Goodies and baddies

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Given that neutrality is impossible nonsense, and that we ought to support the better against the worse, how do we discern goodies from baddies?

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Cast aside the nonesense of legalism, proceduralism - that has landed us where we are now.

Go back to the ancient idea of settling a trial mainly by means of character: the relative character of the two sides, as revealed by their past behavior and known motivations.

Character and motivation: what are the two sides like and what are they trying to do?

What would they do if they won?

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Often this is clear: if one side won they would (on the basis of their character) do things we regard as wrong: they are the baddies.

In most conflicts this is very, very obvious. 

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The goodies are those who are either trying to do something good, and who have on the basis of their character a reputation for doing good; or else (in a fallen world) simply those who oppose the baddies.

That is enough! - if you have better character and better motivations and/or you are against the baddies - then you are a goody.

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Most baddies are working to impose the rule of a bad person (a person of bad character and motivations) - some baddies are working to impose the rule of bad gods or god (the divinity being judged by character and motivations).

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(Of course, here I am talking in a secular kind of way, but the principle works even better from a religious perspective, mutatis mutandis).

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If only goodies would discern in this fashion (avoiding the snares of legalism, of proceduralism) and if only the goodies would unite in opposing the baddies - well, it would be a better world: the world would get better, more good.

If only...

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The nature of evil characters in fantasy - Tolkien and Rowling

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What is the difference between good and evil characters in fantasy novels?

There is a superficial difference which seems universal to the genre, and a fundamental difference which is seen only in the best of the genre.

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The superficial difference is that good characters are kind, honest and altruistic, while bad characters are cruel, lying and selfish.

But the main superficial difference is kindness versus cruelty - the scenes which depict the evilness of the evil characters are typically those where they take pleasure in torment and torture.

This is seen in the best of the genre as well as the mainstream - Tolkien's orcs are cruel and love to torture, Rowling's Death Eaters love to torture Muggles and Muggle-lovers.

This can be seen as a hedonic morality, evil characters make others miserable: Vote for the goodies and have a better life.

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Cruelty is never good but it is possible to imagine a fantasy novel in which the goodies were violent and the baddies are pacifists. When the regime is evil and in control, and the only escape from oppression is by force, then evil may be pacifist. 

In Lord of the Rings Wormtongue takes a pacifist line when it comes to fighting Saruman, and he tries to protray Eomer as a blood-thirsty troublemaker who is the cause of provoking Saruman's aggression against Rohan.

In the Deathly Hallows where Voldemort controls in Ministary of Magic, official propaganda presents Harry and his supporters as the cause of all repressions, and provoking the necessity for the Snatcher squads. If only Harry would surrender, or would be handed-in to the authorities - then all would be peaceful...

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But the fundamental nature of evil in both Tolkien and Rowling is that evil desires to usurp God and itself be worshipped.

This meaning is deeply buried, but it is there.

The reality of Tolkien's universe is that The One is supreme; but Morgoth's prideful desire is to be worshipped in his place. Sauron is Morgoth's chief 'priest', and when he corrupts Numenor Sauron reinstates the worship of Morgoth. Presumably this would be Sauron's aim if he ruled Middle Earth - or alternatively to set himself up for worship (there are indications in the History of Middle Earth that Sauron pretended to be Morgoth at one point).

It is this displacement of God which is Morgoth/ Sauron's fundamental evil - that they falsely set themselves up as the supreme object of worship.

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And in Harry Potter something similar applies to Voldemort.

While Dumbledore and Harry implicitly serve some higher but unnamed Good (which is, in fact, God - as is suggested by the Harry-Dumbledore discussions of the King's Cross - Limbo chapter, and its depiction of the state of Voldemort's soul) - but Voldemort wants to be worshipped as supreme.

This is perhaps why Voldemort/ Tom Riddle will not allow anyone to speak his name, will not allow his name to be 'taken in vain' - this is characteristic of a jealous god.

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So, in the best fantasy, evil is ultimately that which would falsely usurp God as that which ought to be worshipped: evil is that which sets itself up to replace the true God.

The goodies are those who oppose this - and the characters are defined as good or evil not so much by their conduct as by which side they choose: real God or usurper; truth or falsehood (although conduct is also affected by the choice of sides).

Evil is an objective wrong because it is a denial of the Truth of the universe, the evil usurper is not - in fact - God: God is God - the only legitimate object of worship.

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In fantasy novels the attempt to enforce worship of evil leads to the superficial features of evil; because to worship evil and deny God is inherently false; it is distorting, unnatural.

The desire to overturn the organizing principle of the world is indicative of the primacy of pride and will - and to re-order the world requires immense power to reshape everything according to the will of the usurper - the more unnatural the desired state, the greater the power required to create it.

Hence evil characters seek power over the world. The unnatural deployment of power then leads on to the 'superficial' side effects that characterize the evil characters in fantasy: destruction of beauty, denial of Natural Law, deceitfulness, and that cruelty that delights in bending the will of others to conformity with the will-full fantasy of the evil villain.

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Tendentious accusations of 'conspiracy theory' vs explicit purposive action

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I have noticed that Leftists are very free with accusations of conspiracy theory.

When evaluating some undesirable phenomenon, the options given are 'chaos or conspiracy' - and these are assumed to be exhaustive.

The error is to assume that a conspiracy is the only form of explicit purposive group action.

Yet clearly this is not the case. 'Conspiracies' are pretty rare, but explicit purposive group action is pretty common.

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There are plenty of examples of groups, some very large groups indeed, who are quite explicit about their aims: these aims are published, preached, discussed, enforced.

And they are purposive in pursuit of these aims, they push in a particular direction and keep pushing - they take a long term strategic attitude (they want to win the war, not just the next battle).

They know what they are doing.

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The whole debate seems to hinge on self-awareness and consistency.

The bar for a 'conspiracy' is set at an impossibly high level such that the conspirators must all be wholly aware of what they want and what they are doing: must be wholly explicit and relentlessly purposive.

Since humans aren't like that, then the reality of the situation is denied.

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The end result of this style of reasoning is a peculiar state of denial concerning the reality of evil, and even the reality of enemies.

When 'chaos' is used to explain everything in opposition it does (at least) two things.

The first is that the 'my side' is seen as on the side of reason and order; while 'the other side' are seen as irrational and random - my intelligence and knowledge versus your stupidity and ignorance.

While this distinction may seem fairly aggressive, in the modern context it points to an enlightened solution in more and better-directed remedial education (aka propaganda).

The second consequence is to get rid of the problem of deliberate and strategic evil, to get rid of it from individual and social awareness.

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Confronted by immense, organized examples of explicit and purposive evil; our response is first to prove that it is not a conspiracy (not wholly bad, not self-consciously bad, not completely organized); then to regard any evil phenomena as generated by random causes, and then simply to ignore the threat.

Anyone who regards an example of evil as explicit and purposive must themselves be evil.

By such methods any conceivable evil can be ignored, no matter its scale or obviousness, no matter how explicit or purposive.

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Traditionalism as a mental disorder? - Kalb on Liberalism

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From The Tyranny of Liberalism by James Kalb  (2008: pp. 51-2):

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Crude political expressions of scientism, such as Marxism, once waged open war on the traditions and religion of the people. Contemporary liberalism, which supplements scientism with the claim of tolerance and popular consent, is more sophisticated.

It accepts the right of tradition and religion to exist, but it trivializes them as mere personal preferences that cannot be allowed to affect anything that matters.

Furthermore, the disciplines of mental health remain available to delegitimize popular preferences at odds with public policy. 

These disciplines were used as political tools with Bolshevik crudity in the Soviet Union, but they have been deployed with greater finesse in the West. 

Classic examples include Theodore Adorno's critique of the 'authoritarian personality', which allowed almost any sort of skepticism regarding liberal demand sot be treated as a sign of psychological disorder, and Richard Hofstadter's 'The paranoid style in American politics', which assimilated support of Barry Goldwater and dissent from the Cold War-liberal consensus to a pattern of political insanity that spanned centuries. 

A more recent example is the term 'homophobia, which turns adherence to traditional sexual morality into a mental disorder.'

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What has happened is that liberalism/ political correctness has become so pervasive an assumption among the intellectual elite, that they regard PC as not just statistically normal, but as natural and spontaneous such that any deviations require specific explanation.

A related example of this, written by a friend of mine and indeed the premier IQ researcher in the UK, shows the Leftist assumption that intelligent people will naturally gravitate towards 'liberal and antitraditional social attitudes' and the strong implication that such attitudes are 'enlightened' in the sense of Good:

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Bright Children Become Enlightened Adults. Ian J. Deary, G. David Batty, Catharine R. Gale. Psychological Science January 1, 2008 vol. 19 no. 1 1-6. Abstract: We examined the prospective association between general intelligence (g) at age 10 and liberal and antitraditional social attitudes at age 30 in a large (N = 7,070), representative sample of the British population born in 1970. Statistical analyses identified a general latent trait underlying attitudes that are antiracist, proworking women, socially liberal, and trusting in the democratic political system. There was a strong association between higher g at age 10 and more liberal and antitraditional attitudes at age 30; this association was mediated partly via educational qualifications, but not at all via occupational social class. Very similar results were obtained for men and women. People in less professional occupations—and whose parents had been in less professional occupations—were less trusting of the democratic political system. This study confirms social attitudes as a major, novel field of adult human activity that is related to childhood intelligence differences.

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I agree with Deary et al that higher IQ does indeed predispose towards PC and 'enlightened' attitudes - but I regard the word 'enlightened' as meaning something-like 'progressivism typical of the enlightenment era' rather than being conflated with 'virtuous'.

So I regard high IQ enlightenment as a 'clever silly' phenomenon - a phenomenon among the current intellectual elite which is a by-product high IQ among European populations.

High IQ has definite advantages in terms of social success and longevity in modern societies.

But it is the historically- and geographically-restricted attitude of liberalism and anti-traditional values which is objectively, biologically pathological - as revealed by the cumulatively-lethal effect on reproductive success among the intellectual elite and the societies they rule.

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The scientifically-correct response to accusations of mental illness among anti-PC traditionalists is therefore not to argue-against the whole idea of psychopathology as relevant in politics; but in fact to make the credible counter-argument that significant (because fitness-damaging) psychological disorder is endemic among progressives.

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James Kalb and Bruce Charlton compared, by James Kalb

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http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/node/2909

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All college and university degrees should be vocational

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When universities and colleges worked properly, or at least much better than they do now (which is 'hardly at all') - then they were vocational institutions.

Medieval universities taught that which was necessary for an individual to become a member of the intellectual ruling class (logic, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics) - and that was the vocational purpose of becoming a 'Master of Arts' (Magister Artium).

The Doctoral degrees were also vocational - both in a specific sense of educating for practice in Divinity, Law and Medicine - but also in the general sense of being a license to teach at Universities.

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Post-medieval secular colleges retained the vocational focus: the aim early on was to teach what was necessary to become an administrator in that particular state - then later the vocational focus shifted to include that of being a generic 'teacher' of advanced studies (which at that time was mostly teaching in 'grammar schools').

When school teaching was essentially focused on the classics or mathematics, they formed the focus of university degrees - vocational again. To these were later added new vocational professions such as engineering, architecture, dentistry; and specialist teaching subjects, such as the sciences or specific arts.

Even as recently as forty years ago, most English degrees were implicitly vocational: the subject matter of degrees focused on either training for a specific profession, or for a specific type of advanced school teacher. The bulk of graduates were assumed to become high school teachers of the subject they studied at college.

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(The apparent exception of historical US liberal arts colleges can be understood on the basis that they actually functioned as grammar schools not universities: they provided basic general education for elite administrators.)

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Since the vocational link was broken, universities and colleges have been adrift without land in sight.

They claim to 'educate', but what is 'education' in practice?

By assuming that 'education' is valuable in and of itself, the concept has been emptied of substance.

Education is now open-endedly defined as 'whatever universities teach'.

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Lacking any understandable vocational rationale for degrees, higher education makes implausible claims about its generic benefits.

However, the claimed effects of higher 'education' as such turn-out to be merely a combination of maturation and selection. Graduates (as a class) are three or four years older, and possess intellectual abilities according to the degree of selectivity of a particular institution.

Until age and selectivity are controlled, quantitative claims for the generic benefits of generic higher education are dishonest or ignorant (usually both).

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(By contrast the specific benefits of a specific program of study are much more comprehensible - when present. The professional programs potentially retain this core rationale - but this activity constitutes a small segment of higher education - and indeed the professional courses have been corrupted by a bogus goal of 'generic education'. The fake rationale of non-vocational higher education has thus contaminated the obvious functionality of vocational higher education!)

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Let's be clear: There are no generic benefits from spending x years studying something called a degree in some-subject-or-another, at something called a university.

Really - let's be sensible - how could there be?

Advanced formal education just is vocational - not in the sense of being a training for a specific job, but in the sense that it can cohere and potentially be valuable only when conceptualized as a preparation.

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The nationalization of virtue - James Kalb

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From The Tyranny of Liberalism by James Kalb (re-paragraphed):

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Recent moral progress is an illusion.

What has happened, in effect, is that fairness and decency have been turned into nationalized industries.

Instead of people having to treat each other decently, each does what he wishes and society at large is expected to provide the decency.

From the standpoint of the managerial state, which even mainstream conservatives have come to adopt, the consequence is that fairness and decency have finally come into their own.

The actual consequences have been those common to all nationalized industries: inputs have shot up, while outputs have dropped in quantity and still more in quality.

Petty tyrants get cushy jobs as economic planners or diversity consultants while the people suffer from crime and abusive conduct. Things no one cares about like celebrations of diversity are overproduced while things desperately needed like integrity and trust are impossible to find.

Why should nationalization work better in the case of something as hard to force and easy to fake as fairness and decency than it does in the production of shoes?

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Many regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the work of Jim Kalb - and if you are not you should be! - at least if you are interested in understanding political correctness:

http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/

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Kalb's work is the definitive treatment of Liberalism (hence PC); and many of my own ideas are perhaps most obviously regarded merely as an independently re-discovered, simplified and in-your-face version of Kalb's more sophisticated analysis.

So much so, that I needed to stop reading Kalb and avoid engaging with his magnum opus The Tyranny of Liberalism until I had my own thought clear, and had finished writing my book.

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But now I can allow myself the great pleasure and enlightenment of reading the ToL - and expect to be posting on the subject of this book for a while.

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The nationalization of fairness and decency, their absorption into national state bureaucracies, has had an amazingly powerful negative effect on society - it is responsible for that sense of being unable to 'do good' in the West which drives so many idealists abroad to help third worlders, especially (at present) Africans.

They are seeking a place where there is a 'market' in fairness and decency, and where virtue is still open for moral entrepreneurs.

But of course to talk in this way seems to be to regard alms-giving as primarily required for the benefit of the giver, rather than for the relief of the sufferer.

Yet whichever way you look at it, the nationalization of virtue has failed. It devalues the giver, it is less effective at relieving suffering; and even the administering bureaucrat gets very little out of it except a pay cheque, since he is merely following rules.

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The nationalization of virtue continues anyway. It claims to guarantee security and impartiality, it seems to 'sort out' the problem (ha!), it harnesses spitefulness against those who give charity.

(The Left's venomous hatred against charitable people is really something! - evangelical Christians and Mormons are simply loathed for their large scale and effective charitable work. They are taking bread from the mouths of bureaucrats!)

But perhaps the biggest incentive for nationalizing fairness and decency is that we ourselves no longer have any obligation to be fair and decent.

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Under PC we can be as partial and selfish as the rules allow; and if we are not effectively prevented from this then it is the fault of the rules, not our fault.

We can, and in a sense should behave as badly as the law allows us; since it is the business of the law to define and enforce good behaviour, and bad but law-abiding behaviour only demonstrates the need for a change in law.

(Yet, of course, the Left also say that 'you cannot legislate morality' - as if legislating morality wasn't the core and essence of law! But what they actually mean is that traditional values, Natural Law, should not be legislatively imposed. When it comes to moral inversions, the Left naturally devise and enforce such behaviour, and do so without a second thought.)

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This is all part of the demoralization induced by political correctness, and which itself sustains PC.

Civil society is destroyed, churches are destroyed, marriage is destroyed, alternatives are disallowed, individuals are left on their own with nobody to trust - and the essentials of life are provided (or not provided) by nationalized bureaucracies.

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The possibilities of an individual actually practising fairness and decency (rather than merely administering f&d) are now so limited that people can only feel good about themselves in an officially-sanctioned way (and that only temporarily) by joining in hysterical campaigns of persecution of the non-PC.

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It is a new nationalized sport for the elite! Attacking the non-PC!

You get to gang-up on isolated victims, you get to humiliate and harm them, and yet you feel good about it!

Come on! Even if you can't join the mob inflicting the actual punishments, you can still experience the solidarity of cheering from the sidelines.

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Eunuchs as bureaucrats

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I have previously posted on the concept that intellectuals in traditional (pre-modern) societies are de facto 'eunuchs' -

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/03/intellectuals-are-intrinsically-eunuchs.html

- but the experience of the Byzantine Empire also suggests that actual eunuchs (castrated men) probably make excellent intellectuals.

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The first point to clarify is that the Byzantine Empire was a huge success. As Sir Steven Runciman stated: "No other constitution in all the history of the Christian era has endured for so long."

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So, how did they do it?

The primary factor underpinning all else, was the high level of religious (specifically Christian) devoutness. Aside from the salvific 'benefits' (!) this provided Byzantium with extraordinary social cohesion, confidence and resilience.

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But one of the secondary factors in the endurance of the Eastern Roman Empire was probably an efficient and effective Imperial bureaucracy, and this was staffed by eunuchs.

Eunuchs were barred from being Emperor (although could and did rise to the top of all other prestigious hierarchies; including the Patriarch of Constantinople and the premier military General) but provided a layer of personnel between the Emperor and his subjects.

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Eunuchs were prized for their loyalty (which was presumably biologically caused) but the 'price of admission' to this powerful elite ("Hello Sir. Come about the clerical job? Please check-in your testicles at the door.") may go some way to explaining how it was that the Byzantine bureaucracy did not go the way of all other privileged administrations, with unstoppable over-expansion of personnel leading to terminal inefficiency.

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Repentance must precede reform

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Those who look for hope in mainstream politics: listen-out for repentance before you believe-in reform.

Unless preceded by a wholesale confession or error, a wholesale repudiation of previous policies - nothing will happen, it won't make any difference, it is all a deception (us-deception for sure, self-deception very possibly).

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Politics is simple - one thing or another thing.

If they have been doing one thing and it leads to trouble, they must reject it and do another thing.

But they must reject it.

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Otherwise it is (in effect if not intention) just a trick to enable them to keep doing 99 percent of what they want, while making a big fuss over the 1 percent concession - until the concession is a tiny island of common sense in an ocean of political correctness, when it will (obviously) be swamped.

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The only major UK political change I have experienced which went against the tide of Leftism, was the reversal (albeit short-lived) of decades-long economic decline by Margaret Thatcher's government. All the other stuff from the Conservative was either moderate Leftism or empty wind.

But the economic reversal was done in the teeth of resistance (including mine); it was done after repenting and repudiating the whole idea of socialist economic central planning; and the new principle was re-stated over and over.

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That is what is required, that is what we would need to see if destruction is to be reversed before catastrophe.

The ruling elite must repent loudly and clearly and repeatedly; must humbly acknowledge that they have been wrong all along; must reject their self-justifying narrative of equality and progress; must explicitly apply a wholly different aim and discourse...

The ruling elite must be, in effect, born again.

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Naturally this seems utterly implausible - that such a collection of preening, prancing popinjays would actually humble themselves en masse in face of ordinary common sense and traditional values: to proclaim they had been utterly mistaken about secularism, leftism, modernity...

I see no sign of it.

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Pride has them in its grip. They will not give-up their narrative.

It seems they would sink into despair and destruction rather than admit they were wrong.

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(You see it all the time, disillusioned ex-radicals wallowing in despair, blotting-out their sorrows as best they may. Self-punishing. But utterly useless - completely wrong. They still hold fast to their deluded dreams. Their despair is that the dreams turned out false or nightmarish - they do not reject the dreams as an ideal. There is no repentance, no humility - they remain proud of their younger selves, their youthful idealism, their lifestyle... They regard themselves as martyrs to hedonism.)

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Yet despair is no answer to pride: despair is also a sin.

The despair of the elites will lead only to self-hatred, submission or hedonic escape.

The proper escape from the consequences of pride is not despair but humility.

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Repentance... that must precede all else. It is necessary: the inescapable first step towards anything better.

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What is the Way of Affirmation? (Via Positiva)

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Since I encountered the idea in 1987, I have found it very difficult to grasp what Charles Williams meant by the Way of Affirmation, or Via Positiva.

This is not surprising in itself for two obvious reasons. The first is that I was far from being a Christian at that time (much further away than I imagined); the second is that it is always hard to understand Charles Williams on any subject! 

What I gathered was that he was putting forward a life of poetry and engagement with life - with the world and especially romantic love - as an alternative spiritual path, in contrast to the more obvious (and more obviously effective) negative path of withdrawal from the world, discipline of the mind and body and in general asceticism.

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Also related to this is the idea that there may be a way to God via Joy and embrace of mystical union as well as the more familiar path of awareness of sin and repentance.

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(Of course these paths are emphases rather than absolutes, there is always some mixture. Even an ascetic Saint requires some minimal conditions for the sustenance of their life.)

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The dangers of this line of thought are obvious. In general, young men don't need much encouragement to pursue a life of pleasure and call it joy, of sexuality and call it romance, of self indulgent hedonism and call it union with the divine!

Yet to state the hazards does not invalidate the idea, since the hazards are great along the other path: especially spiritual pride or prelest.

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Yet the idea of the positive way still seems vague, its success unsure and its relationship to the tried and tested and effective negative way unclear.

My current thoughts are as follows:

The negative way is essential to a Christian life. It is essential that each Christian begins with an awareness of the sinfulness - that is to say the worldliness, selfishness and gratification-seeking - of human life as such. It is essential that this be repented, and that the Christian ask God (via Christ) for forgiveness. It is essential, also, that some degree of control over worldly motivations be attained - some degree of asceticism - else the Christian will be merely a leaf in the wind of chance and circumstance.

So the negative way must come first.

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Beyond that perhaps requires a recognition of individuality.

I am unsure whether the positive path of affirmation reaches as high as the negative ascetic path: I know that the negative path leads to Sainthood, to an earthly life lived in heaven. I don't know whether the positive path can attain that. I don't know whether there were affirmative Saints.

Yet for an individual it may be possible that the way of affirmation may take them higher than asceticism.

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What does the via positiva aim to do?

I think it relates to the method used for orientating towards God.

The positive way tries to move towards communion with God via the activities of life: via Love and Work, especially.

This is sometimes expressed as consecration of these activities to God.

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Crudely, this might be done by (in effect) interrupting these activities by periods of reflection and prayer - but this is in fact to 'stop doing' the activity of loving or working for the duration of reflection and prayer, so is clearly unideal.

Attention can be only one place at a time, so this suggests that the consecration of love and work to God should not be a matter of self-awareness but be implicit.

And, given that spiritual striving should be continuous, it further suggests that the way of affirmation would need to establish a context of prayer for the activities of life. Not so much a background, as a permeating environment of prayer.

And this seems to point back to something like the formation of a habit of continuous use of the Jesus Prayer or other short prayers used with multiple repetitions  (although other methods are imaginable).


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Such matters are explained and described in Unseen Warfare as translated into English from the Russian version by Starets Theophan the Recluse:

The method was invented of saying short prayers, which would keep the thought of straying, nor of going outside. St. Cassian speaks of this, saying that in his time this practice was general in Egypt (Dicourses x.10). From the teachings of other fathers we see that it was used on Mount Sinai, in Palestine, In Syria, and in all other places throughout the Christian world.

What other meaning have the invocation: ‘Lord have mercy!’ and other short prayers, which fill our divine services and our psalmody? Thus, here is my advice: choose for yourself a short prayer or several such prayers, and by repeating by themselves on your tongue, and keep your thought focused on one point only-remembrance of God.

Everyone is free to choose his own short prayers. Read the Psalms. There you can find in every Psalm inspiring appeals to your state and most appeal to you.

Learn them by heart and repeat now one, now another, now a third. Intersperse your recital of prayers with these, and let them be on your tongue at all times, whatever you may be doing, from one set time of prayer to another. You may also formulate your own prayers, should they better express your need, on the model of the 24 short prayers of St. Chrysostom, which you have in your prayer book.

But do not have too many, lest you overburden your memory and lest your attention runs from one to the other, which will be totally contrary to the purpose for which they were designed- to keep attention collected. The 24 prayers of St. Chrysostom is the maximum; one can use less.

To have more than one is good for variety and to enliven spiritual taste; but in using them one should not pass from one to another too quickly. Taking one which corresponds best to your spiritual need, appeal to God with it until your taste for it becomes blunted.

You can replace all your psalmody, or part of it, by these short prayers; make it a rule to repeat them several times- ten, fifty and a hundred times, with lesser bows. But always keep one thing in mind- to hold your attention constantly directed towards God.

We will call this practice short prayerful sighings to God, continued at all moments of the day and of the night, when we are not sleeping.

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Norman Keeps and Horrible Histories

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From The Notion Club Papers, by JRR Tolkien, page 231:

"Oh, Norman Keeps is our barber,' said Frankley. At least that's what Arry and I call him: no idea what his real name is.

"Quite a nice and moderately intelligent little man: but to him everything beyond a certain vague distance back is a vast dark barren but utterly fixed and determined land and time called The Dark Ages.

"There are only four features in it: Norman Keeps (by which he means baronial castles, and possibly the house of any man markedly richer than himself); Them Jameses (meaning roughly I suppose the kings One and Two); The Squires (a curious kind of bogey-folk); and The People.

"Nothing ever happened in that land but Them Jameses shutting up The People in the Keeps (with the help of The Squires) and there torturing them and robbing them, though they don't appear ever to have possessed anything to be robbed of.

"Rather a gloomy legend. But it's a great deal more fixed in a lot more heads than is the Battle of Camlan!'

"'I know, I know,' said Lowdham loudly and angrily. 'It's a shame! Norman Keeps is a very decent chap, and would rather learn truth than lies. But [Sauron] pays special attention to the type. (...)'

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In his notes Christopher Tolkien points out that 'Normal Keeps' was Tolkien's nickname for a real person, who worked in a barber's shop in Turl Street, Oxford.

In the UK, the perspective of Norman Keeps has become mainstream and dominant with the success of a series of very popular and enjoyable cartoon history books for pre-adolescent children called Horrible Histories, by Terry Deary (we must have thirty or forty of them on our shelves at home).

The books have been successful in CD audio form, made into animated cartoons, and are currently the basis for a brilliantly clever and funny show of parodic sketches and songs.

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The view adopted is that History is Horrible; and the Horrible is the only aspect of History which is covered.

The books (which are very well written and illustrated, and very funny) are full of disgusting and horrific facts - especially torture, suffering, and the unhygienic.

Implicit is that only history is really Horrible, and that 'we' - the readers and writer of the book, have said 'goodbye to all that', moved beyond it, and now recognize that previous generations were both stupid and cruel.

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Terry Deary (who lives near me, although I haven't met him) is explicit that his books have a subversive and Leftist purpose; and they have clearly succeeded in this purpose.

The preceding perspective which Horrible Histories have subverted was the vestige of Whiggish history, the idea of history as progressive, with each step an advance on what went before. Whiggish history entailed the assumption that some of the past was admirable - because it was leading up to better things - while other aspects of the past were retrograde, destructive of progress.

But there were certainly 'good things' about the past in a Whiggish history of England -  Alfred the Great, The Magna Carta, The Elizabethan Age and so on.

This progressive view of history was the Leftism of its era - the Old Left. 

*

But for Norman Keeps and Horrible Histories, the past is all bad, because the essence of history is oppression compounded by ignorance.

There was indeed progress, but it was qualitative and instant: essentially progress began only when the reader entered history; the reader is a higher form of human consciousness than ever existed in history; the reader for the first time sees-through the shabbiness, greediness and idiocy of history.

We have nothing to learn from History except that it was bad; and history was bad because (compared wit the modern day reader) historical people were bad.

So Horrible Histories is highly flattering to the modern reader: he surveys all of human history and finds himself and his opinions to be better than anything which went before. Morally better, as well as technically better.  

*

Any actual basic approach to history (past times) is always simple (like most theoretically-overwhelmingly-complex things: in practice they are necessarily absolutely simple).

History is either positive or negative - and boils down to the primary assumption that either the past was better or worse than now.

*

Traditionally history has a positive valence, and it was assumed that the past (obviously!) contained more good things and people than the present (not least because there was a lot more of the past). Consequently people looked to the past for knowledge and wisdom.

And this was certainly the view of Tolkien.

A corollary of this (not necessary, but perhaps inevitable) is that the pattern of history has been a decline not a progress: the greatest people and achievements of the past are greater than the greatest people and achievements in the present.

*

Nowadays history has a negative valence, and it is assumed that the present is better and wiser than the past - indeed the point at which bad history begins has been brought up to about 1965 - that is the New Left, student revolutions, the beginning of 'isms' and of political correctness.

Up to 1965 stupid bad people; after 1965 clever good people.

Before 1965 all bad: after 1965 some good.

The New Left has subverted the Old Left.

*

A corollary of this is that history is seen as progress - but nowadays not a steady progress but as pretty-much a flat line of human misery and corruption until c. 1965; and then a very recent and very rapid take-off to the current state of enlightenment.

Making the present perspective unique to human history, uniquely virtuous - that is: qualitatively superior to anything that went before. 

Consequently people nowadays look to the past not for knowledge and wisdom, but

1. to be appalled at its wickedness and ignorance (Norman Keeps)

and/ or

2. to laugh at its wickedness and ignorance (Horrible Histories). 

*

(I am not arguing here for a 'balanced' view of history - I am suggesting there is no such thing as a balanced view of history. There is no neutrality: we must choose. I am therefore arguing for a positive view of history; and against the negative view of history embodied by NK and HH.)

*

In his comments of Norman Keeps, Tolkien perceived that while the Horrible History perspective can creep-up on decent people, it is wide-open to evil.

Sauron pays special attention to the type. 

*

The historical perspective of Norman Keeps and Horrible Histories - while certainly fun when taken in a recreational spirit, or as a 'Lord of Misrule' break in routine - in the end promotes and sustains invincible pride in people and in culture.

(Imagine! To feel qualitatively superior to all those 'horrible' people lived in the past! To sit in judgment, and to condemn all previous generations as fundamentally immoral and foolish! Very pleasant...)

*

By rejecting all the wisdom of the past, Horrible History leaves modern society trapped in the Now.

Trapped, that is, in the gilded iron cage of pervasive bureaucracies and mass media; but with nowhere to to escape: no alternatives.

*

The poison of literalism - the necessity of 'fantasy'

*

One big reason why traditional thought seems impossible to so many modern people is the 'literalism' of our discourse - its fragmented, specialized and over-precise nature.

So that when we try to discuss fundamental matters that can only be comprehended in mythic poetry; what actually comes out is professional, bureaucratic, procedural prose.

(This applies particularly strikingly to modern 'poetry' - which is professional, political, partial, prosaic; never mythic.)

*

Many people have noticed this, of course - including the Inklings - but I got it from a post-Jungian psychologist called James Hillman (whose work I would *not* recommend in general. Flashes of light amidst oceans of confusion and willfulness).

So modern Christianity tends to be very prosy, very legalistic - somehow it cannot connect all its aspects - all its transcendent qualities - simultaneously.

Instead of being able to comprehend multiple poetic and mythic meanings from a single word, sentence or passage - we are reduced to picking it apart and sequentially describing its ethics, its philosophy, its historical meaning etc. Each of which, taken alone, rings false - and is dull, unengaging, indeed aversive.

*

We see this dissecting to death, this vivisection of reality, when people analyze and describe poetry - but it applies more fundamentally to theology.

*

Of course, the wholeness of thought is not altogether dead: it lives on in childhood, in dreams, in visionary glimpses, and in fantasy.

But wholeness does not live (or only exceptionally and dwindlingly) in 'real life', or in public discourse - at any rate it is dying.

*

It used to be possible for The Law to be regarded as beautiful - C.S. Lewis in his book on the Psalms points at the way some ancient Jews loved and hymned their Law - it was seen as virtuous, but also and at the same time true and beautiful.

*

But now it seems that Laws are merely rules.

Modern humans are dying of starvation, because the food of their souls has been broken down into its chemical constituents.

We hunger for meaning and purpose and a relation with life - for life to be myth and poetry; but we are given merely dry, professional, rational prose.

*

A decade ago, when I was a kind of pagan, I wrote about recovered animism:

http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/animism.html

I would regard this diagnosis as accurate but the prescription as partial and hazardous.

*

What we hunger for, at root, is a recovery of the 'animistic' world view in a context of Christian reality.

Animism that is not psychotic, not self-gratifying, not a seeking after power or diversion; but instead a continual awareness of our relation to everything.

But this is not animism repetitively checked and constrained by Christian rationality; so much as animism contained-within the greater frame of Christian Truth - so that we connect with the reality of life spontaneously.

*

At present, for many or most people, this can be had only in private - in 'fantasy' (in Truth-full fantasy) - but if so, if public discourse is deficient, then fantasy is of primary importance.

For modern people, fantasy may be the secret thread running through self-perceived earthly existence, absorbing into itself all that our souls recognize as real.

And from this mythic inner perspective, we discover that the trivial morass of literalistic modern culture - formal education, jobs, media, laws and rules, politics, bureaucratic committees and procedures... all of this nightmare of crushing but meaningless literalism dissolves in retrospect into a cloudy illusion.

* 

Are we Norse gods? - Kreeft on Tolkien

*

From The philosophy of Tolkien by Peter Kreeft (repunctuated and emphasized).

Re. Norse Gods as Tolkien's primary pagan source:

"Odin, their supreme god, is not morally good, like the God of the Bible. He is addicted to power, like Sauron.

"The Vikings would never have understood the philosophy that 'power corrupts'. In fact, all the pagan gods, Northern (Germanic) or Southern (Mediterranean) are, like us, partly good and partly evil.

"They are 'divine', or superior, not in goodness but in power - in fact three powers:

"1. Power over nature by a supernatural or 'magical' technology.

"2. Power over ignorance (cleverness, farsight and foresight).

"3. Power over death (immortality).


"Exactly modernity's superiority over the past!

"If that is all that divinity means, we are now approaching divinity!"

*

Providence, intuition, discernment: a spiritual path for moderns?

*

1. Providence

From C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy:

"What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it."


*
 
2. Intuition
 
From Blaise Pascal Pensees:
 
"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
 
*
 
3. Discernment
 
From Father Seraphim Rose: his life and works, by Hieromonk Damascene. Quoting a letter by Fr. Seraphim:
 
"Well, we are all flawed. Perhaps that is the great spiritual fact of our times - that all the teachers are flawed, there are no great elders left, but only 'part time' spiritual teachers who spend part of their time undoing their good works. 
 
"We should be thankful for the good teaching we can get, but sober and cautious.
 
"The lesson to you is probably sobriety. Yes, you should trust your heart (...) what better thing do we have?
 
"Certainly not your calculating mind. (...)
 
"Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov's constant advice to the Christians of the last times is: there are no elders left, check all teaching against the Gospel (...)
 
"I'm sorry I don't have any real advice for you in your grief, unless it's just one word: yes, trust your heart and conscience, and don't do anything to violate them. (...)
 
"The Fathers still speak to us through their writings (have you read Unseen Warfare recently?), and life itself is a teacher if we try to live humbly and soberly (...)"
 
***
 
Putting together Lewis. Pascal and Fr. Seraphim we can see a path through the morass of corruption (which includes ourselves, of course).
 
In the past it was possible to advise the Christian to be guided by those wiser than himself, join a Church (without being too picky about which specific Church), to subordinate his will to that Church, its ministers and its living tradition.
 
Yet now there are no wise; and the mainstream Churches and their traditions (as we perceive them now) have become schools of worldliness - reduced to ethical rules and subordinated to secular morality.
 
Where then can we turn? Where is knowledge that we can trust?
 
*
 
There is an answer.
 
If there is indeed divine providence we can trust experience to provide honest feedback on our choices. We will not be allowed to stray far without warning.
 
(We may choose to ignore these warnings, but there will be warnings.)
 
If we are indeed made in God's image then we have within us trustworthy intuition: a 'heart' which can discern the warmth of right choices and the coldness of wrong choices. We have a conscience which is tormented by wrong paths and peaceful in right paths. 
 
(There will temptations - with pleasure-seeking impersonating love, pride impersonating conscience; with spiritual dryness impersonating coldness of heart - but with love and humility and guidance from scripture and ancient Holy tradition these temptations may be detected.)
 
We have the potential to use our heart and conscience to evaluate and to learn from experience; to discern wisdom when we encounter it.
 
*
 
Where should we look?
 
In a time of corruption we cannot find The Good (undivided, in whole) in the mainstream - neither from among powerful institutions and high status people; nor from professional, technical or bureaucratic sources.
 
We may find goodness and wisdom among the humble, we may find it among the powerless or the persecuted. But not necessarily - and the truly humble, powerless and persecuted are themselves non-obvious; obscured by corruptly-designated proxies.
 
*
 
To experience The Good we must therefore look to the past and to 'fantasy'.
 
We can experience The Good in writings from better times and places, and from imaginative accounts of better times and places. From ancient scripture, biography theology, philosophy, history and literature; and from works like the Lord of the Rings (above all), from Narnia, and (yes!) from the Harry Potter books.
 
*
 
In all of these we can see for ourselves - imaginatively - the benign workings of providence and intuition as exemplified by the moral choices and wrong-turnings-repented of the Good protagonists; and contemplate the consequences of mistaken choices (driven by pride, hedonism and power-seeking) among the wicked.
 
From such vicarious sources we can learn what The Good feels like - we can experience Good (and its opposite), so that we will know them if (or when) we encounter Good (or its opposite) in our modern world.
 
*
 
If we are fortunate, we may encounter The Good among actual people and institutions here-and-now; but if we are not fortunate then we might not encounter The Good except vicariously.
 
*
 
Nonetheless, we should seek what Lewis termed 'Joy', Sehnsucht or enchantment; follow hunches and hints, glimmerings and glimpses; withdraw-from and shun that which chills our hearts and violates our conscience.
 
Interpret what we find in light of the Gospels and the wisdom of the past - and any good teaching we might by fortune receive.
 
And trust to providence and intuition: We will not, ultimately, be disappointed.
 
*
 

Understanding the revolutionary Left - anti-Christian alliances?

*

It is very difficult to understand some Left alliances except in terms of pure expediency (collecting support under an arbitrary umbrella) - yet I find expediency inadequate as an explanation, since it would imply a need to ally with those whose sociopolitical aims are, if not in exact agreement, then at least not in irreconcilable opposition.

*

So that the 'Respect' political party in the UK is hard to comprehend ideologically:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect_Party

And in more general terms it is hard to understand how Leftist support for 'Palestine' has become the primary article of foreign policy.

*

(Palestine is a litmus test for radical Leftism - despite its being an entity which does not feature as such on recent maps - and on older modern maps merely as a name for the British mandate; after which (in 1947) it was divided into a Jewish homeland of Israel and an Arab homeland of Jordan. Strictly, then, Jordan is Palestine, as the Left means the word. Perhaps, when they say they want an Arab state called Palestine, the Leftists merely mean that Jordan should change its name back to Palestine and accept the displaced Arab refugees who have been living in camps since 1948? Only kidding...)

*

The alliance between aggressively secular Trotskyite International Communists and conservative non-Christian religious of whatever type is hard to understand ideologically. 

But it struck me that the unifying factor is perhaps being anti-Christian.

This not really operating at a personal level, but as a consequence of historical logic. 

Leftism being a Christian Apostasy...

(Leftism being - in evolutionary terms - the end result of progressively discarding more and more Christian doctrine until only a distorted and partial sample of Christian ideas remain - which have also been translated into material proxies e.g. translating the spiritual ideal of love (charity, agape) into the material proxy of egalitarianism...)

...it seems natural that the Left be inclined to ally itself with any who share a hostility to Christianity.

*

Arguably that has been a broad historical pattern.

The party of Christian apostasy has always been on the Left; and it is perhaps understandable for the Left to form tactical groupings with any who are who are hostile to Christianity, for various different reasons.

*

(This anti-Christian group including, of course, mainstream, politically correct 'liberal' Christians - who are monolithically Leftist and perhaps the group which is most actively hostile to real Christianity; since they have the most immediately to gain from displacing real Christians - in terms of access to enhanced status, power, jobs, resources etc).

*

If so, alliances such as 'Respect' can be conceptualized as tactical anti-Christian alliances - not strategic ruling coalitions - and are held together by a negative ideology, not a positive shared goal.

Which unobvious negativeness may explain why the combination seems superficially incoherent and incomprehensible. 

*

Granite - an outward sign of inner corruption

*

The use of granite as a building material is...

(unless you live in Aberdeen)

http://sc.theimagefile.co.uk/v/tp/280/310/900547619_4_Aberdeen-Marischal-College-SO275065JHP.jpg

...a reliable sign of advanced corruption - of terminal phase political correctness.

*

(Unless you live in Aberdeen)

http://www.odd-scotland.com/images/AberdeenGraniteStreet.jpg

...there is no reason to use granite for any reason except for making the edge between pavements (sidewalks) and the road.

http://www.heritageconnectlincoln.com/imgGallery/big_2008_Anchor_St.JPG

*

Granite is ugly.

(Unless you live in Aberdeen -

http://ssa.nls.uk/assets/images/about_us/full/2225.jpg

...and even then it only looks good during clear bright weather - the rest of the time it looks like concrete breeze blocks:

http://www.wickes.co.uk/aerated-blocks/invt/213632/

*

Granite is very difficult to work. Essentially it is much too hard.

I watched a builder spend a whole day drilling one hole in a granite block - to insert a railing post -and even then he managed to break the edge of the hole, which then needed an ugly cement patch. 

*

Granite is expensive.

*

So, there is no reason to build with granite - especially in a city (like most English ones) built mostly from sandstone or limestone.

Unless you anticipate the structure standing for more than a couple of hundred years - when I suppose the sandstone or limestone might become eroded.

On the other hand, eroded stone can be very beautiful:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/193/476944895_9432aecbdc.jpg

*

Naturally - since granite is slow to work, inefficient, expensive and ugly - it has for more than a decade been the favoured building material for universities, churches, local government and the houses of wealthy public sector employees.

http://www.granitecountertops-michigan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/granite_countertops.jpg

*

Glenn Gould - art and life, and life as art

*

I recently watched the documentary movie The Inner Life of Glenn Gould; which is perhaps the best thing of its kind I have seen.

There is no doubt that Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (1932-82) has has a much larger influence on me than any other musician.

I first began to listen to his work in 1978 (the 48 preludes and fugues); because I wanted to get some Bach played on piano, and because I was intrigued by the uniformly hostile reviews of Gould in the Penguin Stereo Record Guide (two out of five possible stars, as I recall) and the Gramophone magazine.

I sensed that the dislike of the British music establishment critics (whose judgment I generally disagreed-with) might be an indication of his special qualities. I was, of course, correct.

*

In those days it was difficult for me to get hold of Gould's recordings. In the UK I needed to order some as imports, I bought some on a visit to Boston USA, and some more in Paris. I bought the first biography of Gould (by Geoffrey Payzant) in Toronto itself - his home town.

*

Listening to Gould's Bach (over and over again) became an almost essential part of my psychological harmony - I recall an especially bleak night 'on call' as a hospital doctor, being sustained by it. Then shortly afterwards he died.

Gradually, over the years, his fame grew.

My 1987-written venture into radio drama had Gould as a character and providing the music -

http://www.hedweb.com/bgcharlton/solitude.html

*

What I particularly valued about Gould was not only the playing but the whole package - the intensity and concentration with which he seemed to tackle everything.

And part of this was that he seemed to have his life the way he wanted it: a life that had fame - but at a distance; and a high degree of control and autonomy. He portrayed his life as one of solitude in the city.

This was, indeed, an ideal for me: something about which I daydreamed.

To find a comfortable but stimulating niche.

*

Gould described his life as Thoreauvian - and so it was; but not in the way that I understood the term at that time.

*

It now turns out, from recent biographical work, that although Gould was indeed highly eccentric and unusual as a person - the life of solitude and autonomy which he described and which I believed and regarded as an ideal - was pretty much a work of art. Not a description of the reality of his life.

*

Gould had a one-sided but compulsive need for society - or at least for listeners (whether by telephone or in person) - he needed this for many hours per day. Indeed it must have interefred with his work.

He had a marriage like relationship (with step children) for several year in his forties.

And he did not really seem to be happy with things - seems to have been pretty deeply lonely and frustrated with himself.

*

In this respect he was similar to Thoreau - whose life was not one of solitary autonomy (living in a hut by a pond, away from people) as portrayed in Walden; but instead one of sociality albeit semi-detached - mostly living at home or with Emerson's family.

*

I have found this disillusionment again and again as I read biographies of people whose lives I admire and at times wished to emulate.

The idea of life as an art form - Oscar Wilde is supposed to have said he put his genius into his life but only his talent into his art - seems to me essentially false.

Deceptive. A con.

*

Those who claim (usually implicitly) that their life is a work of art - something aesthetic, controlled, autonomous - are invariably being untruthful.

(There may indeed be some people who do achieve this ideal - but if so, we hear nothing about it. They are not famous. These people - if indeed they exist - are not in the public eye: are not major artists, poets, writers, musicians).

*

But the desire to make one's life something akin to a work of creative art - although alluring - is an error in itself: an error born of despair, it now seems to me.

An error deriving from the unsatisfactoriness of 'the world'; and attempting to combat meaninglessness, purposelessness and alienation by self-created meaning.

*

Yet if meaning depends on the self - that is, if the project succeeds - then it fails: because self-created meaning is not meaning but merely a delusion: a dominating autonomous personal belief immune to influence.

Even if others are drawn into the delusion and support it (as sometimes happens with artist-guru types, - Like Jung, or Robert Graves) then there is the background awareness that all this is contingent upon a perpetual act of will.

The extreme act of will required is itself probably evil - probably an extreme form of pride, an expression of power desiring to shape the world to one's own desires.

*

Anyway, Gould remains a beacon to me; nowadays for rather different reasons than he used to be a beacon - yet still I value above all else his combination of supreme technique, analytic musicality, ability, inspiration and intensity.

Gouldian levels of intensity are almost an escape from self-consciousness, indeed from consciousness itself; a complete absorption in the 'flow' of working and shaping.

So they are not really an answer, more of an escape; the ability to attain this absorption probably declines with age; and the 're-entry problem' must be exceptionally difficult - to come-down from the heights to the mundane; to fee concentration opening-out into diffuse dissipation.

*

But a continually fascinating personality.

And, maybe surprisingly, one who was very much and very widely loved - despite his autonomy, demandingness, self-obsessive qualities.

Much loved, and - even now - much missed.

*

Paganism (unlike Christianity) can be personal, individual

*

Since paganism is the spontaneous religion of humanity, and therefore requires no specific or divine revelation - therefore it requires no Church, no book, nor any institutions.

Paganism can be personal, individual - you can be a real pagan all by yourself.

Many people (probably) are.

And it may be better - much better - to be pagan than nothing.

*

There are very few pagans visible in modern societies - but who knows how many there be in the privacy of their own minds?

I have, at times, throughout my (pre-Christian) life been a real pagan in this sense - I don't suppose anybody knew about it; nor would they have been interested if I had talked of it.

*

By real pagan - I mean not neo-pagan: which I have also been (in a loose kind of way) at various points in my life, notably in the period from about 1998-2007.

Real pagans believe in the reality of gods, who are powerful - and must be propitiated. They believe in the reality of the soul, and that (in some way) it survives death. And they have an awe and reverence for the power and beauty of the natural world. (This list is not exhaustive.)

*

Neo-pagans are modern.

They have emerged since the romantic era (around the start of the 18th century) as an aesthetic movement, later a therapeutic movement - and have become visible since the early 20th century as Wicca, witches of many times, Druids, magic practices, shamanism and other 'native' spiritualities, and a general interest in and practice of past paganism.

But neo-paganism is most visible in the mass media, in the form of books, images, dramas: as a theme.

(This history has been superbly documented by the Bristol University historian Ronald Hutton - whose work I recommend highly.)

*

But neo-pagans have an aesthetic, an ethic, and an attitude to truth which is modern - often indeed post-modern.

The practices of neo-paganism are typically therefore aesthetic or therapeutic rather than religious.

In a nutshell - neo-paganism is about real paganism; draws from it, but does not live by it.
*

It is clear from observation that neo-pagans believe in the modern Western way - they believe asif - at most with suspended disbelief; and do not believe in the way everybody believed before about 1700, or the way most of the rest of the world still believes) do not believe in the reality of gods, spirits.

Neo-paganism has therefore integrated easily with modern capitalism, with political correctness, with New Age spirituality.

Indeed, neo-paganism is essentially a part of these: neither an antidote, nor oppositional to the mainstream.

Neo-paganism is an expression of nihilism - maybe emotionally pleasing, maybe able to relieve suffering - but nihilistic nonetheless.

*

Real paganism could - and indeed very likely will - come back again as being the spontaneous expression of human religiousness.

When it does it will be seen by its contrast with modernity, because real pagans are not PC but instead have a 'tribal' morality of courage, and a loyalty to family and chief.

They will have gods whom they fear to offend.

And pagans believe in the souls and its survival in some form after death - maybe reincarnation, sometimes a similar kind of continued life elsewhere; but often an horrible survival, or one leading inevitably to doom.
*

Humility and love are distinctively Christian virtues - these paganism lacks.

Existential hope is a distinctively Christian emotion - this paganism lacks.

*

Paganism can do great harm to the soul - especially be means of untrammelled pride seeking power.

Also, there were many noble pagans whose minds seem to adhered to Natural Law, and to have practiced love and humility, or seemed to have tenuous existential hope even despite having no reason for it.

*

So, from an ultimate and spiritual perspective, I am sympathetic towards real paganism.

For an atheist or agnostic to become - albeit in the privacy of their own minds - a pagan is probably progress; unless this is driven by pride and desire for power: desire to master the world and other minds.

Paganism is, for moderns, probably qualitative progress for the soul.

Paganism may keep the soul alive in a culture dedicated to its destruction.

*


(Of course it is not the same for a Christian. Paganism is a partial truth - crudely, Christianity minus revelation. For someone who has been or is a real Christian then to become a real pagan would be not merely be a decline but something monstrous, indeed a kind of impossibility - being in fact a turn away from good to its opposition. To abandon the higher in favour of the lower is not the same as to advance from nihilism to a partial truth. But we live in very dark times of the denial of The Good, of mainstream active opposition to The Good. Partial truth is *almost* infinitely preferable to self-reinforcing nihilism - despite its very real dangers.)

*

The Inklings as historians

*

http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/05/inklings-were-historians.html

*

PC book now in production

*

It is pleasant to be able to "announce" that the political correctness book is now in production, under the title of Thought Prison.

It will be a very slim volume - but, of course, one full of concentrated wisdom...

I don't suppose Thought Prison will ever get anywhere near the shelves of your friendly local bookstore, but those few who want to possess a copy will find it at the usual internet marketing sites, and Kindle.

*

Generic thanks are made in the acknowledgment section to the commenters here who helped develop the ideas and phrasings.

The final text is better, in my view, than the original blog entries - and there is a semblance of organization and structure - but there isn't really anything new or different for regular readers.

*

Certain commenters will be dismayed to learn that I have expunged all specific examples from the text (I think) - and explained in a sentence why this is necessary, and a consequence of PC itself.

Any commenter who disagrees with this policy should reflect on why they are commenting under a pseudonym.

There are no references at all.

To be example-free and without references will limit the audience, but may perhaps also limit distractions and misunderstandings? - time will tell.

*

To be abstract, unreferenced and and example-free also raises the books intended-status from pop-sociology to pop-philosophy - which I find preferable.

It aligns it with such aphoristic (and very short) philosophical classics as Pascal's Pensees, Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, Wittgenstein's Tractatus...

Thought Prison is very much in their mould

(...stifled snigger...).

*

At any rate, specific, appropriate, real world examples of political correctness would constitute a signed suicide note; so they were never going to happen.

*

So, what next?

Watch this space...

*

Learning from Mormons

*

I am very interested by, and sympathetic to, Mormons.

(I will use the term 'Mormon' as being that with the widest circulation over the longest timespan.)

*

It was back in (I think) 2007 or so that I began to realize that Mormons were the only group in 'modern' society which had solved the basic problems and contradictions: first and foremost to reproduce at above-replacement rates, with the most successful (most devout, wealthy, highly educated) Mormons having the most children - and this in a context where almost all Mormons use contraception and family planning. 

Furthermore, Mormons as a group are extremely well-behaved in almost every way, and Utah is an outlier at the positive end of most social statistics comparing American states.

Mormons have grown from nothing to about 16 million worldwide since 1830 (exponentially - doubling about every 15-20 years partly by conversion but substantially by having many children and retaining them within the faith), and 8 million in the US; and are disproportionately represented among the wealthy and powerful

I also find Mormon theology to be very beautiful and am moved by the heroism of their foundation story - I agree with Harold Bloom that Joseph Smith was an inspired religious genius of the front rank.

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I should point out that my interest is almost entirely theoretical - I have some Mormon (and ex-Mormon) penfriends; and have read several dozen books on the subject in many aspects (history, sociology, theology, scriptures); have read numerous online newspapers, magazines and blogs; and watched videos of several types; and I have even done two internet surveys of the psychological basis of Mormon fertility - but I have never properly met a practising Mormon, at least not to sit down and talk with.

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But I feel that my efforts to explore the Mormon world have been very rewarding and enlightening; and I would encourage others to do the same.

The fact is that if a Martian social scientist was to land on the earth and look at humans with an objective eye, there is no doubt that he would regard Mormons as the best adapted of all human communities.

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Regular reader will know that I regard Eastern Orthodox Christianity to be the Truth; but that does not block my admiration and sympathy for Mormons.

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I would go so far as to predict that if the US survives in anything resembling its present form, it will (realistically) only happen if Mormons come to dominate the ruling elite - and indeed the trend is strongly in that direction.

(If the US population is about 300 million, and the ruling elite numbers about 25 million; then Mormons already have about 2 million in this group. Each generation will at-least halve the number of the current elite - who are virtually sterile - while doubling-plus the number of elite Mormons. 'Do the math'.)

And if, as seems more likely, the US breaks-up into smaller units, the one which I would prefer to live-in would be the mountain West, centred-on and dominated-by the Mormons of Utah.

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