It is clear that Christians have become unemployable in positions of high status and responsibility; and this exclusion is being incrementally extended to lower and lower employment positions.
The main reason is probably the fear that Christians may be honest in the workplace - which, in the modern workplace, with its endemic corruption covered by pervasive dishonesty, could be 'disastrous'.
Of course, most people - including many/ most Christians, have no problem about being dishonest; indeed, they don't even notice it. Dishonesty is the air they breathe: they are dishonest in almost every sentence, and certainly dishonest in every paragraph. So much dishonesty - everywhere, all of the time - becomes specifically undetectable. It is just 'how things are done'.
Indeed, in my experience, the most pervasively-dishonest people - those whose every communication is an act of calculated manipulation - may become genuinely outraged and angry if their dishonesty is noticed, or pointed-out. For them honesty just is expediency, and expediency just is how they communicate and act. It seems grossly unjust for them, personally, to be singled-out for doing what is general, approved and indeed compulsory within the organisation.
For someone to threaten to expose any specific dishonesty (even in private) is to disrupt the system of inter-dependent lies - this is called 'hypocritical'.
Modern people are, in general, not hypocritical in this sense - because modern people are complicit.
For example, the extreme instances of sexual abuse in Hollywood (eg those involving rape of chidlren) are sustained by the fact that essentially-everybody is complicit in the sexual revolution in one or another of its many aspects, to a greater or (mostly) lesser extent.
And Hollywood is an excellent place to pursue sexual promiscuity of all kinds - so many/ most of the people there will be exploiting the sexual opportunities as much as they can.
Complicit employees are usually acceptable, because they are Not honest. They are kept in line because because, in a system of corruption, everyone is complicit; but it is the low level employees that get busted for corruption.
So modern employers want people who are complicit with corruption, especially the corruptions of the sexual revolution - becuase such people will not be honest.
Modernity entails the exclusion of honesty.
However, quite a few non-Christian ethnic groups are also not complicit with sexual corruption; yet these are regarded as acceptable - even desirable, because 'virtue-signalling' - employees.
Closer examination will show that this is although such ethnicities are not complicit in many forms of corruption (indeed they may rigorously oppose the sexual revolution, they may reject drugs and alcohol, they may reject self-mutilation etc.); but neither do such ethnicities regard honesty as a duty. Thus they are safe to employ.
Genralised and principled honesty is a Christian virtue - a specifically-Christian virtue.
It is, in fact, only Christians - and only some minority of the self-identified Christians - who are not complicit in the system of lies; and who know they have a duty to speak-out honestly in general and to everybody, at all times and about all things.
These are what the modern mainstream calls 'fundamentalist' Christians - and it is the type of fundamentalist Christians that are not-complicit and also honest, who are now unemployable.
(Quite obviously, and rationally, when you are running a corrupt system, and are happy with the state of corruption, and personally benefit from it; then it would be dangerous to employ people who are not-complicit and who are also honest. That is just asking-for-trouble.)
And this is why 'fundamentalist' Christians - and only Christians - are excluded from employment, and responsibility.
Serious Christians already unemployable in high level elite positions, and we are increasingly unemployable at almost any level in modern institutions, organisations and corporations.
And the prospect is one of (de facto and aimed-at) total exclusion of serious Christians from all mainstream social organisations at every level.
Dis-honesty is the best policy! You know it makes sense...
Just to clarify: serious Christians are the only class of persons who are systematically being excluded from institutions and employment at present - but there are also individuals who are honest and non-complicit that are also being excluded. David Icke is a current, in the news, example - relevant because he is anti-Christian (or anti-Christian-priests & -churches at any rate).
Monday, 8 January 2018
Lies upon lies about sex and the media - another consequence of the decline of Christianity.
Dishonesty is the most pervasive form of corruption - and the one that enables all the others to thrive.
This is possible because humans are Not naturally honest; neither intrinsically, biologically nor culturally honest.
Instead, as a general rule, people tell other people whatever is expedient - constrained only by what is deniable... what they can get-away-with - and truthfulness is reserved for a few, very specific situations.
But even specific honesty - as a positive goal - is unlikely, unless honesty is general. Science was basically honest until about the middle 1960s, but in face of the collapse of Western societal honesty is now no more honest that mainstream culture: which is to say that modern 'science' (ie professional research) does not even aim to be honest.
Generalised honesty is, in essence, a purely Christian virtue, and has existed only in (some) Christian societies, and when Christianity has been dominant. And as Western Christianity has lapsed and been driven-out from public discourse and from all major social institutions (including law, education, and science); so has the ideal of honesty.
There is a clear dichotomy. Honesty is either a social ideal, and as such is the aim of all statements - great and small; or else is it is not - and any statement may be framed on a continuum from maximum to minimum honesty - from strictest possible honesty, to maximum strategic expediency.
Such thoughts were prompted by an extremely clarifying quote from the Instapundit Glenn Reynolds (H/T Dox Day):
Remember, they’re not making a big deal about sexual assault in Hollywood because they found out about it. They’re making a big deal because you found out about it.
The lessons of the Hollywood/ Mass-Media-in-general sex scandals are being lied about (purposefully, strategically) just as the normal, standard, approved, systematic sexual depravity and corruption of Hollywood is lied about in multiple ways.
The Mass Media who report the sex scandals are exactly the same social system within which the depraved sexuality occurs. What we can see is that there is a near-total cleavage in the sexual morals of the Mass Media and of ordinary people - especially in relation to the business of paedophilia/ pederasty/ assault/ rape relating to pre-pubertal children which is clearly common in the Mass Media, and a very common motivation among global Establishment leadership - while being almost unknown and incomprehensible outside of it.
This is not 'normal sexuality' being liberated by wealth and opportunity - it is a rare, corrupt, perverted and alien form of sexual desire. Yet it is so common among the ruling elites (not only in the mass media, but also politics and several other of the major social institutions) as to be regarded by insiders as normal.
As Glenn Reynolds said: from the mass media insider elite perspective, the only problem about systematic sexual corruption is when ordinary people get to hear about it. When there is honesty about what the insider elites are doing sexually, as a matter of daily routine - indeed as a matter of specific strategic preparation and organisation.
Otherwise it is evil concealed by lies upon lies, decade after decade. Among many tens of thousands of (rich, famous, powerful, high status) people who know exactly what is going-on and are quite happy about the situation - so long as other-people don't know what is going-on.
If, like me, you believe that the mass media is the primary and most powerful social institution in The West; and the social institution that most pervasively shapes the minds, motivations and attitudes of the largest numbers of people... well then, This Is A Problem.
In fact it is, not just A problem; but The problem.
This is possible because humans are Not naturally honest; neither intrinsically, biologically nor culturally honest.
Instead, as a general rule, people tell other people whatever is expedient - constrained only by what is deniable... what they can get-away-with - and truthfulness is reserved for a few, very specific situations.
But even specific honesty - as a positive goal - is unlikely, unless honesty is general. Science was basically honest until about the middle 1960s, but in face of the collapse of Western societal honesty is now no more honest that mainstream culture: which is to say that modern 'science' (ie professional research) does not even aim to be honest.
Generalised honesty is, in essence, a purely Christian virtue, and has existed only in (some) Christian societies, and when Christianity has been dominant. And as Western Christianity has lapsed and been driven-out from public discourse and from all major social institutions (including law, education, and science); so has the ideal of honesty.
There is a clear dichotomy. Honesty is either a social ideal, and as such is the aim of all statements - great and small; or else is it is not - and any statement may be framed on a continuum from maximum to minimum honesty - from strictest possible honesty, to maximum strategic expediency.
Such thoughts were prompted by an extremely clarifying quote from the Instapundit Glenn Reynolds (H/T Dox Day):
Remember, they’re not making a big deal about sexual assault in Hollywood because they found out about it. They’re making a big deal because you found out about it.
The lessons of the Hollywood/ Mass-Media-in-general sex scandals are being lied about (purposefully, strategically) just as the normal, standard, approved, systematic sexual depravity and corruption of Hollywood is lied about in multiple ways.
The Mass Media who report the sex scandals are exactly the same social system within which the depraved sexuality occurs. What we can see is that there is a near-total cleavage in the sexual morals of the Mass Media and of ordinary people - especially in relation to the business of paedophilia/ pederasty/ assault/ rape relating to pre-pubertal children which is clearly common in the Mass Media, and a very common motivation among global Establishment leadership - while being almost unknown and incomprehensible outside of it.
This is not 'normal sexuality' being liberated by wealth and opportunity - it is a rare, corrupt, perverted and alien form of sexual desire. Yet it is so common among the ruling elites (not only in the mass media, but also politics and several other of the major social institutions) as to be regarded by insiders as normal.
As Glenn Reynolds said: from the mass media insider elite perspective, the only problem about systematic sexual corruption is when ordinary people get to hear about it. When there is honesty about what the insider elites are doing sexually, as a matter of daily routine - indeed as a matter of specific strategic preparation and organisation.
Otherwise it is evil concealed by lies upon lies, decade after decade. Among many tens of thousands of (rich, famous, powerful, high status) people who know exactly what is going-on and are quite happy about the situation - so long as other-people don't know what is going-on.
If, like me, you believe that the mass media is the primary and most powerful social institution in The West; and the social institution that most pervasively shapes the minds, motivations and attitudes of the largest numbers of people... well then, This Is A Problem.
In fact it is, not just A problem; but The problem.
Sunday, 7 January 2018
Direct Christianity
I have been struggling to find a term to express what I believe is needed in the modern West, here-and-now, for you and me; and the best I came up with was Spiritual Christianity, which I was never happy with since 'spiritual' is such a vague and multi-meaning kind of word.
(And a word that mostly refers to mostly-bad things, and things which are mostly-bad.)
Perhaps Direct Christianity is a better term?
What I am trying to express is that we need to be Christians (first and foremost) - and/ but we need to be Christians whose faith is based primarily upon what is directly-known.
There are two direct sources of knowledge: inspiration and intuition.
Inspiration is direct knowledge of God-without, of God as a separate Being. It is an old form of knowledge - for example Socrates describes very explicitly his inspiration by The God (his daemon, as it is sometimes called). Inspiration may come from prayer, meditation or simply arrive in the mind - the point being that inspiration is experienced as directly knowing the nature, motivations, wishes of God.
Intuition is direct knowledge of God-within, of God within-us - made possible because we are sons and daughters of God, therefore partly divine. Intuition is, I believe, a recent possibility - only possible since we became self-conscious in the modern way - and only made possible by means of the slow developmental-unfolding of the 'cosmic' work of Jesus Christ.
So, Direct Christianity would be something relatively new (only possible at all for a couple of hundred years, and only becoming widely possible more recently) - something that is active and a choice, something only possible by being able to know (consciously, explicitly) the true, divine self we all have-and-are.
For most people, attaining Direct Christianity can only be a goal, gradually and intermittently attained, and of variable strength and intensity. It provides us with the essential experience from which we can learn reality - this learning being a thing that happens at the level of eternal and universal reality (and not within our mortal brains or bodies).
Anyway, the idea is that Direct Christianity is now the primary form of Christianity, and indeed the only truly honest and viable form of Christianity - something which almost all serious Christians actually-do... but more-or-less unconsciously... And to do it un-consciously is not really to do it at all!
What I mean is that to be a serious Christian as a Westerner in The West and Now cannot be the passive and obedient, unconscious and childlike thing that it used to be some hundreds of years ago - and cannot means cannot. Those who think they can, are fooling themselves.
But anyway, we shouldn't want-to - we should want-to move forwards to something better, because more divine, more Christ-like.
Since it can be done - we ought to choose-to do it: but is must be chosen, cannot be compelled.
Note added: If you wonder why I suppose Direct Christianity is possible; one possible answer is that it is necessary. Here-and-now, with psychology, society and churches as they are, it is necessary that we have access to direct and personal forms of guidance - and preferably at least tow such, in case of errors. And because it is necessary, God has ensured it is available.
Further note: In a simultaneous post, William Wildblood clarifies that (to use the terms above) Inspiration needs to come before Intuition.
(And a word that mostly refers to mostly-bad things, and things which are mostly-bad.)
Perhaps Direct Christianity is a better term?
What I am trying to express is that we need to be Christians (first and foremost) - and/ but we need to be Christians whose faith is based primarily upon what is directly-known.
There are two direct sources of knowledge: inspiration and intuition.
Inspiration is direct knowledge of God-without, of God as a separate Being. It is an old form of knowledge - for example Socrates describes very explicitly his inspiration by The God (his daemon, as it is sometimes called). Inspiration may come from prayer, meditation or simply arrive in the mind - the point being that inspiration is experienced as directly knowing the nature, motivations, wishes of God.
Intuition is direct knowledge of God-within, of God within-us - made possible because we are sons and daughters of God, therefore partly divine. Intuition is, I believe, a recent possibility - only possible since we became self-conscious in the modern way - and only made possible by means of the slow developmental-unfolding of the 'cosmic' work of Jesus Christ.
So, Direct Christianity would be something relatively new (only possible at all for a couple of hundred years, and only becoming widely possible more recently) - something that is active and a choice, something only possible by being able to know (consciously, explicitly) the true, divine self we all have-and-are.
For most people, attaining Direct Christianity can only be a goal, gradually and intermittently attained, and of variable strength and intensity. It provides us with the essential experience from which we can learn reality - this learning being a thing that happens at the level of eternal and universal reality (and not within our mortal brains or bodies).
Anyway, the idea is that Direct Christianity is now the primary form of Christianity, and indeed the only truly honest and viable form of Christianity - something which almost all serious Christians actually-do... but more-or-less unconsciously... And to do it un-consciously is not really to do it at all!
What I mean is that to be a serious Christian as a Westerner in The West and Now cannot be the passive and obedient, unconscious and childlike thing that it used to be some hundreds of years ago - and cannot means cannot. Those who think they can, are fooling themselves.
But anyway, we shouldn't want-to - we should want-to move forwards to something better, because more divine, more Christ-like.
Since it can be done - we ought to choose-to do it: but is must be chosen, cannot be compelled.
Note added: If you wonder why I suppose Direct Christianity is possible; one possible answer is that it is necessary. Here-and-now, with psychology, society and churches as they are, it is necessary that we have access to direct and personal forms of guidance - and preferably at least tow such, in case of errors. And because it is necessary, God has ensured it is available.
Further note: In a simultaneous post, William Wildblood clarifies that (to use the terms above) Inspiration needs to come before Intuition.
Friday, 5 January 2018
The collapse of Western Christian Churches (for Western Christian People) is even worse than you think...
A pessimistic - but I hope realistic - interpretation and analysis of the across-the-board-with-no-exceptions decline of Western Christian Churches in England especially; but The West (including the UK, Europe and the Anglosphere, even including the USA) more generally - has been posted over at Albion Awakening.
Rudolf Steiner's (1918) accurate predictions of the malign effects of the sexual revolution
The mechanism proposed by Steiner was that there were certain changes that needed to be made, spiritual steps that needed to be taken, by Western Man in a fashion that was willed, conscious, explicit - and if such steps were not taken (and they were not taken) then the desired changes would appear in a distorted form as instincts post-hoc interpreted rationalistically...
I have edited parts the lecture to focus on the parts relating to what-turned-out-to-be the sexual revolution, now mainstream and dominant in the West - I have ruthlessly 'translated' some of Steiner's idiosyncratic terminology - so this is an interpretation as well as an edited version. Some of my comments are [in square brackets].
The whole lecture can (and should) be read here - but, be warned, it is difficult:
What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future?
Then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the consciousness of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies.
Here lies the great danger for this age of the Consciousness Soul. [That is, the era in which consciousness, self-awareness, is intensified to the exclusion of contact with reality - the age of disenchantment, alienation, materialism.] This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us.
But what would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work without man himself participating, to carry it out during sleep? Firstly, something would be engendered in the sleeping human bodies and Man would meet with it on waking in the morning ... but then it would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity, and therefore baleful.
Certain instinctive knowledge will arise in human nature connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole; and this threatens to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect.
The effect in the evolution of humanity would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking consciousness.
These sexual instincts would not be mere aberrations, but would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all prevent men from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This would be a matter of instinct.
So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can be taken — but that demands wakefulness — or the path to the left, which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene — instincts of a fearful kind.
And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. But light cannot be shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the outcome of the earlier ...
Natural science will be totally blind to the event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by science.
Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness!
In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness.
Yet, nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as natural necessity. But it would actually denote an aberration from the path which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential being.
Comment: In other words, our true destiny is for each of us deliberately, by choice, consciously and explicitly to make the next step in the evolution towards divine consciousness.
But if we do not make this choice and take this step (and we have-not done so in the past century since Steiner gave this lecture), then we will instead have...
What I find especially impressive about this prediction is that insight that the sexual aberrations would come to configure social life; and would be explained-away by 'science' as natural and inevitable developments: "Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes... and would experience... satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses"; and would see these as "evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness"; amounting to a mainstream societal adoption of value-inversion - "ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness".
Well, we will have exactly what we actually do have: Steiner's prophecy regarding the sexual revolution has-been fulfilled; explicitly and to the last detail.
I have edited parts the lecture to focus on the parts relating to what-turned-out-to-be the sexual revolution, now mainstream and dominant in the West - I have ruthlessly 'translated' some of Steiner's idiosyncratic terminology - so this is an interpretation as well as an edited version. Some of my comments are [in square brackets].
The whole lecture can (and should) be read here - but, be warned, it is difficult:
What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future?
Then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the consciousness of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies.
Here lies the great danger for this age of the Consciousness Soul. [That is, the era in which consciousness, self-awareness, is intensified to the exclusion of contact with reality - the age of disenchantment, alienation, materialism.] This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us.
But what would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work without man himself participating, to carry it out during sleep? Firstly, something would be engendered in the sleeping human bodies and Man would meet with it on waking in the morning ... but then it would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity, and therefore baleful.
Certain instinctive knowledge will arise in human nature connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole; and this threatens to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect.
The effect in the evolution of humanity would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking consciousness.
These sexual instincts would not be mere aberrations, but would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all prevent men from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This would be a matter of instinct.
So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can be taken — but that demands wakefulness — or the path to the left, which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene — instincts of a fearful kind.
And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. But light cannot be shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the outcome of the earlier ...
Natural science will be totally blind to the event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by science.
Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness!
In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness.
Yet, nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as natural necessity. But it would actually denote an aberration from the path which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential being.
Comment: In other words, our true destiny is for each of us deliberately, by choice, consciously and explicitly to make the next step in the evolution towards divine consciousness.
But if we do not make this choice and take this step (and we have-not done so in the past century since Steiner gave this lecture), then we will instead have...
What I find especially impressive about this prediction is that insight that the sexual aberrations would come to configure social life; and would be explained-away by 'science' as natural and inevitable developments: "Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes... and would experience... satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses"; and would see these as "evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness"; amounting to a mainstream societal adoption of value-inversion - "ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness".
Well, we will have exactly what we actually do have: Steiner's prophecy regarding the sexual revolution has-been fulfilled; explicitly and to the last detail.
How might foresight/ prevision work?
I think visions or knowledge of the future, for example in dreams, are something that happens only sometimes and to only some people - and the previsions are (so far as I know) always imperfect in their precision and/ or accuracy.
How might such things happen?
Well, I regard life as being destined - that is unfolding according to an overall plan - but insofar as there are being exercising their agency (free will) these plans must continually be modified.
So - with respect to means and ends - if divinity to to reach certain ends, then the means must be flexible.
In other words, if the deity wants some specific thing to happen - some specific outcome to be reached, then the plan for how to reach it needs repeatedly to be modified to take account of the choices (agency) of the participants in the plan.
This, I take it, is why previsions are not wholly accurate - because the plan now is not going to be exactly the same as the plan next week - because in the mean time, some people have used their agency in unpredictable ways; so the vision of the future we have now, will not be exactly the same as the future as it turns-out - due to the interference of agency.
Indeed, the previsions are most likely relating to means rather than to ends - they are not (not usually) end points or aimed-at outcomes, but previsions are usually rather trivial and contingent things, presumably en route to the actual aimed-at situations.
(This scheme only makes sense when it is understood broadly what deity is trying to accomplish with destiny... and that this is a matter of (put ultra-simply) providing experiences from-which individual men and women can learn, aimed at enhancing the long-term post-mortem spiritual progression of specific individuals in a multitude of individual ways.)
How might such things happen?
Well, I regard life as being destined - that is unfolding according to an overall plan - but insofar as there are being exercising their agency (free will) these plans must continually be modified.
So - with respect to means and ends - if divinity to to reach certain ends, then the means must be flexible.
In other words, if the deity wants some specific thing to happen - some specific outcome to be reached, then the plan for how to reach it needs repeatedly to be modified to take account of the choices (agency) of the participants in the plan.
This, I take it, is why previsions are not wholly accurate - because the plan now is not going to be exactly the same as the plan next week - because in the mean time, some people have used their agency in unpredictable ways; so the vision of the future we have now, will not be exactly the same as the future as it turns-out - due to the interference of agency.
Indeed, the previsions are most likely relating to means rather than to ends - they are not (not usually) end points or aimed-at outcomes, but previsions are usually rather trivial and contingent things, presumably en route to the actual aimed-at situations.
(This scheme only makes sense when it is understood broadly what deity is trying to accomplish with destiny... and that this is a matter of (put ultra-simply) providing experiences from-which individual men and women can learn, aimed at enhancing the long-term post-mortem spiritual progression of specific individuals in a multitude of individual ways.)
Thursday, 4 January 2018
Some jazzy flute
A superb scene from the Dreamworks movie Shrek Ever After (2010) in which the Pied Piper enchants the orgres. Watch out for the thin, black, cloaked and broad-hatted figure of the piper, and his wonderfully well-animated spidery dance:
To hear the music alone - which is well worth it:
I love the over-blown, bluesy, distorted improvised flute with jingling harpsichord in the intro; then the driving synthesized bass coming-in - then the quieter sections with the flashy flute runs etc.
The fascinating thing is how this piece works so very well as a 'single' length instrumental, yet was totally ('retrospectively', presumably) synchronised to the pre-existent on-screen action.
BTW Jeremy Steig is the flautist - Shake Your Groove Thing was written by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren and production was by Michael Simpson.
To hear the music alone - which is well worth it:
I love the over-blown, bluesy, distorted improvised flute with jingling harpsichord in the intro; then the driving synthesized bass coming-in - then the quieter sections with the flashy flute runs etc.
The fascinating thing is how this piece works so very well as a 'single' length instrumental, yet was totally ('retrospectively', presumably) synchronised to the pre-existent on-screen action.
BTW Jeremy Steig is the flautist - Shake Your Groove Thing was written by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren and production was by Michael Simpson.
Wednesday, 3 January 2018
Q: Are psychological-biological group differences (class/ race/ sex etc) real? A: It's *entirely* a matter of Assumptions (i.e. metaphysics)
Are psychological-biological group differences (between social classes, races, men and women) real with respect to... intelligence, aggression, conscientiousness, strength, height, educational attainment, work ethic &c &c...
Are they real? What does the evidence say? What does rigorous reasoning say?
I have intense personal experience of such issues - because in 2008 I was briefly at the centre of an international media firestorm in relation to differences in general intelligence between social classes, and the effect such differences would be expected to have on admissions to universities of varying levels of selectivity.
My position was quite straightforward - but it depended on assumptions which, it turned out, were not shared by the majority of people in mainstream politics, education and the mass media.
My basic assumption was that it was plausible that there would be differences in intelligence, hence IQ measurements, between social classes. This arising from the application of normal psychological standards of evidence; mainly the a combination of the high heritability of IQ on the one hand - and the causal association between IQ ranking and a wide range of life outcomes including job status, educational attainment and salary.
Given my assumption that class differences in average intelligence (and distribution of intelligence) were inevitable, for me the only live issue was how big were these differences in a given situation, and how great an effect would be expected on that specific situation.
BUT - if the solid assumption is that there are NOT class differences in intelligence - then all of the above evidence and reasoning, and any other potential evidence that might be brought-forward, must inevitably be false, for one reason or another; and the only live issue is to find the specific falsehood in each study and expose it.
And fault-location need not be done too carefully, since even if a fault could not be located, it is already known for sure that a fatal flaw is present - because the given answer was wrong.
Indeed, the main flaw intrinsic to research showing class differences in intelligence was assumed to be malicious lying in support of a right-wing/ fascist/ 'racist' political agenda - because only a person who (whether openly or secretly) hated and/ or despised the 'lower classes' would even do research into intelligence differences according to class.
In other words any and all studies claiming to show intelligence differences between social classes were either bad-science because incompetent; or, more likely, bad-science because fraudulent.
So, from this experience, I learned the futility of arguing about evidence when it comes to matters of fundamental assumptions - of metaphysics. If you assume that group differences are plasuible - there is ample, high quality of evidence consistent with such assumptions. But if you assume that there are no such differences - then it is an easy matter to explain-away any and every piece of apparent evidence, and to dismiss the arguments of those who oppose you.
The only way that resolution could be found, in principle, would be if the participants were prepared to reveal and evaluate their fundamental assumptions; to try to see which was more plausible; or indeed whether some other set of assumptions might be superior.
Metaphysical analysis and evaluation is therefore an absolute necessity for resolving this particular issue; and by extension for all similar issues in relation to group differences.
How important is this? Extremely important; because the denial of such group differences is the basis of almost all major Liberal/ Left/ Labour-Democrat party policy over the past half century - because it is by assuming that there are zero significant and relevant class/ race/ sex differences of a psych-biological type that the alternative inferences can be put down malign to class/ race/ sex prejudice - and such prejudice is the rationale for most modern Establishment policy.
But upon this metaphysical assumption of no-difference rests a vast interaction of vested interests - upon this assumption rests the entire rationale of the entire Establishment of all the major social systems (politics, civil administration, law, business, health, education, arts, police, military and the mass media, mainstream religion... everything).
Honest metaphysical analysis is the only possible answer - but such is always and at any cost avoided.
So, there is nothing to be done unless or until the discourse has been shifted to metaphysics. And meanwhile accumulating or presenting evidence and reasoning will continue to be futile; a waste of time at best and counter-productive more often than not...
Are they real? What does the evidence say? What does rigorous reasoning say?
I have intense personal experience of such issues - because in 2008 I was briefly at the centre of an international media firestorm in relation to differences in general intelligence between social classes, and the effect such differences would be expected to have on admissions to universities of varying levels of selectivity.
My position was quite straightforward - but it depended on assumptions which, it turned out, were not shared by the majority of people in mainstream politics, education and the mass media.
My basic assumption was that it was plausible that there would be differences in intelligence, hence IQ measurements, between social classes. This arising from the application of normal psychological standards of evidence; mainly the a combination of the high heritability of IQ on the one hand - and the causal association between IQ ranking and a wide range of life outcomes including job status, educational attainment and salary.
Given my assumption that class differences in average intelligence (and distribution of intelligence) were inevitable, for me the only live issue was how big were these differences in a given situation, and how great an effect would be expected on that specific situation.
BUT - if the solid assumption is that there are NOT class differences in intelligence - then all of the above evidence and reasoning, and any other potential evidence that might be brought-forward, must inevitably be false, for one reason or another; and the only live issue is to find the specific falsehood in each study and expose it.
And fault-location need not be done too carefully, since even if a fault could not be located, it is already known for sure that a fatal flaw is present - because the given answer was wrong.
Indeed, the main flaw intrinsic to research showing class differences in intelligence was assumed to be malicious lying in support of a right-wing/ fascist/ 'racist' political agenda - because only a person who (whether openly or secretly) hated and/ or despised the 'lower classes' would even do research into intelligence differences according to class.
In other words any and all studies claiming to show intelligence differences between social classes were either bad-science because incompetent; or, more likely, bad-science because fraudulent.
So, from this experience, I learned the futility of arguing about evidence when it comes to matters of fundamental assumptions - of metaphysics. If you assume that group differences are plasuible - there is ample, high quality of evidence consistent with such assumptions. But if you assume that there are no such differences - then it is an easy matter to explain-away any and every piece of apparent evidence, and to dismiss the arguments of those who oppose you.
The only way that resolution could be found, in principle, would be if the participants were prepared to reveal and evaluate their fundamental assumptions; to try to see which was more plausible; or indeed whether some other set of assumptions might be superior.
Metaphysical analysis and evaluation is therefore an absolute necessity for resolving this particular issue; and by extension for all similar issues in relation to group differences.
How important is this? Extremely important; because the denial of such group differences is the basis of almost all major Liberal/ Left/ Labour-Democrat party policy over the past half century - because it is by assuming that there are zero significant and relevant class/ race/ sex differences of a psych-biological type that the alternative inferences can be put down malign to class/ race/ sex prejudice - and such prejudice is the rationale for most modern Establishment policy.
But upon this metaphysical assumption of no-difference rests a vast interaction of vested interests - upon this assumption rests the entire rationale of the entire Establishment of all the major social systems (politics, civil administration, law, business, health, education, arts, police, military and the mass media, mainstream religion... everything).
Honest metaphysical analysis is the only possible answer - but such is always and at any cost avoided.
So, there is nothing to be done unless or until the discourse has been shifted to metaphysics. And meanwhile accumulating or presenting evidence and reasoning will continue to be futile; a waste of time at best and counter-productive more often than not...
Tuesday, 2 January 2018
The opposite of Abstract is... Personal (*not* 'concrete')
This is the essence of what I am currently trying to get across - a break point with the usual way of considering things.
Abstraction (pretty much) IS Positivism... and Positivism is what we are trying to escape. This, at least, is the case when Positivism is reconsidered as meaning Abstraction.
We start out as Personal - when we are children. As human culture (so far as we know) started out as personal - animistic, anthropomorphic, everything alive, conscious, personal.
Abstraction was introduced by (?) the Ancient Greek philosophers, and it grew initially in and from a situation of unconscious and spontaneous personalism. Thus the AG's advocated abstraction, but they were (by our modern Western standards) very animistic in their thought, behaviour and language (this last being well attested by Owen Barfield in his 1928 book Poetic Diction and elsewhere).
Since then Western Culture has become more abstract and less personal until now public life is wholly abstract - to the point that even in the Mass Media the personal is wholly abstract... that is my interpretation of the identity politics which has taken-over in the past 50 years: even people are now wholly (abstractly) representative of the class/ sex/ non-sex, race, religion of whatever. (As in the foundational feminist phrase The Personal Is Political.)
OK, it may be agreed that modernity is too abstract - a matter of models and symbols... but most people would regard The Concrete as the Opposite of The Abstract; I'm here pointing out that it is the Personal which is opposite.
So we must apparently become Personal instead of Abstract - but, I would emphasise, Not by trying to go back to being unconsciously and spontaneously and passively Personal, like a child or a putative simple hunter gatherer...
This times and in the future it much be a choice, a choice or decision that must be consciously and freely made. We need to decide that Personal is how things Really are: that deep-down and objectively things are ultimately Not abstract, but that they Are instead personal.
So we live in a reality, a universe, a world, where things are persons, things are beings - beings are persons... at bottom and root we have living and conscious beings.
This entails that mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology are not really real; these are (more or less use-full) simplified (= ultimately and always false) models.
(Same applies to the abstractions of managerialism - all those processes, measures, stats and targets - they aren't The Bottom Line they are plain wrong.)
It's a big change I am asking and advocating; but I think this is exactly what is demanded, what we need to do - by divine destiny. It's where we are all going, sooner (this mortal life) or later (after mortal life)... although we can, of course, always deny it; because we can (we are free to) deny anything...
Abstraction (pretty much) IS Positivism... and Positivism is what we are trying to escape. This, at least, is the case when Positivism is reconsidered as meaning Abstraction.
We start out as Personal - when we are children. As human culture (so far as we know) started out as personal - animistic, anthropomorphic, everything alive, conscious, personal.
Abstraction was introduced by (?) the Ancient Greek philosophers, and it grew initially in and from a situation of unconscious and spontaneous personalism. Thus the AG's advocated abstraction, but they were (by our modern Western standards) very animistic in their thought, behaviour and language (this last being well attested by Owen Barfield in his 1928 book Poetic Diction and elsewhere).
Since then Western Culture has become more abstract and less personal until now public life is wholly abstract - to the point that even in the Mass Media the personal is wholly abstract... that is my interpretation of the identity politics which has taken-over in the past 50 years: even people are now wholly (abstractly) representative of the class/ sex/ non-sex, race, religion of whatever. (As in the foundational feminist phrase The Personal Is Political.)
OK, it may be agreed that modernity is too abstract - a matter of models and symbols... but most people would regard The Concrete as the Opposite of The Abstract; I'm here pointing out that it is the Personal which is opposite.
So we must apparently become Personal instead of Abstract - but, I would emphasise, Not by trying to go back to being unconsciously and spontaneously and passively Personal, like a child or a putative simple hunter gatherer...
This times and in the future it much be a choice, a choice or decision that must be consciously and freely made. We need to decide that Personal is how things Really are: that deep-down and objectively things are ultimately Not abstract, but that they Are instead personal.
So we live in a reality, a universe, a world, where things are persons, things are beings - beings are persons... at bottom and root we have living and conscious beings.
This entails that mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology are not really real; these are (more or less use-full) simplified (= ultimately and always false) models.
(Same applies to the abstractions of managerialism - all those processes, measures, stats and targets - they aren't The Bottom Line they are plain wrong.)
It's a big change I am asking and advocating; but I think this is exactly what is demanded, what we need to do - by divine destiny. It's where we are all going, sooner (this mortal life) or later (after mortal life)... although we can, of course, always deny it; because we can (we are free to) deny anything...
My ultimate reason for blogging...
When I do these ‘different takes’ on doctrine or theology, the idea is that sometimes, some people need to see the important ideas from a new angle.
‘Some people’ including myself – in that there are matters that I find I do not *really* understand that everybody else apparently finds straightforward.
When I make some kind of a mini-breakthrough or obtain a clarification, my hope is that this might help somebody else (some individual – not some mass or group of people).
Surprisingly often, this is the case – and that person lets me know that it has ‘hit home’.
This is what blogging is all about, for me. The majority of people, for whom any specific remark is unhelpful, should (and generally do) ignore it!
The above was abstracted from a comment I made at Junior Ganymede, and was included in a delightsome extemporised post by Blogmeister-G.
‘Some people’ including myself – in that there are matters that I find I do not *really* understand that everybody else apparently finds straightforward.
When I make some kind of a mini-breakthrough or obtain a clarification, my hope is that this might help somebody else (some individual – not some mass or group of people).
Surprisingly often, this is the case – and that person lets me know that it has ‘hit home’.
This is what blogging is all about, for me. The majority of people, for whom any specific remark is unhelpful, should (and generally do) ignore it!
The above was abstracted from a comment I made at Junior Ganymede, and was included in a delightsome extemporised post by Blogmeister-G.
Not Process but Provenance - (and Polarity is an abstraction of creative-being)
I have belatedly realised (such things always take me a t-herribly long time) that the modern world is being duped - wholesale - by the fake assertion that process is the ultimate source of validity; whereas in fact provenance is the basis of truth...
Allow me to explain... The (modern, fake...) idea is that 'understanding' of something is a matter of being able to describe it in terms of process; and that correct understanding has happened when process leads to predictable outcomes.
So - the modern activity of professional bureaucratic research that calls-itself 'science' claims that valid results are what come-out-of this process of research, and what comes out of this process is intrinsically valid. Science is regarded as The Process.
But, it would be truer to say (although still an abstraction) that science is what comes-out-of scien-tists; that is, out-of individual human creative-beings whose motivation is scientific. Science is what-(real) scientists-do.
Other examples would be my current obsessions of Primary Thinking and Polarity. I have been having difficulties explaining these, including to myself (especially polarity...). And these difficulties are related to my trying to do this explaining in terms of process - which is an abstraction. I should instead have been trying to understand them in terms of their provenance.
Yet my explicit metaphysical foundation is that ultimate reality is personal, not abstract - my bottom line is that reality is made up of beings (variously alive and conscious beings). Abstractions are therefore merely models - therefore (being models) always simplified and always incomplete and always not-true... no matter how expedient or useful in limited circumstances.
So, trying to explain Primary Thinking in terms of process is always and necessarily wrong - in reality primary thinking is the thinking of that-which-is-primary: i.e. the thinking of our real self, which is a divine self (a son or daughter of God): a self that is in part existent from eternity.
The thinking of this real self is primary thinking - and the validity of the 'products' of divine thinking comes from that provenance: that is from thinking's origin in the real self. Thought that originates-from the real self is valid, and that provenance is what makes thought valid...
And polarity... I have (following Coleridge and Barfield) tried to explain it abstractly, that is as a model... but polarity so-considered is a process; a process consisting of opposed by inextricable centrifugal (feminine) and centripetal (masculine) elements... and so on. And all processes are abstractions, hence wrong.
So, in the end, polarity has not really been understood. And nobody can make a machine or any other model that 'does polarity'... Only beings do it.
Polarity is an abstract model of creativity, and creativity is done by beings.
The ultimate creativity is to create creators - that is, to pro-create, to have offspring. Thus the ultimate reality, of which polarity is merely an abstraction, is the fertile dyad of man and woman; of two complementary beings.
Other types of creativity (literary, scientific artistic etc) are inextricable from the inclusion of beings - a poem without a person to read/ a symphony without someone to hear it... is not a creative product but merely ink marks on paper.
All creativity entails beings. (And beings entail life and consciousness - of some type and degree.)
That is, creativity is also (like polarity, like primary thinking) a matter of provenance, of source and origin...
So, to return to Primary Thinking - we cannot explain it as a process, indeed that is its nature to be inexplicable as a process - else it would not be primary (and instead 'the process' would be primary).
We know primary thinking by knowing that we do it - more exactly, that we have been-doing it: that our real self has-been-thinking. We cannot look-within the process of primary thinking - because primary thinking is what eventuates-from our real self. We know primary thinking by recognising that it has-eventuated - we recognise primary thinking as a product-of our real self, thinking...
Therefore, the deepest understanding is not of (inevitably incomplete and biased) abstract models of processes; but knowledge of the nature of the beings that constitute reality.
Aside: All this is why and how Christians can correctly regard love as primary in God's creation - which would not make sense if ultimate understanding of creation was of the nature of physics or mathematics. Love is primary because beings are primary - thus ultimate reality is alive, conscious, purposive.
Allow me to explain... The (modern, fake...) idea is that 'understanding' of something is a matter of being able to describe it in terms of process; and that correct understanding has happened when process leads to predictable outcomes.
So - the modern activity of professional bureaucratic research that calls-itself 'science' claims that valid results are what come-out-of this process of research, and what comes out of this process is intrinsically valid. Science is regarded as The Process.
But, it would be truer to say (although still an abstraction) that science is what comes-out-of scien-tists; that is, out-of individual human creative-beings whose motivation is scientific. Science is what-(real) scientists-do.
Other examples would be my current obsessions of Primary Thinking and Polarity. I have been having difficulties explaining these, including to myself (especially polarity...). And these difficulties are related to my trying to do this explaining in terms of process - which is an abstraction. I should instead have been trying to understand them in terms of their provenance.
Yet my explicit metaphysical foundation is that ultimate reality is personal, not abstract - my bottom line is that reality is made up of beings (variously alive and conscious beings). Abstractions are therefore merely models - therefore (being models) always simplified and always incomplete and always not-true... no matter how expedient or useful in limited circumstances.
So, trying to explain Primary Thinking in terms of process is always and necessarily wrong - in reality primary thinking is the thinking of that-which-is-primary: i.e. the thinking of our real self, which is a divine self (a son or daughter of God): a self that is in part existent from eternity.
The thinking of this real self is primary thinking - and the validity of the 'products' of divine thinking comes from that provenance: that is from thinking's origin in the real self. Thought that originates-from the real self is valid, and that provenance is what makes thought valid...
And polarity... I have (following Coleridge and Barfield) tried to explain it abstractly, that is as a model... but polarity so-considered is a process; a process consisting of opposed by inextricable centrifugal (feminine) and centripetal (masculine) elements... and so on. And all processes are abstractions, hence wrong.
So, in the end, polarity has not really been understood. And nobody can make a machine or any other model that 'does polarity'... Only beings do it.
Polarity is an abstract model of creativity, and creativity is done by beings.
The ultimate creativity is to create creators - that is, to pro-create, to have offspring. Thus the ultimate reality, of which polarity is merely an abstraction, is the fertile dyad of man and woman; of two complementary beings.
Other types of creativity (literary, scientific artistic etc) are inextricable from the inclusion of beings - a poem without a person to read/ a symphony without someone to hear it... is not a creative product but merely ink marks on paper.
All creativity entails beings. (And beings entail life and consciousness - of some type and degree.)
That is, creativity is also (like polarity, like primary thinking) a matter of provenance, of source and origin...
So, to return to Primary Thinking - we cannot explain it as a process, indeed that is its nature to be inexplicable as a process - else it would not be primary (and instead 'the process' would be primary).
We know primary thinking by knowing that we do it - more exactly, that we have been-doing it: that our real self has-been-thinking. We cannot look-within the process of primary thinking - because primary thinking is what eventuates-from our real self. We know primary thinking by recognising that it has-eventuated - we recognise primary thinking as a product-of our real self, thinking...
Therefore, the deepest understanding is not of (inevitably incomplete and biased) abstract models of processes; but knowledge of the nature of the beings that constitute reality.
Aside: All this is why and how Christians can correctly regard love as primary in God's creation - which would not make sense if ultimate understanding of creation was of the nature of physics or mathematics. Love is primary because beings are primary - thus ultimate reality is alive, conscious, purposive.
Monday, 1 January 2018
The disaster of increased funding (New Left strategy)
Subsidy kills - and not only because the money for subsidy is coercively extracted.
I have directly observed the inevitable consequences of increased funding in schools, colleges, medicine, health services and science...
Always there is an increase in
1. Managerialism - bureaucracy at at the cost of autonomy, process at the cost of results, obedience at the cost of agency.
2. Political correctness/ New Leftism - funding always has socio-political strings, funding is always ultimately For those strings.
3. Totalitarianism - by means of managerialism and with the excuse of the New Left/ PC agenda (socialism, feminism, antiracism, diversity, the sexual revolution...) - incremental increase in total surveillance and micro-control.
Evil via funding is the major characteristic that distinguishes the New Left from the Old (communist) Left - which worked by negative, punishing, sanctions of physical violence.
The reason for the Old to New transition was not an increase in kindness, but the increased effectiveness of destruction and neutralisation of opposition that the New Left brings.
The New Left cannot be 'fought', nor organised-against - rather we must opt-out from it.
And that is where courage is required: the simple courage to say No: (apparently) alone.
I have directly observed the inevitable consequences of increased funding in schools, colleges, medicine, health services and science...
Always there is an increase in
1. Managerialism - bureaucracy at at the cost of autonomy, process at the cost of results, obedience at the cost of agency.
2. Political correctness/ New Leftism - funding always has socio-political strings, funding is always ultimately For those strings.
3. Totalitarianism - by means of managerialism and with the excuse of the New Left/ PC agenda (socialism, feminism, antiracism, diversity, the sexual revolution...) - incremental increase in total surveillance and micro-control.
Evil via funding is the major characteristic that distinguishes the New Left from the Old (communist) Left - which worked by negative, punishing, sanctions of physical violence.
The reason for the Old to New transition was not an increase in kindness, but the increased effectiveness of destruction and neutralisation of opposition that the New Left brings.
The New Left cannot be 'fought', nor organised-against - rather we must opt-out from it.
And that is where courage is required: the simple courage to say No: (apparently) alone.
Sunday, 31 December 2017
2017 retrospective
Baahubali I and his bow-toting GF out-Legolasing Legolas
I shan't wish you a nappy NY because I have an aversion to that pseudo-celebration about which I have blogged before - yet I do get caught-up in the brooding and summarising - so what has happened?
1. Contrary to expectations, I am still blogging, at the same old rate of about one and a half posts per day.
2. This was a year in which I reached a further and deeper appreciation of the work of Owen Barfield - supplemented by a full engagement with Rudolf Steiner's early philosophy - culminating in a formulation of primary thinking which I have found helpful indeed.
3. One of the best events was a really enjoyable visit to William Arkle's son, Nick (and his wife Tara) which was a tremendous help in clarifying my understanding of the philosopher's life and character - discovering Nick's new Facebook pages on his Father's art works plus many personal photos was a very powerful experience.
4. 2017 was the year in which I listened to eleven volumes (1-8 and 12-14) of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time on audiobook - about 500 hours of listening... I got a great deal of enjoyment from it, and was several times moved to tears - although I would have to regard it as a Fantasy serial-by-instalments, rather than any kind of 'novel'. There was a sense of stringing-it-out as the series progressed, which is why I skipped the final three Jordan-solo volumes to get to the Brandon Sanderson completion. I can't regard the ending as very satisfying, since it seemed to go on forever (the Last Battle lasting many hundreds of pages, and the need to finish-off the arcs of dozens of character and plot threads becoming rather tedious to me). Still, I am glad to have 'read' it, and it was a good experience to live in that fascinating world for an hour or two a day.
5. The British Establishment/ secular Leftism/ the demonic agenda resumed normal service after the scare of Brexit was neutralised. Partly as a consequence of this - as well as Barfield/ Steiner - I got a clearer understanding of the nature of the prevailing and increasing totalitarianism; and how I personally should respond to it.
6. The main lesson of the year is to reinforce that the most important thing is metaphysics: to examine our primary assumptions; because they are what is dooming us.
7. A wholehearted recommendation is to watch the two-part Bollywood epic fantasy movie Baahubali - which is tremendously inventive and enjoyable: a kind of Indian version of the Lord of the Rings films. The battles are remarkable: hundreds upon hundreds of people get killed - but never in the same way twice! There is beauty, humour, love and a mythic feel - plus a tremendous amount of corny-ness, absurdity, and a nearly-total lack of restraint.
Thinking inside a remote-controlled robot suit: a thought experiment
Yet pretty much all social and legal interpretation is against this; and Christians are also very much at fault in regarding a persons actions as of first importance, even when it comes to spiritual matters - ignoring thinking.
Thinking comes first in reality, because thinking is potentially free; whereas action is always, and often heavily, constrained. We can think, from our real-divine selves - in absolute freedom; but this can never be the case for our acting.
Thinking may be free: but acting is always constrained.
As a thought experiment, consider life in a remote-controlled robot suit: an 'exoskeleton' or 'mech suit' - so we dwell inside a metal shell that is being compelled to do things by a remote-control mechanism.
Imagine being inside this shell - thinking freely about the world, understanding in some ways, and wanting to act in some ways - yet our actions, our limb movements - what we do - is being compelled by the robot suit (and whoever controls it).
So, we are constantly observing our bodies doing things we do not want to do, under compulsion of the robot suit.
Inside this shell we can think freely - but our limbs are (mostly) being forced, by the superior strength of the robot suit, into doing things that are not chosen by us - but are compelled on us.
However, to be more accurate, we should regard the power of the robot suit to be greater than our own muscular strength - but only quantitatively greater - because it is sometimes possible for us to resist and even overcome the robot suit for some period of time - by exerting all our muscular strength against it. However, this overcoming the suit is exhausting, and therefore sooner or later we will tire and the robot suit will again take-over...
Thus our situation is that on the one hand we are compelled to act in specific ways by the external control of the suit; yet on the other hand we can sometimes force the suit to act in ways that our free-thinking desires.
This combination of freedom and constraint may then be used-against-us; if our thoughts are judged by our actions - from the correct fact that actions are visible while thoughts are not; plus the false assertion that, because we can sometimes act as we think, then we could (in principle) always act as we think...
So people whose thoughts are detached from their actions, but not wholly detached, are treated as if their actions are of first importance, and their 'real' thoughts can be inferred from their observed actions.
This is deadly: because instead of thought being free and knowingly-experienced as free - thought becomes regarded as constrained by action.
And if/ when a society can (mostly) compel action (like a robot suit compels action), then society can claim to control thoughts - because thoughts are (in practice) being assumed by inference from actions; thoughts are being regarded as secondary, to the point of irrelevance...
Society puts us in a robot suit, which externally-forces us to do this-and-that - then society tells us that we chose to do this-and-that! That we wanted to do this-and-that. That what we did and continue to do is the real us...
The analogy in this thought experiment is that living in human society is like being encased in a robot suit - our actions are mostly compelled; but by exerting maximum effort and concentration we can sometimes briefly overcome this compulsion; and either refuse to act or - even more rarely and for lesser periods of time - overcome the suit and act against the compulsion.
Different people find themselves in different types of robot suit, with different compulsions at work - these correspond to our different bodies and personalities and the different social and political circumstances in which we find ourselves.
So our exoskeletal robot suit has different strength, robustness, intelligence, different ways of understanding and behaving, and is externally operated by very different compulsions - according to time and place.
This is our situation. We may have the intuitive insight that our thinking is of first relevance and our actions are being compelled - but 'other people' and the rules and assumptions of social institutions are judging us by our actions.
And this even applies to many Christian churches for much of the time. We may repent in our thought world... But our repentance is judged by changes in the behaviour of the robot suit - and that suit does not reflect our own Primary Thinking.
Indeed we mostly have a very imperfect degree of control of the suit, and the suit frequently forces us to do things we do not want to do... We try to resist it, but we get tired and distracted, and sooner or later, the suit takes-over again...
While we focus our efforts on forcing the suit to perform one particular action, we find that another part of the suit is being remotely-controlled to do something against our wishes. So while we effortfully-compel the suit-hand to stroke a dog, we realise the suit-foot is meanwhile kicking that dog...
The purpose of this thought experiment is to remind us that in an ultimate sense the most important things that happen in our lives are happening in thought, not action; and that the understandable tendency to focus on actions as 'evidence' of thinking can be deeply malign - especially if we ourselves come to believe it.
When that happens; we may come to believe that repentance means nothing unless it is revealed in action, in a change of life. And then to believe that that repentance in thought - as an act of thinking - is, of itself, worthless...
If, then, the robot suit cannot be compelled in practice fully to act-out our thought-repentance, then we may be convinced that the repentance was unreal merely because consistent reform of our actions was not possible...
In sum, societal control of actions has been metaphysically (i.e. by assumption) represented as societal control of thought. In truth; the robot suit of our our charecter, bodies and society cannot ever fully-control thinking. But if we allow ourselves to be convinced by this action-over-thinking metaphysics, we will find that we cannot repent unless society wills it! - and our society does not will it...
By granting primacy to action over thought, Christian repentance is lost to us; the robot suit (and its remote-controllers) take charge; and our damnation is assured.
Note: Imagine the situation of the above-illustrated soldier. The 'exoskeleton' might serve as a strength enhancement for much of the time; but that soldier's movements and actions could in principle, to greater or lesser degrees, be influenced or taken-over by a remote operator. Such a soldier could not be judged by his actions - but only by his thoughts.
Another Note: The above was prompted by what I regard as a major method of corruption in the modern West; which is, by one means or another - often sexual but there are many possibilities - to induce a young person to some sinful act or another under the understanding that having performed this action defines them. Repentance is ruled-out since anything less than 100 percent perfection of behaviour (i.e. of action) is regarded as insincere and hypocritical. Yet perfection is unattainable - for everyone, but especially so for adolescents. In such a society it is vital to regard the autonomous divine thinking self (our thinking self at its best and highest and purest) as the real and defining self.
Saturday, 30 December 2017
Certainty, like happiness, is meant to be a temporary state
Certainty is a chimera - in the sense that we cannot long be consciously certain. The consciousness dissipates the certainty: on reflection, certainty turns to smoke...
As children we are certain only because we are un-conscious - as soon as self-awareness begins to emerge, then so does uncertainty.
It is one of those things that simply formulating the question 'are you certain' leads to only one answer - that we are not certain: not absolutely 100 percent certain... We are not certain for every moment of every day, in all possible conditions...
In this mortal life, certainty is indeed attainable but only for our best 'moments' - because we are here to learn (the main purpose of sustained mortal life is learning) - and certainty is a motivation and a temporary reward for learning.
But it would be bad for any of us to get stuck passively 'basking in certainty', because there is always more for us to learn. Thus the conviction of certainty always subsides, and we return to striving...
In this sense, certainty is like happiness - it is intended to motivate us, and reward us - but not to be a steady state of being.
Indeed, it might be said that certainty is a form of happiness...
As children we are certain only because we are un-conscious - as soon as self-awareness begins to emerge, then so does uncertainty.
It is one of those things that simply formulating the question 'are you certain' leads to only one answer - that we are not certain: not absolutely 100 percent certain... We are not certain for every moment of every day, in all possible conditions...
In this mortal life, certainty is indeed attainable but only for our best 'moments' - because we are here to learn (the main purpose of sustained mortal life is learning) - and certainty is a motivation and a temporary reward for learning.
But it would be bad for any of us to get stuck passively 'basking in certainty', because there is always more for us to learn. Thus the conviction of certainty always subsides, and we return to striving...
In this sense, certainty is like happiness - it is intended to motivate us, and reward us - but not to be a steady state of being.
Indeed, it might be said that certainty is a form of happiness...
Friday, 29 December 2017
Geoffrey of Monmouth - Hero of Albion!
Two (fanciful) depictions of Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100 – c. 1155) - Who should be regarded, or so I suggest, as perhaps the greatest historian of true-Britain - that is, of Albion...
The wrongness of consensus (and statistics) for establishing the truth
Something I learned early in science (and the same applies in all genuine scholarship) is that consensus is not truth; indeed, most often, the consensus is sure to be wrong. The same, and for ultimately the same reason, applies to the use of statistics.
When individual scientists disagree this is likely to be because they differ in things like ability, motivation, knowledge and honesty. The scientist most-likely to be correct in the one that excels in such characteristics. By taking a consensus of scholarship what is actually happening is that the best information is being obscured by worse information.
This can be seen in statistics, which is based upon averaging. Averaging takes the best data points and weights them with worse data points: data lower in (some dimension of) quality.
For example, in the egregious technique of meta-analysis, if there happen to be any really good studies (eg conducted by scientists that excel in ability, motivation, knowledge and honesty etc) then these will be combined with worse studies that will surely impair, obscure or perhaps even reverse their conclusions.
The correct mode of scholarship is to evaluate the work of each scholar (including each scientist) as a qualitatively distinct unit. Anything which obscures or over-rides this fact is a corruption - whether that is some consensus mechanisms, or a 'consensus of data-points' - i.e. statistics.
See also: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/scope-and-nature-of-epidemiology.html and its references
Note: Consensus and statistics alike have become dominant in research ("science") as the subject first professionalised, then expanded its personnel a-hundredfold; partly because modern "scientists" areby-now merely careerist bureaucrats: wrongly-motivated, incompetent and dishonest, who know-no-better (and care less). And partly because by such means the 99% non-real-scientists are thereby able to participate in the process, instead of being utterly ignored and irrelevant - as they deserve.
When individual scientists disagree this is likely to be because they differ in things like ability, motivation, knowledge and honesty. The scientist most-likely to be correct in the one that excels in such characteristics. By taking a consensus of scholarship what is actually happening is that the best information is being obscured by worse information.
This can be seen in statistics, which is based upon averaging. Averaging takes the best data points and weights them with worse data points: data lower in (some dimension of) quality.
For example, in the egregious technique of meta-analysis, if there happen to be any really good studies (eg conducted by scientists that excel in ability, motivation, knowledge and honesty etc) then these will be combined with worse studies that will surely impair, obscure or perhaps even reverse their conclusions.
The correct mode of scholarship is to evaluate the work of each scholar (including each scientist) as a qualitatively distinct unit. Anything which obscures or over-rides this fact is a corruption - whether that is some consensus mechanisms, or a 'consensus of data-points' - i.e. statistics.
See also: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/scope-and-nature-of-epidemiology.html and its references
Note: Consensus and statistics alike have become dominant in research ("science") as the subject first professionalised, then expanded its personnel a-hundredfold; partly because modern "scientists" areby-now merely careerist bureaucrats: wrongly-motivated, incompetent and dishonest, who know-no-better (and care less). And partly because by such means the 99% non-real-scientists are thereby able to participate in the process, instead of being utterly ignored and irrelevant - as they deserve.
The Red Pill must indeed be A Pill (metaphorically)
In The Matrix movie (1999) there is a literal Red Pill by means of which individuals may wake-up from the fake-reality that surrrounds them and perceive the real-reality:
In the movie, the Red Pill offers truth at the price of suffering while the Blue Pill offers pleasant illusion... however this is only superficially accurate.
In real life, the Blue Pill offers nihilistic despair palliated by distractions.
(e.g. A life without purpose, meaning or real-relationship to anything - from-which we are distracted by mass/ social media, sex, status games, and temporary absorptions by work and leisure.)
While 'waking-up' from the controlled-dream that is modern virtual-reality will inevitably entail a short -term loss of pleasure; in fact the Red Pill operates as something more like a euphoriant; a euphoriant whose deep happiness is only delayed by the delay of 'absorption'.
(i.e. Life after the Red Pill is happier than life before the Red Pill; the awakened are happier than the dreamers... but there is a delay.)
The Red Pill must be a 'pill', because otherwise it will not work. In other words, we need to take-in the cure at a single gulp.
Like most effective pills, the Red Pill does more-than-one-thing - yet the medicine must be simple enough that it can be taken all-at-once.
Why? Because the evil pseudo-reality of The Matrix has several vital components - and The Matrix survives because if only one accepted-falsehood is destroyed, then the other accepted-falsehoods allow The Matrix to heal.
Thus, if we challenge only one aspect of the falsehood, while continuing to accept another falsehood, then we are still living in falsehood. Only when all of the foundational falsehoods are challenged simultaneously can we escape the Matrix...
The cure for The Matrix is therefore a single pill. The pill needs to have more than one action, more than one component - but these must all be taken together, must all act simultaneously.
Therefore, the components of the Red Pill must be very carefully selected - as few as possible (to fit them all into a single pill) but as many as necessary (for the pill to have a permanent effect).
There are many Red Pills on offer - and it seems that the usual effect is to return the taker to The Matrix but with the illusion that they have escaped it. These are the most dangerous 'Red Pills'; perhaps the only truly dangerous Red Pills - Fake Red Pills merely offer novel distractions but leave The Matrix intact - and safe.
(Those who talk most about themselves having-been Red-Pilled are examples of 'false-awakening': still asleep but merely dreaming that they have awoken; in-thrall to Matrix metaphysics of materialism, scientism, positivism; more-deeply engaged-by the distractions of The Matrix.)
However there are some Red Pills that have worked for some people - but their composition seems to vary...
So - in practice we do not know what is really a Red Pill until it has already-done its work; and even then, it is hard to know whether it really has worked without direct knowledge of that specific person.
In the end, to escape the chronic misery of life in The Matrix, we must self-experiment; and self-evaluate the effectiveness of each plausibly-effectual Red Pill - honestly and rigorously; and intuitively*.
(*Intuitively, because there is no valid 'evidence' outside of the assumptions of The System... What counts as evidence within The Matrix does not counts as evidence to The Awakened; and vice versa. Only that which lies outwith all systems can evaluate a system: the intuitive heart, the real-divine self...)
In the movie, the Red Pill offers truth at the price of suffering while the Blue Pill offers pleasant illusion... however this is only superficially accurate.
In real life, the Blue Pill offers nihilistic despair palliated by distractions.
(e.g. A life without purpose, meaning or real-relationship to anything - from-which we are distracted by mass/ social media, sex, status games, and temporary absorptions by work and leisure.)
While 'waking-up' from the controlled-dream that is modern virtual-reality will inevitably entail a short -term loss of pleasure; in fact the Red Pill operates as something more like a euphoriant; a euphoriant whose deep happiness is only delayed by the delay of 'absorption'.
(i.e. Life after the Red Pill is happier than life before the Red Pill; the awakened are happier than the dreamers... but there is a delay.)
The Red Pill must be a 'pill', because otherwise it will not work. In other words, we need to take-in the cure at a single gulp.
Like most effective pills, the Red Pill does more-than-one-thing - yet the medicine must be simple enough that it can be taken all-at-once.
Why? Because the evil pseudo-reality of The Matrix has several vital components - and The Matrix survives because if only one accepted-falsehood is destroyed, then the other accepted-falsehoods allow The Matrix to heal.
Thus, if we challenge only one aspect of the falsehood, while continuing to accept another falsehood, then we are still living in falsehood. Only when all of the foundational falsehoods are challenged simultaneously can we escape the Matrix...
The cure for The Matrix is therefore a single pill. The pill needs to have more than one action, more than one component - but these must all be taken together, must all act simultaneously.
Therefore, the components of the Red Pill must be very carefully selected - as few as possible (to fit them all into a single pill) but as many as necessary (for the pill to have a permanent effect).
There are many Red Pills on offer - and it seems that the usual effect is to return the taker to The Matrix but with the illusion that they have escaped it. These are the most dangerous 'Red Pills'; perhaps the only truly dangerous Red Pills - Fake Red Pills merely offer novel distractions but leave The Matrix intact - and safe.
(Those who talk most about themselves having-been Red-Pilled are examples of 'false-awakening': still asleep but merely dreaming that they have awoken; in-thrall to Matrix metaphysics of materialism, scientism, positivism; more-deeply engaged-by the distractions of The Matrix.)
However there are some Red Pills that have worked for some people - but their composition seems to vary...
So - in practice we do not know what is really a Red Pill until it has already-done its work; and even then, it is hard to know whether it really has worked without direct knowledge of that specific person.
In the end, to escape the chronic misery of life in The Matrix, we must self-experiment; and self-evaluate the effectiveness of each plausibly-effectual Red Pill - honestly and rigorously; and intuitively*.
(*Intuitively, because there is no valid 'evidence' outside of the assumptions of The System... What counts as evidence within The Matrix does not counts as evidence to The Awakened; and vice versa. Only that which lies outwith all systems can evaluate a system: the intuitive heart, the real-divine self...)
Thursday, 28 December 2017
Given the pervasive propaganda and thought-control - how do people know that modern life is wrong?
The basic underlying emotion in modernity is alienated despair; and modern culture is essentially a distraction from that fact: distraction mainly via the mass media, sex and intoxication - but also by careerism, consumerism, status games and the like.
But, given the totalitarian thought control of modern society - especially since the bureaucratic-managerial takeover of the modern workplace and the addiction to social media - how do people know that they are not living as they should?
Why are people not just used-to, accepting-of modern conditions? Why aren't they satisfied by a life of regimented distraction? How do people know there exists a better possibility than is on offer in The Matrix?
There are two main contradictory experiences that point beyond what we have. The first is early childhood.
In early childhood we experience what Owen Barfield called Original Participation - that is the immersive experience of being a part of the world, and the world being alive and conscious. Some people have explicit memories of this childhood state, but everybody has an implicit memory of it.
The other experience is dreaming. Many dreams are not pleasant, most dreams are not remembered; but like childhood memories - whether explicit or implicit - in dreams we experience an unalienated existence: the dream life is meaning and purpose and relatedness to reality.
So even the most indoctrinated and enthusiastic modern person has a deep and expansive reservoir of experience that contradicts the shallowness, literalism and emotional manipulations of modernity.
Yet it is not enough - because childhood and dream states are both regressive: pointing back towards unconsciousness. This is the potential importance of imagination - that it can point forward, as a first step.
But only a first step. Imagination should be a transition towards that conscious form of intuition that I have called Primary Thinking.
But, given the totalitarian thought control of modern society - especially since the bureaucratic-managerial takeover of the modern workplace and the addiction to social media - how do people know that they are not living as they should?
Why are people not just used-to, accepting-of modern conditions? Why aren't they satisfied by a life of regimented distraction? How do people know there exists a better possibility than is on offer in The Matrix?
There are two main contradictory experiences that point beyond what we have. The first is early childhood.
In early childhood we experience what Owen Barfield called Original Participation - that is the immersive experience of being a part of the world, and the world being alive and conscious. Some people have explicit memories of this childhood state, but everybody has an implicit memory of it.
The other experience is dreaming. Many dreams are not pleasant, most dreams are not remembered; but like childhood memories - whether explicit or implicit - in dreams we experience an unalienated existence: the dream life is meaning and purpose and relatedness to reality.
So even the most indoctrinated and enthusiastic modern person has a deep and expansive reservoir of experience that contradicts the shallowness, literalism and emotional manipulations of modernity.
Yet it is not enough - because childhood and dream states are both regressive: pointing back towards unconsciousness. This is the potential importance of imagination - that it can point forward, as a first step.
But only a first step. Imagination should be a transition towards that conscious form of intuition that I have called Primary Thinking.
Wednesday, 27 December 2017
Mortal life is divine-learning - Repentance is explicit divine-learning
I assume that mortal life is about learning, spiritual learning - that is, we have experiences, and therefore, if we make the right choices, opportunities to make spiritual progression towards divinity (i.e. theosis or sanctification).
I shall call this primary purpose of mortality divine-learning...
(The framework of which is that each us is incarnated into a personal situation - in time and space, with particular parents - where our lives have the greatest possibility of divine-leading to the experiences that we, personally, most need.)
But what does this 'divine-learning' mean? Well, what this learning is Not is learning in the everyday or scientific sense of observable 'behavioural-change' in mortal life. Because behavioural-change can't be what learning is about; because we humans are not designed that way, and neither is the world.
(We mortals are feeble, labile, distractible, prone to disease and sin etc. ; and our world is full of evil, temptations, sufferings and distractions (as well as love and creativity). Therefore, unless God is incompetent - which as creator he is not, then Christians (who acknowledge God the creator as wholly Good, and our Father) need to assume that this is (on the whole) the kind of world we need.)
Divine-learning - that learning from Life that you and I are living for - is about something much more than mere behavioural change; it is about a real, permanent... indeed eternal and spiritual change. The learning of our mortal life is designed to benefit our eternal life.
Divine-learning = Positive spiritually-progressing change that affects that which is eternal in us, lasting forever, beyond our mortal death.
Thus, when we (mortal incarnate Men) learn in this divine sense; it entails a change in reality.
It is repentance (a gift made possible by Jesus) that makes this learning possible.
(Before Jesus - repentance was not possible; without Jesus, repentance would not be possible - thanks to Jesus, repentance became always possible for everybody and anybody - including those who lived before Jesus.)
But what is repentance? - in this ultimate sense of divine-learning which goes far beyond observable mortal behavioural change?...
Repentance was a gift of Jesus - his incarnation, death and resurrection. By repentance, Jesus brought-in the change that from-now-on Men would not only learn passively and unconsciously (like young children)... but in the new dispensation that Christ initiated, our learning would be self-active, conscious, explicit to our-selves.
And this is repentance; repentance is actively learning from our mortal experiences, and knowing that we are learning, and knowing what we have learned. And this is what is permanent - going beyond the contingencies of the behaviours of our mortal lives.
Repentance = explicit and permanent learning from the experiences of mortal life.
I shall call this primary purpose of mortality divine-learning...
(The framework of which is that each us is incarnated into a personal situation - in time and space, with particular parents - where our lives have the greatest possibility of divine-leading to the experiences that we, personally, most need.)
But what does this 'divine-learning' mean? Well, what this learning is Not is learning in the everyday or scientific sense of observable 'behavioural-change' in mortal life. Because behavioural-change can't be what learning is about; because we humans are not designed that way, and neither is the world.
(We mortals are feeble, labile, distractible, prone to disease and sin etc. ; and our world is full of evil, temptations, sufferings and distractions (as well as love and creativity). Therefore, unless God is incompetent - which as creator he is not, then Christians (who acknowledge God the creator as wholly Good, and our Father) need to assume that this is (on the whole) the kind of world we need.)
Divine-learning - that learning from Life that you and I are living for - is about something much more than mere behavioural change; it is about a real, permanent... indeed eternal and spiritual change. The learning of our mortal life is designed to benefit our eternal life.
Divine-learning = Positive spiritually-progressing change that affects that which is eternal in us, lasting forever, beyond our mortal death.
Thus, when we (mortal incarnate Men) learn in this divine sense; it entails a change in reality.
It is repentance (a gift made possible by Jesus) that makes this learning possible.
(Before Jesus - repentance was not possible; without Jesus, repentance would not be possible - thanks to Jesus, repentance became always possible for everybody and anybody - including those who lived before Jesus.)
But what is repentance? - in this ultimate sense of divine-learning which goes far beyond observable mortal behavioural change?...
Repentance was a gift of Jesus - his incarnation, death and resurrection. By repentance, Jesus brought-in the change that from-now-on Men would not only learn passively and unconsciously (like young children)... but in the new dispensation that Christ initiated, our learning would be self-active, conscious, explicit to our-selves.
And this is repentance; repentance is actively learning from our mortal experiences, and knowing that we are learning, and knowing what we have learned. And this is what is permanent - going beyond the contingencies of the behaviours of our mortal lives.
Repentance = explicit and permanent learning from the experiences of mortal life.
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