I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry. - Page 39 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15148212
Political Interest wrote:My friend, I hope all is well with you.

In my opinion we should be cloud dwellers. The world would be a better place if we had more people who are not completely involved in the contemporary world as it is.

Which is why Jesus called upon his followers to leave their worldly lives behind if they wished to follow him - they could have no personal wealth, no job, no permanent house, no family. The monastic ideal of medieval Christendom was a logical development of that.

The people of this modern world are not real cloud dwellers because they don't dwell on much. If they really were dreamers and living in the blue clouds they wouldn't be producing such superficial contrived nonsense that is the output of Western universities. A cloud dweller like Pasternak is incapable of such theories. All the writers and producers of art of any value I would say are cloud dwellers, because the creative impulse is not grounded in hard material realities. A great writer like Mikhail Bulgakov seems to me to have been not so much a politician or banker. And what of Sergei Yesenin? I think he was also somewhat of a man in the clouds, at least a man who was in his own universe, and yet he was not a bourgeois but a real peasant son of Mother Russia!

I think someone once said that Pushkin was a man who lived "up to his neck in life" - he was gounded on the Earth, through which his body moved and acted, but his head was in the clouds, above it all, and it is this distance, this alienation from everyday life, which enabled him to be objective about it and to evaluate it as it truly was. It was Mayakovsky's failure to maintain that distance which destroyed him - as he wrote in his suicide note, "The barque of love has been wrecked on the rocks of everyday life" [bytie].

Most certainly the people of pre-modern times were not cloud dwellers but the majority of people today are not either. It's very difficult to understand people who carry on through life with no thoughts that aren't entirely grounded in reality. But perhaps that is just me, because I too am very much a cloud dweller and not entirely grounded.

I simply think that the majority of people in the modern world don't really think very deeply about much, except that which concerns their every day lives. They believe in many artificial notions of reality and live in virtuality but none of these they have given much thought. Most of them are second hand opinions they've taken from the press or social media.

This is how most people have lived throughout most of human history - unconsciously. They are barely aware of their own existence, let alone anything which is not immediately under their own noses. But this is just another way of saying that humanity has not yet attained the Hegelian 'Absolute', or the Marxist 'communist society', or the technological 'Singularity', or the Christian 'eschaton', or whatever one wants to call it.

The developments in Washington are the product of material realities and a politicised public who have absorbed the Trumpist ideology. It's unlikely many of those people have given their political beliefs much thought, perhaps none at all. Afterall how could someone lost in any sort of thought be drawn into the Trumpist movement let alone participate in such lunacy. Trump is not the sort of man who is going to attract book reading introverts, or perhaps it is a broad brush generalisation on my part. What we can be certain of is that Trump is not a philosopher or a deep thinker, he's a deal maker and a doer. In a sense it alludes to the man of action that the fascists want to lead them.

Indeed, and men like Trump pride themselves on being doers rather than thinkers. This is why Stalin was so deeply and personally offended by the second part of Eisenstein's movie Ivan the Terrible. Stalin had repeatedly and explicitly compared himself with Ivan the Terrible, whom Soviet propaganda held up as a great Tsar. But Eisenstein portrayed Ivan as a man lost in gloomy introspection, a "Hamlet-like figure", as Stalin put it (which he seemed to think was an insulting term). Stalin wanted to be thought of as a man of decisive action. And this is exactly what these people's followers want them to be - unreflective men of action, decisive father figures.
#15148258
Potemkin wrote:Which is why Jesus called upon his followers to leave their worldly lives behind if they wished to follow him - they could have no personal wealth, no job, no permanent house, no family. The monastic ideal of medieval Christendom was a logical development of that.


And Christ said His Kingdom was not of this world.

To pursue such a calling is very difficult.

Potemkin wrote:I think someone once said that Pushkin was a man who lived "up to his neck in life" - he was gounded on the Earth, through which his body moved and acted, but his head was in the clouds, above it all, and it is this distance, this alienation from everyday life, which enabled him to be objective about it and to evaluate it as it truly was. It was Mayakovsky's failure to maintain that distance which destroyed him - as he wrote in his suicide note, "The barque of love has been wrecked on the rocks of everyday life" [bytie].


Both Mayakovsky and Yesenin seemed tormented by their inability to do this, especially the latter. Yesenin seemed tormented by the world he saw, but one which he could not detach himself from. That seemed to be the loss of the Russia he knew, the loss of peasant Russia and the loss of himself to urban life.

Potemkin wrote:This is how most people have lived throughout most of human history - unconsciously. They are barely aware of their own existence, let alone anything which is not immediately under their own noses. But this is just another way of saying that humanity has not yet attained the Hegelian 'Absolute', or the Marxist 'communist society', or the technological 'Singularity', or the Christian 'eschaton', or whatever one wants to call it.


It's why people are so easily led and manipulated by historical forces. It also explains why a lot of conversations revolve around little more than what someone plans to have for dinner or what they watched on the TV the previous night.

There's a lot going around now days about being the 'best version of one's self' and working hard to be a winner. Maybe it's an American way of thinking but where I'm from we are more happy to drift through life. What happens happens, you just need enough money to see you through but people aren't going to judge you for not hussling or achieving goals. Although of course this new sort of workaholic mentality from the US is now starting to influence us. It's interesting because a lot of immigrants from more ambitioius cultures like to accuse us of lacking passion and being directionless people. Maybe I'm just lazy but I don't understand that mentality. I mean why for example do I need to justify to people what I've done with my weekends or have to use holidays to go abroad when I could, ironically enough, want to save the money for a rainy day.

The workaholic doer culture is not very good for society and is in many cases opposed by many traditionalists. Many years ago I read an account of a Japanese convert to Islam explaining his reasons for why he had chosen to become a Muslim. One of them was he felt that the traditional Japanese culture had been lost and what was left was just work, materialism, consumerism. In his eyes there was no way to recover this but Islam could provide an alternative.

We know from sociological studies that the Japanese are not having children, many are not even entering into relationships. It seems that the insane working hours and hyper-capitalism of the Japanese system is not doing them any favours.

Koreans are also suffering under their own system. They live under extremely competitive conditions, their life is hard work day in day out. Many of them work till 10 pm at night, sometimes later. Apparently they then have to go out into town and drink till all hours with their boss and colleagues, then go into work and do it all again the next day! All this on a working night!

Potemkin wrote:Indeed, and men like Trump pride themselves on being doers rather than thinkers. This is why Stalin was so deeply and personally offended by the second part of Eisenstein's movie Ivan the Terrible. Stalin had repeatedly and explicitly compared himself with Ivan the Terrible, whom Soviet propaganda held up as a great Tsar. But Eisenstein portrayed Ivan as a man lost in gloomy introspection, a "Hamlet-like figure", as Stalin put it (which he seemed to think was an insulting term). Stalin wanted to be thought of as a man of decisive action. And this is exactly what these people's followers want them to be - unreflective men of action, decisive father figures.


I'd never heard that anecdote, thank you for sharing it.

There are other incidents as well. Stalin was not always the most tactful person. Is it true he verbally abused Lenin's wife down the phone?

Looking at the history of the Sino-Soviet split it appears that Stalin's relationship with Mao Zedong could have been much better and a lot of the tension could have been avoided from the outset. Stalin made some unreasonable demands on Mao and did not treat the Chinese in a very comradely fashion in spite of them having complete faith in the Soviet Union. Stalin apparently didn't receive Mao for three days after the latter's arrival in Moscow, which was unprecedented for an official of Mao's stature. I would have met Mao at the airport and driven with him to his hotel in an open top car, would have arranged to have waving crowds lining the streets.

PS, hope you are safe and well.
#15148474
@Political Interest , you asked;

My friend, I hope all is well with you.


It is well with me, about as good as I can expect, and a time of strong intellectual and spiritual ''ferment'' for me. In keeping with that, you commented to my post that;

In my opinion we should be cloud dwellers. The world would be a better place if we had more people who are not completely involved in the contemporary world as it is.


I agree to a point, although i'd make a distinction between ideas which engage answers to the questions of ultimate concern in life, and ideas of the modern age which make a point of avoiding having those ideas at all, or implementing them.
The people of this modern world are not real cloud dwellers because they don't dwell on much. If they really were dreamers and living in the blue clouds they wouldn't be producing such superficial contrived nonsense that is the output of Western universities. A cloud dweller like Pasternak is incapable of such theories. All the writers and producers of art of any value I would say are cloud dwellers, because the creative impulse is not grounded in hard material realities. A great writer like Mikhail Bulgakov seems to me to have been not so much a politician or banker. And what of Sergei Yesenin? I think he was also somewhat of a man in the clouds, at least a man who was in his own universe, and yet he was not a bourgeois but a real peasant son of Mother Russia!


What I am suggesting at this point is that Civilization is at it's basic premises something that has come into it's fulfillment in the ''Modern Age'' And why do I say that? Because leisure is the basis for Civilization as it's ideal, and contra the ancient Greeks and Romans, leisure time more often than not produces ideas that nullify actual thought and action but instead suggest pleasure, the satisfaction of desires and the avoidance of all unpleasantness. Stalin's ''slur'' on intellectuals like Pasternak as being ''cloud dwellers'' goes to the heart of the Marxian critique of philosophy in fact, but all the same is a rather unfair critique in my opinion because Marxism is itself a symptom of this modern decadence; part symptom part reaction against.

Most certainly the people of pre-modern times were not cloud dwellers but the majority of people today are not either. It's very difficult to understand people who carry on through life with no thoughts that aren't entirely grounded in reality. But perhaps that is just me, because I too am very much a cloud dweller and not entirely grounded.


Part of my take on the issue is that some of us are more capable of seeing truer reality in it's fullness, without denying it or obscuring it and it's meanings. I mean, here I am in 2021 a believer in numerous fantastical things, witches and dragons and goblins oh my! All the while being firmly grounded in everyday material life.

I simply think that the majority of people in the modern world don't really think very deeply about much, except that which concerns their every day lives. They believe in many artificial notions of reality and live in virtuality but none of these they have given much thought. Most of them are second hand opinions they've taken from the press or social media.


Second hand indeed. All the same everyone has their limitations.

The developments in Washington are the product of material realities and a politicised public who have absorbed the Trumpist ideology. It's unlikely many of those people have given their political beliefs much thought, perhaps none at all. After all how could someone lost in any sort of thought be drawn into the Trumpist movement let alone participate in such lunacy. Trump is not the sort of man who is going to attract book reading introverts, or perhaps it is a broad brush generalisation on my part. What we can be certain of is that Trump is not a philosopher or a deep thinker, he's a deal maker and a doer. In a sense it alludes to the man of action that the fascists want to lead them.


Trump and his followers are monarchists by unconcious inclination without the firm experience and foundations necessary, just yet, to allow pre-modern institutions to once again thrive. And they are still quite ill-suited to a proper defense of modern institutions which they no longer conciously believe in either. This has nothing to do in itself with Trump's moral qualities or good and evil, but a worldview that has been submerged even well before Fascism arose in the 20th century, repressed for a few centuries now.
#15149501
I am appalled and ashamed and heartbroken, but what I am certainly not is surprised. If I erred somewhat in seeing the trajectory of President Trump's career in politics, it was in thinking that he's even more powerful and popular than people truly realize, not less.

Utilitarian and rationalist considerations when voting, one's pragmatic self interest or assumed self interest, produces rule by evil men. Evil but quite popular among significant portions of the population.

Character counts, morality counts, spiritual belief counts. President Trump has none of these things really, and anyone who knew anything about him over the past 30-40 years could have and should have seen it. But many of us voted for him anyway, as he promised that his business experience and anti-establishment stance would shake things up in the favor of people who feel they've been screwed over by the establishment for decades now. But it was his infernal pride and lack of basic decency that has ruined everything people thought he would be great to achieve by voting him in. The man was never going to be a real tribune of the people, but people have despaired of ever seeing one, and settled for a man who would give a middle finger to the elites and drive liberals crazy with his obnoxious antics.

Anyone who saw the picture of President Andrew Jackson in Trump's Oval Office and listened to him even before he won the primaries in 2016 should have known that he was going to be unyielding and combative. But it goes beyond that, well beyond. Trump reflects a sickness in modern society, a spiritual malady that seeks to banish or kill God from our lives-including political life-and raises up people as rulers who believe themselves to be God, in effect. And are practically ''worshiped'' by their followers if they are sufficiently charismatic. Their enemies are likewise caught up into the common spiritual ruin, evil calling forth evil, like the working of some dynamic law of reality. But it has also called forth good, good people uniting with each other to do the right things or help others to do so. All is not lost.
#15149711
@Political Interest , @Potemkin , @Verv ;

Today is the feast of the Circumcision of Jesus Christ on the 8th day after His Birth, in the Orthodox Christian liturgical calendar.

Not only is it a prefigurement of Baptism and also His suffering during the Passion, but more importantly it is celebrated because Our Lord really did become Incarnate, as a very real and fully Human Being (as well as Divine and Eternal God), the Son of Man.

This feast shows His substantial Reality, and therefore, our substantial reality, the reality of all Created Matter against the thinking of those who reject matter as evil and/or an illusion, those who reject the Incarnation and the goodness of matter and physical life and being.
#15149714
annatar1914 wrote:@Political Interest , @Potemkin , @Verv ;

Today is the feast of the Circumcision of Jesus Christ on the 8th day after His Birth, in the Orthodox Christian liturgical calendar.

Not only is it a prefigurement of Baptism and also His suffering during the Passion, but more importantly it is celebrated because Our Lord really did become Incarnate, as a very real and fully Human Being (as well as Divine and Eternal God), the Son of Man.

This feast shows His substantial Reality, and therefore, our substantial reality, the reality of all Created Matter against the thinking of those who reject matter as evil and/or an illusion, those who reject the Incarnation and the goodness of matter and physical life and being.

Indeed, and Saint Augustine's rejection of Manicheanism was a foundational moment in the history of Orthodox Christian theology. It meant that materialism became an irrevocable element of Christian theology. God lived and died in a real, physical body, which was resurrected and glorified.
#15149729
Potemkin wrote:Indeed, and Saint Augustine's rejection of Manicheanism was a foundational moment in the history of Orthodox Christian theology. It meant that materialism became an irrevocable element of Christian theology. God lived and died in a real, physical body, which was resurrected and glorified.


@Potemkin ;

Absolutely so. And not only matter in a deeper sense was redeemed and regarded as ''really real'', but also History embedded within the material reality as a substantial thing-in-itself with a beginning, a middle, and an end, with events having a teleological meaning which gave a progressive and forwards-oriented drive to positive human actions.
#15149731
annatar1914 wrote:It is well with me, about as good as I can expect, and a time of strong intellectual and spiritual ''ferment'' for me.


I'm happy to hear this. I hope we can expect good news about the pandemic soon.

annatar1914 wrote:I agree to a point, although i'd make a distinction between ideas which engage answers to the questions of ultimate concern in life, and ideas of the modern age which make a point of avoiding having those ideas at all, or implementing them.


But do the ideas of the modern age come about as a result of deep contemplation or are they more the product of intellectual exercises, certain type of epistemological exercises? Their basis seems to be in positivism and empiricism. It's no surprise that the 20th century produced so much structuralist thinking.

annatar1914 wrote:What I am suggesting at this point is that Civilization is at it's basic premises something that has come into it's fulfillment in the ''Modern Age'' And why do I say that? Because leisure is the basis for Civilization as it's ideal, and contra the ancient Greeks and Romans, leisure time more often than not produces ideas that nullify actual thought and action but instead suggest pleasure, the satisfaction of desires and the avoidance of all unpleasantness. Stalin's ''slur'' on intellectuals like Pasternak as being ''cloud dwellers'' goes to the heart of the Marxian critique of philosophy in fact, but all the same is a rather unfair critique in my opinion because Marxism is itself a symptom of this modern decadence; part symptom part reaction against.


Agreed. The modern civilisation does promote decadent and fruitless leisure.

But free time need not be decadent.

Modern civilisation is paradoxical insofar as it produces so much useless consumerism but in return expects long working hours and complete devotion. A lot of the consumer goods can't properly be enjoyed because the consumers are always working.

It seems that a lot of people don't have time to think critically. The message of this day and age is that we need to be working non-stop to be the best we can be, to be reading more books, working harder and going to gyms, exercising etc. The notion of just being a free human who is able to explore their inner world is not perceived as the most laudable pursuit. Because man is truly free when he is able to be by himself or with others and not bound by duty. This is not to say life should be without duty, but rather it should be the real duty that is in many respects neglected for the sake of capitalist production.

I am in two minds about this. I understand and in earlier posts agreed with your position on the barbarians not needing over-contemplation and understanding reality as it is self-apparent, but now I am tending to think that very few people in modern civilisation engage in any level of deep thinking. At most it is pop philosophy or pop psychology from an video sharing website or article they saw on social media. And yet it is also as you say that the thinking people of this age are capable of producing a lot of vapid and false ideas based on their cloud dwelling. Our intelligentsia produce plenty of it!

annatar1914 wrote:Part of my take on the issue is that some of us are more capable of seeing truer reality in it's fullness, without denying it or obscuring it and it's meanings. I mean, here I am in 2021 a believer in numerous fantastical things, witches and dragons and goblins oh my! All the while being firmly grounded in everyday material life.


And there are certainly many types of people and variations. You, for example, are able to see the true reality of life but at the same time you are not lost in your thoughts. Perhaps a cloud dwelling type could see these types of realities, as I think I am inclined to do, but not be so much grounded in material reality. And then there could also be someone who believes in the post-modern fantasies, is a complete atheist but then has no deep thinking, fully grounded in material reality. Then finally there could be atheists who are completely not grounded in material reality but again cloud dwellers. There seems to be several degrees of nuance to this question.

annatar1914 wrote:Second hand indeed. All the same everyone has their limitations.


I must plead guilty to having many second hand opinions. I don't profess to be more than a pseudo-intellectual dabbler and am by no means trying to set myself above the rest.

annatar1914 wrote:Trump and his followers are monarchists by unconcious inclination without the firm experience and foundations necessary, just yet, to allow pre-modern institutions to once again thrive. And they are still quite ill-suited to a proper defense of modern institutions which they no longer conciously believe in either. This has nothing to do in itself with Trump's moral qualities or good and evil, but a worldview that has been submerged even well before Fascism arose in the 20th century, repressed for a few centuries now.


It's a certain tendency present in all societies but which is not institutionally possible in much of the modern world. They want their monarch perhaps?

annatar1914 wrote:I am appalled and ashamed and heartbroken, but what I am certainly not is surprised. If I erred somewhat in seeing the trajectory of President Trump's career in politics, it was in thinking that he's even more powerful and popular than people truly realize, not less.

Utilitarian and rationalist considerations when voting, one's pragmatic self interest or assumed self interest, produces rule by evil men. Evil but quite popular among significant portions of the population.

Character counts, morality counts, spiritual belief counts. President Trump has none of these things really, and anyone who knew anything about him over the past 30-40 years could have and should have seen it. But many of us voted for him anyway, as he promised that his business experience and anti-establishment stance would shake things up in the favor of people who feel they've been screwed over by the establishment for decades now. But it was his infernal pride and lack of basic decency that has ruined everything people thought he would be great to achieve by voting him in. The man was never going to be a real tribune of the people, but people have despaired of ever seeing one, and settled for a man who would give a middle finger to the elites and drive liberals crazy with his obnoxious antics.

Anyone who saw the picture of President Andrew Jackson in Trump's Oval Office and listened to him even before he won the primaries in 2016 should have known that he was going to be unyielding and combative. But it goes beyond that, well beyond. Trump reflects a sickness in modern society, a spiritual malady that seeks to banish or kill God from our lives-including political life-and raises up people as rulers who believe themselves to be God, in effect. And are practically ''worshiped'' by their followers if they are sufficiently charismatic. Their enemies are likewise caught up into the common spiritual ruin, evil calling forth evil, like the working of some dynamic law of reality. But it has also called forth good, good people uniting with each other to do the right things or help others to do so. All is not lost.


It was to be expected. But Trump appealed to many tendencies that were not all negative. There were many Americans who voted for him because they believed he would stop the foreign wars, for example.

The people do not know what they want, but when they hear a voice that vaguely sounds to be speaking their language they will gravitate to it more than they would the other voice. Even if he was not their man the people still went for Trump because they thought he was a step up. Clearly an imperfect persona but the themes he appealed to have yet to be adequately addressed by any American leader. And these themes and issues could be addressed by any side of the political spectrum, they're not purely right wing issues.

annatar1914 wrote:Today is the feast of the Circumcision of Jesus Christ on the 8th day after His Birth, in the Orthodox Christian liturgical calendar.

Not only is it a prefigurement of Baptism and also His suffering during the Passion, but more importantly it is celebrated because Our Lord really did become Incarnate, as a very real and fully Human Being (as well as Divine and Eternal God), the Son of Man.

This feast shows His substantial Reality, and therefore, our substantial reality, the reality of all Created Matter against the thinking of those who reject matter as evil and/or an illusion, those who reject the Incarnation and the goodness of matter and physical life and being.


It is a rejection of the Manichean view of life and a testament to the redeemed creation.
#15149732
annatar1914 wrote:@Potemkin ;

Absolutely so. And not only matter in a deeper sense was redeemed and regarded as ''really real'', but also History embedded within the material reality as a substantial thing-in-itself with a beginning, a middle, and an end, with events having a teleological meaning which gave a progressive and forwards-oriented drive to positive human actions.

Indeed. The entire concept of progress, of a steady inward-driven movement of human history towards higher states of being, began at that moment in Milan when Augustine finally rejected the Manichean religion and embraced the faith of his mother. The material world was created by God, who "saw that it was good". Scientific progress - and social progress too - became both possible and desirable at that moment. Progress became part of God's Plan.
#15149786
@Political Interest ;

Thank you my friend!


I'm happy to hear this.


Yes, past couple weeks have been good, and quite hopeful in a spiritual sense; a ''ferment''. I have been through a couple days of relative torpor and sluggishness but I think it came from worldly distractions I'm afraid. But, awareness of the problem is a good ways towards resolving it.


I hope we can expect good news about the pandemic soon.


I think so too. God has given us gifted physicians and scientists, that come out in times of medical crisis. Plus, this plague has political roots that will not last, for God is not mocked. Of that, I'll discuss further below.


On what passes for thinking in the modern era;


But do the ideas of the modern age come about as a result of deep contemplation or are they more the product of intellectual exercises, certain type of epistemological exercises? Their basis seems to be in positivism and empiricism. It's no surprise that the 20th century produced so much structuralist thinking.


''How do we know what we know?'', indeed. It does seem built on positivism and empiricism, that itself proceeded from a Medieval scholasticism that did not satisfy more dis-satisfied minds in the West. I think it is the product of intellectual preening and collective groupthink.

On my view of civilization and leisure;


Agreed. The modern civilisation does promote decadent and fruitless leisure.

But free time need not be decadent.


Sure, and I think, perhaps counter-intuitively, that he best free time is that that is less forced and structured, to where it becomes a form of work in itself for so many people.

Modern civilisation is paradoxical insofar as it produces so much useless consumerism but in return expects long working hours and complete devotion. A lot of the consumer goods can't properly be enjoyed because the consumers are always working.


Absolutely, and the 'higher' one's 'quality of life' the worse the problem is.

It seems that a lot of people don't have time to think critically. The message of this day and age is that we need to be working non-stop to be the best we can be, to be reading more books, working harder and going to gyms, exercising etc. The notion of just being a free human who is able to explore their inner world is not perceived as the most laudable pursuit. Because man is truly free when he is able to be by himself or with others and not bound by duty. This is not to say life should be without duty, but rather it should be the real duty that is in many respects neglected for the sake of capitalist production.


And when people abandon their ''duty'' of being mere consumers of goods and services, the whole thing will grind to a halt from that movement away, if it doesn't come from some other reason.

I am in two minds about this. I understand and in earlier posts agreed with your position on the barbarians not needing over-contemplation and understanding reality as it is self-apparent, but now I am tending to think that very few people in modern civilisation engage in any level of deep thinking. At most it is pop philosophy or pop psychology from an video sharing website or article they saw on social media. And yet it is also as you say that the thinking people of this age are capable of producing a lot of vapid and false ideas based on their cloud dwelling. Our intelligentsia produce plenty of it!


No offense to people on PoFo necessarily, but I see it a lot here as elsewhere too. It's like two alien species trying to communicate; ''Copernican'' and ''Pre-Copernican'', but of that I'll speak later.


And there are certainly many types of people and variations. You, for example, are able to see the true reality of life but at the same time you are not lost in your thoughts. Perhaps a cloud dwelling type could see these types of realities, as I think I am inclined to do, but not be so much grounded in material reality. And then there could also be someone who believes in the post-modern fantasies, is a complete atheist but then has no deep thinking, fully grounded in material reality. Then finally there could be atheists who are completely not grounded in material reality but again cloud dwellers. There seems to be several degrees of nuance to this question.


There are, and I'm probably at fault for speaking in these generalities, although I do it for ease of introducing and recalling concepts to my own mind as much as anyone else's.


I must plead guilty to having many second hand opinions. I don't profess to be more than a pseudo-intellectual dabbler and am by no means trying to set myself above the rest.


I feel that way myself, although it may be the case where we do not give ourselves enough credit. I think second hand opinions are fine if they happen to be the right ones. And I do not mean that in a facetious way either really, because otherwise we'd be forced to constantly apply a corrosive skepticism to all things.

On the Pro-Trumpian Monarchial impulse;

It's a certain tendency present in all societies but which is not institutionally possible in much of the modern world. They want their monarch perhaps?


I think we often do in modern societies; even in ordinary times with ordinary candidates, we all seem to come to appreciate and follower a political leader, wish he had time to carry out a mutual agenda, and our wishes are dashed by the constitutional restraints of term limitations and losing elections.


It was to be expected. But Trump appealed to many tendencies that were not all negative. There were many Americans who voted for him because they believed he would stop the foreign wars, for example.


I agree. He, and by extension they, are painted in such dualistic terms rhetorically that it reveals the vile arrogance of those who hate them, whatever their real flaws it does not rise to demonizing them.

The people do not know what they want, but when they hear a voice that vaguely sounds to be speaking their language they will gravitate to it more than they would the other voice. Even if he was not their man the people still went for Trump because they thought he was a step up. Clearly an imperfect persona but the themes he appealed to have yet to be adequately addressed by any American leader. And these themes and issues could be addressed by any side of the political spectrum, they're not purely right wing issues.


You've hit the mark here I think, and to deny these facts you plainly state is both arrogant and exceedingly foolish. Liberalism is the lasting and final fruit of the ''Enlightenment'' and the modern era we live in, it's assumptions are almost universal, but something is lost in the humanity of it's partisans I believe. And this contributes to the personal and social pathologies of this era in particular above others.

On the inner meaning of today's Feast of the Circumcision;


It is a rejection of the Manichean view of life and a testament to the redeemed creation.


Truly this is so.
#15149787
Potemkin wrote:Indeed. The entire concept of progress, of a steady inward-driven movement of human history towards higher states of being, began at that moment in Milan when Augustine finally rejected the Manichean religion and embraced the faith of his mother. The material world was created by God, who "saw that it was good". Scientific progress - and social progress too - became both possible and desirable at that moment. Progress became part of God's Plan.


@Potemkin ,

I believe that's one aspect of it, and we can grasp the magnitude of the change when we consider the alternatives opposite to the Pauline/Augustinian Orthodox Christian position.

All reactionary (not traditional!) thought and action tends towards the cyclic and eternal steady-state of; ''what is, is right''. Even if it in some forms instead posits a Dualistic worldview, the end state is thought of as nothing more than a return to the status quo of separation between the forces of a substantial evil and a substantial good.
#15149792
annatar1914 wrote:@Verv , @Potemkin , and @Political Interest ;

Recent readings of mine in scientific social studies of existing tribal societies around the world have tempered my ''enthusiasm'' for Barbarism as such; high rates of infanticide and abortion and physical and sexual abuse of children by ''adults'' (who are often merely older survivors of abuse and childhood trauma themselves, inflicting the pain they went through or witnessed upon others) who turn into hypermasculine psychopaths, effeminates, and poisonous ''witches''who continue and repeat the cycle of trauma and abuse to the next generation, is very common.

A distinction perhaps can be made between this type of mankind (I'll call them, the 'Savage', because of their cruelty to themselves and others), and peoples who can be called either Barbarian and the Civilized. However, given the nature of civilization itself in it's decadent downward spiral, it's possible in my mind that the Savage is the product of degenerate civilized peoples. We should unfortunately see then an upswing in incidents of these horrible abuses and traumas in the most advanced societies... If that's the case, it's also possible that a cycle of mankind's progress and regress exists, from which natural man cannot fully escape without the light of God's grace, to fulfill His timeless precepts and commandments.


Out of curiosity...

Did you happen to stumble upon this chapter of a book on anthropology? I've heard people say it is not reliable and is not conventionally published or anything, but these are things that I believe ultimately check out. I would be curious about other people's responses to it as well.

I've stumbled across this book in two different places being cited on the internet. It's really quite the extreme read with lots of interesting content, and it was something that initially woke me up on the issue of the noble savage.

There are other very eye opening texts out there as well.
#15149955
Verv wrote:Out of curiosity...

Did you happen to stumble upon this chapter of a book on anthropology? I've heard people say it is not reliable and is not conventionally published or anything, but these are things that I believe ultimately check out. I would be curious about other people's responses to it as well.

I've stumbled across this book in two different places being cited on the internet. It's really quite the extreme read with lots of interesting content, and it was something that initially woke me up on the issue of the noble savage.

There are other very eye opening texts out there as well.


@Verv ;

Wow, that's interesting... Yes I had come across that article not too long ago, with quite deliberate intent on finding something like that somewhat contrary to my original idea, because when I consider something somewhat new to my thinking, I think I deliberately set out to knock it down if possible, so that I don't go off on a tangent, or even spiritual delusion. Of course, I knew that my ''baseline'' to work with is Christianity's teachings on Ancestral Sin and the life of man without grace.

It does seem that Joseph de Maistre was right, that aside from our common anthropological calamity there are some peoples who collectively speaking continue to fall even further downwards into spiritual followed by physical extinction, where they gradually lose more and more even the natural gifts common to humanity.

Thus, my thinking about barbarism would from one perspective apply only to those peoples that retained something of those natural gifts and have a more expansive and refined culture compared to the actual savages we're speaking of. Civilized peoples of course might not see those distinctions and see all peoples less ''advanced'' than themselves as being sub-human ''savages'', including their own ancestors.
#15150507
@Verv , @Potemkin , @Political Interest , @Wellsy , Before I ask you to discuss this issue, the culmination of this thread in some important respects, I preface it by saying;

There is a teleological and perhaps even eschatological dimension to Modernity that I am going to examine, and to do so I will take a look at the spiritual and religious aspects of belief in what is commonly called ''extraterrestrial life'' and the ''UFO Phenomenon/Ancient Astronauts belief''. What I intend to write and discuss will not really touch upon what I personally believe very much at first I think, but what others might believe and why, and the consequences of these beliefs. Blaise Pascal once wrote;


''The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with horror''


He was talking about the philosophical 'problem' of infinite divisibility and infinite extension in space, once the previous Cosmology prior to his time was gradually jettisoned.

An infinitude of worlds in an endless and eternal universe, filled with beings more or less like man as being rational souls in a body, no matter how strange that body may seem to us.

And after the Copernican revolution in Cosmology and physics, and the unfolding of it's consequences, came the Darwinian revolution in Biology, and God was decisively banished intellectually from the Universe He was no longer being seen as having made (and Evolution applied to the Universe made the possibility of Ancient Godlike Extraterrestrial civilizations ''Certain"). Should He try to ''return'', He will only be seen as a very powerful Extraterrestrial in a vast Universe full of beings perhaps potentially more powerful and wiser than Him, and therefore will no doubt be resisted...

Decades of science fiction and fantasy writing and film and television have only served to cement these notions into the popular mind. With good Aliens who want to help us. And bad Aliens who want to destroy or enslave us.

And so if the UFO Phenomena is ''real'', as in something controlled by non-human beings, we are primed to respond by our education in Modernity to act or not act in certain ways, with regards to that phenomenon.

And what does this all mean in the context of traditional thought, including religion (specifically Monotheism/Revealed Religions)?

Discuss...
#15151030
In the interim...

Just wanted to say a few words about January 6th 2021. Everyone is at sea over this one, the riots at the US Capitol during the certification of the Presidential election vote.

Theater, planned or unplanned.

I suspect that it was a theater act unplanned by men, because one doesn't plan on breaking the spell of one's rule by staging a transgressive act against it, a violation of the institutional ''sacred spaces'' of the civic religion. Barbarism on display-which is interesting in light of things I've said earlier on this thread about Barbarism.

And it can only be fully understood therefore in the context of all the street fighting of the past 4-5 years or so, ''right'' or ''left''. Greater forces are at work.
#15151032
annatar1914 wrote:@Verv , @Potemkin , @Political Interest , @Wellsy , Before I ask you to discuss this issue, the culmination of this thread in some important respects, I preface it by saying;

There is a teleological and perhaps even eschatological dimension to Modernity that I am going to examine, and to do so I will take a look at the spiritual and religious aspects of belief in what is commonly called ''extraterrestrial life'' and the ''UFO Phenomenon/Ancient Astronauts belief''. What I intend to write and discuss will not really touch upon what I personally believe very much at first I think, but what others might believe and why, and the consequences of these beliefs. Blaise Pascal once wrote;


''The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with horror''


He was talking about the philosophical 'problem' of infinite divisibility and infinite extension in space, once the previous Cosmology prior to his time was gradually jettisoned.

An infinitude of worlds in an endless and eternal universe, filled with beings more or less like man as being rational souls in a body, no matter how strange that body may seem to us.

And after the Copernican revolution in Cosmology and physics, and the unfolding of it's consequences, came the Darwinian revolution in Biology, and God was decisively banished intellectually from the Universe He was no longer being seen as having made (and Evolution applied to the Universe made the possibility of Ancient Godlike Extraterrestrial civilizations ''Certain"). Should He try to ''return'', He will only be seen as a very powerful Extraterrestrial in a vast Universe full of beings perhaps potentially more powerful and wiser than Him, and therefore will no doubt be resisted...

Decades of science fiction and fantasy writing and film and television have only served to cement these notions into the popular mind. With good Aliens who want to help us. And bad Aliens who want to destroy or enslave us.

And so if the UFO Phenomena is ''real'', as in something controlled by non-human beings, we are primed to respond by our education in Modernity to act or not act in certain ways, with regards to that phenomenon.

And what does this all mean in the context of traditional thought, including religion (specifically Monotheism/Revealed Religions)?

Discuss...


Really awesome take.

Clearly, the aliens in these universes replace gods & devils. It's a new religion with its own theories, and its own prophets. Specifically with the ancient astronaut theory, there is even a parallel with the Garden of Eden.

There is actually a Ufologist in exile in South Korea who says that the aliens are universally just demons penetrating into our dimensions. I believe it was also the case that Bl. Fr. Seraphim Rose stated that these strange apparitions and tricks are actually just demons, who are also taking advantage of the superstition of men. Different take, but same subject.

I have thought about writing a Sci Fi series that actually takes the domain back for the religious, and instead interprets human settlement of a distant planet as some actualization of divine providence. For there is no reason that we should not treat all of creation as our realm. At least, in terms of commentary and entertainment.
#15151084
Verv wrote:Really awesome take.

Clearly, the aliens in these universes replace gods & devils. It's a new religion with its own theories, and its own prophets. Specifically with the ancient astronaut theory, there is even a parallel with the Garden of Eden.

There is actually a Ufologist in exile in South Korea who says that the aliens are universally just demons penetrating into our dimensions. I believe it was also the case that Bl. Fr. Seraphim Rose stated that these strange apparitions and tricks are actually just demons, who are also taking advantage of the superstition of men. Different take, but same subject.

I have thought about writing a Sci Fi series that actually takes the domain back for the religious, and instead interprets human settlement of a distant planet as some actualization of divine providence. For there is no reason that we should not treat all of creation as our realm. At least, in terms of commentary and entertainment.


@Verv ;

Pretty awesome take yourself on the whole issue :-)

Full disclosure; while part of my family is very conservative Evangelical Southern Protestant American in origin and belief, and while the other part of my family is very liberal and Roman Catholic Northerners, one of my parents was and is an absolute UFO/Ancient Aliens/Extraterrestrial life/Occult fanatic, it is truly a religion to them. I grew up all my life being exposed to all that, and with all these other worldviews as well.

After a lifetime of it and experiencing the phenomena and everything that comes with it, I can firmly attest that to me this cluster of phenomena is Demonic in origin, or at best a glimpse of the cosmic war between the ranks of heavenly angels against the hellish demons and their spawn the ''Nephilim'', the ''Giants'' of old.

Therefore I find it perhaps a bit curious that I should even be thinking of this at this time, when today is the feastday of the Theophany, the revealing of the Holy Trinity when Our Lord was baptized in the Jordan River...

There was the theory in these UFO fanatic circles that disclosure of the UFO/Alien phenomena would overturn modern civilization because people couldn't handle the truth, especially religious people.

I have a counter-theory of sorts; that true full disclosure of the UFO phenomena (including ''Fatima''!) would bring an end either way to the secular experiment of modernity altogether, and that is precisely why there is still a cover-up of sorts while all this other nonsense is propagated without ceasing 24/7 365 days a year.
#15151221
annatar1914 wrote:[usermention=9101]I have a counter-theory of sorts; that true full disclosure of the UFO phenomena (including ''Fatima''!) would bring an end either way to the secular experiment of modernity altogether, and that is precisely why there is still a cover-up of sorts while all this other nonsense is propagated without ceasing 24/7 365 days a year.


10/10 take.

I actually read a review of Our Lady of Fatima as a extraterrestrial event, I believe written by a Protestant. It was honestly quite compelling considering the eyewitness accounts and all the strange anomalies within the appartion.

The strangest of which being that they reported the "Theotokos" as wearing a short skirt (CogWriter). This is unthinkable to any Catholic or Orthodox mind, yet this is how it is reported, and many people had such powerful feelings and visions surrounding Fatima...

While prelest will always happen, God does not allow the demonic to so totally subvert the theology & imagery as to completely mislead the faithful, as I understand it. So, right here is the sign that this was a fake apparition -- and not just a fake, but one that was meant to deceive people.
#15151389
Verv wrote:10/10 take.

I actually read a review of Our Lady of Fatima as a extraterrestrial event, I believe written by a Protestant. It was honestly quite compelling considering the eyewitness accounts and all the strange anomalies within the appartion.

The strangest of which being that they reported the "Theotokos" as wearing a short skirt (CogWriter). This is unthinkable to any Catholic or Orthodox mind, yet this is how it is reported, and many people had such powerful feelings and visions surrounding Fatima...

While prelest will always happen, God does not allow the demonic to so totally subvert the theology & imagery as to completely mislead the faithful, as I understand it. So, right here is the sign that this was a fake apparition -- and not just a fake, but one that was meant to deceive people.


@Verv ;

Very true my friend. And people do not examine the whole ''UFO Phenomena'' in light of the larger otherworldly sightings and strange happenings, except a few researchers like Physicist Jacques Vallee and John Keel.

Their conclusions fit in with what we're discussing; that humanity is dealing with a phenomena of what Keel called ''Ultraterrestrials'', not ''Extraterrestrials''.

And as you mention, there is a calculated intent to deceive on the part of at least some of these non-human intelligences.
#15151712
annatar1914 wrote:@Verv ;

Very true my friend. And people do not examine the whole ''UFO Phenomena'' in light of the larger otherworldly sightings and strange happenings, except a few researchers like Physicist Jacques Vallee and John Keel.

Their conclusions fit in with what we're discussing; that humanity is dealing with a phenomena of what Keel called ''Ultraterrestrials'', not ''Extraterrestrials''.

And as you mention, there is a calculated intent to deceive on the part of at least some of these non-human intelligences.


Of course, as this appears to be so, we ironically would find Modernity once again hiding it's pre-Christian roots, with new mythologies and all that. There is even rebooting of popular gods and demigods and heroes which is now quite popular as entertainment and education-really as it has been throughout the modern period.

Shouldn't be surprised at the rank superstition of the era we live in, I suppose.
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