Current AI is "Industrial-scale Plagiarism"

A comment from yesterday by William James Tychonievich on the subject of the "creativity" of the post 2022 iteration of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) is well worth highlighting:

Real creativity is impossible for a computer, but since “AI” is based on industrial-scale plagiarism, it’s possible in principle that it could “produce” something moving. In that case, it’s pale fire would have been snatched from the sun, the human beings from which it plagiarized.

Industrial-scale plagiarism is a useful phrase to remember. 

Current AI is Exactly That - and as with all forms of plagiarism, whenever it generates something apparently creative, that is merely a re-labelling of human-derived creativity - an unacknowledged theft more or less disguised through distortion by selection and recombination. 

It reminds me strongly of that "fake creativity" I discussed in The Genius Famine (word search for it); when humans (e.g. those working in in advertising, PR, journalism) claim other people's original ideas, but disguise the origins of their de facto plagiarism using similar strategies.  

Yet, as William goes on to say: All this is hypothetical, though. In the real world, “AI” products remain palpably and repellently soulless. 

That spiritual fact tells us much about the motivations behind AI. 

The intentional psychological and spiritual harm of current "AI" is located in the deceptive sleight of hand that pretends "intelligence" and creativity when dishonest plagiarism is done by computers. 

Because these machines are operated by mega-corporations that stand above-the-law and control the mass media and "science" in a closed-loop; they are enabled to steal brazenly, indeed with vast self-congratulation; larded with repeated assertions of their own brilliance and wisdom. 

Such behaviour would potentially lead to legal action and heavy fines if it was proved against ordinary human beings. 

But when done under the disguise of AI, this is supposed to make us stand in awe of the industrial scale plagiarizers; to induce us to acknowledge them as higher and better forms of "intelligence".

We are supposed to conclude that the Establishment justifiers, funders, and operators of AI; not only can and shall (by force majeure), but actually deserve to, take-over the running of the world from the minds and souls of (puny) individual persons. 

The idea is that post-2022 AI has successfully rendered obsolete those human beings from-whom anything that happens to be good in AI (including the existence of AI programs and engineering) has originally been stolen.   

PSYOP Thought Experiments: How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?

You may think she's cute - but she's a replicant, you fool!

Thought experiments are usually pretty evil mind manipulations, as I've said before. 

The thing is that in order to respond to thought experiments, you must allow yourself to admit them as possible, as potentially real. 

I got the title of this post from an advert for an NYT "Best Selling" book of such questions - which provides a clear example of the PSYOP nature of Establishment-allowed and Mass Media-publicized thought experiments. 

"How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?" compels us to admit (for the purposes of argument, in our own understanding) that the very highest realms of human creativity can - in principle - be replicated by computers. 

Of course there is no instance of any such creativity from a computer ever; for the good reason that it is impossible - impossible in principle, not in practice.

But we are supposed to take it seriously, and in doing so we take it seriously - and thus genius-level computer creativity becomes a social reality, even when a real impossibility. 

One could extend the thought experiment (and of course this has been done, is being done, on a near daily basis in the media and elsewhere); to even more subversive questions as: 

"How would you react if you learned that your deeply loved wife of twenty years was in fact a robot"? 

Or the Philip K Dick story The Electric Ant, in which the "how would you react" is to learning that you yourself were a robot*.   

Focusing on "how would you react" is a classic way of smuggling assumptions; of the "do you still beat your wife" type, or implicit character-assassinations like asking "what made X become such an murderous psychopath?". 

(Of course, PKD is the genius-originator of this line of thought-experiment; with a difference that he really lived it.)

The PSYOPS give-away is that this kind of supposedly-free-thinking-radical, subversive, confusing, delusion-inducing, doubt-generating, demotivating thought experiment is media mainstream - often mandatory in schools and colleges; and indeed currently a Major (Trillion Dollar) part of public funding, strategy and propaganda... 

Is actually located in an Establishment monitored and controlled public discourse; in which innumerable and ever-increasing everyday and obvious experiences and observations are treated as hate-facts: taboo, suppressed, slurred, dishonestly-denigrated, excluded, and increasingly punishable. 

This kind of detailed, long-term manipulation of discourse - such that the impossible must be taken seriously and the true must be regarded as a lie - is clearly intentional and strategic... Global and totalitarian PSYOPS, in other words. 

A dangerous product?...

 

I developed conjunctivitis in my right eye, and went and bought some treatment; and only after I had used it, too late, did I realize that the bottle was labelled infected eye drops. 

It's outrageous that such a dangerous product can be sold to the unwitting public. 

What is it about eye drops, anyway? 

Prayer addressed to Jesus is primary

For Christians; prayer addressed to Jesus is primary - because it is by-Jesus that we attain salvation. 

This world, this Primary Creation, is mortal, temporary; goodness is mixed with evil and death... Therefore eternal salvation to wholly-good Heaven without death is the most important thing - for those who want it. So, prayer to Jesus must be primary. 

Prayer to God the Primary Creator, is about our hope or intention to affect positive change in this mixed,  temporary, mortal world. 

Miracles and answered-prayers are the provenance of the God, Primary Creator: because God is creating this world, and it is by creation that miracles are effected and prayers answered.

Amelioration during this mortal life is potentially significant, especially if this leads to faith in Jesus Christ, or helps us to learn spiritual-lessons from the experiences of mortal life.

But prayer to God for present help, is secondary in importance to the eternal matter of salvation. 

 

First Creation is groupish - Second Creation is individual

The Primary Creation is groupish, because it is universal: the creation of everything that is created, for everything that is created.  

We all inhabit the First Creation - and can only "opt-out" in the sense of annihilating awareness of our self as a distinct entity. 

Second Creation is personal, individual... 

Because the Second Creation is "opt-in" - Heaven is accessed by a decision/ action of a specific person. Heaven is not universal; it is inhabited by those who have chosen it. 

Direct Knowing or Intuition... How I try-to Do It - in practice

In the past (and perhaps still, in other cultures) men spontaneously experienced "contact" with gods or God, the divine - more generally, spirits, the dead/ ghosts, and many other supernatural/ paranormal forms of interaction such as with remote persons or animals. 

These also include sensory/ perceptual experiences such as the seeing of spiritual visions, or hearing voices and having conversations 

But here-and-now it seems that adult and healthy (or healthy-ish) modern Men - and I count myself as pretty typical in this respect - do Not spontaneously have such experiences; nor can we have such experiences in alert, healthy, and clear consciousness; no matter how we strive. 

"Contact" of this sort only happens spontaneously to modern Men in states of lowered consciousness; such as dreaming sleep, trance, intoxication; or when there is brain dysfunction in psychosis (including with brain diseases, such as dementias). 

To my mind, the difficulty or impossibility of having these supernatural/ paranormal experiences of contact and interaction, points to the conclusion that the old sensory/ perceptual experiences (while they may lead to good) are ultimately retrograde, "atavistic", and often motivated by a nostalgia and desire to revert to an earlier (less conscious, more automatic, less free) phase of the development of consciousness (which we may recall from early childhood, or have imaginatively experienced).

But given the mundane and alienated nature of typical modern consciousness, and more importantly (indeed vitally) the necessity for each of us to receive personal guidance from the Holy Ghost in particular - given these needs, we must develop other ways of establishing some kind of experienced-interaction or "contact" with spirit Beings.

Indeed, I have often said that this kind of interaction is the basis for metaphysical reflection on the fundamental nature of reality. It is the basis of that "intuition" upon which everything depends - and which I have variously called "direct knowing", or sometimes "heart thinking" or "primary thinking". 

The point is How To Do It?  

In my experience, I think this contact works by an awareness of such contact while actually speaking, writing, or thinking. 

It is a "direct" form of knowing, because (unlike the past and other cultures) there is no sensory aspect.

What it is like is a deep and simple sense of affirmation or rejection, support or opposition, yes or no. 

Such a "feeling" is indeed the deepest awareness of which I am capable. 

This does not mean the experience is infallible, but that it is the best I can do - here and now. 

Because the experience is deep, it is not reached as a result of inference from other kinds of evidence, nor does the awareness come with "proof" of itself - although naturally evidences, proofs, excuses and the like can be derived or contrived secondarily - after the guidance. 

Since this mortal life is mostly about what we ought to try to do, here and now - in these particular circumstances - the experience-of-itself suffices.

    

As an example; this is how I have developed my fundamental theological convictions. For instance, I needed to decide whether "God" was single or a dyad: more exactly I wanted to know whether God meant a Heavenly Mother, as well as Father. 

I had come across the idea of God as originally eternally-married man and woman from Mormon theology, and then later the work of William Arkle. I had felt an immediate stirring and attraction to this knowledge, an experience that proved robust to re-acquaintance.  

To discover its truth, to discover whether I ought to assume such a reality; I wrote about it. Writing for myself, in a journal; candidly and without an audience. 

I also talked, a little, about the idea. But it is very rare to find anyone with whom such fundamental (metaphysical) subjects can be discussed in a way that is an be both unselfconsciously confident on my part, and with sufficiently engaged and sustained attention on the other person's side. 

So verbal discussion is, in practice, seldom of much value - which is why writing (or indeed speaking aloud to oneself, for those who cannot or do not write) can be so helpful. 

Furthermore; I thought about the subject in solitude and quiet (i.e. I prayed, in one sense of praying) - with attention to what followed in this deep level of awareness. 

To explain further: this is something done with a high level of conscious awareness; because it is necessary to have two "things" in mind simultaneously: both our question and the inner-awareness of a response from another Being.

To me, this puts a tight limit on the kind of question that can be asked - the question must be worked upon until I have it absolutely clear and simple in my mind; and as soon as I have done this, and made the decision to seek some kind of guidance or opinion, and have attained a quietly attentive and concentrated mind-set: the answer arrives immediately. 

The source of this inner endorsement (or rejection) is varied, and something we can decide - or, at least, we can decide "who we are asking" to the extent that we can validly conceptualize another Being. 

For instance, and most importantly, the Holy Ghost is (by my current best understanding) the ascended Jesus Christ and his spouse Mary Magdalene. If I address this understanding of the HG, then the response depends to some extent on the validity of my conception. 

If instead (like mainstream traditional Christians) I regarded the Holy Ghost as the spirit aspect of the Trinity; then this might well have an effect on the shape of my question, and therefore the answer. 

Indeed, if the question is "improperly addressed" then there may be no answer. 

That has been my understanding of what is going on when I am seeking an answer to a question rooted in false premises, false assumptions. Nothing happens. 

Then there is the problem of the source of the answer - in particular whether there might be a situation where a demon was to impersonate a spirit of Good (an angel), or the Holy Ghost? 

My only answer, and I think the only real and relevant answer, is that this depends on our motivations and intentions and general stance with respect to God and divine creation.  

If (for instance) we are really seeking answers for selfish purposes; or if we a really aligned with Satan and against God; then such motives and stances are bound to distort and subvert the answers we get.  

The only conclusion is to strive for thorough honesty; and a vital part of honesty is to try and be as conscious as possible of our real assumptions, motives etc; and then as clear and explicit as possible in describing these to our-selves. 

Can we be misled and wrong? Yes of course! There is no recipe for being right. 

Should be strive to be absolutely certain, with no possibility of wrongness, doubt or change of mind? No!

In this mortal world we operate from very distorting circumstances, such that being ultimately and universally absolutely correct in all significant respects surely cannot be the most important thing from God's perspective.

What typically matters is that we personally get things sufficiently right in the situation in which we now find ourselves. 

Other problems will arise, situations will change, we ourselves will change - but that is all uncertain, indeed it is (because of the agency of beings) profoundly contingent. 

What we must deal with in our mortal lives occurs as some primary issue, here-and-now... And Christians will have faith* that sufficient personal capability and external guidance is always available for everybody to accomplish this adequately - albeit never "perfectly."

+++

*Note: Will have faith, because we can be confident that God-the-creator is also our loving Father (or our parents, as I believe); who therefore has individual concern for the salvation and spiritual development of each-and-all of his children. So we-ourselves and our circumstances have-been and are-being created that way. Since this loving God is creating all the time, we know that our situation always has an attainable positive path forwards - for as long as our lives are sustained.

The needs of the early Christian Church

The simple, personal and next-worldly offer of Jesus Christ - for resurrected eternal Heavenly life to those who followed him - had-to-be, and was, fitted-into a scheme that:

1. Required a Church. 

2. Operated at a group-level - because, in that time and place, individuals we groupish in consciousness, and could not conceptualize themselves as autonomous, agentic, individuals*

3. Prescribed a complex and detailed set of this-worldly behaviours. 

But now that Men have a different consciousness; 

one in which much that was spontaneous and unconscious is conscious and must be chosen;

a mode of consciousness that is spontaneously autonomous, alienated; and both able- and compelled- to be free...

We can, and probably must - sooner or later - recognize that The Creator has (because he loves us each as individual persons) arranged this creation such that we can all - as individuals, and whatever our nature and circumstances - avail ourselves of Jesus's gift and offer. 

After all; why would a good and loving God do otherwise? 

Why would such a God make salvation indirect, mediated, circumstantial, contingent upon social factors and individual personalities? 

The answer is He Would Not!

We now can realize what Jesus did and said, from the beginning; but only recently have we been able to know and act upon it. 

First Creation salvation is groupish - Second Creation salvation is individual

The contrast can be seen between the Old and New Testaments. 

In the Old Testament, the salvation hoped-for (e.g. from the Messiah) is groupish - of Israel, the nation.

It is not individual - the individual is mortal, disposable, and will die; and after death his depersonalized remnant will be go to the shadowy, ghost-filled, underworld of Sheol. 

Only the group - Israel - is potentially everlasting.

(If it pleases God; if Israel is obedient to God). 

In the New Testament (most authoritatively and clearly in the Fourth Gospel), the salvation offered by Jesus Christ is personal, individual; it is a choice/ decision/ action of each specific person. 

 

The First Creation is groupish; but the Second Creation is individual. 

Why have "pilgrimages" become popular?

In the UK, at least, "pilgrimages" (including to "Recognized" Christian sites) have in recent decades become popular among churchy people and the secular-intellectual middle class more generally, and are often depicted in the mass media. 

Since Christianity continues its steep decline and top-down destruction; this phenomenon could only be happening if pilgrimages were - or, at least, were expected to be - "a bad thing" and to do spiritual harm. 

And indeed, this largely seems to be the case. 

For a start; modern people are simply incapable of responding to symbolic phenomena such as pilgrimages, with the kind of spirituality-sustaining and motivating power that was possible (indeed apparently usual) in medieval times. 

For instance, the premier healing pilgrimage site of Lourdes was closed during the Birdemic; so clearly real belief in the power of place and pilgrimage thereto was absent. 

Indeed, nearly all Holy Places (including all churches) were locked-down and the public excluded; with the expressed approval of the pious - evidently, there is nowadays negligible actual lived-experience of a Holiness linked with place and artefact.   

So modern pilgrimages (whether by the explicitly materialist-secular majority, or by the minority of self-identified Christians) are inevitably more of the nature of a holiday/ lifestyle-thing than anything resembling a real pilgrimage. 

This is evidenced by the give-away of recording and depicting pilgrimage photographically and "sharing" these images and narratives on social media - whether serially "as it happens", or "curated" retrospectively. 

It is obvious that extremely few "pilgrimages" would happen if the participants were forbidden to record and later boast... I mean talk - about their "experience". 

In sum, modern pilgrimage is more like a do-it-yourself form of that populist literary genre "travel writing", than they are a sign of anything in the remotest degree "spiritual". 

Insofar as pilgrimages do "work" - that is, insofar as they actually have a positively transformative spiritual effect; then this is nothing to do with official, recognized, popular, fashionable, photogenic pilgrimage sites; but a matter of individual significance. 

It is most likely that nowadays a special place of pilgrimage would be almost unique to a person or a few people; as a consequence of sharing an unusually similar outlook and experiences. 

And, even when a pilgrimage "works" spiritually in the desired and intended fashion; there is still a hazard to the fact of linking the experience to a place. 

Life away from the place is perhaps thereby devalued; or else if the pilgrim was to relocate and move to dwell in the place of pilgrimage - then would occur the problem of over-familiarity, habituation; of building-up "tolerance" to the spiritual benefit.

In a nutshell: even a spiritually-successful pilgrimage may be alienating - that is, the mediating role of place may distance us (temporally and spatially) from a direct apprehension of the divine in life.  

In sum; it seems to me that, in our era, pilgrimage should be regarded as at best providing a spiritual clue, perhaps an epiphany; and an effective pilgrimage needs to be used as a kick-start towards something else that comes after; rather than leading to the more usual pilgrimage-addiction, or the recycling of the primary act of pilgrimage - whether in discourse, memory, or in practice. 

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" - Satan's favourite slogan. And why there are so many Litmus Test fails

Every time the demon-serving Establishment come up with a new Litmus Test for The West, there are a lot of new fails that follow a standard pattern of self-justification by a this-worldly-expedient, materialist, Satanic trope of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". 

We saw it with the Birdemic: the lockdowns, social distancing, masking, pecking policies - were seen as backed by the entirety of the Establishment, therefore irresistible in this-world, inevitable here-and-now...

And the inference was drawn that since these seemed inevitable; "therefore" on "pragmatic" grounds we "might as well" accept these policies...

Argument was apparently pointless "therefore" we should make the best of things and go-along with them without (probably) self-harming argument or fuss...

So (in the end) we might-as-well approve these policies, and make the best of the situation for ourselves - since there was "nothing we could do about it" in practice.  

If we leave aside the arguments about probabilities and practicalities - what is truly inevitable; and also leave aside the question of lack of courage, and merely making excuses for cowardice...

Then we can focus on the deep issue at stake for Christians; which is that by focusing on this-world, "effectiveness", and pragmatism in the here-and-now - they have ended-up supporting the wrong side. 

They have switched sides in the spiritual war: they have taken the side of purposive evil - they have become advocates on behalf of Satan's strategies*.  

This happened again in relation to the self-styled "AI" that was suddenly (at the end of 2022) world policy, top-down implemented, and emanating from the Establishment institutions of global totalitarian 

This is a Litmus test issue that has (so far, apparently) been failed by some of those who had passed previous Litmus Tests including the Birdemic-Peck and the Fire-Nation War; who now engage-with, explore, and advertise what they say are the possibilities of AI for "Good": for spiritual and/or Christian purposes...

This superficially seems bizarre - since the evil nature of AI ought to be obvious from its provenance (i.e. who developed and is pushing it), and the focus and nature and stated goals of propaganda in its favour. 

Yet the usual pattern of spiritual corruption is evident - and with same-old usual "can't beat 'em. join 'em" justifications.  

The root of this repeated pattern of failed discernment; Christian apostasy; and changing sides from God to anti-God, from Christ to Antichrist in the spiritual war of this world - is failure to understand and live by the fact that the kingdom of Jesus Christ really and truly is Not of this world.  

What this means (or should mean) is the practicalities and probabilities of this world should mean Nothing when it comes to discerning Good from evil, and choosing our sides. 

Ultimately; who cares what you or I feel about what is and is not possible in particular circumstances? Who cares whether we are courageous or cowardly. 

(Jesus came to save sinners - and cowards certainly are that - but it does not matter to salvation.)  

The point is that salvation is not about what is practical or possible in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and neither does it depend on exceptional personal qualities. 

But salvation does depend on wanting what is good, on wanting salvation - which is everlasting resurrected life in a heaven that is wholly good, and which excludes all evil.

Salvation does depend on knowing and choosing The Right Side. 

Therefore, when we fail a Litmus Test and as a result end-up by innerly supporting the side of evil; then we have made an actual choice against salvation - and this inner decision is typically very evident from the perspective of those who have made the choice for salvation. 

People start-out by trying to calculate this-world expediency; and end-up by picking their spiritual alignment on that basis. 

The Litmus Test fail has actually merely unveiled an un-Christian mind-set. 

It does not matter what are the (real or guessed) worldly probabilities and practicalities - if we are choosing our spiritual alignment on a this-worldly basis, then we are behaving un-Christianly. 

What we should do is clear, simple, and within the capacity of everybody in all possible circumstances. 

(Jesus opened an achievable path to salvation for everyone.)  

We should discern Good from evil - which in the case of Litmus tests is easy - as easy as such discernments ever have been. 

(Evil here-and-now is as obvious as evil ever gets.) 

Then by inward act; we choose the side of Good, recognize and reject the side of evil. 

That's it, that is all! - yet little as it seems; it's too much for most people to do. And that is because their eyes and minds and aspirations are overwhelmingly and ultimately fixed on this world, and not the next. 

 +++

 *NOTE: It has always seemed clear to me that advocating sin is much worse than practising sin. This, because we cannot help but be sinners - that is, unaligned with divine creation - and almost all the time. While to act as an advocate for some sin is voluntary and purposive. 

(This also entails that "hypocrisy", in the sense of pretending to be something we are not, or better than we really are, is of itself less-bad than defending and arguing in favour of a sin. The main evil of hypocrisy is, in fact, simple dishonesty.)

The reason why we ought Not to engage with "AI", is the same reason we ought not to engage with demons

Whatever you say or do: AI just keeps-on coming at you...

I don't know whether you have ever felt that somewhat despairing sense of the weariness of mortal Men, when engaged with simulated-human/ pseudo-intelligent "AI" programming - mechanisms that, very much like demons, do not fatigue, and always comes back-at-you -- again and again, with no end point...

This is what chess Grandmasters reported feeling, when they first engaged with powerful chess computers - a "Terminator"-like relentlessness; needing neither rest nor sleep.

We humans use-up attention, energy, motivation on these interactions - but AI does not. 

We cannot go on-and-on; but AI can and does. 

If we persist in engaging with AI; we shall sooner or later be worn-down and yield to it...

Perhaps inwardly acknowledging its "superiority", or (whether consciously or unconsciously) conforming to its mode of operating, its materialist and mechanical cognition. 

This is Of Course one of the primary reasons why we have had AI gratuitously inflicted upon us by the demon-affiliated Global Establishment, why AI is made to be addictive...

And why the spiritual-corruption of those human beings who gratuitously engage-with and write-about AI approvingly, is so very obvious and frighteningly rapid.

***

Note: On the other hand... 

Every single time we discern this demonic reality of AI, when we recognize the evil temptation, and inwardly reject it - we have learned a spiritual lesson; and we have made spiritual progress. 

So our current situation is not All bad!

Not if we take the opportunity to discern, and repent when needed, and learn-from experience. 

(Such is the nature of this mortal life... Unlike The Borg, our resistance to evil is not futile, because resistance is part of the point of this phase of existence.)

Frodo Baggins: "an intellectual" among Hobbits.

 

An observation on the unusual character and taste of Frodo; over at The Notion Club Papers blog.

The absurd Secular Right delusion that the reason for the triumph of the Left was a strategic blueprint for the "long march through the institutions"

Following on from my earlier post; I'd like to add a comment on the absurdity of that oft-repeated claim or insinuation that the (undoubted) triumph of the New Left in the West; was planned and driven by some kind of blueprint for a "long march through the institutions" - a scheme devised by intellectual theoreticians such as Gramsci, Marcuse and their disciples. 

This is nonsense of a kind that this only possible to those with an inverted understanding of the world. 

I mean the kind of people who believe that "the history of ideas" is something caused by top-down influences from the words of philosophers - for instance that the subjective-objective split in modern minds derives from the publications of Descartes; or that the pronouncements of Professor Kant in Konigsberg led to the common belief that reality cannot be known directly and therefore "everything is relative/ a-matter-of-opinion".

The kind of people who see the Left as a Christian heresy, as caused-by Christianity! Rather than the truth that the rise of Leftism reciprocally mirrored the decline in Christian faith; and that the triumph of Leftism was completed only after Western apostasy from Christianity, and the establishment of fully secular social institutions and discourses. 

The non-religious opponents of mainstream New Leftism, or the Secular Right, are very keen on attributing the triumph of the Left to theories and plans; because radical Right theorists intend, or at least hope, to use the same kind of strategy to impose their own ideas. 

That is, the Secular Right believe that if only they could come-up with the correct theoretical strategy, disseminate it sufficiently widely, and then get it implemented - they will be able to influence the West in the direction that they desire. 

In other words - and this is often stated explicitly - the intent among at least the more radical members of the Secualr Right is to to use what they suppose to be the methods of the Left, but to redirect them to supposedly "Right Wings" objectives: Leftist means to Rightist ends. 

Aside from the fact that this is an instance of the Boromir Strategy - or Hey lads, let's use the One Ring to fight Sauron! - and therefore will inevitably have the actual effect of promoting the Left; this theoretical, top-down, Rightism is based on false understandings of the reasons for the triumph of the Left. 

This false understanding of the Left derives, ultimately, from the fact that the Secular Right actually is itself of-the-Left in that it is based in materialist non-religious assumptions, and rooted in values that are psychological - in some version of a utilitarian and hedonic calculus of gratification and suffering. 

The only true opposition to the Left is religion; and the only true religion of salvation is by following Jesus Christ. 

But this is a religion "not of this world" in its essence... 

Therefore; socio-political theories rooted in denial of a personal creator God, materialism, and exclusion of the spiritual from life, can only do net-harm.  

How is it that successful, feted, mainstream Establishment people nonetheless regard themselves as "radicals"?

The phenomenon by which people who (perhaps) began life as cynical radicals or supposed-revolutionaries; later become successful and highly rewarded and decorated bureaucrats, managers, executives, politicians, and committee people - yet still regard themselves as radical - has been noticed (and sometimes mocked) for many decades. 

It was first apparent after those who had engaged in activism (demonstrations, sit-ins, etc) as students; later went on to join the Establishment, to gather prestigious jobs and positions, money, power, awards and medals (and, in the UK, titles such as Sir/ Dame/ Lord/ Lady)  - but often maintained their younger styles of self-presentation (hair, clothes, sexual lifestyle and the like); but always trumpeting their self-image as anti-Establishment, radical, leftist, altruistic, engaged etc. 

This is now so normal and near-universal as to be expected and largely unremarked. 

It is now so usual for Heads of Corporations, Professors and Presidents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, executives and managers express themselves as radical and leftist - that this has become mandatory and monitored; part of job applications and promotion procedures, and compulsory training...

Anyone who is not explicitly radical and anti-Establishment is indeed intentionally excluded from positions of high status, fame, power and wealth. 

As I said, when this is noticed it is usually to mock, or else to point-out the hypocrisy. 

Yet this phenomenon is, in truth, quite extraordinary and historically unprecedented; therefore we are dealing with a fundamental and significant phenomenon which demands a structural explanation.

To be clear: in the past Establishment people supported the Establishment. 

It is very strange indeed that in The West, now and for many decades Establishment people desire - and are indeed required - to subvert, destroy, and invert the Establishment (starting always with whatever is most good, or most functional, about the Establishment)!

This at first seems like a paradox or contradiction, for people to be destroying the basis of their own success; but it can be explained quite simply at a motivational level.  

If you imagine that you are a member of an alien civilization, "an alien", who is motivated by resentment against another civilization "the Establishment". 

Then it makes perfect sense for the alien to both do the best for himself here-and-now, within the Establishment, and also to do so in a way that tends to weaken and destroy the Establishment. 

Personal success is achieved by strategic destruction. 

If you regard yourself as an alien to the civilization that is your "host" which you fear and despise, then the best strategic route through life is to behave as a parasite that feeds-off the host. 

Although successful parasites weaken their host, and tend to destroy their own niche, and kill themselves; but if the parasite can evolve faster than the host and has foresight; then each parasite can be continually seeking new niches to exploit. 

For example, a path to success as a manager is to suck the blood from one organization to ones own advantage, then - just before the institution expires - move-on to vampirise another. 

That is precisely how the modern Establishment operates: both subjectively, in terms of their motivations - and also objectively in terms of the way that society has become structured as ruled by a managerial bureaucracy-mass media. 

(This is what lies behind the so-called "long march through the institutions" of the New Left. It was not achieved by tens of millions of middle class people all over the world following the blueprint of an obscure theoretician; but is the natural and inevitable consequence of implementing the inner motivations of the niche-seeking, parasitic post-1960s Establishment.)   

Such an explanation makes perfect sense of the self-image and actions of the Western ruling class. 

So, in what sense are the Western Establishment actual and conscious parasitic aliens - given that we are talking here about a large segment of the population?

My answer is, in the sense that the Establishment are atheist, materialist and hedonic in their fundamental nature and motivations - which means they are opposed to God, Divine Creation and Jesus Christ in the spiritual war of this world. 

In simple terms: by adopting ultimate assumptions about reality that are materialist/ spirit denying, creation-denying, god-rejecting, utilitarian - almost the entirety of the ruling class have joined the Devil's Party, adopted the world-view of demons, and are therefore quite naturally doing the work of Satan.   

The odd, superficially hypocritical and risible, apparently paradoxical, way in which cynical radicals develop into pillars of the Establishment while retaining their self-image and lifestyle as cynical radicals -- is actually a diagnostic symptom of the takeover of the West by those who are affiliated to the powers of purposive evil.  

It is from understanding things in this way that I conclude these are the most evil times in the history of the world. 

Notice: Barbara Pym continues

A decade ago-plus; I wrote a couple of posts about the English novelist Barbara Pym (1913-1980); and this is just to say I have continued to re-read these on an approximately two-year cycle ever since. 

I never seem to tire of her early novels; and every new reading brings a delight all the greater for being sure and certain. 

My present encounter is to hear the main five of the earliest novels on audiobook - currently Less Than Angels - which would probably be a good first try for anyone interested in exploring her work; since many of the  major "themes" are there (these include High Church Anglicans, anthropology, middle-aged spinsters, "distressed gentlewomen", and curates) and a large cast of younger people as well. 

Pym's alter ego (there is always one in each novel) is this time a writer: the bohemian, thirty-something author of women's magazine stories. 

Pym is very much a minority and specialist taste as a writer; it's "comedy of manners", based on close observation of foibles and reactions in the minutiae of everyday living. 

Not much happens: a church jumble sale or a seminar on African languages counts as a Big Event. 

But for some people in certain mood; BP is just what is wanted - a real treat.  

What would be better than what Jesus Christ has to offer?

God is an answer to the problem of our existence in reality. 

The Christian God is a personal creator; and as such provides the possibility of purpose and meaning, if we choose to align with the divine. 

This God loves us each as a parent loves his or her child; and therefore we may have a personal role in creation - as a member of God's loving family. 

Jesus Christ is an answer to the problem of our life in this world. 

This actual experienced world is a mixture: life and death, creation and destruction, good and evil, joy and despair, love and fear...

Jesus offers the possibility of a life of creation, good, joy and love - forever and unmixed. 

It seems to me that Jesus's offer is the best I know of, that I can believe.  

It has one disadvantage, which is that Heaven lies on the other side of death: we must first die and be resurrected if Heaven is to become possible: if we are to be fitted for Heaven, and if Heaven and our-self is to become eternal. 

The only offer that I can imagine which would be better than that of Jesus is if it was possible to provide Heaven on earth now and without dying. 

I don't believe that this is possible*. I believe that the nature of this mortal life and world is such that entropy, death and evil are always going to be present.  

But I imagine that someone who could believe that real, unmixed, everlasting Heaven on earth and on this side of death was a genuinely possibility; would probably prefer it to what Jesus offers.    

 +++

* In case anybody is interested why I (personally) do not believe Heaven on earth is possible (others will reason differently, of course); the main reason is that I regard the free agency of Beings as primary. 

Unless each and all of the Beings on earth and in this universe (i.e. every single Being, including the mass of non-human Beings - animals, plants, "minerals" etc.) were to choose to live wholly by love; and allow the elimination of everything about themselves that was incompatible with Heaven -- then there would still be evil present in this world, and Heaven could not be made on earth.   

So much for evil: what of entropy and death? 

I regard "chaos" (of autonomous, uncoordinated, unaware of each other Beings) as primal; and God's creation as being imposed upon that. While there is no end to God's create-ing, there is a constant tendency to revert to the primal state, which is termed "entropy". So the harmonious cooperation that is creation, is always tending to degenerate; and "death" is the end of all earthly "things", forms, structures, Beings. 

In other words this is a mortal universe, everything changes, decays, "dies"; and everlasting life cannot be imposed upon it (cannot - because otherwise, with the creator as good and personally loving, eternal living would already have happened and be normal). 

I regard it as a fact of life that we all must therefore die, before we can be re-made eternally; from scratch, on the basis only of love (i.e. resurrected).  

I state my reasons, not to defend or debate them; but because I find them compelling. The point is not to argue about it, but to discover what You find compelling. 

In search of courage/ motivation

Ever since I began regularly blogging some 15 years ago; I have cycled around this distinctively modern problem of demotivation. Modern Western people are strikingly lacking in powerful motivators, compared with earlier generations - and this is the reason why we are so lacking in courage, so cowardly. 

The deep reason is obvious enough - our atheism, materialism, our systematically built-in cultural assumption that there is neither purpose nor meaning to life.

In a word: our nihilism. 

In seeking to escape such nihilism, some people turn to ideologies - but (lacking a personal and loving God) these always turn out to be rooted in negative values - hence incoherent; and incoherence cannot provide us with strong and lasting motivations. 

This is why people just go long with (what they perceive - as manipulated by the mass media) to be "the flow". 

Lacking inner motivation, they seek to conform to externally structured and short-termist goals relating to personal gratifications. Lacking inner motivation and ultimate purpose, they have no reason to be courageous. 

The answer is, of course, Christianity - but exactly what this implies is unclear. 

All of the major Christian churches are, and nearly all of Christian discourse is, nowadays so overwhelmingly corrupt and distorted in emphasis; that to become "a Christian" is only a very small start down the path of discovering a strong, valid and good motivation for life. 

One problem is that Christians are told to seek the truth in "a church" (i.e. to discover and obey a/the "true" church) - yet Christianity is replete with discourses placed at a level of "idealization" and detached abstraction; such that whatever was resolved by such procedures could never motivate a flea - and doesn't! 

This applies to the vast structure of logic and legalism, complex doctrines and dogmas, wranglings over language and translation, ancient history and context; and endless bitter disputes over the valid structures of hierarchy and authority.  

Consequently, lacking strong motivators, the actual motivations of Christians are just "whatever is socially and personally expedient": whatever is most rewarding, least risky, and in-general easiest in their particular societal niche. 

The would-be Christian falls into such mire because he is told always to seek truth (and motivation) in some external and objective - yet always and necessarily human at the interface - persons and institutions. 

In other words, there is an assumption built-in (from the history of religion and culture) that truth is a thing-out-there, and that truth ought to impose upon us - our job being merely to let this happen.

This assumption talks as if human experience, consciousness, awareness, intuition and insight - had not existence except as distractions. 

Actual people (particular human individuals) are edited out from it, except as a source of interference. 

The picture it accepts is one of a human passivity that excludes the essential "presence" in the description of our distinctive existence as living beings. 

What people don't realize is that this not how things are, but it is a theory of knowledge and behaviour and life and spirit. As long as we allow ourselves to assume such a theory, then we will always be alienated (because we are not actively participating in the process), can never know truth (because it is out there), and shall never be strongly motivated of our-selves - but only secondarily following some external source of guidance. 

Even when someone escapes (for a while) from the deadly assumptions of our civilization, and recognizes that the world is not out-there but participative; and that motivation must derive from our primary involvement in the creation of reality - then the actual daily/ hourly business of being motivated to Good remains a present problem...

But at least it is a real problem, in which we are primarily and personally concerned; and a problem that involves both us and the world; both us and God...

And, after all, this mortal life is a transitional phases - not a thing to be solved. 

What we should seek is the courage and commitment to keep engaged and keep learning; guided both from within and by our real and creative participation in divine creation. 

Ultimately, there is no possible division between inner and outer, subjective and external - reality is inconceivable without a basis that includes both. Yet at the same time we are not immersed in unity, but distinct beings. Our picture of reality should explain how this works. 

And like the knowledge itself, this is something that is learned by inner participation and engagement in creation. 

Learning this is not possible when the self is self-expunged; it is not something learned-from any conceivable external source.  

Our selves must be engaged and participate in the reality outside ourselves. 

Such knowledge is motivating because we personally and actively know it, and such motivation gives courage. 

Note added: Motivation/ Courage are therefore a by-product of solid (Christian) conviction - and not something that can be sought directly. If sought directly, then all that will result is "psychological courage" - which is a product of external causes interacting with internal disposition - and will only be as strong or lasting as the stability and strength of those external causes and internal disposition. The way to get motivated (and have a reason for courage) is to discover meaning and purpose in a way that is underpinned by personal conviction of personal destiny. 

Perhaps a womanly and procreative aspect of God is necessary for a solid belief in eternal life?

I am re-reading Geoffrey Ashe's fascinating study The Virgin (1976), which is focused on Mary, Mother of Jesus Christ (Ashe was a Roman Catholic) - but takes in the broader perspective of goddesses throughout history, in a non-hostile - indeed sympathetic - fashion. 

He makes the stimulating suggestion that a Goddess was primal in ancient spirituality, because she was the assumed basis of the procreative hence creative; and that some form of female deity is needed for Men really to believe in a life beyond life. 

The idea is that a supreme male deity cannot sustain belief in a full life beyond life. So that when the ruling Goddess goes; the afterlife becomes very partial, ghostly, and all-but irrelevant. 

Male deities could never bestow life of their own nature as the Mother had done. Zeus and his colleagues were immortal, but they did not transmit that quality to their human subjects... 

Through most civilized and semi-civilized lands... death ceased to be a passage to a future life... the dead were no longer pictured as significantly existing. They were reduced to feeble, bloodless shades in a gloomy underworld. For the Greeks this was Hades...

With the fading of the Eternal-Womanly, with her cutting-down or anathematisation, [for the vast majority, with extremely few exceptions] death had become the end with no prospect of rebirth. 

Israel's shift was similar... The Old Testament has no doctrine of survival or return... the dead become shades. They do down to an underworld called Sheol, The Grave.

The sole Israelite immortality is collective... God's chosen community...  

I think it likely that Ashe is "on to something" here. 

In the book; Ashe is preparing the ground for an attempted explanation of the rise of Mary the mother of Jesus as a more and more important focus of Christian faith - recognizing that this phenomenon cannot be accounted for by Scripture, or by the practices of the earlier generations of Christians. 

With Mariolatry (Ashe says) we seem to be dealing with some kind of deep and direct apprehension of spiritual reality, probably coming from grassroots, bottom-up, the "masses". Christian leaders and theologians seem merely to have been trying to explain and validate theoretically something that already was beginning to become important in practice. 

From my own experience; I find it striking that Mormonism included a very strong element of the "Eternal-Womanly" with its dyadic deity composed of Father and Mother in Heaven. 

And - perhaps in consequence? - the "Mormon culture of salvation" was (at least until fairly recently) probably the most vividly lived and believed-in form of Christian afterlife among the major Christian churches. 

The spiritually unsatisfactory and unconvincing nature of one-sidedly masculine, Christianity is something I find very striking. I mean the monochrome hardness, negativity, heartlessness, legalism and this-worldliness of Mary-rejecting forms of Protestantism is something I feel is very evident. It is one reason why England ceased to be "Merrie" with the reformation.

But there is something of this in all of Christianity. 

(And this defect has not-at-all been ameliorated, let alone cured, by the dominant trend towards secular materialism in all the Christian churches, which comes-in on the back of leftist ideology. Spiritual problems can only be made worse by "liberalization" - which is actually and always covert apostasy.) 

Insisting upon the non-sexual nature of God does not work either - this is just an attempt to escape contradictions absences and by raising abstractions; which has the effect of confusing people - and thereby impairing motivations.

Furthermore, the idea and ideals of ultimate transcendence of sexuality point away from Christianity (rooted in Jesus, the divine incarnate mortal Man) and towards Oneness spirituality, where (eventually) every-thing merges with everything else - in a timeless stasis.   

The problem is that it does not really make deep theoretical and theological sense to insert Mary alongside the (masculine) Trinity; and she is therefore always accorded an ultimately secondary and intercessionary" role in creation - no matter how central is her position in everyday worship (eg. devotion to the Rosary, or Marian icons). 

But even worthwhile degrees of habitual lifestyle and provision of psychological comfort are insufficient motivations in a world so dominated by evil-affiliated institutions. 

In our unavoidably self-conscious era; these inner contradictions about Mary have become nigh-lethal to strong Christian faith - as is evident all around us.

 

This is why I regard Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Mariolatry as "on the right lines" but ultimately insufficient and unsatisfactory. 

And, as Ashe described , this requisite kind of development can only come from directly apprehended knowledge - it is not already existent. 

To emphasize: what is required is not something that can honestly be derived from existing Scripture, theology or history.

Furthermore it needs to arise bottom-up; which means from individuals, not institutions.  

If modern Men are to grasp and retain the needful structuring-focus on resurrected eternal life; if we are to live-by knowledge of Heaven; then we will need explicitly to discover and embrace what will be new truths of eternal verities concerning women in relation to creation and salvation. 

Let me be clear - Traditional Christianity is now always and all-the-time dishonest

By my evaluation, traditional Christians are being consistently dishonest about what their faith actually entails. 

They talk and write that real Christianity is about humble obedience to the obvious and necessary truth of that external authority which is The Church. 

Meanwhile, all the time, top to bottom they are making personal subjective choices. 

They have chosen their church, chosen to regard it as the real church, the true church, the necessary necessary church. 

They have chosen the evidences by which they argue for all these - they have chosen how to interpret these evidences. 

They have chosen which among the leaders and administrators and practitioners of their church they will regard as true and worthy of obedience - and conversely they have chosen which voices are heretical, wicked, foolish etc. 

They have chosen what is vital and significant among sins and virtues, and one a daily basis they choose how to live their Christian lives among the almost limitless possibilities. 

These are just facts about religion, about Christianity, here and now, as it actually is. They have been and are exercising personal choices all the time. 

And speaking and writing about the need for humble obedience to the obvious truth of their Church - as if that was possible - makes any difference to the facts. 

It is therefore dishonest, in-denial, and grossly misleading. 

To have an honest and relevant discussion, it is first vital to acknowledge the realities -- and the reality is that not a single person in The West actually practices the humble, obedient, Church-led religions so insisted-upon by Traditionalist Christians. 

They do not, and neither does anybody else - and it is impossible. 

Such plain facts of Christian living ought to be the agreed and basic starting point; if what is desired is coherent and helpful discussion.

Motivational speakers, or writers - Edward Dutton on Jonathan Bowden

I recently read my old colleague Ed Dutton's biography of a "radical Right" political figure called Jonathan Bowden (1962-2012); which has just been published. 

I had never heard of Bowden until after he had died, and was not interested by what I discovered. His ideas were seemingly derived from the same kind of (fundamentally deficient) "based", "reactionary", nationalistic, Nietzschian, this-worldly and hedonically-calibrated non-religious sources as are always knocking about on the internet - ideas capable of generating a little bit of light, but no sustained heat.

So it seems that JB was not an original or coherent philosopher - it was not what he said that made him distinctive, but how he said it. 

What was of general interest about Bowden, as Dutton presents him, is that he was an orator of genius, a live public speaker who was capable of inspiring and motivating people in a remarkable way - so that those present retained the influence for a long time afterwards.

It seems that the inspirational effect was sufficiently objective that Bowden has developed a posthumous following, based upon videos of his speeches.  

Ed describes him as a "shaman" - to emphasize the strong magical spell that JB cast on his listeners. 

The other striking aspect of Bowden was that he was a long-term and wide-ranging self-aggrandizing liar about almost everything to do with himself. 

This was very extreme; and while his friends and colleagues realized that Bowden was prone to exaggerate and fabricate; apparently none of them realized the sheer scope and depth of his dishonesty. 

As well as all kinds of stuff about a constellation of false academic qualifications and intellectual attainments; perhaps the strangest lie was a highly elaborate construction about being a wealthy and successful businessman, with a wife and four (or five) children. 

Bowden provided people with all kinds of everyday details and specifics about the family's history and current doings - when the reality was that Bowden was never married, never had a job - and subsisted on a very small income from his father and benefits, probably never had a girlfriend, and lived alone in a rotting caravan. 

This strange story makes me think about the role of motivational speaking, and by extension writing - the considerable extent to which we seek, and rely upon this...

And how there are some people who are exceptionally gifted in this direction; and in ways that seem to depend extraordinarily little upon their actual attainments, or the content of what they are saying. 

On the one hand, it is striking how highly valued is this ability - how grateful people are, for being stirred-up and given confidence and direction. 

And on the other hand, how little substance is needed for this to happen - or even how that substance may be vague, impossible, or incoherent.   

It seems a fact about humans that we desire to be inspired by others - no matter or unworthy or flimsy are those chosen - none of which seems to make a difference to the intense loyalty and affection that are directed at those capable of doing such inspiring. 

As Dutton analyses it; this is what Max Weber termed "charisma" in a leader - and charisma can, to some extent, be associated with a variety of adverse and undesirable experiences and personality traits. 

Nowadays, charisma is mostly artificial and manufactured by the machinery of advertising, public relations, propaganda and saturation mass media coverage; so that someone without any exceptional degree of genuine charisma can be passed off as a "shaman"...

(Just as the public can successfully be manipulated to react to very ordinary-looking actresses and actors, pop stars or other public figures; as if they were truly beautiful, handsome or sexy; or can be induced to regard mildly-competent, socially-conformist and ideologically-mainstream pundits or writers; as if they were towering intellects, path-breaking radicals, or creative powerhouses...) 

But there is also such a thing as real interpersonal charisma - that does not depend on anything except human presence and the human voice - and this "real thing" was apparently what Jonathan Bowden had in spades. 

Lady Day

It seems worth noting that this is Lady Day  - March 25th, officially the Feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the day that Jesus was conceived on his Mother by the Spirit of God. 

Lady Day was greatly celebrated in Merrie England, and was indeed - until 1752 and the imposition of the Gregorian Calendar, when it was moved to the 6th April - the first day of the New Year.

Coming four days after the Vernal Equinox, Lady Day has the same kind of astronomical basis as Christmas has in relation to the Winter Solstice - and thereby links with natural religion. 

England in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages was known for an especially high degree of devotion to Mary - probably something that came via the Celtic Church, with its many links to Constantinople; but was powerfully sustained over many generations. 

It was a day for various kinds of religious celebrations, and also a day on which fairies might be seen; suggesting a distinctively Celtic harmony and synergy of the pagan and Christian forms. 

Lady Day is timely because such matters are much on my mind; in particular the question of the underlying spiritual reality (rather than the theological superstructure) of Christian devotion to Mary - which strikes me as overall a Good Thing, however critical I am of most of the details.

Devotion to Mary seems like a corrective to the abstractions of orthodox monotheistic Trinitarianism, and a heart-warming of Christianity - as well as recognition of a fundamental and metaphysical reality. 

It also seems like a part of England's destiny and the destiny of the English; in some rather obscure way, that I think needs elucidation and therefore deserves a greater effort of understanding.