I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry. - Page 36 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15140750
@Verv , thought I'd reply to your interesting and thought-provoking remarks to what I said earlier;

This initially reminded me of the fact that Orthodoxy's great criticism of Catholicism is the fact that it comes to grandiose theological conclusions and, through things like natural theology, creates this idea that we can make conclusions about the Divine and the whole universe through rational constructs.


In a holistic sense, yes, this is the general critique, as if the things of God were a science to be studied rather than an experience to be taught and lived. The Trinitarian, Christological/Soterological, and Ecclesial problems flow from this and are by no means confined to formal Papism, they are common to all of Heterodoxy/Cacodoxy.



Many Catholics will even talk about Christ as the Logos, which is not problematic... but begin to treat the logos also as simultaneously literally being rationality as well. That the world is created rationally, and governed by rationality, and this begins to confuse rationality with God...


Yes, the West does not take to heart the Apophatic aspects of the teachings of the Fathers, even early on with not truly understanding St. Dionysius the Areopagite.

Thomas Aquinas (along with the other Scholastics) is at the root of a lot of this, although interestingly as he was planning on debating with the ''Greeks'' in Council, he began to have doubts shortly before his death (''All my works are just straw'', he saidduring that time).

In this, God is defaced...


In our experience of Him, yes, and in so not truly seeing, we can be subject to spiritual deceptions.

It also makes me wonder if the desire to perfectly understand everything in a systematic way is itself folly. For we are either overly mundane and scientific, merely describing reality (inductive logic), or we are creating either tautologies or subjective truths masquerading as absolutes (deductive logic).


Yes, I think so, and it can go either way, bouncing between a false Empiricism or an equally florid Fideism that is little more than superstition and deception (look at the visions of the otherwise rationalist Emanuel Swedenborg and Joseph Smith, both founding ''churches'').

So, back more directly to the topic... Is materialism and skepticism the driving force of civilization? Wow, what a question. I will say that this is not the case, but only because I think that civilization is just based on the scale of being governed. For barbarians had trade, art, and I imagine they also attempted to be consistent, and what were the Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians, and the early Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, if not religious and mystical..?


I posit ''Barbarism'' and ''Civilization'' as a continuum or spectrum reflecting certain aspects of the human condition, not as entirely solid absolutes in themselves, but your point is well taken. I imagine skeptics and materialists at heart god-fighters and immoral cynics, having a strong incentive to break the customs and worldviews of the more Barbaric around them, and institute increasingly rationalized and bureaucratized ways of life and managerial systems.

Certainly you are right that certain aspects of civilizatin immediately will go over to materialism, and this materialism becomes an animating force. Perhaps it would be better to say that materialism and skepticism -- perhaps even pessimism are driving forces of civilizations in decline.


I believe that that is the ultimate and inevitable result of the City, of Civilization. To remain an optimist at heart within Civilization past a certain point is to be in a joyful internal exile from it.

Where I think we are really onto something is that the core characteristics of barbarism can be the personal, real, charismatic, and vital. Evola and Vodolazkin both described the premodern mind very well -- it viewed time as circular, and viewed it as something that we interact with. It viewed nature as spiritual, penetrated through and through with Being and Will, etc., and perhaps it really depended on never cutting through this view with the blade of rationalism.


I agree, a sense of the sacred and the numinous, that everything is in fact alive and has a purposeful design to it that really shouldn't be much examined in the very irrational ''rationalist'' ways.

I would argue that civilizations in their ascent did not necessarily break this mold, either... but perhaps the mark of modernity is that almost nobody thinks this way anymore, and those who do are either at the absolute outskirts of civilized life, or they have put a great deal of energy into relearning this viewpoint.


A great deal of energy indeed. And speaking for myself, it's all too easy to slip back into modernistic patterns of thought just out of habit. It seems that it is easier when you're part of a larger whole, of course, carrying all this out as a way of life and not a mental exercise or flight of fancy.

What that means politically I already sense an answer within me, but I'll wait until after I've heard your upcoming remarks, you and @Potemkin and @Political Interest .
#15140773
I am thinking that you are honestly putting forward a solution that is really just anti-civilization... Of course, we mean civilization in the same sense that Christ talks about the 'World,' right. Civilization is necessarily worldly.

Barbarians have the ability to not be worldly, because they exist in a way that is fundamentally spiritual.

So, if we define civilization as worldly, and allow for the barbarian to be fundamentally spiritual... We would be suggesting a conscientious rebuke of civilization, and I see this as encouraging Christians to basically be exiles from civilization, though perhaps necessarily living within its jurisdiction (at this point, who can't?). Since I know you are affiliated with the Old Believers, this makes so much sense.

I think this also can make sense even within a Greek or Coptic or Antiochian or any Orthodox tradition where the people are familiar with living as persecuted / severely other'd minorities or disenfranchised in their own countries, or even within modernity, where many Greeks still like to Mt. Athos for everything.

You are on the cusp of something that is kind of like being an 'anarch' in the sense of Ernst Junger...

Whereas the anarchist wants to abolish power, the Anarch is content to break all ties to it. The Anarch is not the enemy of power or authority, but he does not seek them, because he does not need them to become who he is. The Anarch is sovereign of himself—which amounts to saying that he shows the distance that exists between sovereignty, which does not require power, and power, which never confers sovereignty. “The Anarch,” Jünger writes, “is not the partner of the monarch, but his antipode, the man that power cannot grasp but is also dangerous to it. He is not the adversary of the monarch, but his opposite.” A true chameleon, the Anarch adapts to all things, because nothing reaches him. He is in service of history while being beyond it.


Counter Currents

But this passage is inconvenient for us because the very odd thing about so many Orthodox is the distinct monarcho-sympathies.

Maybe this is the parallel...

---

Years ago, I heard someone talking about Rev. Jerry Falwell's important role in America. People do not understand that America always had millions & millions of civically disengaged conscientious Christians. They were honest-to-God Puritan types, who believed all government and rule by man would be inherently corrupt, and thus the only thing they wanted to see was the minimization of government's imprint, and the maximization of their own relationship with God. The family should always be a more relevant governing structure than the government to people like these... Rev. Falwell started rallyng all of these people to fight against abortion & degeneration, but you can portray this as a great mistake...

For if the Christians stayed completely & totally out of the culture war, which they were doomed to lose, not having any of the secular institutions necessary to actually win, there's some chance that they would have been left alone -- at least significantly more than they are now. But I kind of disagree with this perspective because we all know that the secular world eventually does come for everyone.
#15140778
@Verv , I sense we are taking this to the next level, lol... You said;

I am thinking that you are honestly putting forward a solution that is really just anti-civilization... Of course, we mean civilization in the same sense that Christ talks about the 'World,' right. Civilization is necessarily worldly.


Pretty much; anti-civilization not in the sense of dismantling of hierarchy or organized community living, etc... As working to re-personalize human relationships as much as possible, removal of the immense scale and complexity and artificial barriers like bureaucracies.

Barbarians have the ability to not be worldly, because they exist in a way that is fundamentally spiritual.


Yes, without touching just yet on the issues of good and evil, but having that simplicity that the civilized man finds difficult to engage in, so many rationalizations and distractions and cares, worldly, as you say.

So, if we define civilization as worldly, and allow for the barbarian to be fundamentally spiritual... We would be suggesting a conscientious rebuke of civilization, and I see this as encouraging Christians to basically be exiles from civilization, though perhaps necessarily living within its jurisdiction (at this point, who can't?). Since I know you are affiliated with the Old Believers, this makes so much sense.


Indeed, even if we are not in the End Times, it may be necessary to disconnect to an extent from collapsing modern civilization, while at the same time reconnecting with all those people out there who will have great need of the Church during that time.

I think this also can make sense even within a Greek or Coptic or Antiochian or any Orthodox tradition where the people are familiar with living as persecuted / severely other'd minorities or disenfranchised in their own countries, or even within modernity, where many Greeks still like to Mt. Athos for everything.


Makes perfect sense, in fact, the Middle East might be one of those regions ironically where such an effort can flourish.
You are on the cusp of something that is kind of like being an 'anarch' in the sense of Ernst Junger...



Counter Currents

But this passage is inconvenient for us because the very odd thing about so many Orthodox is the distinct monarcho-sympathies.


I used to read a little Ernst Junger, so maybe his influence is percolating back into the forefront of my thinking somewhat. I lost most of my Monarchist sympathies by the time I stopped being a traditional Roman Catholic, years ago now, but prior to my full conversion to Orthodoxy. My ''political Orthodoxy'' if you want to call it that, has it's roots in the history of the Novogorod Republic, of the Cossacks and their democracy, of Old Russia before the Romanovs basically, and the way the Old Believers manage their own communities to this day and through all the years of persecution.

Maybe this is the parallel...

---

Years ago, I heard someone talking about Rev. Jerry Falwell's important role in America. People do not understand that America always had millions & millions of civically disengaged conscientious Christians. They were honest-to-God Puritan types, who believed all government and rule by man would be inherently corrupt, and thus the only thing they wanted to see was the minimization of government's imprint, and the maximization of their own relationship with God. The family should always be a more relevant governing structure than the government to people like these... Rev. Falwell started rallyng all of these people to fight against abortion & degeneration, but you can portray this as a great mistake...

For if the Christians stayed completely & totally out of the culture war, which they were doomed to lose, not having any of the secular institutions necessary to actually win, there's some chance that they would have been left alone -- at least significantly more than they are now. But I kind of disagree with this perspective because we all know that the secular world eventually does come for everyone.


How we deal with it without becoming civilized and worldly and (in the context of modern life) secular ourselves, is a great task, and what is to be done?

I'll know more I think once I hear back from you and my other friends. I won't consider the possibilities without fresh eyes belonging to others who take these matters at least as seriously as I do. The primary theme my mind and heart are intent upon though is that theme of a thinker like Fyodor Dostyoevsky; Freedom.
#15140779
I raelly loved your last post, and I will add something extra that is topical...

When I was 18, I told my friend Jerrod that I like getting tattoos up & down my arms, because even if I grow up to hate them, these tattoos will be forever, and I will be, in a sense, enslaved to my freedom, because I will have effectively placed myself outside of the normal context for most people, and by that, I honestly believed I was doing something anti-social for the purpose of achieving a degree of social exile.

At the time, I was planning on getting a large neck piece tattood as soon as I left the military. This, of course, did not happen. It was going to be two spiderwebs with butterflies caught in them, with the Chinese characters 任逍遥 [Free from all constraints]). This tattoo idea was very important to me. I romanticized it as the final nail in the coffin to attain total freedom.

So, while this is all unnecessary, there is something beautiful about physically manifesting a 'death to the world', so to speak, and winning your liberty so you can't go back. As a young man, I was really drawn to extreme manifestations of philosophy and rebellion against the world. Some of this was out of personal vanity and "peacocking" for the ladies, so to speak. But a lot of this was a legitimate desire to be rid of the fallen world. But this was not so much because one should hate the world, but because one should grieve for it.

So, I have some history already of being truly receptive to your idea of noble savage over civilization.

I really like your writing & ideas and I will follow this closely. For the last 5 years I've felt rather like a philosophical free agent -- I am not really an 'anything,' except a Christian, and the vague term of 'traditionalist.'
#15140840
Verv wrote:I raelly loved your last post, and I will add something extra that is topical...

When I was 18, I told my friend Jerrod that I like getting tattoos up & down my arms, because even if I grow up to hate them, these tattoos will be forever, and I will be, in a sense, enslaved to my freedom, because I will have effectively placed myself outside of the normal context for most people, and by that, I honestly believed I was doing something anti-social for the purpose of achieving a degree of social exile.

At the time, I was planning on getting a large neck piece tattood as soon as I left the military. This, of course, did not happen. It was going to be two spiderwebs with butterflies caught in them, with the Chinese characters 任逍遥 [Free from all constraints]). This tattoo idea was very important to me. I romanticized it as the final nail in the coffin to attain total freedom.

So, while this is all unnecessary, there is something beautiful about physically manifesting a 'death to the world', so to speak, and winning your liberty so you can't go back. As a young man, I was really drawn to extreme manifestations of philosophy and rebellion against the world. Some of this was out of personal vanity and "peacocking" for the ladies, so to speak. But a lot of this was a legitimate desire to be rid of the fallen world. But this was not so much because one should hate the world, but because one should grieve for it.

So, I have some history already of being truly receptive to your idea of noble savage over civilization.

I really like your writing & ideas and I will follow this closely. For the last 5 years I've felt rather like a philosophical free agent -- I am not really an 'anything,' except a Christian, and the vague term of 'traditionalist.'


@Verv ;

Now if we were to extend the idea of the Anarch from the isolated vertical and heirarchical, to the horizontal and egalitarian with man collectively considered as (not as Anarchists) but as Anarchs, we might have the basis for looking again inspirationally at the examples I gave of small-r republican societies in Orthodox Christian history.

That is, the Patriarchal and Traditional Russian Orthodox Christian Home and Family Household is not merely the microcosm of the larger Polity, as it became, severely limited by the ''Gosudarst''' of the Tsars who became the ''Little Father'' of the larger realm, but in aggregate with others remains supreme regardless of station in life of it's individual examples.

Therefore, the true units of human life in tension between Barbarism and Civilization are the family and tribe of Barbarism versus the Individual of Civilization. Being individuals born into civilization, we build our freedom in contradistinction to It, through self-expression or self-abnegation (or the destruction or self-destruction of the Anarchist). But it is when we create families bound by patriarchal rule that we really fight the battle between Barbarism and Civilization, because the battle in Hyper-Civilization is in it's physical/spiritual essence a battle between Patriarchy and Matriarchy, which I very briefly mentioned in this thread. The West is a Matriarchy. That aspect however I have not covered as in depth as I would like to.
#15141094
ingliz wrote:Vietnam and the 'body count', perhaps? The objective was not to hold territory or secure populations, victory was assessed by having a higher enemy body count.


Interesting observation. And what was it about Vietnam that changed this? That it was shown in a more televised form and that the moral ambiguity of this war was more pronounced than previous conflicts?

I watched WWII documentaries around a month or so ago and I saw that back then the Europeans were hard as nails, they really were very brave people, from all countries. That Europe compared to the Europe of today is almost like a parallel universe.

annatar1914 wrote:Yes, it is a dreary and pointless materialism, sterile, often childless in a purposeful sense, and very unsatisfying.


This is in fact no doubt a major source of all the increasing mental health problems in the West today. The society has become utilitarian.

Utility is not human, it is about counting coins and the trivial ephemera of life.

People need depth of feeling, experience.

THe problem of the West today is that every issue is reduced to that of utility, money. Sociologists dominate, it's all a measure of means to an end.

Politics is a means to an end, our politics have no existential dimension.

It is as though our very being is being deprived of its own existence, we are people without existence, mere consumers. We need honour, we need heart. But it's all been taken because our world has been reduced to the zero sum game of the capitalist's coins.

annatar1914 wrote:I agree, people in the West were always hyper-individualistic (selfish I might say uncharitably, and anti-social), but even here within living memory it wasn't too extreme. Now people live like the Cyclops in the Illiad, Polyphemus.


It was bearable until the 1970s, I know this from people who lived before then. I know someone who was a young woman in 1963 and she said it was beautiful.

You can trace the downward trajectory. In 1950 the West still had very established morals but there was stirring in the academic circles and intelligentsia to then infect the masses of the people with stupidity. By 1965 it was starting to go downhill. By 1975 it was well on its way and by 1979 the West was basically how it is now, that was the launching pad for the 80s, 90s 2000s, 2010s etc.

annatar1914 wrote:Or lack thereof.


Precisely. Because our post-modern Western existence is without belief in any creed or ideal. It's purely an exercise in consumerism, egoism and utility.

annatar1914 wrote:I think so, PI. It somewhat relates to me like what Jean Baudrillaud was saying about reality and symbols and ''simulacrum''; we become removed from immediate experience from real objects and sensations, receive our notions of natural living in a mediated filter of civilization.


We learn of our reality from books. Our experience becomes a type of virtuality.

annatar1914 wrote:I don't doubt it.


Both the Koreans and Turks, absolutely wonderful peoples with very solid social bonds. Very solid people with big hearts.

Verv will be able to tell you about the Koreans.

annatar1914 wrote:Indeed. Like my earlier illustrative comment about Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot.


Yes.

annatar1914 wrote:That is because modern war dehumanizes not only it's victims but also it's enablers and perpetrators.


And this is a problem for people who do not deal in concepts like honour or care for their own moral self-preservation. It is a tragedy that these people hold positions of leadership and yet their voice supposedly defines the Western voice, when really the common people are usually ignorant of such excesses but their identity as Westerners is defined by the moral inadequacy of the leaders.

annatar1914 wrote:So many today are not as their ancestors were, unfortunately.


No, and it kills me.

annatar1914 wrote:That's basically what the drone strikes are, a video game played by a generation of gamers desensitized to violence but detached from physical reality-the sort of ''soldiers'' who cry like babies when they stub their toes. I know, I used to see that sort all the time. Actual up close physical combat would send them into absolute shock and horror.


I read in a book an account of the battle Stalingrad. There were were soldiers who had to warm their fingers in the blood of their fallen comrades so as to be able to fire their guns.

And then last month I watched a very old British war documentary. It showed colour footage of a Japanese soldier who had been killed, you saw his internal organs hanging out of him in full uncensored detail. Such horror is alien to these virtual warriors.

Wellsy wrote:So you can’t just blow up your tv and mobile phone, you’d have to escape civilization entirely.


But we can escape, we can escape through our own emotions and our own hearts!

annatar1914 wrote:The bubble has to burst from the Outside, my friend. From the Other, the Barbarian. It's in Modern civilization that we are hooked up to the ''Matrix'', so to speak. There are many people in this world that aren't connected to It to a significant degree. Except maybe as it's enemies.


The West will realise this very soon.

Potemkin wrote:The irony is that the Franks (whose descendents later became "the West") were indeed the barbarian 'Other' to the civilised Byzantines, but even during their 'barbarian' phase our ancestors were already infected with the moral and spiritual sickness whose effects we see all around us now.


Was it so much our ancestors or was it their descendants and a particular trajectory the West took?

I do not think there was any inherent shame in our civilisation.

Europe is a great continent, as among all the other great continents.

It is not so much Europe that is inherently corrupt as much as it is certain trajectories that it has adopted.

annatar1914 wrote:With all that in mind, the decline of the West and of America in particular, barbarism and civilization, the real fault lines that are developing which will shape the coming decades and centuries are those between Islam and Non-Islam. And with everything that is weak and in decline falling, to become Islamic societies, one will have to ask why this is so.

Is Islam more ''barbaric'' or more ''civilized'' than some other religions? It has always been a religion of trade and of cities, of private wealth and earthly joys as a gift from Allah. Certainly Muslims saw the Franks and others during the Crusades as being barbarians in comparison. Perhaps they still do, and maybe the designations of ''Roman'', 'Jews'', ''Polytheists'' and ''Franks'' are useful descriptors as well to this day of Non-Muslims. Maybe, even more enlightening in some ways than categories like ''barbarian'' and ''civilized'', although I still think ''Hellenism'' and ''Judaism'' are still apt to some situations.


The world of Islam is itself very diverse. There are both civilised metropolitans and barbarians within the House of Islam.

annatar1914 wrote:One can construct very reasonable-appearing and elegant theories that intellectually satisfy the very human urge to hold to at least two contrarities at once. But the heart-and the conscience calling from within the semi-dormant heart- knows better, and rejects and rebels against such nonsense all the time.

So what does the heart say, the heart that is not seared into nothingness by modern life?

To learn what the heart says, a person has to take hold of Faith, of ''Pietas'', first, and then the truth begins to be revealed which informs the heart and then at last, the mind.


A lot of theories which make sense accordoing to the rational mind are rejected by the heart for no rational reason.

Maybe the heart simply informs the human person in a way that the rational mind cannot?

annatar1914 wrote:@Potemkin , @Political Interest , and @Verv ,

Some time back I discussed with you gentlemen about the virtues of Barbarism versus Civilization, and with that in mind I was reading about the famous magical sword known in history as the ''Sword of Attila'', also known as the ''Sword of Mars'' or as the Hungarians have called it; the ''Sword of God''. The story goes like this;



A Barbarian could and would believe such a story. A Civilized person would not, and their rejection would be greater than any natural skepticism because the civilized person would deny any right to rule the nations via one's claimed numinous magic sword as a ''sign'', made in heaven or not, regardless of the circumstances. Attila was recognized as the ''Scourge of God'' by Christians in the Roman Empire...

Furthermore, not only would a modern civilized person reject the story, they would likely think that Attila could hardly have been so credulous personally, to think that a sword found in a field by a shepherd was the Sword of God that conferred his right to rule an empire. They would automatically give Attila their own convenient cynicism in this as to other matters.

I suspect that he absolutely believed in the divine gift of the sword, and his followers would too. After all, this is the same Attila who took the offer of the hand of Honoria seriously, and demanded as dowry half of the Western Roman Empire.

Those who wish to delve deeper into the mystical meaning of Attila and his rule personally can search here;

https://katehon.com/ru/article/atilla-i-ego-imperiya

And I note that every one of the words of the Hunnic language we have is either indeterminate Indo-European or actually Slavic. But anyway;

Is the real core or driving force of Civilization throughout the ages really lie in Atheism? In Materialism and skepticism?

Is the real core or driving force of Barbarism lie in the personal, in the real, the charismatic and vital?


Barbarism lies in non-rational thinking, non-empiricism. You don't need to think out concepts, you just know.

Verv wrote:It also makes me wonder if the desire to perfectly understand everything in a systematic way is itself folly. For we are either overly mundane and scientific, merely describing reality (inductive logic), or we are creating either tautologies or subjective truths masquerading as absolutes (deductive logic).


In my own life I have learnt that logical thinking, trying to create systemic and absolutely linear understandings of the world are futile. There will always be some caveat or hole in the logic, some type of negation that renders the entire theory futile. Rational thought, this is not what life is about. That is not to say we should reject rationalism completely but our contemporary Western civilisation is overly rational, it's a purely mechanical civilisation. Most of the trajectories of our post-modern West are based on theory, based on ideas and dogmas, dogmas that are largely rational. The rational idea always takes precedence, and yet it is in its own way a type of blind dogma devoid of rational relation to reality.
#15141124
Very incisive comments @Political Interest my friend, thank you. So you generally see the problem and the opportunities much as I do;


This is in fact no doubt a major source of all the increasing mental health problems in the West today. The society has become utilitarian.

Utility is not human, it is about counting coins and the trivial ephemera of life.

People need depth of feeling, experience.


They definitely do need depth of feeling and experience, direct and unmediated, to have a grip upon reality.

Even or probably especially the long-distance virtual commandos of modern warfare;


I read in a book an account of the battle Stalingrad. There were were soldiers who had to warm their fingers in the blood of their fallen comrades so as to be able to fire their guns.

And then last month I watched a very old British war documentary. It showed colour footage of a Japanese soldier who had been killed, you saw his internal organs hanging out of him in full uncensored detail. Such horror is alien to these virtual warriors.


Very alien for most of them, and when they do encounter it they can't deal with it like men, most of them from what I have seen. It changes them significantly.


Barbarism lies in non-rational thinking, non-empiricism. You don't need to think out concepts, you just know.


Most of the genuine concepts are innate to us as rational human souls to begin with, as I think Plato would have agreed. But as you said, we just know. Rationalism degrades reason precisely for the fact that the more people think upon something, the more contrary ideas and opinions they generate, even within one same single mind.



In my own life I have learnt that logical thinking, trying to create systemic and absolutely linear understandings of the world are futile. There will always be some caveat or hole in the logic, some type of negation that renders the entire theory futile. Rational thought, this is not what life is about. That is not to say we should reject rationalism completely but our contemporary Western civilisation is overly rational, it's a purely mechanical civilisation. Most of the trajectories of our post-modern West are based on theory, based on ideas and dogmas, dogmas that are largely rational. The rational idea always takes precedence, and yet it is in its own way a type of blind dogma devoid of rational relation to reality.


Exactly so, and the comforts and distractions of modern civilization insulate us from reality and enable us to do a lot of ''thinking'', where one moments thought changes and is replaced by yet another idea contrary to it, until we don't know what to do or to think and paralysis results.

Like the problem of modern democracy Schmidt talked about; it being a way for a collective of politicians to ''delay the decision''. To stand above and beyond it all, to ''decide the exception'', is to be sovereign within one's circle, is to be a Barbarian in Civilized eyes, to be free.

Consider the Legend of the Sword of God and Attila I mentioned. The granting of the sword is direct, unmediated experience, favoring charismatic leadership upon one man, he being led by God and his followers freely being led by him because they believed in his personal charismatic rule, his sovereignty. There are oaths involved, and honor, but all are free.
#15141476
@Political Interest , @Verv , @Potemkin , and others;

So I was reading about Marshal Tukhachevsky last night, and it occurred to me that he was the example of what I'm talking about when I talk about ''Barbarism''. Consider that when he was asked if he was a Socialist, he said;

Socialist? Certainly not! What a need for classification you have! Besides, the great socialists are Jews and the socialist doctrine is a branch of universal Christianity. I laugh at money, and whether the land is divided up or not is all one to me. The barbarians, my ancestors, lived in common, but they had chiefs. No, I detest socialists, Jews and Christians.


So he became basically a Russian Nazi, and when seen actually carving pagan idols, he said;

“This is Perun. A powerful person. This is the god of war and death." And Mikhail knelt down before him with comic seriousness. I burst out laughing. “Don't laugh,” he said, getting up from his knees. - I told you that the Slavs need a new religion. They are given Marxism, but there is too much modernism and civilization in this theology. (...) There is Dazhbog - the god of the Sun, Stribog - the god of the Wind, Veles - the god of arts and poetry, and finally, Perun - the god of thunder and lightning. After some deliberation, I settled on Perun, since Marxism, having won in Russia, will unleash merciless wars between people. I will honor Perun every day."


And one of his confidants recounts another story;

According to Tukhachevsky's close confidant Leonid Sabaneyev, in 1918, when he was in the service of the Military Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, in his last overt display of neopaganism, Tukhachevsky drew up a project for the destruction of Christianity and the restoration of Slavic paganism. To this end, Tukhachevsky submitted a memo on declaring paganism as the state religion of the RSFSR, which although mocked, also received some serious discussion in the Small Council of People's Commissars, which commended Tukhachevsky for his "joke" and his commitment to atheism. Sabaneyev observed that Tukhachevsky seemed "as happy as a schoolboy who had just succeeded in a prank."


It wasn't a prank, was it? I suspect that he planned on becoming the ''Napoleon'' or even ''Hitler'' of Russia, and Stalin and company kept Russia from a horrible fate when they disposed of that man, worse than anything Hitler or the Bolsheviks have done.

But Marshal Tukhachevsky wasn't so very wrong about the ''Barbarism'' of the Russian people, was he? And I ask the question with Barbarism understood in a positive sense, Barbarism which he conflated with Paganism.
#15141486
annatar1914 wrote:Very incisive comments @Political Interest my friend, thank you. So you generally see the problem and the opportunities much as I do


Thank you.

I see the problems more than the opportunities, sadly. But then I'm a pessimistic type.

annatar1914 wrote:Very alien for most of them, and when they do encounter it they can't deal with it like men, most of them from what I have seen. It changes them significantly.


Very interesting. In what way does it change them?

annatar1914 wrote:Most of the genuine concepts are innate to us as rational human souls to begin with, as I think Plato would have agreed. But as you said, we just know. Rationalism degrades reason precisely for the fact that the more people think upon something, the more contrary ideas and opinions they generate, even within one same single mind.


Perhaps this is the essence in which people now discuss the notion of over thinking or being an over thinker?

You can get to a point where your thoughts just spiral and keep spiralling till the point where very little makes sense.

This is why we see all of these mad post-modern concepts emerging, because the downward spiral into doubt continues.

annatar1914 wrote:Exactly so, and the comforts and distractions of modern civilization insulate us from reality and enable us to do a lot of ''thinking'', where one moments thought changes and is replaced by yet another idea contrary to it, until we don't know what to do or to think and paralysis results.


Precisely. Then when reality knocks on our door again we are suddenly thrown back into daily life and wish we hadn't been so lost in thought, especially when our over thinking leads us to neglect what is actually of immediate importance.

annatar1914 wrote:Like the problem of modern democracy Schmidt talked about; it being a way for a collective of politicians to ''delay the decision''. To stand above and beyond it all, to ''decide the exception'', is to be sovereign within one's circle, is to be a Barbarian in Civilized eyes, to be free.

Consider the Legend of the Sword of God and Attila I mentioned. The granting of the sword is direct, unmediated experience, favoring charismatic leadership upon one man, he being led by God and his followers freely being led by him because they believed in his personal charismatic rule, his sovereignty. There are oaths involved, and honor, but all are free.


This is real freedom indeed. Freedom that doesn't rest with representatives but which is direct and which is still based on man's own will to follow whom he deems to be worthy.

annatar1914 wrote:It wasn't a prank, was it? I suspect that he planned on becoming the ''Napoleon'' or even ''Hitler'' of Russia, and Stalin and company kept Russia from a horrible fate when they disposed of that man, worse than anything Hitler or the Bolsheviks have done.

But Marshal Tukhachevsky wasn't so very wrong about the ''Barbarism'' of the Russian people, was he? And I ask the question with Barbarism understood in a positive sense, Barbarism which he conflated with Paganism.


The appeal to paganism and the rejection of Christianity, it does sound very reminiscent of fascist currents, perhaps even National Socialist, especially if combined with anti-semitism.

Yes, he seemed to have an understanding of the Russians as a pre-modern people close to the land. In the end the barbarism saved Russia from his rule. It certainly did not allow him the privilege of campaigning for his ideas and starting up a political party. That is the irony.
#15141514
Dear @Political Interest , you said in reply to my thoughts that;


Thank you.

I see the problems more than the opportunities, sadly. But then I'm a pessimistic type.


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.

When the virtual soldiers encounter close up war, I said that it changes them. You asked;

Very interesting. In what way does it change them?


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.


Perhaps this is the essence in which people now discuss the notion of over thinking or being an over thinker?

You can get to a point where your thoughts just spiral and keep spiralling till the point where very little makes sense.


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.

This is why we see all of these mad post-modern concepts emerging, because the downward spiral into doubt continues.


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.


Precisely. Then when reality knocks on our door again we are suddenly thrown back into daily life and wish we hadn't been so lost in thought, especially when our over thinking leads us to neglect what is actually of immediate importance.


Genuine and immediate, practical daily living.

On the personal and charismatic leadership of the barbarian leader;


This is real freedom indeed. Freedom that doesn't rest with representatives but which is direct and which is still based on man's own will to follow whom he deems to be worthy.


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.


On Marshal Tukhachevsky;


The appeal to paganism and the rejection of Christianity, it does sound very reminiscent of fascist currents, perhaps even National Socialist, especially if combined with anti-semitism.


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

Yes, he seemed to have an understanding of the Russians as a pre-modern people close to the land. In the end the barbarism saved Russia from his rule. It certainly did not allow him the privilege of campaigning for his ideas and starting up a political party. That is the irony.


Providential irony in my opinion.
#15141980
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.
#15142043
annatar1914 wrote: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.


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.
#15142086
...Thus, I'm going to examine in my next post if Christian tradition is complementary to the idea of revolution or condemns it.


I already knew the answer, although I did not want to face the implications over time. For my very first post in this thread included this;

''I reject the Modern State, even if out of prudence and human respect for earthly authority I submit in all things except sin.

I affirm the rightful rule of Right-Believing Kings and Queens, of the God anointed and enlightened Orthodox Tsar, even though I know that today we are in an Interregnum with no Tsar, and possibly Antichrist will be shortly revealed as such unto the Elect of God.

I reject all of the modern ideologies as being corrupt and delusional fruits of the same wicked tree, which is rebellion against God, and the division and mutual slaughter of mankind.''


So this is the end of politics as such, because to participate is to be complicit, and to rebel is to sin. Consider this article;

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherf ... rebellion/


''Biblical Rebellion?
August 28, 2020 · Fr. Lawrence Farley

Recently the Public Orthodoxy blog published a post by Rodoljub Kubat, entitled, Rebellion at the Heart of the Bible. Usually I would not respond to a piece referencing a revolt spreading throughout a land as far away from our own as Serbia. But given the revolts and rioting happening here in North America in the name of righteous indignation and justice, I thought it worth addressing his issue.

Mr. Kubat asserts that to be faithful to the Biblical tradition, Christians must be rebels. He asks (rhetorically), “If Christians are silent or approving of injustice, are they on the path of the Kingdom of Heaven? If they rise up against injustice, then one might call that a rebellion, a rebellion against injustice.” He further writes, “Rebellion theology is prophetic theology. The prophetic movement originated sometimes in the 9th century B.C. It was essentially a revolt against social injustices, especially against abuses of power.” For Mr. Kubat, rebellion against the injustice in our society is at the heart of the Christian mandate, and so to refuse to take part in the rebellion constitutes lack of prophetic faithfulness to God.

As examples of such rebellion Mr. Kubat cites the Israelites rebelling against Egyptian oppression, Jonah rebelling against God, and Christ’s ministry, especially His word in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. Kubat writes, “Both the Romans and the Jewish leaders perceive [sic] Christ as a rebel” and the Church after Him was perceived as “an anti-social factor, whose members will not confess [sic] the emperor as God.” Later, “the monastic movement and flight to the desert was a rebellion against a world governed by injustice…This is especially seen in the example of St. John Chrysostom, a great theologian and fighter against injustice.” In Kubat’s view, the Church was (and should be) rebellious at its core, but later became too entangled with powers of the world and so proved itself unfaithful to its divine prophetic mandate.

It is not hard to see that Mr. Kubat has a point: the Church during its Byzantine phase of supposed symphonia with the Empire too often made shameful compromises with Caesar in supporting a worldly status quo. This is hardly new. But Kubat’s point is not historical, but theological: he asserts that we need a “theology of rebellion” to “achieve justice in this world”. In particular he says that the needed rebellion, having found no welcome in the church, at one time “moved to the ‘flower children’…who rightly became icons of freedom.”

My Google search of Mr. Kubat could not discover his age, though the picture of him online showed a man roughly the age of my own adult children, neither of whom were present when the flower children made the news, chanted “Make love, not war”, and over-dosed in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The flower children were not icons of freedom, but confused young people in pain, estranged from their elders, and lost in the disillusioned turbulence of the Viet Nam years in America. But of course that was far from Serbia.

Normally rebellions in Serbia would call forth little comment from me here in North America. But we seem to be in the throes of our own home grown rebellion. We are rioting in the streets, indulging in violence, and pulling down statues at will. Like all rebellions, our own current one seeks justification for its violence in the injustices perceived in society around us. The injustices may be real. But the problem with rebellion is that the injustices we perceive can blind us to the injustice inherent in our own violence, and lead us to feel that our violence is justified because we are building a better world when we are simply tearing down the one we have. For anger always blinds those who embrace it; that is perhaps why St. James reminded us that the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God (James 1:20). It is far too easy for us to imagine that we are following the mandates of the Kingdom, when we are simply being led by the spirit of the age. And the problems attending any violent rebellion should not be that hard for us to recognize—was the Communist Revolution so long ago?

What is missing in the theology of Mr. Kubat is an eschatological perspective—to say nothing of sound Biblical exegesis and historical acumen. In fact the Israelites did not rebel against Egyptian oppression, but waited until Yahweh liberated them. As Moses said, “Yahweh will fight for you, and you have only to be still” (Exodus 14:14). Jonah’s rebellion was not sanctioned by God, but rebuked and judged by Him—which was the whole point of the story of Jonah! Christ did not counsel rebellion against Rome, but refused to acquiesce in such rebellion, insisting that His disciples render to Caesar what they owed to Caesar, and that His Kingdom was not of this world. The monks did not counsel rebellion against the world, but looked to the age to come as they withdrew from the world to devote more time to prayer. And St. John Chrysostom did not counsel rebellion either: he rebuked the Empress for her sins, but never sought to overthrow the established order—probably because he had read Romans 13.

It is just here that we arrive at the crux of the matter. As children of the eschaton and the age to come, our mandate is not social rebellion and the overthrow of the established order, but witness. The prophets (including Jonah) witnessed to the truth of God, and left the judgment (and possible overthrow of the status quo) to Him. Christ witnessed to the truth of God, saying to Pilate, “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37).

In saying this, Christ gave the Church its mandate: not to overthrow the established order and substitute a new order of its own devising, but to witness to the truth, and to demonstrate a better way. Those who hear and heed the truth will change the order from within. If we have political power and the opportunity to enact godly laws, we should do so. But ultimately the change we desire will not come from revolution and rebellion, but from the diffusion of the Gospel. Political change cannot save us if our hearts remain unchanged. The flower children thought rebellion against “The Man” could save us. They were wrong.

The fundamental issue here is ecclesial: does the Church belong primarily to the age to come, or to this age? Are we strangers and sojourners passing through this age, witnessing to the truth, and doing what good we can while we are here? Or are we citizens of the world, with a mandate to change it and make it a better place to live? The dichotomy, of course, is not absolute: obviously either way we must strive to work for peace and justice and help the poor. And either way we set our hearts on the Kingdom to come. Nonetheless the choice between two basic orientations and two fundamental tasks remains.

Christ does not call us to rebel or promote revolution, but to offer revelation. It is our message which is revolutionary—and if society does not heed the message, we may not take up arms to put our message into effect. Peter tried to do that in the garden of Gethsemane—and Christ told him to put his sword back into its sheath (John 18:11). In so doing He took the sword from the hand of any of His followers who would resort to rebellion to establish the justice which can only come about through a transformed heart. Rebellion is not Biblical, and is always wrong. It seeks a political solution to a spiritual problem. The true solution was given to Nicodemus long ago: you must be born again.''


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.
#15143148
I think we've reached an impasse because you have perfectly defined everything & put them into a consistent and right framework.

If there is a mistake, it will be in the way we define perceive liberalism & conservatism... Perhaps we have painted ourselves too much into this corner.

It's a romantic and good corner, and everything you have concluded from it makes sense, but does it need to be exactly like this?

This is how I think my father, a pretty normal unhyphenated conservative, would solve this:

    - We are all created in the image of God and we must all believe of our own free will
    - We must all be respected as image bearers of God and be allowed to live how we please
    - The government should allow people this freedom
    - If people abuse this freedom, it is sad, but it is not the place of the government to act as God in these circumstances

This principle can be applied both in democratic & monarchical systems, and it also clearly is the root that we see in the American Constitution, more or less. Giving the power to the people to be who they are.

Does it fully solve the problem? Well, we can still argue that it doesn't... But I think it does provide a compelling case for saying that the American people & government can certainly be considered to have something theologically sound in them. It's just that we may not always like the results.

To us, though, of course it feels like an emergency, like all will be lost and never be returned to the right... Yet, we believe God is in control, and that there will be an apocalypse. We should theoretically feel quite normal right when they send us to the gulags. Is this a weak point in Christianity? Yes, if we focus too much on the temporal.

Shell shock / PTSD

I like how you describe it as the same events being played back over and over and over again. I would normally conceive of these things too abstractly! I would not think of it in such literal terms...

But, even in anxiety, this is literally the way that it occurs... Fears, regrets, etc., playing in over and over again, coming up and haunting our minds.

I was just recently reading in the Philokalia the theologian St. Niketas Stethatos and he emphasized that we have to find the way to replace images of God and glory in our mind to erase the bad things in our past. This advice would have struck me as naive had it not come from a literal Saint but, yes, you can simply begin praying & meditating over the bad things, with practice.
#15143155
@Verv , you said;

I think we've reached an impasse because you have perfectly defined everything & put them into a consistent and right framework.


That's what worries me :lol: .

I'm probably more than a little like Dostyoevsky's ''Underground Man'' in his ''Notes from the Underground'', who reserves the right to dash everything to pieces because he desires the freedom to do so, regardless if his actions are good or bad as long as they are not constrained by iron necessity. My extreme bias against Anarchism probably comes in play to try to counter that, but my ''Barbarism'' still maintains the freedom, the freedom of the Personal, the Charismatic.

If there is a mistake, it will be in the way we define perceive liberalism & conservatism... Perhaps we have painted ourselves too much into this corner.


I agree, if we have made too sharp a distinction between the Modern and the Traditional/Pre-Modern. I've been thinking that what if the Idea of the Modern is exactly that, just an Idea, a consensus bubble that does not actually change the reality around it, even though we convince ourselves that it does. In other words, it's just a ''spell'', a kind of ''perception management'' that's been going on for about the past 500 years, piling on abstractions while we and almost everybody else have a ''head reality'' where these abstractions reside in our conscious existence, and a ''heart reality'' where we often wind up doing pretty much as we always have for all of recorded history anyway. Does this seem possible to you?

It's a romantic and good corner, and everything you have concluded from it makes sense, but does it need to be exactly like this?


In a word, no.

This is how I think my father, a pretty normal unhyphenated conservative, would solve this:

    - We are all created in the image of God and we must all believe of our own free will
    - We must all be respected as image bearers of God and be allowed to live how we please
    - The government should allow people this freedom
    - If people abuse this freedom, it is sad, but it is not the place of the government to act as God in these circumstances


It recalls to me the personal and the charismatic, the intuitive nature of human freedom and interpersonal relation. Part of that for me to use an illustration is like the difference between a honorably binding handshake agreement or embrace or whatever, with solemn oath, compared to a dry and formal binding legal document complete with lawyers and courtrooms. One seems free while the other doesn't, but to relate to what I said earlier, a good deal of modern life has the experience of both with it going on simultaneously, does it not? Only one seems real and free, while the other partakes of something jarring and off-putting at least to me.

This principle can be applied both in democratic & monarchical systems, and it also clearly is the root that we see in the American Constitution, more or less. Giving the power to the people to be who they are.


Back to cutting that Gordian Knot, then... I realize tonight that it was important for me to read what you're saying, somewhat relating to recent events and discussions I've been having here on PoFo and elsewhere, talking to friends and family.

Does it fully solve the problem? Well, we can still argue that it doesn't... But I think it does provide a compelling case for saying that the American people & government can certainly be considered to have something theologically sound in them. It's just that we may not always like the results.


I suppose the case could be made that we never had much power to force anyone to be good or to think rightly anyway, only defend what we had for ourselves and future generations of Christians, so yes you could well be right.

To us, though, of course it feels like an emergency, like all will be lost and never be returned to the right... Yet, we believe God is in control, and that there will be an apocalypse. We should theoretically feel quite normal right when they send us to the gulags. Is this a weak point in Christianity? Yes, if we focus too much on the temporal.


And that's where (as my Orthodox Priest and I once discussed together) I came to the point where I had to try work to slough off the interior remnants of my original Papism, to desire power and control and force people do do as we will them to-for their own good of course. Or to be subservient to a larger authority on Earth that presented that same figure in my mind.

Shell shock / PTSD

I like how you describe it as the same events being played back over and over and over again. I would normally conceive of these things too abstractly! I would not think of it in such literal terms...

But, even in anxiety, this is literally the way that it occurs... Fears, regrets, etc., playing in over and over again, coming up and haunting our minds.


This state of mind of course makes it harder to tame the disordered passions within ourselves and makes it easier instead to deflect this interior combat onto others, blaming other people and institutions for our difficulties and woes.

I was just recently reading in the Philokalia the theologian St. Niketas Stethatos and he emphasized that we have to find the way to replace images of God and glory in our mind to erase the bad things in our past. This advice would have struck me as naive had it not come from a literal Saint but, yes, you can simply begin praying & meditating over the bad things, with practice.


The way of the Pilgrim in the World. At first I felt like everything I was doing was a contrived naivete and enforced and stultifying leap into a mind-killing fideism, but I have been learning that it really isn't that way at all, it has interior reasons that one gains with help and experience that provide reasons that are more satisfying to the whole of one's person than some intellectual scholasticism born out of one's intellectual egoism.

Then one can truly believe all sorts of surprising things. Sure they're hard to convey to others sometimes, based on my own limitations to be sure, but still they are what they are and Who they are, the Truth.

Thanks Verv, you've been a big help to me tonight.
Last edited by annatar1914 on 14 Dec 2020 23:38, edited 1 time in total.
#15143171
Verv wrote:I was just recently reading in the Philokalia the theologian St. Niketas Stethatos and he emphasized that we have to find the way to replace images of God and glory in our mind to erase the bad things in our past. This advice would have struck me as naive had it not come from a literal Saint but, yes, you can simply begin praying & meditating over the bad things, with practice.

You say the word "naive" as though it's a bad thing, @Verv . Almost all fundamental principles could be seen as "naive". For example, the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." How naive is that? After all, it depends on most people not realising that they could cheat the system by taking advantage of the rubes who obey the Golden Rule. People often say that they would obey the Golden Rule if everybody else obeyed it. That attitude is not naive, but it ensures that the Golden Rule is obeyed by almost nobody in this world of ours. To bring about the kingdom of heaven on Earth requires a fundamental and unswerving naivete. Christ possessed that naivete - in fact he went to his death to preserve that 'naivete'. To be naive, in the proper way, is actually the most essential and the most difficult thing in the world.
#15143212
Potemkin wrote:You say the word "naive" as though it's a bad thing, @Verv . Almost all fundamental principles could be seen as "naive". For example, the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." How naive is that? After all, it depends on most people not realising that they could cheat the system by taking advantage of the rubes who obey the Golden Rule. People often say that they would obey the Golden Rule if everybody else obeyed it. That attitude is not naive, but it ensures that the Golden Rule is obeyed by almost nobody in this world of ours. To bring about the kingdom of heaven on Earth requires a fundamental and unswerving naivete. Christ possessed that naivete - in fact he went to his death to preserve that 'naivete'. To be naive, in the proper way, is actually the most essential and the most difficult thing in the world.


@Potemkin ,

Thank you, I ask for this ''naivete'' always myself. There are things going on my friend that are far above us in scale, I'll call it a ''Cosmic War'', that we see only just a little bit of. I also think that over time, we fell further and further as time went on, and see less and less as a consequence.

Do you recall a book by Julian Jaynes, called ''The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind''? Well he calls the results of Bicameralism that what people were experiencing were ''auditory hallucinations''. I don't think they were as such, I think that we had capabilities that we have lost to a degree, collectively speaking. Including the ability to naturally exercise some of that ''naivete'' we're talking about.

I believe that if anything for most of human history we've been falling, degenerating, de-evolving if anything, until certain events in history began to turn things around. Not a return just yet, but a leap forwards in important respects but not consciously perceived by many. Recalls Marxist talk of ''false consciousness'', doesn't it?
#15143220
annatar1914 wrote:@Potemkin ,

Thank you, I ask for this ''naivete'' always myself. There are things going on my friend that are far above us in scale, I'll call it a ''Cosmic War'', that we see only just a little bit of. I also think that over time, we fell further and further as time went on, and see less and less as a consequence.

Do you recall a book by Julian Jaynes, called ''The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind''? Well he calls the results of Bicameralism that what people were experiencing were ''auditory hallucinations''. I don't think they were as such, I think that we had capabilities that we have lost to a degree, collectively speaking. Including the ability to naturally exercise some of that ''naivete'' we're talking about.

I do indeed recall Jaynes' book. I think his fundamental thesis was largely correct (though I would dispute the historical timing) - and it ties in with the modern discoveries of people like Freud and Lacan et al. that language is fundamental to the human mind. Without language, we would not be conscious, or even human, in any meaningful sense. "In the beginning was the Word...."

I believe that if anything for most of human history we've been falling, degenerating, de-evolving if anything, until certain events in history began to turn things around. Not a return just yet, but a leap forwards in important respects but not consciously perceived by many. Recalls Marxist talk of ''false consciousness'', doesn't it?

Indeed it does. In fact, the ultimate endgame for Marx - as it was for Hegel - is a fundamental transformation of human consciousness. This transformation of consciousness, of course, can only be attained by a parallel transformation of the material mode of production - since consciousness is based on matter, and is in fact thinking matter.
#15143290
@Potemkin

I do indeed recall Jaynes' book. I think his fundamental thesis was largely correct (though I would dispute the historical timing) - and it ties in with the modern discoveries of people like Freud and Lacan et al. that language is fundamental to the human mind. Without language, we would not be conscious, or even human, in any meaningful sense. "In the beginning was the Word...."


I agree that the timing Jaynes posits is a little off for some theological reasons (the confusion of languages moment linked to the Tower of Babel fits better), but I view the decline and essentially ''brain damage'' as being along a kind of continuum of sorts, and I'm presently reading some more research into Autism which is increasing and to which I suspect a connection as well.

Civilization is basically a collective survival strategy for an increasingly Autistic-spectrum mankind, has been my working hypothesis.

Indeed it does. In fact, the ultimate endgame for Marx - as it was for Hegel - is a fundamental transformation of human consciousness. This transformation of consciousness, of course, can only be attained by a parallel transformation of the material mode of production - since consciousness is based on matter, and is in fact thinking matter.


Now when we figure out what ''matter'' is exactly, we'll be onto something :D

As you well know, I tend to avoid the speculations of German Idealism (growing from Scholasticism via Rene Decartes) in this regard, instead viewing ''spirits'' and the like from the unseen realms as pretty much John Milton or Tertullian did; as ''refined'' or subtle'' matter. The rational ''why?'' that I do involves some alternative physics but particular focus on Time, Gravity, and Spin. And, it conforms quite well with Orthodox Theology.

We need a good healthy dose of that Naivete to survive. A strong dose of Barbarism.
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@Tainari88 , @Godstud @Rich , @Verv , @Po[…]

World War II Day by Day

March 29, Friday Mackenzie King wins Canadian el[…]