, though this explosion is still early on in its evolution, and a large part of his attention is still on the small point from which he emerged. He is Change-determined.
The protodynamic is wholly convinced that explosions are good things, but he does not think they should exceed a certain rate-of-change. Each expansion of the outer rim of the explosion links closely to the point just preceding it. He is Evolution-determined.
The epidynamic is moving towards the end of the cycle of action of this explosion. Graduations of change are no longer important, in fact sudden changes are desirable to him. He is Revolution -determined.
With the paradynamic we come to the end of the explosion. Everything must vanish, including himself. If you were watching an actual explosion, you would at this point see its vanishment. The paradynamic is Abolition-determined.
The use of these terms enables us more easily to understand and predict the behaviour, not only of individual conservatives, anarchists etc., but of whole groups, nations, societies. If this set of definitions is presented diagrammatically, in circular form, you will see the protostatic as a small hard dot in the centre, the epistatic as the next circle expanding around him, and so forth, with the paradynamic forming the vanishing outer ring of the whole explosion. The protostatic will of course be the most weighty and massive, and the paradynamic the lightest, speediest and briefest.
As a criticism, it may be said that this is a reductionist view: life behaviour as a branch of physics. While I would agree with this, I would remind the critic that we are in fact viewing the whole explosion from a remove viewpoint, and that we are not in face necessarily identified with that which we are viewing. Because we have bodies, it does not of necessity follow that we are bodies… a study of the verb, to be, can work wonders for one’s mental flexibility.
from Ideological Commentary 7, April 1980.