The dissident internet is altogether too keen on the "I'm a victim, others are to blame", resentment-fuelled, attitude of the mainstream Western civilization.
One version is to describe (accurately enough) the us-and-them, insulated-from-reality nature of the Western leadership class; without mentioning that this is just a more exaggerated version of what is the normal, standard, prevalent attitude and life of the Western masses.
An instance is the mass media, and the journalists who inhabit (infest?) it. The mass media are widely recognized - at least at the level of lip-service - to be shallow, selfish, sensation-seeking, completely irresponsible, and utterly untruthful...
What is left-out is that the Western masses are both helplessly and willingly addicted to exactly this mass media (often absorbed indirectly, via the even-worse amplification systems of social media).
The Godless materialism and selfish short-termism of the Western "elites" is well-described and much bemoaned - yet the Western masses are subject to exactly the same un-repented sins - albeit at a quantitatively lower level.
The fire-hose of lying pseudo-compassion from public figures, masking lust for pleasure for themselves, terrified grasping at safety, and a spitefully-motivated destruction for those they dislike or fear - is common to both leaders and led in The West.
The West is a civilization that has, again and again for many generations, made the wrong strategic decisions at every level. Again and again we have chosen the superficial over the profound, the immediately gratifying over the purposive; the material over the spiritual.
And perhaps most importantly of all: chosen untruth above truth: For many decades, more and more, faster and faster - we have made purposive and systemic dishonesty into Our World.
By now we are very deep in a mire of our own choosing - and we continue to choose it.
This is much worse than a (mere) "failure to act" - it is a failure to understand, to think, and to desire what is Good - and this is compounded by the failure even to want to do the right things.
Our situation is not one that can be "fixed" by common sense and pragmatism; because CS and P are operating on the basis of cumulative evil decisions; and will only lead us deeper into the mire of superficial materialism that is killing us - by past and continuing choices.
Such are the realities - and such is unsayable; because we have become so spiritually-weak and faithless that we cannot face reality without despairing - reality cannot be faced by the ruling classes, and it cannot be faced by the masses, and it cannot be faced by most of those who call themselves Christian.
(Who are so lacking in faith that they routinely muffle their ears and shriek "Help! That nasty man is blackpilling me!" Such is their dependence on optimistic materialism, the feebleness of their spiritual hope, that they can do no other than denigrate the messenger and deny the message.)
So we get multiple and sustained hysterical outbursts of facile and counterproductive this-world optimism: clutching at fake straws has become an intellectual industry - including among even the serious advocates of traditional church Christianity.
Yet matters really are very simple - and hope-full. We find ourselves painted into a corner, everything mainstream, traditional and publicly validated merely adds to the surrounding paint...
We cannot escape without first understanding properly the situation: recognizing the extent and depth of our predicament.
But then we can personally and spiritually escape the predicament - which is the only real and possible escape.
And then?
Well, then, who knows what?
God's loving relationship is primarily with each of us, and salvation is likewise an individual business first and foremost.
A truly-better society (insofar as this is possible) is not (and never has been) planned and imposed top-down; but is emergent from better people - starting with ourselves.
No matter our many weaknesses; faith in God the creator and our loving Father; tells us clearly that we are each fully equipped, by God, for the task ahead in the times in which we find-ourselves.
That's all we need to know.
1 comment:
"Our situation is not one that can be "fixed" by common sense and pragmatism; because CS and P are operating on the basis of cumulative evil decisions; and will only lead us deeper into the mire of superficial materialism that is killing us - by past and continuing choices."
Right. Because what we call common sense and pragmatism are skills that require practice at a high level and must be nourished by a lifetime of engaging with reality head on and thereby learning to make right choices. Our "culture" is optimized to shield us from fully if ever looking squarely at the truth and thus people's pragmatism and common sense is stunted across the whole of society. At the "leadership" level the destructive effects of this deformed capacity for assessing a situation and responding wisely are multiplied exponentially.
Since it's Thanksgiving Day here in the u.s., thank you for pointing this out.
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