Why do people still have faith in inverted institutions?
Why, that is, do people still assume - and live on the basis that - institutions/ organizations/ corporations/ nations of 2026; retain the same basic motivations and nature as they did 100 - or even fifty - years ago?
Why don't people realize (and operate on the basis that) these institutions are (in almost all cases) long since subverted, corrupted, and substantially inverted in their basic quality?
My own experience of this reluctance to recognize fundamental change was that - due both to upbringing and ideals - I had a faith and hope in universities and science (among other types of institution I "believed-in" - but these were perhaps the main ones).
It took a long time before I recognized that these had changed their nature, ceased to strive for what they used-to strive-for; and were not going to reform - because the large majority people in them - and virtually all the leadership - did not want to reform. The large majority preferred the institutions to be corrupt; that is - to be subsidiaries of the single, generic totalitarian-left bureaucracy that controls the UK (and all other "Western" ex-nations).
The original functionally-motivated people who pursued scientific truth and scholarship had been replaced by bureaucrats and careerists - and the politically-motivated.
But for quite a while I carried on "believing" in the institutions; even though I realized that it was only me (and, at most, a handful of others - a tiny minority) who were carrying what I regarded as the spirit of the "true" institutions: the spirit of science, the spirit of universities.
At first I had a quasi-magical belief, and hope, that my own faithfulness to the older nature and motives was keeping-alive the - otherwise lost, otherwise actually opposed - spirit of the ancient and original institutions of science and universities.
Here, I don't intend "quasi-magical" to be utterly dismissive, but to recognize that mine was a covert recognition that in the material realm the institutions was lost, was gone - and that the "spirit" of the institution was now something that lived only in the mind; and only in the minds of a relatively very-few persons...
And then I realized that - this being the case - the actual material institutions of science and universities - the professional career and educational structures, building, money, writings, conferences... the bureaucratic systems - all of these had become obsolete, unnecessary - in fact hostile to the ideal.
In sum; the act of recognising a distinction between the spiritual and physical institutions - which was necessary in order to believe-in them - implied the irrelevance and counter-productive nature of the actually-existing 2026 institutions.
To be true to "the spirit" and to resist short-termism, materialism, subordination to alien and hostile agendas; I needed to rely on my own discernment in choosing goals, selecting evidence and proof, in evaluating quality.
I needed to rely on myself (and the sources I had chosen) in determining what and who was true to the spirit - and what or who was indifferent or hostile.
Yet; if I, as an individual, could locate and sustain the spirit of science or academia - and if, indeed, it needed me as an individual to do so in the face of at first institutional indifference, then active institutional hostility...
Then the institution itself - actual universities, the actual structures of science - had become first obsolete, then irrelevant, then an enemy of the ideals they had once (albeit imperfectly) incorporated.
Because of corruption and inversion, a wedge needed to be driven between myself and the institution; and that wedge drove the person and the institution ever-further apart.
What applied to universities and science applies also, and more importantly, to Christian churches.
Insofar as we depend upon our-selves to sustain the true spirit of Christianity against the indifference/ hostility of an actual church; insofar as we must divide the actual church into a material-organizational corrupt part on one side, and a spiritual-mystical "true" part on the other side.
Then exactly this activity and necessity implies - indeed entails - that we as individuals (and not any actual church) have become discerners, discoverers, and carriers of Christian truth.
Churches have become first feeble, then irrelevant, now mostly hostile to the reality of Christianity.
So it is up to us - each of us - as individuals; or many small handfuls of the like-minded.
The age of "good" institutions is dead and gone - and this inversion has been (by the majority) unlamented and indeed even celebrated.
It's about time, overdue, that Christians ceased evasive optimism and recognized the actuality.
Even knowing that they are failed, including the hows and the whys, I still struggle not to return to them at times. It is difficult to face reality.
ReplyDeleteYou need an event that demonstrates that whatever it is that you are trying to save, has in fact become unsalvageable, at least by you.
ReplyDeleteThe thing with the churches, and much else, is that this event happened six years ago, when as you pointed out they demonstrated that the parishioners might have cared about what they were putting out, but they certainly didn't. So we had the clear indication that they couldn't be saved (and it was the co-operation with the COVID measures, not the rainbow flags), and people still ignored it.
(still testing the new commenting system)
"It's about time, overdue, that Christians ceased evasive optimism and recognized the actuality."
ReplyDeleteagreed. as to why people yet retain faith in our now uniformly inverted institutions...
i long wondered as much myself, Doc. your notions penned here have been most helpful in sorting this quandary. my thoughts on the matter run thusly. is it not simply that most folks are not primarily motivated or even desirous of that which is Good, Beautiful, and True?
"Christianity" so-called is apparently culturally ascendant and it seems to me that people want to be on the winning team (Tucker Carlson, JellyRoll). the failure to discern that the label does not match its contents constitutes a revelation of individual motivation in my book. i'll end my comment here with a quotation from Solzhenitsyn that came to mind while reading your post, and so seems germane:
"Evil people always support each other; that is their chief strength."
When churches closed their doors in 2020, it unambiguously revealed (once again) the massive crisis in leadership and expertise. But just because we have a crisis of authority does not eliminate our need for expertise. Going it alone isn't working out well for me, and it's hard to see it as a long term solution.
ReplyDelete@Derek R - (As I keep saying!) it is not about "going it alone", but about taking personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThis is compatible with an active engagement with a church, or other institutions. We can seek and accept help from wherever seems helpful.
BUT we should not be accepting the *authority* of institutions to tell us what is real, true, beautiful, virtuous and the rest of it.
Our faith, in its essentials (i.e. in what we personally regard as the essentials) must be something each Christian needs to "own".
@Ed - I agree, but most church Christians have forgotten or explained it away - presumably because at heart they do not *really* believe what they say they believe, and therefore approve of the church lockdowns.
ReplyDeleteRich - ""Christianity" so-called is apparently culturally ascendant" - surely that can't be right? Not for many decades, anyway.
ReplyDeleteNothing in serious Western public discourse, laws or rules, operates on the basis of Christianity being true.
All the rest is just lifestyle.
"All the rest is just lifestyle."
Deleteforgive me for being unclear. the lifestyle being identified as or concomitant to "Christianity" or "churchianity" is precisely what i mean.
"regular people" are default evil or in accord with evil, wittingly or unwittingly, and churches and other institutions constitute that support which Solzhenitsyn alludes to.
that personal responsibility that you describe? it is painful and requires sacrifice. this explains the erection and social reinforcement of the collective polite delusion that the institutions and churches yet retain their authority and that they serve their implicit function. if everyone mouths the lie then it must be true. popularity = safety & success. people seem to need that equation to be true, for some reason.
Actually Rich - "painful and requires sacrifice" - up to a point for sure. But I would say that Jesus made things very easy for us - at least "on paper"! In practice, most people seem (so far as can be told) almost unable to admit - even to themselves, which is what matters - that they have sinned and are sinners, or have failed in any way.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found remarkable throughout my career is how little minor inconvenience, slight embarrassment, or even the mere threat of these - was enough to make nearly everybody to double-down on past (or present) errors and wrongness; cave in to compliance; and quite often become a public enthusiast for something they once knew was sinful.
@Derek - Returning to the points you made, I don't think any great stoic, solitary heroism is really needed - at least not very often. Because the insight of the primacy of personal responsibility *can* have positive and rewwarding consequences - as well as losing what is perhaps a warm fuzzy sense of institutional belonging.
As a significant example in my case; my own exploring and testing of reality has led to a strong and sustaining conviction of the reality of direct (mind to mind) contact with (and guidance from) the divine, and the resurrected dead.
As a consequence I have a solid and very hopeful understanding of the way that people may attain salvation and the nature of Heaven - which is highly motivating and also consoling, and largely immune to the vicissitudes of human institutions.
"What I found remarkable throughout my career is how little minor inconvenience, slight embarrassment, or even the mere threat of these - was enough to make nearly everybody to double-down on past (or present) errors and wrongness; cave in to compliance; and quite often become a public enthusiast for something they once knew was sinful."
Deletei too have witnessed such. what do you make of this phenomenon?
for my part, the degree to which i confront present and past errors & sins (if there's a difference) in myself God seems to come into my life proportional to my need for Him in overcoming, in seeking and maintaining alignment with His revealed order.
i agree that "on paper" Christ radically simplified His terms of service, if you will, yet my experience has been such that every move toward greater or more accurate alignment demands a degree of shedding or relinquishing that is unimaginable prior to the discernment of the next "move" toward Him. i'm 37 and had my "come to Jesus" at 33 and thus far these "movements" appear to be endless. it is not unlike playing a piece of music with greater & greater fidelity, harmony, and emotive resonance over time. it's the same "piece of music," but the difference in its playing can be likened to a recitation from a novice student versus Chick Corea or Hiromi Uehara.