I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry. - Page 29 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15123073
annatar1914 wrote:
And since this is a political forum, this insight has an eschatological impact on the life of the ''Politeia'', the ''Polis'', the City of Man/City of the Devil in this world.


Well, Muhammad was a ''Proto-Capitalist'' trader from Mecca, and Islam is most congenial of all Monotheistic religions to Capitalism. Check these links out for present day connections between Capitalist philosophy and Islam;

https://freedomoutpost.com/the-nra-grov ... otherhood/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Norquist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_Saffuri

https://www.atr.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Islam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... _economics

In any case, it is pretty self-evident. Capitalism need not fear Islam's development across the world, so neither need the Capitalist Elites.
#15123127
@Potemkin , @Hindsite, and others;

I am not a Rationalist, although I have a fine Reason I believe. And not being a Rationalist I am not Socialist in the Scientific sense. I get it, especially the critique of Capitalism, but it leaves me cold, it misses something. Because while the Dialectic is real and part of this fallen world, it is mistaken for ''Natural'' and therefore amoral and beyond good and evil in the estimation of fallen mankind.

I rejected that all a long time ago, although I use the language somewhat because we after all are in conflict and strife all the time.

No, I'd rather speak to the heart. And ''the heart has it's reasons of which the mind knows nothing'', as Blaise Pascal said. Proud Reason is not reasonable, and has corrupted mankind.

At the Rationalist heart (I do believe they are pretty well almost gone now, and a New Left has just about replaced them) there is a shadow, which denies God openly or secretly and which empties Creation not only of being Created by a Creator, but reduces it's Matter of any truly living vital qualities. They don't believe (or more truthfully, they deny) in Heaven or Hell, but what's also true, in ''Fairie''.

I do believe in that total reality, as reality. So when it comes to the modernist problem of Socialism versus Capitalism, I can only answer from that other realm and say I believe in Love, in Justice, in rendering to each what is their due, whatever that is. So it isn't revolution, nor is it reaction. Those are both variations on the temptations of the Devil, offered to today's man instead of Christ, an appeal to Magick. To which I reply to them saying;



''Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. –Psalm 78''
#15123191
annatar1914 wrote:We do have to approach people where they are. It helps I think that Orthodoxy and Islam come from the same cultural cluster that produced the Monotheistic religions, the ''Magian'' civilization of Spengler's speculations.


Dialogue between Christians and Muslims is useful because although the believers of both religions will not agree to accept each others doctrines they can at least avoid war and conflict. It is better to resolve matters of religious difference peacefully. Neo-Conservative war hawks, for example, during the 1990s and 2000s were some of the most destabilising influencers in Western politics because they wanted to aggressively promote American liberal democratic supremacy and in doing so were content to utterly destroy the lives of the Muslim peoples in the Middle East and Central Asia. Others who posit an irreoncilable clash of civilisations also do not understand that the clash of over 1.5 billion people with some 2.3 billion people is not sustainable or desirable for anyone. It could lead only to violence, misery and poverty.

It is not advisable to try and advance eschatological events, they will happen in their own time. What do the Orthodox believers think of such a question?

Muslims and Christians should attempt to live in harmony with one another, both on a national and global level, including on the level of international relations. Foreign policy should be geared towards this end. The rights of Christian minorities must be protected.

annatar1914 wrote:I think it had an extraordinary influence, the mercantile way of life, the Bourgeoisie way. It grew up under the aegis of a certain way of thinking propagated by the Roman Church and the Germanic warlords of Western Europe that emphasized Faustian machine, technique, and time-obsessed norms.


This mercantile class did it seems form the basis for what became the bourgeoisie during the 18th and 19th centuries.

annatar1914 wrote:There's a different kind of awareness, one which maintains in small but significant ways a level of civilization. On the other, a barbarism and vulgarity that lessens it. That clans from the Caucasus can be more civilized in their own way than an American in New York seems odd at first glance but it really isn't. Ramzan Kadyrov is more civilized in some measure than Donald Trump or Joe Biden to use an example.


In many ways it's a question of respect. Not respect that is only expressed externally but sincere respect that is cultivated, not for monetary or material reasons but merely for its own sake and as a means of being a good human being.

annatar1914 wrote:Me too, but part of it could be the temporary socio-economic stresses of people influencing their thinking and behavior. I notice that where I live, people are more ''aware'' in their consciousness than usual of what's going on in the world. It may discomfort them, but they are more aware even as they wish a return to ''normal''.


Most people simply don't have time to think or comprehend. They would prefer not to because daily life already makes them uncomfortable enough.

annatar1914 wrote:They do, but upon reflection I may have to take back the certainty I had that they will. The biggest stumbling block for Non-Mormons is the story of Joseph Smith himself, for good reason. I live in a reality that accepts spiritual visitations obviously, but also accepts that people can easily be deceived at those events as well.


What sort of people are drawn to Mormonism in your experience? There's a type of post-modern ultra-secular who could never be converted to it, let alone any denomination of Christianity and arguably any serious religious commitment at all. I've always been intrigued by how people choose Mormonism. Once upon a time I may have even met a Mormon convert in person, although I can't be certain. They were with Mormon missionaries who I also met.

annatar1914 wrote:I'm tending recently to go back to my original idea that they will turn to what is more familiar to them, right or wrong, and that the Roman Church (or as I call it as an Orthodox Christian, the technical term ''Parasynogogue'' or ''non-legitimate assembly'') will get a new lease on life as an institution.


A revival of Roman Catholicism would definitely be an option.

annatar1914 wrote:It's easier to do somewhat away from people and in more natural settings, like a park, I have found personally.


Most certainly.

annatar1914 wrote:Depends on the geopolitics, because the West needs enemies.


The West and Iran will continue to be enemies until the latter returns to the Western fold.

annatar1914 wrote:Fear of that as an option may be used in the West to revive foundational beliefs as a bulwark against Islam or any other belief system than that one. Or, it may have been decided among the Elites that Islam is useful to replace that which is dying in the West.


It would not be the first time that the West has made alliances with Muslims against far left extremism.

annatar1914 wrote:I'm having to go back and reflect more on these things from my perspective. I say this because certain recent events have shown to me that I've been avoiding certain potentialities from a natural reflex on my part personally.


I don't profess to be any authority and am not making dogmatic assertions on what I've written in recent posts here.

annatar1914 wrote:Today I was reminded somewhat of why I made this thread in the first place. I read a slice of a story about how ISIS allegedly cheered President Trump's drone strike that took out among other people, General Suleimani of Iran. Of course this was understandable because the General basically led the Shia forces in Iraq against ISIS. I don't imagine they like American or any other group's drone strikes on them, but probably figured the Shia deserved his fate.

But that's not my point really. My point is is that ISIS I sensed early on, was a disruption of the reality of the Modern age, a force for evil but for all that, not the same kind of evil which infests Modernity, even is Modernity.

These aren't the things I necessarily want to say, it's like being in 1930's Germany talking about the Nazis; other's can vaguely comprehend the threat, but everyone is sure that they can handle it, and are more concerned with other problems and other enemies than this one.

But even then words kind of fail me with what I want to express, my dread of this existential crisis. Nothing sickens me at this moment more than when I think ISIS will be rooting for Iran and the United States to be at war by next year. Again, a threat which has such operational room in the strategic realm, due to the simple fact that nothing the Modern man can do will, of itself anyway, stop them for very long.

To fight them and win requires a pre-modern mindset, albeit one which differs from their own. It also requires a strategic mindset that gets to the very heart of the theological/ideological core of defeating them by recognizing exactly who and what they are. But not only that, the uncomfortable truths of what we Moderns are through their eyes. I've been consciously or not through this thread preparing myself and perhaps others for looking at this very real crisis honestly. It takes only one aggressor to make a war.


This was an enemy we could not comprehend. Much like how the pandemic took the West by surprise the ISIS threat caused people bury their heads in the sand and ignore it. Thankfully it never reached Western borders, its advances in its own part of the world were far enough! I remember that during the height of the conflict, before Russian intervention, I predicted that the Assad government would have fallen by 2019. Perhaps it would have done, we will never know, but the situation looked very dire.

For now it appears dormant. In what I wrote to you previously I was not dismissing the threat that such a movement poses but merely suggesting that its appeal has dissipated somewhat, for now. It is entirely possible that there will be a resurgence after the pandemic ends in around 2022 maybe.

annatar1914 wrote:Only Christianity and Islam matter, with one as true and the other a lie, but in the end only these stark choices remain at the end for mankind to follow. Both true Muslims and true Christians know this, that one is counterfit and the other real.


Indeed. Each person has to choose.
#15123234
@Political Interest , thank you for your replies, I'll try to give them the attention and thoughtfulness they deserve;

Dialogue between Christians and Muslims is useful because although the believers of both religions will not agree to accept each others doctrines they can at least avoid war and conflict. It is better to resolve matters of religious difference peacefully. Neo-Conservative war hawks, for example, during the 1990s and 2000s were some of the most destabilising influencers in Western politics because they wanted to aggressively promote American liberal democratic supremacy and in doing so were content to utterly destroy the lives of the Muslim peoples in the Middle East and Central Asia. Others who posit an irreoncilable clash of civilisations also do not understand that the clash of over 1.5 billion people with some 2.3 billion people is not sustainable or desirable for anyone. It could lead only to violence, misery and poverty.


There are still those who do not wish to have American forces leave Afghanistan because of the perceived threat to western-style ''women's rights" such a withdrawal from Afghanistan might entail. In other words, people are fighting and dying so that in the future Afghan girls can be like Miley Cyrus or similar ''role models'' too...

It is not advisable to try and advance eschatological events, they will happen in their own time. What do the Orthodox believers think of such a question?


God is Sovereign. It is telling that the Orthodox Faith has kept the future dates for all the liturgical years in it's calendar up to at least the 8000th year of the world, the year 2492 AD... Beyond that or before that, who knows? There will be certain things that will happen before the Lord's Return that the Fathers in their Scriptural commentaries write of and Scripture speaks about, but there really is no way to force God's hand, in anything.

Muslims and Christians should attempt to live in harmony with one another, both on a national and global level, including on the level of international relations. Foreign policy should be geared towards this end. The rights of Christian minorities must be protected.


Mutual understanding is important, without necessarily giving away what is believed. And yes, social harmony would be a plus.


This mercantile class did it seems form the basis for what became the bourgeoisie during the 18th and 19th centuries.


Indeed, an atmosphere of trade and the increasing sophistication of economic thought that hadn't been thought of before or had been subdued by religious rules against usury, etc... created the bourgeoisie in my opinion.


In many ways it's a question of respect. Not respect that is only expressed externally but sincere respect that is cultivated, not for monetary or material reasons but merely for its own sake and as a means of being a good human being.


Yes, I think that has to be the minimum baseline for proper relating with others. It's easy with ideology though to objectify people and dehumanize them even if the goal is humanistic, especially when the ideology promotes an amoral ''the ends justify the means'' praxis.


Most people simply don't have time to think or comprehend. They would prefer not to because daily life already makes them uncomfortable enough.


All the more important that those who do govern such people are wise and good themselves, ideally. Otherwise it will not go well for them, especially if they have the ability to vote without the wisdom to do so well.


What sort of people are drawn to Mormonism in your experience? There's a type of post-modern ultra-secular who could never be converted to it, let alone any denomination of Christianity and arguably any serious religious commitment at all. I've always been intrigued by how people choose Mormonism. Once upon a time I may have even met a Mormon convert in person, although I can't be certain. They were with Mormon missionaries who I also met.


Most Mormons I've known were born into it, frankly, I don't know of too many converts personally. I personally cannot imagine with knowing what I know, intelligent people converting to it. But at second glance it offers Westerners and Americans in particular a theology and pseudo-historical background that would be tempting naturally if one didn't know any better, intelligent or otherwise.


A revival of Roman Catholicism would definitely be an option.


Being the traditional ur-religion of the West and encoded into the cultural ''DNA'' so to speak, it could be an option which only requires a relatively younger Pope who is charismatic, intelligent and strong willed who desires the power of the Papacy in the world to be revived, and they would stand a good chance at revival.


Most certainly.


Of course one can't always choose a more prayerful setting, so I try to when and wherever I can when I feel the need to pray.



The West and Iran will continue to be enemies until the latter returns to the Western fold.


While nothing is impossible, it's unlikely that Iran will ever return to the kind of days there before 1979 in my opinion. Wouldn't you agree?


It would not be the first time that the West has made alliances with Muslims against far left extremism.


This is true, although considering the nature of the two cultural groups such alliances are not lasting, at least not lasting after the immediate Left extremist threat is gone.


I don't profess to be any authority and am not making dogmatic assertions on what I've written in recent posts here.


I try not to, although it probably doesn't appear that way to some, lol.
On ISIS;


This was an enemy we could not comprehend. Much like how the pandemic took the West by surprise the ISIS threat caused people bury their heads in the sand and ignore it. Thankfully it never reached Western borders, its advances in its own part of the world were far enough! I remember that during the height of the conflict, before Russian intervention, I predicted that the Assad government would have fallen by 2019. Perhaps it would have done, we will never know, but the situation looked very dire.


It looked very dire indeed. In my opinion it still does although that may appear to be strange to some to hold that thought.

For now it appears dormant. In what I wrote to you previously I was not dismissing the threat that such a movement poses but merely suggesting that its appeal has dissipated somewhat, for now. It is entirely possible that there will be a resurgence after the pandemic ends in around 2022 maybe.


I think there will be a resurgence, because as I've said before the enemies of ISIS hate and fear each other and seek to undermine and defeat each other, more than they hate and fear ISIS. It allows ISIS to tactically retreat while maintaining strategic operational depth. Only a few world leaders have seen the greater threat from ISIS and/or Al-Qaida to any significant degree. This is not something the secular and materialistic western world can stop ultimately.

On the two choices, Islam or Christianity;


Indeed. Each person has to choose.


This is what it comes down to, in my opinion towards the end the only options and only one is right. This does not preclude of course human decency I think at this time, as we've been discussing.
#15123514
The early centuries of the Christian era saw heresies arise with the aid of a number of the newly Orthodox Christian Roman Emperors, until the Western half of the Roman Empire fell with the Lombard invasion of Italy (counting Emperor Justinian's previous recapture of Italy as a Roman Imperial recovery of the West). At that point with the rise of the Franks and their theology in the North and West, and the rise of Islam in the South and East, you then had the birth of two rival and opposite heresies contra the Orthodox Faith;

Islam versus Papism/Protestantism/Mormonism. They do influence each other in subtle ways, such as Islam with Iconoclasm and a florid over-reaction to Iconoclasm in the West by the way. Mormonism modified it's early teachings somewhat precisely because of non-Mormon attitudes towards polygamy and comparisons between Muhammad and Joseph Smith/Brigham Young. Islam being increasingly exposed to the West reacted with revivalist puritan movements in the Sunni Islamic world such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the teachings of Qutb and others, Wahhabism/Salafism with their principles of ijtihad, etc...

(I count Islam as something of a Christian heresy at least as much as Mormonism is, opposite as they are to each other but not much more in kind than the Nestorians and the Monophysites are.)

(The Jews are another subject, a religion partly built after the Roman-Jewish wars and the rejection of Christianity around the same time.)

As Islam grows, the Western revivalism will grow in response to it, and they will hammer away at each other and the rest of the world for some time. But as I said in an earlier post, these are the only conflicts that ultimately will matter, with Orthodox Christianity's response.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Has what I've said before about Iran and Shia Islam changed now, with respect to present comments about Sunni Islam? Maybe a little, having perhaps over-estimated the impact of the Iranian Revolution and under-estimated the impact of ISIS and Al-Qaida and similar movements for a time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, Western ''Christianity'' and Islam, the only responses permitted. My next post will go into a Islamic critique of the Modern world and then I'll give a Western critique of sorts of the Modern world, and how neither are adequate even as that which they critique is falling away.
#15123531
annatar1914 wrote:(I count Islam as something of a Christian heresy at least as much as Mormonism is, opposite as they are to each other but not much more in kind than the Nestorians and the Monophysites are.)

Interestingly enough, Medieval Christendom also regarded Islam as a Christian heresy; specifically as an offshoot of Nestorian Christianity. A heresy of a heresy, if you will. And I take your point - if Mormonism is a heresy of Christianity, then surely so is Islam. Islam actually has more in common with Orthodox Christianity than Mormonism has in common with Orthodox Christianity, in my view.
#15123535
Potemkin wrote:Interestingly enough, Medieval Christendom also regarded Islam as a Christian heresy; specifically as an offshoot of Nestorian Christianity. A heresy of a heresy, if you will. And I take your point - if Mormonism is a heresy of Christianity, then surely so is Islam. Islam actually has more in common with Orthodox Christianity than Mormonism has in common with Orthodox Christianity, in my view.


Well said, I agree.

Although I find Mormonism interesting because of this outright polytheism for all intents and purposes, I am doubting it's future survival precisely because of it's early dropping of doctrines due to pressure from the civil authorities. It is an outlier of a deeper problem with Western Christianity that indicates that what I call the Frankish tribespeople did not fully or always ''get'' the Western Orthodoxy which they encountered amid the ruins of the Western half of the Roman Empire. And, that this problem has only compounded and persists to this day. This;

Image


Does not lend itself to being the same theologically as;

Image
#15123584
annatar1914 wrote:
Again, Western ''Christianity'' and Islam, the only responses permitted. My next post will go into a Islamic critique of the Modern world and then I'll give a Western critique of sorts of the Modern world, and how neither are adequate even as that which they critique is falling away.


Now by ''critique'', I mean ''miracle'', something which the rationalism of the modern age rejects with it's repeatable, testable common and everyday natural events-fitting compliment to the Bourgeoisie the era gave birth to.

Not to affirm a Muslim-recorded miracle story one way or another, but to show that they live within the same reality as traditional Christianity does, here's a commentary on the Sura 7;

Thamud asked that a Camel APPEAR FROM A STONE, and it did

Prophet Salih said, …

<"Indeed there has come to you a clear sign from your Lord. This she-camel of Allah is a sign unto you;"> meaning, a miracle has come to you from Allah testifying to the truth of what I came to you with. Salih's people asked him to produce a miracle and suggested a certain solid rock that they chose, which stood lonely in the area of Hijr, and which was called Al-Katibah. They asked him to bring a pregnant camel out of that stone. Salih took their covenant and promises that if Allah answers their challenge, they would believe and follow him. When they gave him their oaths and promises to that, Salih started praying and invoked Allah (to produce that miracle). All of a sudden, the stone moved and broke apart, producing a she-camel with thick wool. It was pregnant and its fetus was visibly moving in its belly, exactly as Salih's people asked. This is when their chief, Jundu` bin `Amr, and several who followed him believed. The rest of the noblemen of Thamud wanted to believe as well, but Dhu'ab bin `Amr bin Labid, Al-Habbab, who tended their idols, and Rabbab bin Sum`ar bin Jilhis stopped them. One of the cousins of Jundu` bin `Amr, whose name was Shihab bin Khalifah bin Mikhlat bin Labid bin Jawwas, was one of the leaders of Thamud, and he also wanted to accept the message. However, the chiefs whom we mentioned prevented him, and he conceded to their promptings. The camel remained in Thamud, as well as its offspring after she delivered it before them. The camel used to drink from its well on one day and leave the well for Thamud the next day. They also used to drink its milk, for on the days she drank water, they used to milk her and fill their containers from its milk. Allah said in other Ayat, …

<And inform them that the water is to be shared between (her and) them, each one's right to drink being established (by turns)> [54:28] and, …

<Here is a she-camel: it has a right to drink (water), and you have a right to drink (water) (each) on a day, known.> [26:155] The camel used to graze in some of their valleys, going through a pass and coming out through another pass. She did that so as to be able to move easily, because she used to drink a lot of water. She was a tremendous animal that had a strikingly beautiful appearance. When she used to pass by their cattle, the cattle would be afraid of her. When this matter continued for a long time and Thamud's rejection of Salih became intense, they intended to kill her so that they could take the water for themselves every day. It was said that all of them (the disbelievers of Thamud) conspired to kill the camel. Qatadah said that he was told that, "The designated killer of the camel approached them all, including women in their rooms and children, and found out that all of them agreed to kill her." This fact is apparent from the wording of the Ayat, …

<Then they denied him and they killed it. So their Lord destroyed them because of their sin, and made them equal in destruction!> [91:14], and, ...

<And We sent the she-camel to Thamud as a clear sign, but they did her wrong.> [17:59] Allah said here, ...

<So they killed the she-camel> Therefore, these Ayat stated that the entire tribe shared in agreeing to this crime, and Allah knows best.



In this reality, a living Camel can come out of a stone by the miracle of God.


Now in the Gospels, and skipping the Old Testament (which is full of miracles and mysteries) we can read;


Matthew 17:24-27
King James Version

24 And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute?

25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers?

26 Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free.

27 Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.


Where God has a fish be caught with the right coin in it's mouth to enable Him and His Apostle to pay the Temple tax.

It's a reality where everything in Creation is alive, where animals can talk and Angels appear.

You will not understand the truth or it's counterfit for that matter if you do not live in or at least understand this reality.
#15123633
annatar1914 wrote:Now by ''critique'', I mean ''miracle'', something which the rationalism of the modern age rejects with it's repeatable, testable common and everyday natural events-fitting compliment to the Bourgeoisie the era gave birth to.

[...]

In this reality, a living Camel can come out of a stone by the miracle of God.

[...]

Now in the Gospels, and skipping the Old Testament (which is full of miracles and mysteries) we can read;

[...]

Where God has a fish be caught with the right coin in it's mouth to enable Him and His Apostle to pay the Temple tax.

It's a reality where everything in Creation is alive, where animals can talk and Angels appear.

You will not understand the truth or it's counterfit for that matter if you do not live in or at least understand this reality.

In the modern scientific worldview, nature is a thing which moves and changes according to fixed abstract rules (e.g., Newton's laws of motion, Einstein's field equations, &c). Miracles, by definition, cannot be fitted into those fixed abstract rules. These fixed, abstract and non-dialectical rules which we can write down in mathematical form constitute the essential worldview of the bourgeoisie, and are the physical equivalent of the abstract economic 'laws' of supply and demand and the like, which must take precedence before human need and before even our feelings of common humanity. Just as nature is a thing to the bourgeoisie, the economy is also a thing, and humanity is just as much subject to its pitiless 'laws' as we are subject to the pitiless 'laws' of the natural world. What religious faith is to the scientific worldview, socialism is to neo-classical economics. And they both have a common enemy - the capitalist bourgeoisie.
#15123758
Potemkin wrote:In the modern scientific worldview, nature is a thing which moves and changes according to fixed abstract rules (e.g., Newton's laws of motion, Einstein's field equations, &c). Miracles, by definition, cannot be fitted into those fixed abstract rules. These fixed, abstract and non-dialectical rules which we can write down in mathematical form constitute the essential worldview of the bourgeoisie, and are the physical equivalent of the abstract economic 'laws' of supply and demand and the like, which must take precedence before human need and before even our feelings of common humanity. Just as nature is a thing to the bourgeoisie, the economy is also a thing, and humanity is just as much subject to its pitiless 'laws' as we are subject to the pitiless 'laws' of the natural world. What religious faith is to the scientific worldview, socialism is to neo-classical economics. And they both have a common enemy - the capitalist bourgeoisie.


I don't disagree. It's a kind of perceptual spell really; to assume that things have always been uniformly as they have always been, that the provisional rules by which they sense reality are everywhere and at all times the same and always have been, always will be. That in fact things are getting ''better and better'' over time, more complex, etc... The fantasies of ''science'' fiction.

A great deal of assumptions. Miracles and Revolutions overthrow the ''established order'' and bring about what is considered impossible, and in both I can clearly see the Hand of God. Even their Science is by Science undone on a regular basis, much as they might fight to maintain the theories that uphold the foundations of this age.

It is my contention that the modern age is not dying, it is dead. And what we're seeing now is the return to the Pre-modern in a modified way, where Capitalism will find a means in which to continue itself by erecting as it's superstructure a spiritual way of life congenial to it's perpetuation, a religion and a political movement suited to it's demands and for social control of the masses. But it will be modified by that religion which it takes on.
#15123786
annatar1914 wrote:I don't disagree. It's a kind of perceptual spell really; to assume that things have always been uniformly as they have always been, that the provisional rules by which they sense reality are everywhere and at all times the same and always have been, always will be. That in fact things are getting ''better and better'' over time, more complex, etc... The fantasies of ''science'' fiction.

A great deal of assumptions. Miracles and Revolutions overthrow the ''established order'' and bring about what is considered impossible, and in both I can clearly see the Hand of God. Even their Science is by Science undone on a regular basis, much as they might fight to maintain the theories that uphold the foundations of this age.

Indeed. Science itself denied that it has any ontological foundation, and is rather in the position of a tightrope-walker balanced over the void. Science tells us nothing about the nature of reality; all it can do is to "save the phenomena" using abstract rules and assumed continuities, both in time and in space. It correlates our observations, but can do nothing more, and frankly admits the fact. But the bourgeoisie, for the most part, treat science as their new Gospel.

It is my contention that the modern age is not dying, it is dead. And what we're seeing now is the return to the Pre-modern in a modified way, where Capitalism will find a means in which to continue itself by erecting as it's superstructure a spiritual way of life congenial to it's perpetuation, a religion and a political movement suited to it's demands and for social control of the masses. But it will be modified by that religion which it takes on.

Capitalism had once believed it had found its new religion - Positivism, the worship of Science. It is no accident that Comte came along in the early 19th century and surrounded modern science with all the paraphernalia of a religious cult. This is what the European bourgeoisie had been waiting for, and it arrived during the first flush of their success in the early 19th century. Ironically, their new religion turned out to be pretty much useless to them, since the masses never took to it, but tended to stubbornly cling to their traditional forms of worship. They therefore changed tactics - instead of creating a new atheistic religious cult out of whole cloth, they decided instead to subvert the existing religions to make them compatible with capitalism. This has worked in the USA - with absurdities such as the "prosperity gospel" springing up like weeds - but has failed everywhere else in the world. It is not clear to me what their next move will be.
#15123794
@Potemkin , you said regarding what I call ''Scientism'' that;

Indeed. Science itself denied that it has any ontological foundation, and is rather in the position of a tightrope-walker balanced over the void. Science tells us nothing about the nature of reality; all it can do is to "save the phenomena" using abstract rules and assumed continuities, both in time and in space. It correlates our observations, but can do nothing more, and frankly admits the fact. But the bourgeoisie, for the most part, treat science as their new Gospel.


Very true, but modern superstitions incline me to think that they're looking for something else.


Capitalism had once believed it had found its new religion - Positivism, the worship of Science. It is no accident that Comte came along in the early 19th century and surrounded modern science with all the paraphernalia of a religious cult. This is what the European bourgeoisie had been waiting for, and it arrived during the first flush of their success in the early 19th century. Ironically, their new religion turned out to be pretty much useless to them, since the masses never took to it, but tended to stubbornly cling to their traditional forms of worship. They therefore changed tactics - instead of creating a new atheistic religious cult out of whole cloth, they decided instead to subvert the existing religions to make them compatible with capitalism. This has worked in the USA - with absurdities such as the "prosperity gospel" springing up like weeds - but has failed everywhere else in the world. It is not clear to me what their next move will be.


I believe that with the patterns of immigration I'm seeing, among other indications, the Western Elites have decided upon Islam as the necessary religion to fit what you are suggesting.
#15123799
Wellsy wrote:I speculate that epistemology is a prime principle of the bourgeoisie as its development was necessary to the expansion of production.

Epistemology is just the general philosophical investigation of the foundations of knowlege. It is not, in itself, a 'principle'. I think you mean 'empiricism', @Wellsy. *tries not to look too condescending* ;)
#15123801
Potemkin wrote:Epistemology is just the general philosophical investigation of the foundations of knowlege. It is not, in itself, a 'principle'. I think you mean 'empiricism', @Wellsy. *tries not to look too condescending* ;)

No, you are right, it was poorly worded as I couldn't find the basis of my thought at the time.
I was trying to think about something I read that summarized epistemological trends as showing how the bourgeoisie viewed value over time.
#15123804
Potemkin wrote:Epistemology is just the general philosophical investigation of the foundations of knowlege. It is not, in itself, a 'principle'. I think you mean 'empiricism', @Wellsy. *tries not to look too condescending* ;)


Epistemology which can lead one to discussion of Ontology and then to the ''Queen of Sciences'', Theology, and this is the Western route by way of analogical inferences. I start with Theology, which is experiential, and stay there.

Owen Barfield and Thomas Kuhn were some of the modern ones who led me out of the Western travels ''episteme'', they and two men from the 1600's; Blaise Pascal and Baruch Spinoza. That journey and those influences are another story.

But in any case @Wellsy and you @Potemkin are correct. It was not for nothing that the Bourgeoisie, rising out of the cities and towns of the late Middle Ages, required an entirely static and completely absolute system of empiricism and positivism to frame their world in.
#15123872
Wellsy wrote:No, you are right, it was poorly worded as I couldn't find the basis of my thought at the time.
I was trying to think about something I read that summarized epistemological trends as showing how the bourgeoisie viewed value over time.

In that case, I agree with you. The bourgeoisie care nothing for ontology; after all, what profit is there in it? But epistemology is their "queen of sciences", because it tends to be so profitable.
#15124003
Potemkin wrote:In that case, I agree with you. The bourgeoisie care nothing for ontology; after all, what profit is there in it? But epistemology is their "queen of sciences", because it tends to be so profitable.


So that's important to note in my opinion, because of this cost-benefit analysis extended to reality in general.

What shall they do when they've run out of their ''rational'' and ''profitable'' options?
#15124542
The whole foundation of liberal democracy is the premise that people will talk out their differences rather than have recourse to violence and force their wills upon their opponents. And that they will do so because in their hearts they are naturally good and virtuous, hampered only by the environmental circumstances which they can change once they know the reasonable alternatives.

This is all of course manifestly untrue.

Curiously, this disbelief in original sin and fallen mankind's propensity towards sin is a self-referential conceit shared by every religion and ideology in the world, except one, Christianity.

In Islam, all mankind are seen as being born Muslim, naturally capable of the good Allah wishes or of falling into the evil Shaitan desires them to fall into. One finds oneself in Islam enmeshed with a set of rules and conventions which are relatively easy of fulfillment and when one has lived an Islamic life more good than bad by those standards, one is elevated to Allah's seven heavens.

Therefore, it is more likely that one disenchanted by liberal democracy will find a comfortable berth in Islam, because the ideals of essential ''goodness'' are still there to be believed in. There, one need not be burdened by voting at all, and it is indeed a burden.
#15124551
@annatar1914
In regards to your statement about liberals thinking people will talk it out.
Whereas Marxists pursue class warfare to advance their goals, liberals pursue an opposite strategy of the neutralization of conflicts. They refuse to distinguish between friend and enemy, and thereby they reject the core of the process that creates political identity. Liberals by nature want to diffuse social tension and struggle, and by doing so, they try to turn politics into administrative affairs. Schmitt criticizes this tendency towards neutralization and asks them: “how can you decide not to decide?” By avoiding conflicts, they reject the other as other. Liberalism allows differences, but only within a legal framework that understands itself to be rational, hence also universal. This will render fundamental differences into degrees of similarity, thus failing to recognize the real differences between people or groups of people. Liberal parliamentarians try to decide all questions by law, but what they really do is attempting to defang and tame politics. The consequence of a liberal understanding of the state is a weakening of the state that exposes it to the dangers of political factions, such as fascists, Bolsheviks, or, in today’s environment, to large corporations and lobbying groups. Schmitt argues that liberal republicanism is not really a political doctrine; it is a negation of politics, an attempt to replace real politics with law, morality, or economics. In fact, liberal parliamentarians are elitist as well, without admitting or recognizing it. They think they represent moral and legal humanism. The enemies of liberal societies, then, are easily labeled as anti-humanist, or even as terrorists whose motivation nobody can understand. The next step is to treat them as insane, anti-social, or as enemies of all of humanity.

Liberalism is often presented as a matter of consensus which can never be achieved and thus maintaining the liberal order but not giving way to any particular view.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Collaborative%20Ethics.pdf
There is a serious problem with Consensus however, which has ethical implications; this is the paradox of the status quo: if there is no consensus, then the status quo ante is the default decision. Let’s suppose someone can’t hear what is being said in the meeting and proposes that the air conditioning be turned off; if anyone refuses to agree, then the air conditioning stays on. But let’s suppose the complainant had simply turned it off and then left it for someone to propose that it be turned on – it would remain off. Let us suppose that all the employees in a privately owned firm meet with the owner with a view to transforming the firm into a cooperative; everyone agrees except the owner; so, under the paradigm of Consensus, the firm remains in private hands. Clearly social transformation cannot be achieved by Consensus, because participation in a social order is compulsory, and there is no possibility of opting out.
...
Rawls and all the discourse ethicists assume that when ethical principles are derived by dialogue between participants they presume that Consensus is the mode of collective decision making to be used. I believe that this is the reason that discourse ethics invariably arrives at liberal conclusions. But Majority is also flawed because of its reliance on the right question being asked. Thus Discourse Ethics inevitably fails in its project at least insofar as it does not explicitly take account of collaborative projects as mediating the relations between individuals.

https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/macintyre2.pdf
This observation succinctly points to an interconnection between rationality and ethics, for by the customary use of words simply in the form of reference, all the objects referred to lose their social significance, and one creates the illusion of an “objective” world which can be talked of by means of “pure rationality”, in abstraction from the social relations which have, in fact, created and shaped the thing and given it its social significance. The sole remaining social relation mediating between people is therefore property. MacIntyre believes that English and the other international languages are now impoverished in this way.

Maintenance of the illusion of “objectivity” is essential, and MacIntyre sees the universities as playing a crucial role in the maintenance of this illusion. Since academics rely for their livelihood on disproving each other’s theories, the resulting interminable and esoteric debate continuously re-establishes the impossibility of consensus.

“In the course of history liberalism, which began as an appeal to alleged principles of shared rationality against what was felt to be the tyranny of tradition, has itself been transformed into a tradition whose continuities are partly defined by the interminability of the debate over such principles. An interminability which was from the standpoint of an earlier liberalism a grave defect to be remedied as soon as possible has become, in the eyes of some liberals at least, a kind of virtue”. (p. 335)

Far from this failure to find any firm ground undermining liberalism, MacIntyre believes that it reinforces it, because one of the fundamental bases for liberalism is the conviction that no comprehensive idea (to use Rawls’ term) can enjoy majority, let alone unanimous, support. This then justifies the ban on governments pursuing the general good.

It basically is antipolitics in order to maintain a status quo of capitalism in which individual desires are the only good while maintaining a sense of superiority over all else in their affirmation of the conflict against their don’t rock the bost until of course the form of liberal democracy and plied open markets is in their way then they’ll bomb you to freedom to be similiarly without a common good.
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