*
http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tom-shippey-great-tolkien-scholar.html
*
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Saturday, 5 May 2012
Not on my wavelength
*
It is a strange phenomenon, which may have little or no significance, but I often find that there are authors who I feel I ought to like, but who I just don't get or else who 'rub me up the wrong way' and create irritation and hostility.
*
An example is John Henry (Cardinal) Newman.
I have read quite a lot by and about Newman - most recently a full biography; and despite recommendations form authors whom I admire, and the fact that he is the patron Saint of the new Anglican Ordinariate, I continue to dislike him personally in such a way that this prevents me getting any good from his writings.
The dislike is not strong, more like a low-grade annoyance, but it blocks the necessary receptivity.
*
I suspect this is exactly what it seems, one of those instances when - as in everyday life - you can't seem to get along with somebody; there is a persistent awkwardness.
For me, this crops up all over the place - things I want to like but can't.
*
So as to be somewhat even-handed between Western and Eastern Catholicism, I could mention the artistic style of icons as another thing to which I cannot warm.
As an idea, I like icons; I like the general effect in a church or home (indeed, I like it very much) especially when combined with mosaics - but as individual things, from an aesthetic perspective (whether Greek or Russian or any other I have seen), I don't appreciate icons, find them a negative experience.+
*
It applies to places. Italy for example. Despite everything wonderful that was or is in Italy and came from Italy, and despite all that everyone says, I just don't warm to the idea of Italy - something about Italy annoys me and always has.
(I once set foot there, for about 4 hours on a day trip from Austria, and found its effect on me just as negative as I feared.)
Rome as an idea or ideal does not attract (whereas the idea of Byzantine Constantinople, despite the icons, is almost literally intoxicating).
*
There doesn't seem to be anything one can do about such aversions; we just have to work-around them - as we work-around our irrational aversions among people with whom we must, nonetheless, get along.
*
+ Note - I think this may be related to the un-Englishness of icons. If England had remained Orthodox, then perhaps there would be an English style of icon-writing - maybe something like the illustrations of Pauline Baynes (based on the Luttrell Psalter)
It is a strange phenomenon, which may have little or no significance, but I often find that there are authors who I feel I ought to like, but who I just don't get or else who 'rub me up the wrong way' and create irritation and hostility.
*
An example is John Henry (Cardinal) Newman.
I have read quite a lot by and about Newman - most recently a full biography; and despite recommendations form authors whom I admire, and the fact that he is the patron Saint of the new Anglican Ordinariate, I continue to dislike him personally in such a way that this prevents me getting any good from his writings.
The dislike is not strong, more like a low-grade annoyance, but it blocks the necessary receptivity.
*
I suspect this is exactly what it seems, one of those instances when - as in everyday life - you can't seem to get along with somebody; there is a persistent awkwardness.
For me, this crops up all over the place - things I want to like but can't.
*
So as to be somewhat even-handed between Western and Eastern Catholicism, I could mention the artistic style of icons as another thing to which I cannot warm.
As an idea, I like icons; I like the general effect in a church or home (indeed, I like it very much) especially when combined with mosaics - but as individual things, from an aesthetic perspective (whether Greek or Russian or any other I have seen), I don't appreciate icons, find them a negative experience.+
*
It applies to places. Italy for example. Despite everything wonderful that was or is in Italy and came from Italy, and despite all that everyone says, I just don't warm to the idea of Italy - something about Italy annoys me and always has.
(I once set foot there, for about 4 hours on a day trip from Austria, and found its effect on me just as negative as I feared.)
Rome as an idea or ideal does not attract (whereas the idea of Byzantine Constantinople, despite the icons, is almost literally intoxicating).
*
There doesn't seem to be anything one can do about such aversions; we just have to work-around them - as we work-around our irrational aversions among people with whom we must, nonetheless, get along.
*
+ Note - I think this may be related to the un-Englishness of icons. If England had remained Orthodox, then perhaps there would be an English style of icon-writing - maybe something like the illustrations of Pauline Baynes (based on the Luttrell Psalter)
Friday, 4 May 2012
England, and The Church of England, as a latent Byzantine polity
*
It is, perhaps, surprising that Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Church of England, who appoints the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and who (via her parliament) controls many aspects of the Church.
In modern times, and indeed for most of its history, this has been a mostly (not wholly) malign influence - sometimes called 'Erastianism' - meaning the State controlling the Church.
*
It is particularly malign that the Prime Minister and the House of Commons have usurped almost all of the Monarch's prerogatives - so that the PM actually chooses the Archbishops, and it was a vote in the Commons that rejected the 1928 revision to the Prayer Book (not that I favour that revision - I do not).
*
And yet, the fascinating things is that - although perverted and inverted - the Constitution of England is, in its basic shape - very much like the 'ideal' (I mean, ideal to me!) constitution of the Byzantine Empire.
*
For instance, the Monarch of England is meant to be by the Grace of God, chosen by God (and not, therefore, hereditary, nor appointed by Parliament - except when these procedures lead to the correct answer).
The Monarch chooses the Patriarch (Archbishop of Canterbury) who rules the Church, yet the Patriarch could (in principle) excommunicate the Monarch and exert other types of authority over him.
The Monarch chooses the Government by asking the leader of a Party to form a government - usually this is the 'winner' of a general election; but it could be someone else.
The Monarch can also dismiss any government for breaching the constitution (this actually happened in 1975 when the Queen's representative dismissed the Australian government led by Gough Whitlam).
And many of the primary aspects of English life retain the form of being done in the Monarch's name, and by his authority.
*
For a Christian reactionary, this situation is strange.
In real life the English constitution has been and is being used to impose an atheist, anti-Christian and Leftist democratic agenda; but in principle, if the English people became devoutly Christian Monarchists - pretty-much everything essential is in-place to make England a Byzantine Monarchy.
All that would be required is to remove all committees and votes, reverse the direction of power; and to live by the spirit of the constitution instead of merely by its letter.
*
It is, perhaps, surprising that Queen Elizabeth II is the head of the Church of England, who appoints the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and who (via her parliament) controls many aspects of the Church.
In modern times, and indeed for most of its history, this has been a mostly (not wholly) malign influence - sometimes called 'Erastianism' - meaning the State controlling the Church.
*
It is particularly malign that the Prime Minister and the House of Commons have usurped almost all of the Monarch's prerogatives - so that the PM actually chooses the Archbishops, and it was a vote in the Commons that rejected the 1928 revision to the Prayer Book (not that I favour that revision - I do not).
*
And yet, the fascinating things is that - although perverted and inverted - the Constitution of England is, in its basic shape - very much like the 'ideal' (I mean, ideal to me!) constitution of the Byzantine Empire.
*
For instance, the Monarch of England is meant to be by the Grace of God, chosen by God (and not, therefore, hereditary, nor appointed by Parliament - except when these procedures lead to the correct answer).
The Monarch chooses the Patriarch (Archbishop of Canterbury) who rules the Church, yet the Patriarch could (in principle) excommunicate the Monarch and exert other types of authority over him.
The Monarch chooses the Government by asking the leader of a Party to form a government - usually this is the 'winner' of a general election; but it could be someone else.
The Monarch can also dismiss any government for breaching the constitution (this actually happened in 1975 when the Queen's representative dismissed the Australian government led by Gough Whitlam).
And many of the primary aspects of English life retain the form of being done in the Monarch's name, and by his authority.
*
For a Christian reactionary, this situation is strange.
In real life the English constitution has been and is being used to impose an atheist, anti-Christian and Leftist democratic agenda; but in principle, if the English people became devoutly Christian Monarchists - pretty-much everything essential is in-place to make England a Byzantine Monarchy.
All that would be required is to remove all committees and votes, reverse the direction of power; and to live by the spirit of the constitution instead of merely by its letter.
*
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Societal collapse due to the end of science
*
Quite aside from the insanity of the Left, which will end Western civilisation prematurely, modernity will collapse anyway, due to the end of science.
*
It is scientific revolutions (and technological breakthroughs) which caused and sustained modernity; modernity being the growth of productivity such as to outstrip the growth of populations.
*
In an important sense it is economic growth (growth in food production and also the production of other essentials) which underpins modernity.
Indeed, as Ernest Gellner saw, modernity depends on economic growth in two ways: firstly to keep people alive, and secondly to maintain coherence - because modern societies are societies of material bribery (rather than societies of material coercion and spiritual bribery, as in the past).
But economic growth depends on significant and frequent breakthroughs in productivity (more stuff for fewer man hours), and breakthroughs in productivity derive from science-technology broadly conceptualised.
*
And breakthroughs in science-technology - what do they depend on?
Well, I believe they depend upon creative genius - in other words breakthroughs were generated by the high density of creative geniuses (in relatively few cultures) who were positioned such as to make a difference by their work.
Yet there are no creative geniuses any more (or too few, or if there are enough, then they are not able to influence things).
Not enough creative geniuses = no modernity.
*
No creative geniuses (or not enough of them) means no breakthroughs (or not enough of them); which means stagnant productivity - indeed declining productivity due to the evolution of parasitism (e.g. bureaucracy, economically inactive populations etc).
And stagnant or declining productivity means the end of modernity which means societal collapse leading to population collapse and a new equilibrium at much lower total population (and population density).
The first collapse will be of cohesion, since the population cannot be bribed when there is not enough with which to bribe them.
And to impose cohesion by force and religion instead of bribery would itself end modernity.
*
The second collapse will be of starvation, disease and predation (mostly by people) - the triple major causes of human mortality
*
Modernity was therefore merely a temporary escape from the Malthusian Trap, lasting about 8 generations, driven - it seems, by the coincidence of a high density of creative genius in the West (and the conditions which enabled them to be effective in societal transformation) - all of which factors have by now disappeared.
*
Presumably, society will return to its pre-modern level of complexity - agrarian states, cohering due to a mixture of military coercion and religiousness.
This will happen, sooner or later, but on a timescale of decades not of centuries.
The only major uncertainty is - which religion?
*
Quite aside from the insanity of the Left, which will end Western civilisation prematurely, modernity will collapse anyway, due to the end of science.
*
It is scientific revolutions (and technological breakthroughs) which caused and sustained modernity; modernity being the growth of productivity such as to outstrip the growth of populations.
*
In an important sense it is economic growth (growth in food production and also the production of other essentials) which underpins modernity.
Indeed, as Ernest Gellner saw, modernity depends on economic growth in two ways: firstly to keep people alive, and secondly to maintain coherence - because modern societies are societies of material bribery (rather than societies of material coercion and spiritual bribery, as in the past).
But economic growth depends on significant and frequent breakthroughs in productivity (more stuff for fewer man hours), and breakthroughs in productivity derive from science-technology broadly conceptualised.
*
And breakthroughs in science-technology - what do they depend on?
Well, I believe they depend upon creative genius - in other words breakthroughs were generated by the high density of creative geniuses (in relatively few cultures) who were positioned such as to make a difference by their work.
Yet there are no creative geniuses any more (or too few, or if there are enough, then they are not able to influence things).
Not enough creative geniuses = no modernity.
*
No creative geniuses (or not enough of them) means no breakthroughs (or not enough of them); which means stagnant productivity - indeed declining productivity due to the evolution of parasitism (e.g. bureaucracy, economically inactive populations etc).
And stagnant or declining productivity means the end of modernity which means societal collapse leading to population collapse and a new equilibrium at much lower total population (and population density).
The first collapse will be of cohesion, since the population cannot be bribed when there is not enough with which to bribe them.
And to impose cohesion by force and religion instead of bribery would itself end modernity.
*
The second collapse will be of starvation, disease and predation (mostly by people) - the triple major causes of human mortality
*
Modernity was therefore merely a temporary escape from the Malthusian Trap, lasting about 8 generations, driven - it seems, by the coincidence of a high density of creative genius in the West (and the conditions which enabled them to be effective in societal transformation) - all of which factors have by now disappeared.
*
Presumably, society will return to its pre-modern level of complexity - agrarian states, cohering due to a mixture of military coercion and religiousness.
This will happen, sooner or later, but on a timescale of decades not of centuries.
The only major uncertainty is - which religion?
*
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
What is the harm of libertarianism?
*
Given that it has zero chance of attaining power or introducing its favoured policies - what is the harm of principled libertarianism?
Simply that it is destructive. It helps to destroy the traditional order, it helps to destroy hierarchy, it helps to destroy existing sources of countervailing power.
So, libertarians supply arguments which are used or exploited by Leftists with which to atomise society - to break down professions, guilds, unions, protections, privileges insofar as they help maintain the traditional (existing) order.
Libertarians want freedom of the individual from all forms of authority, but the only authorities they are actually allowed to subvert and usurp are those forms of authority which the Left dislikes. A one-sided liberation, always tending to assist socialism.
Libertarians help create the chaos and weakness which is then used by Leftists to create their statist, communist, socialist, politically correct society.
This happens because it is much, much, much easier to destroy Good than to create Good.
The libertarians (sincerely) believe that they are only destroying the Good in order to introduce something Better (better, that is, from the perspective of efficiency) but that doesn't actually happen, because libertarians are so weak.
They can accomplish the easy task of destruction, but they never accomplish the vastly more difficult task of making something better.
*
Note: I was a libertarian - mostly from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s; and although I considered myself standing in opposition to the Leftist and politically correct intellectual mainstream, and although I did meet up with some trouble and strife; I was remarkably tolerated, and it seemed remarkable to me at the time.
But, in fact, the tolerance was more than remarkable - it was sinister; in the literal sense that my libertarianism was being 'used' as a 'tool' of the Left that was directed and selectively deployed. When not useful to the Left, libertarianism was simply ignored or over-ruled.
However, against this background of Leftist tolerance for libertarianism (a tolerance based on self-confidence that libertarianism is helpless against the Left when it comes to power) there are periodically - at least annually - blood sacrifices of libertarians who make the mistake of applying their analysis to the politically correct taboos.
But libertarians who steer clear of the Leftist taboos are given almost limitless tolerance - serving the Left as ideological resources and providing a self-gratifying illusion of the Left tolerating dissent.
*
Given that it has zero chance of attaining power or introducing its favoured policies - what is the harm of principled libertarianism?
Simply that it is destructive. It helps to destroy the traditional order, it helps to destroy hierarchy, it helps to destroy existing sources of countervailing power.
So, libertarians supply arguments which are used or exploited by Leftists with which to atomise society - to break down professions, guilds, unions, protections, privileges insofar as they help maintain the traditional (existing) order.
Libertarians want freedom of the individual from all forms of authority, but the only authorities they are actually allowed to subvert and usurp are those forms of authority which the Left dislikes. A one-sided liberation, always tending to assist socialism.
Libertarians help create the chaos and weakness which is then used by Leftists to create their statist, communist, socialist, politically correct society.
This happens because it is much, much, much easier to destroy Good than to create Good.
The libertarians (sincerely) believe that they are only destroying the Good in order to introduce something Better (better, that is, from the perspective of efficiency) but that doesn't actually happen, because libertarians are so weak.
They can accomplish the easy task of destruction, but they never accomplish the vastly more difficult task of making something better.
*
Note: I was a libertarian - mostly from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s; and although I considered myself standing in opposition to the Leftist and politically correct intellectual mainstream, and although I did meet up with some trouble and strife; I was remarkably tolerated, and it seemed remarkable to me at the time.
But, in fact, the tolerance was more than remarkable - it was sinister; in the literal sense that my libertarianism was being 'used' as a 'tool' of the Left that was directed and selectively deployed. When not useful to the Left, libertarianism was simply ignored or over-ruled.
However, against this background of Leftist tolerance for libertarianism (a tolerance based on self-confidence that libertarianism is helpless against the Left when it comes to power) there are periodically - at least annually - blood sacrifices of libertarians who make the mistake of applying their analysis to the politically correct taboos.
But libertarians who steer clear of the Leftist taboos are given almost limitless tolerance - serving the Left as ideological resources and providing a self-gratifying illusion of the Left tolerating dissent.
*
Metaphors for sin
*
1. The Good as a series of interlocking Laws - sin as law-breaking. This metaphor has become over-dominant, literalized and dangerous.
2. Sanctity as being turned-towards God, orientated towards God; sin as the act of turning away, damnation as being permanently turned-away from God (closed off, from pride).
3. Sin as a dark and opaque stain, marring the purity of white light - Tolkien's favourite metaphor. Used by CS Lewis to explain original sin spreading through humanity.
4. The Good as warmth and light, sin as coldness and shadow - e.g. Russian Saints who may survive extreme cold, and Saints who are surrounded by a glow.
*
1. The Good as a series of interlocking Laws - sin as law-breaking. This metaphor has become over-dominant, literalized and dangerous.
2. Sanctity as being turned-towards God, orientated towards God; sin as the act of turning away, damnation as being permanently turned-away from God (closed off, from pride).
3. Sin as a dark and opaque stain, marring the purity of white light - Tolkien's favourite metaphor. Used by CS Lewis to explain original sin spreading through humanity.
4. The Good as warmth and light, sin as coldness and shadow - e.g. Russian Saints who may survive extreme cold, and Saints who are surrounded by a glow.
*
Monday, 30 April 2012
What kind of crisis would do us the most good?
*
Since crisis there shall be, what would be the best kind of collapse?
What would be the kind, that is, which might (conceivably) tend to lead to repentance before it it too late?
This is an easy question to answer, because there is only one answer: collapse of the mass media for long enough.
Any other crisis which left the mass media intact would be refracted through the lens of the mass media, which would suppress, distort, and simply lie about what was going on; as has happened with all other crises until now: riots, crime, economic hardship.
But denied the possibility of having reality displaced by the view from the mass media - people would be forced back onto their own common sense and experience.
If anything could induce a state of mind conducive to recognition and repentance, that would.
*
Since crisis there shall be, what would be the best kind of collapse?
What would be the kind, that is, which might (conceivably) tend to lead to repentance before it it too late?
This is an easy question to answer, because there is only one answer: collapse of the mass media for long enough.
Any other crisis which left the mass media intact would be refracted through the lens of the mass media, which would suppress, distort, and simply lie about what was going on; as has happened with all other crises until now: riots, crime, economic hardship.
But denied the possibility of having reality displaced by the view from the mass media - people would be forced back onto their own common sense and experience.
If anything could induce a state of mind conducive to recognition and repentance, that would.
*
Sunday, 29 April 2012
The search for meaning and purpose (everywhere except Christianity)
*
For many decades I was searching for the meaning and purpose of life - and it was a serious search, involving a great deal of time, travel, effort and expense.
I was searching in many, many directions and places, in almost all places - except for Christianity.
*
Because I knew all about Christianity, and I knew that the answer was not there; and therefore I resented all discussion of Christianity because it was merely wasting my precious time.
I was impatient and irritable about Christianity, because I knew all about it and I knew it was nonsense.
*
When I eventually discovered Christianity was what I had supposedly been seeking, I felt pretty silly: I was pretty silly.
I had been willfully blind; I had systematically refrained from searching the only place where what I sought was to be found.
*
This is the evil triumph of anti-Christian modernity - to have people assume that they know-all-about Christianity, that it is obsolete and exploded, and to deflect their search for meaning and purpose everywhere-except Christianity, and to make these same folk pride themselves on their open-mindedness, their unprejudiced truth-seeking.
Yet no matter how open minded and unprejudiced and sincere they are in their wide-ranging search for meaning and purpose they have unwittingly made the one, single, lethal assumption which utterly prevents them finding what they seek.
Wasted lives...
*
For many decades I was searching for the meaning and purpose of life - and it was a serious search, involving a great deal of time, travel, effort and expense.
I was searching in many, many directions and places, in almost all places - except for Christianity.
*
Because I knew all about Christianity, and I knew that the answer was not there; and therefore I resented all discussion of Christianity because it was merely wasting my precious time.
I was impatient and irritable about Christianity, because I knew all about it and I knew it was nonsense.
*
When I eventually discovered Christianity was what I had supposedly been seeking, I felt pretty silly: I was pretty silly.
I had been willfully blind; I had systematically refrained from searching the only place where what I sought was to be found.
*
This is the evil triumph of anti-Christian modernity - to have people assume that they know-all-about Christianity, that it is obsolete and exploded, and to deflect their search for meaning and purpose everywhere-except Christianity, and to make these same folk pride themselves on their open-mindedness, their unprejudiced truth-seeking.
Yet no matter how open minded and unprejudiced and sincere they are in their wide-ranging search for meaning and purpose they have unwittingly made the one, single, lethal assumption which utterly prevents them finding what they seek.
Wasted lives...
*
Saturday, 28 April 2012
What is the evidence against Christianity?
*
There are 1001 lines of evidence against 'Christianity' - as I was well aware during the many years when I assumed the falsehood of Christianity.
Of course, as I now know, taken individually, examined one at a time, all these lines of evidence are shallow, weak, inconclusive and thus inadequate.
But my implicit assumption throughout the time I ignored Christianity was that 1001 pieces of individually inadequate evidence - when heaped-up together - was in total effect more-than-sufficient to refute Christianity.
One good argument is enough to refute a falsehood; 1001 bad arguments don't refute anything - even if they are repeated, and repeated.
*
There are 1001 lines of evidence against 'Christianity' - as I was well aware during the many years when I assumed the falsehood of Christianity.
Of course, as I now know, taken individually, examined one at a time, all these lines of evidence are shallow, weak, inconclusive and thus inadequate.
But my implicit assumption throughout the time I ignored Christianity was that 1001 pieces of individually inadequate evidence - when heaped-up together - was in total effect more-than-sufficient to refute Christianity.
One good argument is enough to refute a falsehood; 1001 bad arguments don't refute anything - even if they are repeated, and repeated.
*
Friday, 27 April 2012
The empowerment of the internet? Justice and the law
*
If it wasn't for the internet, then the mass media would be able effectively to manipulate the Western populations with shamelessly distorted and dishonest reporting and evidence-free rhetoric.
But wait!...
*
The internet cannot - does not - keep the mass media decent and honest.
*
People need to cultivate their instincts; to use evidence from their own experience and observations primarily; not from mass communications.
Since we are all (supposedly) so concerned about justice - let's judge by common sense law
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/common-sense-law-versus-nonsensical.html
Political correctness has offered us a moral inversion, whereby we are most concerned to avoid the ‘prejudice’ of assuming that because a person is habitually dishonest, then they are likely to be lying in this specific instance.
Instead we focus on the fact that the habitually dishonest individual *might* uncharacteristically be telling the truth, for once – and this so obsesses us that that we construct systems which actually assume that knowledge about the past is an intrinsically misleading guide to the future.
Modern legal and other codes are indeed always biased against the people with a track record of sociable behaviour whom the early medieval codes would have assumed were ‘always’ in-the-right.
*
This is utterly typical of modernity. In the wish to set ourselves above and apart from our ancestors, we in the modern world have created social systems that avoid the specific and rare mistakes of the past at the cost of enforcing systematic error.
In order to avoid infrequent injustice against people of bad character, which happened in the past; we nowadays enforce routine injustice against people of good character.
*
So, if we retain the ability to judge character, we are able to judge without taking notice of the 'facts' provided by the openly-evil media; which means we can also dispense with the internet.
We can, we should, assume that people of good character are in the right, and people of bad character are in the wrong.
This is a much more reliable basis for justice than one which depends upon a specific and detailed objective historical reconstruction of precise behaviours and motivations compared with a precise template of laws, regulations and practices - many of which laws, regulations and practices are of evil intent, tending to the corruption and destruction of The Good. .
*
And if the judgement is, as usual, attempting to arbitrate a quarrel among thieves - an attempt of people of bad character to use justice in pursuit of their self interested evil plans - then we throw the case out of our court.
That's not the purpose of justice - justice exists to assist the Good and suppress that which opposed Good. If the law does not do this - if, indeed law is not even trying to assist the Good; then law is on the side of evil.
*
At any rate, we do not not need to subordinate the judgement of our own hearts to the injustice of modern legal process as reported by the mass media.
That would merely be to add another layer to the corruption.
*
If it wasn't for the internet, then the mass media would be able effectively to manipulate the Western populations with shamelessly distorted and dishonest reporting and evidence-free rhetoric.
But wait!...
*
The internet cannot - does not - keep the mass media decent and honest.
*
People need to cultivate their instincts; to use evidence from their own experience and observations primarily; not from mass communications.
Since we are all (supposedly) so concerned about justice - let's judge by common sense law
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/common-sense-law-versus-nonsensical.html
Political correctness has offered us a moral inversion, whereby we are most concerned to avoid the ‘prejudice’ of assuming that because a person is habitually dishonest, then they are likely to be lying in this specific instance.
Instead we focus on the fact that the habitually dishonest individual *might* uncharacteristically be telling the truth, for once – and this so obsesses us that that we construct systems which actually assume that knowledge about the past is an intrinsically misleading guide to the future.
Modern legal and other codes are indeed always biased against the people with a track record of sociable behaviour whom the early medieval codes would have assumed were ‘always’ in-the-right.
*
This is utterly typical of modernity. In the wish to set ourselves above and apart from our ancestors, we in the modern world have created social systems that avoid the specific and rare mistakes of the past at the cost of enforcing systematic error.
In order to avoid infrequent injustice against people of bad character, which happened in the past; we nowadays enforce routine injustice against people of good character.
*
So, if we retain the ability to judge character, we are able to judge without taking notice of the 'facts' provided by the openly-evil media; which means we can also dispense with the internet.
We can, we should, assume that people of good character are in the right, and people of bad character are in the wrong.
This is a much more reliable basis for justice than one which depends upon a specific and detailed objective historical reconstruction of precise behaviours and motivations compared with a precise template of laws, regulations and practices - many of which laws, regulations and practices are of evil intent, tending to the corruption and destruction of The Good. .
*
And if the judgement is, as usual, attempting to arbitrate a quarrel among thieves - an attempt of people of bad character to use justice in pursuit of their self interested evil plans - then we throw the case out of our court.
That's not the purpose of justice - justice exists to assist the Good and suppress that which opposed Good. If the law does not do this - if, indeed law is not even trying to assist the Good; then law is on the side of evil.
*
At any rate, we do not not need to subordinate the judgement of our own hearts to the injustice of modern legal process as reported by the mass media.
That would merely be to add another layer to the corruption.
*
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Christianity in a nutshell - Fr Herbert Kelly SSM
*
The following is excerpted from The Gospel of God (1959) by Fr Herbert Kelly SSM (1960-1950) - who founded the Society of the Sacred Mission - the first proper monastic order within the Church of England and linked most famously with Kelham Hall theological college,
(Both thriving until about 1960 with Kelham closing in the early 1970s and the SSM now all-but gone and 'liberalized' in a direction very different from Kelly's orthodox order.)
*
I only discovered HHK about a month ago - but already it looks as if he will join the select pantheon of theological/ devotional writers who have had a major influence on my faith since I became a Christian - the other two are Fr Seraphim Rose (1934-1982; Russian Orthodox) and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662; Roman Catholic).
*
What I get from Fr Kelly is nothing less than a clarification of what the Gospel is, and how it works - leading onto an understanding of the central significance of the crucifixion.
**
Excerpts - somewhat re-paragraphed and re-punctuated and emphasized:
Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man, And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. [The Nicene Creed]
*
Some people believe this story, and some do not.
Quite a large number, at all times, have been unable to see any point in what happened, or what difference it is supposed to make even if it were true...
*
About one thing the preachers... were quite clear. It was a story about God - that or nothing...
'A story about God' - it is not a revelation of what God is like, nor of God's character, which in other words might mean a dramatic picture of the nature of ultimate ideals...
...but we can tell you what God has done.
*
As a common person, when I am asked Bible authority for anything worth arguing about, I learnt from [F.D.] Maurice to quote: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth', down to 'even so, Come Lord Jesus'... and every single verse betwixt and between.
Anything which is there at all, is there in every verse, for the story is, and always has been, a whole.
The Church might read selections in bits, but the service (liturgy) itself was a memorial of the Passion, and Sunday was the festival of the resurrection...
*
What is it all about?
A story of a man with remarkable powers... and remarkable sayings who got killed?
Why call it a Gospel?
*
Parts of it are pathetic, and parts fantastic, and the whole more than a bit futile.
The Gospel narratives were intended to show how perplexing our Lord's life was to his disciples; when the Resurrection did come, how staggered they were at it.
Nevertheless the narrative was, and could only have been, written under the consciousness of this climax, in the glory and faith of the apostolic Gospel.
*
Certainly there is a contrast, but the evangelists did not see any inconsistency between the perplexity of the early and the glorious confidence of the later time.
They believed they were showing how the one was transfigured into the other, just as the apostles believed that they were showing how we might be delivered out of the power of darkness (which is the contradictions of this life) and translated into the kingdom of the Son of his love.
*
For many years the disciples had had the companionship and teaching and direct influence of what we call - and they felt to be - a unique or radiant personality.
'We hoped it should have been that he would have redeemed Israel, but our rulers delivered him up and crucified him. And there are certain women of ours... and a vision of angels... and it is all very confusing...'
And then - in a few weeks - in their sight he went up from them into heaven! There is no mistaking that.
All that they had loved and enjoyed and valued is gone finally, and, just because it has gone, at once, quite suddenly, the door opens onto a new life.
*
The personal and temporal, the very attraction of which had somehow blinded their eyes - as it is apt to blind ours - was only a veil.
Now that it is drawn aside, they realize what that what had been given them was a Gospel of God, universal and eternal.
**
What I get from this (and other passages in Fr Kelly's book) is that Christianity is primarily the story of what happened when God became incarnate, was crucified and resurrected.
And the story is not captured by any part of the Bible but the whole; and the story is not captured by a focus on Jesus's birth (incarnation) and life and teachings and example; nor is it captured by an account of what happened afterwards and the present situation.
Neither is the story captured by its philosophical summary, nor by the moral principles extracted.
Fr Kelly, wonderfully, says that Christianity is precisely not a 'religion':
Religion is, by origin, a heathen word. The heathen were always talking about it, while they had very vague and uncertain ideas about God.
Christianity, on the other hand, is first of all and distinctively a Gospel, a very wonderful story or message about God, about what God has done.
Thence it is a Faith, and this word means, not an acceptance of certain doctrines or beliefs, but a trust in God, and in what God has worked or effected in the way related in the story...
Of course, it is true that there is also a Christian religion...
[But] I think it is plain, and it is most important, that we should realize that to believe in God, to look and think about God and what God does, is not the same as believing in religion - which in fact means believing in and thinking about certain practices and states of mind of our own.
*
Among the things I get from this is that the main thing about the crucifixion of Christ is that it happened - that is what happened to God.
Doctrines of the meaning of the atonement are - by contrast - optional extras. Philosophical debates about whether the crucifixion was necessary whether it had to be crucifixion, what exactly happened and when - these recede into the background.
The big fact is that that crucifixion is the thing that actually happened to Jesus Christ, Son of God - it is the central part of his story - between his life before and the resurrection and ascension afterwards.
For the first time, I therefore understand what St Paul and the other apostles meant by '...the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.' Corinthians 1. 1: 22-25.
*
The following is excerpted from The Gospel of God (1959) by Fr Herbert Kelly SSM (1960-1950) - who founded the Society of the Sacred Mission - the first proper monastic order within the Church of England and linked most famously with Kelham Hall theological college,
(Both thriving until about 1960 with Kelham closing in the early 1970s and the SSM now all-but gone and 'liberalized' in a direction very different from Kelly's orthodox order.)
*
I only discovered HHK about a month ago - but already it looks as if he will join the select pantheon of theological/ devotional writers who have had a major influence on my faith since I became a Christian - the other two are Fr Seraphim Rose (1934-1982; Russian Orthodox) and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662; Roman Catholic).
*
What I get from Fr Kelly is nothing less than a clarification of what the Gospel is, and how it works - leading onto an understanding of the central significance of the crucifixion.
**
Excerpts - somewhat re-paragraphed and re-punctuated and emphasized:
Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man, And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. [The Nicene Creed]
*
Some people believe this story, and some do not.
Quite a large number, at all times, have been unable to see any point in what happened, or what difference it is supposed to make even if it were true...
*
About one thing the preachers... were quite clear. It was a story about God - that or nothing...
'A story about God' - it is not a revelation of what God is like, nor of God's character, which in other words might mean a dramatic picture of the nature of ultimate ideals...
...but we can tell you what God has done.
*
As a common person, when I am asked Bible authority for anything worth arguing about, I learnt from [F.D.] Maurice to quote: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth', down to 'even so, Come Lord Jesus'... and every single verse betwixt and between.
Anything which is there at all, is there in every verse, for the story is, and always has been, a whole.
The Church might read selections in bits, but the service (liturgy) itself was a memorial of the Passion, and Sunday was the festival of the resurrection...
*
What is it all about?
A story of a man with remarkable powers... and remarkable sayings who got killed?
Why call it a Gospel?
*
Parts of it are pathetic, and parts fantastic, and the whole more than a bit futile.
The Gospel narratives were intended to show how perplexing our Lord's life was to his disciples; when the Resurrection did come, how staggered they were at it.
Nevertheless the narrative was, and could only have been, written under the consciousness of this climax, in the glory and faith of the apostolic Gospel.
*
Certainly there is a contrast, but the evangelists did not see any inconsistency between the perplexity of the early and the glorious confidence of the later time.
They believed they were showing how the one was transfigured into the other, just as the apostles believed that they were showing how we might be delivered out of the power of darkness (which is the contradictions of this life) and translated into the kingdom of the Son of his love.
*
For many years the disciples had had the companionship and teaching and direct influence of what we call - and they felt to be - a unique or radiant personality.
'We hoped it should have been that he would have redeemed Israel, but our rulers delivered him up and crucified him. And there are certain women of ours... and a vision of angels... and it is all very confusing...'
And then - in a few weeks - in their sight he went up from them into heaven! There is no mistaking that.
All that they had loved and enjoyed and valued is gone finally, and, just because it has gone, at once, quite suddenly, the door opens onto a new life.
*
The personal and temporal, the very attraction of which had somehow blinded their eyes - as it is apt to blind ours - was only a veil.
Now that it is drawn aside, they realize what that what had been given them was a Gospel of God, universal and eternal.
**
What I get from this (and other passages in Fr Kelly's book) is that Christianity is primarily the story of what happened when God became incarnate, was crucified and resurrected.
And the story is not captured by any part of the Bible but the whole; and the story is not captured by a focus on Jesus's birth (incarnation) and life and teachings and example; nor is it captured by an account of what happened afterwards and the present situation.
Neither is the story captured by its philosophical summary, nor by the moral principles extracted.
Fr Kelly, wonderfully, says that Christianity is precisely not a 'religion':
Religion is, by origin, a heathen word. The heathen were always talking about it, while they had very vague and uncertain ideas about God.
Christianity, on the other hand, is first of all and distinctively a Gospel, a very wonderful story or message about God, about what God has done.
Thence it is a Faith, and this word means, not an acceptance of certain doctrines or beliefs, but a trust in God, and in what God has worked or effected in the way related in the story...
Of course, it is true that there is also a Christian religion...
[But] I think it is plain, and it is most important, that we should realize that to believe in God, to look and think about God and what God does, is not the same as believing in religion - which in fact means believing in and thinking about certain practices and states of mind of our own.
*
Among the things I get from this is that the main thing about the crucifixion of Christ is that it happened - that is what happened to God.
Doctrines of the meaning of the atonement are - by contrast - optional extras. Philosophical debates about whether the crucifixion was necessary whether it had to be crucifixion, what exactly happened and when - these recede into the background.
The big fact is that that crucifixion is the thing that actually happened to Jesus Christ, Son of God - it is the central part of his story - between his life before and the resurrection and ascension afterwards.
For the first time, I therefore understand what St Paul and the other apostles meant by '...the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.' Corinthians 1. 1: 22-25.
*
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
How to think about sex differences
*
Let's use height as a neutral example.
Men are taller then women - this is true, but what does it mean, and how can we deal with disputes?
*
Some women are taller than some men - so we are - perhaps - talking about averages?
But the average healthy and well-nourished woman would be taller than the average disease-ridden and mal-nourished (seriously mal-nourished) man; and the average modern Dutch woman is certainly taller then the average pygmy.
So nutrition, disease and heredity are relevant - and there are other factors too.
*
How to sort this out? Are men taller than women, or not?
Simple: we can easily imagine a situation in which all relevant variables that influence height are controlled: so we could look only at equally well-nourished, equally healthy men and women of identical genetics (identical except in sexually differentiated features) and we could control all other relevant variables.
*
What would we find?
One of two things:
1. All men and women would have identical height, or
2. All men and women would have different height.
*
And what we would find is number 2. - every single man would be taller than the tallest woman.
There would be no overlap between the sexes.
So, that is the answer: men are taller than women (all else being equal - all relevant factors being controlled).
***
(Now apply the same reasoning mutatis mutandis to controversial psychological and physical traits.)
*
Note:
It is impossible that men and women would be exactly the same height, since men and women differ physically in so many ways.
Or, to put it another way, it is a grossly improbable prior hypothesis to assume no-difference in height between men and women; it flies in the face of everything we know about biology.
Or, to put it another way, it is grossly improbable that men and women would have ended-up identical, having experienced such different selection pressures (such differentiated environmental and social niches) throughout their evolutionary history - when this different evolutionary history is relevant to the adaptiveness of the trait in question.
Now apply the same reasoning mutatis mutandis to controversial psychological and physical traits.
*
Let's use height as a neutral example.
Men are taller then women - this is true, but what does it mean, and how can we deal with disputes?
*
Some women are taller than some men - so we are - perhaps - talking about averages?
But the average healthy and well-nourished woman would be taller than the average disease-ridden and mal-nourished (seriously mal-nourished) man; and the average modern Dutch woman is certainly taller then the average pygmy.
So nutrition, disease and heredity are relevant - and there are other factors too.
*
How to sort this out? Are men taller than women, or not?
Simple: we can easily imagine a situation in which all relevant variables that influence height are controlled: so we could look only at equally well-nourished, equally healthy men and women of identical genetics (identical except in sexually differentiated features) and we could control all other relevant variables.
*
What would we find?
One of two things:
1. All men and women would have identical height, or
2. All men and women would have different height.
*
And what we would find is number 2. - every single man would be taller than the tallest woman.
There would be no overlap between the sexes.
So, that is the answer: men are taller than women (all else being equal - all relevant factors being controlled).
***
(Now apply the same reasoning mutatis mutandis to controversial psychological and physical traits.)
*
Note:
It is impossible that men and women would be exactly the same height, since men and women differ physically in so many ways.
Or, to put it another way, it is a grossly improbable prior hypothesis to assume no-difference in height between men and women; it flies in the face of everything we know about biology.
Or, to put it another way, it is grossly improbable that men and women would have ended-up identical, having experienced such different selection pressures (such differentiated environmental and social niches) throughout their evolutionary history - when this different evolutionary history is relevant to the adaptiveness of the trait in question.
Now apply the same reasoning mutatis mutandis to controversial psychological and physical traits.
*
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Why hasn't the West already collapsed? Why the delay? Providence?
Since this is a Christian blog, I am allowed to talk about the collapse of the West in providential terms - in the kind of terms we may be familiar with from the large sweep of history covered in the Old Testament (describing God's actions in the world).
Bearing in mind that although we can understand the past to some extent, we cannot understand the present - nor predict the future.
Therefore I am not talking about what is happening now or describing what will happen - I am discussing what has happened and why.
Cutting to the chase - for those who do not want to 'read the whole thing' - my take is that the collapse is self-imposed; the more the collapse is delayed, the more severe and comprehensive it will be; and if it is delayed long enough, the collapse will certainly take-down the whole culture including the secular Leftism which is its cause.
And the only thing which could - and would - avert the collapse is wholesale repentance and a powerful and widespread Christian Awakening.
This could at any point up to the actual start of the collapse, reverse things - although the longer repentance is delayed, the more damage will be sustained, the longer and harder it will be to repair this damage.
Thus the delay in the collapse serves two purposes - it provides more time for repentance, and it ensures that if repentance does not happen, then the cause of the problem will be eliminated.
Imagine, for a moment, that you were a deity who was managing the world - how would you manage the impending collapse of the West?
The starting point is that the modern West is (probably) one of the most sinful societies that has ever existed in the history of the world - bearing in mind that the definition of sin is to be turned-away from God.
I don't suppose there has been a society in which so many people were turned-away from God as this one now; turned-towards the world, pleasures, distractions, novelties, the search for peace and comfort and stimulation. And in which the short-term comes to more-and-more to dominate the long term.
And the trend is for ever more of the same, encouraged by ever more - and more pervasive - propaganda (via the mass media, government, education), ever more - and more pervasive - distractions, and the whole situation ever more coercively-implemented by social sanction, regulations, laws and subsidies.
If you view this from the deity's perspective - and simply let people have what they want, get what they ask for - what do we see?
Amongst other things:
The atheist Leftist elite are eliminating themselves demographically - on the one hand they have stopped breeding, on the other hand they import ever larger numbers of people implacably hostile to themselves and their aspirations.
The elite are running down the basis of their civilisation: science, technology and the economy.
The elite are making art ugly, mainstream religion immoral, and lies (hype, spin, public relations) mandatory.
The elite are wilfully and aggressively blinding themselves (and the population in general) to the most significant threats to the stability of their society.
The elite are actively-strengthening the forces likely to trigger collapse: Leftist revolutionaries, the economically parasitic - the pampered idle and the bureaucrats; strengthening all those in the arts, the media, education, law and public administration with an agenda to destroy society.
And the elite are actively weakening the power and resolve of the police and military.
The elite have all-but destroyed autonomous civil society - the Church, professions, guilds and unions, clubs and charities - which are now thoroughly bureaucratised, taxed, subsidised, regulated, linked-with and otherwise brought under control of the government.
In sum, the secular Leftist elite (that is to say, the whole of mainstream politics and the leadership of all major social institutions) are on the one hand doing many things on many fronts that will cause societal collapse; and on the other hand are weakening all pro-social forces of cohesion and strength which might respond-to and ameliorate collapse.
So that collapse, when it comes, will be on so many fronts that the systematically weakened response will be grossly inadequate to do anything effective.
And, the longer the collapse is delayed the stronger will be the forces of collapse, and the weaker will be the forces that oppose collapse.
Thus all delays make it ever more certain that collapse, when it can eventually be put-off no longer, will be catastrophic - rapidly and completely fatal to the ideology which itself caused the collapse.
Or we could repent, repudiate the past, and turn again to God.
For whom anything is possible - including the averting - or amelioration - of collapse.
The secular Leftist elite leadership might repent (that would be best, I would think); or the mass of the population might repent and remove the secular Leftists from their leadership.
I think they are the only options.
Repent now; or wait until everything is in ruins and repent then - or not...
(After all, repentance is and must be a free choice.)
Either we prove that our society is worth saving; or we prove that it is not worth saving, and then it will be allowed to destroy itself.
But that decision is not yet made.
There is still time....
Until, suddenly, there isn't.
Bearing in mind that although we can understand the past to some extent, we cannot understand the present - nor predict the future.
Therefore I am not talking about what is happening now or describing what will happen - I am discussing what has happened and why.
Cutting to the chase - for those who do not want to 'read the whole thing' - my take is that the collapse is self-imposed; the more the collapse is delayed, the more severe and comprehensive it will be; and if it is delayed long enough, the collapse will certainly take-down the whole culture including the secular Leftism which is its cause.
And the only thing which could - and would - avert the collapse is wholesale repentance and a powerful and widespread Christian Awakening.
This could at any point up to the actual start of the collapse, reverse things - although the longer repentance is delayed, the more damage will be sustained, the longer and harder it will be to repair this damage.
Thus the delay in the collapse serves two purposes - it provides more time for repentance, and it ensures that if repentance does not happen, then the cause of the problem will be eliminated.
Imagine, for a moment, that you were a deity who was managing the world - how would you manage the impending collapse of the West?
The starting point is that the modern West is (probably) one of the most sinful societies that has ever existed in the history of the world - bearing in mind that the definition of sin is to be turned-away from God.
I don't suppose there has been a society in which so many people were turned-away from God as this one now; turned-towards the world, pleasures, distractions, novelties, the search for peace and comfort and stimulation. And in which the short-term comes to more-and-more to dominate the long term.
And the trend is for ever more of the same, encouraged by ever more - and more pervasive - propaganda (via the mass media, government, education), ever more - and more pervasive - distractions, and the whole situation ever more coercively-implemented by social sanction, regulations, laws and subsidies.
If you view this from the deity's perspective - and simply let people have what they want, get what they ask for - what do we see?
Amongst other things:
The atheist Leftist elite are eliminating themselves demographically - on the one hand they have stopped breeding, on the other hand they import ever larger numbers of people implacably hostile to themselves and their aspirations.
The elite are running down the basis of their civilisation: science, technology and the economy.
The elite are making art ugly, mainstream religion immoral, and lies (hype, spin, public relations) mandatory.
The elite are wilfully and aggressively blinding themselves (and the population in general) to the most significant threats to the stability of their society.
The elite are actively-strengthening the forces likely to trigger collapse: Leftist revolutionaries, the economically parasitic - the pampered idle and the bureaucrats; strengthening all those in the arts, the media, education, law and public administration with an agenda to destroy society.
And the elite are actively weakening the power and resolve of the police and military.
The elite have all-but destroyed autonomous civil society - the Church, professions, guilds and unions, clubs and charities - which are now thoroughly bureaucratised, taxed, subsidised, regulated, linked-with and otherwise brought under control of the government.
In sum, the secular Leftist elite (that is to say, the whole of mainstream politics and the leadership of all major social institutions) are on the one hand doing many things on many fronts that will cause societal collapse; and on the other hand are weakening all pro-social forces of cohesion and strength which might respond-to and ameliorate collapse.
So that collapse, when it comes, will be on so many fronts that the systematically weakened response will be grossly inadequate to do anything effective.
And, the longer the collapse is delayed the stronger will be the forces of collapse, and the weaker will be the forces that oppose collapse.
Thus all delays make it ever more certain that collapse, when it can eventually be put-off no longer, will be catastrophic - rapidly and completely fatal to the ideology which itself caused the collapse.
Or we could repent, repudiate the past, and turn again to God.
For whom anything is possible - including the averting - or amelioration - of collapse.
The secular Leftist elite leadership might repent (that would be best, I would think); or the mass of the population might repent and remove the secular Leftists from their leadership.
I think they are the only options.
Repent now; or wait until everything is in ruins and repent then - or not...
(After all, repentance is and must be a free choice.)
Either we prove that our society is worth saving; or we prove that it is not worth saving, and then it will be allowed to destroy itself.
But that decision is not yet made.
There is still time....
Until, suddenly, there isn't.
How grant chasing corrupts science
*
The middle twentieth century saw a golden age in medical breakthroughs in a context where only modest numbers (and percentages) of people did 'medical research'.
Whether in the hope that this progress could be continued, or simply from self-interestedly using past breakthroughs as leverage for increasing future resource, medical research funding was vastly exanded from the nineteen sixties - doubling about every decade.
*
Nowadays, 'medical research' - i.e. research justified by supposedly having medical relevance - is by far the biggest area of science.
Scientists working in areas that were close to medicine began to re-orientate their research in order to justify applying for these sources of funding.
*
Basic biologists working in cell chemistry, immunology, genetics - began to argue that their work may have potential medical relevance.
It worked - since they are doing 'hard science' full-time they got funded in preference to the kind of part-time, intuitive, semi-researching clinical doctors who had made the earlier therapeutic breakthoughs.
*
Pretty soon 'may have potential relevance' in basic science was hyped into 'clinical importance' - and the mythology arose that medical breakthroughs came from basic science.
So, funding basic scince on the mistaken basis that it would lead to breakthroughs destroyed clinical research - not least becausse un-funded research no longer counted as research.
*
It also wrecked basic science, since it was shaped by a fake imperative to generate supposedly therapeutic benefits (science is so difficult that unless you do it as well as possible, aiming at the thing you are best able to achieve; then it doesn't happen - compromise is fatal.)
*
So funding ended up driving 'science' - which is not effective, nor is it science.
'Science' is evaluated by the funding it attracts; 'science' is done to get funding.
And the whole thing worked by incrementally-increasing dishonesty - if you expand science by encouraging dishonesty, then pretty soon that's all you have - because it is a lot easier to be dishonest, than to do science.
*
The middle twentieth century saw a golden age in medical breakthroughs in a context where only modest numbers (and percentages) of people did 'medical research'.
Whether in the hope that this progress could be continued, or simply from self-interestedly using past breakthroughs as leverage for increasing future resource, medical research funding was vastly exanded from the nineteen sixties - doubling about every decade.
*
Nowadays, 'medical research' - i.e. research justified by supposedly having medical relevance - is by far the biggest area of science.
Scientists working in areas that were close to medicine began to re-orientate their research in order to justify applying for these sources of funding.
*
Basic biologists working in cell chemistry, immunology, genetics - began to argue that their work may have potential medical relevance.
It worked - since they are doing 'hard science' full-time they got funded in preference to the kind of part-time, intuitive, semi-researching clinical doctors who had made the earlier therapeutic breakthoughs.
*
Pretty soon 'may have potential relevance' in basic science was hyped into 'clinical importance' - and the mythology arose that medical breakthroughs came from basic science.
So, funding basic scince on the mistaken basis that it would lead to breakthroughs destroyed clinical research - not least becausse un-funded research no longer counted as research.
*
It also wrecked basic science, since it was shaped by a fake imperative to generate supposedly therapeutic benefits (science is so difficult that unless you do it as well as possible, aiming at the thing you are best able to achieve; then it doesn't happen - compromise is fatal.)
*
So funding ended up driving 'science' - which is not effective, nor is it science.
'Science' is evaluated by the funding it attracts; 'science' is done to get funding.
And the whole thing worked by incrementally-increasing dishonesty - if you expand science by encouraging dishonesty, then pretty soon that's all you have - because it is a lot easier to be dishonest, than to do science.
*
Monday, 23 April 2012
Unity of the Church? That would be an ecumenical matter...
*
Or, rather, not.
*
A century of 'ecumenical' discussions about reunification of the main separated denominations of the Christian Church led to nothing except a heap of books, conferences and international travel for churchmen.
Any unification there has been has been a result of weakening/ abandonment of the faith until there is nothing left to disagree about - and substitution of secular values (Leftism - which unites the elites of all major mainstream religions in the West).
*
It is clear that the only true reunification is for one denomination to subordinate itself to another.
This is a real possibility at any time: e.g. the Anglican Ordinariate is the subordination of the ex-Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church - retaining certain aspects e.g. liturgy.
(But this simple negotiated or unconditional surrender was not what the ecumenical movement was supposed to be about.)
*
What does it matter?
A personal view.
*
Schism is an evil, schism weakens the power of the Church, schism reduces the scope of salvation and hastens the end times - but for real Christians schism is not fatal to salvation, nor to the unity of the mystical Church.
None of the denominations is The Truth, none provide an assured path; all have corruptions.
Some aim higher - some achieve a higher average; some are mostly right while others are mostly wrong; each has a different emphasis, all have a particular weakness (or more than one weakness) - in all of them salvation is a middle path between corrupt extremes.
(These extremes vary between denominations, and the temptation to one particular extreme rather than another always dominates at a given time.)
*
All real Christian denominations are potentially valid ways to salvation - some are harder or easier, for different people, in different circumstances.
Yet all real Christians participate in the mystical Church via their relationship with Christ; Christians are unified through Christ, and (ultimately) only through Christ.
Christianity is very simple; becoming a Christin is very simple; living as a Christian is often difficult; attaining a high level of sanctity/ holiness (theosis) is always difficult - and will be (almost) impossible for some times and places and persons.
*
Denominations are complex and necessary, but never sufficient.
The unity via Christ is primary and sufficient.
However in many circumstances to love Christ, and via Christ to be unified with other Christians, may be very very difficult - and (because it is mandatory) if this fails then there is no salvation.
The mystical Church is not an optional extra to individual salvation - it is the only path of individual salvation.
We can save-others and be-saved-by others - but we can do nothing for ourselves.
*
Salvation depends on individual choice. It must be accepted. But it is not an individual matter.
Neither is it a matter of human institutions or institutional arrangements.
But human institutions make a difference, a significant difference, to human choices.
*
Advice (to myself) for the End Times.
Real Christianity is of individuals, not of institutions. (Although institutions matter, especially negatively.)
Forget about ecumenism - it is worldly.
Mourn, but do not try to mend, schism.(Once broken, always broken.)
Practice the fullness of denominational paths, if you can.
Seek unity of the mystical Church, via Love of Christ
*
The subtitle comes from the mantra taught to Father Jack - the continually drunken and debauched priest - for use in talking with a visiting bishop in the TV series Father Ted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvwNR3vF44&ob=av3e
*
Or, rather, not.
*
A century of 'ecumenical' discussions about reunification of the main separated denominations of the Christian Church led to nothing except a heap of books, conferences and international travel for churchmen.
Any unification there has been has been a result of weakening/ abandonment of the faith until there is nothing left to disagree about - and substitution of secular values (Leftism - which unites the elites of all major mainstream religions in the West).
*
It is clear that the only true reunification is for one denomination to subordinate itself to another.
This is a real possibility at any time: e.g. the Anglican Ordinariate is the subordination of the ex-Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church - retaining certain aspects e.g. liturgy.
(But this simple negotiated or unconditional surrender was not what the ecumenical movement was supposed to be about.)
*
What does it matter?
A personal view.
*
Schism is an evil, schism weakens the power of the Church, schism reduces the scope of salvation and hastens the end times - but for real Christians schism is not fatal to salvation, nor to the unity of the mystical Church.
None of the denominations is The Truth, none provide an assured path; all have corruptions.
Some aim higher - some achieve a higher average; some are mostly right while others are mostly wrong; each has a different emphasis, all have a particular weakness (or more than one weakness) - in all of them salvation is a middle path between corrupt extremes.
(These extremes vary between denominations, and the temptation to one particular extreme rather than another always dominates at a given time.)
*
All real Christian denominations are potentially valid ways to salvation - some are harder or easier, for different people, in different circumstances.
Yet all real Christians participate in the mystical Church via their relationship with Christ; Christians are unified through Christ, and (ultimately) only through Christ.
Christianity is very simple; becoming a Christin is very simple; living as a Christian is often difficult; attaining a high level of sanctity/ holiness (theosis) is always difficult - and will be (almost) impossible for some times and places and persons.
*
Denominations are complex and necessary, but never sufficient.
The unity via Christ is primary and sufficient.
However in many circumstances to love Christ, and via Christ to be unified with other Christians, may be very very difficult - and (because it is mandatory) if this fails then there is no salvation.
The mystical Church is not an optional extra to individual salvation - it is the only path of individual salvation.
We can save-others and be-saved-by others - but we can do nothing for ourselves.
*
Salvation depends on individual choice. It must be accepted. But it is not an individual matter.
Neither is it a matter of human institutions or institutional arrangements.
But human institutions make a difference, a significant difference, to human choices.
*
Advice (to myself) for the End Times.
Real Christianity is of individuals, not of institutions. (Although institutions matter, especially negatively.)
Forget about ecumenism - it is worldly.
Mourn, but do not try to mend, schism.(Once broken, always broken.)
Practice the fullness of denominational paths, if you can.
Seek unity of the mystical Church, via Love of Christ
*
The subtitle comes from the mantra taught to Father Jack - the continually drunken and debauched priest - for use in talking with a visiting bishop in the TV series Father Ted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvwNR3vF44&ob=av3e
*
Sunday, 22 April 2012
The deliberate and purposeful evil of affirmative action
*
People often regard affirmative action (group preferences, engineered 'diversity') as irrational and/or inefficient; but more accurately this is evil - actively destructive of The Good, both in itself and as tending to lead to further evil.
*
Most organisations naturally tend to do two things:
1. pursue intrinsic goals - the proper function of the organisation - what they are supposed to do: 'what it says on the tin' - schools educate, hospitals care for the sick, builders build etc.
2. reduce the efficiency with which these intrinsic goals and proper functions are pursued by self-interested corruption. This is essentially a dilution of the intrinsic goal.
Affirmative action is, however, something new and of a different kind than either of these.
*
Group preferences were pioneered under the mid twentieth century Communist dictatorships. For example, Lysenko was put in charge of Soviet Biology essentially because he was of proletarian origin and top jobs were barred to those of bourgeois origin.
Or, a friend of mine who lived in a Communist dictatorship was blocked from attending medical school because his parents were doctors (hence bourgeois). This was the way the selection system worked.
*
Group preferences operate against the intrinsic aims of the institution, they are a form of mandatory corruption yet they are not self-interested corruption: they are corruption on behalf of others.
This is something new under the sun: altruistic corruption!
*
And this is the secret to the success of AA group preferences in bureaucracies - they are primarily an advertisement of the altruism of the administration, and secondarily open-up discretionary space for graft - they are an expedient mode of corruption by which the administration can pursue their own selfish goals.
This is exactly what was seen in the Communist bureaucracies, and is now seen in the modern Western bureaucracies - complex and explicit regulations justified by their pursuit of objective fairness, and continually increasing self-interested corruption among vast numbers of officials who administer the system.
Affirmative action is thus a stalking horse for self-interested corruption - a potent combination, especially when imposed by central government under quasi-moral grounds.
*
Thus, group preferences sabotage (to the extent that they are effective) the intrinsic aims and functionality of institutions, in the immediate effect of selecting and employing and promoting and retaining sub-optimal people; and in the long term and permanently by preventing the organisation from pursuing its intrinsic aims with clarity and purpose.
*
Affirmative action can only become established and sustained when it is regarded as having ultimate priority - above all other objectives including the functional effectiveness of the organisation; otherwise the pursuit of functional effectiveness will tend to eliminate AA.
So diversity is driven by ideology, and nurtured by self-interest.
So a school, college or university must be more concerned about AA than about the supposedly intrinsic educational objectives; a medical school or hospital must be more concerned about AA than about helping patients, the legal profession must become more concerned about AA than about the law... and so on.
*
And so we get (we already have got) a society in which organisations have abandoned their primary goals of functional effectiveness, and deliberately subordinated them to the primacy of group preferences.
In this situation, nobody is aiming to do the best job they can - at most they are aiming to do the best job it can within the constraints of group preferences.
And if people are not even trying to be functionally effective, they they won't be.
*
So far, so uncontroversial.
But what happens next?
Let us assume that which - after half a century of expanding AA seems like a reasonable inference - that these destructive consequences to group preferences - declining functionality and expanding corruption - are not accidental.
Let us assume that since affirmative action intrinsically leads to inefficiency and dishonesty - that this is exactly what affirmative action is intended to do.
That when institutions come to resemble a lying shell of public relations around a rotting mass of manipulated procedures, that this was exactly what was meant to happen to institutions.
And that at some point a society comprised of institutions which have abandoned their intrinsic functional purposes will collapse or be taken over.
Very obviously so. This isn't rocket science.
*
The fact is that inefficiency and dishonesty - and societal collapse - are regarded by the advocates of group preferences as part of the specification.
And from their own selfish and short termist perspective, that is precisely correct; and from the perspective of what motivates them, this is precisely correct.
*
This is why group preferences are insatiable.
Existing diversity is never enough; always more diverity is needed - hence less effectiveness, more corruption.
This is why nothing whatsoever is done to tackle the problems caused by group preferences, instead the consequences are concealed, denied and overlaid by propaganda.
The pressure is now always for ever-more AA, for 'diversity' to be pursued full-on with no regard for consequences, and a complete denial of responsibility for any adverse consequences - indeed, adverse consequences are always blamed on the opponents of AA.
*
Group preferences/affirmative action and diversity have been made 'good' by-definition; which is as much to say that they are in reality mandatory evil: imposed on and by organisations without limit and with the covert but deliberate purpose of subverting and destroying all institutions, hence all of society.
But why would people do such a crazy thing?
Because they are crazy.
Crazy and evil.
But surely the people are not themselves crazy and evil? Perhaps not - but insofar as they are rational and well-motivated, they are using these attributes to implement a crazy and evil ideology: an ideology whose irrationality and destructiveness is so obvious that most of the ruling elite now spend most of their time and energy in concealing the irrationality and destructiveness of their ideology.
*
The facts are there: organisations and institutions that go to great lengths to advertise their functionality in terms of group preferences or diversity.
The fact is that AA is destructive of Good, hence evil.
*
The more this is explained and clarified - and the more obvious the link between AA and destruction (there are now decades worth of evidence) - the more avidly our rulers implement AA.
The vast and pervasive harms of affirmative action, group preferences, and the pursuit of 'diversity' are no accident.
Destruction is wanted, for the ruling elites ineffectiveness and corruption are design features to be implemented, not bugs to be eliminated.
*
People often regard affirmative action (group preferences, engineered 'diversity') as irrational and/or inefficient; but more accurately this is evil - actively destructive of The Good, both in itself and as tending to lead to further evil.
*
Most organisations naturally tend to do two things:
1. pursue intrinsic goals - the proper function of the organisation - what they are supposed to do: 'what it says on the tin' - schools educate, hospitals care for the sick, builders build etc.
2. reduce the efficiency with which these intrinsic goals and proper functions are pursued by self-interested corruption. This is essentially a dilution of the intrinsic goal.
Affirmative action is, however, something new and of a different kind than either of these.
*
Group preferences were pioneered under the mid twentieth century Communist dictatorships. For example, Lysenko was put in charge of Soviet Biology essentially because he was of proletarian origin and top jobs were barred to those of bourgeois origin.
Or, a friend of mine who lived in a Communist dictatorship was blocked from attending medical school because his parents were doctors (hence bourgeois). This was the way the selection system worked.
*
Group preferences operate against the intrinsic aims of the institution, they are a form of mandatory corruption yet they are not self-interested corruption: they are corruption on behalf of others.
This is something new under the sun: altruistic corruption!
*
And this is the secret to the success of AA group preferences in bureaucracies - they are primarily an advertisement of the altruism of the administration, and secondarily open-up discretionary space for graft - they are an expedient mode of corruption by which the administration can pursue their own selfish goals.
This is exactly what was seen in the Communist bureaucracies, and is now seen in the modern Western bureaucracies - complex and explicit regulations justified by their pursuit of objective fairness, and continually increasing self-interested corruption among vast numbers of officials who administer the system.
Affirmative action is thus a stalking horse for self-interested corruption - a potent combination, especially when imposed by central government under quasi-moral grounds.
*
Thus, group preferences sabotage (to the extent that they are effective) the intrinsic aims and functionality of institutions, in the immediate effect of selecting and employing and promoting and retaining sub-optimal people; and in the long term and permanently by preventing the organisation from pursuing its intrinsic aims with clarity and purpose.
*
Affirmative action can only become established and sustained when it is regarded as having ultimate priority - above all other objectives including the functional effectiveness of the organisation; otherwise the pursuit of functional effectiveness will tend to eliminate AA.
So diversity is driven by ideology, and nurtured by self-interest.
So a school, college or university must be more concerned about AA than about the supposedly intrinsic educational objectives; a medical school or hospital must be more concerned about AA than about helping patients, the legal profession must become more concerned about AA than about the law... and so on.
*
And so we get (we already have got) a society in which organisations have abandoned their primary goals of functional effectiveness, and deliberately subordinated them to the primacy of group preferences.
In this situation, nobody is aiming to do the best job they can - at most they are aiming to do the best job it can within the constraints of group preferences.
And if people are not even trying to be functionally effective, they they won't be.
*
So far, so uncontroversial.
But what happens next?
Let us assume that which - after half a century of expanding AA seems like a reasonable inference - that these destructive consequences to group preferences - declining functionality and expanding corruption - are not accidental.
Let us assume that since affirmative action intrinsically leads to inefficiency and dishonesty - that this is exactly what affirmative action is intended to do.
That when institutions come to resemble a lying shell of public relations around a rotting mass of manipulated procedures, that this was exactly what was meant to happen to institutions.
And that at some point a society comprised of institutions which have abandoned their intrinsic functional purposes will collapse or be taken over.
Very obviously so. This isn't rocket science.
*
The fact is that inefficiency and dishonesty - and societal collapse - are regarded by the advocates of group preferences as part of the specification.
And from their own selfish and short termist perspective, that is precisely correct; and from the perspective of what motivates them, this is precisely correct.
*
This is why group preferences are insatiable.
Existing diversity is never enough; always more diverity is needed - hence less effectiveness, more corruption.
This is why nothing whatsoever is done to tackle the problems caused by group preferences, instead the consequences are concealed, denied and overlaid by propaganda.
The pressure is now always for ever-more AA, for 'diversity' to be pursued full-on with no regard for consequences, and a complete denial of responsibility for any adverse consequences - indeed, adverse consequences are always blamed on the opponents of AA.
*
Group preferences/affirmative action and diversity have been made 'good' by-definition; which is as much to say that they are in reality mandatory evil: imposed on and by organisations without limit and with the covert but deliberate purpose of subverting and destroying all institutions, hence all of society.
But why would people do such a crazy thing?
Because they are crazy.
Crazy and evil.
But surely the people are not themselves crazy and evil? Perhaps not - but insofar as they are rational and well-motivated, they are using these attributes to implement a crazy and evil ideology: an ideology whose irrationality and destructiveness is so obvious that most of the ruling elite now spend most of their time and energy in concealing the irrationality and destructiveness of their ideology.
*
The facts are there: organisations and institutions that go to great lengths to advertise their functionality in terms of group preferences or diversity.
The fact is that AA is destructive of Good, hence evil.
*
The more this is explained and clarified - and the more obvious the link between AA and destruction (there are now decades worth of evidence) - the more avidly our rulers implement AA.
The vast and pervasive harms of affirmative action, group preferences, and the pursuit of 'diversity' are no accident.
Destruction is wanted, for the ruling elites ineffectiveness and corruption are design features to be implemented, not bugs to be eliminated.
*
Saturday, 21 April 2012
And now, the Local News...
*
PIGEONS were unhurt after a fire spread to their cree.
The blaze started in a shed on an allotment in Ryhope Street South, Sunderland, at about 6.20pm yesterday.
The fire is thought to be an accident, after wind spread rubbish being burned off.
*
NB: 'Cree' is a Northumbrian dialect word for a small, typically home-made, garden hut or pen.
*
Cree blaze
PIGEONS were unhurt after a fire spread to their cree.
The blaze started in a shed on an allotment in Ryhope Street South, Sunderland, at about 6.20pm yesterday.
The fire is thought to be an accident, after wind spread rubbish being burned off.
*
NB: 'Cree' is a Northumbrian dialect word for a small, typically home-made, garden hut or pen.
*
Friday, 20 April 2012
The ruling Leftist intellectual elite: well-meaning fools, corrupt careerists, clever sillies or evil madmen?
*
A proper response to the ruling Leftist intellectual elites requires that their nature be properly identified: what kind of people are we dealing with?
My own characterisation has gone through at least four phases.
1. At first I though they were well-meaning fools, who simply needed to be sensibly spoken to, who needed to have the correct information presented to them and properly explained.
2. When they did not respond to rational explanation and good evidence, then I thought they were corrupt careerists; who were pretending to believe nonsense because it benefited their power, status and income. The strategy shifted to demonstrating that what was expedient for themselves in the short-term was going to be disastrous for everybody - including themselves - in the longer term.
3. When they did not seem to believe in the likelihood, or even the possibility, of disaster, then I assumed they were Clever Sillies: abstracting and systematising intellectuals who translated everything into a world of ideals and possibilities, detached from common sense and experience.
4. But Clever Sillies would not be so strategic; would not maintain such an aggressive and long-term (decades, even centuries long) attack on Good things, would not systematically seek-out and try to destroy truth, beauty and virtue.
So I realised, eventually, that the ruling Leftist intellectual elite are evil madmen: that is the nature of the enemy.
Or, at least, it is evil madmen who are behind it all - driving the process across the decades (and centuries).
*
What difference does it make?
Well consider the dishonest mass media; and the way they cover-up, misrepresent, and invent lies.
Why do they do this?
Well-meaning fools are dishonest because they believe that things will work out better - but when things do not work out better but instead get worse, then they would presumably tell the truth. That hasn't happened.
Corrupt careerists are dishonest because they make more money (etc) by doing so - but the precipitous decline of the mass media (newspapers, TV, news, music, movies etc) shows that the elites will lie even when it leads to the sack or bankruptcy - they will enforce political correctness even if it kills them.
Clever sillies will lie when it is interesting, leads to stimulating novelties, serves to advertise their cleverness - but they would never stick rigidly to the PC script over two or three decades, as our ruling elites have done, if this was a sufficient explanation - sooner or later they would show their cleverness by demolishing political correctness; but they don't.
So, it seems that the Leftist elites must be evil madmen - evil because they display strategic purpose in their destructiveness over a long timescale, mad because they have lost the capacity to notice relevant evidence or to reason: common sense and personal experience have no traction.
Of course they are not wholly evil, because only partial evil is effective; nor are they wholly mad, because they retain a short-termist shredness and sound-bite logic; but by unilateral and tactical pursuit of partial goods without regard to consequences, they can accomplish more than enough evil to be getting on with...
*
A proper response to the ruling Leftist intellectual elites requires that their nature be properly identified: what kind of people are we dealing with?
My own characterisation has gone through at least four phases.
1. At first I though they were well-meaning fools, who simply needed to be sensibly spoken to, who needed to have the correct information presented to them and properly explained.
2. When they did not respond to rational explanation and good evidence, then I thought they were corrupt careerists; who were pretending to believe nonsense because it benefited their power, status and income. The strategy shifted to demonstrating that what was expedient for themselves in the short-term was going to be disastrous for everybody - including themselves - in the longer term.
3. When they did not seem to believe in the likelihood, or even the possibility, of disaster, then I assumed they were Clever Sillies: abstracting and systematising intellectuals who translated everything into a world of ideals and possibilities, detached from common sense and experience.
4. But Clever Sillies would not be so strategic; would not maintain such an aggressive and long-term (decades, even centuries long) attack on Good things, would not systematically seek-out and try to destroy truth, beauty and virtue.
So I realised, eventually, that the ruling Leftist intellectual elite are evil madmen: that is the nature of the enemy.
Or, at least, it is evil madmen who are behind it all - driving the process across the decades (and centuries).
*
What difference does it make?
Well consider the dishonest mass media; and the way they cover-up, misrepresent, and invent lies.
Why do they do this?
Well-meaning fools are dishonest because they believe that things will work out better - but when things do not work out better but instead get worse, then they would presumably tell the truth. That hasn't happened.
Corrupt careerists are dishonest because they make more money (etc) by doing so - but the precipitous decline of the mass media (newspapers, TV, news, music, movies etc) shows that the elites will lie even when it leads to the sack or bankruptcy - they will enforce political correctness even if it kills them.
Clever sillies will lie when it is interesting, leads to stimulating novelties, serves to advertise their cleverness - but they would never stick rigidly to the PC script over two or three decades, as our ruling elites have done, if this was a sufficient explanation - sooner or later they would show their cleverness by demolishing political correctness; but they don't.
So, it seems that the Leftist elites must be evil madmen - evil because they display strategic purpose in their destructiveness over a long timescale, mad because they have lost the capacity to notice relevant evidence or to reason: common sense and personal experience have no traction.
Of course they are not wholly evil, because only partial evil is effective; nor are they wholly mad, because they retain a short-termist shredness and sound-bite logic; but by unilateral and tactical pursuit of partial goods without regard to consequences, they can accomplish more than enough evil to be getting on with...
*
Christianity and alien modes of thought: evolution, science, mathematics, philosophy...
*
There is no doubt that evolutionary thinking, when applied generally, is alien to Christianity.
The assumptions, inclusions and procedures of evolutionary thinking are just different from those of Christianity.
But what does this imply?
*
My belief is that this 'merely' implies that a Christian will regard evolutionary theory including natural selection as hierarchically subordinate to Christianity; in the sense that it must (ultimately) be Christianity which decides the applications of evolutionary thinking.
Evolutionary theory will therefore be restricted to specific applications and specific purposes (and not assumed to be necessarily and generally applicable for all purposes).
This seems straightforward, but there are neglected aspects to this topic.
*
One aspect is the hierarchy within the 'sciences'.
Evolutionary theory is subordinate to biology, and biology to science as a whole - i.e. the specific explanations of evolutionary theory are required to use the entities and processes as described by biology; and biology must itself conform to chemistry and physics; and all these sciences are required to conform to the rules of mathematics and logic.
In other words, evolutionary theory is not only subordinated to Christianity (in an ultimate sense) but is more proximately subordinated to the basic sciences, to mathematics, and to logic.
Evolutionary theory just is a subordinate and specialised domain.
*
Furthermore, evolutionary thinking is in no way distinctive in being a mode of thought alien to Christianity.
Nearly all modes of thought are in fact alien to Christianity.
All sciences are alien modes of thought, from a Christian perspective - because they exclude divine explanations - divine causes, purpose, meanings, relations...
And so, for the same reason, is mathematics - and even philosophy (which is defined as separate from theology).
*
Does this matter? Yes, it does.
Because it means that when actually-engaged-in any one of these specialised and non-Christian modes of thinking, then the truth of Christianity is obscure, excluded.
And if, or when, a person is actively-engaged-in these activities (or indeed many other activities such as the Law, of medicine, or a craft) as a job, or for long periods; then for at least that time, and perhaps longer, and perhaps permanently - (when the habit is solidly established) a person is alienated from Christianity (turned away from God).
*
My points are that:
1. In much Christian discourse there is a focus on evolutionary theory as hostile to Christianity. This is true - but it is not only true of evolutionary theory.
2. The metaphysical problem is due to the general application of alien modes of thought (including but not restricted to evolutionary theory) as if they were hierarchically-superior ideas, not to their specific and subordinate application for practical purposes.
3. The psychological problem is one of habit - that a mode of thought which is pragmatically justifiable for restricted purposes becomes so ingrained that it is used automatically (and perhaps rigidly and perhaps irrevocably) as the metaphysical framework for understanding 'life, the universe and everything'. It is always hazardous to use specific pragmatic discourses as general (i.e. metaphysical) frameworks, in case habit obscures the fact that these discourses are selective and biased in content and logic, are created and sustained by their exclusions.
4. In a world of specialised functions, there are therefore many causes and reasons that the human mind is held in modes of thinking which alienate from Christianity.
The cognitive causes of alienation include evolutionary modes of reasoning, but also every other specialised mode of thinking - philosophy, law, politics, the sciences, the arts - since these exclude divine operations.
5. The main hazard of evolutionary thinking is not specific to its use in biology, but its use as a general or metaphysical framework for all of life - the idea that there is a positive value to continuous and open-ended change, that 'knowledge' is relativistic or pragmatic... in sum nihilism: the denial that reality is really real.
But even this is not distinctive to evolutionary thinking: all specialised modes of knowledge including philosophy, science, law, arts... are self-refuting and lead to nihilism if used as metaphysical systems.
*
Conclusion: the individual and societal hazards of evolutionary thinking are real but not unique: evolutionary thinking is merely one of many discourses with potential to weaken and break the tenuous human grasp on reality.
Any specialised and pragmatically-applicable discourse becomes deadly when used generally and as a metaphysical framework - because its own exclusions and biases prevent any specialised discourse from being refuted in its own terms.
*
Therefore the only arguments against the general metaphysical application of specialised discourses - such as evolutionary theory - are metaphysical arguments.
The decisive metaphysical argument is that any specialised discourse (i.e. discourse made more precise and pragmatically useful in particular situations by its exclusions and restrictions) is necessarily and by definition incomplete and biased when used as a general framework, yet it will be incomplete and biased in ways and to an extent invisible to itself, hence empirically irrefutable.
The only valid refutation is therefore metaphysical refutation.
*
To generalise: Modern society does not need more 'evidence', it needs metaphysics.
*
There is no doubt that evolutionary thinking, when applied generally, is alien to Christianity.
The assumptions, inclusions and procedures of evolutionary thinking are just different from those of Christianity.
But what does this imply?
*
My belief is that this 'merely' implies that a Christian will regard evolutionary theory including natural selection as hierarchically subordinate to Christianity; in the sense that it must (ultimately) be Christianity which decides the applications of evolutionary thinking.
Evolutionary theory will therefore be restricted to specific applications and specific purposes (and not assumed to be necessarily and generally applicable for all purposes).
This seems straightforward, but there are neglected aspects to this topic.
*
One aspect is the hierarchy within the 'sciences'.
Evolutionary theory is subordinate to biology, and biology to science as a whole - i.e. the specific explanations of evolutionary theory are required to use the entities and processes as described by biology; and biology must itself conform to chemistry and physics; and all these sciences are required to conform to the rules of mathematics and logic.
In other words, evolutionary theory is not only subordinated to Christianity (in an ultimate sense) but is more proximately subordinated to the basic sciences, to mathematics, and to logic.
Evolutionary theory just is a subordinate and specialised domain.
*
Furthermore, evolutionary thinking is in no way distinctive in being a mode of thought alien to Christianity.
Nearly all modes of thought are in fact alien to Christianity.
All sciences are alien modes of thought, from a Christian perspective - because they exclude divine explanations - divine causes, purpose, meanings, relations...
And so, for the same reason, is mathematics - and even philosophy (which is defined as separate from theology).
*
Does this matter? Yes, it does.
Because it means that when actually-engaged-in any one of these specialised and non-Christian modes of thinking, then the truth of Christianity is obscure, excluded.
And if, or when, a person is actively-engaged-in these activities (or indeed many other activities such as the Law, of medicine, or a craft) as a job, or for long periods; then for at least that time, and perhaps longer, and perhaps permanently - (when the habit is solidly established) a person is alienated from Christianity (turned away from God).
*
My points are that:
1. In much Christian discourse there is a focus on evolutionary theory as hostile to Christianity. This is true - but it is not only true of evolutionary theory.
2. The metaphysical problem is due to the general application of alien modes of thought (including but not restricted to evolutionary theory) as if they were hierarchically-superior ideas, not to their specific and subordinate application for practical purposes.
3. The psychological problem is one of habit - that a mode of thought which is pragmatically justifiable for restricted purposes becomes so ingrained that it is used automatically (and perhaps rigidly and perhaps irrevocably) as the metaphysical framework for understanding 'life, the universe and everything'. It is always hazardous to use specific pragmatic discourses as general (i.e. metaphysical) frameworks, in case habit obscures the fact that these discourses are selective and biased in content and logic, are created and sustained by their exclusions.
4. In a world of specialised functions, there are therefore many causes and reasons that the human mind is held in modes of thinking which alienate from Christianity.
The cognitive causes of alienation include evolutionary modes of reasoning, but also every other specialised mode of thinking - philosophy, law, politics, the sciences, the arts - since these exclude divine operations.
5. The main hazard of evolutionary thinking is not specific to its use in biology, but its use as a general or metaphysical framework for all of life - the idea that there is a positive value to continuous and open-ended change, that 'knowledge' is relativistic or pragmatic... in sum nihilism: the denial that reality is really real.
But even this is not distinctive to evolutionary thinking: all specialised modes of knowledge including philosophy, science, law, arts... are self-refuting and lead to nihilism if used as metaphysical systems.
*
Conclusion: the individual and societal hazards of evolutionary thinking are real but not unique: evolutionary thinking is merely one of many discourses with potential to weaken and break the tenuous human grasp on reality.
Any specialised and pragmatically-applicable discourse becomes deadly when used generally and as a metaphysical framework - because its own exclusions and biases prevent any specialised discourse from being refuted in its own terms.
*
Therefore the only arguments against the general metaphysical application of specialised discourses - such as evolutionary theory - are metaphysical arguments.
The decisive metaphysical argument is that any specialised discourse (i.e. discourse made more precise and pragmatically useful in particular situations by its exclusions and restrictions) is necessarily and by definition incomplete and biased when used as a general framework, yet it will be incomplete and biased in ways and to an extent invisible to itself, hence empirically irrefutable.
The only valid refutation is therefore metaphysical refutation.
*
To generalise: Modern society does not need more 'evidence', it needs metaphysics.
*
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Oliver Hardy - the best funny man, ever
*
But why?
*
It is the way he moves.
People often notice that Hardy is graceful, smooth and precise in his movements; yet the aims are often futile - for example when he elegantly, with delicate finger-tip gestures, clears a tiny space for his eyes after his whole head and shoulders have been covered in oil or soot.
But gracefulness is not funny in itself, even when misapplied - a ballet dancer is not funny.
*
What makes Hardy funny is what happens just before the balletic movement.
Before he takes a step forward or moves his hand forward, Hardy makes a move back and away, and judders, quivers, oscillates with hesitation - before making the forward move.
And this happens again and again, with incredible seamless integration - so that he is continually hesitating then making graceful moves, uncertain oscillation then deft precision, all joined up in a way that has never been matched.
*
What is signalled is a desperate desire to do the right thing, which never succeeds, a tremendously considerate and compassionate uncertainty which always backfires.
After which he looks at the camera with infinite weariness, expressive of the shared knowledge that 'life's like that' - before some final overwhelming insult crashes down upon him.
Even Hardy's aggression seems without malice, and always backfires against him.
*
This is why Hardy is the best of all comedians, because he is as funny as anyone but more loveable than anyone who is that funny.
He utterly lacks the hard, masterful, technical manipulativeness of most great comics (e.g. his partner Laurel, Chaplin, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carrey).
Hardy appears as a man of wholly natural goodness, in a world where he will always come off worst - despite those best intentions expressed in those hesitations.
Yet still he does what he does gracefully, precisely, delicately. No matter what happens, no matter how often disaster strikes, he will always be graceful.
*
That is why he is the funniest man who ever lived, and why we never tire of him; because Oliver Hardy was expressive of 'humour' in all its proper facets.
*
But why?
*
It is the way he moves.
People often notice that Hardy is graceful, smooth and precise in his movements; yet the aims are often futile - for example when he elegantly, with delicate finger-tip gestures, clears a tiny space for his eyes after his whole head and shoulders have been covered in oil or soot.
But gracefulness is not funny in itself, even when misapplied - a ballet dancer is not funny.
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What makes Hardy funny is what happens just before the balletic movement.
Before he takes a step forward or moves his hand forward, Hardy makes a move back and away, and judders, quivers, oscillates with hesitation - before making the forward move.
And this happens again and again, with incredible seamless integration - so that he is continually hesitating then making graceful moves, uncertain oscillation then deft precision, all joined up in a way that has never been matched.
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What is signalled is a desperate desire to do the right thing, which never succeeds, a tremendously considerate and compassionate uncertainty which always backfires.
After which he looks at the camera with infinite weariness, expressive of the shared knowledge that 'life's like that' - before some final overwhelming insult crashes down upon him.
Even Hardy's aggression seems without malice, and always backfires against him.
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This is why Hardy is the best of all comedians, because he is as funny as anyone but more loveable than anyone who is that funny.
He utterly lacks the hard, masterful, technical manipulativeness of most great comics (e.g. his partner Laurel, Chaplin, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carrey).
Hardy appears as a man of wholly natural goodness, in a world where he will always come off worst - despite those best intentions expressed in those hesitations.
Yet still he does what he does gracefully, precisely, delicately. No matter what happens, no matter how often disaster strikes, he will always be graceful.
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That is why he is the funniest man who ever lived, and why we never tire of him; because Oliver Hardy was expressive of 'humour' in all its proper facets.
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