*
Perhaps the most vulnerable minorities to exploitation and extermination are 'milch cow minorities', hated groups who exist merely in order to be exploited, but who are themselves relatively economically successful.
This I get from the work of Thomas Sowell, who gives many historical and modern examples - he calls them 'middle men' - and cites the Jews in medieval Europe, Chinese in Malaysia, Indians in Uganda and others.
*
Such middling minorities benefit the community in economic terms, which is presumably why they are tolerated; yet their success compared to the average makes them the subject of envy and resentment, while their political weakness makes them vulnerable to the ruling class.
Typically, they are subject to arbitrary 'justice' in that for a minority citizen to be accused of a crime by a majority member is to be guilty - so they live at the whim of the majority, and must be submissive as a condition of survival.
*
Often, the ruling class can - for some reason or just on whim - stoke-up and direct mass anger at middle minorities; and they are attacked, expelled, exterminated.
On average the community ends up worse-off, because they have killed the milch cow; nonetheless this has often happened in history and is happening now in Africa and the Middle East (for example), because some people can benefit in the short term from the opportunities for looting and the rest of it.
*
But all modern societies, at this stage of their development, are in economic terms milch cow exploiters: because all modern states are Leftist and depend almost entirely upon a shrinking minority of productive native men.
(The unique factor here is that the modern milch cow minority has been artifically created by the inverse mechanism of privileging all other groups to make a coalition united only by their economic interest in exploiting the milch cow. Such is the long-term logic of democracy.)
What are modern Leftist ideologies (socialism, liberalism, feminism, multiculturalism) but rationalizations for milch cow exploitation?
*
Any examples of continued economic success among any of the milch cow minority make the whole group subject to envy and resentment - this hatred then justifies further ratcheting of exploitation under guise of egalitarianism.
Such arrangements are brittle, unstable.
To attack (in some fashion) the productive minority upon whom your medium-term standard of living depends would seem to be self-destructive, is indeed destructive in the long term, yet it often has happened, is happening.
(After all, modern-style mass migration from third to first world is very obviously socially destructive, yet it proceeds apace.)
*
Because few people are long-termist - fewer than used to be.
The secular Western ruling elites, in particular, have become extremely short-termist, with a time horizon of a couple of years max. They are also personally more selfish, dishonest and exploitative than for many decades.
Destructive things may happen when they benefit key individuals who have the ability to make them happen.
It makes little sense for a family to starve, mutilate, or slaughter and eat their milch cow: but nonetheless this can, does, and quite likely will happen.
*
Friday, 21 September 2012
Thursday, 20 September 2012
The goodies are un-cool
*
One of the ways in which the Harry Potter novels, although traditional in their deep structure, were representative of the modern world, is that the goodies were not 'cool'.
In the modern world, pretty much everybody who is 'popular', cool, beautiful, smart, witty, successful, admired and fun is a baddie: that is, a servant of evil.
And the people on the right side are by comparison square, dumb, plain, lame, nuts, nerdy and boring.
Harry's school gang is a bunch of 'losers' that includes a swotty 'mudblood', a seedy and impoverished blood traitor, the clumsiest and least-talented kid in the school, and a loony.
(Admittedly, on the periphery there are also a beautiful redhead and some anarchical trickster twins.)
The lesson is a Christian one, as also seen in Narnia and Lord of the Rings - if Good is to prevail over evil (eventually) it will only be by love, courage and self-sacrifice - and the assistance of divine providence.
In the modern world, Good will never win due to its superior power - or because people on-the-side-of-Good (remembering there are no 'good people') are more cool and popular - the servants of Good are a bunch of despised losers who can only win with the intervention of divine providence - covertly apparent in the form of 'luck'.
But as chance favours the prepared mind, good fortune will favour only a loving heart.
*
One of the ways in which the Harry Potter novels, although traditional in their deep structure, were representative of the modern world, is that the goodies were not 'cool'.
In the modern world, pretty much everybody who is 'popular', cool, beautiful, smart, witty, successful, admired and fun is a baddie: that is, a servant of evil.
And the people on the right side are by comparison square, dumb, plain, lame, nuts, nerdy and boring.
Harry's school gang is a bunch of 'losers' that includes a swotty 'mudblood', a seedy and impoverished blood traitor, the clumsiest and least-talented kid in the school, and a loony.
(Admittedly, on the periphery there are also a beautiful redhead and some anarchical trickster twins.)
The lesson is a Christian one, as also seen in Narnia and Lord of the Rings - if Good is to prevail over evil (eventually) it will only be by love, courage and self-sacrifice - and the assistance of divine providence.
In the modern world, Good will never win due to its superior power - or because people on-the-side-of-Good (remembering there are no 'good people') are more cool and popular - the servants of Good are a bunch of despised losers who can only win with the intervention of divine providence - covertly apparent in the form of 'luck'.
But as chance favours the prepared mind, good fortune will favour only a loving heart.
*
Leftism as a transitional state - to what?
*
Most people who have thought about it (actually, that isn't many people) would agree that Leftism (or 'liberalism') is self-destroying.
Therefore Leftism is an ideology which is transitional between what went before and what comes after Leftism.
In other words, Leftism is destructive of what went before, and supportive of what comes after.
Well, Christianity is what came before - so, is Leftism fundamentally destructive of Christianity, or only accidentally (and non-essentially) so?
While there was some space for disagreement about which until about 40 years ago, it is now as clear as anything ever is that Leftism is anti-Christian in its root and motivation.
The strength of Leftism's anti-Christianity is that it is consistently and coherently anti-Christian without even being consciously aware of the fact! Even (or especially) when denying the fact.
Let us learn from this. Let us not look to what Leftism says about itself - because Leftism's self-knowledge is, ahem, very limited - but to what Leftism does coherently and strategically.
The penny drops.
Leftism imagines it is anti-religion and in favour of stuff like sexual equality, sexual freedom, peace, prosperity, comfort and so on - but does nothing at all to safeguard these supposed values, indeed destroys them; using them merely as clubs with which to beat Christianity. But only Christianity.
But Christianity is not the only world religion, ideology, or political system; and is not one which has grown manyfold its share of the world's population in a century plus under Leftism; nor has Christianity made great gains in power and territory and influence around the world, sponsored by Leftist nations. Nor has the Christian way of life been supported within all Leftist nations. Nor have large numbers of devout Christians migrated to Leftist nations. And Christianity is experiencing near total suppression, destruction and displacement from its historic heartlands.
Never mind what Leftists say or believe about themselves and their motivations; they are liars who do not even believe in the reality of reality; and insofar as they acknowledge the good it is only to invert truth, beauty and virtue.
Don't listen to them - look at what they do consistently, coherently, both tactically and strategically - and you may understand Leftism as being in its essence transitional, a temporary stage between the Christianity which it destroys and en route to something else which it encourages, and will take-over whatever remains after Leftists have done their work.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to imagine that any such plan was human in origin.
*
Most people who have thought about it (actually, that isn't many people) would agree that Leftism (or 'liberalism') is self-destroying.
Therefore Leftism is an ideology which is transitional between what went before and what comes after Leftism.
In other words, Leftism is destructive of what went before, and supportive of what comes after.
Well, Christianity is what came before - so, is Leftism fundamentally destructive of Christianity, or only accidentally (and non-essentially) so?
While there was some space for disagreement about which until about 40 years ago, it is now as clear as anything ever is that Leftism is anti-Christian in its root and motivation.
The strength of Leftism's anti-Christianity is that it is consistently and coherently anti-Christian without even being consciously aware of the fact! Even (or especially) when denying the fact.
Let us learn from this. Let us not look to what Leftism says about itself - because Leftism's self-knowledge is, ahem, very limited - but to what Leftism does coherently and strategically.
The penny drops.
Leftism imagines it is anti-religion and in favour of stuff like sexual equality, sexual freedom, peace, prosperity, comfort and so on - but does nothing at all to safeguard these supposed values, indeed destroys them; using them merely as clubs with which to beat Christianity. But only Christianity.
But Christianity is not the only world religion, ideology, or political system; and is not one which has grown manyfold its share of the world's population in a century plus under Leftism; nor has Christianity made great gains in power and territory and influence around the world, sponsored by Leftist nations. Nor has the Christian way of life been supported within all Leftist nations. Nor have large numbers of devout Christians migrated to Leftist nations. And Christianity is experiencing near total suppression, destruction and displacement from its historic heartlands.
Never mind what Leftists say or believe about themselves and their motivations; they are liars who do not even believe in the reality of reality; and insofar as they acknowledge the good it is only to invert truth, beauty and virtue.
Don't listen to them - look at what they do consistently, coherently, both tactically and strategically - and you may understand Leftism as being in its essence transitional, a temporary stage between the Christianity which it destroys and en route to something else which it encourages, and will take-over whatever remains after Leftists have done their work.
Of course, it would be ridiculous to imagine that any such plan was human in origin.
*
'People' do not want 'freedom'
*
They really don't.
Well, of course they selfishly want freedom for themselves to do what themselves want to do - and if other people don't like what they want to do and would want to try to stop them doing it, then they will say they want freedom.
But hardly anybody really wants freedom as a principle: instead, they want people to do what they want people to do: that is what they want, not freedom.
*
I learned this the hard way, by experiences in trying to defend freedom - because I used to be one of the insignificant minority of powerless people who really did want 'freedom', as a socio-political principle, not just for me.
I was myself involved in a few clear-cut infringement of freedom cases, and involved myself in some others, and I realized in each instance, with some astonishment, that it was very hard to find anybody to defend freedom: very hard indeed.
Sometimes people would 'defend' freedom in private, verbally - but even that was half-hearted and qualified.
People would defend other people doing what they wanted these other people to do; but when it was a matter of other people doing something of which they did not approve, they would nearly always oppose them (and freedom actively be damned); at most they would make minimal murmerings but refuse to take any kind of principled stance or identify themselves in public (and freedom be damned - but passively).
*
Same on the national stage. People do not get roused up about the crushing of freedom, and it is a waste of time trying to get people roused up about, freedom issues.
When the state suppresses freedom in an arbitrary fashion, the only thing people want to know is whether it was in a good cause.
*
What is wrong when Leftists crush freedom, as is happening now, is not that they are crushing freedom but that they are driven by the inversion of good.
The essential problem is that Leftists are using the power of the media and the state to prevent good and impose evil. They should be doing the opposite.
*
Resisting evil by trying to reduce the power of the state, in order to defend the abstract entity called freedom, is incoherent, crazy and futile.
*
So, forget about freedom; (almost) nobody wants freedom.
Speak out and fight for a system that encourages what you believe to be true, beautiful and virtuous - and discourages lies, ugliness and vice; not a system that merely 'allows' good or bad things to happen, impartially.
*
They really don't.
Well, of course they selfishly want freedom for themselves to do what themselves want to do - and if other people don't like what they want to do and would want to try to stop them doing it, then they will say they want freedom.
But hardly anybody really wants freedom as a principle: instead, they want people to do what they want people to do: that is what they want, not freedom.
*
I learned this the hard way, by experiences in trying to defend freedom - because I used to be one of the insignificant minority of powerless people who really did want 'freedom', as a socio-political principle, not just for me.
I was myself involved in a few clear-cut infringement of freedom cases, and involved myself in some others, and I realized in each instance, with some astonishment, that it was very hard to find anybody to defend freedom: very hard indeed.
Sometimes people would 'defend' freedom in private, verbally - but even that was half-hearted and qualified.
People would defend other people doing what they wanted these other people to do; but when it was a matter of other people doing something of which they did not approve, they would nearly always oppose them (and freedom actively be damned); at most they would make minimal murmerings but refuse to take any kind of principled stance or identify themselves in public (and freedom be damned - but passively).
*
Same on the national stage. People do not get roused up about the crushing of freedom, and it is a waste of time trying to get people roused up about, freedom issues.
When the state suppresses freedom in an arbitrary fashion, the only thing people want to know is whether it was in a good cause.
*
What is wrong when Leftists crush freedom, as is happening now, is not that they are crushing freedom but that they are driven by the inversion of good.
The essential problem is that Leftists are using the power of the media and the state to prevent good and impose evil. They should be doing the opposite.
*
Resisting evil by trying to reduce the power of the state, in order to defend the abstract entity called freedom, is incoherent, crazy and futile.
*
So, forget about freedom; (almost) nobody wants freedom.
Speak out and fight for a system that encourages what you believe to be true, beautiful and virtuous - and discourages lies, ugliness and vice; not a system that merely 'allows' good or bad things to happen, impartially.
*
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Christopher Dawson and the Byzantine blindspot
*
Christopher Dawson - 1889-1970. Once very famous Roman Catholic historian of ideas, now all-but forgotten. Admired by Tolkien, C.S Lewis (who knew him) and TS Eliot.
See Sanctifying the World: The Augustianian mind of Christopher Dawson by Bradley J Birzer.
Excerpts from Progress and Religion, 1929 pp 157-166.
Dawson in italics - my comments [in square brackets].
*
It cannot be too strongly insisted that the victory of the Church in the 4th century was not... the natural culmination of the religious evolution of the ancient world, It was, on the contrary, a violent interruption of that process which forced European civilization out of its old orbit into a path which it would never have followed by its own momentum.
It is true that the classical culture and the religion of the city state ... were losing their vitality, and that nothing could have arrested the movement of orientalization which ultimately conquered the Roman world. But this movement found its normal expression either in the undiluted form which is represented by the different Gnostic and Manichaean sects, or in a bastard Hellenic syncretism.
[So, 'a bastard Hellenic syncretism', or 'orientalism' is how Dawson characterizes the millennium of the Byzantine continuation of the Christian Roman Empire! The coherence of Byzantium - as I see it by far the most coherent Christian society which ever existed on earth - is dismissed as a weird or exotic (yet centuries-long) suspension of crudely-mixed Judueo-Christian an Greek elements in asolvent of 'orientalism'.]
*
...the Byzantine culture does not simply represent the fusion of the Hellensitic-Roman tradition with Christianity. It contains a third element of oriental origin which is, in fact, the preponderant influence in Byzantine civilization. It is to be seen in the social and political organization of the Empire which borrowed from Sassanian Persia all the external forms of the oriental sacred monarchy.
The rigid hierarchy of the Byzantine state which centres in the Sacred Palace and the quasi-divine person of the Holy Emperor is neither Roman nor Christian, but purely oriental.
[This is just name-calling! For Dawson, 'Oriental' is clearly a bad thing in and of itself, and 'rigid' added as a meaningless adjective to 'hierarchy'; 'quasi-divine' as a sniping and inaccurate characterization of the concept of the Emperor. The ideal Emperor was actually conceived as an Apostle, God's representative on earth, and an intermediary with Christ Pantocrator (that is Christ as active and Heavenly ruler of all, ruling Earth via his intermediary). But actual Emperors were judged against this ideal, and deposed when their behaviour showed they were not the real Emperor and a mistake had been made in choosing them. Anyway, Dawson doesn't like this kind of thing, and he needs to distinguish The West from it. But in doing so he is actually taking a pro-modernizing stance. Because 'orientalism' is the ideal of unity, fusion or harmony of church and state - and in attacking this, Dawson introduces - not just as a pragmatic reality but as an alternative ideal - a distinction between the realm of God - the Church, or City of God; and the secular realm of the state - politics, military and economic activity. In other words, functional specialization: modernity. Once begun, unstoppable.]
*
And the same influence is to be seen in Byzantine religion in its tendency to neglect the historical and dynamic elements in the Christian tradition, and to become absorbed in theological speculations regarding the nature of the Godhead.
This tendency reaches its climax in the writings of the so called Dionysius the Aeropagite, which probably date from the close of the 5th century, and have exerted and incalculable influence on the religious life of the Byzantine world. Here we may see the most extreme assertion of the Divine Transcendence and the negation of all finite modes of being.
In fact, Byzantine 'theological speculations' were mostly reactive to heresy and criticism from Western Christianity - and were not core to Christian life. Byzantine Holiness was not 'absorbed' in theological speculations, its purpose was for the human spirit to be 'absorbed' with (in communion with) the Godhead itself: so that man becomes Saint, who lives partly in Heaven in communion with God, partly on this earth to learn, teach, and act as intermediary. The 'neglect' of historical and dynamic elements actually meant that for Byzantium at its best, Christianity was a living presence in daily life, which tried to create (by ritual, arts, ascetic practices, devotions, prayer) model itself upon and emulate Heavenly life. A moment-by-moment earthly copy of the permanent Heavenly ideal. Naturally, historical and 'dynamic' elements were subordinated to this timeless task (not 'neglected'). Dawson accepts the modern secular revisionist history that Dionysius is the work of a late author ('Pseudo' Dionysius) - when for many centuries the ancients accepted the identity of the originator of these teachings as the disciple of St Paul. I believe the ancients.
*
Thus abstract mysticism [of Dionysius] is linked up with a fixed ritual and ceremonial order which is its earthly and sensible counterpart...
Again this harping on Byzantium as fixed, ritual, ceremonial!... yet ultimate reality is fixed, surely? So why should not earthly copies be fixed? If the Byzantine fixity was unreal then the Empire could not have endured as it did! And why does Dawson, a pre-Vatican II ultramontane Roman Catholic, criticize Byzantium for its use of devotional ritual and ceremony? In seeking to distinguish, positively, Western from Eastern Christianity - he has drifted into anti-Catholic sentiment.
*
...the moral ideal of the Byzantine world found its expression in the uncompromizing other-worldliness of the monks of the desert which represents the extreme development of the oriental spirit of asceticism and world-denial within the boundaries of orthodox Christianity.
[But elsewhere, and rightly, Dawson is unstinting in his praise of the Irish, later Scottish and Northumbrian ascetic monks and hermits who maintained the last Western outpost of Christianity in the remote 'deserts' of the British Isles. St Boniface - who Dawson regards as perhaps the most important figure in the whole of European Christian History - was a Lindisfarne product of this non-Latin tradition. What were these if not example of uncompromizing other-worldliness of precisely the type that Dawson brands as 'oriental'? The 'Celtic Christian' church of Anglo Saxon times was precisely Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox - albiet not 'Greek'!) in all its distinctive respects. The whole Synod of Whitby dispute was a prefiguring of the Great Schism in terms of the Latin Christians (Pope as supreme bishop, a church led by priests) versus Byzantine Christian (Emperor as supreme authority, the bishop of Rome as having precedence but not authority over other Patriarchs, and led by monks)]
*
Nevertheless, even this radically oriental version of Christianity did not satisfy the Eastern world. With the coming of Islam it reverted to a simpler type of religion (etc)
The drawn-out and bitter conquest of the Byzantine Empire by Islam is represented as having happened merely because the 'orientals' were not 'satisfied' by Eastern Orthodoxy, and wanted something 'simpler'... I wonder why so many Byzantines bothered fighting to the death to resist something that supposedly satisfied them more than what they had? And why so many of the conquered over the next centuries, even until now, continued to practice Byzantine Christianity despite its entailing subordinate status?]
*
In the Roman West, in spite of its lower standard of civilization, the conditions were more favourable to the development of an original and creative Christian culture.
[This is true: Western Catholic Christianity is indeed much more original and creative than Eastern Orthodoxy, and thus much more satisfying to creative geniuses. Unfortunately, being creative and original does not imply or entail its being more true, or more Holy. Indeed, if ancient Christianity during its first millennium had as much Christian truth as was available in the fallen world; then everything that came since - no matter how original and creative - has been deviation from that truth.]
*
In his Byzantine blindspot, Dawson is typical of most historians.
Indeed, I believe that our whole understanding of the modern world, the nature of civilization, and the human condition is distorted and perverted by a vast and pervasive Byzantine blindspot.
*
Constaninople was the second Rome, the capital of the Byzantine Empire was the Christian Roman Empire.
The core, essence, and highest manifestation of Christian Rome was Byzantium; of which the Latin West was - spiritually speaking - a pale and fragmented outgrowth. Rome was (in its variants and descendents), the only model and pattern of Christian civilization we can ever know.
As Rome dies over the centuries, so civilization-as-such dies, and is not replaced.
Rome or nothing or something altogether alien and unChristian - these are the only civilizational alternatives.
*
The Third Rome was Moscow - and Orthodox Russia was the lineal descendent of Byzantium: the Tsar (in ideal) was the continuation of the Byzantine Emperor. The Russion revolution a century ago was therefore the end of Rome as a cohesive spiritual-political organization; the fragmented Holy Roman Empire in the West ended about at the same time. It was the end of Rome which marked the qualitative rift with the Christian past - the Great War was only a mechanism. The twentieth century was then unleashed in all its various horrors. The end times began.
*
Christopher Dawson - 1889-1970. Once very famous Roman Catholic historian of ideas, now all-but forgotten. Admired by Tolkien, C.S Lewis (who knew him) and TS Eliot.
See Sanctifying the World: The Augustianian mind of Christopher Dawson by Bradley J Birzer.
Excerpts from Progress and Religion, 1929 pp 157-166.
Dawson in italics - my comments [in square brackets].
*
It cannot be too strongly insisted that the victory of the Church in the 4th century was not... the natural culmination of the religious evolution of the ancient world, It was, on the contrary, a violent interruption of that process which forced European civilization out of its old orbit into a path which it would never have followed by its own momentum.
It is true that the classical culture and the religion of the city state ... were losing their vitality, and that nothing could have arrested the movement of orientalization which ultimately conquered the Roman world. But this movement found its normal expression either in the undiluted form which is represented by the different Gnostic and Manichaean sects, or in a bastard Hellenic syncretism.
[So, 'a bastard Hellenic syncretism', or 'orientalism' is how Dawson characterizes the millennium of the Byzantine continuation of the Christian Roman Empire! The coherence of Byzantium - as I see it by far the most coherent Christian society which ever existed on earth - is dismissed as a weird or exotic (yet centuries-long) suspension of crudely-mixed Judueo-Christian an Greek elements in asolvent of 'orientalism'.]
*
...the Byzantine culture does not simply represent the fusion of the Hellensitic-Roman tradition with Christianity. It contains a third element of oriental origin which is, in fact, the preponderant influence in Byzantine civilization. It is to be seen in the social and political organization of the Empire which borrowed from Sassanian Persia all the external forms of the oriental sacred monarchy.
The rigid hierarchy of the Byzantine state which centres in the Sacred Palace and the quasi-divine person of the Holy Emperor is neither Roman nor Christian, but purely oriental.
[This is just name-calling! For Dawson, 'Oriental' is clearly a bad thing in and of itself, and 'rigid' added as a meaningless adjective to 'hierarchy'; 'quasi-divine' as a sniping and inaccurate characterization of the concept of the Emperor. The ideal Emperor was actually conceived as an Apostle, God's representative on earth, and an intermediary with Christ Pantocrator (that is Christ as active and Heavenly ruler of all, ruling Earth via his intermediary). But actual Emperors were judged against this ideal, and deposed when their behaviour showed they were not the real Emperor and a mistake had been made in choosing them. Anyway, Dawson doesn't like this kind of thing, and he needs to distinguish The West from it. But in doing so he is actually taking a pro-modernizing stance. Because 'orientalism' is the ideal of unity, fusion or harmony of church and state - and in attacking this, Dawson introduces - not just as a pragmatic reality but as an alternative ideal - a distinction between the realm of God - the Church, or City of God; and the secular realm of the state - politics, military and economic activity. In other words, functional specialization: modernity. Once begun, unstoppable.]
*
And the same influence is to be seen in Byzantine religion in its tendency to neglect the historical and dynamic elements in the Christian tradition, and to become absorbed in theological speculations regarding the nature of the Godhead.
This tendency reaches its climax in the writings of the so called Dionysius the Aeropagite, which probably date from the close of the 5th century, and have exerted and incalculable influence on the religious life of the Byzantine world. Here we may see the most extreme assertion of the Divine Transcendence and the negation of all finite modes of being.
In fact, Byzantine 'theological speculations' were mostly reactive to heresy and criticism from Western Christianity - and were not core to Christian life. Byzantine Holiness was not 'absorbed' in theological speculations, its purpose was for the human spirit to be 'absorbed' with (in communion with) the Godhead itself: so that man becomes Saint, who lives partly in Heaven in communion with God, partly on this earth to learn, teach, and act as intermediary. The 'neglect' of historical and dynamic elements actually meant that for Byzantium at its best, Christianity was a living presence in daily life, which tried to create (by ritual, arts, ascetic practices, devotions, prayer) model itself upon and emulate Heavenly life. A moment-by-moment earthly copy of the permanent Heavenly ideal. Naturally, historical and 'dynamic' elements were subordinated to this timeless task (not 'neglected'). Dawson accepts the modern secular revisionist history that Dionysius is the work of a late author ('Pseudo' Dionysius) - when for many centuries the ancients accepted the identity of the originator of these teachings as the disciple of St Paul. I believe the ancients.
*
Thus abstract mysticism [of Dionysius] is linked up with a fixed ritual and ceremonial order which is its earthly and sensible counterpart...
Again this harping on Byzantium as fixed, ritual, ceremonial!... yet ultimate reality is fixed, surely? So why should not earthly copies be fixed? If the Byzantine fixity was unreal then the Empire could not have endured as it did! And why does Dawson, a pre-Vatican II ultramontane Roman Catholic, criticize Byzantium for its use of devotional ritual and ceremony? In seeking to distinguish, positively, Western from Eastern Christianity - he has drifted into anti-Catholic sentiment.
*
...the moral ideal of the Byzantine world found its expression in the uncompromizing other-worldliness of the monks of the desert which represents the extreme development of the oriental spirit of asceticism and world-denial within the boundaries of orthodox Christianity.
[But elsewhere, and rightly, Dawson is unstinting in his praise of the Irish, later Scottish and Northumbrian ascetic monks and hermits who maintained the last Western outpost of Christianity in the remote 'deserts' of the British Isles. St Boniface - who Dawson regards as perhaps the most important figure in the whole of European Christian History - was a Lindisfarne product of this non-Latin tradition. What were these if not example of uncompromizing other-worldliness of precisely the type that Dawson brands as 'oriental'? The 'Celtic Christian' church of Anglo Saxon times was precisely Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox - albiet not 'Greek'!) in all its distinctive respects. The whole Synod of Whitby dispute was a prefiguring of the Great Schism in terms of the Latin Christians (Pope as supreme bishop, a church led by priests) versus Byzantine Christian (Emperor as supreme authority, the bishop of Rome as having precedence but not authority over other Patriarchs, and led by monks)]
*
Nevertheless, even this radically oriental version of Christianity did not satisfy the Eastern world. With the coming of Islam it reverted to a simpler type of religion (etc)
The drawn-out and bitter conquest of the Byzantine Empire by Islam is represented as having happened merely because the 'orientals' were not 'satisfied' by Eastern Orthodoxy, and wanted something 'simpler'... I wonder why so many Byzantines bothered fighting to the death to resist something that supposedly satisfied them more than what they had? And why so many of the conquered over the next centuries, even until now, continued to practice Byzantine Christianity despite its entailing subordinate status?]
*
In the Roman West, in spite of its lower standard of civilization, the conditions were more favourable to the development of an original and creative Christian culture.
[This is true: Western Catholic Christianity is indeed much more original and creative than Eastern Orthodoxy, and thus much more satisfying to creative geniuses. Unfortunately, being creative and original does not imply or entail its being more true, or more Holy. Indeed, if ancient Christianity during its first millennium had as much Christian truth as was available in the fallen world; then everything that came since - no matter how original and creative - has been deviation from that truth.]
*
In his Byzantine blindspot, Dawson is typical of most historians.
Indeed, I believe that our whole understanding of the modern world, the nature of civilization, and the human condition is distorted and perverted by a vast and pervasive Byzantine blindspot.
*
Constaninople was the second Rome, the capital of the Byzantine Empire was the Christian Roman Empire.
The core, essence, and highest manifestation of Christian Rome was Byzantium; of which the Latin West was - spiritually speaking - a pale and fragmented outgrowth. Rome was (in its variants and descendents), the only model and pattern of Christian civilization we can ever know.
As Rome dies over the centuries, so civilization-as-such dies, and is not replaced.
Rome or nothing or something altogether alien and unChristian - these are the only civilizational alternatives.
*
The Third Rome was Moscow - and Orthodox Russia was the lineal descendent of Byzantium: the Tsar (in ideal) was the continuation of the Byzantine Emperor. The Russion revolution a century ago was therefore the end of Rome as a cohesive spiritual-political organization; the fragmented Holy Roman Empire in the West ended about at the same time. It was the end of Rome which marked the qualitative rift with the Christian past - the Great War was only a mechanism. The twentieth century was then unleashed in all its various horrors. The end times began.
*
Modernity and bribery
*
I got the insight from Ernest Gellner that modern societies (post-Industrial Revolution) attained cohesion and peace mostly by bribery; deals with domestic and international problems by 'buying-off' opposition - using the economic surplus generated by frequent and significant technical breakthroughs.
This has been possible over the past couple of centuries because of long-term economic growth (per capita), which was possible because of continual increases in productivity, which was possible because of frequent and qualitative technical breakthroughs in production and distribution of essentials, which (I would say) was possible through the large number of Creative Geniuses working in relevant fields.
*
This system based on bribery and buying-off continues apace - despite that there is now no surplus from growth but rather a decline in the per capita production of relevant goods.
(Obviously a real economics would distinguish between necessary/ useful goods, and the rest.)
Since there is no surplus, and since there is a lot of buying-off; we have rule based on government theft disguised as borrowing, government theft disguised as egalitarianism, government theft disguised as inflation, and just plain covert theft ('stealth' taxes, as refined in the UK by Gordon Brown).
*
Coercion is thus focused on extracting more and more resources from fewer and fewer people to sustain the system of buying-off. This, naturally, satisfies the majority.
This is much easier for governments than abandoning the vast multinational system of influence by subsidy abroad and vote buying at home.
But governments built-on dishonesty and theft nonetheless feel moral, because they eschew the use of violence as a mechanism of social control (of course they use violence, but not directly, and they do not concede they are using it for control - therefore they use if inefficiently and ineffectively).
*
It will not last, because it cannot last, and indeed hastens and makes-more-severe the inevitable collapse when there is insufficient resource to sustain the system of bribery.
And this is bad, bad, bad - because it punishes vice to reward evil, and destroys all forms of social cohesion to maintain both the state and the state's enemies (i.e. those which need to be bought-off).
So we are maintaining government, by strengthening the enemies of government (buying them off) by means of the incremental destruction of good behaviour - productive, cohesive, cooperative.
*
This is one reason for state/ official/ educational/ media propaganda relentlessly, 24/7, banging-away on their project of demonizing the productive sector of the population which the focus of escalating coercive government theft.
It is easier to steal-from a group if you can persuade yourself that the victims 'deserve it'.
Then you can feel good about being a parasite, a cancer, a sadistic slave driver.
*
I got the insight from Ernest Gellner that modern societies (post-Industrial Revolution) attained cohesion and peace mostly by bribery; deals with domestic and international problems by 'buying-off' opposition - using the economic surplus generated by frequent and significant technical breakthroughs.
This has been possible over the past couple of centuries because of long-term economic growth (per capita), which was possible because of continual increases in productivity, which was possible because of frequent and qualitative technical breakthroughs in production and distribution of essentials, which (I would say) was possible through the large number of Creative Geniuses working in relevant fields.
*
This system based on bribery and buying-off continues apace - despite that there is now no surplus from growth but rather a decline in the per capita production of relevant goods.
(Obviously a real economics would distinguish between necessary/ useful goods, and the rest.)
Since there is no surplus, and since there is a lot of buying-off; we have rule based on government theft disguised as borrowing, government theft disguised as egalitarianism, government theft disguised as inflation, and just plain covert theft ('stealth' taxes, as refined in the UK by Gordon Brown).
*
Coercion is thus focused on extracting more and more resources from fewer and fewer people to sustain the system of buying-off. This, naturally, satisfies the majority.
This is much easier for governments than abandoning the vast multinational system of influence by subsidy abroad and vote buying at home.
But governments built-on dishonesty and theft nonetheless feel moral, because they eschew the use of violence as a mechanism of social control (of course they use violence, but not directly, and they do not concede they are using it for control - therefore they use if inefficiently and ineffectively).
*
It will not last, because it cannot last, and indeed hastens and makes-more-severe the inevitable collapse when there is insufficient resource to sustain the system of bribery.
And this is bad, bad, bad - because it punishes vice to reward evil, and destroys all forms of social cohesion to maintain both the state and the state's enemies (i.e. those which need to be bought-off).
So we are maintaining government, by strengthening the enemies of government (buying them off) by means of the incremental destruction of good behaviour - productive, cohesive, cooperative.
*
This is one reason for state/ official/ educational/ media propaganda relentlessly, 24/7, banging-away on their project of demonizing the productive sector of the population which the focus of escalating coercive government theft.
It is easier to steal-from a group if you can persuade yourself that the victims 'deserve it'.
Then you can feel good about being a parasite, a cancer, a sadistic slave driver.
*
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Some litmus test questions
*
Most evil: Fascism or Communism?
Mormonism: good or bad thing?
"Archbishop Rowan Williams is well-intentioned, but..." True or False?
*
James Joyce or JRR Tolkien?
T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost?
Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss?
*
The Bonferroni correction: experimental rigour or scientific illiteracy?
The null hypothesis is just common sense? Yes? No? (delete as appropriate)
Statistical significance has something to do with truth. True or False?
*
Most evil: Fascism or Communism?
Mormonism: good or bad thing?
"Archbishop Rowan Williams is well-intentioned, but..." True or False?
*
James Joyce or JRR Tolkien?
T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost?
Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss?
*
The Bonferroni correction: experimental rigour or scientific illiteracy?
The null hypothesis is just common sense? Yes? No? (delete as appropriate)
Statistical significance has something to do with truth. True or False?
*
Failure of the internet: Innovation minus Creative destruction = Decline
*
The basic model for economic-growth-generating innovation is probably that of a genius generating a breakthrough causing 'creative destruction' - for example, when a new industry or technology all-but wipes-out an existing one.
This is what potentially may increase economic productivity (i.e. economic efficiency, how much necessary and useful stuff is produced per man-hour of work)
And when creative destruction does not happen, it may be that innovations tend to reduce overall efficiency: such as the internet.
*
An example: education. Fifteen or twenty years ago I was reading many articles about how the internet would wipe out most residential universities and colleges; but there are more people in higher education than ever before.
And they are using the internet pretty much all the time - indeed, we now have the situation where students go and reside in the vicinity of a college yet most of students' 'teaching' comes from the internet, they spend most of their time using internet communications (including supposed teaching time time) and most of students' 'work' comes from the inernet.
If the internet has wiped-out anything in education, it is not residential schooling but education itself.
Thus, since the internet did not all-but wipe-out most residential higher education in a conflagration of creative destruction, instead it made higher education (even) worse.
*
And that has been the general effect of the internet with respect to economic efficiency. The theoretical effect on improving efficiency has remained exactly that: theoretical - while any economic benefits have been overwhelmed by other factors.
*
It seems that there are very particular requirements for the kind of productivity-enhancing breakthrough that led to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of modern societies based on growth and the expectation of growth.
The breakthroughs that enable the continuation of modernity must be big, frequent, relevant, and destructive to the status quo - if they are to overcome the powerful anti-efficiency trends which are also unleashed by modernity.
*
The basic model for economic-growth-generating innovation is probably that of a genius generating a breakthrough causing 'creative destruction' - for example, when a new industry or technology all-but wipes-out an existing one.
This is what potentially may increase economic productivity (i.e. economic efficiency, how much necessary and useful stuff is produced per man-hour of work)
And when creative destruction does not happen, it may be that innovations tend to reduce overall efficiency: such as the internet.
*
An example: education. Fifteen or twenty years ago I was reading many articles about how the internet would wipe out most residential universities and colleges; but there are more people in higher education than ever before.
And they are using the internet pretty much all the time - indeed, we now have the situation where students go and reside in the vicinity of a college yet most of students' 'teaching' comes from the internet, they spend most of their time using internet communications (including supposed teaching time time) and most of students' 'work' comes from the inernet.
If the internet has wiped-out anything in education, it is not residential schooling but education itself.
Thus, since the internet did not all-but wipe-out most residential higher education in a conflagration of creative destruction, instead it made higher education (even) worse.
*
And that has been the general effect of the internet with respect to economic efficiency. The theoretical effect on improving efficiency has remained exactly that: theoretical - while any economic benefits have been overwhelmed by other factors.
*
It seems that there are very particular requirements for the kind of productivity-enhancing breakthrough that led to the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of modern societies based on growth and the expectation of growth.
The breakthroughs that enable the continuation of modernity must be big, frequent, relevant, and destructive to the status quo - if they are to overcome the powerful anti-efficiency trends which are also unleashed by modernity.
*
Monday, 17 September 2012
Psychoticism and the mode of thinking
*
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/p-or-not-p-lack-of-characteristic.html
*
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/p-or-not-p-lack-of-characteristic.html
*
A world where Genius (and high talent) is evil
*
For a long while we have been living in a world where most instances of Genius, and indeed most of the most talented people, are evil in their net effect.
By evil I mean quite precisely destructive of virtue, beauty and truth - as these transcendental values are traditionally conceptualized.
This applies almost wherever you look: philosophy, prose, poetry, music, science - and in more modern areas like journalism and comedy.
I am particularly impressed by the extent to which so much of comedy has been an agent of evil - especially satire. And I mean the most accomplished, most creative and innovative comedy - the funniest comedy: how it has culmulatively and almost sytematically attacked meaning, purpose, hope.
At any rate, this is one of the biggest problems of Western culture - the extent to which its greatest exemplars were evil; hence destructive of the basis of their own pre-eminence.
Indeed, this seems the norm: there are exceptions, but the evil Genius is the usual kind of Genius.
*
For a long while we have been living in a world where most instances of Genius, and indeed most of the most talented people, are evil in their net effect.
By evil I mean quite precisely destructive of virtue, beauty and truth - as these transcendental values are traditionally conceptualized.
This applies almost wherever you look: philosophy, prose, poetry, music, science - and in more modern areas like journalism and comedy.
I am particularly impressed by the extent to which so much of comedy has been an agent of evil - especially satire. And I mean the most accomplished, most creative and innovative comedy - the funniest comedy: how it has culmulatively and almost sytematically attacked meaning, purpose, hope.
At any rate, this is one of the biggest problems of Western culture - the extent to which its greatest exemplars were evil; hence destructive of the basis of their own pre-eminence.
Indeed, this seems the norm: there are exceptions, but the evil Genius is the usual kind of Genius.
*
Sunday, 16 September 2012
Does Christianity support Western Culture support Christianity (etc)
*
Many, many reactionary bloggers focus on the relationship between Western Culture and Christianity, and how we need one for the other, or whether we can have the one without the other.
(People differ about which they regard as most important - the culture or the Christianity.)
*
But, but, but...
Obviously the two things are not intrinsically related - although they are compatible, yes
(or, at least were so for hundred of years, albeit unravelling all the time)
but anyone who would agree on the validity of Eastern Orthodoxy has already acknowledged that Christianity can exist without Western Culture.
(I personally would further argue that Christianity existed at a higher level under Eastern Orthodoxy than ever it did in the West - but to acknowledge superiority is not necessary. It is enough for the argument merely to acknowledge that Eastern Orthodoxy is validly Christian and yet has existed for 2000 years outside the West in the Middle East and Asia Minor, and for many hundreds of years in Eastern Europe and Russia.)
So what is there to discuss?
*
The importance is that it seems, in these end times, as if Christians are going to have to choose in a way they could avoid in the past.
Nobody can have it all; nobody can pick-out the bits they want to keep, rejecting those they dislike.
Life is a package deal.
*
Obviously, real Christians who are also Leftists will need to abandon Leftism including democracy, the sexual revolution etc - they will need to make this choice or else stop being Christian; but the same principle applies to the Right who will have to loosen their grip on Western Culture, nationalism, racial politics, machismo and whatever else traditionally Right-wing worldly concerns may motivate them.
Sooner or later (if it has not already happened) each Christian will face this choice to put Christianity first and sacrifice other socio-political motivations concerns, or stop being a real Christian; sooner or later and probably sooner.
As Christians, we should prepare ourselves for making that choice.
*
Many, many reactionary bloggers focus on the relationship between Western Culture and Christianity, and how we need one for the other, or whether we can have the one without the other.
(People differ about which they regard as most important - the culture or the Christianity.)
*
But, but, but...
Obviously the two things are not intrinsically related - although they are compatible, yes
(or, at least were so for hundred of years, albeit unravelling all the time)
but anyone who would agree on the validity of Eastern Orthodoxy has already acknowledged that Christianity can exist without Western Culture.
(I personally would further argue that Christianity existed at a higher level under Eastern Orthodoxy than ever it did in the West - but to acknowledge superiority is not necessary. It is enough for the argument merely to acknowledge that Eastern Orthodoxy is validly Christian and yet has existed for 2000 years outside the West in the Middle East and Asia Minor, and for many hundreds of years in Eastern Europe and Russia.)
So what is there to discuss?
*
The importance is that it seems, in these end times, as if Christians are going to have to choose in a way they could avoid in the past.
Nobody can have it all; nobody can pick-out the bits they want to keep, rejecting those they dislike.
Life is a package deal.
*
Obviously, real Christians who are also Leftists will need to abandon Leftism including democracy, the sexual revolution etc - they will need to make this choice or else stop being Christian; but the same principle applies to the Right who will have to loosen their grip on Western Culture, nationalism, racial politics, machismo and whatever else traditionally Right-wing worldly concerns may motivate them.
Sooner or later (if it has not already happened) each Christian will face this choice to put Christianity first and sacrifice other socio-political motivations concerns, or stop being a real Christian; sooner or later and probably sooner.
As Christians, we should prepare ourselves for making that choice.
*
Saturday, 15 September 2012
Musical analysis of pop, rock and reggae
*
I was keen on pop music aged about 10-11, and played in a sort-of 'group', but throughout my teens I was interested by firstly folk music, then classical - and only around twenty did I take much of an interest in pop.
A thing I liked to do was use my basic musical knowledge (derived mostly from classical) to understand a bit about pop.
*
Because pop is simple, it was possible for even a modestly knowledgeable person to realize what was going on - although one thing I soon realized was that pop was more complex, and more diverse, than I had assumed.
*
For example I realized that within pop there was pop-as such, which was based on tonic-dominant harmonies (e.g. the Beatles) and rhythm and blues/ rock and roll based on tonic-subdominant harmonies (e.g. the Rolling Stones).
One of the biggest groups - Status Quo - had broken into the scene as a I-V pop group (Pictures of matchstick men) and then become the classic rock and roll I-IV outfit.
I recognized that punk rock was something new in terms of its use of minor chords in fast and aggressive music; and that its other musical innovations were singing in an English (not fake American) accent, machine-gun drumming and distorted rhythm guitars.
I was surprised to find that the loudest and most wild 'heavy metal' group - Motorhead - was actually a punk band in terms of its harmonies - and their sound was built on an unique strummed-bass guitar sound from Lemmy.
I was interested by the two trios which dominated early 80s English pop: the Police and the Jam: and that the fact that the Police singer played bass meant that the group was built around the unique and virtuoso rhythm/ lead guitar talent of Andy Summers; while the Jam's singer played guitar, therefore was restricted to rhythm guitar and their bass player - Bruce Foxton - was in effect playing lead on the bass as well as underpinning the sound.
I had always liked reggae (since the late 1960s) but couldn't understand what made it different: however listening to the 'two-tone' revival of ska and rocksteady (e.g. the Specials), I un-picked that the basis was (if counted as four to a bar) a combination of four elements:
1. off-beat rhythm (on guitar or organ)
2. coming down hard on the third beat (usually snare drum)
3. bass guitar which syncopated (in a triplet rhythm)
4. a hi-hat or other percussion tapping eight beats (semi-quavers) to the bar as background
And I recognized that the novelty group Madness, were actually great musical innovators, and had created a new and uniquely English (indeed Cockney) combination of singing, dance, humour, sentiment and a 'fairground organ' sound built up from ska.
Signs of a misspent youth, no doubt...
*
I was keen on pop music aged about 10-11, and played in a sort-of 'group', but throughout my teens I was interested by firstly folk music, then classical - and only around twenty did I take much of an interest in pop.
A thing I liked to do was use my basic musical knowledge (derived mostly from classical) to understand a bit about pop.
*
Because pop is simple, it was possible for even a modestly knowledgeable person to realize what was going on - although one thing I soon realized was that pop was more complex, and more diverse, than I had assumed.
*
For example I realized that within pop there was pop-as such, which was based on tonic-dominant harmonies (e.g. the Beatles) and rhythm and blues/ rock and roll based on tonic-subdominant harmonies (e.g. the Rolling Stones).
One of the biggest groups - Status Quo - had broken into the scene as a I-V pop group (Pictures of matchstick men) and then become the classic rock and roll I-IV outfit.
I recognized that punk rock was something new in terms of its use of minor chords in fast and aggressive music; and that its other musical innovations were singing in an English (not fake American) accent, machine-gun drumming and distorted rhythm guitars.
I was surprised to find that the loudest and most wild 'heavy metal' group - Motorhead - was actually a punk band in terms of its harmonies - and their sound was built on an unique strummed-bass guitar sound from Lemmy.
I was interested by the two trios which dominated early 80s English pop: the Police and the Jam: and that the fact that the Police singer played bass meant that the group was built around the unique and virtuoso rhythm/ lead guitar talent of Andy Summers; while the Jam's singer played guitar, therefore was restricted to rhythm guitar and their bass player - Bruce Foxton - was in effect playing lead on the bass as well as underpinning the sound.
I had always liked reggae (since the late 1960s) but couldn't understand what made it different: however listening to the 'two-tone' revival of ska and rocksteady (e.g. the Specials), I un-picked that the basis was (if counted as four to a bar) a combination of four elements:
1. off-beat rhythm (on guitar or organ)
2. coming down hard on the third beat (usually snare drum)
3. bass guitar which syncopated (in a triplet rhythm)
4. a hi-hat or other percussion tapping eight beats (semi-quavers) to the bar as background
And I recognized that the novelty group Madness, were actually great musical innovators, and had created a new and uniquely English (indeed Cockney) combination of singing, dance, humour, sentiment and a 'fairground organ' sound built up from ska.
Signs of a misspent youth, no doubt...
*
At death - ancient versus modern
*
When somebody dies, for most of human history what was perceived is that person leaving their body; the soul leaving the body.
Then there was a difference of opinion about where it went and what happened to it.
*
But when a modern person sees another person die, they see that person being extinguished.
*
What a profound difference this is, concerning the key fact of human existence!
What a qualitative shift in the assumed baseline fact of life!
Modern Western secular Man stands on the other side of a gulf which separates his understanding of the human condition from all Men of the past, and from the majority of Men alive now.
*
So, on the one hand there is a natural and (probably) universal belief in the soul or spirit or essence leaving the body at death; and there is the recent, modern Western belief that the person is extinguished, snuffed-out, at death.
What 'evidence' could possibly have justified this shift?
Or, if not evidence, (which of course it was not), then what provoked the shift of assumption - the metaphysical perspective - which justified this wholesale reinterpretation of the facts of life deriving from the fact of death?
*
If you ever imagine metaphysics is unimportant, just consider this difference in watching a man die: the difference between seeing his soul departing from the body, and his extinction.
*
Friday, 14 September 2012
Eternity as Out of Time
*
Theology and Philosophy at their most basic are concerned with the metaphysics of Time or Change - and the perception that there can be no knowledge of anything without reference to that which does not change and is therefore Out of Time.
The foundational problem of philosophy is therefore the relationship between Time and Eternity, between Change and the Permanent.
Thus the Ancient Jews founded theology and the Ancient Greeks philosophy in the sense that the Jews perceived that the one creator God must be unchanging and permanent and inhabit an eternal realm Out of Time, while the Greeks perceived the same but starting at the opposite end.
Eternity does not change and is thus Out of Time.
*
However, this matter is absent from most religions, and from the minds of most people: most religions and most people conceive of eternity as endless Time: Time that goes on forever.
On this understanding, eternity is (merely) change that goes on forever: thus eternity is conceived as either open-ended and never-repeating evolution, or else eternal recurrence.
*
Within Christianity the concept of Heaven as Out of Time is apparently restricted to the Catholic denominations (and to relatively few persons within these).
Clearly, the concept of Heaven as Out of Time, eternal, unchanging - is not necessary to salvation; and perhaps the best of Christians do not even ask such questions as lead to theology and philosophy.
But wrong philosophical answers to this question lead, recurrently, to such errors and stumbling blocks as the debates over predestination and 'the elect' - matters which were conclusively answered near the beginning of Christianity (on the basis of Heaven being Out of Time) by Boethius, among others; but which nonetheless came back to do considerable damage at the Reformation and since.
*
And of course, every philosophical answer, no matter how correct and conclusive, leads onto further philosophical questions.
In this instance, philosophers ask how the eternal and the temporal realms are related; while Christians ask about the transition between Time and Eeternity which occurs at or around the time of death.
The Eastern Orthodox narrative of the soul guided by two angels through the upper airs, past toll houses inhabited by demons, for forty days before a first judgement as to its dwelling place - is one way of describing this which sticks to the concept of Time as linear and sequential. The Roman Catholic ideas of purgatory and limbo are other variations on the themes.
But none of the popular and accessible Christian accounts of what happens at death are able to say much about a transition between Time and Eternity (Out of Time); and indeed it is probably impossible to say anything more about this than Socrates/ Plato (who were probably the first to understand the problem).
*
In conclusion... if you have the kind of mind which sees the problem to which Eternity Out of Time is the answer - then you must not expect to get further precise and fully explanatory answer to the problems which follow on from this: the problems of the relationship and transition between Eternity Out of Time and Knowledge and this world we currently live in - this world of Time, Change, Decay and Illusion.
*
Theology and Philosophy at their most basic are concerned with the metaphysics of Time or Change - and the perception that there can be no knowledge of anything without reference to that which does not change and is therefore Out of Time.
The foundational problem of philosophy is therefore the relationship between Time and Eternity, between Change and the Permanent.
Thus the Ancient Jews founded theology and the Ancient Greeks philosophy in the sense that the Jews perceived that the one creator God must be unchanging and permanent and inhabit an eternal realm Out of Time, while the Greeks perceived the same but starting at the opposite end.
Eternity does not change and is thus Out of Time.
*
However, this matter is absent from most religions, and from the minds of most people: most religions and most people conceive of eternity as endless Time: Time that goes on forever.
On this understanding, eternity is (merely) change that goes on forever: thus eternity is conceived as either open-ended and never-repeating evolution, or else eternal recurrence.
*
Within Christianity the concept of Heaven as Out of Time is apparently restricted to the Catholic denominations (and to relatively few persons within these).
Clearly, the concept of Heaven as Out of Time, eternal, unchanging - is not necessary to salvation; and perhaps the best of Christians do not even ask such questions as lead to theology and philosophy.
But wrong philosophical answers to this question lead, recurrently, to such errors and stumbling blocks as the debates over predestination and 'the elect' - matters which were conclusively answered near the beginning of Christianity (on the basis of Heaven being Out of Time) by Boethius, among others; but which nonetheless came back to do considerable damage at the Reformation and since.
*
And of course, every philosophical answer, no matter how correct and conclusive, leads onto further philosophical questions.
In this instance, philosophers ask how the eternal and the temporal realms are related; while Christians ask about the transition between Time and Eeternity which occurs at or around the time of death.
The Eastern Orthodox narrative of the soul guided by two angels through the upper airs, past toll houses inhabited by demons, for forty days before a first judgement as to its dwelling place - is one way of describing this which sticks to the concept of Time as linear and sequential. The Roman Catholic ideas of purgatory and limbo are other variations on the themes.
But none of the popular and accessible Christian accounts of what happens at death are able to say much about a transition between Time and Eternity (Out of Time); and indeed it is probably impossible to say anything more about this than Socrates/ Plato (who were probably the first to understand the problem).
*
In conclusion... if you have the kind of mind which sees the problem to which Eternity Out of Time is the answer - then you must not expect to get further precise and fully explanatory answer to the problems which follow on from this: the problems of the relationship and transition between Eternity Out of Time and Knowledge and this world we currently live in - this world of Time, Change, Decay and Illusion.
*
Thursday, 13 September 2012
We are all Protestants now...
*
In exploring Eastern Orthodoxy, at some point it struck me that what we consider to be Eastern Orthodoxy in the Modern West is qualitatively different from what Eastern Orthodoxy is supposed to be, and was in earlier centuries: that is, a fully immersive and coherent way of life.
A modern Westerner attending an Eastern Orthodox church once or twice a week and practicing personal devotions between-times just is not at all the same thing as growing-up living under an Orthodox Monarch in a society where Orthodoxy is everywhere you turn.
Something similar applies to Roman Catholicism in the West; although Western Catholicism has not been as integrated a system as sometimes happened in the East, since there always was a secular realm.
And, having noted this, it seems very highly probable that never again will there be the kind of Catholic society that existed in the past.
Which means that Christians are 'all Protestants now' in a sense - all necessarily focused on private devotions as the centre of our Christian life, because there is nothing else for us to be focused-on, hour by hour and day by day.
There just isn't enough of the other stuff of Christian living.
Of course, this is a truly terrible loss of potential, of the highest levels of Holiness; on the other hand it means there is now no strong or Good reason for Christian disunity.
*
In exploring Eastern Orthodoxy, at some point it struck me that what we consider to be Eastern Orthodoxy in the Modern West is qualitatively different from what Eastern Orthodoxy is supposed to be, and was in earlier centuries: that is, a fully immersive and coherent way of life.
A modern Westerner attending an Eastern Orthodox church once or twice a week and practicing personal devotions between-times just is not at all the same thing as growing-up living under an Orthodox Monarch in a society where Orthodoxy is everywhere you turn.
Something similar applies to Roman Catholicism in the West; although Western Catholicism has not been as integrated a system as sometimes happened in the East, since there always was a secular realm.
And, having noted this, it seems very highly probable that never again will there be the kind of Catholic society that existed in the past.
Which means that Christians are 'all Protestants now' in a sense - all necessarily focused on private devotions as the centre of our Christian life, because there is nothing else for us to be focused-on, hour by hour and day by day.
There just isn't enough of the other stuff of Christian living.
Of course, this is a truly terrible loss of potential, of the highest levels of Holiness; on the other hand it means there is now no strong or Good reason for Christian disunity.
*
Apologizing - a clarification
*
Apologizing is something you might reasonably do concerning something you did, or for which you were responsible.
But when you 'apologize' for something you didn't do, and for which you were not responsible - then this is a different thing from apologizing: that thing is called blaming someone else.
Apologizing may be praiseworthy (or may not), but it has the virtue of being psychologically difficult and emotionally unpleasant; but blamimg someone else for something you didn't do under the guise of apologizing is merely a species of self-indulgence.
*
Apologizing is something you might reasonably do concerning something you did, or for which you were responsible.
But when you 'apologize' for something you didn't do, and for which you were not responsible - then this is a different thing from apologizing: that thing is called blaming someone else.
Apologizing may be praiseworthy (or may not), but it has the virtue of being psychologically difficult and emotionally unpleasant; but blamimg someone else for something you didn't do under the guise of apologizing is merely a species of self-indulgence.
*
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
What should we try to do about evil Leftist pseudo-Christians?
*
Real Christianity in The West is small and weak and - even where it exists - partial and much less satisfactory than it could or should be.
I believe that many or most modern Western Christian 'churches' are overwhelmingly anti-Christian in their net effect - they are pseudo-Christians, subversives fakes which retain a few 'trappings' of real Christianity but pursue an agenda that is dictated by Leftism.
Think of an Episcopalian church where a priestess is robed in hideous modern vestments, using a rewritten Leftist liturgy and 'inclusive language' Bible, bowdlerized hymns and worship songs, preaching a sermon about the need for socialist policies in Africa. Where is the Christianity? - literally in just a few words, dotted here and there, but clothed in bureaucratic prose stripped of beauty, embedded in a Leftist context, and glossed in a worldly framework.
This kind of thing was prophesied, and is a results of millions of people's bad decisions, and the increased domination of the forces of purposive evil, and reflects that we are in a terrible situation - I mean our society is visibly falling into sin with obvious signs of depravity more common and pervasive every month.
*
But if you are a Christian, it is not rational to treat 'Christianity' (i.e. The Church - the institution) as if it was the same kind of thing as Universities, The Legal Profession or The Military - that is just another increasingly corrupt institution; because it is of the essence of Christianity that The Church is not primarily a social system.
I saw it well put the other day (from memory) that The Church is a mystery with an institution - and not an institution that contains a mystery.
(I mean, of course, a mystery in the Christian sense.)
*
This is simply not debatable - The Church is of its essence a mystery.
The institution must grow from this - it is essential, sometimes useful and anyway inevitable, but it is not the essence. And of course the mystery of the Church is not amenable to measurement etc.
Nobody would disagree that it is possible, has happened, that the Christian 'church' may be huge and powerful but without the mystery - a hollow shell.
And something like the opposite could be true, as in the Soviet Union when an intense and surprisingly large Christianity apparently survived in the catacomb church. There were many martyrs for the faith.
Numbers and percentages are not the essence of the Church. Important in a way, but not the essence. Plain example: a Saint has a much much greater impact than large numbers of lower level Christians - let's say someone like Fr Seraphim Rose with a hand worked printing press in a two man skete in rural North California.
*
I would say (echoing Peter Kreeft) the biggest problem of modern Western Christianity is the lack of Saints - not the lack of numbers (although the two are not completely unrelated).
The US has been the centre of world Christianity for more than a century - but hasn't produced many figures of the stature of Saints; indeed, some Christian denominations are reluctant to allow the reality of qualitatively higher levels of Holiness in some people, which could be a big problem if it prevents people even trying.
*
In sum, the institution of Christianity is in its essence about Salvation, Holiness... it is about Christian goals, and it is this which must be the focus, and where lie the problems that must be 'fixed'.
Yes, most people who call themselves Christians are wrong about the sexual revolution, yes this does block them from progress and keeps them trapped in Leftism - but while I am horrified and angry about this subversion, ultimately it is a symptom not a cause.
Indeed the sexual revolution is a symptom of a fixation upon worldly and secular matters and a rejection of the transcendental - it is a symptom of hedonism replacing salvation as the ultimate goal of human life.
Secular arguments against Leftism that are based on this-worldly hedonism (i.e. the secular Right) will further damage, not help, Christianity.
*
So although people should certainly stop being Leftists, rejection of Leftism must not be the focus of Christian life, nor even a prerequisite.
If someone becomes a real Christian, and deepens their faith, then they will shed their Leftism incrementally, a piece at a time.
But shedding their Leftism a piece at a time will not in and of itself do anything at all towards them becoming a Christian - and if they shed their Leftism for worldly reasons, they will simply become a different type of Leftist; because anti-Christian, this-worldly atheism is the root and motivation of Leftism.
*
[Note: This post was adapted from a Sept 12 comment at Jim's Blog http://blog.jim.com/ which was in response to a Sept 11 discussion at Foseti https://foseti.wordpress.com/ ]
*
Real Christianity in The West is small and weak and - even where it exists - partial and much less satisfactory than it could or should be.
I believe that many or most modern Western Christian 'churches' are overwhelmingly anti-Christian in their net effect - they are pseudo-Christians, subversives fakes which retain a few 'trappings' of real Christianity but pursue an agenda that is dictated by Leftism.
Think of an Episcopalian church where a priestess is robed in hideous modern vestments, using a rewritten Leftist liturgy and 'inclusive language' Bible, bowdlerized hymns and worship songs, preaching a sermon about the need for socialist policies in Africa. Where is the Christianity? - literally in just a few words, dotted here and there, but clothed in bureaucratic prose stripped of beauty, embedded in a Leftist context, and glossed in a worldly framework.
This kind of thing was prophesied, and is a results of millions of people's bad decisions, and the increased domination of the forces of purposive evil, and reflects that we are in a terrible situation - I mean our society is visibly falling into sin with obvious signs of depravity more common and pervasive every month.
*
But if you are a Christian, it is not rational to treat 'Christianity' (i.e. The Church - the institution) as if it was the same kind of thing as Universities, The Legal Profession or The Military - that is just another increasingly corrupt institution; because it is of the essence of Christianity that The Church is not primarily a social system.
I saw it well put the other day (from memory) that The Church is a mystery with an institution - and not an institution that contains a mystery.
(I mean, of course, a mystery in the Christian sense.)
*
This is simply not debatable - The Church is of its essence a mystery.
The institution must grow from this - it is essential, sometimes useful and anyway inevitable, but it is not the essence. And of course the mystery of the Church is not amenable to measurement etc.
Nobody would disagree that it is possible, has happened, that the Christian 'church' may be huge and powerful but without the mystery - a hollow shell.
And something like the opposite could be true, as in the Soviet Union when an intense and surprisingly large Christianity apparently survived in the catacomb church. There were many martyrs for the faith.
Numbers and percentages are not the essence of the Church. Important in a way, but not the essence. Plain example: a Saint has a much much greater impact than large numbers of lower level Christians - let's say someone like Fr Seraphim Rose with a hand worked printing press in a two man skete in rural North California.
*
I would say (echoing Peter Kreeft) the biggest problem of modern Western Christianity is the lack of Saints - not the lack of numbers (although the two are not completely unrelated).
The US has been the centre of world Christianity for more than a century - but hasn't produced many figures of the stature of Saints; indeed, some Christian denominations are reluctant to allow the reality of qualitatively higher levels of Holiness in some people, which could be a big problem if it prevents people even trying.
*
In sum, the institution of Christianity is in its essence about Salvation, Holiness... it is about Christian goals, and it is this which must be the focus, and where lie the problems that must be 'fixed'.
Yes, most people who call themselves Christians are wrong about the sexual revolution, yes this does block them from progress and keeps them trapped in Leftism - but while I am horrified and angry about this subversion, ultimately it is a symptom not a cause.
Indeed the sexual revolution is a symptom of a fixation upon worldly and secular matters and a rejection of the transcendental - it is a symptom of hedonism replacing salvation as the ultimate goal of human life.
Secular arguments against Leftism that are based on this-worldly hedonism (i.e. the secular Right) will further damage, not help, Christianity.
*
So although people should certainly stop being Leftists, rejection of Leftism must not be the focus of Christian life, nor even a prerequisite.
If someone becomes a real Christian, and deepens their faith, then they will shed their Leftism incrementally, a piece at a time.
But shedding their Leftism a piece at a time will not in and of itself do anything at all towards them becoming a Christian - and if they shed their Leftism for worldly reasons, they will simply become a different type of Leftist; because anti-Christian, this-worldly atheism is the root and motivation of Leftism.
*
[Note: This post was adapted from a Sept 12 comment at Jim's Blog http://blog.jim.com/ which was in response to a Sept 11 discussion at Foseti https://foseti.wordpress.com/ ]
*
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
A century of English architecture on one university campus
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1906
1924
1937
1959
1968
1978
1989
2004
*
1906
1924
1937
1959
1968
1978
1989
2004
*
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