Boomer versus Millennial ideology (and potential spirituality)

Because of the development of human consciousness, there is necessarily a generational effect in terms of the nature and possibilities when it comes to ideology - and also to spirituality. 

Biological generations used to be 25 years, but are now more like 30 years; since reproduction became increasingly delayed - and the popular usage of "cultural" generations actually references (more or less) biological half-generations. 

On that basis; I would like to compare (my) post-WWII Baby Boom ("Boomer") generation, with that of their children - who are mostly Generation Y ("Millennials"). 

Also, in order to confirm apparent trends, we would need to go back to the Boomer's parents' and their grandparents' generations; in order to get four approximate time-points.  

What can be seen across this span, is that the size-of-group with which people effectively identify has become smaller with each generation. 

And, as a consequence - the group identification has gone from being (at least somewhat) a positive aim (i.e. "we favour such-and-such a state of affairs" - i.e. a utopian ideology for my-group) to increasingly a double-negative value system (i.e. "we are against such-and-such evils" - i.e. an anti-my-group-dystopian ideology). 

That is, there was an incremental trend from propositional towards oppositional morality and values. 

The shrinking of group size went from the nation grouping (and or race) which may number tens of million; down by stages to a minority subculture - a grouping which may be tiny in proportion and/or numbers. 

And this shrinkage brings with it the de facto impossibility of a utopia - because a plausible utopia cannot be much smaller than a (not too large) nation. 

By contrast, the modern "identity groups" are tiny minorities, who cannot realistically aspire to a society organized around their desires; and who consequently are organized around fear and resentment of the majority who in various ways restrict (or potentially might restrict) this minority. 

Group size shrinkage is also confirmed by the nature of dominant mass media that define, sustain, and amplify group identity. 

In my childhood, for example, there were just two television channels, later rising to three then (in 1984) four. This meant that every TV programme had a viewership of many millions, and a high proportion of the relevant population shared (and was shaped by) this experience. 

The relevant categories with which people identified for Boomers and earlier were large: race or nation; social class or sex, and from Boomers a large age-category such as "teenager". And the media-mediated virtual "peer groups" for (e.g.) women or teenagers were also very large both proportionately and in actual numbers. 

For Boomers; to be an English woman or teenager, was to be one among many millions - with whom one identified.  

By the time of the Millennials (i.e. the Boomer's children) children there were first videos, then DVDs, then tens or hundreds of TV channels; then "broad band" access to uncountable sources of entertainment, information, ideology... 

The attitude changed from being one among millions; to (increasingly) selecting an ever-smaller (and self-selected) niche group - with whom one identified. 

A century ago there was a time when both the religious churches, and anti-religious atheist-communist parties, were selective, exerted sometimes-extreme discipline and control - i.e. the group-entity regulated inclusion and membership. 

But these organizations (whether churches or anti-religious) have progressively shrunk or collapsed - or else assimilated to the (always changing) profile of the mass mainstream. Millennials do not "identify" with the mass mainstream - they are instead induced to compliance by PSYOPS, threats, sanctions - and bribes. 

Because ideology among Millennials and those younger, is extremely "niche"; the groups must pander in order to recruit and retain members; this is required as there is so little and such feeble psychological (or spiritual) spontaneous group affiliation.

But Boomer ideology still retains a much greater element of self-influence by the past larger social groupings, than does the ideology of Millennials onwards. 

This may somewhat explain why large/ wealthy/ powerful/ influential organizations have been so reluctant to retire the Boomers - so that the biggest institutions/ nations seem to prefer semi- (or more than semi-) demented Boomers as "leaders"; rather than recruiting from the younger generations. 

Boomers have usually retained the expectations and values of their childhood and youth - from a time and consciousness when the world was segmented into relatively few categories. 

Consequently Boomers think of the world and the future in terms of few and large functional societal units - whether these units are multi-national/ global institutions, nations, mega-corporations, or whatever. 

But the Boomers are becoming incapacitated and dying; and later generations Will Not - first because they do not want to, but also because they indeed cannot - perform the same function as did Boomers. Later generations have changed, and the world has changed... 

If such generational change is (as I believe) indeed a consequence of the development of human consciousness, then it is irresistible; and the largest social categories will break down. 

Human society will then, presumably, "fragment" - and into ever smaller and less-positively-cooperative units - and the process may (indeed I think it shall) continue down to the level of individual persons. 

In other words; human consciousness has been on a trend towards individual autonomy, including personal choice - but this trend has not yet been fully manifested in societal organization. 

What we fundamentally believe is becoming more and more a matter of our personal choice. 

Choice includes choice of "friends" and allies; and choice among mass-social media for support; but also and more significantly: the fundamental choice either to believe-in what we know to be reality... 

Or instead to live-by what we know to be false in fundamental ways (which is what most people are currently doing).

Once this process has reached its completion; individual-level autonomy of consciousness and the primacy of choice will then become just A Fact Of Life; an aspect of reality around-which we would need-to choose-to operate.  

Not "Wars of Empire" - instead, the spiteful resentment of end-stage evil

The current burgeoning inter-national wars are not "Wars of Empire" - which is one reason why historical comparisons are mistaken and invalid. 

What is extraordinary, essentially unprecedented, about the main current West-initiated-and-sustained wars: the sustained and multi-pronged attempt to annihilate and culturally-assimilate enemy nations -- is that The West loathes itself and its civilization. 

The West has, for many decades, been engaged in purposively seeking its own destruction and replacement by multiple strategies (including ideological-moral, legal, administrative, demographic, economic, agrarian, technological, and artistic).  

Such is not the action of an Empire - at least not of any Empire in history: this is end-stage evil - nihilistic destructiveness.  

As for motivation... We of the West culturally hate ourselves en masse; and therefore we fear and desire to destroy any who do not hate themselves; any whom we suspect of wanting to stand-apart-from our strategy of incremental cultural suicide. 

Our desire to annihilate and culturally assimilate the enemy is therefore not Empirically motivated but instead rooted in resentment; not done in order to spread our values and practices, nor to rule, nor even to exploit for our benefit...

Ultimately, behind the current wars is that familiar but exclusively-modern double-negative "leftist" ideology and motivation; a world-view that spitefully wishes for nothing more than that our enemy be compelled to share in our own self-loathing and self-chosen annihilation. 

The desperate appeal of deus ex machina

"Deus ex machina" is a term used to describe the plot device by which intervention from outside the action appears just before some catastrophic disaster, and solves an apparently impossible problem. 

In "real life" DEM has long formed the basis of optimism - the hope that something not-known (or known but previously inactive) will emerge unexpectedly to save us. 

Or to put it negatively, despair may be staved-off by hoping that "Something will turn-up". 

This may, of course, be true! 

Because we really do not know or understand much about how the world works; so there is never reason to give-up hope.

But hope is not the same as optimism - and it is a very different thing to hope for rescue, than it is to expect rescue by some unknown event.

In particular, it is foolish to construct a specific hope from a logical sequence of double-negative assertions. 

For example, that (for all we know) we cannot be sure that "leader"-X isn't really a genuine saviour, who is (despite superficial appearances) cleverly plotting behind the scenes towards some kind of decisive last-minute master stroke. 

Or, spiritually; the worse the world is apparently getting, and the weaker and more corrupt "my church" seems to be - nobody can disprove that this won't make it more likely that the Deity will (at last!) step-in, make a personal intervention, and save things in some unexpected fashion.

(Such a "saving might itself be negative - as in saving-from the default of Hell; or it might be positive in the sense of establishing a redeemed Church as dominant and pervasive across society.)

Such reflections were provoked by my again considering the (in retrospect) extraordinary optimism that was prevalent among spiritual people in the years approaching and just following the millennium. 

Among many or most such people existed a near-consensus that the whole world was shortly to be raised to a higher spiritual level (higher "frequency" or "vibrational" level); that would affect everybody and every-thing (like it or not).

...Although the more discerning in the New Age clearly acknowledged that for this external influx to be effective would also require a receptivity - or even some positive spiritual move - from each individual; in order to meet this incoming spiritual "energy" halfway. 

So an element of at least consent, and probably collaboration, was also required -- nonetheless the primary cause was a new, or greatly amplified, external influence. 

My interpretation of this apparently anachronistic millennial expectation is that it was the product of a kind of desperation; especially among those genuinely spiritual people who had rejected (or simply did not believe) Jesus's offer of reasserted eternal Heavenly life. 

And, mutatis mutandis, I think the same applies to the optimism (as contrasted with hope) of so-many of those Christians who are serious and motivated about their faith. 

The Christians who believe-in some kind of external saving of this mortal life and the earth; are guilty of conflating the true and sure hope of Heaven, with a false optimism concerning this-world. 

This false-optimism among Christians seems particularly pernicious, insofar as it entails God intervening to save (what seems to me) the most deeply evil civilization the world has yet known - I mean a civilization that is already, and increasingly, strategically and officially inverted in its values.  

The answer is simple, but difficult; and is to strive to be motivated primarily by next-worldly hope rather than this-worldly optimism - and to root this in the faith that God will (indeed, by Jesus, already-has) made it possible for anybody and everybody, in whatever situation, time, or place) to attain salvation.  

The next inference is more controversial among Christians, which is that this can only be attained by taking personal responsibility for salvation. 

In other words; I am assuming that there will be no worldwide, or even culture-wide, deus ex machina intervention; because everything has already been done; and "all" (!) that remains is for us as individuals is to recognize that reality - and to make our commitment, to choose to follow Jesus...

That is the essential starting-point. 

And then... we each need to discover what that actually means for us; for us specifically - here-and now.   

The altruism fake

Altruism - helping others, especially at the expense of oneself - is widely regarded as the highest human value. 

This is especially on the Left, but in a modified form also on the self-styled Right - and very commonly among self-identified Christians (who may even claim that helping-others is the single core and essential Christian moral principle...) 

Yet altruism is a massive fake. 

It is not just an actually evil value - but it is also impossible; so the harm is multiplied when altruism is adopted and praised and sought. 

Since Men's minds have lost their spontaneous and immersive communality, since we all became (like it or not) alienated and cut-off; we cannot any more pursue "the group good" - because we do not experience that good in our consciousness. 

Furthermore; the actual human groups we inhabit are too large and too artificial for there to be any meaningful sense of group-good. 

So "altruism" can be recognized as an evil PSYOP (i.e. a manipulative concept originating from the powers of purposive strategic evil) that has been built, propagated and socially-incentivized - for the purpose of destroying people and damaging that-which-is-good wherever it may be found. 

But, of course, reacting-against altruism is also an evil fake! 

A double-negative is not a positive - but just another kind of negative: a sin against sin, advocating sinning against sinners. 

Indeed the supposed "Right wing" reaction-against altruism - i.e. the varieties of claimed political selfishness, enlightened self-interest, libertarianism, market economics etc... do not reject altruism, but actually sustain and reinforce the false value of altruism.

It can easily be seen that the rhetoric of the Right amounts to no more than the claim of a more realistic and effective altruism (e.g. the frequent claim that capitalism is better at abolishing poverty than communism, therefore better at "helping other people").

Or else the Right claims altruism, but for a different sector of the populace than the Left. The Left may claim an altruism directed according to class, sex, race; while the Right may claim to be altruistic on the basis of nation or religion. 

But both Left and Right self-justify in the same altruistic way. 

Even the Nietzschian-type (psychopathic) claim of individuals to be aiming at maximizing "my own" pleasure, power, lusts, status, Schadenfreude; and at the expense of other people -- cannot help but seek justification in altruistic reasoning...

Such as claiming the real world works this way, so that "it would be better" if this was explicitly acknowledged: that it is better for civilization if The System recognizes that people are motivated thus...

Or that civilization is itself a mechanism for oppression -- so that it is "better" overall "for everybody" if the selfish hedonist destroys civilization...

So, even extreme advocates of individualist selfishness* cannot help but ground it in some version of claimed-altruism.  

*(Which is intrinsically a fake thing. A genuinely extreme totally selfish individual would not advertise the fact, nor would he try to make is a philosophical principle to be taught to others! All such rhetoric has some other real purpose.)  

At an opposite end of the altruism fake is "therapy". 

Therapy tries to reduce "helping" to a lowest common denominator of palliating illness, sickness, death; so that "helping others" becomes public health (or charitable, or religious...) programs justified on the basis of alleviating suffering, preventing or curing diseases.

Supposedly this double-negative value is actually is such an obvious good that only a monster of evil could oppose a therapeutic agenda - could oppose "saving lives", "reducing suffering" (of deserving people) etc. 

2020 and its sequelae shows where all that stuff leads. 

Because altruism is fundamentally and inescapably a fake value, therefore all claimed attempts to "help others" - including attempts to alleviate suffering - will not be, cannot be,  motivated by altruism -- and will therefore inevitably and instead actually be motivated by some other covert value - typically selfish-seeking, and/or spitefully destructive.    

Wherever you turn, however you twist; it seems that some claim of altruism is lurking underneath all modern justifications for doing, or not doing, anything. 

And this is inevitable because our society utterly lacks any positive goal or motivation; because this can only be spiritual in nature - and our society is structured-around denial of the reality and significance of the spiritual. 

Altruism is a fake, because society is a fake; and therefore if you personally don't want to live a life pseudo-justified by the harmful, corrupting fake that is altruism - then you will have to find genuinely positive and therefore spiritual values to live-by - and you will have to do this for yourself. 

Files don't prove... anything - and anyway, we should by-now Already Know what is needed

The Alt Media is abuzz about some "files" that have supposedly been released by the Establishment that "prove" the Establishment actively serves the agenda of purposive demonic evil.

And that the Western-Globalist Establishment leadership class are, personally, extremely corrupt.  

Let's be clear. Files, and especially officially-disseminated files, and especially files that are the product of evil; do not and cannot ever prove anything in the ultimate and spiritual sense that is necessary. 

But for Heaven's sake! 

We really, by now (and for at least fifteen years), ought not only to know that the globalist totalitarian Establishment is purposively-evil and personally corrupt; but this ought to have been absorbed into our world-view; and this reality ought already to form the basis of understanding socio-political actuality and events. 

Especially after the Birdemic-related events of early 2020 and subsequently. 

Files are, after all, merely data; and the provenance and accuracy of data is always contestable; and the interpretation of data is always contestable; and both accuracy and interpretation are a product of metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality. 

Therefore; anyone whose fundamental assumptions disallow (or regard as impossible) the literal evil and actual corruption of the Western and Globalist Establishment (and especially the leadership class) - cannot and will not be persuaded of their evil and corruption by any data of any kind in any amount.  

(As will very soon become apparent.) 

Those who suggest that The Files are (i.e. should be, they believe) a watershed in the history of Western politics; are engaged in their own kind of attempted political (and geopolitical) manipulations... Usually concerned with trying to enlist active support for some ideology or party or program of some kind (some ideology/ party/ program that the writer or speaker serves or desires to dominate). Advice which purportedly leads back, in a loop, to the kind of society of some decades (or centuries!) ago: a "movement" which is not even going to be attempted (because of how people actually are), but would not work if it was (because people are not what they were). 

If not, then what? 

I see zero need to engage with the content of purported Files; and many probable pitfalls in doing so; the most likely of which is to be encouraged into an attitude of resentful spite and/or despair. 

We should already know what we need to know (i.e. what we personally know suffices without Establishment-supplied "evidence"); and if we don't know it by now, then it is not the problem of lack of evidence that blocks our understanding.

 

To engage-with The Files would merely be to participate spiritually with a staged media-political event; thereby voluntarily to open our hearts to that evil; and to engage in Yet Another example of double-negative values; values that are lethally-characteristic-of and foundational-to the atheist-materialist Western mainstream. 

What we need to do instead; is accept as true the reality of the evil of The Establishment, and the extremity of personal corruption of the human leadership...

And (less spectacularly) the facilitation of evil and spiritual corruption of their servant class such as bureaucrats, media people, managers, intellectuals, professionals etc. 

Accept that this is the way that our civilizations actually-is; here and now. 

Such knowledge not a trigger for action; but is a basis for understanding primarily - and understanding ought to serve a spiritual agenda; which is, for me - by my free choice, the life of a Christian. 

Only after that understanding is assimilated will we personally know what is right and good; and only after we know that, can we know what we personally ought to do. 

Good action lies on the other side of spiritual understanding and personal commitment in the spiritual war of this world. 

But anyone who tells us what we ought to do ("because of" the Files) when they themselves have not assimilated that understanding to their own personal and Christian life, and/or when we ourselves have not done so -- is necessarily trying to manipulate us to believe and serve some external, pre-existing, and anti-spiritual (and anti-Christian) agenda...  

In sum: Good comes only from Good, and Good is a spiritual (not material) value. 

No combination of oppositional agendas can lead to Good in the absence of actual positive and spiritual motivation for Good.  

To be guided primarily by any secondhand "data" or any other form of externally located "evidence"; or to serve the agenda of any external ideology or grouping - is to be assimilated more deeply into the evils of the Establishment agenda of evil.  

We personally can only do Good from the basis of our own personal motivations rooted in our own actual understanding. 

Insofar as we our-selves attain understanding and choose to take the side of divine creation in the spiritual war of this world; we will know what Good we can do, and doing that Good will surely affect "the world" for the better. 

And this is a necessary faith; it is the faith that lets us know what to do, that doing it will work; and this faith is also necessary in order that our choices can do Good, because without such faith we will not be aligned with God' intentions. 

In a nutshell: we do Good in this world only spiritually; by personal alignment on the side of God, and by our active and conscious participation in ongoing divine creation. 

A Messiah could make no significant difference - leaves the problems of Life untouched

There has usually been, and commonly, a yearning for a Messiah - a deliverer or saviour of a people or the world. 

The deep problem is not that the Messiah never actually comes; but that even if there was or is a Messiah, and even if he actually liberated or saved his people or the world; then doing this would leave the fundamental problems of Life untouched.

This because even if "my people" or the world was somehow genuinely and lastingly saved from any kind of worldly-affliction such as enslavement, poverty, natural destruction, war, poverty... then there would still be entropy (disease, degeneration, death) and there would still be evil. 

This came to mind in reading Philip K Dick's Exegesis - and considering that for many years he yearned desperately for a Saviour; in the last weeks of his life, he announced his vision of "Tagore" whose role was vicariously to save the planet from Man's ecological destruction.  

But PKD was being short-sighted and overwhelmed by current emotion - like when we are sick or afraid; and imagine "if only" we could be well we would never be unhappy again. 

Even if Tagore had been true and had achieved exactly what Dick hoped he would - this would have made zero qualitative difference to the human condition. 

It is the problem of double-negative values; the Messiah is supposed to save-from - and no matter how many things he was able to save me or us from; then the problems of entropy and evil would still remain.

 

Indeed; no matter what I personally was saved-from - I would still have the problem of my-self and of my-death. 

Like everybody I have ever heard of; I am quite capable of tormenting myself into misery (even despair) even when I am currently un-afflicted by any significant problem - when I am free of pain, of hunger, when I am warm and comfortable and here-and-now secure. 

When I imagine or dream terrible things - I am doing this to myself, and the evil is from me. 

There is the evil in me; there are an uncountable number of bad things that could happen, that cannot be excluded - and there are the universal actualities and possibilities of entropy (especially death) and evil.

The most that could realistically be achieved by an actual Messiah would be to impose on his people (because few would accept it) a kind of irreversible blissful ignorance of the fundamental problems - which would need to be some kind of permanent annihilation of consciousness...

Which is, if not exactly death, then subjectively indistinguishable from being unalive; and amounts to the wish that we never had lived. 

This is the terminus of the primacy of any double-negative values: a preference for not-existence. 

The metaphysical failure of All Christian churches

...But don't ask me about my metaphysical assumptions

(The above being the argumentative strategy of all churches)

The generations-long, inexorable corruption, apostasy and (remember 2020) self-destructive failure of Christian churches has nothing to do with me!* but is there for all capable of seeing it. 

*(I am but the bearer of bad news; and one who seeks to proceed on that basis - rather than on the basis of the delusional and dishonest optimism all-too-characteristic of those whose Christianity is inextricable from some particular church.)

And yet there is a sometimes-palpable metaphysical hunger among the mass majority of not-religious people; who realize that mainstream materialist totalitarianism offers no meaning, no purpose; and zero basis for ethics, beauty or truth. 

Metaphysics is the discourse concerning ultimate, fundamental reality. In other words metaphysics seeks to make explicit and examine our deepest convictions and assumptions concerning the way that things are.

The metaphysics of dominating mainstream modern materialism; explicitly regards ultimate reality as dead (unalive), ruled by blind causation and undirected randomness - there is no direction to it, no reason behind it, it has no values; therefore nothing is better or worse than anything else...

The only basis for preference and choice is our own temporary, subjective, psychological state; which itself has neither purpose, nor meaning - and merely whatever happens-to-be, at present. 

The official non-explanation of life, the universe, and everything is: Things Just Are. Nothing can coherently be said about any of it.   

There is a hierarchy of explanation that runs from fundamental, primary and metaphysical assumptions to make sense of the secondary, surface and observational aspects of life.

Thus: we derive our meanings and purposes from our metaphysical assumptions, and not from our "factual" observations - indeed, we cannot even know what counts as "a fact" without prior assumptions (theories) to tell us. 

Consequently, of themselves, our perceptions mean nothing, imply nothing and are undistinguishable - since the world does not come to us divided into different objects, nor do the supposed causes acting on such objects come to us divided into types. 

It is by our interaction with the world (our "participation" with creation) that what would otherwise be incoherent "noise" is instead known as having structure, meaning, purpose. 

A perceived world without primary assumptions - without the metaphysical and structural basis of reality; well, it is hardly even imaginable - but might be pictured as a booming, buzzing, fuzzy, incoherent, literal-chaos.    

It might be supposed that the churches would benefit from this vacuum of purpose/ meaning, this craving for fundamental values; but the churches eschew the deep level of metaphysical assumptions; instead trying to reason from current preferences, agreed observations, accepted facts... 

Each church hoping to convince that its particular "package" of administration/ rituals/ scriptures/ symbols/ prayers etc; offers a better psychological or socio-political outcome, or a better (perhaps the only) chance of some kind of life beyond death. 

While churches will often critique mainstream materialism, and expose its vacuity; what the churches fail to do, is go back and down to the deepest level of their own fundamental assumptions. 

The churches Will Not make explicit and examine their own assumptions. 

The Christian churches' attempts at conversion are therefore of a double-negative nature: they are happy to expose and demolish the assumptions modern atheistic metaphysics; but they will deny that their own metaphysical fundamental are assumptions. 

The churches all claim that their own metaphysics Just Are True. 

Or else the churches reverse the hierarchy of explanation and pretend that their metaphysical assumptions can (somehow!) be derived from the accepted facts of life; being so obvious that to express disagreement is idiotic, evil, or dishonest. 

But this comes across as (and indeed actually is) merely dogmatic bluster.  

The answer is that we modern people must go deep, we must go as deep as we possibly can - in order to discover our own bottom-line assumptions about reality - and to expose those of other thought-systems such as particular Churches. 

It is not enough to "show" that somebody else's metaphysical assumptions are incoherent or absurd or inadequate - we must as-well be prepared to bring forward our own fundamental beliefs in order to compare them with whatever is being critiqued. 

Indeed; it seems to me that after we have genuinely exposed our own metaphysics, and recognized that it is rooted in primary assumptions which are a product of our own free agency - will we then be able potentially to understand the metaphysics of anybody else. 

Only when our own fundamental assumptions demonstrate positive superiority with respect to what we regard as most important, and in comparison with the fundamental assumptions of other ideologies and/or religions; will we actually have made real progress in terms of overcoming the endemic metaphysical failure of this time and place.   

**

Note added: 

I do not suggest, nor even believe, that it is possible that Christian churches, or any churches, could possibly do what I am suggesting - because as institutions, this would expecting churches to be anti-institutional. 

No: this is something that individual persons can only do for themselves, because for themselves; else it will not be done at all. 

And because it needs to be done for individual persons; this can only be done with the necessary good motivations by one who believes that knowing truth experientially is an activity harmonious with divine creation.

That is to say; one who knows, and knows why, honestly "doing metaphysics" is something that is of-itself-and-necessarily beneficial to God's cause; as well as to the benefit of our own post-mortal, resurrected self.  

Double-negative values lead to self-justified spitefulness

Depicting a world of institutionalized spite...

The other day I was musing upon how intelligence work seems to attract and encourage the worst kind of people, and develop the worst kind of habits - probably because it is (from the late 19th century at least) almost-wholly engaged in destruction.

For instance, the rationale of "national interest" is used to excuse even the vilest of destructive practices; which are then denied, lied-about and/or blamed on others - which is a perfect set-up for generating extreme corruption of individuals and institutions. 

One example of what is apparently a very common activity was described in an earlier post; whereby the British were successful in fomenting dissent in the German-occupied Denmark of WWII; the aim being to use-up more German resources. The mechanism for this was that the Danish peoples' lives were made deliberately much more miserable, and their sufferings greatly increased. 

This is an example of double-negative values in action - values that are reducible to opposition to something-bad (or, at least: something defined as bad); or negating the negative. 

The values of modern Western civilization are entirely double-negative - there are no public values that are rooted in the support of some positive value - such as the traditional "transcendental" values of truth, beauty, and virtue. 

When the West discarded and did not replace its religion of Christianity; a moral system of double-negations was the inevitable outcome.  

Because ultimately destructive; a double-neg morality attracts, encourages, and makes-habitual an attitude of spitefulness - and this is exactly what we find...

So that much public (and private) moralizing here-and-now is, very obviously - once you are aware of the possibility - spitefully-motivated; it's "highest" goal being to inflict misery and harm on some person, institution, nation, or cause that is regarded as "bad", and thereby deserving of it.   

Yet, as I've often said, spite is one of the very worst of sins; one of the most advanced forms of evil.

Resentment is one of the premier besetting sins of the modern West: resentment-based leftist ideologies are our highest values; our most praised motivators. 

I mean ideologies such as class-war, feminism, antiracism, climatism etc; which are officially devised, propagandized, promoted, rewarded, enforced - through the totalitarian apparatus of law, media, and the state and private bureaucracies. 

The latest and dominant AI-dolatry is, evidently, substantially resentment based; and spitefully/ destructively motivated. 

(Consequently; Schadenfreude repeatedly invades the quasi-objective "technological inevitability" pro-"AI" rhetoric.)  

Action aiming at the spiteful destruction of something we resent, is therefore currently one of the most powerful of motivators - sometimes even to the paradoxical extent of sustaining actions of great courage (courage being itself a virtue). 

For instance a war motivated by resentment and the spiteful desire for destruction of the enemy (an enemy who may in fact be superior to oneself); may nonetheless inspire virtuous altruism, self-discipline, acceptance of hardship, and valour.  

Or when intelligence services - typically deployed in the subversion, immiseration and destruction of better men and nations; yet, sometimes, evoke exceptionally courageous behaviour among their operatives such as "spies". 

Nonetheless, and bearing in mind that un-repented evil is not a static state but feeds upon itself and increases; it can easily be observed that when organizations are negatively, destructively, motivated - then, no matter their supposed justification - they are intrinsically-corrupt.

And this institutional-corruption will attract spiteful people, so that the self-justifying evil will increase with time. 

And this false and hypocritical pseudo-morality is intrinsic to our atheist-materialist ideological system.

We cannot expect, nor shall we get, anything better; until after Western Men acknowledge the reality of God, and embrace the offered-gifts of Jesus Christ. 

Since this seems highly unlikely - presumably such matters will continue to worsen; and imposing some of the most evil of all sins, shall therefore continue to be global policy.

Because, in our totalitarian society, the tendency is for all social institutions to become essentially like the intelligence services; i.e. rooted in the prevalent value-inversion and rationalized by double-negations.   

Western Geopolitics and "You just go around the house... Creating!"

My mother, who (in stark contrast to her eldest child) was a wonderful housekeeper; used often to say to me - in an extremity of exasperation - "You just go around the house... Creating!" 

By which she meant I was disrupting and disordering her meticulous and laboriously-achieved state of neatness and convenience; for instance by carrying cups of tea or coffee, heaps of books and papers, around the house, taking off and dropping pullovers or socks - sitting in the midst of an island of mess...

And then leaving such messes behind, whenever I moved on to the next location. 

Now I know - from decades of failure - how very difficult it is to maintain a functional household; I can see that she was right to chastise me. 

At the time, I could not see what the fuss was about. After all, things just (apparently) tidied themselves. Something carelessly discarded would miraculously reappear in its proper place...

My mother's bit of Northumbrian dialect, was based in an implied oxymoronic phrase related to "creating" chaos. 

I now find this notion to be very interesting - I mean the idea of creating-chaos; because - by my best and deepest metaphysical understanding - creation and chaos are in truth opposites. 

...So that if one is really creating, one must thereby be reducing chaos - and if one is actually inducing chaos, then one is destroying the-created. 

Anyway, pedantry aside; what was implied by my Mother's phrase was:

The process of (at best) care-less, but often deliberately-motivated; reduction of the-created towards a state of disorder, mutual conflict, dysfunctionality... chaos. 

In other words; my Mother's phrase characterizes the long-term and systematic geopolitical behaviour of Western civilization since around the millennium (and the end of the Eastern Bloc): 

They/ we just go around around the world... Creating: that is to say - creating chaos. 

And this strategy is pursued over the long-term and by multiple means: such as bribery and corruption (aka. "foreign aid"). "International Law" and multinational organizations are part of this. 

Also economic pressures of many kinds, such as "sanctions" (which are actually directed mainly at causing chaos within the West, but sometimes have the desired side-effect of causing chaos abroad). 

There is, of course, war-all-over-the-place - and the attempts to induce more and bigger wars; by multi-pronged campaigns (and staging of "incidents") to induce previously amicable/ tolerant neighbours into becoming bitter enemies - and to keep things that way. 

This is happening All The Time - both at a large scale (e.g. in Asia) and at a smaller scale (e.g. in Europe). 

One "excuse" is (presumably) to weaken enemies, so that "we" may be relatively stronger... and thereby "do more good" for these other places. 

But that excuse is shown as a lie by the top-down and simultaneous deliberate weakening of the West; and the fact that we do not believe that we are good. 

Indeed, being atheist materialists - we lack any positive conceptualization of what good actually is; and instead suppose ourselves to be fighting evils of various (fluidly defined) types.  

The euphemistically termed "colour revolutions" - that are those Western-planned/ -funded/ -media-supported overturnings of national governments (all over the place; within the West as well as anywhere/ everywhere else) - especially by those themselves incapable of government - so as to install puppet regimes... 

New governments which lack native legitimacy, hence never last, hence lead to civil disorder or war - and other kind of chaos... 

This has been done dozens of times since 1990; and the pace of global disruption is still increasing! 

At present hardly a week goes-by without some such attempt, and many are "successful". Regimes are changed.  

However, the invariable result of "successful" West-induced regime change turns-out always to be chaotic, dysfunctional, damaging. Because, either there is careless indifference as to outcomes (so long as there is short-term selfish profit), or else destructive chaos is the real and covert motivation from the get-go.    

"More chaos" happens a lot nowadays, because - in an entropic universe - inducing chaos is Much easier than creation: much easier than creating cooperation, functionality, predictability. 

But It Was Not Always Thus!

Consider the Roman Empire. Yes, it was a crushing top-down tyranny with many bad features; but there is no doubt that it created greater cooperation and greater civilizational-functionality on a global scale. 

The Romans, unlike the modern West, did not purposively and over the long-term destroy societal functionality, did not deliberately "create" wars and economic chaos, did not encourage and fund agents of destruction. 

The Romans did not induce net-chaos; because they (unlike "us) had other, better, more positive things that they were trying to accomplish. 

Compare the Romans with what happens at present!  

The Roman Civilization - and indeed a Roman Household - aimed-at (and sometimes achieved) a society that was clean, well-ordered, and effective. 

This did not happen by accident, nor as a by-product of deliberately inducing and sustaining chaos. 

Like the household of my childhood; Roman coordinated functionality happened because of clear purposes and plans, hard work, rigorous monitoring, and as a consequence of great efforts and labour*.

And this was possible because of what-was-good in the Roman Civilization. 

Top-down, purposive functionality does Not happen nowadays, because there is extremely little that is good among those with power and in leadership positions in Western civilization. 

Or, to put it more accurately; because Western civilization is controlled by those whose affiliations are overwhelming evil, demonic; anti-God: anti-divine creation. 

And the reason for this is clear and simple: the Romans were very religious. 

They recognized the reality of gods, spirits, and of transcendental values and purposes. 

Roman lives were permeated by religious devotions, and a religious perspective. 

For a Roman, including the Roman ruling class and their servants: life therefore had ultimate purpose, therefore meaning; and this "Roman" meaning was linked to each Roman-person as a member of Roman society, a Roman family - a Roman role or job that contributed to the whole. 

However, for our ruling class, in complete contrast, life has no purpose, no meaning, no personal relevance - except for a selfishness and hedonism that becomes ever more short-termist, and thus more easily manipulated by the demonic powers.  

Of course, none of this strategic and purposive "Creating (of chaos)" by Western civilization is explicitly stated - of course, there are always pseudo-constructive, pseudo-moral, rationalizations for destruction.

Always "reasons" why it is a good thing for the West to intervene everywhere, "for their own good", and in the end always to destroy - both abroad and at home.   

Part of this disguise of motivation, is to propagate the false dichotomy of chaos versus order. 

Acceptance of this calculated-error allows Them to depict order as necessarily oppressive, and chaos as if it were creative. 

Any nation that is reasonably functional will - like the Roman Empire - necessarily contain many attributes of oppressive order; and (under the order versus chaos scheme) can therefore be depicted as objectively evil and deserving of partial (or even complete) destruction. 

So that West induced national chaos as a consequence of intervention - e.g. civil war, starvation, disease, mass maiming and death; is routinely spun as if we were doing them a favour! Making the nations of the world free from oppressive order, one after the other; and all from the goodness of our Western hearts!

"Supporting" a nation is thereby made wholly compatible with action leading to destroying masses of people and the functionality of that nation - often for many decades. This induced social collapse may then serve as an excuse for further intervention, or takeover - or looting of resources. 

Meanwhile the same is happening at home, within the West. Always it is disguised by quasi-moral reasons; characteristically combined either with indifference to actual outcomes (including lying about or ignoring outcomes); or else by relabeling increased chaos and collapsing functionality as good things - like diversity, equity, freedom, vibrancy!   

...Meanwhile actual creativity - which was our "USP" for several centuries - is at an all-time low in the West.

Ultimately because human creativity is real only when it is good; when it contributes to divine creation; but our civilization is now rooted in denial of the divine - which is de facto allegiance to Satan.  

The lesson from my Mother is that chaos is easy, functionality is difficult. 

Anyone indifferent or hostile to functionality has an easy time of getting what they want; and need not expend much effort in getting it.

Therefore; the first and indispensable step towards doing anything constructive about deliberate global rampant chaos; is to acknowledge and understand the nature and reality of divine creation.

And then our-selves affiliating to it. 

**   

 

*Note added: A functional civilization or society must genuinely operate in pursuit of higher (transcendental, hence positive) values; such that it believes-in these values, believes these values are good, attains self-respect from these values; and regards it as beneficial that these values be spread and enforced elsewhere. 

These positive values are what enables a society, sufficiently and overall, to pursue coordinated functionality - society is engineered in pursuit of these values. Without such over-arching, and transcendent, and positive values - society will disintegrate for lack of cohesive principles.  

Thus, in their heyday, the leadership and masses of both the Roman and British Empires regarded it as good to make foreigners Roman/ British. 

In both instances; the means to this end included religion primarily, laws and education consequentially - which were top-down and enforced on colonies. 

It was this underlying reality that led to the surface homogeneities of Roman/ British societies. 

FURTHER NOTE: I should not be understood as advocating a return to the values of the Roman, or even the British, Empire! What I am intending to highlight is that the civilizational dominance of these Empires both were rooted in a transcendental conviction of having positive values to impart. In other words; their sense of superiority was substantive, because it was religious. That is Not the case for Western civilization now: without any exception, all of its self-defining values are not merely negative but double-negative. And this is why Western civilization-as-is, is wholly oppositional - hence necessarily destructive in sum. 

Final Participation is a conscious consecration of this-moment to our eternal resurrected life

For the past decade or so, I have been trying (in multiple ways) to understand the implications of Owen Barfield's concept of Final Participation - as being the destiny and proper aim of our spiritual life. 

Some modern people seem wholly enmeshed in mundane materialist thinking and feel detached and alienated from the living world - trapped inside their own heads. Their only relief is temporarily to forget this in sleep, intoxication, psychosis - and in occasional moments when there is a resurgence of a child-like sense of belonging and involvement. 

These brief times are what Barfield calls Original Participation, because they were our original state of consciousness as young children, and also (it is believed) the normal state of the earliest ancestral Men.  

Original Participation is - pretty much - the same as Novalis's Sehnsucht and CS Lewis's Joy; Gurdjieff's self-remembering, Maslow's Peak Experience, or Csíkszentmihályi's Flow state are psychological reductions of the experience.  

Such moments may be pleasant, indeed there have been times and places (e.g. some of the Romantic movement around 1800, or the 1960s counter-culture... still ongoing) when many people aspired to abandon modern consciousness and return to Original Participation. 

Although this return to the spontaneous, natural, child-like, primitive, here-and-now consciousness is powerful and alluring to many people; it has always failed - and must be assumed impossible (except briefly).  

However it makes a difference how we regard these brief moments. 

If they are regarded as merely pleasant psychological states, then Original Participation can only be therapeutic - like taking a short holiday from the "real world" of mundane materialism.

Yet Barfield asserted that Final Participation was not just a pleasant interlude; but in some deep sense absolutely necessary - necessary if we personally, and our society as well, were to avoid being overwhelmed by evil.   

However, Barfield was vague about how this might be achieved (he usually advised consulting his mentor Rudolf Steiner's work - but Steiner's techniques seem obviously ineffective, and Barfield never claimed that decades of practicing Steiner medications had led to any very significant effect on Barfield's own thinking in terms of Final Participation. 

Indeed, it seems that FP is not really achievable in a lasting and dominant way. 

So we seem rather to be trapped between impossibilities! We cannot go back, cannot stay as we are - yet the destined path forward seems blocked...  

Yet anyone who conceptualizes life as bounded by conception and death will find himself bounded by exactly such impossibilities. We cannot escape the constraints of entropy (and death) and evil. 

But this is forgetting the reality that we are eternal Beings, and this mortal life can be (should be) seen as a finite transitional phase between eternities before and afterwards. 

Furthermore (and here I depart from Barfield, with his ideas of multiple future reincarnations) a Christian sees his eternal future as including resurrected Heavenly life, following after this mortal life.

My idea of Final Participation is that it is the conscious choice to consecrate those moments of Original Participation.     

So that when moments of OP happen; we choose to regard them as sacred. 

In such a "consecration"; the momentary experience of OP is consciously recognized as being of potentially eternal significance to divine creation - and is actively taken-up into ongoing thinking.

This contrasts with, say, the sixties counter-culture response - which is to stay inside those OP moments, and perpetuate them or as long as possible. 

I would regard this as akin to a religiously-contemplative response to Original Participation. Contemplative because it is deliberately passive and self-negating. The moment is primary and we intend to stay with it, dissolve-into it. 

This is analogous to the contemplative kind of meditation where people seek a "blissful" state of consciousness and try to maintain it for as long as possible. 

The ideal is of stasis in perfection.  

But Final Participation is active and creative - hence is is both dynamic - like divine creation; and aspires to join-in-with and influence ongoing divine creation.

And all this is a choice, not a surrender. It is an affirmation of the self, not an attempt to lose the self. 

It is the choice to be a Son of God, a sibling of Jesus; one who want to join with God in the work of creation, and add to to that creative work whatever is unique in himself. 

So, Final Participation is an active self-confidence; confidence that by the "process" of resurrection after this mortal life we can be transformed such as to be able, worthy, and trust-worthy of eternal participation in creation.

Thus, FP is a state of being only achievable permanently (as a normal state) after our death, and only among those who have then chosen to follow Jesus through resurrection to everlasting Heavenly life.  

But Final Participation does have a vital role in this mortal life; because it is when we can add to our resurrected life. 

FP represents our choice to learn from experience in such a way that our immortal soul is permanently transformed.

We are talking about our immortal souls, not the conditions of our mortal lives on earth - so the fact that our modern experiences of participation may be relatively few, infrequent, brief - does not invalidate these experiences... 

FP experiences are of permanent value not because they last a long time; but so long as we choose to consecrate them.

Consecration would go something like this:

1. Original Participation happens. 

2. We recognize that it is happening. 

3. We acknowledge that this happening is of potentially permanent importance to our resurrected Heavenly self. 

This needs to be done when Original participation happens - Now: here-and-now. 

Not put-off until later. 

If we do not do it at the time of Original Participation - it will (probably) not be done. 

However... An intense imagined re-living of the moment, could also be used to consecrate that moment retrospectively. Because then the moment is not merely "retrospective" but a re-experiencing here-and-now - which is perhaps one reason why we may recollect and meditate on such moments... Why they may last so tenaciously in our memories. The experiences may be re-presenting themselves for consecration. 

Maybe, if we do this on principle and habitually; then this will act as a positive feedback and establish a "spiritual reward system" - so that such opportunities will become more frequent? 

The thing is: we modern Men are terribly demotivated, prone to despair - and any spiritual advice that diminishes or delays our gratification seems doomed to fail*. 

Consecrating our moments of Original Participation generates an immediate spiritual reward as well as a hope-full anticipation. 

Instead of OP being a tragic joy; doomed to be short-lived, doomed to be forgotten and lost by age, disease, death... Instead of this; the act of consecration transforms it into a moment of permanent and positive significance.  

As far as I can understand; only a follower of Jesus Christ who lives in confident expectation of resurrection can do this; and it will not "just happen" but must be done by conscious choice. 

All then depends on making that choice. 

NOTE: It may be objected that because Original Participation is spontaneous and natural, it is not necessarily good. This is true; and if an OP experience is not good, then it cannot and shall not be consecrated to resurrected eternal life - so any such attempt will fail. Christian discernment - knowledge of good and evil, God and that which opposes God; is a necessary part of Christian life - and always applies. 

* The mass of people are (quite literally) spiritually-dying of despair, for lack of any genuinely positive purpose in life. It seems obvious that the double-negative (e.g. therapeutic) values that are exclusively propagated, including by nearly all religions (eg religions rooted in avoidance of default divine punishment), including most Christian churches - are simply ineffectual; leading to short-termist this-worldly hedonism now, and ultimate despair eventually. 

The literal impossibility of putting theory into practice in Life

Theory is always and necessarily a simplified model of reality. Extremely simplified - because everything in the universe is left-out, except what is specifically included in the theory. 

If you think about it, this must be the case - the vastness and unboundedness of life (which is not really divided spatio-temporally, except into Beings) - otherwise there would be no point in having a theory!

A good theory renders graspable the most significant aspects (for the current purpose) of that vastly interconnected web of communication and interaction which is Everything. 

This is why even the very best theories can never be put into practice. 

It explains why we always come-up against the intractable problem of actually living by our understanding of God, creation and salvation.   

And, in Christianity, even the true-est and real-est and most-good theology cannot be put into practice in Life. 

Life is just so much greater than any theory!

When we try (and many have tried) to implement theoretical understanding, to live by The Book, The Rules or whatever - then it will fail.

This does not mean that theory is worthless, yet it never is the truth. It does not mean that theory is useless in some particular practice, yet theory should never be a blueprint. 

(For instance: Even the most perfect system of law is unjust; unless interpreted by a good and wise judge - who takes into account the many ways in which the law fails to describe reality.) 

However, we cannot just dispense with theorizing; because we live inside theory. Indeed, we live inside totalitarianism; which is a theory of everything, that denies any limitation, which tends always to encroach everywhere. 

This is because totalitarianism is rooted in negation, in the double negative values of a theory being against itself - a self-consuming, self-destroying theory of all. 

Our problem is to escape from the habitual thinking of the inculcated self-tyranny of this System, which theory we actually accept by socialization; because the totalitarian theory dominates public discourse, and we are compelled to live-by-it in most (and ever more) areas of life. 

So one value of theorizing is if it helps us break free from the mind-control of the actual-and-evil theory under which we Live. 

But whatever alternative theory we discover or devise (even the best imaginable theory of Christianity); we shall come up against the necessary fact that our theory is ultimately wrong because grossly incomplete; and cannot (as well as should-not) be implemented as a blueprint for Life and Living. 

The ultimate goal is perhaps always to go beyond theory to live in freedom in accordance with divine creation - not by theory but by intuition, divine inspiration, by knowing reality. 

In the meanwhile, in this mortal life on earth, we must continue to use theories; but should strive not be used-by theories.  

Schadenfreude derangement syndrome

The current orgy of Schadenfreude continues to escalate - energized a few days ago by a staged, acted and broadcast PR pseudo-spat over the Fire Nation war; a news-event which has been uncritically accepted at face value, and thereby ecstatically celebrated, by (apparently) hordes of people; individuals who, just a few weeks ago, expressed deep scepticism over the machinations of mainstream politics and the mass media. 

Yet another Litmus Test massively failed! 

It is becoming clear that the double-negative agenda is alive and well, dominating and sweeping-aside what has thereby been revealed as a shallow, feeble, self-gratifying, and this-worldly Christianity.   

Double-negative values are a hallmark of The Left - which is united only by its opposition to (ultimately) God and divine creation. 

The self-identified political "Right", including advocates of an imaginary and impossible "nationalism", have recently come-out as crypto-leftists - which, indeed, is the inevitable convergence of all primarily this-worldly and double-negative ideals.

In sum: The Right is united only by its rejection of The Left (i.e. particular-labelled individuals and institutions) - such that the only powerful source of Right triumphalism is when their Left-identified enemies appear to be getting humiliated and destroyed. 

(Note: In our world, all is of-the-left - except where religion is put first - and where that religion is motivationally-rooted beyond this world). 

There is a strong lure in religion that seems to combine success and status, power and prestige, pride and self-esteem, progress and historical inevitability, with aspects of real Christianity that is "not of this world". 

The proposed syncresis of this and next-world benefits appears in many guises through history - and dominates much of online Christian discourse; which is the reason behind current ecstasies of virtual Schadenfreude. 

The "prosperity Gospel" is indeed much more widespread than its crudest evangelists: the idea that the path to economic, or sexual, success lies via Christianity is a very popular and influential one online. 

Of course, Christianity must and should be-of-this-world as well as the next: not least because the incarnation and mortal life of Jesus Christ is evidence of this. 

In other words our mortal lives have purpose for as long as they are sustained by God. So a retreat from The World is not even a theoretical option for Christians - we must and should engage. 

But... in a civilization and society so completely built upon materialism and the denial of the spirit; in a world dominated by corrupt, and demonic-allied, institutions; it ought to be perfectly clear and evident that goodness cannot, therefore will not, emanate from, nor be gifted top-down by, those with institutional and official power/ wealth/ social status.  

It ought to be evident that politico-media-events intended to demonstrate the humiliation or destruction of people, organizations, nations - are not going to be evidence of, nor harbingers of, goodness. 

Indeed, the likely reality behind the façade of apparent destruction is not even difficult to discern for those with a bit of accurate knowledge who stand-back from the contrived frenzy - even when these people have no religious basis. 

(In a geopolitical world of puppet leaders; the spectacle of one puppet berating another for the cameras, should be obvious as what it is: a puppet-show.)  

The spiritual war of this world is essentially about "hearts and minds" - and the great aim of the various factions of evil is not to impose physical/material slavery or misery; but to induce individuals to choose to commit themselves (hearts and minds) to one or another of the agendas of evil. 

Evil is only spiritually effective when it has been freely embraced. That is why our enthusiasm, support, and hope; are so assiduously cultivated by The Establishment. 

And that embrace of evil is precisely what we are observing, in real time, on a day-by-day basis. People who were, until recently, apparently Christian; are changing sides; abandoning salvation as their primary goal -- 

And instead they are committing more and more of their support, energies, enthusiasm, efforts (and, worst of all, hopes) on what is at root a negative, destructive, demon-motivated agenda. 

The double-negative values problem - so Very tempting...

By Domenico Fetti

 (Wrong illustration of double-neg values on so many levels!)

I have been banging-on about the inadequacy of double-negative values (including double-negative theology) for such a long time (it seems) that it might be supposed that I am myself immune to this specific deception. 

Far from it! It really is so much easier to be opposed to bad stuff, to discover ever-more bad stuff, and to express this opposition - than it is to have positive values and aspirations; that this is a temptation which never goes away!

More than a temptation, double-neg thinking can become a mind-set; so that we end-up scanning our relationships, life (and the mass media, and System-outputs generally...) for things we can oppose. And they're so very easy to find!

And this mind-set gets to be a habit, because it is reinforced. We feel good about ourselves for pointing out bad stuff and our opposition to it; and other people think we are good for doing so. 

Even when the bad stuff isn't very bad, we can get self- and other-credit for pointing out that it can become bad - that it is full of hazards, highly risky, may be a slippery slope.

And all the time we can disguise from ourselves and others that either we lack coherent positive ideas; or that our own positive ideas are open to exactly the kind of double-neg critique as we inflict upon others. 

After all, how many positive ideals are not open to potential problems? 

How many positive values cannot be abused, misunderstood, or exaggerated into something bad? 

How many people are there who aren't harbouring sinful motivations? 

This, I take it, is the real meaning of the mote and beam in the eye parable in the Bible - which I would guess is indirectly from Jesus's true sayings, but seems to have been misinterpreted, and misleadingly-explained by the evangelist. 

The point of acknowledging the beam in our own eye is surely Not so that we can better perceive and cure the motes in other people eyes; but in order that we should cease to focus on the endless and addictive temptations of a double negative value system; and instead strive to build our lives around positive values...

Despite that this really does open us to infinite criticism from the multitudes of highly-motivated mote-detectors! 

And even when these positive ideals are (or seem) simplistic and incomplete - better that, than to live by negations.*

*Because, one great and decisive spiritual advantage of positive ideals is that - when they fail or reveal serious limitations - they can be improved by learning from experience. 

Evil is a preference: a choice - and so is Good (contra- or pro-creation)

Many Christians have for many centuries wanted to be able to argue that evil was an insane unjustifiable irrationality. That it made no sense. That the only thing which did make sense was to live in obedience, and conform to the single reality that is God's creation - in the strongest possible sense that there is nothing else but God's creation. So, to be evil is to reject the only reality. 

One important half-truth behind the "relativistic" ideology of the dominant West-Globalist secular Leftism, relates to its rejection of this traditional "objective" Western Christian conceptualization of good and evil as reality versus anti-reality. 

For traditional Christianity - as (I understand) for Judaism and Islam - Good was theologically conceptualized as bound-up with God as the sole source of creation (God created everything from nothing); therefore Evil was conceptualized as objectively irrational, because it is against everything. 

Good was therefore conceptualized primarily in terms of conformity to God. 

With this scheme, there was no positive role for Man's freedom and agency except to submit to the divine order; because there is nothing except the divine order. 

There is only one coherent choice for each Man, for each Beings, in such a scheme - which is to choose allegiance to God - thus all evil is necessarily incoherent and insane*. 

Against this the false-half-truth ideology of secular Leftism proposes some version of "relativism", of the non-objectivity of values -- which is calibrated against the bottom line "hedonic" assumption that mortal life is the only life, and that the values of mortal life are therefore (merely) means towards the end of maximizing happiness and/or minimizing suffering. 

In other words, by this account, truth is whatever happens to make me most happy (or those I care about) over some timescale that I prefer - whether immediate happiness, or some kind of predictive happiness ranged over some future span. 

The more recent conceptualization that swaps happiness for the double negative-freedom-from-suffering , works the same way. Truth is just expediency with respect to minimizing suffering on a timescale from now, to some variably longer span. 

But relativism is itself incoherent for many reasons, as has been known since antiquity. It has no basis for asserting its own validity. 

And, after all, why is it assumed to be better to experience happiness and avoid suffering? Supposing I, or somebody else, says the opposite - then that is as true or untrue; and the choice between inverses depends on some utilitarian prediction of the consequences. In practice it is facile to argue that suffering now leads to happiness later - or the opposite; and the wrangling never stops unless coercively imposed!

If there are no objective values and all opinions are equally valid; then this assumption, and all other values, can be inverted - for any reason, or for no reason.

Yet relativism - in a soft and short-termist sense - clearly has some kind of powerful and lasting appeal when measured (as it is) against the "traditional Christian" version of values as objective, impersonal, and therefore a matter of submissive obedience to what is asserted to be the nature of reality. 

I think the element of truth in relativism is embedded in an individual intuition that a moral system which utterly downgrades "my" individual conscious human to (near-) irrelevance, cannot be right. 

When morality is made utterly objective, nothing to do with me - it becomes simple tyranny. 

Surely real, spiritually-compelling, mortality must be something that is in each of us, from each of us - and not just a thing "out there"? 

Surely we must be able to choose our values, or else they aren't values? 

And surely our choice depends on what each of us is by nature and wants most; on what each of us regards as good - and surely this is the primary moral act? 

We are confronted by reality - and (on the basis of our specific personal nature) we must and shall choose what will be our overall attitude to that reality?  

From this perspective, good does not feel like a wholly external reality, and evil does not feel irrational or incoherent; but both and either a choice rooted in what we personally most want among various possibilities. 

Then; whether we want it here-and-now, or want it in the long-term (a long-term that potentially might extend to eternity).  

So - In mainstream culture, we are apparently confronted with two incoherent and therefore false alternatives: the "Christian" supposedly being an objective and impersonal morality in which individual discernment has no positive function. 

Or there is a nihilistic fatalism where there are no values, but only an unbounded choices between arbitrary individual preferences - presumably based on the fluctuations of current feelings and emotions. In practice, the choice between-relativistic moralities seems to hinge on relative differences in the power to coerce and deceive, desire to belong to particular groups, and the like.    

My conclusion is that both alternatives should be rejected because incoherent hence false; and the truth needs to be sought in some other scheme of things. 

The truth embedded in relativism is that it is possible, rational and coherent that some people (and other beings) can and would choose to reject God and divine creation; would choose Not to affiliate to God's hopes and plans. 

And that rejection is the essence of evil. 

This rejection is a choice rooted in the fact that although we all are created Beings, are indeed Children of God; we are not entirely so - and we each and all "contain" aspects of that primordial self from-which we were created - and these primordial selves are each unique. 

Some primordial selves are less able (or perhaps unable) to love, or maybe the love is present but very weak and a low priority compared with other desires. 

Therefore, when confronted by God's creation which is rooted in love and aims at a reality of love; there are some beings who reject that vision - and who are therefore evil.

(So, I am defining good and evil by either affiliation to God's creative will and plans - rooted in love - or else the active rejection of that, for any reason. 

(There is also, I believe, a theoretical possibility of a wholly passive and personal declining to join the work of creation - a simple opting-out; without any attack on creation or any attempt to persuade others to reject God. Just a cosmic "no thanks" and a reversion to unconscious unawareness in isolation. If this happened, we would not know anything about it except that a being would "disappear" from creation.) 

As I said, some Christians (and others) want to be able to state that this rejection is incoherent, irrational, illogical - and that evil is objectively-impersonally wrong. 

They want to say that evil is: Just wrong without reference to any consciousness of any Being. 

But I would say that the objectivity of the wrongness of evil derives from the fact that by rejecting actual divine creation rooted in love, an evil Being ultimately places itself against creation as such. 

To be against creation is not relativistic; it is an objective fact about a Being's relationship with God and divine creation. 

Thus values are not subjective, nor are they objective - values are about a relationship. 

Evil is not a "mistake" of itself; but is a choice. There may be a mistake in terms of an evil Being wrongly predicting the consequences of rejecting God, rejecting love, rejecting creation...

But the error is not a logical one. Its more a matter of getting what you asked for, but not liking it when you've got it. 

*(Why it is possible for Men, or anything, to reject the divine order? If the theology says that such a choice is incomprehensibly insane, then where could this desire comes from in the first place except from God Himself?  This logical incoherence has never been clearly explained; and indeed it cannot be made coherent. Because because if God created absolutely everything that exists, then the desire to resist God must ultimately have been created by God Himself - as must all evil. Saying that God gave men Free Will does not answer this - because agency can only operate using the materials provided by God, which must mean that God made the evil in the first place, for evil to be choose-able. Yet for Christians, specifically, God is known and said to be wholly Good - so how (for a Christian) could a wholly good God provide evil for free will to be choose-able? My answer (in brief) is that God is wholly Good, and did not make evil - because God did Not make everything from nothing; but instead created using pre-existent Beings; some/most/ all of whom were capable of evil by their primordial nature. Thus evil has always been present in reality - and God is creatively working towards Goodness.) 

Dystopias reinforce double-negative values

One reason that we are fed a relentless diet of dystopian books, movies and TV - i.e. why this theme is so lavishly funded by The Establishment; is that consuming dystopian fiction demonstrably has zero benefit in terms of prevention (but instead facilitates actual dystopias by psychological and spiritual means); while portrayal of dystopias reinforces the bottom-line double-negative value system that is destroying modern Man. 

By the depiction of horror and misery is inculcated the (mostly-unconscious) idea that if-only these horrors and miseries were removed (or, at least, greatly reduced) then everything would be fine. 

The news reports and analyses of ongoing wars have a similar role and effect: indirectly pushing the idea that if-only there was peace; then everything would be fine...

(It should be noted that the same people who believe this kind of pacifism, are in-real-life nearly-always active in support of whoever is the worst side in those foreign wars that have been promoted and escalated by The West.)

Of course this idea that everything would be fine without war is not made explicit, because it is obviously absurd; but it is implied; often in a disguised form where the double-negative is presented as a positive. 

For instance "peace" - which is really the mere absence of war - is talked-about (written and sung-about) as if it was a positive concept, a positive value, an end rather than a means. 

This should be tediously familiar to anyone who has sampled the late 1960s-early 1970s pop and academic culture - ranging from ubiquitous "Peace" signs and symbols, through songs about peace phrased as if it were a positive thing, to academics working in "peace studies"...

Because, in a society without positive values, it is not just a safe-bet - but the only possible stance - to oppose some or another form of suffering as-if this was the was self-evidently the best possible belief and activity; the highest human value, the reason for our being, the purpose of life...

(And it can easily be inferred, and observed, that when the prevention of suffering becomes the highest value, we have an ethic of unbirth, death and suicide.) 

Indeed; it can be hazardous nowadays to espouse any positive goal for one's own life - such as a religion, or nationalism. This is increasingly regarded as dangerous, and a form of terrorism; unless it is religion or nationalism for someone-else, in some other-place. 

That's allowable, because it is conceptualized either as just-another double-negation, such as freedom-from-oppression; and is "altruistic" hence conforms to the supreme modern Western values of self-hatred and -destruction. 

If one takes a step back and considers; it really is inevitable that our culture is so fixated upon dystopias, exactly because that we have no motivating utopias; in other words, we fixate upon hoping to avoid dystopia, exactly because the double-negation of avoiding-dystopia is the highest value we can conceive as real. 

Genuine utopias have become (literally) incredible to modern consciousness, and rightly so; because modern Men acknowledge only this-world and mortal-life, and this-world is characterized by evil and entropy such that no genuine and positive utopia can ever happen.

This-worldly pessimism about the possibility of u-topia, then turns into this-world fear of dys-topia - and here we are. 

The sequence is almost inescapable, unless there is a profound reorientation of metaphysics. Unless (that is) we personally, and then culturally, acknowledge and believe-in the reality of post-death personal existence; then we cannot even begin to escape from the futile paradoxes of double-negative values. And we will continue to obsess over dystopias and wars.  

Not Even Trying is the new normal, and represents mass affiliation to evil

A while ago I wrote a little book about the corruption of science for which I devised the title Not Even Trying - with respect to scientists and truth. 

But, except at the highest levels - where the agenda is actively evil -  the strategic and inbuilt attitude of not even trying to perform one's designated function; is absolutely normal, mainstream in The West. 

Mainstream politicians of all ideologies and parties claim to favour economic growth, or military strength, or law and order - but none of them are trying to achieve these at the level of strategy - no matter how much low and micro-level efforts are put into such goals. 

In practice, all positive working level initiatives are long-term undermined and overwhelmed by the middle managerial indifference to designated functionality. 

Thus an individual doctor or nurse may have genuine concern with the health of patients, but health systems are not even trying to improve the health of people - but instead pursue a mixture of middle managerial power-seeking and careerism with the deep agendas of totalitarianism, or spiteful destruction. 

Or consider transport, which is mostly by roads. At the low level and short-term of businesses attempting to establish good deliveries and logistics, there may be a genuine focus on functionality. 

But local and national politicians and the civil service are not even trying to improve transport; instead using their control of resources and regulatory means to degrade and close roads and slow communications; and to render vehicles inefficient and ineffective - especially by means of the fake-environmental agenda linked to "carbon" and "climate change".  

And above this level are the Western-based global establishment whose evil agenda is conscious and deliberate; who are now not even trying to enable their supposed totalitarian policies to operate. "They" are instead using the overall power to create generalized chaos by multiple means: mass migrations, race war, inter-national war, the destruction of agriculture and international trade, encouragement of disease and mass poisoning etc. etc. 

 

What we have is a world where those who have power, wealth, high status; are not even trying to use these resources to attain positive functional goals. 

Yet they are not instead, as through much of history, instead using their control of resources for long-term self-enrichment of their clan or people. We are not dealing with "normal" human incompetence , errors, or mere corruption. 

Instead, there is a profound malaise of values. 

There are active, double-negative, inverted ideologies at work and dominant; which is exactly why such trends are not self-correcting but instead robust and still-increasing. 

What we are witnessing is, in other words, the all-but unopposed (because invisible or denied) triumph of evil on a very large scale...

Evil in the hearts of Men is always present; but now it is manifested in allegiance to a multi-level Satanic alliance in opposition to God... And to divine creation.

Because, ultimately, it is Men's opposition to divine creation which leads to deliberate dysfunctionality and bureaucratic indifference - to the phenomenon of Not Even Trying to perform one's designated role.  

Nationalism versus Globalism? Merely totalitarianism versus chaotic evil

At present, it seems that there are no primarily Christian nations in the world.

(With the probable exception of the Fire Nation - but none in The West) 

Therefore - all nationalism is evil: as are all secular polities. 

In other words, the only good nationalism is one that is secondary to Christianity. Which means that the nationalism must function within Christian priorities and a Christian framework. In other words, to be good, nationalism must be part of a Christian theocracy.  

Yet, I believe that a Christian theocracy is not desirable in the West (as well as being in practice almost-certainly impossible). 

This undesirability/ impossibility of Western theocracy is for reasons I have discussed ad nauseam on this blog, to do with the changed nature of Western Consciousness - that is changed motivations, a changed mode of thinking, a changed relationship to divine reality etc.  

Western people don't want it, cannot be made to want it, will not choose it, and would not tolerate it if it were imposed. So that the result of trying to impose theocracy would not be a Christian society, but merely secular totalitarianism using Christianized language and excuses. 

In the Western World now, the nationalists are would-be totalitarian bureaucrats, exponents of Ahrimanic evil (whether they espouse "Christian values, or not). 

The nationalists oppose the globalists who are Sorathic agents of spitefully destructive evil. 

And that is the choice within the political arena. A choice between variants of the dominant globalist destroyers, or a backlash of nationalist totalitarians: there are no Good choices available.  

Disillusion is not wisdom; because dis-illusion (as the name implies) is a double-negative - not a positive - value; and Good comes only from a positive affiliation to God and divine creation. 

At present I perceive increasing numbers of disillusioned totalitarian bureaucrats among the national leadership class - people who have noticed that their worked-for totalitarian New World Order is being destroyed by strategic chaos imposed by the dominating multi-national globalists. 

So we are getting (and indeed have been getting, since around the millennium) some of the more intelligent and insightful adherents of totalitarian-Ahrimanic evil embracing a nationalist agenda to some extent. Putting themselves forward as a "common sense" alternative to literally-insane inversion of the Sorathic globalists. 

But nationalism is evil. Historically, nationalism arose after the decline of Christianity: nationalism was the ideological basis of the first truly secular states.  

What the globalists call the "far Right" - or populist Right, often tacitly supported by a majority of Western population - are actually "local totalitarians": those who want to have what they regard as a strong, productive, efficient nation - more like the Western societies of the middle 20th century. 

This agenda would entail some sensible and common sense controlled and reduced immigration, a degree of meritocracy (instead of "inclusion" or "equality"), a protected and planned economy, coherent laws, effective military and police etc. 

Sounds great, you say? Not so.  

From where we are now; such a society is not just impossible, but would anyway be evil - because inevitably totalitarian. 

It would not have Christian foundations, would not be organized in accordance with God's will and divine creation, nor would it be Christianly motivated. 

Therefore what we would actually get would be a version of "the Great Reset" - but on a national basis; and without the self-destroying elements such as "sustainability", antiracism, and the rest. 

At best and temporarily, such a society would assert justifications that are this-worldly, and utilitarian. But since such abstractions are both humanly-feeble and irredeemably subjective - very soon selfish, short-termist corruption among the leadership class would inevitably take-over. 

(Which is why They are keen on the idea!)

What I am saying is that "nationalism" is a delusion or a deception for The West, arising only as a consequence of in-fighting among the demon-serving ruling class. 

Serious Christians should be wary of falling into the trap of supporting nationalism - since it will inevitably be unmasked as local totalitarianism - hence intrinsically evil.