tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post5181636114740345433..comments2024-03-28T17:44:11.289+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Life outside The System?Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-74040817770547130372017-11-10T06:52:55.929+00:002017-11-10T06:52:55.929+00:00@CCL - Indeed, although the escape into sub-human ...@CCL - Indeed, although the escape into sub-human animality is not a true escape, neither is death-as-annihilation - since 'we' do not escape, but are instead destroyed (whether temporarily or permanently) by cessation of consciousness. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-87313389054980300542017-11-10T03:00:02.091+00:002017-11-10T03:00:02.091+00:00It is important to remember that the System does h...It is important to remember that the System does have other exits, including the legitimate reality of that sub-human animality which the System tries to paint as the <i>only</i> alternative to inclusion in the System by accession to the System's demands.<br /><br />The System allows and even encourages escapes into the realm of mere sub-human animality on a temporary basis, or actually imposes them. College life in the U.S. seems to consist mostly of deadening the hope of escaping from the System by encouraging exploration of the spiritually vacant lands in that direction, the initial mandatory educational system and prison both subject the populace to dehumanization <i>without</i> escape from the System.<br /><br />Of course, death is also an 'escape' from the System.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-40547204010563655482017-11-07T13:05:05.095+00:002017-11-07T13:05:05.095+00:00@William and John - At the time, I was very taken ...@William and John - At the time, I was very taken with Don Cuppit; indeed my first 'humanities' publication was perhaps a short account of his work in The Edinburgh Review magazine. <br /><br />From within the materialist set of assumptions, which I held at that time and for many years afterwards, Don Cupitt is generally very rigorous and certainly a lucid writer. His main influence in the early 90s was late Wittgenstein, and I fell under that spell too - going so far as to apply for, and get a place at, Trinity College Cambridge (Wittgenstein's college) to read for a degree in Philosophy (I changed my mind, and did an Eng Lit MA at Durham instead - while still remaining in thrall to Wittgenstein). <br /><br />However, shortly after Life Lines Cupitt alienated me due to his increasing embrace of the French postmodernists and Heidegger (just as they were going out of fashion elsewhere) and by his increasingly balatant and unexamined New Leftism. <br /><br />I have a very different understanding nowadays, of course! But I do understand this trap 'from the inside'. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-17091749759053498932017-11-07T10:44:03.003+00:002017-11-07T10:44:03.003+00:00Good post. I came across Don Cupitt and that whole...Good post. I came across Don Cupitt and that whole 'Sea of Faith' movement in the 90s and was amazed that this was a theology that was supposed to be radical and exciting. I found it turgid, stodgy and dull. It felt like I'd been 'sold a lemon.' Things are better in Anglicanism today, I think, where at least there are movements like John Milbank's 'Radical Orthodoxy', which if at times a little over-academic certainly takes its stance from that Divine place outside the system.<br /><br />As for Foucault, et al, their dominance in the arts and humanities in UK universities is bordering on the totalitarian. Like Cupitt's work, this is life-denying, despair inducing stuff masquerading as some sort of philosophical walk on the wild side. Tragic how many people have been and are being suckered by these fraudsters. 100% Screwtapian. Roger Scruton eviscerates them with real passion and firei by the way n his 'Intelligent Person's Guide to Culture.'John Fitzgeraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13951246561259007162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-66621840864581508782017-11-07T10:24:16.831+00:002017-11-07T10:24:16.831+00:00I remember watching a TV programme presented by Do...I remember watching a TV programme presented by Don Cupitt sometime in the ‘80s or around then anyway. All I can really recall from this is my impression that he stripped spirituality of the spiritual, reducing it to an arid exercise in crypto-atheism. You can tell I had strong feelings about this at the time!<br /><br />He certainly belongs with the other empty Post Modernists you mention in the post. They are people whose effect on thought is wholly negative for the reasons you eloquently state. Unfortunately they have a certain appeal because of their undoubted intelligence and ability to articulate their philosophy of death because that is what it is. They are excellent examples of the dangers of intellect without imagination.<br />William Wildbloodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13231219533755925897noreply@blogger.com