This inability is most striking among those who consider themselves to be suspicious and cynical types; those who delight to 'see-though' hypocritical masks to the self-seeking natures beneath. Such are adept at stripping away moralizing rhetoric, to reveal a sordid world of bribery and corruption, and self-gratification.
However, these cynics suffer a complete failure of imagination when motivations are seriously evil in nature - rather than merely selfish: when the motivations are actively destructive. The cynics continue to explain the world on the basis of selfish-interest even when the rulers have explicitly stated their destructive intent!
This imaginative failure is due to the in-practice atheism of cynics - cynics do not live by-God (a Christian cannot be a cynic, nor a cynic a Christian) and therefore cynics lack the discernment to know real evil.
For cynics; evil is just normal human selfishness - amplified by operating unconstrained.
In a strange sense, the blind-spot of cynics therefore derives from their residual natural and unconscious goodness! Cynics are 'normal' people, who imagine themselves in a position of great power; and then imagine how they-themselves might behave...
Cynics thereby come-up-with some schema by which the assumed-normal people who are actually in power behave. Like all Men; cynics are significantly motivated by self-gratification - yet recognize that this is anti-social - and so self-interest forms the basis of their understanding.
Yet the flaw in cynicism - as a species of atheism - is that not all motivations are 'normal'; the ruling Establishment are not 'normal people'; and therefore self-interest is not the most profound of Establishment motivations.
This is a profound difference between the world situation Now and at any earlier time of history. There has never been a time like now when the Established rulers were essentially not mostly-'normal' people, with mostly-normal selfish motivations.
We are alive in a time when value-inversion has becomes (and is increasingly) the basis of global strategy. Value-inversion is precisely not-normal; and its roots are not-human - they are instead demonic, Satanic.
This is why it has become absolutely essential to acknowledge and believe the reality of purposive supernatural evil in the world; because only thus can the real motivations of the Global Establishment be understood.
A key fact about supernatural evil is that it does not depend on the essentials of human life: it does not need warmth and shelter, food and drink - it does not want marriage, family, children; it does not desire truth, beauty and virtue.
Instead; supernatural evil's desires, its pleasures, are in the inversion and destruction of such things.
Evil needs to be understood as oppositional: evil does not want any particular state-of-affairs to prevail; instead evil wants to destroy particular things - in particular to destroy Good things.
And that is the key to understanding the world today.
If one can grasp that the Global Establishment is most-deeply motivated by a destructive animus - then it becomes simple (albeit horrific) to comprehend what they are up to.
As a single example that ought to be obvious but is missed by almost everyone; there is a strong motivation being implemented to destroy the world economy.
If we - like any cynic - set-aside the supposed but falsely altruistic 'justifications' for destroying the world economy - such as 'fighting' the birdemic, climate change or the Fire Nation - we can see that what lies behind all of the major initiatives and strategies is (quite simply) the motivation to destroy production and distribution of 'goods'.
While some individual human beings, and even a few small groups, can perhaps benefit from such destruction, for while; such selfish reasoning is both conjectural and fraught with uncertainty - and is not at the root of motivation.
We need to notice that - whatever today's supposed-problem happens to be - the long-term, strategic, 'answer' is always includes some version of mass economic destruction.
(Although naturally, since all major policies require mass compliance, and because economic destruction entails the suffering and death of billions of humans; wholesale economic destruction can never be explicitly stated as a primary objective - but only as dressed-up in the disguise of a fake-means towards some humanly-desired end - controlling the birdemic, preventing climate emergency, promoting equity/ diversity/ justice etc, etc yawn...)
The problem for a world of atheists and cynics; is that actually to desire wholesale economic destruction as a priority and for itself, is a motivation that makes no human sense - therefore it is not noticed by humans who deny the supernatural.
And so - what ought to be obvious is denied as absurd - and anyone who notices the fact is regarded as crazy, as insane!
Because it would indeed be insane for humans to desire wholesale economic destruction; normal people assume that therefore it doesn't happen. But when demonic-evil is in control - the insane becomes normal.
Another thing about destruction is that it is easy!
In this mortal work dominated by 'entropy'; creation is very difficult, but to destroy that which is-being, or has-been, created is easy - a child or an animal (or dud computer programme) can do it. Therefore; people can easily be tricked into doing the work of destruction under pretense of creating something impossible or incoherent, improving something, or any 'change for the better'.
Almost the entirety of Leftism, through its history, has been a series of such vague, half-baked or impractical 'altruistic' schemes - the legacy of which is always... destruction.
All of these schemes are, from the perspective of supernatural evil; merely con-tricks to mobilize energies towards destruction.
For instance; currently The Great Reset is exactly such a scam; whereby some of the richer and more powerful Establishment figures are being 'tricked' into a colossal and coordinated effort...
The outcome of which is sheer destruction - yet hypnotized by an incoherent and impossible daydream of themselves as benign dictators of a 'sustainable' and utilitarian world of omni-surveillance on micro-control - the here-and-now destruction is explained-away as just a step towards a 'better' world.
All the Reset schemes are immediately destructive - reduced production, reduced trade and transport, reduced energy supplies, reduced labour, degradation of money - while this gross fact of actual, ongoing destruction is concealed (even from themselves!) by vaguely conjectural aspirations of 'building back a better world' - sustainable, Green, equitable, peaceful - blah, blah, blah...
This is exactly what must (therefore will) necessarily happen when Men reject God and deny creation - therefore cannot perceive, understand or resist the operations of supernatural, demonic evil.
Active destruction is all around us, yet explained-away over-and-again as merely accidental incompetence (but why are errors always in the same direction?); the mistakes of 'weird' ideology (but why has the world embraced weirdness?); the consequences of selfishness (but why does modern selfishness take such inverted forms?) - and so on.
Nothing can or will be done to stop or reverse the gross destruction; because the purpose behind the destruction is outwith the explanatory models of a Modern Man. Modern Man - maimed in his soul by choosing to be cut-off from reality - has made himself utterly helpless.
Meanwhile, those who recognize supernatural evil at work; can only watch the vast and deliberate - yet invisible - collapse of the world, with mingled astonishment and horror.
12 comments:
This is very reminiscent of the recent 'Edward Teach' book (a.k.a. 'The Last Psychiatrist') He writes about the satisfaction derived from depriving others of their enjoyment (especially in those of us who have lost the capacity to enjoy anything ourselves). Okay, depriving others is not quite the same as destruction, but it is close. Or maybe rather, 'deprivation of others' is the motivation and destruction the means. So 'Teach' goes on to imply *this is the motivation we cannot confess*. We will impute to ourselves and others every manner of base motives in the name of brutal honesty but all these are a defence, lies, for all the time what we truly want is to deprive others of what they enjoy, simply for that reason alone and for no other and since we would if confronted with that truth see it unavoidably for the great evil it is, we go out of our way to see other 'lesser' evils in ourselves and others, to avoid confronting it.
I do not mean to despiritualize what you say. It is not obvious to me that 'Edward Teach' (a.k.a. 'The Last Psychiatrist') is himself despiritualized though for whatever reason he does not explicitly link his arguments to Satan. He is clearly familiar with the gospels and takes them seriously.
I have an important point to make here: you write as if we avoid seeing the great evil in the powerful. The implication of the 'Teach' argument is that we avoid seeing the great evil in *ourselves*. That was obvious in the birdemic: that thing had *mass* support and it wasn't just a blindly trusting many led astray by an elite of unimaginable evil. It is obvious that normal people took great pleasure in the losses sustained by those close to them. Is it unimaginable that a mother who had lost the capacity herself to enjoy *took great pleasure* in seeing her own beautiful daughter confined to house, unable to enjoy the pleasures of society or her own beauty? It doesn't take much imagination to see that. But this is what the mother can *never never* admit to: that her greatest satisfaction is depriving those she is supposed to love and care for of their enjoyment. So yes, we come up with 'good' reasons for this deprivation ('I was trying to protect her') but also 'cynical' reasons ('I wanted it myself') and *both* of these screen what we can never say ('I wanted her not to have it').
I have a sense we were more conscious of the evil in ourselves and others in bygone times, though I'm not sure how I can know this, and even then, it seems, we were scarcely able to name it. But if scarcely conscious of it we somehow *knew* of the evil in ourselves as well as others. Somehow we got adept at hiding it from ourselves, partly as you say (or maybe mainly) through cynicism, through convincing ourselves we see through the base desires of ourselves and of others, as a defence against the *true* unspeakable evil of wanting to take away the good that others enjoy, *just* for that reason alone and for no other. And no wonder we have a hard time seeing it in the powerful for it is exactly that we avoid seeing in ourselves.
@C - I would call that 'spite' and have written about it e.g. https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2015/08/spite-in-some-ways-worst-sin.html
While I agree that there is a general deficiency in the ability to discern evil in ourselves - that is a perennial problem, and not new except that we cannot understand evil without God.
But in addition, I think it is vital to recognize that the nature of evil among the highest levels of the rulers is - in some respects - qualitatively different from normal human evil. It's not just that they have license to do things that normal people want but can't do; 'They' are motivated to do things that normal people don't want to do and would hate to do.
It is this which normal people find hard to believe - no matter how much evidence accumulates.
@Crosbie
Wait TLP produced a book?! I’ve been reading and rereading his blog for years after he “disappeared”, where do I find his recent book? I thought all of that got scuttled.
@Michael Dyer: Yes, https://www.amazon.com/Sadly-Porn-Edward-Teach-ebook/dp/B09PDRBVHL It received a lot of negative comment, which you will find elsewhere. I recommend it, despite the nominal topic (and, as you would expect, covers a ton of other stuff from Scrooge to Alcibiades)
Edward Teach's book is awesome. I'm reading it now. It's worthy of the blog, which is high praise.
@Crosbie
Thank you, not worried about the nominal topic because being familiar with his work, I know Teach really isn’t a “fan” at all. He’s a very perceptive guy in that you read some of his work and feel like you knew it all along.
It may be more dumb optimism than cynicism. They would certainly think the person who views the System's motivation are evil is the cynic. There is an overoptimism that nobody can truly be evil at their core and everyone is redeemable. Its a denial of Matthew 13:25,38-39. Its ironic that as I non-Calvinist I make this point and many of the overoptimistic who are in denial of it are Calvinists. Because it shows a type of predestination. The devil has sown his people into the world, and they are evil to the core and irredeemable, men like Jeffery Epstein. But the overoptimistic say that if Epstein accepted Christ on his deathbed (or his deathnoose I guess) then he was saved, and literally convince themselves that he did! They can't accept that some men are the tares sowed by the devil.
It's possible that destruction could be a person's hidden inner desire.
But if a person acknowledges that desire, he will attempt move away from it or he will attempt justify it as good.
So, sure, it's quite possible that some people have an explicit desire to destroy the world economy - but they think this is good.
It's vastly more likely that they feel guilty about this desire & deny having it.
In case anyone should form a different impression; I should clarify that (personally) I decisively *disliked* The Last Psychiatrist blog, after being recommended to sample it by some commenters; and regarded the author as being obviously on the Wrong Side in the spiritual war.
@PH - I think that framing the problem in the fashion you do, it becomes some kind of insoluble paradox - because different aspects of Christianity seem to be in contradiction. The argument needs to begin with assumptions concerning our incarnation into mortal life from a pre-mortal spirit life; which explains why different people are different by their nature - from even before they were incarnated.
Men are free to choose to accept Christ's offer of resurrected eternal life at any time - but (it seems obvious) many Men do not want to accept this offer (at least, not under the terms with which it is offered - that we must repent our sins and have them 'removed', that we must live by love).
I can't see what useful function is served by saying that a Man is 'irredeemable' - at one level, that may well be so, and it may even be common - but it is so as a consequence of free choices made by the Man, not for other reasons.
But in practice, in mortal life we need not be concerned about such matters, which are between each Man and God. Running human society, navigating through mortal life - we need to made many and decisive judgments and live by them.
Except in the case of those few people whom we know personally and love - we need not be (should not be) concerned whether these judgments conform to ultimate eternal realities that have not come to pass - such as the damnation of another Man.
It is a mistake to use remote, media-derived data to discuss fundamental theology and morality - we know this stuff only by secondhand and from dishonest sources.
Hi, Bruce:
It seems possible to acknowledge the existence of real evil while also having trouble understanding it. The motivations and behaviors of psychopaths, for instance, just don't make sense to normal people. It is too foreign. It seems like you could read the Bible and believe in God without gaining an understanding or appreciation for true malevolence. For what you describe, it seems like the perceiver must be as dark as the perceived. But then I am probably too reluctant to have a thoroughly realist vision of the Devil. It seems Manichean.
@Richard
I think that natural Men are protected by the spontaneous sense of disgust for this kind of evil - and the desire to have nothing to do with it, obliterate it.
But this natural emotion seems to have weakened in modern Men (perhaps for biological/ medical reasons); and has also been systematically desensitized by modern culture, the media etc.
Then, the prevalent atheist-leftism has done its work of moral inversion - such that what induces spontaneous disgust is twisted.
To feel this disgust is then supposed to be itself evil (prejudiced, hatred-phobia); and instead that which evokes of disgust is regarded as superior.
A disgusted response is made evidence of inferiority to that which evokes it.
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