The conflation occurs when it is stated or implied that such activities constitute a programme of resistance and reform directed against the evil System of our Western world and towards the positive construction of a better alternative world.
My criticism is that (while pretending to spiritual Christian significance) such discourse is actually being held at the level of selfish, worldly, goals - tips for living a safer and more comfortable life for "me and mine" (with the political spectrum mostly being about who qualifies as "mine").
People naturally seek ways to combine "what is good for my personal enjoyment" with "what is good for civilization" - but I believe that there is a near-zero link between these when it comes to positive good.
(I mean by the limitation on "positive good" that our personal material lifestyle choices can much more powerfully make things worse at a large scale; than they can have a positive benefit. We are more likely to do general harm than net-good, and that harm is likely to be greater. This is probably due to a combination of the entropic nature of this world, and the current - unprecedented - degree of dominance by demonic evil.)
When I come across people expounding the "worldly-wisdom" of lifestyle hacks as if these were a programme for The Good Christian; it is my strong impression that this confusion and false-connection is a consequence of failing to realize the depth and breadth of The Problem, especially as it affects The West.
Anyone who thinks that their hacks, tips, and social or business schemes are addressing The Problem is living in a state of self-gratifying delusion (or maybe trying to manipulate and exploit us for their own goals - whether consciously, or not).
Therefore; while I don't think we ought always to be harping-on about The Problem - i.e. the scale, scope, breadth and depth of pervasive evil in our world - and neither should we be brooding upon it continually; it nonetheless seems obvious that this awareness must be our starting-point.
A Christian can only orientate himself correctly in the world, from a situation in which he recognizes the pervasive "normalization" of extreme evil.
This recognition reveals that our personal-level material lifestyle choices are all-but powerless to have a positive effect on things-in-general.
More to the point, lifestyle discourse displace attention from where it properly lies - which is the spiritual, not the material.
The delusional futility of seeking material solutions to The Problem ought to provoke an attempt to shift from material life-hacks to "spiritual activism" at the individual level.
An honest recognition of the the hope-less-ness of incremental lifestyle fixes, can point at our best (and only) realistic source of hope; which is in addressing our own spiritual motivations and aims: starting now.
No comments:
Post a Comment