[annatar1914]

@Potemkin ,@Verv , @Political Interest , and other honored friends here;

Without hopefully being too cryptic, I have come to believe that the legendary ''Sword of God'' that was granted to Attila the Hun was his to wield because his civilized Roman enemies had become too enfeebled to wield it, enfeebled by social and political convention that serves in any civilized society much as does a written constitution in modern times today. And so he became the ''Scourge of God'' upon civilization despite being a pagan and a barbarian outsider whose realm collapsed shortly after his own death after a few wild years.

And again there is possibly another story that shows how God deals with rotten civilization, which I will recall in full without commentary at first, from the 1st book of kings chapter 19, after the prophet saint Elijah had slain the prophets and priests of Baal after the miracle on mount Carmel;

19 And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.

3 And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.

4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.

5 And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.

6 And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.

7 And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.

8 And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

9 And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?

10 And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

14 And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

15 And the Lord said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:

16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room.

17 And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.

18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

19 So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him.

20 And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee?

21 And he returned back from him, and took a yoke of oxen, and slew them, and boiled their flesh with the instruments of the oxen, and gave unto the people, and they did eat. Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.

Emphasis in bold. The primary representatives of a rotten civilization and a corrupt system will always face Divine Providence, the wheels of inexorable fate. This is what history shows.

[annatar1914]

Today I read this from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapter 29:7;

'' And seek the peace of the city, to which I have caused you to be carried away captives; and pray to the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall be your peace.''

But then there is also this from Jeremiah 35:1-14;

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord during the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah: “Go to the Rekabite family and invite them to come to one of the side rooms of the house of the Lord and give them wine to drink.”

So I went to get Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazziniah, and his brothers and all his sons—the whole family of the Rekabites. I brought them into the house of the Lord, into the room of the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah the man of God. It was next to the room of the officials, which was over that of Maaseiah son of Shallum the doorkeeper. Then I set bowls full of wine and some cups before the Rekabites and said to them, “Drink some wine.”

But they replied, “We do not drink wine, because our forefather Jehonadab[a] son of Rekab gave us this command: ‘Neither you nor your descendants must ever drink wine. Also you must never build houses, sow seed or plant vineyards; you must never have any of these things, but must always live in tents. Then you will live a long time in the land where you are nomads.’ We have obeyed everything our forefather Jehonadab son of Rekab commanded us. Neither we nor our wives nor our sons and daughters have ever drunk wine or built houses to live in or had vineyards, fields or crops. We have lived in tents and have fully obeyed everything our forefather Jehonadab commanded us. But when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded this land, we said, ‘Come, we must go to Jerusalem to escape the Babylonian and Aramean armies.’ So we have remained in Jerusalem.”

Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying: “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go and tell the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘Will you not learn a lesson and obey my words?’ declares the Lord. ‘Jehonadab son of Rekab ordered his descendants not to drink wine and this command has been kept. To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed me. ''

Forbidden to make or live in permanent houses, drink wine, raise crops or build up civilization, the Rechabites nonetheless temporarily fled to Jerusalem to escape the fury of the armies of Babylon.

One can be in the World but not of the World, while praying and working for the good and peace of the World, but ready to withdraw from the World for one's own higher good.

[annatar1914]

I have always been fascinated by these people my entire life;

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

So I cannot say that the theme of barbarism/nomadism is an unfamiliar one to me, just expressing itself to me now. It seems that their freedom and their authority, patriarchal and matriarchal, castes and symbiosis within social realitionships, old traditions and new traits, strike a number of curious contrasts. These specific people make a hash of a great deal of modern theories in general about humanity, in my opinion. How do they survive and even thrive today?

[annatar1914]

@Verv , @Political Interest , @Potemkin ,and others;

We expect Hollywood endings to our ''endings'' in real life, and are disappointed when we not only don't get that ending, the real world and our real lives just keeps rolling right along, generating new stories for us to live in partly cannibalized from previous tales.

Was this always so? As long as Theater, I suppose. Theater grew up out of the World and then in the West became the World, a mere Stage; ''the World as Will and representation''.

So Western mankind, imagining in his outer life that he was an Actor playing a role, internalized his part and divided it into an Ego and Id, into Conscious and Sub-Conscious. It relates to what Our Lord was really saying when he called a certain class of sinner; ''Hypocrite''. That is, a Greco-Roman style Actor, fully encased in a mask complete with breathing and voice tube, and costumed entirely for a role, a ''Persona''. Not the real person inside.

So what are recent events then, reality or theater?

In my opinion, reality. The horribly untruly named ''Reality Show'' has gotten canceled. 9-11-2001 was the first major homeopathic dose of reality administered to the West since 1945, and COVID-19 has been the second major dose. I want everyone to understand that President Trump would still be President from 2020 to 2024 in his second term had not actual reality hit the West when it did. There's no real fault in Theater... I'm reminded though of people who come up to entertainers and get furious with ''them'' for something their characters they play ''did'' on the show the actors work on.

A significant proportion of the population is already in a sub-hypnotic state, an altered state of consciousness that has nothing to do with intellect or education, in fact those people are some of the easiest to fully hypnotize, the high intellects and well educated, (without giving anything away there...)

This disconnect is also ironically why fairy tales, folk tales, ghost and monster stories and animal fables are no longer well understood by most people in the West today, who see them as something for children and who adapt them for movies and television, losing the meanings by adding another layer of artiface and falsehood to what is really being said fairly directly in one of these tales. And that's all before we consider cultural differences.

We are thus often appalled by Aesop's fables and Grimm's Fairy Tales or even 1001 Arabian Nights when we read them.

What happened? Modern Man became Modern Man when he became an Participant and not a Observer, and could only ''become'' a observer again by a subtle shift in perspective, and then only in relation to others and not himself.

[annatar1914]

So I saw the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the Winter Solstice, which Johannes Kepler claimed was the actual ''Star of Bethlehem'' of 7 BC.

Interesting that the Roman Census (when Quirinius was governor of Syria) of that year was of Roman Citizens. So The Holy Family and thus Christ Himself were therefore Citizens? I recall the Physicist Frank Tipler making that argument in his book; ''the physics of Christianity''.

I might add too that if St. Joseph and St. Mary the Theotokos would not let Our Lord come to Judea and the Temple for fear of Herod and Archelaus the son of Herod, that fits the 7 BC chronology exactly as well, because Archelaus was exiled by the Emperor in 6 AD, and the Gospels record Jesus Christ as coming to the Temple with His Family when He was 12 years of age. This would have made Christ almost 40 in 33 AD, the year of His Crucifixion, which is also born out by the available information. The Church father Tertullian also agrees explicitly with 7 BC being the Birth Date, the Year of the Incarnation.

But back to the Conjunction itself for a moment. A fair amount of clouds and ''light pollution''. How many truly see the stars anymore in the big cities? Again, we cannot see Reality because of a veil of technology and therefore mediated abstraction that obscures it. A host of artificial lights obscures the glory of the Host of Heaven at night, the disk of the Earth rivaling the dome of the sky in the ''Magian'' consciousness of today.

The Truth is pursued by the Magi, the true Illuminati, who see stars and planets as symbols of signs and of seasons (perverted by Astrological divination), not mere modern scholars and scientists who see things entirely differently.

[annatar1914]

The Prophet st. Jeremiah told the people of Judah that they were to be defeated, the Temple and Jerusalem destroyed, exiled to Babylon, all for their sins and indeed, foreign entanglements.

The Establishment of Judean society around the King obviously saw him as a defeatist, even a traitor. Their alliances with other states and with the superpower of Egypt would hold back Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. They were the fools of course, blinded by their own worldly wickedness so that they could not see their approaching humiliation, their destruction, they could not and would not repent and seek the Lord's guidance.

It's not like this was what Jeremiah wanted, to see this happen. But eventually it did. And in the midst of all that sorrow he somehow found hope and consolation.

[Potemkin]

The Prophet st. Jeremiah told the people of Judah that they were to be defeated, the Temple and Jerusalem destroyed, exiled to Babylon, all for their sins and indeed, foreign entanglements.

The Establishment of Judean society around the King obviously saw him as a defeatist, even a traitor. Their alliances with other states and with the superpower of Egypt would hold back Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. They were the fools of course, blinded by their own worldly wickedness so that they could not see their approaching humiliation, their destruction, they could not and would not repent and seek the Lord's guidance.

It's not like this was what Jeremiah wanted, to see this happen. But eventually it did. And in the midst of all that sorrow he somehow found hope and consolation.

Every prophet can be thought of as a "defeatist", in the sense that they have submitted themselves to the will of God. Mankind, and especially worldly leaders, struggle against God and regard anyone who doesn't do so as a "traitor". Which indeed they are, since loyalty to God is treason to this world (and vice versa of course). In this respect all prophets, like revolutionaries, are outcasts, subversives, defeatists and traitors.

[annatar1914]

Every prophet can be thought of as a "defeatist", in the sense that they have submitted themselves to the will of God. Mankind, and especially worldly leaders, struggle against God and regard anyone who doesn't do so as a "traitor". Which indeed they are, since loyalty to God is treason to this world (and vice versa of course). In this respect all prophets, like revolutionaries, are outcasts, subversives, defeatists and traitors.

@Potemkin ;

Well said. This is of course the way of the World, and one has the choice of choosing to try to ''kick against the pricks'' and burn it all down and start over; ''Heaven on Earth'' being the goal (although perverted and rendered in vain without God and His Church), or putting it in God's hands at the very consummation of human history. But in the interim, is it not the case that we who are Christians will (in the ''Lord's Prayer'') ask that His ''will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven''? ''Revolutions'' though are not always just a matter of storming the Winter Palace or the like, and it may well be that the greater and entirely just Revolution awaits when God Himself comes to rescue the Poor.

Certainly, these distinctions never amounted to much in the eyes of the truly Reactionary, from the Roman Emperors until St. Constantine, all the way up to today, where the heirs of Neitzsche and Evola lump together all the Christians and Jews and Muslims and Liberal Do-Gooders and Progressives with the Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists...All our in-fighting regarded as sectarian squabbles over issues of little import however bloody, and all equally senseless to the holders of reactionary human tradition. They regard us all as mutants, ''Chandalas'', dysgenic misfits full of ''resentiment'' over our natural racially inferior and slave state beneath the higher and even superhuman forms of life over us.

After all, To me there's ''Tradition'' which is what St. Paul called the ''Traditions of men'' that are of little account, and the Holy Tradition which comes from God, that which is universally valid and timelessly eternal.

Now, the ''Traditions of Men'' are thus ultimately of the esoteric sort, of which I won't discuss more at this point in this comment, but provide the modern era's Elites with an opportunity to return to the Paganism of old which reached it's penultimate in the Greco-Roman Hellenism.

...Except with regard to this esotericism at reaction's heart i'll say that these reactionaries in the not-too-distant future will entirely likely regard the Phenomenon coming to rescue mankind from their grip (will posit such a rescue) as an ''Extraterrestrial'' or ''Alien'' threat, with certain people like Christians as a ''5th column'', and therefore as alleged literal ''anti-social enemies of the human race'' once more.

EDIT; on ''Chandalas''

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

Again, there's more to the esoteric than what Neitzsche said...

[Political Interest]

Intelligent people have a habit of slipping into pessimism because they can see more clearly the possible obstacles ahead of them, but it need not be this way.

It is clear then that you too are a pessimist in that case .

A lot of cases of PTSD, of what used to be called ''Shell Shock'', among them from what I've seen. It's like they play a video and audio loop of the traumatic events, over and over in their heads.

I see. I have never been to war and would not know.

I think so, in relation to what I said earlier it can induce a kind of paralysis. It has to be fought for the sake of life itself.

Yes, indeed. But then we must not forsake our inner world either.

I agree. Again I think one of the visual symbols of Barbarism as I see it that resonates with me a lot is Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot, ''solving'' it's riddle. Things are a lot less complicated than we make them.

Barbarians have always made complex problems very simple. Barbarian peoples have always been militarily superior to the civilised forces in spite of them supposedly being more sophisticated.

Yes, and which can be seen even in the Lives of Christ and His Apostles. They were chosen by Him, but they freely followed Him.

The subtlety of this should not be lost on anyone. They had free choice but in the end they were still subject to destiny and fate.

What terrors we experienced in the 20th century could have been far greater than we realize.

Monumentally greater.

Providential irony in my opinion.

And yet the Europeans don't see this in their own history even after the episode with Hitler. Hitler was able to take power in a liberal and democratic system. The Soviet and Russian Imperial systems did not allow such lunatics to get even a step forward.

In my mind, there are two traditions. One is of men, and the other is of God, of the things of God and the ways in which He ordains men to live.

When I speak of being a ''Traditionalist'', I am not of the sort that values the Pagan past, then. I'm to be reckoned by such people who are, to be counted among the Jews and Socialists and Christians that the Fascist Right has railed against (to include Neitzsche). A follower of Evola or Guenon might not consider me of their camp.

I was close to that, very close. But my difference with them came down to a fundamental break in the concept of Time and the Telos of History that Christianity offers, and the gap only widened later.

So that now in America and the political situation there, I find myself ground between two millstones, the Liberal one and the Pagan one... Note that I said ''Pagan'' instead of ''Conservative''? Really both are Pagan, except that the Liberal has something vestigial left in them of Christian compassion, taken secularized and strange forms at times, but still there. American Conservatism/Libertarianism is as Pagan as Classical Greco-Roman civilization, and is a return to it.

I have never read Evola, except to glance briefly. As far as I am concerned his strange purely cultural association with Catholicism and claims that it preserves Roman paganism is pure nonsense. The Tradition he speaks of seems as modern and imagined as the modernity he professed to despise. To be a pagan using Roman Catholicism as an analogue is an entirely modern position. And the general association with Mussolini and the Waffen SS is extremely off putting.

Rene Guenon was more interesting but then how can someone accept the notion that all religions extend from one original tradition? I don't understand the perennialist ideas.

Time being a thing that is linear, with a beginning and a middle and an end, coming from God and returning to Him. Time that is purposeful, with meaning behind every event no matter how trivial or banal or senseless it appears to our finite perspectives.

If Time is this way, than what are the political implications? Well, ''Politics'' means literally; ''affairs of the cities'', and we know then from the Monotheistic tradition that the cities will not last, permanent although they may seem to those who dwell therein.

So it the reality of things against ''Civilization'' as such, favoring the Barbarism which is the natural state of mankind irrespective of time and place? The Apocalypse suggests that the City will reach a certain point before it's destruction, while the Just will have to flee to the ''Wilderness'', to a Barbaric way of life then...

And thus there is more going on than the recapitulation of events as in the cyclic time of the Pagans, but a heightening of contradictions, where it gets harder to live in a particular way unless one is no longer engaged with the regular everyday world of the Pagans, if the Eternal Barbarian and the Eternal Christian over time become in fact the same thing, like the Israelites in the Wilderness.

Until those events arrive, the response of persons to these antithetical extremes are important. Thus, I'm going to examine in my next post if Christian tradition is complementary to the idea of revolution or condemns it.

What could be more worldly than the cities? Perhaps being in the world but not of it is hard enough in a rural setting but one could think it is immensely moreso in a sprawling metropolis with all the worldliness that entails. At least in nature there is greater silence and people can be alone with their thoughts.

To critique this or that political stance of option seems at first glance to be rather foolish, as the whole modern set of political systems is corrupt. The most I can do is to counsel a return to Monarchy as the right principle of government in it's pre-modern sense. Providentially, it appears that this ideal still persists in the human heart, strange although it seems practically as distorted through the lens of modern politics. Case in point; Donald Trump and his supporters, etc...

So a lot of it, modern politics, I just don't care about anymore, except for it's downfall. In keeping with the living principle of Barbarism, I posit instead a kind of ''Anti-Politics'' as a counter narrative.

EDIT; So what does this mean about my affirmations in favor of Socialism?

Nothing really. Monarchs can easily implement Socialism, and probably should. Not only that, it would probably end ''Revolution'' as a widely held principle.

Emperor Wang Mang implemented Socialism of a sort in China;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Mang ... c_policies

Emperor Diocletian implemented Socialism of a sort in the Roman Empire;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian#Economic

And the Incan Empire was Socialistic;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_Empire#Economy

And Ancient Egypt was Socialistic in the time of the rule of the Patriarch Joseph as recorded in Genesis...

Being against Modernity is not to be against genuine Progress.

It is always questionable when people use religion for one cause or another, whether it be left or right. The early church was not a political organisation, it's end was not politics or social revolution. It had to participate in political intrigue for the sake of its own survival but it did not attach itself to some type of cause.

Obviously when a certain government or system contravenes the fundamentals of church teaching, for example Nazi racial genocide or euthanasia, or apartheid, this is a different discussion altogether. But the claim that revolution, social revolution is part of church history is an imagined construction for a particular agenda.

You are quite right to not care about modern politics. Modern politics is vapid, boring and an excercise in rhetorical exchanges with little substance. It paradoxically is becoming more dangerous as the years go by despite being so boring.

Socialism and monarchy need not contradict each other. We can even see that Social Democracy and monarchy exist in Scandinavia, perhaps it could be taken further to socialism. Socialism and conservatism are natural friends.

A Republic has to be both very Democratic and very illiberal to exist strongly for very long I think, and necessarily both Christian and Socialist. Again it comes down to a Prince, even in a Republic (Res Publica-the Common Good). For who else would fight for it, for the people, but one trained from childhood to be such a fighter?

It has to be strict enough to provide the people security and the means to work for the common good without descending into tyranny and oligarchy. There could be some type of electoral and democratic mechanism but one that prevents the intrigues and puppetry of contemporary Western democracy.

We need a good healthy dose of that Naivete to survive. A strong dose of Barbarism.

We need to believe. We need something in which we can again believe with all our heart. Only this can break the utilitarian existence that pervades every day life. Not for money, not for comfort but for its own sake.

[annatar1914]

@Political Interest ;

It is clear then that you too are a pessimist in that case .

Generally speaking, lol, yes my friend. But I have my good days, today was a very good one spiritually for me, such that I'm optimistic about a miracle for a Orthodox West, but not for the Faustian West which exists now. It's something I'll write about soon I think. I had a bit of a genuine spiritual experience which quite shocked me.

I see. I have never been to war and would not know.

War takes many forms, as does battle.

Yes, indeed. But then we must not forsake our inner world either.

This is true also, we must keep having that interior conversation with our conscience, and awaken our hearts to discern and receive messages from Our Creator.

Barbarians have always made complex problems very simple. Barbarian peoples have always been militarily superior to the civilised forces in spite of them supposedly being more sophisticated.

Consider Afghanistan and Somalia, for example. Nor has anyone fully tamed the Tuareg of the Sahara. Other examples abound.

The subtlety of this should not be lost on anyone. They had free choice but in the end they were still subject to destiny and fate.

Which comment is interesting to make because I had been thinking upon some of the works of Blessed St. Augustine on Predestination and Free Will recently. He is an Orthodox Christian Father of the West that remains a favorite of mine. You are right, and it's a mystery of God how this synergy between Him and Man operates exactly, just that it does operate.


On how much worse the 20th century could have been;

Monumentally greater.

John Lukacs the historian once wrote that the 20th century was a ''short'' one, containing the period from 1914 to 1989 in it's teleological essence as an era. I disagree somewhat, and insist that this is all part of a larger arc of crisis and struggle, of world wars really beginning with the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856 and ongoing to the present, a whole series of connected wars comprising a cycle. Are we in a ''world war'' now? I say yes, since 1979 and the Iranian Islamic Revolution which morphed into the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf Wars, Arab color revolutions and the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts, along with the struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc... It's all one World War.

And yet the Europeans don't see this in their own history even after the episode with Hitler. Hitler was able to take power in a liberal and democratic system. The Soviet and Russian Imperial systems did not allow such lunatics to get even a step forward.

Nor do we Americans see it. We think we do now but we don't. For us, it's just getting started.

I have never read Evola, except to glance briefly. As far as I am concerned his strange purely cultural association with Catholicism and claims that it preserves Roman paganism is pure nonsense. The Tradition he speaks of seems as modern and imagined as the modernity he professed to despise. To be a pagan using Roman Catholicism as an analogue is an entirely modern position. And the general association with Mussolini and the Waffen SS is extremely off putting.

Evola is deep, but not in a good way.

Rene Guenon was more interesting but then how can someone accept the notion that all religions extend from one original tradition? I don't understand the perennialist ideas.

@Verv could probably address that better I think than I could, but I hold some of your reservations about it. One can see signs of man's former love and respect for the worship of the One God in many mythologies out there, but more common is a very similar process around the world in which that One God is gradually obscured.

What could be more worldly than the cities? Perhaps being in the world but not of it is hard enough in a rural setting but one could think it is immensely moreso in a sprawling metropolis with all the worldliness that entails. At least in nature there is greater silence and people can be alone with their thoughts.

I think that's why the cities and the civilizations eventually fall; people become deathly tired of living in these ways, and the ways of civilized life become insupportable in any case whether people tire of it or not.

It is always questionable when people use religion for one cause or another, whether it be left or right. The early church was not a political organisation, it's end was not politics or social revolution. It had to participate in political intrigue for the sake of its own survival but it did not attach itself to some type of cause.

Yes, I have to try to be more careful of making those distinctions myself.

Obviously when a certain government or system contravenes the fundamentals of church teaching, for example Nazi racial genocide or euthanasia, or apartheid, this is a different discussion altogether. But the claim that revolution, social revolution is part of church history is an imagined construction for a particular agenda.

And yet, while this is true, I have to consider that our enemies do not find us all that different when it comes to us opposing their ultimately anti-human agendas.

You are quite right to not care about modern politics. Modern politics is vapid, boring and an excercise in rhetorical exchanges with little substance. It paradoxically is becoming more dangerous as the years go by despite being so boring.

They have greater means of destruction at their disposal to carry out their conflicts over these trivial points.

Socialism and monarchy need not contradict each other. We can even see that Social Democracy and monarchy exist in Scandinavia, perhaps it could be taken further to socialism. Socialism and conservatism are natural friends.

I think so, which is why I favor the idea without being ''utopian'' about it. If it's natural and allowed to develop, I suspect that it's far more a kind of ''default setting'' for man as a social being.

It has to be strict enough to provide the people security and the means to work for the common good without descending into tyranny and oligarchy. There could be some type of electoral and democratic mechanism but one that prevents the intrigues and puppetry of contemporary Western democracy.

Indeed. One part solution might be selective lifelong monarchy (where the monarch chooses his successor) and a legislature, and the legislature organized similar to ''soviet'' or ''council'' democracy.

We need to believe. We need something in which we can again believe with all our heart. Only this can break the utilitarian existence that pervades every day life. Not for money, not for comfort but for its own sake.

I agree, people are going to have to awaken out of their hedonistic torpor and jaded ennui and start having authentic and healthy experiences again.

[annatar1914]

@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.

[Political Interest]

@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.

Maybe the distinction could be made between not so much barbarian and civilised but rural and urbanised.

Most rural societies with roots in the land have the barbarian traits you have mentioned but not all have the savage traits.

[annatar1914]

Maybe the distinction could be made between not so much barbarian and civilised but rural and urbanised.

Most rural societies with roots in the land have the barbarian traits you have mentioned but not all have the savage traits.

@Political Interest ;

I think that in general you are quite correct, although I'd say that more hunter-gatherers are probably as such in places like New Guinea and other lands. In the urban centers I believe that it is more prevalent than many want to admit, and almost the opposite of what the entertainment media suggest between the rural/urban divide.

I'd say too the more I think on what you're saying, is that to many in the modern era of our lifetime, pretty much almost everyone prior to 500 years ago, or even 100-200 years ago, would have been considered ''Barbaric''.

(where do Civilized people get many of their ideas throughout history? The Theater, the Theater as a concept, of vicarious mediated experience and propaganda. Barbarism does not really know or fully understand the Theater)

One of the dividing lines is that in the Urban areas, it is perceived by residents as a self contained world where people believe they can get just about anything they want in life. In more rural areas, with villages and hamlets and townships included, a person gets what they need with sufficient work, but if they have further wants, then they interact with other rural and also more urban areas.

[annatar1914]

@Potemkin , @Verv , @Political Interest ;

This will seem like a detour away from some of the themes I've been talking about, but it really isn't. Alexander the Great of Macedon had a maternal uncle also named Alexander who united the Epirote Tribes (he also was uncle to King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who Hannibal once said was the greatest military commander of all time) and, as his nephew went East to conquer Asia, Alexander Molossus went West into Italy, hired to save the Greek city-states there from a coalition of Barbarian Italian Tribes called the Samnites, who even the Romans had trouble with at the time. Well, Alexander Molossus died in Italy fighting these tough hill peoples, saying with his last breath that his more famous nephew and namesake fighting the civilized peoples of the Middle East, that Alexander of Macedon ''fought with women ''....

Later, King Pyrrhus of Epirus went over to help the Greek city states against Rome and Carthage, successfully for a time, but having fought hard-won brutal victories repeatedly against the Romans once exclaimed after the last battle; ''One more 'victory' like this and we are lost for good!'', giving the invention to the term; ''Pyrrhic Victory''. ..

These men came from lands (Epirus, Macedon) that were pretty tough and only half-civilized themselves, in my opinion not so much ''Greek'' as ''Hellenized'' in their upper ruling classes and even then emulating the Homeric barbarian past of the Greeks (most of these people were named after figures from the 'Illiad' and the 'Odyssey', ''Alexander'' for example being the other name of Paris from the Trojan War). The Roman writer Livy once speculated a famous ''what if?'' of history: if Alexander the Great had faced the Romans, what would the final outcome be?

For Alexander Molossus and his nephew Pyrrhus, the toughest and finest military minds of their time at least similar to Alexander the Great in reality, to have such trouble with the people of the West, showed to me that the civilized people of the East had absolutely no chance whatsoever against Rome. And when the Romans did march East, the Hellenistic world pretty much considered them as Barbarians.

I consider also Hannibal of Carthage, who with his brilliant tactical mind fought Rome for 15 years in Italy before being beaten at Zama in North Africa by Scipio Africanus. He had an army composed of mainly barbarians; Italians, Gauls from northern Italy and Gaul, Numidian calvary, Spanish tribesmen, mercenaries from all over the world as well.

Hannibal beat Rome for all those years with these men, definitely not the Rome of the decadent late Republic and Empire to be sure, but not quite the Rome of Horatius and Brutus and Cincinnatus either.

The fate of the civilized world was decided by warlike and primitive tribesmen and rural farmers not much different from them.

See, a military composed of and led by very rational and over civilized people, at least unconsciously wants to run away, or at least fight from as far a position as possible from open combat and with subtle and indirect means, the same means as used by weak peoples, as can be managed. The Roman General after the disaster of Cannae against Hannibal, Fabius, used just those tactical means out of shear desperation to buy time for Rome, and at last the Romans had enough and had to fight Hannibal in open battle; their honor demanded it.

And to segue into my next post; where is the ''spirituality'' in all this, and how does this talk of conflict between these people relate to ''spirituality''? Barbarians, and only partly civilized peoples, have ''gods'', but do not have much in the way of a Mythology about the gods either. There's a reason for that that I'll show, and also why it differs so greatly from the thinking of civilized pagan mankind...

[annatar1914]

@Political Interest , @Verv , and @Potemkin , I had earlier remarked in my last post that;

And to segue into my next post; where is the ''spirituality'' in all this, and how does this talk of conflict between these people relate to ''spirituality''? Barbarians, and only partly civilized peoples, have ''gods'', but do not have much in the way of a Mythology about the gods either. There's a reason for that that I'll show, and also why it differs so greatly from the thinking of civilized pagan mankind...

To explain something is rationally to explain it away, and this is what Mythology is, an explanation. The earliest records of Roman and Norse/Germanic paganism, Celtic paganism, Slavic paganism, they have no Myths, no stories of the ''gods'' and their activities in the world similar to Theater in civilized societies and in modern times also. Civilized pagan societies are absolutely replete with these tales, edifying or otherwise.

I believe that it is a retention of the Monotheistic understanding that God is not measured in Anthropomorphic terms, that He is all-pure and good and just and wise, and all powerful too. Barbarian and ruder more rustic peoples carried this understanding with them to a degree while civilized peoples make their gods entirely in their image, idolatry as self-idolatry. Savage and cruel peoples did too, and most have fallen to a mere pantheism and animism/fetishism in practice, witchcraft and demonism.

War is downstream of politics, which is downstream of culture, which is downstream of the spiritual realities in general. Barbarians retained the monotheistic moral and ethical concerns to a degree, while civilized societies made interactions with gods to be a thing of spiritual pragmatism and utilitarianism, or a form of Theater for amusement.

(one reason why I can't watch Christian and Biblical-oriented movies and TV shows today for the most part, Pasolini came close to a fairly accurate vision with his ''Gospel of Matthew'', as an exception that proves the general truth of the matter)

By the way, Pasolini's ''Medea'' and ''Oedipus Rex'' capture some of that sensibility too...

So when we get to action in the world, men are guided by belief, or not guided by belief. And those who believe win over those who do not. The ancient Pagan/Barbarian as it turns out, truly believed in a Cosmos much like that described by Oswald Spengler as being particular to his ''Magian'' culture complex; a Dome of Light and of Dark, with the world below, and much as Christians believed it to be. A numinous but very concrete material world full of both seen and unseen things.

[Potemkin]

War is downstream of politics, which is downstream of culture, which is downstream of the spiritual realities in general. Barbarians retained the monotheistic moral and ethical concerns to a degree, while civilized societies made interactions with gods to be a thing of spiritual pragmatism and utilitarianism, or a form of Theater for amusement.

(one reason why I can't watch Christian and Biblical-oriented movies and TV shows today for the most part, Pasolini came close to a fairly accurate vision with his ''Gospel of Matthew'', as an exception that proves the general truth of the matter)

By the way, Pasolini's ''Medea'' and ''Oedipus Rex'' capture some of that sensibility too...

Pasolini understood the ancient world in a very profound way, as his movies set in that epoch testify. Fellini understood the ancient world in the same way, and his Satyricon is a masterpiece of historical movie-making. Pasolini also profoundly understood Christianity - or, rather, he understood Christ, more than most so-called 'Christians' seem to understand him. Just as it takes a communist to be a truly effective capitalist (since they understand capitalism so well), so it may take an atheist to be a truly profound believer....

[annatar1914]

@Potemkin ;

Pasolini understood the ancient world in a very profound way, as his movies set in that epoch testify.

He did, since his own ambivalent nature, culturally exhibited towards the Bourgeoisie of 20th century Italy, gained him an insight into the Greco-Roman Civilization that others lack.

With Christ, Pasolini knew that even though he wasn't a Christian as such, he did know that the Lord was a barefoot Peasant, a Worker, in the aspect of His Earthly as distinct from His Heavenly Origin. In Pagan Hellenistic times, one definitely was exactly what one was, no more and no less, in the ''Persona'', or ''Role'', one was born into.

Fellini understood the ancient world in the same way, and his Satyricon is a masterpiece of historical movie-making.

It's been a while since I've seen 'Satyricon', and I think anyone who wishes to understand what Pagan Greco-Roman Civilization was like, or really the tendency of Western Civilization now, should see it.

Pasolini also profoundly understood Christianity - or, rather, he understood Christ, more than most so-called 'Christians' seem to understand him. Just as it takes a communist to be a truly effective capitalist (since they understand capitalism so well), so it may take an atheist to be a truly profound believer....

Well, perhaps the great gulf between Christian belief and Christian practice in the West anyway. For Gentiles, it's rather Jewish, as I've noted recently on this thread before. Jews and Christians are just Barbarian sects, benighted and superstitious enemies of the superior Hellenic and other Pagan cultures.


Just before I posted this reply, by the way, I read yet another attack on Christianity and the Jewish people from a Far Right-Wing source, rather conspiratorial, which sums up the extreme hatred the Fascists actually have for both true Christianity and the Jewish people-such subhuman barbarians! To me it's a tremendous amount of horseshit, easily refuted from the source material cited, but it's not attempted to be a rigorous scholarly piece, but a sustained attack. Even my beloved Tertullian gets attacked both in the article and it's footnotes... As you say @Potemkin , knowing Christianity better in some ways (it's Jewish!) than many Christians...

Here, read it and see what you think,@Potemkin , @Political Interest , and @Verv ;

https://www.unz.com/article/how-yahweh-conquered-rome/

(I do read quite a bit from very diverse groups of thinkers, even if and maybe even especially if I disagree with them.)

Again, as I've said recently, we are regarded as ''Chandalas'' in the esoteric Fascist and Neitzschean sense; Monotheists of all kinds, Socialists, Christians and Jews and Progressives and ''do-gooders'' of any kind, and almost all persons of color or even most Caucasians of different types, regardless if we fight amongst ourselves. We're regarded as literally dysgenic sub-human mutants, fit only to be slaves at best but generally only to be driven to extinction.

[Political Interest]

I think that in general you are quite correct, although I'd say that more hunter-gatherers are probably as such in places like New Guinea and other lands. In the urban centers I believe that it is more prevalent than many want to admit, and almost the opposite of what the entertainment media suggest between the rural/urban divide.

I'd say too the more I think on what you're saying, is that to many in the modern era of our lifetime, pretty much almost everyone prior to 500 years ago, or even 100-200 years ago, would have been considered ''Barbaric''.

(where do Civilized people get many of their ideas throughout history? The Theater, the Theater as a concept, of vicarious mediated experience and propaganda. Barbarism does not really know or fully understand the Theater)

One of the dividing lines is that in the Urban areas, it is perceived by residents as a self contained world where people believe they can get just about anything they want in life. In more rural areas, with villages and hamlets and townships included, a person gets what they need with sufficient work, but if they have further wants, then they interact with other rural and also more urban areas.

Your distinction between need and want is very important.

Also, if we consider that rural life is in many cases a blank slate, people have lived farming the same land for generations. It does not matter what ruler presides over them in the cities, what political ideology is in charge in the capital or what is happening in another country, the rural people remain tied to the land and the way of life they have had for centuries. Borders can change, a people can be part of one empire one day and another in another day. The point is that the people remain intact and connected to their traditions. Strange ideas are only in the cities and when they do become mainstream in the rural population it is only because of diffusion from the influence of city people coming into the villages or people from the villages bringing such ideas back. There are nuances of course and differences, but was a tenant farmer in the Scottish islands in 1835 really so different to a Russian peasant of the same year?

[annatar1914]

@Political Interest ;

Your distinction between need and want is very important.

It's a distinction that I realize that is hard to make, sometimes I see this in my own life, because I rationalize what I want and it appears to be something I need, and isn't.

Also, if we consider that rural life is in many cases a blank slate, people have lived farming the same land for generations. It does not matter what ruler presides over them in the cities, what political ideology is in charge in the capital or what is happening in another country, the rural people remain tied to the land and the way of life they have had for centuries. Borders can change, a people can be part of one empire one day and another in another day. The point is that the people remain intact and connected to their traditions. Strange ideas are only in the cities and when they do become mainstream in the rural population it is only because of diffusion from the influence of city people coming into the villages or people from the villages bringing such ideas back.

Very perceptive. Here in America we don't have too much of that very long generational existence in one place, it's still a situation with a lot of fluid group and individual mobility, even in rural areas to a degree.

There are nuances of course and differences, but was a tenant farmer in the Scottish islands in 1835 really so different to a Russian peasant of the same year?

Not really all that different in my opinion from what I've seen and read of. And not even much of a gigantic difference between 1835 and 1935 in either place. But now it's been pretty significant of a change, which is bad because I think before too much longer people are going to be fleeing the cities in vast numbers, worldwide. And there will be need for persons who know how to live outside the cities.

[Political Interest]

It's a distinction that I realize that is hard to make, sometimes I see this in my own life, because I rationalize what I want and it appears to be something I need, and isn't.

So do I. A lot of life in the civilised world involves looking for what we want.

Very perceptive. Here in America we don't have too much of that very long generational existence in one place, it's still a situation with a lot of fluid group and individual mobility, even in rural areas to a degree.

Thank you. Funnily enough there does seem to be some sort of parallel for this in North America. Canada and the US are two different countries but it is entirely possible that if history had been different that Canadians would today be US Americans too. The ethnography of English speaking Canada was relatively similar to the colonies which later became the US. It was again a case of people living in borders, living locally but being shaped by circumstances beyond their control. People separate from the big politics and the empires. Hence identity, whether this be Canadian or US American was largely imposed on rural populations.

Not really all that different in my opinion from what I've seen and read of. And not even much of a gigantic difference between 1835 and 1935 in either place. But now it's been pretty significant of a change, which is bad because I think before too much longer people are going to be fleeing the cities in vast numbers, worldwide. And there will be need for persons who know how to live outside the cities.

The similarity suggests that people are very much shaped by the ideologies they are exposed to, hence why assimilation of different peoples into larger ethnoses often results in their full acculturation. Rural Scotsman could be assimilated into Russia and likewise a rural Russian could be assimilated into Scotland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_ ... h_Sherwood

They were an Anglo-Russian family of architects.

Overall it seems to me that rural identity and social structure forms a malleable base on which other ideologies can then be introduced. Anyone living in the countryside anywhere, in the Middle Ages would adopt the language and religion of their ruler. Likewise in the Early Modern Period we saw vast multi-ethnic empires, but in rural areas the most differentiating characteristic was the religion. Concepts such as nationality were not as well defined as they are now, and nobody in the 17th or 18th centuries was a fascist or communist. Now with the development of modern cities, the countryside again becomes ideologically influenced, this time by whatever comes from these towns, whether it be liberalism, secularism, nationalism, communism, woke ideology etc. So the countryside, farmers, nomads or others are ideologically neutral, they are the closest to nature and the natural state of traditional life. They can believe what they like, whether this be good or bad, and are subject to the influence of metropolitan life when they come into contact with it.