Tuesday 8 November 2016

The sickening elites - coming soon to an institution near you

The modern Western elites are very brittle - necessarily so, because their complex, artificial and ever more unnatural ideology is under pinned merely by secular hedonic nihilism (weaker than any religion - too weak even to sustain replacement level birth rates) - which is a motivational basis that is only effective when fed by continual inputs of endorsement, confirmation and fear.

So the modern elites are sickening - both in the Good-inverted belief systems which they have elaborated and impose on The West; and in the fact that they are getting ever feebler, more cowardly... ever closer to the paralysis of despair.

At present they have whipped themselves into a frenzy against the somewhat feeble, but somewhat anti-politically-correct, ripples of 'right wing' 'populism' - i.e. the resurgence of a politics (somewhat) of protest, driven by the simple common sense and personal experience of the non-elite Westerners.

But think of how things are from the perspective of a typical elite Westerner:

You personally regard the universe as a meaningless collection of random events; you regard your own life as a brief interlude between an emergence from chaos and a descent into oblivion.

All of you readers will know these people; will (like me) probably have been one of these people yourself. You know have fragile a state it is.

How they have rejected marriage and family, how even their best human relationships are little more than temporary and expedient mutual exploitation; how their goals are limited and only possible with self-blinding - how the whole charade is kept going by holidays, treats, drink, drugs, medications, sexual fantasies (and how the reality of these things never remotely matches-up).

How for them life is only about hopes of pleasure and money, fame and status - and an awareness that these never last, and are never enough - nothing like it. 

And how there is nothing else: this stuff is the whole of life; and the expectation is even worse (unless death and presumed oblivion comes quickly).

This describes most of the people who run this world - and the feebleness and brittleness of Life which sustains them.

Of course, beyond and behind these people are supernatural forces of evil who are providing the overall direction and strategy and pulling the strings of the elites (and in a few instances, possessing and directly controlling them - having been invited to do so).

But you can see that the more sickening the system the elites are sustaining, the more they become sickened - the more brittle they are; the closer to wakening up to reality; the closer to a paralysing state of demotivation and despair.

Which will bring the whole edifice tumbling... no crashing, down.

7 comments:

John Fitzgerald said...

Very much so. One thinks of the deaths of Wither and Frost in That Hideous Strength. Awake to realitiy at last but too corrupted and despairing to take the last opportunity offered them and repent.

Bruce Charlton said...

@John - Indeed. Kristor at The Orthosphere is also thinking along these lines. Must be something about today...

https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/that-hideous-strength

William Wildblood said...

The people who deny meaning, or even the possibility of meaning, can only get through life by covering up the gaping chasm in their hearts with lies. And they hate and fear those who find meaning in the world so they belittle and deride them as much as possible. It wouldn't matter if they only harmed themselves but they drag so many others down with them. It has to be said, though, that no one is forced to do this. We all have the opportunity to wake up if we want to. The funny thing is so many people don't seem to want to.

Bruce Charlton said...

@John - Also you might like this, which I just discovered:

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/that-hideous-strength-delightful-and.html

@William. "We all have the opportunity to wake up if we want to. The funny thing is so many people don't seem to want to."

I think this may have to do with having to go-into a pit of cynical despair before climbing up from it onto the uplands of positive hope.

As is usual; things have to get worse before they can get better.

Samson J. said...

Must be something about today...


Lol. Can anyone else feel the supercharged electricity in the air today?

JP said...

Can anyone else feel the supercharged electricity in the air today?

My wife just told me:

"I had the worst insomnia last night. I felt keyed up for some reason which was so odd because I am not at ALL keyed up about this election. It was like the energy was just ambient and keeping me awake."

Yup, others are feeling it.

(I slept like a log because I've been hitting the gym hard lately.)

Joan of Argghh! said...

I read The Screwtape Letters by choice when I was in 8th grade. I did not "discover" Lewis again until I became a Christian and a mom. "That Hideous Strength" clicked with me. I had been carefully and vigilantly watching the Media because we lived and worked in the inner city, among the people we served. The Media's antics put people in danger and it was often. 40 years later, nothing's changed, and everything's "Nice."