I think that it has been a deliberate and long-term demonic strategy to encourage people of The West to crave the kind of "groupism" or group-identity that was normal (and indeed unavoidable) in past eras - but is now impossible.
The fact is that modern Western people aren't (as a strong generalization) capable of groupism: we cannot immerse in the group mind (except very briefly and superficially, as when the member of an audience).
We are, in other words, individualized, "alienated" - but this also means that we are (like it or not) free - much free-er, much more autonomous as agents, than past generations.
The faithful Christian response to this fact would be to assume that - since it is a fact - then our task in this mortal life is to deal with it, learn from it, consciously choose to operate from the state of agency and freedom that we find ourselves inhabiting.
The demonic strategy, however, is to make this fact into a disaster - in various ways.
One way is to induce people to adopt a "poor little me" attitude: to feel sorry for their own isolation (an isolation induced by denial of God, the spirit, the living universe etc) -- such that the lack of people of the kind we feel a right to, lack of the immersive and spontaneous consciousness of childhood; lack of a group and to whom we can virtuously subordinate our will, is felt as an existential disaster.
The futile and harmful response is then to seek, indeed insist upon, a group to join, to obey, to which we subordinate our values. A group that we will choose to regard as "our infallible conscience".
This often bound-up with a felt-need for protection. People want to feel part of a "gang" that - in response for obedient service - will protect us against what is certainly a Big Bad World.
Such protection is more of a delusion than a fact; because of course the power of the totalitarian world we inhabit is so unprecedentedly vast and pervasive, that no subgroup could, even in principle, protect us against it.
But this demonically-encouraged craving for protection is turned against the Christian by the fact that all groups powerful enough to provide any psychologically-plausible protection (i.e. all large, resource-rich, organized churches), are here-and-now actually part of the System of totalitarian evil.
The lesson I draw from all this is to beware of any grouping, any person, any source; that is trying to induce that "poor little me" feeling of helplessness and desire for protection.
This is an indirect soft-sell of materialism. Because, insofar as it is indeed true that we are (whether as isolated individuals, or obedient group-members) helpless "atoms" in a materialistic sense - the lesson we ought to learn from this fact is a lesson of faith.
In a spiritual domain, we are completely "safe" in the deepest existential sense - because we are free agents in God's creation; backed with the secure promise of salvation to all those who follow Jesus Christ.
We have no need for anything else beyond what we actually can get by our free choices and capacity to learn; and should beware being manipulated into believing that we are helpless, miserable, worthless creatures when we are without a gang, church or any other grouping.
7 comments:
I was asked today if I'm afraid of the war in Ukraine escalating.
I said no.
I was asked if I believe that the agents are rational.
I said no.
I was asked why I'm not afraid then.
I said that I'm not afraid to die
The group is tempting but really it’s individuals I seek, which are in short supply these days.
OT. Did you deliberately 'start from scratch *again*' after your meditation on John? .... You often reflect on the necessity of bedrock metaphysics ... which begs the question, which I missed if you addressed it; how do know you have hit bedrock? I presume one of your bedrock assumptions is that one does not start there.
(I just had occasion check the wording of "do unto others..." and clicked on the first site DDG tossed up which had a side bar headed, cross references. Under John was: "Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. / Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. / This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. ..." and I went, ah, this is why Dr C. is always rabbiting on about love.)
@to - I sense a misread of what I advocate, as contrasted with what I personally believe. What I advocate is that people need to become consciously and clearly aware of their own assumptions, and recognize that they are indeed assumptions. And take it from there.
Possibly. Although I couldn't better that distinction. Your riffs on 'method' are of enduring interest. The riffs on beliefs read like a personal quest, somewhat untransmissible.
On joining a very large group: It was suggested to me the other day that if I became a Roman Catholic, and were sick in a hospital and came to be regarded as a bed-blocker, the Catholic chaplain at the hospital would put in a good word for me by pointing out that assisted [...] is sinful. Well, I suppose it is possible.
@william a - We live in this world, and cannot significantly opt-out. Other people will do what they do. God (by ongoing creating) will work with this actuality, and around this, as much as possible. Spiritually speaking it need not affect us in terms of theosis (spiritual learning) and salvation.
In other words, "safety" ought not to be our primary concern (although we cannot and should not ignore it.) In other words, what "other people" might do to you, is (ultimately, as well as pragmatically) not something you can do anything about.
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