Tuesday 28 July 2020

If motivation is primary - then obedience requires discernment

I keep returning to the fact that it is motivation that is primary; and/but real motivation must be inferred (since it is so easily denied, disguised or concealed). Such inference is called discernment, and it is unavoidable.

If you obey somebody or some-thing (e.g. some institution, including a church) then this does not absolve you of responsibility; rather it means that you have taken responsibility for that person or thing.

Specifically, when your belief in specifics is obedient to some external person-thing, then you are responsible for the motivations of that which you have chosen to obey.

Because you have-chosen that obedience (including having chosen not to choose, but just going-along).

For example; if you have chosen to make a master of an habitual or manipulative liar, and to obey a liar; and if you then believe the lies, defend the lies, propagandise for the lies --- then you yourself are a liar, and you are spiritually-responsible for those lies.

That's just the way it is; whether you like it or not.

1 comment:

jana gatien said...

Yes! What I see happening en masse, whether it be rabid liberals, those aghast by elite ploys or blind followers thinking they're just "doing their part," is an epidemic of self-evacuation. People are continuing to farm out the responsibility of discernment, vigilance and self-determination. And, of course, those we've given are power to flaunt their abuse of it. They can't wield it. We need to unburden them and be grateful that they've shown us what we ourselves have erroneously given away. Complicity with tyrrany is profound spiritual laziness. They want the lies because it means they don't have to do anything themselves. Precisely why liberalism has taken hold: it licenses a total disavowal of self-responsibility in circus-world.