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#14882250
If we accept the idea that Christian progressivism eventually turned countries based upon Aristotle's conception of philia and tradition into shared currency zones based upon material desires and orgia, what happens once the market zones are no longer the largest economy? What's it like for millions of people to live for something they are second rate at?
#14882421
Hong Wu wrote:If we accept the idea that Christian progressivism eventually turned countries based upon Aristotle's conception of philia and tradition into shared currency zones based upon material desires and orgia,


Explain what you mean here, and to which time you are referring. I don't want to launch into a critique if I don't know your meaning. Especially if I could possibly agree.
#14882516
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Explain what you mean here, and to which time you are referring. I don't want to launch into a critique if I don't know your meaning. Especially if I could possibly agree.

I guess it is pretty vague. I view western multiculturalism as sort of like a materialization of Christian progressiveness, by which I mean progress towards a judgment day or era of peace that is good for most people. Although this was originally described in spiritual/magical/metaphysical terms, modern western, multicultural utopianism seems like an attempt to make something like this into a material reality. Mixing races too much though eliminates that sense of fundamental unity that anyone can understand. The EU and to a lesser degree the US are not based upon this racial philia and in a sense they are not even really nations, they are just market zones that use the same currency as each other. The goal is also not to produce philia/tradition but to consume and enjoy themselves (which is what I mean by the term orgia; it's possible that this behavior is related to the same phenomenon that created early Dionysian cults). In going abroad and seeing places where most people are of the same race, where there's still somewhat shared art forms (or at least themes) and so-on, I believe I see places that function as nations in a subtly different way than the west does.

I think one hangup the west has is that they are actually relatively late-comers to the game of civilization and the problem is that they don't know it. To some degree it's natural to attach yourself to ancient empires but the truth is that most westerners were never really Roman outside of Italy, yet the west still views themselves as a sort of apotheosis of the Romans. Another issue with this is the dichotomy between high fertility and degeneracy that seems to exists as an expectation in the west. Liberals hold it just as much as conservatives, this is why they assume that the natural outcome of "whiteness" (by which they mean white western-ness) is high fertility and attempting world domination. By the time western civilization developed into a powerful form, a lot of things had already been developed by other peoples and the human fertility rate really shot up in the west first but prior to this happening there were generative, developed civilizations that had lower or even somewhat stable fertility rates. So the dichotomy that I believe exists in the west between disappearing or reproducing a lot and conquering everything is not strictly necessary, western people just think it is because the west developed so suddenly into world powers. The truth is probably that even the Arabs are older than the west. Western people convinced themselves that they were both the scions and the originators of modernity but they were in many ways actually late adopters who can't distinguish between culture and power, so if they reject culture and power (like liberals do) they seem to presume a movement towards their opposites, something that I'm not convinced is necessary.
#14882676
Hong Wu wrote:I guess it is pretty vague. I view western multiculturalism as sort of like a materialization of Christian progressiveness, by which I mean progress towards a judgment day or era of peace that is good for most people. Although this was originally described in spiritual/magical/metaphysical terms, modern western, multicultural utopianism seems like an attempt to make something like this into a material reality. Mixing races too much though eliminates that sense of fundamental unity that anyone can understand. The EU and to a lesser degree the US are not based upon this racial philia and in a sense they are not even really nations, they are just market zones that use the same currency as each other. The goal is also not to produce philia/tradition but to consume and enjoy themselves (which is what I mean by the term orgia; it's possible that this behavior is related to the same phenomenon that created early Dionysian cults). In going abroad and seeing places where most people are of the same race, where there's still somewhat shared art forms (or at least themes) and so-on, I believe I see places that function as nations in a subtly different way than the west does.


I. Clarification On Christianity's Lineal View of Time v. The Leftist Progressive Views of Time.

Okay, so in the sense that "progressivism" here means a lineal view of history culminating in an eschaton, there is definitely a parallel with leftists dialectics of history; however, I wonder whether or not this comparison is only correlative (and here I disagree with Spengler and some others).

It seems to me, that Hegel, developing a rather non-Christian philosophy of the absolute, did not consider Christian motives when developing his notion of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and likewise, that Marx more-or-less took his own dialectical approach to history from Hegel.

Indeed, one could argue that progressive schemas developed independently of Christian eschatology in the 19th century. Whether or not St. Augustine's "City of God" approach to history was a subtle and unconscious influence on Hegel; and therefore Marx, I would say is highly speculative.

In fact, the obsession with "human progress" in late 19th century- early 20th century liberal "Christians" seems to be based on Marxism influencing Christianity and not the other way around, and then the obsessive pessimist eschatologies of dispensationalism (following the theological discrediting of Liberal Christian eschatology in the World Wars), came only as a reaction to these progressive views of history.

Indeed, Christian eschatology, in the main reformation, papist, and eastern churches, always played a minor theological role. The obsession with the end times in the 20th and 21st centuries is sort of an anomaly in church history (perhaps with the exception of the first century A.D.).

Historically, all of these bodies (making up the vase majority of Christians) always held to either a-millennial or a firmly theological post-millennialism; wherein, the main point of both systems was that Christ was reigning over the world in triumph from the time of His ascension until the time in which He returns to judge the quick and the dead.

A-millennialism, which most of these churches held to with the partial exception in some of the Reformed churches (about 20% of which are post-mil) held that Christ's return could more-or-less come at any time. This is not a doctrine congruent with progressivism, progressivism cannot affirm a potentially-immanent end at any time (the proletariat has a long way to go after all).

So, i'm not entirely sold on all the hype that a Christian linear view of history (which indeed does reject Nietzsche's eternal recurrence) is somehow a real causal ancestor to liberal progressivism and marxism. I think Hegel is the real father of that monstrosity, not Christianity. To impute modern eschatological frameworks into the historical antecedents of Marxism is anachronistic.

II. Christianity and Nationalism, Christianity and Empire.

1. Christianity always taught, in Scripture, the authority of kings and caesars, and their obligation to maintain, even by force, the authority of the True Religion, against all others. (the Bible's political theology is quite anti-republican and anti-constitutional).

2. Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the state religion of Rome when such was only 13% of the population and did so out of a belief that the values of such were beneficial for Rome. Obviously scholars, then and now, have debated whether this was true and whether such a religious worldview shift led to the fall of the Roman Empire.

That being said,

I would argue that such a Christianization of Rome led to Rome's preservation in the formation of the west. Unlike other civilizations that collapsed, like the Sumerians for instance, the Roman tradition was well preserved by Christian scholars and led to the real formation of Western civilization. No greater example being that of Alcuin establishing classical education in the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne (which may be the most underrated event in the last 2000 years).

The heritage of the Roman Emperor as absolute monarch and Christian ruler continued to be the model for what it means to be western. The two headed eagle representing church and state ended up on the flags and seals of most western nations, the titles of tsar and kaiser, were modeled after Caesar, every great empire, other than England, sought recognition from the Pope as the new Roman emperor, whether it was the Hapsburgs or Napolean.

This Constantinian attutude also has nationalist aspects, the reformation churches, over and against the pope, argued that the state had authority over its church, not the pope. This is why you have the Church of Scotland, Church of England, Church of Denmark, etc, etc., and the doctrine of cuis regio cuis religio (if in the ruler's land, one is to follow the ruler's religion) which came in the context of the wars of religion and the peace of Westphalia, which defined the modern west and its attitudes (for better or worse).

Both the sense of "western Christendom" and "Empire" and the contrary sense of "nationalism" and "state churches" came from and were fostered by Christianity and its preservation of its Roman, especially Constantinian, heritage.

Hong Wu wrote:I think one hangup the west has is that they are actually relatively late-comers to the game of civilization and the problem is that they don't know it. To some degree it's natural to attach yourself to ancient empires but the truth is that most westerners were never really Roman outside of Italy, yet the west still views themselves as a sort of apotheosis of the Romans. Another issue with this is the dichotomy between high fertility and degeneracy that seems to exists as an expectation in the west. Liberals hold it just as much as conservatives, this is why they assume that the natural outcome of "whiteness" (by which they mean white western-ness) is high fertility and attempting world domination. By the time western civilization developed into a powerful form, a lot of things had already been developed by other peoples and the human fertility rate really shot up in the west first but prior to this happening there were generative, developed civilizations that had lower or even somewhat stable fertility rates. So the dichotomy that I believe exists in the west between disappearing or reproducing a lot and conquering everything is not strictly necessary, western people just think it is because the west developed so suddenly into world powers. The truth is probably that even the Arabs are older than the west. Western people convinced themselves that they were both the scions and the originators of modernity but they were in many ways actually late adopters who can't distinguish between culture and power, so if they reject culture and power (like liberals do) they seem to presume a movement towards their opposites, something that I'm not convinced is necessary.


There is a lot to unpack here, but I want to address a few things.

I. Western Civilization in relation to others.

You made the remark above that westerners were late to the game of civilization. I must ask,

late relative to what?

As Spengler rightly notes, cultures arise with their own unique prime-symbol and form language, that is, they have their own manner of interpreting reality. Thus, the arising of western civilization came whenever a people, regardless of their prior origins, developed their own unique interpretive framework for reality.

Spengler believes this came from the Nordo-Germanic conception of infinite space; regardless of whether you agree with him or not, the main thrust is this: You cannot be late to civilization, civilization arises naturally out of cultures who successfully develop and expand their worldview inasmuch as such feeds and fuels the natural human tendency to dominate others.

Nietzsche's critique of Darwinism is spot-on when it comes to this, it is not in nature to merely survive, but to dominate, control, expand, and destroy. The Will-to-Power.

In judging western civilization, we must (1) look at its collective accomplishments (assuming an agreed-upon definition of civilization) and (2) see if its degree of success is unique and then (lastly) look at its worldview and compare the tenants of that worldview with the will-to-power implicit in human nature.

II. Western Civilization's Success As Unique.

Latin Christianity espoused a strong Augustinian sense of divine providence and just-war theory as well as a call to subjugate and convert all nations, it affirmed an absolute state (whether national or imperial), women submitting to their husbands, being fruitful and multiplying, and subduing the earth, etc, etc. These were clearly inscripturated teaching (in contrast to the pagans that did not have clear and coherent "scriptural authorities" like the Abrahamic faiths did).

What we see is this, Western Civilization, by every metric, was and is the greatest civilization in human history. Period.

The accomplishments of the British Empire alone, barring every other empire that came from the west, ALONE would confirm this as a FACT.

The West's success as a civilization comes from a natural vitality of the Germanic peoples combined with the teachings of Christianity, and the intellectual tradition of Rome (which was preserved and transmitted by Christians in the West).

This combination created a perfect storm that created the west and its ability to conquer, not just by land, but by sea, that further helped it to expand and preserve this civilization in a manner that is unprecedented.

This is not progressivism, this is superiority. A superiority coming from a combination of virtue, values, and vitality held together by a worldview that upheld such.

Leftist globalism is the skeleton of western conquest that has been co-opted by a godless class of self-loathing parasites, who use money to make this skeleton dance on the stings it pulls.

(This is why it seems like we are only market-zones. This is how the elite, like in Davos, want to define "their" territory. This is why I call them parasites. They have co-opted something tangible and glorious and have tried to define it as mediocre, immoral, and undefinable beyond the social contract and the mighty dollar.)

Those of us traditionalists, who remain, are like pieces of old flesh that still cling to the ribs of this skeleton, begging the puppet-masters to not let the ants in to devour whats left of the mighty muscles of a once mighty civilization.

How did we get here?

Let me explain in response to your critique of the classic Dichotomy.

III. A Critique of Your Critique.

the dicotomy of decadence & decay v. reproduction and conquest, is valid and here is why:

1. Man is motivated by domination, not merely survival, this is the core of his human nature.

2. Man's domination, when successful, results in prosperity.

3. When man lies in his prosperity, without continued conquest and expansion, he becomes weak, sick, and self-loathing, just like a former athlete who becomes rich will die from obesity, drug-abuse, and depression once he stops his athleticism.

All civilizations have done this, I don't know where you get this idea that they didn't.

They begin with high fertility, religiosity, and militarism, and not long after these actions stabilize, they decline and fall.

J.D. Unwin acknowledges this in his work Sex and Culture: He argues that within four generations from the political enfranchisement and expansion of the sexual opportunity of women, a civilization will collapse. All civilizations have done this.

Likewise, he notes, of every recorded tribe, that the ones that were the most sexually decadent, were the least developed.

Women could vote in 1920 and 1973 marked the opening of all sexual opportunity for women in the United States.

The clock is ticking.

If Unwin is correct, there is no turning back. We will fall to a more patriarchal, reproductive, religious, and conquering people. There have been no historical exceptions to this trend.

Unless we are special (which I believe) and we reverse this thing, somehow. ;)
#14882888
I don't know why you take Hegel's philosophy to be so disconnected from Christianity. He was a lifelong Lutheran, strongly influenced by the mystical writings of Jakob Böhme, and in the end a Christian triumphalist. Karl Barth once described him as a "Protestant Aquinas." He may have been engaging with the ideas of Kant and Spinoza, but it was Marx who secularized him. His philosophy in itself was thoroughly religious.

I would add that the Christian eschatological view of time in terms of divine Providence is an inheritance from Judaism and its sacred view of history. While other religions have their own eschatology (many involving the end of one cycle and the beginning of another), Judaism set itself apart by seeing the hand of God as present throughout the course of world events, leading toward some greater purpose. We can see the seriousness with which the Jews treated history in the fact that their scriptures record not just their triumphant victories but also their humiliating defeats. What's more, they contain the words of the prophets who foretold of those humiliating defeats as divine judgment for their disobedience to God and betrayal of their covenant with Him. By seeing Providence not only in their triumphs but in their downfalls, they saw God as the author of History. Christianity has often struggled to reconcile this view with the more transcendent, timeless philosophy of Neoplatonism, but has maintained enough of its Jewish inheritance to always maintain some concept of Sacred History.

It is true that a particular brand of eschatological thinking that is popular today took off in the 19th century. This view, known as "premillennialism," preaches that when certain world events come to pass, Jesus will return and bring about the millennium, when the world will be transformed and a dawning of a new age begun. What the Catholic and Orthodox churches have long held is that the "millennium," though not referring to a literal thousand-year period, had already begun with the founding of the church. This is how the church conceived of its mission in the world: Not only to bring about the salvation of souls, but the transformation of the world. This position is often referred to as "amillennialism." A position called "postmillennialism," espoused by both progressive reform movements and some rather reactionary Reconstructionist churches, holds that the millennium has not yet begun, but will be brought about by the eventual triumph of the church, at the end of which Christ finally return. For both amillennialism and postmillennialism, the church's role is itself eschatological in nature.
#14882943
Paradigm wrote:I don't know why you take Hegel's philosophy to be so disconnected from Christianity. He was a lifelong Lutheran, strongly influenced by the mystical writings of Jakob Böhme, and in the end a Christian triumphalist. Karl Barth once described him as a "Protestant Aquinas." He may have been engaging with the ideas of Kant and Spinoza, but it was Marx who secularized him. His philosophy in itself was thoroughly religious.


This is a highly exaggerated claim. Hegel was wicked and immoral man (an adulterer) and he supported an "established" church only because he believed in its connection to the authority of the state which is the highest manifestation of the Absolute on earth. "religious" is a relative term here, Hegel argued for some conception of God and some conception of the Deity of Jesus, but that was still pretty vogue, but it was all rationalized and subsumed under a theory that was essentially pantheistic. Many of these problems were well pointed out by Soren Kierkegaard. Likewise, the Presuppositional apologist Cornelius Van Til, who helped lead the way to the formation of Westminster Seminary and conservative Calvinism in the early 20th century, wrote his dissertation critiquing the tendency of using absolutist idealism (like that of McTaggart, who was a Neo-Hegelian) to defend Christianity in increasingly liberal theological circles. This is also confirmed by the fact Hegel's arguments became the standard defense of established and medicore religion in places like Denmark (which is why Kierkegaard attacked both Hegel and the established church from the perspective of Christian existentialism). Van Til's dissertation "God and the Absolute" demonstrated quite clearly that this pantheistic monism was not compatible with Christian theism in the least, and he argued such based on three grounds: One: Christianity affirms reality to be differentiated between Creator and creation (Absolutist idealism cannot make this distinction), Two: God must be the absolute and cannot be in any way be equal or subordinate to such (which would have been anathema to Hegel), and Three: such an "Absolute" must be grounded in Trinitarianism (One and Many) and not in Absolute monism, monism cannot explain the unity and diversity of human thought (Transcendental preconditions).

Furthermore, my critique of Hegel, was not that he was secular or religious, but that his system of thought was inherently progressive and must be differentiated from both Christian eschatology and the Traditionalist worldview of the Far-Right.

It is anachronistic to take 20th century progressivism and christian eschatology and impute such upon classical christian thought; however, it would not be inaccurate to say that such developments can be directly traced back to Hegel, whether through Marx or not. Hegel is the father of progressivism (and Marxism), not Christianity.

Paradigm wrote:I would add that the Christian eschatological view of time in terms of divine Providence is an inheritance from Judaism and its sacred view of history. While other religions have their own eschatology (many involving the end of one cycle and the beginning of another), Judaism set itself apart by seeing the hand of God as present throughout the course of world events, leading toward some greater purpose. We can see the seriousness with which the Jews treated history in the fact that their scriptures record not just their triumphant victories but also their humiliating defeats. What's more, they contain the words of the prophets who foretold of those humiliating defeats as divine judgment for their disobedience to God and betrayal of their covenant with Him. By seeing Providence not only in their triumphs but in their downfalls, they saw God as the author of History


Though I would not use your language of "inheriting from Judaism," I don't disagree with any of this in substance.

Paradigm wrote: What the Catholic and Orthodox churches have long held is that the "millennium," though not referring to a literal thousand-year period, had already begun with the founding of the church. This is how the church conceived of its mission in the world: Not only to bring about the salvation of souls, but the transformation of the world. This position is often referred to as "amillennialism." A position called "postmillennialism," espoused by both progressive reform movements and some rather reactionary Reconstructionist churches, holds that the millennium has not yet begun, but will be brought about by the eventual triumph of the church, at the end of which Christ finally return. For both amillennialism and postmillennialism, the church's role is itself eschatological in nature.


This was basically what I was arguing when I said:

Victoribus Spolia wrote:Indeed, Christian eschatology, in the main reformation, papist, and eastern churches, always played a minor theological role. The obsession with the end times in the 20th and 21st centuries is sort of an anomaly in church history (perhaps with the exception of the first century A.D.).

Historically, all of these bodies (making up the vase majority of Christians) always held to either a-millennial or a firmly theological post-millennialism; wherein, the main point of both systems was that Christ was reigning over the world in triumph from the time of His ascension until the time in which He returns to judge the quick and the dead.

A-millennialism, which most of these churches held to with the partial exception in some of the Reformed churches (about 20% of which are post-mil) held that Christ's return could more-or-less come at any time. This is not a doctrine congruent with progressivism, progressivism cannot affirm a potentially-immanent end at any time (the proletariat has a long way to go after all).


Keep in mind though, that there were a minority that held to what is called "Historic premillennialism," including Polycarp. The late 19th century premillennialism you and I are referring to must be distinguished from the historic system of premillenialism held by some of the fathers. The Dispensational paradigm argues that Jews are God's true people and that they will be restored after the rapture-and tribulation in the 1,000 year millennium; whereas, historic premillennialism does not argue for either the rapture or the belief that the Jews remain the true people of God simply in virtue of being Jewish.

I just don't want onlookers to lump the minority of historic premillennialists in with the border-line heretical judaising dispensationalists, simply because both affirm Christ's second coming will occur before the millennial era.
#14885566
The 'Sacred' signs & symptoms of consciousness... Social constructivism (ists, isms, and ologies). Permutations in the ever-expanding process.
Paradigm wrote:I don't know why you take a dead person's philosophy to be so disconnected from a religious myth. He was a lifelong biochemical reaction, strongly influenced by the morphological field (past & present) and the writings of a dead dude, and in the end a mythological archetype. A dead person once described him as a "label." He may have been engaging with the ideas of dead folk, but it was a dead person who influenced him. His mythology in itself was thoroughly mythological.

Hey guys, can I discuss tribal myths and rearrange visual symbols too? How many second-hand thoughts can you fit in one sentence? I'm just colliding with sensation here, absorbing stimuli and going through the motions. Let me know when you unravel the 'truth.' By truth, I mean THE TRUTH, not (y)our truth. Wait... that's impossible, because you're a living piece of THE TRUTH, soOoOo involved in 'it,'you're unable to see through 'it.' That's why you write long-boring paragraphs and discuss/dissect existential nuance. Luckily, other folks are just as absorbed by 'it,' so eventually someone... somewhere... will listen to your interpretation of interpretations (aka, bullshit). ;) I'm not an oracle or prophet, but I bet you'll gain some 1s & 0s.
#14885757
@Victoribus Spolia I respect you a lot but I think some of our values are different. My personal metaphysical beliefs prevent me from concluding that conquest is defacto proof of greatness, so I don't believe that British or Spanish or French civilization has been the "greatest" civilization.

There was this American sociologist, I think his name was Carl Zimmerman, who argued that civilizations go through cycles of the nuclear family, then atomistic, then tribalistic. He seemed to believe that each time the atomistic stage is staved off, a civilization "survives" for longer and grows more powerful but at the same time it also becomes more brittle. Western civilization was pretty brittle by the time the pill came along. Did the pill cause this or was it a manifestation of existing metaphysical principles (since the precursors to the "sexual revolution" are clearly demonstrable well before the pill was invented) or was it something else? There's one of my deep thinks for the day.

If western civilization is the greatest, it should be able to survive its own superiority but the values of reproducing a lot and conquering the world are facing unforeseen obstacles in modern times.

My personal metaphysical beliefs, vaguely stated, is that reincarnation is a thing but that people are supposed to "transcend" from the earth and when a civilization does well in terms of the number of people transcending, it gains in temporal power but once those souls have left, all that is left is a shell of the transcendental process that is of little to no spiritual use to most of those who remain, at which point the civilization decides that it hates itself and collapses. A truly "great" civilization in my mind is not one that conquers the earth but one that can suitably reconstruct itself so that the process of transcendence can be carried out again in a similar form. If it can't be carried out again, the whole thing has to be scrapped and the "civilization" will disappear. This is ultimately what I suspect is happening to the west, their systems no longer work in the current conditions for the current people and so the system has to either change or die and at the moment it is closer to dying.

America functions as the last bastion of this form of civilization because in the rural areas there is a lot of land, right to bear arms, concerns about foreigners that are occassionally validated, so the form of the transcendental process that defined the west still works there but that is likely temporary.
#14885863
Hong Wu wrote:There was this American sociologist, I think his name was Carl Zimmerman, who argued that civilizations go through cycles of the nuclear family, then atomistic, then tribalistic. He seemed to believe that each time the atomistic stage is staved off, a civilization "survives" for longer and grows more powerful but at the same time it also becomes more brittle. Western civilization was pretty brittle by the time the pill came along. Did the pill cause this or was it a manifestation of existing metaphysical principles (since the precursors to the "sexual revolution" are clearly demonstrable well before the pill was invented) or was it something else? There's one of my deep thinks for the day.


yes, that was Carle Zimmerman in his work "Family and Civilization." I own the abridged version and read it for the first time last year, and you more-or-less summarized his point well.

I actually agree with Zimmerman on his main points, but the fact that you juxtapose his views against my expansionist one as if they were contraries is kind of perplexing. I suppose we may be misunderstanding each other a little bit.

For instance, I do not think the idea of expanding sexual opportunity for women as being correlative to civilizational decline is insignificant, in fact it seems quite essential. In any civilization where the natural family, via strict monogamy, is abandoned, the civilization collapses within four generations. This is a historical observation.

However, the reason I add expansion into the discussion is because that seems to explain something I find perplexing.

When a culture drops hedonism and adopts polygamy it develops, when it drops polygamy and embraces monogamy it develops further, but at some point, its "energy" results in great prosperity gained by great toil and in the midst of that prosperity the old cultural norms go by the wayside. Adultery is no longer seen as a capital crime, marriage becomes passe, divorce is common, homosexuality becomes rampant, fertility declines, irreligion comes to prevail, patriotism fades, strong currencies are replaced with weak fiats, and the welfare state bleeds the economy.

My question is WHY does a culture come to allowing women to seek divorce, use contraception, etc, etc. Why does a culture go from prohibiting these things to allowing them?

That is the more important question, what is the grounds of the change, and why has it happened in every single civilization?

They say that: (1) hard times make great men, (2) great men make great times, (3) great times make weak men, and (4) weak men make hard times.

Its propositions 2-3 that need to be figured out, whether in the context of human sexuality or whatever else.

My answer to the above 2-3 is also my answer to your new "deep think" on the birth control pill:

1. Great men make great times by fighting, working, and harnessing the collective will of the people. Once prosperity is gained, they "retire" spiritually-speaking. They take a rest from their break-neck speed of life (i am talking in epochal terms, not merely in reference to specific individuals), as such they cease to care in their "old age" whether or not to maintain the rigid customs they lived by (like strict patriarchy) which enabled them to do the great things that they did (e.g. conquering, inventing, etc).

It is the great men by their strict regimens that enabled the greatness and prosperity of their people, but instead of continuing, they ceased. They became permissive, just as a strict father will become a lenient and mellow grand-father. They seem to forget that their strictness was what made their home strong in the first place.

The pill didn't come in a vaccuum, it was "finalized" as legal long before it was actually produced and made mainstream.

2. Indeed, in America, the end of the Comstock laws is what permitted both the rise of contraception and pornography. These laws which were enshrined during the 1870s, were destroyed by progressives in 1919 and 1926 respectively and were destroyed during the same time period as women's suffrage (might I also add this was ALSO during the highest point in the British Empire at its peak from which it would subsequently decline).

Indeed, the timing is almost perfect as far as my argument goes. The Anglos had conquered the world, bathed in their own wealth, and then permitted women rights in the vote and over their own reproduction; this resulting in immediate and destructive decline. Women tend to vote against wars, vote for welfare, more decadence and permissive morality and also vote pro-immigration. In having control over their sexual destiny, they opt not to reproduce. Why did men allow this? Because when they were rolling in their own prosperity with not a care in the world they simply said: "oh what the hell, what harm could it do?"

Famous last words of a civilization.

We have never looked back since. The decline continues.

Hong Wu wrote:If western civilization is the greatest, it should be able to survive its own superiority but the values of reproducing a lot and conquering the world are facing unforeseen obstacles in modern times.


This is a good point, but when you say "the greatest" here, you obviously only mean that they have not shown themselves to be different from the others that have fallen. Two points:

1. This is only "so far," there is still a chance, though it will be the first in history, that the West will turn this around (there is your white pill for the day).

2. When I say that the West is the greatest civilization, its because it had the most extensive empires, and the greatest of these empires was the greatest empire in human history, it has had the greatest artistic, musical, architectural, and technological achievements of any civilization ever, and the Bible is the greatest literary achievement in human history both in its scope as no other book has ever been printed more, and of which, more additional books have been written on the Bible and Christian theology than on any other subject EVER. Likewise, we have developed more complex schools of mathematics, science, and philosophy than any other people, and had the most extensive lingua franca EVER (english).

That is why we are the greatest, but whether we survive or kill ourselves, that is yet to be seen.

Hong Wu wrote:My personal metaphysical beliefs, vaguely stated, is that reincarnation is a thing but that people are supposed to "transcend" from the earth and when a civilization does well in terms of the number of people transcending, it gains in temporal power but once those souls have left, all that is left is a shell of the transcendental process that is of little to no spiritual use to most of those who remain, at which point the civilization decides that it hates itself and collapses.


Here is a question for you, given that you have a notably non-Christian metaphysical worldview: Why shouldn't I (as someone who seeks to preserve the religion and traditions of western civilization, and marries and bears as many children as possible), see you as part of the problem? I mean this only as a friendly jab and as thought provocation, I'm not trying to start a fight or be belittling (but since PoFo is full of D-bags I just wanted to clarify my tone). I am genuninely curious though, so I want you to make the case to me, why should I as a true traditionalist and western chauvenist see you as being on the same team as myself?

Hong Wu wrote:A truly "great" civilization in my mind is not one that conquers the earth but one that can suitably reconstruct itself so that the process of transcendence can be carried out again in a similar form. If it can't be carried out again, the whole thing has to be scrapped and the "civilization" will disappear. This is ultimately what I suspect is happening to the west, their systems no longer work in the current conditions for the current people and so the system has to either change or die and at the moment it is closer to dying.


No disagreeement.

Hong Wu wrote:America functions as the last bastion of this form of civilization because in the rural areas there is a lot of land, right to bear arms, concerns about foreigners that are occassionally validated, so the form of the transcendental process that defined the west still works there but that is likely temporary.


Living in the rural rustbelt my whole life, I can tell you, you would be far more pessimistic if you lived here. lol. the AVERAGE income in my county is just over $20,000.00 a year, unemployment and addiction are rampant, We are running off the pride of yesteryear. In my church, I am the only family besides the pastor's family with young children. just this past sunday we had three different prayer requests due to geriatric falls occuring. My family has lived here for almost 300 years and I don't know if i can stay here anymore. All our young people have left for "college" never to return to their home or their values, or if they did stay, they became addicted to heroin. The only people holding up this community are conservative working class baby-boomers, Once their generation dies, there will be nothing left.

Here is another question for you. Should I stay in this area and start a farm and mail-order mates for my children or try to find somewhere else that is not economically depressed, but may end up being more liberal and alien to my family?

That is my personal dilemma.

and yet.....I remain oddly, if not irrationally, optimistic about the future.
Last edited by Victoribus Spolia on 05 Feb 2018 15:54, edited 2 times in total.
#14885868
You've given me another excellent post that I can't get through tonight (it's night time where I am right now). To give you a short reply, I'm not confident that any materialistic analysis can explain societal collapse. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that people just get better at deceiving and cheating each other the longer a society remains peaceful but I'm not sure that even this explains it all because certain regions indicate how the recovery from a descent into violence is no guarantee, so once the "all against all" stage begins, there is no material explanation for why it should stop. So ultimately I turn towards metaphysical explanations, even though they aren't really provable.
#14885875
I'm still working my way through it but it seems like you are attributing a lot to patriarchy. I also believe that patriarchy is important but I view it more as a manifestation than as a cause. So let me write this down before I forget; it may not be relevant to stuff you wrote later on.

My criticism of patriarchy as the end-all is that if this were true, the Islamic world should be the best place to live and the most powerful because it has the most entrenched patriarchial society. This hasn't been the case. So where did they go wrong? Part of it would be the lack of forgiveness, yet being in the west we know how forgiveness can cause it's own problems, so it may not just be the unforgiving nature of most modern Islam.

Is it a lack of creative or critical thinking? I believe that inspiration has a metaphysical source, therefore this is moot. I know that's brief, maybe even crude but in the end I don't attribute the west's success to its "creativity", I attribute its creativity to its metaphysical success.

One theory that I have about the issues in the Islamic world (and the failure of their patriarchal structure) is that Islam is so rigid that it encourages people to lie. Lying is a chronic problem in many Islamic cultures, it's basically taken as a given. Anyone who disagrees with me on that doesn't know what they're talking about.

The thing about lying (and this is discussed well in the book 12 Rules to Live By, apparently, I haven't actually read that book) is that lying alters your entire cognitive view of the world and yourself. When you function according to the understanding that you rely upon lies, which are disprovable, your entire relationship with the world and yourself is different. When you function according to what you believe is true, your relationship with the world and yourself is not colored by a fear of having your lies disproven.

To tie this into my metaphysical beliefs, if you get into the habit of lying, you are shooting yourself in the foot metaphysically speaking. The Islamic world has a great patriarchy which helps them in some ways but their metaphysical "product" (for lack of a better term) is not as good as they let on. Chronic liars are not going to do well spiritually no matter how reliably they go to Friday prayers and so-on. And their poor performance in other areas is ultimately, I believe, a result of a poor spiritual performance because zealousness and patriarchy are not strictly synonymous with metaphysical success.

Weird, maybe but these are just my deep thinks ;)
#14885879
To further elaborate. I can't do it justice here, in fact I haven't even finished reading it yet but I suspect that one of Julius Evola's most valuable books might be "Eros and the Mysteries of Love." One reason this book is important is because even liberals haven't fully rejected the metaphysical underpinnings of love; it also provides some possible explanations for modern sex crazes.

The basic argument in the book is that masculinity and femininity are extensions of metaphysical natures or forces. If we follow this to its conclusion, I suspect that when a metaphysical source which underlies a society is in a virile state, it becomes a patriarchy. When it is not in a virile state it seeks to absorb virility from another source; it becomes feminine, a matriarchy. The west used to be a patriarchy and today it is basically a matriarchy in places where the traditional western ethos, to multiply and conquer, is no longer feasible.

So there are two issues with simply enforcing the patriarchy. The first and most obvious is that people cannot multiply and conquer forever. The second issue is that it may be like trying to promote a symptom instead of a cause; if the patriarchy forms because the spirit is virile, simply requiring the patriarchy will not work once the spirit has ceased to be virile.
#14885889
Victoribus Spolia wrote:1. This is only "so far," there is still a chance, though it will be the first in history, that the West will turn this around (there is your white pill for the day).

I appreciate your optimism but the truth is that the western ethos (which I'm defining here as "multiply and conquer") just doesn't work in the developed first world for most people and as such this whole thing cannot be turned around there. It basically rotted until it reached the points in the west where that ethos still works for most people and then the rot couldn't progress any further; this is basically what Donald Trump represents.

2. When I say that the West is the greatest civilization, its because it had the most extensive empires, and the greatest of these empires was the greatest empire in human history, it has had the greatest artistic, musical, architectural, and technological achievements of any civilization ever, and the Bible is the greatest literary achievement in human history both in its scope as no other book has ever been printed more, and of which, more additional books have been written on the Bible and Christian theology than on any other subject EVER. Likewise, we have developed more complex schools of mathematics, science, and philosophy than any other people, and had the most extensive lingua franca EVER (english).

That is why we are the greatest, but whether we survive or kill ourselves, that is yet to be seen.

Like I mentioned earlier, it may be a frustrating argument but I don't attribute the west's greatness to its accomplishments, I attribute its accomplishments to its subtle greatness, a greatness that seemingly can't continue forever. If you'll forgive the reference, we don't live in Warhammer 40k. "Be fruitful and multiply, take the lands that God has decreed for you", it was originally about Jews and Byzantines but the western pagans and intellectuals influenced by the Romans found it quite adapable to themselves... anyway, it just doesn't seem like it works anymore for enough people. You basically have to be really, really rich to make it work for you in the developed world and even then, if you have a bunch of kids, division can cut that wealth down really fast.

Here is a question for you, given that you have a notably non-Christian metaphysical worldview: Why shouldn't I (as someone who seeks to preserve the religion and traditions of western civilization, and marries and bears as many children as possible), see you as part of the problem? I mean this only as a friendly jab and as thought provocation, I'm not trying to start a fight or be belittling (but since PoFo is full of D-bags I just wanted to clarify my tone). I am genuninely curious though, so I want you to make the case to me, why should I as a true traditionalist and western chauvenist see you as being on the same team as myself?

You shouldn't see me as part of the problem because that would make me teh sad. :lol: I am fine with the western eros as I define it because I think it works as a transcendental vehicle (Buddhists use the term "vehicle" a lot, so I guess that's another not strictly western thing). I'm also interested in other outlooks because I think that vehicle is running out of gas. A different outlook might not mean the end of "the west". Not that I have any influence here of course. I'm basically just living my life and wondering, if I discover something on my own that is both western and not-western, maybe it'll magically transmit or something. A Buddhist monk told me that this is the path of the Boddhisattva but when I said I might be a Boddhisattva he thought I was crazy. Sad!

Living in the rural rustbelt my whole life, I can tell you, you would be far more pessimistic if you lived here. lol. the AVERAGE income in my county is just over $20,000.00 a year, unemployment and addiction are rampant, We are running off the pride of yesteryear. In my church, I am the only family besides the pastor's family with young children. just this past sunday we had three different prayer requests due to geriatric falls occuring. My family has lived here for almost 300 years and I don't know if i can stay here anymore. All our young people have left for "college" never to return to their home or their values, or if they did stay, they became addicted to heroin. The only people holding up this community are conservative working class baby-boomers, Once their generation dies, there will be nothing left.

Wow, that is pretty depressing. I originally hail from rich, largely liberal coastal California. I was from Orange County which has an only slightly declining Christian population but a lot of them are spoiled brats with little worldly experience. A long series of terrible events basically red-pilled me and I realized that the Orange County Christians were not sustainable in the long run. I side with the rust belt people in debates but I have no illusions of being a rust belt kind of guy, I'm basically an anomalous upper class person who sides with the working classes without actually pretending to be working class myself. I realize that's weird but it seems consistent and honest to me.

Here is another question for you. Should I stay in this area and start a farm and mail-order mates for my children or try to find somewhere else that is not economically depressed, but may end up being more liberal and alien to my family?

That is my personal dilemma.

and yet.....I remain oddly, if not irrationally, optimistic about the future.

I have a conviction that if be fruitful, multiply and take the lands God gives you will not work forver, there is a good reason for that too. So it's difficult but it's also OK. I would look for a place that is as close to what you want as possible but which seems like it would be sustainable into the foreseeable future. Don't stay in the same physical location out of stubborness. The gas production in the US will help for awhile, the Mormons seem to be doing well (although I understand if you don't want to go there; I thought about it a lot and decided I just wanted to walk my own path, not submit my intellectual independence to another group even if it seems like an admirable group) and I think the best advice that can apply to everyone is that no difficult period lasts forever.

So if you send your kids to college and move to a liberal city, right now liberals mostly control academia. As a poster who used to be popular here was fond of writing, Rei Murasame, there's a Japanese phrase for when a candle flares brightly right before it goes out. It's my belief that the liberals never found a metaphysical vehicle and so that's where they are right now. If you're not careful they'll burn you but they will also be going out soon, I would be surprised if they are significantly represented in Generation Z (ever notice how there's no letter that comes after Z?). So after Generation Z, which may literally be the last generation of a certain kind of western person, something new will probably appear and the best thing you can do IMHO is to position your children so that they can keep their souls but still take advantage of whatever that is when it emerges.
#14888620
So as I've mentioned once or twice, my "red pill" experience was pretty traumatic. I was basically forced to accept that the world was not what I had been telling myself it was when I was young.

I think a lot of people my age, "millennials", are getting to this now re: Trump. So they naturally blame Trump for it. I came to it a lot sooner and so I don't see Trump as a problem so much as a natural result and to some degree even as a solution. People coming to it later in life can't possibly view Trump this way yet but I think most of them will come around.

Rasmussen puts his approval rating at 49%. I think Trump will get past 50% approval rating and when he does you're going to see some shit :eek:
#14889995
Older class divides were based upon things like, you physically aren't allowed to do a different job, you physically aren't allowed to leave your country (or sometimes, a certain region within your country), you physically aren't allowed to marry X person or do Y activity.

Modern so-called class divides are basically different kinds of people treating their social perceptions as if they were policy opinions. If you're tall, attractive, physically fit and actually do something with yourself you are more likely to be "conservative". If you're none of those things, which often describes the very top and very bottom of society, you're more likely to be "liberal". Lots of people have noted how modern liberals aren't actually like classic liberals at all, less commented upon is how modern conservatives are not very similar to previous conservatives or traditionalists at all. These things are both true because the idea that random, average people are educated enough to have opinions on things like public policy is clearly just something we pretend is happening.

Modern political policy theories, such as western communists who don't resemble actual extant communists at all, are really just social opinions that are 100% shaped by the place those who hold them posses within a social hierarchy.
#14890000
Hong Wu wrote:Older class divides were based upon things like, you physically aren't allowed to do a different job, you physically aren't allowed to leave your country (or sometimes, a certain region within your country), you physically aren't allowed to marry X person or do Y activity.

Modern so-called class divides are basically different kinds of people treating their social perceptions as if they were policy opinions. If you're tall, attractive, physically fit and actually do something with yourself you are more likely to be "conservative". If you're none of those things, which often describes the very top and very bottom of society, you're more likely to be "liberal". Lots of people have noted how modern liberals aren't actually like classic liberals at all, less commented upon is how modern conservatives are not very similar to previous conservatives or traditionalists at all. These things are both true because the idea that random, average people are educated enough to have opinions on things like public policy is clearly just something we pretend is happening.

Modern political policy theories, such as western communists who don't resemble actual extant communists at all, are really just social opinions that are 100% shaped by the place those who hold them posses within a social hierarchy.

In other words, the way that people live determines the way that they think, the fundamental insight of Marxism. You seem to be groping your way towards a Marxist worldview, Hong Wu. You're almost there. You can do it, Hong Wu! :up: :)
#14890002
Potemkin wrote:In other words, the way that people live determines the way that they think, the fundamental insight of Marxism. You seem to be groping your way towards a Marxist worldview, Hong Wu. You're almost there. You can do it, Hong Wu! :up: :)

It's true, I'm already more of a communist than you are ;)
#14890961
In other words, the way that people live determines the way that they think, the fundamental insight of Marxism basic biology.

Hong Wu wrote:It's true, I'm already more of a communist than you are ;)
Ohhh, so human myths produce pissing contests, complete with arbitrary measurement. You are what you eat, because you're encased in a biological vehicle. You're the universe, you're consciousness having a human experience. You didn't write the program called life, so now you're trying to override the program and invent 'truth.' Nonetheless, you're Truth, in a living sense (that's the trick of the veil). But by all means, focus on the past and future, dissect (y)our myths.

Look @ this, a bunch of ding-dong jargon. Ideas or diarrhea?
Both the sense of "western Christendom" and "Empire" and the contrary sense of "nationalism" and "state churches" came from and were fostered by Christianity and its preservation of its Roman, especially Constantinian, heritage.
When you see something like this folks, just know it's a poop-parade. Humans create problems by solving problems, because they're living fragments of something larger than their individual experiences. The mind must be on the run because it doesn't understand the present moment or movement. The mind is so uncomfortable with the fact that it is being penetrated by the grand scheme of things that it invents pseudo-purpose (but even fake purpose will be gobbled up by living Truth/the universe in the beginning & end (the universe never lies)). Dats why folks group together and smell their own farts. They love the smell of yesterday's nourishment, and they really enjoy planning their future bowel movements (to think, the mind could gather enough poop to blow up the toilet.). They write long boring pornographs talking-exhibition, drab-drizzle about how much poop they've collected throughout the years... But it's cool yo, they're just blowing smoke bro. If they really cared about the present, they wouldn't be on this forum typing out long boring second hand interpretations of life. :lol: And I wouldn't be here addressing their addresses.

@RhetoricThug Maybe we should focus on feeding everyone so we have more poop to play with?
Last edited by RhetoricThug on 22 Feb 2018 17:05, edited 2 times in total.
#14890966
RhetoricThug wrote:Look @ this, a bunch of ding-dong jargon


Did @RhetoricThug, just say that I wrote a bunch of meaningless jargon? Did I read that right? @Hong Wu.

Image

Image
By RhetoricThug
#14890982
Are you aware of being aware?
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Did @RhetoricThug, just say that I wrote a bunch of meaningless jargon? Did I read that right? @Hong Wu.
The ego-mind, as a survival mechanism, tries to protect its investment(s). After-all, time is an illusion of energy, so forum images usually feel obligated to save-face value. Surface details will always be signs & symptoms of consciousness. What "titular image X" wrote is not the whole story, it's a fragment of everything else happening... Therefore it's a myth. Likewise, problem-solution interplay produces more meaningless banter (I reply, I reply, I reply, I reply, I=eye=ego ergo ego=eye=I in this particular case), as the very nature of Being present penetrates this very moment, we're stuck in the middle grasping at the beginning and end of it all. I'm not impressed by conceited knowledge, because it's a fleeting impression bound by its disposition. Truth be told, being present creates an information bias, and your version of Truth is a story maid for story-telling. What's the point exactly, especially when visual space is a visual bias employed by the eye? Furthermore, you do not see with thy eye, you see with thy mind. Thought itself is a constant/continuous/contagious polycentric ripple effect, with no point of origin. Figures must be abstracted from the ground, and the ground is always (r)evolving. Figures (images) become myths by virtue of time (the nature of being present).
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